Page images
PDF
EPUB

scene is sublimely and beautifully grand. The ruined castles, amid lofty mountains, tell plainly the story of the middle ages, when the poor peasantry sighed under the tyranny of robber-knights, of whom many a harrowing legend still survives. Among the old castles which frown from the adjacent rocks, two will be contemplated by the Englishman with peculiar interest, for they contend for the doubtful honour of having been the prison of the lion-hearted King Richard. Duerrenstein, o which antiquaries have assigned the preference, must formerly have been a place of great strength, as is attested by the fortifications which still descend to the brink of the river. The princely Abbey of Moelk deserves a visit. We are now on classic ground, the supposed theatre of some of the scenes recorded in the famous, but gloomy, old epic poem of the Niebelungen. Through the whole tour the attentive traveller can trace the history of the inhabitants. The petty towns and villages crouch at the foot of the mouldering castles, where once the haughty knights who ruled the land, held their proud sway. But their power was not undivided, on every height which looks far into the land, stands the lordly abbey, or the pilgrim church; the power of the petty lords is crushed, their lands are collected under the Austrian sceptre. But the abbot and the monk still retain their and hundreds of thousands still ascend these heights, not to admire power, the lovely works of nature, and to bow in humble adoration before the God of nature who called these lovely scenes into existence by a word, but to lower themselves in grovelling superstition before some lying wonder-working image.

[ocr errors]

As we approach the city of Vienna the scene again widens, the view becomes less picturesque; and, after we have passed the grand convent of Kloster Neuburg, we enter the plain upon which stands the beautiful capital of the Emperor of Austria,

There is no city, Constantinople, and perhaps Stockholm, excepted, which is so remarkably situated as the city of Passau. A small tongue of land juts out, and, at its extremity, the river Inn joins the Danube; which, though the smaller of the two, still gives its name to the united waters. Almost at the point of junction at right angles with the Danube, the picturesque river of the Ily, on the left bank, joins its waters to the two streams. The effect of the three rivers, the waters of which may be clearly distinguished from each other, is extremely interesting. On the narrow promontory, between the Danube and the Inn, stand the white churches and the proud palace of the Bishop of Passau, formerly a sovereign prince. The numerous ecclesiastical edifices proclaim the city to have been under the dominion of the Crosier. To the right, beyond the Inn, rises the suburb of Maria Hilf, surmounted by the celebrated pilgrim church of the same name, dedicated, of course, to the Virgin. The most inexperienced eye would easily discover, even if

[graphic][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

HEIDELBERG VAT; OR, THE GREAT TUN of heidelberg.

109

the frowning fortress on the heights on the left bank did not proclaim the fact that this pass must be a very important military position. The view before us shows us the lower extremity of the fortifications which, running along the heights, descend to the Danube, and are terminated by Fort Niederhaus, which commands the passage. Above stands the chief fortress of Oberhaus; the view from the walls is very fine, as, in addition to the two great rivers, the picturesque suburb of the Ilythal, with its shallow rippling waters, adds new interest to the scene.

The city of Passau is mentioned very early in history; the treaty known by the name of the Religious Peace, was signed here, in the year 1552. The bishopric was created in the eighth century, in consequence of the transfer of the church of Lorch. It was secularized by a decree of the empire, the town and fortress were given to Bavaria, the remainder, the chief part of the western division to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterwards Elector of Salzburg. But, in 1805, Bavaria took possession of the whole principality, which, at the period of secularization, comprised four hundred and fifty square miles, and contained above fifty-two thousand inhabitants. The revenue was estimated at 430,000 florins.

HEIDELBERG VAT; OR, THE GREAT TUN OF HEIDELBERG. MANY of our readers have, doubtless, made an excursion from the Rhine to the beautiful city of Heidelberg-on-the-Neckar. Our object is not to sing the beauties of the scene, but to introduce the regular sight-seen to one of the greatest curiosities of the castle. But our inquisitive countryman, Master Thomas Coryat, who visited this city about two hundred and fifty years ago, is so eloquent in his praises of "The Great Tun," that we cannot do better than extract his eulogy.

"For it is the most remarkable and famous thing of that kinde that I saw in my whole journey: yea, so memorable a matter, that I thinke there was never the like fabrick (for that which they showed me was nothing else than a strange kinde of fabrick) in all the world, and I doubt whether posterity will ever frame so monstrously large a thing: it was nothing but a vessel full of wine, which the gentlemen of the court showed me after they had first conveighed me in into divers wine-cellars, where I saw a wondrous company of extraordinary great vessels, the greatest part whereof was replenished with Rhenish wine, the totall number containing 130 particulars. But the maine vessell above all the rest, that superlative moles (or mass) unto which I now bend my speech, was shewed me last of all, standing alone by itself in a wonderfull vaste room. For it is such a stupendious

2 F

VOL. III.

masse (to give it the same epithetm that I have done before to the beauty of St. Mark's Street, in Venice) that I am perswaded it will affect the greatest and constantest man in the world with wonder. Had this fabrick been extant in those ancient times when the Colossus of Rhodes, the labyrinths of Egypt and Crêta, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the hanging gardens of Semiramis, the tombe of Mausoleus, and the rest of these decantated miracles did flourish in their principall glory, I thinke Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus would have celebrated this rare worke with their learned stile as well as the rest, and have consecrated the memory thereof to immortality, as a very memorable miracle. For indeed it is a kinde of monstrous miracle, and that of the greatest sise for a vessell that this age doth yield in any place whatsoever (as I am verily perswaded) under the cope of Heaven. Pardon me, I pray thee, gentle reader, if I am something tedious in discoursing of this huge vessell; for as it was the strangest spectacle that I saw in my travells, so I hope it will not be unpleasant unto thee, to read a full description of all the circumstances thereof; and for thy better satisfaction I have inserted a true figure thereof in this place (though but in a small forme) according to a certain patterne that I brought with me from the city of Frankford, where I saw the first type thereof sold. Also I have added an imaginary kinde of representation of myselfe upon the toppe of the same, in that manner as I stood there with a cup of Rhenish wine in my hand. The roome where it standeth is wonderfull vast (as I said before) and capacious, even almost as bigge as the fairest ball I have seene in England, and it containeth no other thing but the same vessell. It was begunne in the year 1589, and ended in the year 1591, one Michael Werner, of the city of Laudacica, being the principall maker of the work." We learn, from the same authority, that this " wonderfull moles" measures sixteen feet high (diameter), and at the belly eighteen. The proportions of this curiosity of Heidelberg are small compared with the monstrous vats of the London breweries of our times; it is, however, strictly speaking, not a vat, but a cask, or tun, and in this latter capacity, we suppose, may still rank as the largest of its kind.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT.

THE Daughter of the Regiment requires no introduction; she has many friends; and Jenny Lind, who has turned the heads of the inhabitants of this great city, has raised her to new favour. We cannot hope to equal the glowing eulogies of the critics in the daily and weekly press, to which we therefore very respectfully beg leave to refer our readers.

« PreviousContinue »