gave an air of fertility to the uninclosed and uniform plain around us. We stopped at Ingelheim, a neat little borough governed by a burgomaster, whom we had the honour of meeting at the inn, where his dignity was acknowledged by the fair hostess and her fat spouse, with a profusion of "Herr burgomeisters," and other ceremonious civilities, of which, Titlewhether first or fourth rate-is never defrauded by the respectful and decorous Germans. Ingelheim was one of the many residences-an Irishman might say birthplaces-of Charlemagne; for some traditions give it, in common with almost as many towns as claimed to be the cradle of the great Poet, the latter as well as the former honour; and all decorate a splendid palace which the doughty Sovereign built here, with a hundred columns brought from Ravenna and Rome.

Tectum augustum ingens centum sublime columnis.

This palace, of which some slight remains are still standing, was the scene of the well-known romantic amours of the mo-. narch's fair daughter Bertha with Eginard

MAYENCE. DECAY OF THE CITY.

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his secretary. Here it was that the tender Bertha carried her lover through the snow on her shoulders, to the astonishment of Charlemagne, who was looking on from a window of the quadrangle. You remember the story as quoted by Addison in the third volume of the Spectator.

The Gothic towers and belfries of the old Ecclesiastical Capital of Mayence rose before us with a gloomy state at the extremity of the plain. On entering it, the draw-bridge, the ditches, the bastions, the sentinels and examinings of passports, reminded one of the military reign which has succeeded to that of the church. This ancient city is large, rambling, and irregular; the streets generally lofty, narrow, and dirty, with the exception of the Grosse Bleiche, or Great Bleaching Place, a handsome wide street, running from the upper part of the town towards the Rhine, terminating in a cheerful Place planted with trees. Notwithstanding its general darkness and dirt, Mayence has an imposing and gloomy character of decayed consequence. Considered as the second ecclesiastical city in Europe, it has few rem

nants of striking splendour; but its old Cathedral, shattered by the balls of the famous siege, in 1792, its large churches, and ruinous red Palace on the Rhine excite an interest in their desolation and decay. Stately houses half-inhabited, or occupied by chandlers' shops - handsome public buildings converted into dirty Casernes and busy Cafés-here and there a heap of ruins untouched since the bombardment-public squares presenting forlorn chasmsremind one of the better days of the city, and of the calamities which have reduced it to its present state, not of tranquil mouldering decay, but squalid ruin and degradation.

Doctor Moore, when he visited Mayence thirty years ago, remarked the elegant Abbés with their handsome equipages, and the well-behaved troops who appeared cowed and kept under by the Ecclesiastics. The Chapter and the Grenadiers have now precisely changed places. You see the meagre occupants of the plundered stalls skulking to mass in threadbare soutanes, their looks proclaiming them no longer the monopolizers of the old Hock of

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the neighbourhood; while the Austrian and Prussian soldiers, to the number of 14,000, are parading about in the insolence of military superiority. The cafés, the billiardrooms, the promenades are thronged with these smoking and swaggering guests, who impart a sort of unhallowed vivacity to the gloomy haunts of superstition and monachism. The University Building is converted to a Barracks, and Hospitals and Guard-rooms strike one at every corner. The Bishop of Mayence, appointed by the Pope and subject to the Grand Duke of Hesse, is an impoverished prelate of little consequence, rarely residing in his see; where the Governor and Generals rule supreme. The majority of the troops are now lodged in Barracks, to the great relief of the inhabitants, who are, notwithstanding, discontented with their guests. The Austrians are complained of as too stupid, and the Prussians too mechans and too proud: the former are preferred—but the fault found with both is that they have no money to spend. When you hint at the past times of the French garrison, the countenance of the townsman often

brightens: "Ah! that was a different thing. I don't know how it was-bread was half its present price-there were as many florins spent then as kreutzers now""Sacre Dieu, ces Diables de Francais avoient toujours de l'argent"—said a poor fellow, whose wretched appearance was quite in keeping with his dissatisfaction. A shrewd, ragged barber, who performed the functions of Sacristan, was much more fond of entertaining us with the grievances of the town's people, than the history of the Virgins and Saints in a Church which he showed us. He was transported to find a sympathizing listener. His story was the same: the French knew how to spend their money-but these Austrians were brutes-they bought nothing but beer and tobacco-and the Prussians were such faquins and so proud there was no speaking to them without the chance of being knocked down; and then he would launch into abuse of the latter, and ridicule of the former, in phraseology not the most seemly, and conveyed in a confidential halfwhisper, as if proceeding from his habitual apprehension of a grenadier at his elbow.