and the Brothers—­looked down upon them from their rocky heights, as long afterwards upon the American, Paul Flemming, when he journeyed, sick at heart, along the Rhine, toward ancient Heidelberg.  Quaint old cities—­Andernach, with “the Christ,” Coblentz, home of Beethoven’s mother, Boppard, Bacharach, Bingen—­welcomed them; Mainz, the Electoral city, and Frankfurt, seat of the Empire.  And still beyond, on the banks of the Main, Offenbach, Hanau, Aschaffenburg, and so onward to Wertheim, where they left the Main and ascended the small river Tauber to their place of destination.

Among the places at which they landed and made merry upon the journey was the Niederwald.  Here King Lux advanced Beethoven to a more honorable position in his court, and gave him a diploma, dated from the heights above Ruedesheim, attesting his appointment to the new dignity.  To this important document was attached, by threads ravelled from a boat-sail, a huge seal of pitch, pressed into a small box-cover, which gave the instrument a right imposing look,—­like the Golden Bull in the Roemer-Saal at Frankfurt.  This diploma from His Comic Majesty Beethoven carried with him to Vienna, where Wegeler saw it several years afterward carefully preserved.

At Aschaffenburg, the summer residence of the Electors of Mainz, Ries, Simrock, and the two Rombergs took Beethoven with them to call upon the great pianist, Sterkel.  The master received the young men kindly, and gratified them with a specimen of his powers.  His style was in the highest degree graceful and pleasing,—­as Father Ries described it to Wegeler, “somewhat lady-like.”  While he played, Beethoven stood by, listening with the most eager attention, doubtless silently comparing the effects produced by the player with those belonging to his own style, which was rather rough and hard, owing to his constant practice upon the organ.  It is said that this was his first opportunity of hearing any distinguished virtuoso upon the piano-forte,—­a mistake, we think, for he must have heard Mozart in Vienna, as before remarked.  Still, the delicacy of Sterkel’s style may well have been a new revelation to him of the powers of the instrument.  Upon leaving the piano-forte, the master invited his young visitor to take his place.  Beethoven was naturally diffident, and was not to be prevailed with, until Sterkel intimated a doubt whether he could play his own very difficult variations upon the air, “Vieni, Amore,” which had then just been published.  Thus touched in a tender spot, the young author sat down and played such as he could remember,—­no copy being at hand,—­and then improvised several others, equally, if not more difficult, to the surprise both of Sterkel and his friends.  “What raised our surprise to real astonishment,” said Ries, as he related the story, “was, that the impromptu variations were in precisely that graceful, pleasing style which he had just heard for the first time.”