To sit down toward the evening on the summit of the Klopp—­to see the town at its base, with an immense horizon on all sides, the mountains overshadowing all—­to see the slated roofs smoking, the shadows lengthening, and the scenery breathing to life the verses of Virgil—­to respire at once the wind which rustles the leaves, the breeze of the flood, and the gale of the mountain—­is an exquisite and inexpressible pleasure, full of secret enjoyment, which is veiled by the grandeur of the spectacle, by the intensity of contemplation.  At the windows of huts, young women, their eyes fixt upon their work, are gaily singing; among the weeds that grow round the ruins birds whistle and pair; barks are crossing the river, and the sound of oars splashing in the water, and unfurling of sails, reaches our ears.  The washerwomen of the Rhine spread their clothes on the bushes; and those of the Nahe, their legs and feet naked, beat their linen upon floating rafts, and laugh at some poor artist as he sketches Ehrenfels.

The sun sets, night comes on, the slated roofs of the houses appear as one, the mountains congregate and take the aspect of an immense dark body; and the washerwomen, with bundles on their heads, return cheerfully to their cabins; the noise subsides, the voices are hushed; a faint light, resembling the reflections of the other world upon the countenance of a dying man, is for a short time observable on the Ehrenfels; then all is dark, except the tower of Hatto, which, tho scarcely seen in the day, makes its appearance at night, amid a light smoke and the reverberation of the forge....

Mayence and Frankfort, like Versailles and Paris, may, at the present time, be called one town.  In the middle ages there was a distance of eight leagues between them, which was then considered a long journey; now, an hour and a quarter will suffice to transport you from one to the other.  The buildings of Frankfort and Mayence, like those of Liege, have been devastated by modern good taste, and old and venerable edifices are rapidly disappearing, giving place to frightful groups of white houses.

I expected to be able to see, at Mayence, Martinsburg, which, up to the seventeenth century, was the feudal residence of the ecclesiastical electors; but the French made a hospital of it, which was afterward razed to the ground to make room for the Porte Franc; the merchant’s hotel, built in 1317 by the famed League, and which was splendidly decorated with the statues of seven electors, and surmounted by two colossal figures, bearing the crown of the empire, also shared the same fate.  Mayence possesses that which marks its antiquity—­a venerable cathedral, which was commenced in 978, and finished in 1009.  Part of this superb structure was burned in 1190, and since that period has, from century to century, undergone some change.