It is hardly possible to conceive a more magnificent situation ... but now, all is silence and solitude.  The wild boar intrudes with impunity into the gardens—­and the fowls of heaven roost within those spacious chambers, which were once hung with rich arras, or covered with gorgeous tapestry.  Scarcely three human beings ... who seem to sleep out their existence ... are now the tenants of THAT MANSION, where once scarcely fewer than one hundred noblemen with their attendants, found comfortable accommodations.  A powerful, and yet not unpleasing melancholy, touches the heart ... as one moves leisurely along these speaking proofs of the mutability of earthly grandeur.

No man visits this proud palace without visiting also the equally celebrated TUN—­of which Merian, in his well known views, has supplied us with a print or two.  It is placed in the lower regions of the palace, in a room by itself—­except that, by the side of it, there stands a small cask which may hold a hogshead, and which is considered to be the ne plus ultra of the art of cooperage.  It is made in the neatest and closest-fitting manner imaginable, without either a nail, or piece of iron, or encircling hoop; and I believe it to be nearly as old as the great Tun.  This latter monstrous animal, of his species, is supported by ribs—­of rather a picturesque appearance—­which run across the belly of the cask, at right angles with the staves.  As a WINE CASK, it has long maintained its proud distinction of being the largest in the world.  A stair-case is to the right of it, leading to a little square platform at the top; upon which frolicksome lads and lasses used, in former days, to dance, when the tub had been just filled with the produce of the passing year’s vintage.  The guide told us that one Elector or Grand Duke, I think it was CHARLES THEODORE, had immortalised himself, by having, during his regency, caused the great tun of Heidelberg to be fairly twice emptied;—­“those (added he) were golden days, never to return.  At present, and for a long time past, the cask is filled almost to the very top with mere lees.”  In an adjoining cellar, I was shewn a set of casks, standing perpendicularly, called the Twelve Apostles.  The whole of this subterraneous abode had, I must confess, a great air of hospitality about it; but when I mentioned to the guide the enormous size of those casks used by our principal London brewers—­compared with which, even the “GREAT TUN” was a mere TEA-CUP—­he held up his hands, shook his head, and exclaimed with great self-satisfaction... “cela ne se peut pas etre!”