Read Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Online
Authors: Ann Radcliffe
Through some silent passages, in which he did not shew us a cell and we did not perceive another monk, we passed to the church, where the favour of several Electors has assisted the display of paintings, marble, sculpture, gold and silver, mingled and arranged with magnificent effect. Among these was the marble statue, brought from England, at a great expence, and here called a representation of St. Anne, who is said to have found the Cross. Our conductor seemed to be a man of good understanding and desirous of being thought so; a disposition, which gave an awkwardness to his manner, when, in noticing a relic, he was obliged to touch upon some unproved and unimportant tradition, peculiar to his church and not essential to the least article of our faith. His sense of decorum as a member of the convent seemed then to be struggling with his vanity, as a man.
But there are relics here, pretending to a connection with some parts of christian history, which it is shocking to see introduced to consideration by any means so trivial and so liable to ridicule. It is, indeed, wonderful, that the absurd exhibitions, made in Romish churches, should so often be minutely described, and dwelt upon in terms of ludicrous exultation by those, who do not intend that most malignant of offences against human nature, the endeavour to excite a wretched vanity by sarcasm and jest, and to employ it in eradicating the comforts of religion. To such writers, the probable mischief of uniting with the mention of the most important divine doctrines the most ridiculous of human impositions ought to be apparent; and, as the risk is unnecessary in a Protestant country, why is it encountered? That persons otherwise inclined should adopt these topics is not surprising; the easiest pretences to wit are found to be made by means of familiar allusions to sacred subjects, because their necessary incongruity accomplishes the greatest part of what, in other cases, must be done by wit itself; there will, therefore, never be an end of such allusions, till it is generally seen, that they are the resources and symptoms of mean understandings, urged by the feverish desire of an eminence, to which they feel themselves inadequate.
From the chapel we ascended to a tower of the convent, whence all the scattered scenes, of whose beauty, or sublimity, we had caught partial glimpses between the woods below, were collected into one vast landscape, and exhibited almost to a single glance. The point, on which the convent stands, commands the whole horizon. To the north, spread the wide plains, before seen, covered with corn, then just embrowned, and with vines and gardens, whose alternate colours formed a gay checker work with villages, convents and castles. The grandeur of this level was unbroken by any inclosures, that could seem to diminish its vastness. The range of woody heights, that bound it on the west, extend to the southward, many leagues beyond the hill
Sanctae Cruois;
but the uniform and unbroken ridges of distant mountains, on the east, cease before the Seven Mountains rise above the Rhine in all their awful majesty. The bases of the latter were yet concealed by the woody ridge near the convent, which gives such enchanting effect to their aerial points. The sky above them was clear and glowing, unstained by the lightest vapour; and these mountains still appeared upon it, like unsubstantial visions. On the two highest pinnacles we could just distinguish the ruins of castles, and, on a lower precipice, a building, which our reverend guide pointed out as a convent, dedicated to St. Bernard, giving us new occasion to admire the fine taste of the monks in their choice of situations.
Opposite to the Seven Mountains, the plains of Goodesberg are screened by the chain of hills already mentioned, which begin in the neighbourhood of Cologne, and whose woods, spreading into France, there assume the name of the Forest of Ardennes. Within the recesses of these woods the Elector has a hunting-seat, almost every window of which opens upon a different alley, and not a stag can cross these without being seen from the chateau. It is melancholy to consider, that the most frequent motives of man’s retirement among the beautiful recesses of nature, are only those of destroying the innocent animals that inhabit her shades. Strange! that her lovely scenes cannot soften his heart to milder pleasures, or elevate his fancy to nobler pursuits, and that he must still seek his amusement in scattering death among the harmless and the happy.
As we afterwards walked in the garden of the convent, the greater part of which was planted with vines, the monk further exhibited his good humour and liberality. He enquired concerning the events of the war, of which he appeared to know the latest; spoke of his friends in Cologne and other places; drew a ludicrous picture of the effect which would be produced by the appearance of a capuchin in London, and laughed immoderately at it. ‘“There,”’ said he, ‘“it would be supposed, that some harlequin was walking in a capuchin’s dress to attract spectators for a pantomime; here nobody will follow him, left he should lead them to church. Every nation has its way, and laughs at the ways of others. Considering the effects, which differences sometimes have, there are few things more innocent than that sort of laughter.”’
The garden was stored with fruits and the vegetable luxuries of the table, but was laid out with no attention to beauty, its inimitable prospects having, as the good monk said, rendered the society careless of less advantages. After exchanging our thanks for his civilities against his thanks for the visit, we descended to Poppelsdorff by a steep road, bordered with firs and fragrant shrubs, which frequently opened to corn lands and vineyards, where peasants were busied in dressing the vines.
About a mile from Bonn is a garden, or rather nursery, to which they have given the name of
Va [...]xhall.
It is much more rural than that of London, being planted with thick and lofty groves, which, in this climate, are gratefully refreshing, during the summer-day, but are very pernicious in the evening, when the vapour, arising from the ground, cannot escape through the thick foliage. The garden is lighted up only on great festivals, or when the Elector or his courtiers give a ball in a large room built for the purpose. On some days, half the inhabitants of Bonn are to be seen in this garden, mingling in the promenade with the Elector and his nobility; but there were few visitors when we saw it. Count GIMNICH, the commander, who had surrendered Mentz to the French, was the only person pointed out to us.
The road from hence to Bonn was laid out and planted with poplars at the expence of the Elector, who has a taste for works of public advantage and ornament. His Grand-mastership of the Teutonic Order renders his Court more frequented than those of the other ecclesiastical Princes, the possessions of that Order being still considerable enough to support many younger brothers of noble families. Having passed his youth in the army, or at the courts of Vienna or Brussels, he is also environed by friends, made before the vacancy of an ecclesiastical electorate induced him to change his profession, and the union of his three incomes, as Bishop of Munster, Grand Master and Elector, enables him to spend something more than two hundred thousand pounds annually. His experience and revenues are, in many respects, very usefully employed. To the nobility he affords an example of so much personal dignity, as to be able to reject many ostentatious customs, and to remove some of the ceremonial barriers, which men do not constantly place between themselves and their fellow-beings, except from some consciousness of personal weakness. All sovereigns, who have had any sense of their individual liberty and power, have shewn a readiness to remove such barriers; but not many have been able to effect so much as the Elector of Cologne against the chamberlains, pages, and other footmanry of their courts, who are always upon the
alerte
to defend the false magnificence that makes their offices seem necessary. He now enjoys many of the blessings, usual only in private stations; among others, that of conversing with great numbers of persons, not forced into his society by their rank, and of dispensing with much of that attendance, which would render his menial servants part of his company.
His secretary, Mr. Floret, whom we had the pleasure to see, gave us some accounts of the industry and carefulness of his private life, which he judiciously thought were better than any other panegyrics upon his master. His attention to the relief, employment and education of the poor, to the state of manufactures and the encouragement of talents, appears to be continual; and his country would soon have elapsed from the general wretchedness of Germany, if the exertions of three campaigns had not destroyed what thirty years of care and improvement cannot restore.
His residence at Bonn occasions expenditure enough to keep the people busy, but he has not been able to divert to it any part of the commerce, which, though it is of so little use at Cologne, is here spoken of with some envy, and seems to be estimated above its amount. The town, which is much neater than the others in the electorate, and so pleasantly situated, that its name has been supposed to be formed from the Latin synonym for good, is ornamented by few public buildings, except the palace. What is called the University is a small brick building, used more as a school than a college, except that the masters are called professors. The principal church of four, which are within the walls, is a large building, distinguished by several spires, but not remarkable for its antiquity or beauty.
Many of the German powers retain some shew of a representative government, as to affairs of finance, and have States, by which taxes are voted. Those of the electorate of Cologne consist of four colleges, representing the clergy, nobility, knights and cities; the votes are given by colleges, so that the inhabitants of the cities, if they elect their representatives fairly, have one vote in four. These States assemble at Bonn.
One of the privileges, which it is surprising that the present Elector should retain, is that of grinding corn for the consumption of the whole town. His mill, like those of all the towns on the Rhine, is a floating one, moored in the river, which turns its wheel. Bread is bad at Bonn; but this oppressive privilege is not entirely answerable for it, there being little better throughout the whole country. It generally appears in rolls, with glazed crusts, half hollow; the crumb not brown, but a sort of dirty white.
There are few cities in Germany without walls, which, when the dreadful science of war was less advanced than at present, frequently protected them against large armies. These are now so useless, that such cannon as are employed against batteries could probably not be fired from them without shaking their foundations. The fortifications of Bonn are of this sort; and, though they were doubtless better, when the Duke of Marlborough arrived before them, it is wonderful that they should have sustained a regular siege, during which great part of the town was demolished. The electorate of Cologne is, indeed, so ill prepared for war, that it has not one town, which could resist ten thousand men for three days.
The inhabitants of Bonn, whenever they regret the loss of their fortifications, should be reminded of the three sieges, which, in the course of thirty years, nearly destroyed their city. Of these the first was in 1673, when the Elector had received a French garrison into it; but the resistance did not then continue many days. It was in this siege that the Prince of Orange, afterwards our honoured William the Third, had one of his few military successes. In 1689, the French, who had lately defended it, returned to attack it; and, before they could subdue the strong garrison left in it by the Elector of Brandenburg, the palace and several public buildings were destroyed. The third siege was commanded by the Duke of Marlborough, and continued from the 24th of April to the 16th of May, the French being then the defenders, and the celebrated Cohorn one of the assailants. It was not till fifteen years afterwards, that all the houses, demolished in this siege, could be restored by the efforts of the Elector Joseph.
The present Elector maintains, in time of peace, about eight hundred soldiers, which is the number of his contingent to the army of the Empire: in the present war he has supplied somewhat more than this allotment; and, when we were at Bonn, two thousand recruits were in training. His troops wear the general uniform of the Empire, blue faced with red, which many of the Germanic sovereigns give only to their contingent troops, while those of their separate establishments are distinguished by other colours. The Austrian regiments are chiefly in white, faced with light blue, grey, or red; but the artillery are dressed, with very little shew, in a cloak speckled with light brown.
Bonn was one of the very few places in Germany, which we left with regret. It is endeared to the votaries of landscape by its situation in the midst of fruitful plains, in the presence of stupendous mountains, and on the bank of a river, that, in summer, is impelled by the dissolved snows of Switzerland, and, in winter, rolls with the accumulation of a thousand torrents from the rocks on its shores. It contained many inhabitants, who had the independence to aim at a just taste in morals and letters, in spite of the ill examples with which such countries supply them; and, having the vices of the form of government, established in it, corrected by the moderation and immediate attention of the governor, it might be considered as a happy region in the midst of ignorance, injustice and misery, and remembered like the green spot, that, in an Arabian desert, cheers the senses and sustains the hopes of the weary traveller.
THE ride from Bonn to this delightful village is only one league over a narrow plain, covered with corn and vineyards. On our right was the range of hills, before seen from the mountain SANCTAE CRUCIS, sweeping into frequent recesses, and starting forward into promontories, with inequalities, which gave exquisite richness to the forest, that mantled from their bases to their utmost summits. Many a lurking village, with its slender grey steeple, peeped from among the woody skirts of these hills. On our left, the tremendous mountains, that bind the eastern shore of the Rhine, gradually lost their aërial complexion, as we approached them, and displayed new features and new enchantments; an ever-varying illusion, to which the transient circumstance of thunder clouds contributed. The sunbeams, streaming among these clouds, threw partial gleams upon the precipices, and, followed by dark shadows, gave surprising and inimitable effect to the natural colouring of the mountains, whose pointed tops we now discerned to be covered with dark heath, extended down their rocky sides, and mingled with the reddish and light yellow tints of other vegetation and the soil. It was delightful to watch the shadows sweeping over these steeps, now involving them in deep obscurity, and then leaving them to the sun’s rays, which brought out all their hues into vivid contrast.
Near Goodesberg, a small mountain, insulated, abrupt and pyramidal, rises from the plain, which it seems to terminate, and conceals the village, that lies along its southern skirt. This mountain, covered with vineyards and thick dwarf wood to its summit, where one high tower and some shattered walls appear, is a very interesting object.
At the entrance of the village, the road was obstructed by a great number of small carts, filled with soldiers apparently wounded. The line of their procession had been broken by some carriages, hastening with company to the ridotto at Goodesberg, and was not easily restored. Misery and festivity could scarcely be brought into closer contrast. We thought of Johnson’s ‘“many-coloured life,”’ and of his picture, in the preface to Shakespeare, of cotemporary wretchedness and joy, when ‘“the reveller is hastening to his wine, and the mourner is burying his friend.”’ This was a procession of wounded French prisoners, chiefly boys, whose appearance had, indeed, led us to suspect their nation, before we saw the stamp of the
fasces,
and the words ‘“
Republique Françoise
”’ upon the buttons of some, whom our driver had nearly overset. The few, that could raise themselves above the floor of their carts, shewed countenances yellow, or livid with sickness. They did not talk to their guards, nor did the latter shew any signs of exultation over them.
In a plain, beyond the village, a row of large houses, built upon one plan, and almost resembling a palace, form the little watering place of Goodesberg, which has been founded partly at the expence of the Elector, and partly by individuals under his patronage. One of the houses was occupied by the Archduchess, his sister, and is often used by the Elector, who is extremely solicitous for the prosperity of the place. A large building at the end contains the public rooms, and is fitted up as an hotel.
The situation of this house is beautiful beyond any hope or power of description; for description, though it may tell that there are mountains and rocks, cannot paint the grandeur, or the elegance of outline, cannot give the effect of precipices, or draw the minute features, that reward the actual observer by continual changes of colour, and by varying their forms at every new choice of his position. Delightful Goodesberg! the sublime and beautiful of landscape, the charms of music, and the pleasures of gay and elegant society, were thine! The immediate unhappiness of war has now fallen upon thee; but, though the graces may have fled thee, thy terrible majesty remains, beyond the sphere of human contention.
The plain, that contains the village and the Spa, is about five miles in length and of half that breadth. It is covered by uninclosed corn and nearly surrounded by a vast amphitheatre of mountains. In front of the inn, at the distance of half a league, extend, along the opposite shore of the Rhine, the Seven Mountains, so long seen and admired, which here assume a new attitude. The three tallest points are now nearest to the eye, and the lower mountains are seen either in the perspective between them, or sinking, with less abrupt declivities, into the plains, on the north. The whole mass exhibits a grandeur of outline, such as the pencil only can describe; but fancy may paint the stupendous precipices of rock, that rise over the Rhine, the rich tuftings of wood, that emboss the cliffs or lurk within the recesses, the spiry summits and the ruined castles, faintly discerned, that crown them. Yet the appearance of these mountains, though more grand, from Goodesberg, is less sublime than from Bonn; for the nearness, which increases their grandeur, diminishes their sublimity by removing the obscurity that had veiled them. To the south of this plain, the long perspective is crossed by further ranges of mountains, which open to glimpses of others still beyond; an endless succession of summits, that lead on the imagination to unknown vallies and regions of solitary obscurity.
Amidst so many attractions of nature, art cannot do much. The little, which it attempts, at Goodesberg, is the disposition of some walks from the houses to a spring, which is said to resemble that at Spa, and through the woods above it. Twice a week there are some musical performances and a ball given by the Elector, who frequently appears, and with the ease and plainness of a private gentleman. At these entertainments the company, visiting the spring, are joined by neighbouring families, so as to be in number sixty, or a hundred. The balls, agreeably to the earliness of German hours, begin at six; and that, which we meant to see, was nearly concluded before our arrival. The company then retired to a public game, at which large sums of gold were risked, and a severe anxiety defied the influence of Mozart’s music, that continued to be played by an excellent orchestra. The dresses of the company were in the English taste, and, as we were glad to believe, chiefly of English manufacture; the wearing of countenances by play appears to be also according to our manners, and the German ladies, with features scarcely less elegant, have complexions, perhaps, finer than are general in England.
Meditating censures against the Elector’s policy, or carelessness, in this respect, we took advantage of the last gleams of evening, to ascend the slender and spiry mountain, which bears the name of the village, and appears ready to precipitate the ruins of its antient castle upon it. A steep road, winding among vineyards and dwarf wood, enters, at the summit of the mountain, the broken walls, which surround the ancient citadel of the castle; an almost solid building, that has existed for more than five centuries. From the area of these ruins we saw the sun set over the whole line of plains, that extend to the westward of Cologne, whose spires were distinctly visible. Bonn, and the hill SANCTAE CRUCIS, appeared at a league’s distance, and the windings of the Rhine gleamed here and there amidst the rich scene, like distant lakes. It was a still and beautiful evening, in which no shade remained of the thunder clouds, that passed in the day. To the west, under the glow of sun-set, the landscape melted into the horizon in tints so soft, so clear, so delicately roseate as Claude only could have painted. Viewed, as we then saw it, beyond a deep and dark arch of the ruin, its effect was enchanting; it was to the eye, what the finest strains of Paisiello are to the heart, or the poetry of Collins is to the fancy — all tender, sweet, elegant and glowing.
From the other side of the hill the character of the view is entirely different, and, instead of a long prospect over an open and level country, the little plain of Goodesberg appears reposing amidst wild and awful mountains. These were now melancholy and silent; the last rays were fading from their many points, and the obscurity of twilight began to spread over them. We seemed to have found the spot, for which Collins wished:
“Now let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin ‘midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.”
ODE TO EVENING.
And this is a place almost as renowned in the history of the country, as it is worthy to exercise the powers of poetry and painting. The same Ernest, in the cause of whose sovereignty the massacre of Neuss was perpetrated, besieged here the same Gerard de Trusches, the Elector, who had embraced the Protestant religion, and for whom Neuss held out. The castle of Goodesberg was impregnable, except by famine, but was very liable to that from its insulated situation, and the ease, with which the whole base of the mountain could be surrounded. Gerard’s defence was rendered the more obstinate by his belief, that nothing less than his life, and that of a beautiful woman, the marrying of whom had constituted one of the offences against his Chapter, would appease his ferocious enemies. He was personally beloved by his garrison, and they adhered to him with the affection of friends, as well as with the enthusiasm of soldiers. When, therefore, they perceived, that their surrender could not be much longer protracted, they resolved to employ their remaining time and strength in enabling him to separate his fortunes from theirs. They laboured incessantly in forming a subterraneous passage, which should open beyond the besiegers’ lines; and, though their distress became extreme before this was completed, they made no overtures for a surrender, till Gerard and his wife had escaped by it. The fugitives arrived safely in Holland, and the vengeance of their adversaries was never gratified further than by hearing, many years after, that they died poor.
The fortress, rendered interesting by these traits of fidelity and misfortune, is not so far decayed, but that its remains exhibit much of its original form. It covered the whole summit of the hill, and was valuable as a residence, as well as a fortification. What seem to have been the walls of the great hall, in which probably the horn of two quarts was often emptied to welcome the guest, or reward the soldier, are still perfect enough to preserve the arches of its capacious windows, and the doorways, that admitted its festive trains. The vast strength of the citadel has been unsubdued by war, or time. Though the battlements, that crown it, are broken, and of a gallery, that once encircled it half way from the ground, the corbells alone remain, the solid walls of the building itself are unimpaired. At the narrow doorway, by which only it could be entered, we measured their thickness, and found it to be more than ten feet, nearly half the diameter of its area. There has never been a fixed staircase, though these walls would so well have contained one; and the hole is still perfect in the floor above, through which the garrison ascended and drew up their ladder after them. Behind the loop-holes, the wall has been hollowed, and would permit a soldier, half bent, to stand within them and use his bow. It was twilight without and night within the edifice; which fancy might have easily filled with the stern and silent forms of warriors, waiting for their prey, with the patience of safety and sure superiority.
We wandered long among these vestiges of ancient story, rendered still more interesting by the shadowy hour and the vesper bell of a chapel on a cliff below. The village, to which this belongs, straggles half way up the mountain, and there are several little shrines above it, which the cottagers, on festivals, decorate with flowers. The Priest is the schoolmaster of the parish, and almost all the children, within several miles of the hill, walk to it, every day, to prayers and lessons. Whether it is from this care of their minds, or that they are under the authority of milder landlords than elsewhere, the manners of the inhabitants in this plain differ much from those, usual in Germany. Instead of an inveterate sullenness, approaching frequently to malignity, they shew a civility and gentleness in their intercourse with strangers, which leave the enjoyments derived from inanimate nature, unalloyed by the remembrances of human deformity, that mingle with them in other districts. Even the children’s begging is in a manner, which shews a different character. They here kiss their little hands, and silently hold them out to you, almost as much in salute, as in entreaty; in many parts of Germany their manner is so offensive, not only for its intrusion, but as a symptom of their disposition, that nothing but the remembrance of the oppression, that produces it, can prevent you from denying the little they are compelled to require.
The music had not ceased, when we returned to the inn; and the mellowness of French horns, mingled with the tenderness of hautboys, gave a kind of enchantment to the scenery, which we continued to watch from our windows. The opposite mountains of the Rhine were gradually vanishing in twilight and then as gradually reappearing, as the rising moon threw her light upon their broken surfaces. The perspective in the east received a silvery softness, which made its heights appear like shadowy illusions, while the nearer mountains were distinguished by their colouring, as much as by their forms. The broad Rhine, at their feet, rolled a stream of light for their boundary, on this side. But the first exquisite tint of beauty soon began to fade; the mountains became misty underneath the moon, and, as she ascended, these mists thickened, till they veiled the landscape from our view.
The spring, which is supposed to have some medicinal qualities, is about a quarter of a mile from the rooms, in a woody valley, in which the Elector has laid out several roads and walks. It rises in a stone bason, to which the company, if they wish to drink it on the spot, descend by an handsome flight of steps. We were not told its qualities, but there is a ferrugineous tint upon all the stones, which it touches. The taste is slightly unpleasant.