"Of course, examining the stationer's accounts,"

was the reply.

But these are dry matters. It will be more amusing to follow the course of the Main, a dozen miles upwards from Frankfort, to “the Abode of Bliss," (Seligenstadt,) a small village which, close on the bank of the river, peeps forth from a decaying forest. It has its name from having witnessed the loves, as it still preserves the remains, of Eginhard and Emma. A scanty ruin called the Red Tower, is still pointed out as having been part of the original residence of the lovers, after Charlemagne prudently consented to save the honour of his daughter, by giving her to the aspiring secretary. Eginhard built a church on the spot, and stored it with reliques. The peasantry, having forgotten the names, and never known the history, have a version of their own. According to their legend, the daughter of an emperor who was celebrating his Christmas holidays at Frankfort, (and one of them told me his name was Emperor Nero,) fell in love with a huntsman of her father's train. She fled with her lover, as young ladies will do now and then, when papas look sour and young gen

tlemen look sweet. They found refuge and concealment in the forest, an outskirt of the Spessart, which, though now so much thinned, in those days spread its oaks far and wide over the country. They built themselves a hut, and, of course, lived happily. The young man was expert and industrious as a deer stealer; the lady boasted acquirements in cookery which subsequently were turned to excellent account. Years pass away; the emperor happens to hunt again in the forest; overcome by hunger, fatigue, and a long chace, he stumbles, with his suite, on the solitary cottage, and asks a dinner. The confounded inmates prepare to set before him the only repast their poverty affords, venison poached in his own forest. The emperor did not recognize his lost daughter in the more womanly form and rustic disguise of the hostess; but the daughter recognized her father, and, as woman's wit knows no ebb, served up to his majesty a dish which she knew to have been his favourite, and of which he had never eaten except when it was prepared by her own skilful hands. Nero has scarcely tasted of the dish which he has wanted so long, when he breaks

forth into lamentations over the daughter whom he has lost just as long, and anxiously interrogates his young hostess from whom she had learned cookery. The runaway and her hunter fall at his feet: Emperor Nero was a kindhearted old man; all is forgiven; he names the spot the Abode of Bliss, in commemoration at once of his dinner and his daughter, carries the pair to his palace, and till his dying day eats of his favourite meal as often as he chooses. The lovers built a church where their hut had stood, and were buried together within its walls.

Such is the tradition of the Franconian peasant. There is no doubt that the church was built, if not in the reign, yet shortly after the death of Charlemagne; but it is just as little doubtful that, in its present form, it belongs to a much later age. What is called modern taste has been guilty of an unpardonable breach of good taste. The bones of Eginhard and his Emma reposed, as they ought to have done, in a massy antique sarcophagus on an antique monument. Some ruthless stone-hewer has been allowed to unhouse the ashes of the lovers from their venerable abode, and inclose them in a new

shining, toy-shop chest. These are men who would set" Margaret's Ghost" to the air of " Pray, Goody," and dash the wall-flower from a ruin to plant tulips in its stead.

This Abode of Bliss boasts another species of beatitude. It is a frontier village of the duchy of Darmstadt towards Bavaria, and the traveller who passes the confines for the first time must submit to a Bacchanalian ceremony. It was here that, in the olden time, the merchants coming to the fair from East, and North, and South, used to assemble. Here they were accustomed to drink deep congratulations on the journey they had accomplished in safety, and good wishes to the approaching fair; and from hence they were conducted in triumph into the city by the town guards of Frankfort. They had procured a huge wooden ladle; the handle dépends from a wooden chain about three feet long; ladle and chain are cut out of the same piece of wood, a sample of early Nürnberg workmanship. This relique is religiously preserved in an inn at Seligenstadt. Every traveller who passes the frontier for the first time must drain the ladle, brimful of wine, (it contains a bottle,) at one draught. This

is the strict rule; but, in general, he can escape without getting drunk, by promising the bystanders the remainder of the bottle. His

name is then enrolled in an Album which has now reached the third folio volume, and contains the names of most crowned heads in Europe during the last two hundred years.

UNIVER

2.5 AUG 182

OF OXFORD

LIBRARY