CHAPTER XXIV.

THE YOUNG CONSCRIPT-SINGULAR FRENCH ANECDOTE-ST. GOARITS HISTORY--OBERWESEL--THE PALATINATE--A CELEBRATED VINEYARD--A REGALE--BACHARACH--BACCHUS-THE RHYNGAU SONG RÜDESHEIM--ROMAN DERIVATIONS-THE PRIORY OF JOHANNESBERG-VINEYARDS CLASSED GRAPES CLASSED.

I HAVE before mentioned the excellent accommodations which I every where experienced at the different towns we stopped at. Although at the last place where we slept there were not above three or four houses, and we were not expected, we had an excellent supper, and clean comfortable beds. After our repast, as we were drinking some excellent hock, many of the company present communicated the object of their voyage, and amongst the rest an elegant young Frenchman, about nineteen, who had charmed us all the way by his politeness and inexhaustible flow of spirits, told us, to my no little surprize, that the object of his excursion would not admit of his returning when he pleased, for he was on his way to join part of the French army at Maynz, or Mayence, as a conscript, for which he had been drawn ; and as his father who was a man of fortune at Aix-la-Chapelle, but was very fond of his money, would not put himself to the expence of

THE YOUNG CONSCRIPT.

paying the substitution money for him, "

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par consé" il

quence," said he with a smile of good humour, "me faut aller en personne." He told us that he had no hopes of raising himself from the ranks but by good conduct and equally good fortune, although his uncle was a general in the service, and commanded that part of the army into which he was soon to be incorporated. Whenever we stopped, he bestowed his money with liberality to beggars and chambermaids, alledging, that as he was about to be a soldier, he ought to live, when he became one, on a soldier's pay, and that to have more till he was promoted, would only make him uncomfortable; adding, that on his arrival at head quarters, he should order a noble dinner, and give his clothes to the waiters, and surrender himself up to the captain of his company. He neither blamed the cruelty of his father, the tyranny of the conscription, nor repined at his unlucky fate, but filling a bumper, exclaimed, "Tout ce qu'il me faut maintenant, "c'est, de devenir bon soldat." "All that I have to do is to make myself a good soldier." I never saw a point more easily and comfortably settled in my life. Our young conscript had the best wishes of us all, for his happiness and speedy promotion. This elastic spirit of vivacity seems to be the common property of every Frenchman, and never did it appear more striking than in the following circum

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AN HOSPITAL AT PARIS.

stance: Upon an English surgeon some years since visiting an hospital at Paris, he saw in one of the wards three Frenchmen who had received some very severe contusions by the fall of a scaffold a few days before, lying in bed; upon approaching them he found one dead, another dying, and the one in the middle sitting upright in the bed, fiddling to several invalids, who were dancing at the foot of it as well as they were able.

After a refreshing sleep we were called, upon the first intimation of the day's approach, and early in the morning arrived at St. Goar, after passing by the ancient gothic tower of Welmich, the white and venerable palace of Thurnburg, crowning the mountain behind it, and through most delicious and romantic scenery, every where profusely embellished with the hoary remains of piety and war, under the various tints of progressive day. In a minute after the boat had stopped, all the passengers disappeared to attend matins, it being Sunday, and left me to gaze in amazement upon the stupendous rock of Rheinfels, or the rock of the Rhine, which rises most majestically behind the town, and supports the remains of a vast fortress which bears its name, and which the French demolished in the last war. This fortress was next in strength to that of Ehrenbreitstein; it was in the year 1245 converted from

ROCK OF RHEINFELS.

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a convent to a fortress, by Count Diether le Riche. In 1692 the Hessians, who were in possession of it, made a gallant defence, headed by Colonel Goerz, against the French, who were in superior force under the command of the celebrated Mareschal de Tallard, who was compelled to give up the siege. In the last war it experienced a different fate the French troops took quiet possession of it, and though it ranked next to Ehrenbreitstein in strength and advantage, it partook not of the glory of a similar resistance. At the foot of this enormous rock is a large barrack lately built, but now deserted. There was also a flying bridge here, but it has been removed.

In a bay of the river a little before we approached Oberwesel, there is a vast rock, which the passengers on the river never fail to address, for the purpose of hearing their own voices very closely imitated by its echoes. Almost all the way from St. Goar to Oberwesel, we were environed by enormous dark rocks covered with shattered fragments, impending over and embrowning the face of the river with their awful shadows. The gloom of the scene was enlivened only by a few fishermens' hats here and there interspersed, protected from the intense heat of of the sun retained by and reflected from the rocks rising above them, by the foliage of scanty groups of trees.

This melancholy defile prepared us for Oberwesel, a venerable city, filled with the solemnity of antient churches and deserted convents. In the time of the Emperor Henry the Seventh, this city was an imperial one; afterwards, and till the French seized it, it was in the possession of the Elector of Treves. The church of the Minorites had once a fine copy of Rubens' Descent from the Cross, by a disciple of his, which upon enquiry I found had been removed. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the situation of this town; the scenery to the south of it is luxuriant and romantic beyond imagination. Close to it, rising from an avenue of stately walnut-trees, is a prodigious rock, supporting the celebrated chateau de Schoenberg, which gave birth to the illustrious and antient family of the name of Belmont, afterwards changed for the German name of Schoenberg or Beaumont: this place and the neighbourhood abound with slate quarries. Immediately opposite, on the eastern bank, lofty mountains cloathed with hanging vineyards, and attended by the usual association of mural ruins perched upon their pinnacles, and of monastic buildings projecting from their sides, or rising from their base, presented their majestic forms to the Rhine. From Oberwesel we crossed over to Kaub, a fortified town a little away further to the south. Previous to this we had kept, during the whole of the