Warrior purer, gentler, braver,
Never shall behold the light.
But much as I prize Rolandseck for its memories of chivalric constancy
and tenderness, Mayence is my favourite place on the Rhine, as the
birthplace of Gutenburg, the adopted home, and centre of the work of our
great countryman, St. Boniface, and the most fully peopled and stirring
town of modern Rhineland. We had only an hour to spend there, so I
sallied at once into the town to search for Gutenburg’s house--the third
time I have started on the same errand, and with the same result. I
didn’t find it. But there it is; at least the guide-books say so. In
vain did I beseechingly appeal to German after German, man, woman, and
maid, “Wo ist das Haus von Gutenburg--das Haus wo Gutenburg wohnte?” I
got either a blank stare, convincing me of the annoying fact that not a
word I said was understood, or directions to the statue, which I knew as
well as any of them. At last I fell upon a young priest, and, accosting
him in French, got some light out of him. He offered to take me part of
the way, and as we walked side by side, suddenly turned to me with an
air of pleased astonishment, and said, “You admire Gutenburg, then?” To
which I replied, “Father!” Why, sir, how in the world should you and I,
and thousands more indifferent modern Englishmen, not to mention those
of all other nations, get our bread but for him and his pupil Caxton?
However, the young priest could only take me to within two streets, and
then went on his way, leaving me with express directions, in trying to
follow which I fell speedily upon a German fair. I am inclined to think
that there are no boys in Germany, and that, if there were, there would
be nothing for them to do; but for children there is no such place. This
fair at Mayence was a perfect little paradise for children. Think of our
wretched merry-go-rounds, sir, with nothing but some six or eight
stupid hobby-horses revolving on bare poles, and then imagine such
merry-go-rounds as those of Mayence fair. They look like large umbrella
tents ornamented with gay flags and facetious paintings outside, and
hung within, round the central post which supports the whole, with
mirrors, flags, bells, pictures, and bright coloured drapery. Half
concealed by the red or blue drapery, is the proprietor of the
establishment, who grinds famous tunes on a first-rate barrel organ when
the merry-go-round is set going, and keeps an eye on his juvenile fares.
The whole is turned by a pony or by machinery. Then, for mounts, the
children have choice of some thirty hobby-horses, or can ride on swans
or dragons, richly caparisoned, or in easy _vis-à-vis_ seats. When the
complement of youthful riders is obtained, on a signal off goes
the barrel organ and the pony and the whole concern--pictures,
looking-glasses, bells, drapery, and all begin to revolve, with a
fascinating jingling and emphasis! and at twice the pace of any British
merry--go-round I ever saw. It is very comical to watch the gravity of
the little _Deutsch_ riders. They are of all classes, from the highly
dressed little _madchen_, down to the ragged carter-boy, with a coil
of rope over his shoulder, and no shoes, riding a gilded swan, but all
impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. But here I am running
on about fun of the fair, and missing Gutenburg’s house, as I did in
reality, finding in the midst of my staring and grinning that I had only
time to get to the boat; so with one look at Gutenburg’s statue I went
off.
The crops through all these glorious Rhine valleys right away up to
Heidelberg look splendid, particularly the herb pantagruelion, which is
more largely grown than when I was last here. Rope enough will be made
this year from hemp grown between Darmstadt and Heidelberg to hang all
the scoundrels in the world, and the honest men to boot; and the tobacco
looks magnificent. They were gathering the leaves as we passed. A
half-picked tobacco field, with the bare stumps at one end, and the
rich-leaved plants at the other, has a comically forlorn look.
Heidelberg I thought more beautiful than ever; and since I had been
there a very fine hotel, one of the best I have ever been in, has been
built close to the station, with a glass gallery 100 feet long, and
more, adjoining the “Speisesaal,” in which you may gastronomise to your
heart’s content, at the most moderate figure. Here we bid adieu to the
Rhineland.
Munich, 29th August 1862.
A bird’s-eye view of any country must always be unsatisfactory. Still
it is better than nothing, and in the absence of a human view, one may
be thankful for it. My view of Wurtemberg was of the most bird’s-eye
kind. The first thing that strikes one is the absence of all fences
except in the immediate neighbourhood of towns. Even the railway has no
fence, except for a few yards where a road crosses the line, and here
and there a hedge of acacia, or barberry bushes (the berries were
hanging red ripe on the latter), which are very pretty, but would not in
any place keep out a seriously-minded cow or pig.
Wurtemberg is addicted to the cultivation of crops which minister to
man’s luxuries rather than to his necessities. The proportion of land
under fruit, poppies, tobacco, and hops, to that under corn, was very
striking. There was a splendid hemp crop here also. They were gathering
the poppy-heads, as we passed, into sacks. The women and girls both here
and in Bavaria seem to do three-fourths of the agricultural work; the
harder, such as reaping and mowing, as well as the lighter. The beds of
peat are magnificent, and very neatly managed. At first I thought we
had entered enormous black brick-fields, for the peat is cut into small
brick-shaped pieces, and stacked in rows, just as one sees in the best
managed of our brick-fields. As one nears Stuttgart the village churches
begin to show signs of the difference in longitude. Gothic spires and
arches give place to Eastern clock-towers, with tops like the cupolas of
mosques, tinned over, and glittering in the hot sun. I hear that it
was a fancy of the late Emperor Joseph to copy the old enemies of his
country in architecture; but that would not account for the prevalence
of the habit in his neighbour’s territory. I fancy one begins to feel
the old neighbourhood of the Turks in these parts. The houses are all
roomy, and there is no sign of poverty amongst the people. They have a
fancy for wearing no shoes and scant petticoats in many districts; but
it is evidently a matter of choice. Altogether, the whole fine, open,
well-wooded country, from Bruchsal to Munich, gives one the feeling that
an easy-going, well-to-do people inhabit and enjoy it.
As for Munich itself, it is a city which surprised me more pleasantly
than almost any one I ever remember to have entered. One had a sort of
vague notion that the late king had a taste for the fine arts, and spent
a good deal of his own and his subjects’ money in indulging the taste
aforesaid in his capital. But one also knew that he had been tyrannised
over by Lola Montes, and had made a countess of her--and had not
succeeded in weathering 1848; so that, on the whole, one had no great
belief in any good work from such a ruler.
Munich gives one a higher notion of the ex-king; as long as the city
stands, he will have left his mark on it. On every side there are
magnificent new streets, and public buildings and statues; the railway
terminus is the finest I have ever seen; every church, from the
Cathedral downwards, is in beautiful order, and highly decorated; and it
is not only in the public buildings that one meets with the evidences of
care and taste. The hotel in which we stayed, for instance, is built of
brick, covered with some sort of cement, which gives it the appearance
of terra-cotta, and is for colour the most fascinating building
material. The ceilings and cornices of the rooms are all carefully
and tastefully painted, and all about the town one sees frescoes and
ornamentation of all kinds, which show that the people delight in seeing
their city look bright and gay; and every one admits that all this is
due to the ex-king Lewis. But he has another claim on the gratitude
of the good folk of Munich. The Bavarians were given to beer above all
other people, and the people of Munich above all other Bavarians, long
before he came to the throne; and former kings, availing themselves of
the national taste, had established a “Hof-Breihaus,” where the monarch
sold the national beverage to his people. King Lewis found the
character of the royal beer not what it should be, and the rest of
the metropolitan brewers were also falling away into evil ways of
adulterating and drugging. He reformed the “Hof-Breihaus,” so that for
many years nothing but the soundest possible beer was brewed there,
which is sold to the buyers and yet cheaper than in any other house in
Munich. The public taste has been thus so highly educated that there
is no selling unwholesome beer now. A young artist took me to this
celebrated tap. Unluckily it was a wet evening, so we had to sit at one
of the tables, under a long line of sheds, instead of in an adjacent
garden. There was a great crowd, some 300 or 400 imbibers jammed
together, of all ranks. At our table the company were the artist and
myself, a Middlesex magistrate, two privates, and a non-commissioned
officer, and a man whom I set down as a small farmer. My back rubbed
against a vociferous student, who was hobnobbing with all comers. There
were Tyrolese and other costumes about, one or two officers, and a
motley crowd of work people and other folk. The royal brew-house is in
such good repute that no trouble whatever is taken about anything but
having enough beer and a store of stone drinking-mugs, with tops to them
forthcoming. Cask after cask is brought out and tapped in the vaulted
entrance to the cellars, and a queue of expectant thirsty souls wait for
their turn. I only know as I drank it how heartily I wished that my poor
overworked brethren at home could see and taste the like. But it would
not pay any of our great brewers to devote themselves to the task of
selling really wholesome drink to the poor; and I fear the Prince of
Wales is not likely to come to the rescue. He might find easier jobs no
doubt, but none that would benefit the bodily health of his people more.
The beer is so light that it is scarcely possible to get drunk on it.
Many of the frequenters of the place sit there boosing for four or five
hours daily, and the chance visitors certainly do not spare the liquor;
but I saw no approach to drunkenness, except a good deal of loud talk.
The picture collections, which form, I believe, the great attraction
of Munich, disappointed me, especially the modern ones in the new
Pinacothek, collected by the ex-king, and to which he is constantly
adding now that he is living at his ease as a private gentleman. I
daresay that they may be very fine, but scarcely any of them bite; I
like a picture with a tooth in it--something which goes into you, and
which you can never forget, like the great picture of Nero walking
over the burning ruins of Rome, or the execution picture in the Spanish
department, or the Christian slave sleeping before the opening of
the amphitheatre, or Judas coming on the men making the cross, in the
International Exhibition. I have read no art criticism for years, so
that I do not know whether I am not talking great heresy. But, heresy
or not, I am for the right of every man to his own opinion in matters
of art, and if an inferior painting gives me real pleasure on account of
its subject, I mean to enjoy it and praise it, all the fine art critics
in Christendom notwithstanding. The pictures of the most famous places
in Greece, made since the election of the Bavarian Prince Otho to the
throne of Greece, have a special interest of their own; but apart from
these and some half dozen others, I would far sooner spend a day in our
yearly exhibition than in the new Pinacothek. The colossal bronze statue
of Bavaria is the finest thing of the kind I have ever seen; but the
most interesting sight in Munich to an Englishman must be the Church
of St. Boniface, not the exquisite colouring proportions, or the
magnificent monolithic columns of gray marble, but the frescoes, which
tell the story of the saint from the time when he knelt and prayed
by his sick father’s bed to the bringing back of his martyred body to
Mayence Cathedral. The departure of St. Boniface from Netley Abbey for
Rome, to be consecrated Apostle to the Germans, struck me as the best of
them; but, altogether, they tell very vividly the whole history of the
Englishman who has trodden most nearly in St. Paul’s footsteps. We have
reared plenty of great statesmen, poets, philosophers, soldiers, but
only this one great missionary. Yet no nation in the world has more need
of St. Bonifaces than we just now. The field is ever widening, in India,
China, Africa. We can conquer and rule, and teach the heathen to make
railways and trade, nut don’t seem to be able to get at their hearts
and consciences. One fears almost that were a St. Boniface to come, we
should only measure him by our common tests, and probably pronounce him
worthless, or a dangerous enthusiast. But one day, when men’s work shall
be tested by altogether different tests from ours of the enlightened
nineteenth century kind, it will considerably surprise some of us to see
how the order of merit will come out. We shall be likely to have to ask
concerning St. Boniface--whose name is scarcely known to one Englishman
in a hundred--and of others like him in spirit, of whom none of us have
ever heard, Who are these countrymen of ours, and whence come they? And
we shall hear the answer which St. John heard: “Isti sunt qui venerunt
ex magna tribulatione et laverunt stolas suas in sanguine Agni.” I felt
very grateful to Munich for having appreciated the great Apostle to the
Germans.
The one building in Munich which is quite unworthy of the use to which
it is put, is the English Church. The service is performed in a sort of
dry cellar, under the Odeon. We had a very small congregation, but it
was very pleasant to hear how they all joined in the responses. What a
pity it is that we are always ready to do it abroad, and shut up again
as soon as we get home. Even the singing prospered greatly, though we
had no organ. But, alas! sir, the Colonial Church Society have done
their best to spoil this part of our service abroad. They seem to
have accepted from the editor as a gift, the stereotyped plates of a
hymn-book, copies of which were placed about in the Munich church, and,
I daresay, may be found all over the Continent. The editor has thought
it desirable to improve our classical hymns. Conceive the following
substitution for Bishop Ken’s “Let all thy converse be sincere”--
In conversation be sincere;
Make conscience as the noon-day clear: