Extensive woods of fir in Bavaria.--Grand fair at Munich.--The
Elector’s country palace.--Court
Ladies.--Fountains.--Costume.--Garden and tea-room.--Hoydening
festivities there.--The Palace and Chapel.--Gorgeous riches of the
latter.--St. Peter’s thumb.--The Elector’s collection of
pictures.--The Churches.--Hubbub and confusion of the Fair.--Wild
tract of country.--Village of Wolfrathshausen.--Perpetual
forests.--A Tempest.--A night at a cottage.
July 22.
Joy to the Electors of Bavaria! for preserving such extensive woods of
fir in their dominions as shade over the chief part of the road from
Augsburg to Munich. Near the last-mentioned city, I cannot boast of the
scenery changing to advantage. Instead of flourishing woods and verdure,
we beheld a parched dreary flat, diversified by fields of withering
barley, and stunted avenues drawn formally across them; now and then a
stagnant pool, and sometimes a dunghill, by way of regale. However, the
wild rocks of the Tyrol terminate the view, and to them imagination may
fly, and ramble amidst springs and lilies of her own creation. I speak
from authority, having had the delight of anticipating an evening in
this romantic style.
Tuesday next is the grand fair at Munich, with horse-races and
junketings: a piece of news I was but too soon acquainted with; for the
moment we entered the town, good-natured creatures from all quarters
advised us to get out of it; since traders and harlequins had filled
every corner of the place, and there was not a lodging to be procured.
The inns, to be sure, were hives of industrious animals sorting their
merchandise, and preparing their goods for sale. Yet, in spite of
difficulties, we got possession of a quiet apartment.
July 23.--We were driven in the evening to Nymphenburg, the Elector’s
country palace, the bosquets, jets-d’eaux, and parterres of which are
the pride of the Bavarians. The principal platform is all of a glitter
with gilded Cupids and shining serpents spouting at every pore. Beds of
poppies, hollyhocks, scarlet lychnis, and other flame-coloured flowers,
border the edge of the walks, which extend till the perspective appears
to meet and swarm with ladies and gentlemen in party-coloured raiment.
The queen of Golconda’s gardens in a French opera are scarcely more
gaudy and artificial. Unluckily too, the evening was fine, and the sun
so powerful that we were half roasted before we could cross the great
avenue and enter the thickets, which barely conceal a very splendid
hermitage, where we joined Mr. and Mrs. Trevor, and a party of
fashionable Bavarians.
Amongst the ladies was Madame la Comtesse, I forget who, a production of
the venerable Haslang, with her daughter, Madame de Baumgarten, who has
the honour of leading the Elector in her chains. These goddesses
stepping into a car, vulgarly called a cariole, the mortals followed and
explored alley after alley and pavilion after pavilion. Then, having
viewed Pagodenburg, which is, as they told me, all Chinese; and
Marienburg, which is most assuredly all tinsel; we paraded by a variety
of fountains in full squirt, and though they certainly did their best
(for many were set agoing on purpose) I cannot say I greatly admired
them.
The ladies were very gaily attired, and the gentlemen, as smart as
swords, bags, and pretty clothes could make them, looked exactly like
the fine people one sees represented on Dresden porcelain. Thus we kept
walking genteelly about the orangery, till the carriage drew up and
conveyed us to Mr. Trevor’s.
Immediately after supper, we drove once more out of town, to a garden
and tea-room, where all degrees and ages dance jovially together till
morning. Whilst one party wheel briskly away in the waltz, another amuse
themselves in a corner with cold meat and rhenish. That despatched, out
they whisk amongst the dancers, with an impetuosity and liveliness I
little expected to have found in Bavaria. After turning round and round,
with a rapidity that is quite astounding to an English dancer, the music
changes to a slower movement, and then follows a succession of zig-zag
minuets, performed by old and young, straight and crooked, noble and
plebeian, all at once, from one end of the room to the other. Tallow
candles snuffing and stinking, dishes changing at the risk of showering
down upon you their savoury contents, heads scratching, and all sorts of
performances going forward at the same moment; the flutes, oboes, and
bassoons, snorting, grunting, and whining with peculiar emphasis; now
fast, now slow, just as Variety commands, who seems to rule the
ceremonial of this motley assembly, where every distinction of rank and
privilege is totally forgotten. Once a week, on Sundays that is to say,
the rooms are open, and Monday is generally far advanced before they are
deserted. If good humour and coarse merriment are all that people
desire, here they are to be found in perfection.
July 24.--Custom condemned us to visit the palace, which glares with
looking-glass, gilding, and furbelowed flounces of cut velvet, most
sumptuously fringed and spangled. The chapel, though small, is richer
than anything Crœsus ever possessed, let them say what they will. Not
a corner but shines with gold, diamonds, and scraps of martyrdom studded
with jewels. I had the delight of treading amethysts and the richest
gems under foot, which, if you recollect, Apuleius[4] thinks such
supreme felicity. Alas! I was quite unworthy of the honour, and had much
rather have trodden the turf of the mountains. Mammon would never have
taken his eyes off the pavement; mine soon left the contemplation of it
and fixed on St. Peter’s thumb, enshrined with a degree of elegance, and
adorned by some malapert enthusiast with several of the most delicate
antique cameos I ever beheld; the subjects, Ledas and sleeping Venuses,
are a little too pagan, one should think, for an apostle’s finger.
From this precious repository we were conducted through the public
garden to a large hall, where part of the Elector’s collection is piled
up, till a gallery can be finished for its reception. It was matter of
great favour to view, in this state, the pieces that compose it, a very
imperfect one too, since some of the best were under operation. But I
would not upon any account have missed the sight of Rubens’s Massacre of
the Innocents. Such expressive horrors were never yet transferred to
canvass. Moloch himself might have gazed at them with pleasure.
After dinner we were led round the churches; and if you are as much
tired with reading my voluminous descriptions, as I was with the
continual repetition of altars and reliquaries, the Lord have mercy upon
you! However, your delivery draws near. The post is going out, and
to-morrow we shall begin to mount the cliffs of the Tyrol; but, do not
be afraid of any long-winded epistles from their summits: I shall be too
well employed in ascending them.
July 25.--The noise of the people thronging to the fair did not allow me
to slumber very long in the morning. When I got up, every street was
crowded with Jews and mountebanks, holding forth and driving their
bargains in all the guttural hoarseness of the Bavarian dialect. Vast
quantities of rich merchandise glittered in the shops as we passed to
the gates. Heaps of fruit and sweetmeats set half the grandams and
infants in the place cackling with felicity.
Mighty glad was I to make my escape; and in about an hour or two, we
entered a wild tract of country, not unlike the skirts of a princely
park. A little farther on stands a cluster of cottages, where we stopped
to give our horses some refreshment, and were pestered with swarms of
flies, most probably journeying to Munich fair, there to feast upon
sugared tarts and honied gingerbread.
The next post brought us over hill and dale, grove and meadow, to a
narrow plain, watered by rivulets and surrounded by cliffs, under which
lies scattered the village of Wolfrathshausen, consisting of several
remarkably large cottages, built entirely of fir, with strange galleries
projecting from them. Nothing can be neater than the carpentry of these
complicated edifices, nor more solid than their construction; many of
them looked as if they had braved the torrents which fell from the
mountains a century ago; and, if one may judge from the hoary appearance
of the inhabitants, here are patriarchs coeval with their mansions.
Orchards of cherry-trees cover the steeps above the village, which to
our certain knowledge produce most admirable fruit.
Having refreshed ourselves with their cooling juice, we struck into a
grove of pines, the tallest and most flourishing we had yet beheld.
There seemed no end to these forests, except where little irregular
spots of herbage, fed by cattle, intervened. Whenever we gained an
eminence it was only to discover more ranges of dark wood, variegated
with meadows and glittering streams. White clover and a profusion of
sweet-scented flowers clothe their banks; above, waves the mountain-ash,
glowing with scarlet berries: and beyond, rise hills, rocks and
mountains, piled upon one another, and fringed with fir to their topmost
acclivities. Perhaps the Norwegian forests alone, equal these in
grandeur and extent. Those which cover the Swiss highlands rarely convey
such vast ideas. There, the woods climb only half way up their ascents,
which then are circumscribed by snows: here no boundaries are set to
their progress, and the mountains, from base to summit, display rich
unbroken masses of vegetation.
As we were surveying this prospect, a thick cloud, fraught with thunder,
obscured the horizon, whilst flashes of lightning startled our horses,
whose snorts and stampings resounded through the woods. The impending
tempests gave additional gloom to the firs, and we travelled several
miles almost in total darkness. One moment the clouds began to fleet,
and a faint gleam promised serener intervals, but the next was all
blackness and terror; presently a deluge of rain poured down upon the
valley, and in a short time the torrents beginning to swell, raged with
such violence as to be forded with difficulty. Twilight drew on, just as
we had passed the most terrible; then ascending a mountain, whose pines
and birches rustled with the storm, we saw a little lake below. A deep
azure haze veiled its eastern shore, and lowering vapours concealed the
cliffs to the south; but over its western extremities hung a few
transparent clouds; the rays of a struggling sunset streamed on the
surface of the waters, tingeing the brow of a green promontory with
tender pink.
I could not help fixing myself on the banks of the lake for several
minutes, till this apparition faded away. Looking round, I shuddered at
a craggy mountain, clothed with forests and almost perpendicular, that
was absolutely to be surmounted before we could arrive at Walchen-see.
No house, not even a shed appearing, we were forced to ascend the peak,
and penetrate these awful groves. At length, after some perils but no
adventure, we saw lights gleam upon the shore of the Walchen lake, which
served to direct us to a cottage, where we passed the night, and were
soon lulled to sleep by the fall of distant waters.