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 SANCTÆ 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 sun-beams, 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 antient 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 SANCTÆ 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 loopholes, 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 re-appearing, 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.
The three superior points of the Seven Mountains, which contribute
so much to the distinction of Goodesberg, are called Drakenfels,
Wolkenbourg and Lowenbourg, and have each been crowned by its castle,
of which two are still visible in ruins. There is a story faintly
recorded, concerning them. Three brothers, resolving to found three
distinguished families, took the method, which was anciently in use
for such a purpose, that of establishing themselves in fortresses,
from whence they could issue out, and take what they wanted from their
industrious neighbours. The pinnacles of Drakenfels, Wolkenbourg and
Lowenbourg, which, with all assistance, cannot be ascended now, without
the utmost fatigue, were inaccessible, when guarded by the castles,
built by the three brothers. Their depredations, which they called
successes in war, enriched their families, and placed them amongst the
most distinguished in the Empire.
They had a sister, named Adelaide, famed to have been very beautiful;
and, their parents being dead, the care of her had descended to them.
Roland, a young knight, whose castle was on the opposite bank of
the Rhine, became her suitor, and gained her affections. Whether the
brothers had expected, by her means, to form a more splendid alliance,
or that they remembered the ancient enmity between their family and
that of Roland, they secretly resolved to deny the hand of Adelaide,
but did not choose to provoke him by a direct refusal. They stipulated,
that he should serve, a certain number of years, in the war of
Palestine, and, on his return, should be permitted to renew his suit.
Roland took a reluctant farewell of Adelaide, and went to the war,
where he was soon distinguished for an impetuous career. Adelaide
remained in the castle of Drakenfels, waiting, in solitary fidelity,
for his return. But the brothers had determined, that he should not
return for her. They clothed one of their dependents in the disguise of
a pilgrim, and introduced him into the castle, where he related that he
was arrived from the holy wars, and had been desired by Roland in his
latest moments to assure Adelaide of his having loved her till death.
The unhappy Adelaide believed the tale, and, from that time, devoted
herself to the memory of Roland and to the nourishment of her sorrow.
She rejected all the suitors, introduced by her brothers, and accepted
no society, but that of some neighbouring nuns. At length, the gloom of
a cloister became so necessary to the melancholy of her imagination,
that she resolved to found a convent and take the veil; a design, which
her brothers assisted, with the view of placing her effectually beyond
the reach of her lover. She chose an island in the Rhine between her
brother's castle and the seat of Roland, both of which she could see
from the windows of her convent; and here she passed some years in the
placid performance of her new duties.
At length, Roland returned, and they both discovered the cruel device,
by which they had been separated for ever. Adelaide remained in her
convent, and soon after died; but Roland, emulating the fidelity of
her retirement, built, at the extreme point of his domains towards the
Rhine, a small castle, that overlooked the island, where he wasted
his days in melancholy regret, and in watching over the walls, that
shrouded his Adelaide.
This is the story, on which the wild and vivid imagination of Ariosto
is said to have founded his Orlando.