24th.-Mentz is a fine old city,* strongly fortified on the western and southern sides, but the walls on the eastern face by the river seem decayed and feeble. In our walk we passed gateway, drawbridge, and fosse, to the outside of the ramparts, appropriated to public promenades and private gardens. The streets are for the most part narrow and dark; but the houses have an appearance of solidity and comfort about them. There are a few good streets and some handsome squares and markets.The Thiermarkt, or Green-place, is well planted with limes and surrounded with good looking edifices. The Grosse Bleiche is a handsome thoroughfare. Of the buildings in these German cities the best idea is to be gained from the old prints, which every body has seen without perhaps paying much attention to them. Many of the larger and more respectable houses, as well as the churches, are built of a red stone brought from quarries in the neighbourhood, but which, as Dr. Burnet says, "doth not look beautiful." The place contains several objects of interest to the lover of Gothic lore; it is remarkably rich in Roman remains; and on the whole can hardly fail to suit the taste of a person who happens to have anything decidedly F. S. A.ical in his composition.

The Cathedral is one of those edifices the exterior appearance of which does not improve upon a nearer approach. Distance tends to soften the flaring pink hue of its stone, and to attenuate the disfigurements with which time and war have united to blemish it; whilst a closer view of its cupola only shews more clearly the ponderosity of genius that marks its design; and in seeking to enter

* The population is estimated at between 25,000 to 26,000 souls, besides a garrison of 6000 men.

the sacred walls one is disappointed by the prevalence of dilapidation, and disgusted with the nuisances of secular encroachment. The structure itself is on a grand and lofty scale. Reputedly a work of the twelfth century, it exhibits the round arch as well as the pointed stile. The portal of the north transept offers some specimens of very good carving. This cathedral contains the greatest number of monuments, both ancient and modern, that I remember to have seen in any church on the Continent. The choir, which has the peculiarity of being placed towards the west end, and which the revolutionary French troops used as a kitchen, contains some fine sepulchral statues of the early dignitaries of the See: among the rest the tomb of Winifred or St. Boniface, the first Archbishop, and a contemporary of Charlemagne. The tablet to the memory of Fastrada,† third wife of that Emperor, merely tells you that her remains were not in the first instance deposited in this church, but were brought hither when their original place of burial fell a prey to flames. Among the monuments of a later age is that of John George Count of Schönborn, Bishop of Worms, on which is a colossal figure of Time admirably executed. In the cenotaph erected to Field Marshal the Prince de Lamberg, who defended the city

*

* Boniface was an Englishman, and in a letter which he wrote to Cuthbert Archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 745, exhorts him-" to prevent such great numbers of English nuns from going on pilgrimages to Rome; because (says he) so many of them lose their virtue before they return, that there is hardly a city or town in Lombardy, France, or Gaul, in which there are not some English women who live by prostitution to the great reproach of your Church." Henry's Hist. Great Brit. vol. 4, 8vo edt. p. 303.

+"Fastrade etait fille de Rodolphe, comte de Franconie; elle fut mariée à Worms l'an 783, et mourut à Francfort l'an 794."-Lenoir.

against the forces of Louis XIV. the most ludicrous effect is produced by the figure of this General lifting up the lid of his own coffin, and exhibiting himself in the full flowing wig and warrior-garb of that day. The effigy of Bishop Albert of Brandenbourg, dated 1545, is worthy of notice.-The mausoleum of a branch of the Nassau family is splendidly sculptured in alabaster, the beauty of which some ignoramus has partly obscured with a coating of white paint. A crucifixion which forms the central embellishment is of distinguished merit, both for conception and workmanship. This Prince of Nassau having abjured Popery, the armorial bearings are reversed!-The cathedral suffered severely during the siege by the French in 1792: the towers and windows of the east end remain in a ruined state; but within the last two years that part of the roof which was destroyed by the shells has been repaired, and the work of interior restoration is also going on.

The mouldering cloister contains the tomb of Henricus Frauenlob, one of the most celebrated of the German Minnesänger. A resident citizen of Mentz during its Augustan age, the thirteenth century, this Bard à bonne fortune wrote some verses in praise of women: and his death was so taken to heart by the bas-bleus of those days, that they insisted upon bearing his remains to the grave. Accordingly we find this act of female gratitude and sympathy represented on the monument. His effigy has been sculptured in low relief, of which however the laureated head alone remains. But on another stone, beneath that which retains the unwedded poet's almost obliterated image, is his coffin borne by eight dames of Mentz, whom the verger makes you count in due form. This,

the most curious remnant within the cathedral precincts, bears the early date of 1318. Near the cloister are some very ancient sculptures representing our Saviour's Crucifixion, Burial, and Ascension; ably designed and

executed.

The west front of St. Ignatius is an extremely fine ordonnace of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, with some excellent statuary work in the intercolumniations. In spite of the dull red stone of which it is built, the injury sustained from the bombs, and the narrow street in which it stands, this church arrests the stranger's attention, though seemingly unindebted to the care of the inhabitants. The interior deserves to be kept in a more cleanly condition, for it is of particularly elegant architecture, decorated with rich marble pillars, and a fine organ. The ceiling was painted in 1774 by Enders, with subjects relating to the Life and Martyrdom of the Primitive Christian Bishop, to whom the temple is dedicated: in the central compartment Saint Ignatius is represented in the arena of the amphitheatre at Antioch, torn to pieces by lions.

The Palace, now used as an Arsenal and Custom-house, at the north-west extremity of the place, is a very interesting relic of the ancient grandeur of Mentz. It is of quadrangular form, but unfinished. The front facing the Rhine consists of three stories, of excellent masonry, embellished with columns and pilasters of the three Grecian Orders, and with arabesques similar to those of the Salle-des-Chevaliers at Heidelberg castle, with which it appears to be contemporaneous.-An English Artist, with the tact and discrimination for which our topographical draughtsmen are pre-eminently distinguished, had selected

this façade and the one at right angles with it, and was completing an excellent outline of the subject in black lead at the moment we approached the spot. It is by far the best of the few good pieces of civil architecture in Mentz. The Kaiser (Emperor) Inn on the Heumarkt (Haymarket) is another fine building. Of inferior dimensions and less picturesque in its ornamental details than the structure which has just been mentioned, it exhibits the utmost regularity of plan, and, with its sculptured effigy of an Imperial Sovereign, it would not be unworthy of appropriation as an Hotel de Ville. The ceilings of the interior portal, and of the principal apartments, are executed in the same elaborate stile of embossed decoration. Altogether, though not on so large a scale, it is much handsomer and more consequential than the Town-house at Frankfort. The edifice was built a hundred and sixty years ago, by a Noble Saxon Family named Roco, who becoming Protestants were compelled to quit Mentz; and they retired into Saxony, where their descendants still reside.

On being conducted to the building, which contains the several Public Collections of curiosities, I learnt to my great regret that the Library was shut, and M. Lehne out of town. I had reckoned on the complaisance for which the worthy Professor is famed, being extended to the the earnest solicitation even of a stranger like myself, not only for permission to see some of the valuable works printed in this celebrated city during the infancy of the art, but what would not less highly have interested me, a collection of Roman vases, the fruit of the Learned Librarian's zeal as an antiquary, and his own property.

In this building, what is called a Gallery consists of