"Unburied remain,
Inglorious on the plain."
These forests were also celebrated for their herds of wild horses; and the town of Duisbourg, having been rendered an University in 1655, is thus panegyrized by a German poet:
Dis ist die Deutsche Burg, vor langst gar hochgeehrt
Von vielen König und auch Kaiserlichen Kronen:
Der schöne Musenthron, wo kluge Leute wohnen;
Und wo die Kaufmannschaft so manchen Bürger nährt.
This is the German town, that's fam'd so long
By throned Kings, and gentle Muses' song;
Where learned folks live well on princely pay,
And commerce makes so many Burghers gay.
Of the commerce there were still some signs in half a dozen vessels, collected on the beach. Whether the University also subsists, or is any thing more than a free school, which is frequently called an University in Germany, we did not learn.
[WESEL.]
After five or six small towns, or villages, more, the Rhine reaches the well known fortified town and state prison of Wesel; a place, not always unfavourable to freedom, for here Rapin, driven from the district now called La Vendée in France, by Louis the Fourteenth's persecution of Protestants, retired to write his History; recollecting, perhaps, that it had before sheltered refugees from the tyranny of the Duke of Alva, and our sanguinary Mary.
The towers and citadel of Wesel give it the appearance of a military place, and it is frequently so mentioned; but the truth is, that the late King of Prussia, with the same fear of his subjects, which was felt by Joseph the Second in Flanders, demolished all the effectual works, except those of the citadel; a policy not very injurious to the Monarch in this instance, but which, in Flanders, has submitted the country to be twice over-run in three years, and has in fact been the most decisive of passed events in their influence upon present circumstances.
The reformed worship is exercised in the two principal churches, but the Catholics have two or three monasteries, and there is a Chapter of Noble Ladies, of whom two thirds are Protestants, and one third Catholic; an arrangement which probably accounts for their having no settled and common residence.