4th. Left Antwerp in the morning, and passing through Coutegle, Malines, or Mechlin, we arrived at Brussels about one o'clock. The road runs nearly the whole of the way on the bank of a large canal, and is often bordered by a row of fine beech trees. The appearance of this capital from a distance is rather imposing; the handsomer and more modern part of it being situated upon a hill, at the bottom of which lies the old town, on the banks of the river Senne. The gate through which we entered is remarkably handsome, and the style of architecture light and elegant. We drove to the Hôtel de Flandres, on the Place Royale, where we were very well accommodated. Before dinner I took a hasty run through the town, just to see the fine old gothic town-house, with its light and lofty spire, surmounted by a colossal statue of St. Michael and the dragon, which acts as a vane; and the parks, palaces, and fine public walks, which latter were crowded with English. English equipages and servants are also continually passing in the streets; and so many of the shops are completely English, that it is difficult to believe that one is in the capital of a foreign nation. The number of English generally in Brussels is said to exceed twenty thousand. At one of the English circulating libraries I procured the "Legend of Montrose," which amused Sir Humphry for the evening.
5th. At nine in the evening we left Brussels by the Porte de Louvaine, and drove on to Tervueren, through a fine forest of beech trees; at the extremity of which is situated the summer chateau of the Prince of Orange, which, in external appearance, hardly equals the country residence of an English gentleman. From thence we proceeded to Louvaine, or Löwen; where we only stopped to change horses. The Hôtel de Ville is one of the finest specimens of gothic architecture in the Netherlands; but we could only catch a hasty view of it as we drove by and went on to Thirlemont, where we dined, and after dinner proceeded to St. Troud, which we made our resting-place for the night.
6th. We quitted St. Troud after breakfast, in the midst of rain and snow, for Liege, or Lüttich, where we made no stay, but passed on to Battices. Between this last place and Aix-la-Chapelle, we crossed the boundary of the Netherlands, and entered upon the Prussian territory. The custom-house officers were very civil; and Count Bülow's besonders empfohlen, (particularly recommended), written in his own hand on Sir Humphry's passport, was of great utility. We entered Aix-la-Chapelle in the evening; and passing by the new theatre and the bath rooms, which are pretty, but small buildings, we drove to the grand hotel, which was neither grand nor comfortable. Our book for this evening was Swift's "Tale of a Tub."
7th. Left Aachen, (the German name for Aix), and passed on to Jülich, the first Prussian fortress. From thence we proceeded to Bergheim: after which we passed over a wide sandy flat, rendered in many parts almost impassable, by the previous heavy rains. A league or two before we reached Cologne, the many and gloomy steeples of the once holy city rose to view; amongst which, the colossal mass of its splendid but unfinished cathedral stood prominent. The fortifications before the town are thickly planted with shrubs, so that from a distance they have more the appearance of sloping green hills, than walls of defence. Passing over numerous drawbridges, and under one of the ancient gateways, we drove through many dark and narrow streets to the Cour Imperiale.
8th. In the morning we left Cologne to the protection of its eleven thousand virgins, and started for Coblentz. At Bonn, we merely changed horses, and drove on to the little post-town of Remagen, leaving the summits of the celebrated seven mountains, the castled crag of Drachenfels, Rolandseck, and the towers of the convent of Nonnenwerth, as yet surrounded only by bare and leafless trees, behind us. Here we dined; and then continued our route along the banks of the Rhine, which was very turbid and swollen, to Andernach, and from thence to Coblentz. The scenery, which I had formerly beheld in all its summer glory, as well as in its rich autumnal tints, was now not only shorn of its beauty, but enveloped in mist and cloud.
9th. We quitted Coblentz at about eight o'clock in the morning, in the midst of a thick fog, which in a short time cleared away, and afforded us a most magnificent spectacle; for it came rolling down the hills on each bank of the river like immense waves, through which the sunbeams broke in from every side, till it was at last quite dispersed, and unveiled to our view the numberless little towns and villages on the banks, leaving the Rhine glittering in the rays of the sun, like a stream of burnished gold, rushing along between its dark and rocky mountains. We changed horses at Boppart, and from thence drove on to St. Goar, where Sir Humphry has determined to stop till to-morrow. After dinner he took a ride along the banks of the river, followed by his servant. In the mean while I strolled up the hills, and amused myself by sketching the old ruins of the castle of Rheinfels, and the river below me in the distance. On our return, Sir Humphry told me that he had decided to include Heidelberg in his route, which he had not at first intended to do, passing through Mayence and Mannheim, so that I shall in a day or two again see my home. After having read the "Old English Baron" to Sir Humphry, we retired for the night; he to rest, and I to my chamber, where I could not but admire the scene around me. It was a beautiful starry night, and the lofty rocks opposite my window rose as it were from the rolling river beneath, awful and gigantic amid the shades of night, till their dark outlines, mingling with the more distant mountains, were lost in the clear sky. Every sound in the village was hushed, and it seemed as if even the air itself was lulled to rest by the stillness of night.
"All Heaven and Earth are still—though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:—
All Heaven and Earth are still: from the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,
All is concenter'd in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence."
10th. Our drive this morning from St. Goar to Bingen was cold and rainy, and the Lurley rocks, and the wild and rugged banks of the Rhine between St. Goar and Oberwesel, looked more than usually dreary, the few vines and the little vegetation that appear upon them in summer not having yet begun to shoot. We quitted the banks of the Rhine at Bingen, and struck across the country through a fine rich plain stretching almost as far as the eye can reach, and every here and there diversified by low hills, to Mayence. Ingelheim, one of the numerous residences of Charlemagne, and where that monarch once had a magnificent palace, is now a little insignificant borough, and the palace with its hundred columns from Rome or Ravenna, has vanished, or nearly so, for the slight remains that are still standing, shew but little of former grandeur.
At Mayence our passports were demanded at the first of the numerous draw-bridges, and quickly visé'd. Sir Humphry determined upon spending the night here, as I knew that the accommodations at the Roman Emperor were much better than any he would find at Oppenheim or Worms, which latter town we could not have reached till the night had set in, and Sir Humphry does not like to travel after sunset. The streets of this ancient town are for the most part narrow, dark, and dirty, with the exception of the chief street running from the upper part of the town towards the Rhine, called die grosse bleiche, the great bleaching place, and which is a broad and handsome street. The whole appearance of the town, the old dom or cathedral, with its heavy towers and light pinnacles of red stone; its brazen gates, still bearing the marks of the balls of the celebrated siege in 1792; the many magnificent houses, often uninhabited or turned into shops and cafés; the vast but ruinous palace of red sand-stone on the Rhine; the few inhabitants one meets with in the streets,—the officers and soldiers of the different regiments in garrison of course excepted,—plainly tell the stranger that Mayence has no longer any pretension to the splendour it owned under the rule of the Ecclesiastical Princes, it being then the second ecclesiastical town in Germany; or even during its occupation by the French, who, wherever they went, were sure to carry with them life and spirit. As it has changed for the worse, so may it again change for the better, and who can say that it may not in a few lustres more again flourish as a frontier fortress of France.