The view from this library is really enchanting, and put everything seen from a similar situation at Landshut and almost even at Chremsminster, out of my recollection. You look down upon the Danube, catching a fine sweep of the river, as it widens in its course toward Vienna. A man might sit, read, and gaze—in such a situation—till he fancied he had scarcely one earthly want! I now descended a small staircase, which brought me directly into the large library—forming the right wing of the building, looking up the Danube toward Lintz. I had scarcely uttered three notes of admiration, when the Abbé Strattman entered; and to my surprise and satisfaction, addrest me by name. We immediately commenced an ardent unintermitting conversation in the French language, which the Abbé speaks fluently and correctly.
I now took a leisurely survey of the library; which is, beyond all doubt, the finest room of its kind which I have seen upon the Continent—not for its size, but for its style of architecture, and the materials of which it is composed. I was told that it was "the Imperial Library in miniature,"—but with this difference, let me here add, in favor of Mölk—that it looks over a magnificently wooded country, with the Danube rolling its rapid course at its base. The wainscot and shelves are walnut tree, of different shades, inlaid, or dovetailed, surmounted by gilt ornaments. The pilasters have Corinthian capitals of gilt; and the bolder or projecting parts of a gallery, which surrounds the room, are covered with the same metal. Everything is in harmony. This library may be about a hundred feet in length, by forty in width. It is sufficiently well furnished with books, of the ordinary useful class, and was once, I suspect, much richer in the bibliographical lore of the fifteenth century.
On reaching the last descending step, just before entering the church, the Vice-Principal bade me look upward and view the corkscrew staircase. I did so; and to view and admire was one and the same operation of the mind. It was the most perfect and extraordinary thing of the kind which I had ever seen—the consummation, as I was told, of that particular species of art. The church is the very perfection of ecclesiastical Roman architecture; that of Chremsminster, altho' fine, being much inferior to it in loftiness and richness of decoration. The windows are fixt so as to throw their concentrated light beneath a dome, of no ordinary height, and of no ordinary elegance of decoration; but this dome is suffering from damp, and the paintings upon the ceiling will, unless repaired, be effaced in the course of a few years.
The church is in the shape of a cross; and at the end of each of the transepts, is a rich altar, with statuary, in the style of art usual about a century ago. The pews—made of dark mahogany or walnut tree, much after the English fashion, but lower and more tasteful—are placed on each side of the nave, or entering; with ample space between them. They are exclusively appropriated to the tenants of the monastery. At the end of the nave, you look to the left, opposite—and observe, placed in a recess—a pulpit, which, from top to bottom, is completely covered with gold. And yet, there is nothing gaudy or tasteless, or glaringly obtrusive, in this extraordinary clerical rostrum. The whole is in the most perfect taste; and perhaps more judgment was required to manage such an ornament, or appendage—consistently with the splendid style of decoration exacted by the founder, for it was expressly the Prelate Dietmayr's wish that it should be so adorned,—than may on first consideration be supposed. In fact, the whole church is in a blaze of gold; and I was told that the gilding alone cost upward of ninety thousand florins. Upon the whole, I understood that the church of this monastery was considered as the most beautiful in Austria; and I can easily believe it to be so.
THROUGH THE TYROL[23]
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
I left this most pleasing of the Italian cities (Venice), and took the road for the Tyrol. We passed through a level fertile country, formerly the territory of Venice, watered by the Piave, which ran blood in one of Bonaparte's battles. At evening we arrived at Ceneda, where our Italian poet Da Ponte[24] was born, situated just at the base of the Alps, the rocky peaks and irregular spires of which, beautifully green with the showery season, rose in the background. Ceneda seems to have something of German cleanliness about it, and the floors of a very comfortable inn at which we stopt were of wood, the first we had seen in Italy, tho' common throughout Tyrol and the rest of Germany. A troop of barelegged boys, just broke loose from school, whooping and swinging their books and slates in the air, passed under my window.
On leaving Ceneda, we entered a pass in the mountains, the gorge of which was occupied by the ancient town of Serravalle, resting on arcades, the architecture of which denoted that it was built during the Middle Ages. Near it I remarked an old castle, which formerly commanded the pass, one of the finest ruins of the kind I had ever seen. It had a considerable extent of battlemented wall in perfect preservation, and both that and its circular tower were so luxuriantly loaded with ivy that they seemed almost to have been cut out of the living verdure. As we proceeded we became aware how worthy this region was to be the birthplace of a poet.
A rapid stream, a branch of the Piave, tinged of a light and somewhat turbid blue by the soil of the mountains, came tumbling and roaring down the narrow valley; perpendicular precipices rose on each side; and beyond, the gigantic brotherhood of the Alps, in two long files of steep pointed summits, divided by deep ravines, stretched away in the sunshine to the northeast. In the face of one of the precipices by the way-side, a marble slab is fixt, informing the traveler that the road was opened by the late Emperor of Germany in the year of 1830. We followed this romantic valley for a considerable distance, passing several little blue lakes lying in their granite basins, one of which is called the "Lago Morto" or Dead Lake, from having no outlet for its waters.
At length we began to ascend, by a winding road, the steep sides of the Alps—the prospect enlarging as we went, the mountain summits rising to sight around us, one behind another, some of them white with snow, over which the wind blew with a wintry keenness—deep valleys opening below us, and gulfs yawning between rocks over which old bridges were thrown—and solemn fir forests clothing the broad declivities. The farm-houses placed on these heights, instead of being of brick or stone, as in the plains and valleys below, were principally built of wood; the second story, which served for a barn, being encircled by a long gallery, and covered with a projecting roof of plank held down with large stones.