THE HOCKHEIM HILLS.

4.19

fortified, were occupied by French soldiers. by French soldiers. With two German gentlemen and a Dutch officer, I sat off for Frankfort, distant eight stunder or hours, or four German miles, under a scorching sun, which did not seem to have any effect upon a large party of monks and priests, and followers bearing the host, who were walking bare headed in procession to a monastery which we had just passed, near which I left the carriage to make a sketch of Mayence, upon a projecting bank of the river Maine, where I bade adieu to the Rhine. Our road lay through an avenue of walnut, apple, and pear trees, loaded with fruit, to which passengers helped themselves whenever inclination disposed them to do so; and part of the Hockheim hills, covered with the renowned vineyards, which produce what in England is called old hock. As many a saint, high in superstitious veneration, must have had at least ten sculls and one hundred toe nails, if no illusion has been practised by those who have exhibited them to the credulous in different eras and various regions, so nothing short of the power of transmuting water into wine, could produce from these vineyards the immense quantity of wine which passes under the title of hock. Certain it is, that the greater quantity of wine honored with that name, is from the grapes of both sides of the lower part of the Rhine, which, in the district where it is produced, very old genuine

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A SPLENDID TOBACCO MANUFACTORY.

Hockheim wine is sold at the rate of three, and sometimes five, shillings a bottle.

At the first stage we stopped at a village where there is a noble building upon an eminence, commanding a beautiful prospect, which I at first took for a palace, but it proved to be a tobacco manufactory, warehouses, and the residence of the proprietor and his family; the front is five hundred feet long, and the whole exterior infinitely more princely than Buckingham-house. After passing this place the road became level, and the country presented corn-fields, pasture, and orchards in great abundance. For many miles round, this country had been often the theatre of hostilities; and though Nature had long since effaced their melancholy impressions from her fields by reviving verdure, yet prostrate cottages and battered convents displayed the march and ravages of the demon War! Happy, thrice happy my own country, where the sound of cannon is never heard but to announce a victory, or to augment the gaiety of some festive occasion!

The suburbs of Frankfort are very delightful, and after passing over a draw-bridge, and through a deep gate-way, we entered the city, the streets of which were crowded and full of gaiety and bustle, in consequence of the great autumnal fair which was holding there. All the best inns

THE TOOTH-BRUSH.

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Avere brimful, and with great difficulty the Dutch officer and myself procured a miserable double-bedded room, at an inferior inn, filled with petty merchants and their families, whom the spirit of traffic had led to this celebrated mart, and was half choaked up with cases and boxes containing their merchandize. This town swarms with French soldiers, about thirty of whom slept in rooms adjoining to ours, where they deported themselves with great order. My companion had just returned from the Cape, in consequence of its surrender to the British arms. He spoke with liberal rapture of the gallantry of the English troops. In Germany, as in Holland, time is taken by the forelock, and at six o'clock the stiefelputzer, or bootcleaner, knocked at the door, followed by the chambermaid with a composition of frankincense and other gums of a pyramidal shape, and about an inch high, much used in Germany, called a Räucher-kerz for perfuming rooms, which she placed upon our candlestick and left smoking. My Dutch companion annoyed me at this hour, first by begging that I would hear him read one book of Milton's Paradise Lost, a little English edition of which he had in his pocket, which he achieved in an incongruous mêlange of various languages; and secondly, by begging me to lend him my tooth-brush for a few minutes, observing, that he preferred an English tooth-brush to any other, and at the same moment applying it to his teeth with equal alacrity

and gratification. After he had paid such a compliment to English tooth-brushes, and had done me the honor of using mine, the least I could do was to beg that he would favour me with keeping it for my sake, with which he was much pleased, and accordingly introduced it to a party of combs and razors in his shaving-case. In all other respects he was an agreeable man, and I am sure a liberal-minded soldier. This city, which was till lately imperial, is one of the most antient towns in Germany, and has several handsome streets and noble buildings: it is particularly celebrated for the splendor of its hotels, which are reported to be the most magnificent in Europe, particularly those called the Rothen Haus or Red House, and the Rörniskchen Kaiser or Roman Emperor, where the King of Prussia lodged when he visited this town; and the Darmstadter Hof, in which Marshal Augerau and his suite resided whilst I was at Frankfort so erowded was the city, that it was with great difficulty and some interest I procured apartments at the Weiden-hof, or Willow-Court, a secondrate inn, but of great magnitude. Our table d'hote, at which between two and three hundred persons of respect ability sat down every day, was held in a noble room; it was splendidly served, and an excellent band seated in an elevated gallery, performed during dinner. The principal houses are built of red and white stone: the cassino, to which I was admitted by a card of introduction from one