made its territory a grand duchy, which lasted until the fall of Napoleon, when it was ceded to Bavaria, which retains it now. On arriving at the station from Frankfort, the first object of note is the so-called Pompeianum, erected by King Ludwig on an eminence upon the bank of the river. It is a square building, with a terrace and upper story smaller than the lower, built after the model of the house of Castor and Pollux at Pompeii. Its site, aspects, and environments are quasi-Italian, and the contiguous gardens produce a rich golden wine which smacks of the sunny South. The house is by no means imposing externally, but the frescoes and mosaics with which the interior is decorated represent faithfully those found in Pompeii. The great object of the Romans in their dwellings seems to have been to exclude glare and heat, and secure in every direction a thorough draught of air. They appear to have had a peculiar horror of that stuffiness of living by which the people of the middle ages ruined their constitutions, and of the prejudices engendered by which civilisation has hardly yet rid itself, especially on the Continent. Those imperial men whose frames were kept at the acmè of strength and beauty by the bath, and the gymnasium, and the wrestler’s oil, would have stood aghast at closed windows and curtained beds, and would very soon have kicked on the floor, as Englishmen generally do now, those abominable eider-down over-beds, under which the Teutonic race smothers itself nightly, even in the dog-days. I have heard of an instance of a fat German gentleman, whose wife tied down the over-bed on her husband every night, to prevent the accident of its rolling off. It is remarkable what glowing health beams from the faces and figures of gods, heroes, goddesses, and heroines, in those Pompeian paintings, which must have been copied from the women and men of these days. Luxurious and sensual they doubtless were, but robust and healthy, and of superlative personal cleanliness. It remained for the superstitions of a later day to connect sanctity with filth and squalor. From the terrace of the Pompeianum there is a fine view of the Main with its mediæval bridge, and the parade-ground of the sky-blue Bavarian troops, with the way leading to the Schöne Busch, a royal shrubbery and pleasure garden. To the left are seen the softly broken hills of the Spessart; altogether a charming landscape.
The town ditch has now been changed into a pleasant garden, with lofty trees, and cool shady walks. One gate, named the Herstall-thor, is of great beauty. Two little towers stand at the other end of the causeway which leads into it over the ditch, and add greatly to the picturesqueness of its effect.
The castle of Johannisburg was completed in 1614; it was founded by Johann Schweikard, one of the Electors of Mainz. It contains a moderate library and a famous collection of engravings. The buildings form a square, with a great tower at each of the angles 180 feet high, with five stories. There is one more window than there are days in the year. The length of each façade is 295 feet. The area of the central court is more than 30,000 square feet. The whole is built of a pinkish sandstone. King Ludwig of Bavaria has occasionally occupied this palace; but from the air of out-at-elbows majesty and splendid discomfort that reigns in its halls, one is not surprised that it is by no means the favourite seat of that artistic monarch. The saloons contain a vast number of pictures, mostly very old, very small, and very indifferent. Rubens, however, is represented by a Silenus, very well painted, and there are some good Rembrandts, and one or two striking Holbeins. The pictures are mostly pseudo-Pre-Raphaelite performances of the Dutch and German schools. Taken altogether the building, as viewed from every side, stands well upon its legs, and has a sumptuons, palatial air, as most buildings of the Renaissance period have. In the gateway are several branching antlers, the spoils of stags slain in the chase, some of King Ludwig’s killing; and there is a still more ancient boar’s head, with a broken spear sticking in it, with which the steady and sturdy hand of some sporting archbishop pierced the skull of the brute in the act of lunging at his reverence.
The Collegiate Church of the town was built in the Byzantine style, in honour of Saints Peter and Alexander, and dates from 970 to 980 A.D. It stands on a hill, and is approached by a double staircase. The prevalent form is that of the Latin cross. Formerly it had two towers, now it has only one, and that in the Pointed Gothic style, showing it to be later than the bulk of the building. The interior is populous with armoured monumental effigies, amongst which one of the most striking is that of Duke Otto of Bavaria, Saxony, and Suabia, erected in 1574. He it was, a nephew of the Emperor Otto II., who is supposed to have endowed the foundation in 969. The hill on which the church stands is called the Badberg, or Bath-mountain, and its steep slope is clad with vineyards on the other side. The bridge of Aschaffenburg spans the Main with 10 arches. In its present form it dates from 1430, Archbishop Willegis having found on the spot the foundations of a Roman bridge, and on them erected one of wood, which was doubtless swept away by the weight of those masses of loose ice which the stream carries with it after every thaw, and the grinding of which is even said to loosen the present stone buttresses.
G. C. Swayne.
A THOUGHT ON MAN.
In the long past, what time fair Science smiled
A new-born thing in helpless infant state,
One sang of all-inventive[1] Man—how great
His skill of art; how he could render mild
The rough-maned horse, and bison of the wild,
O’erpass the surging deep, could subjugate
Earth, sea, and air, all things—save only Fate;
How language he had learnt, and laws compiled.
Yet scarce the Poet’s prophet-soul divined
All that the coming years should bring to light,
When matter had been taught to yield to mind,
And Science gained the acmè of her might.
But what though all else yield him victory?
Man’s victor still is Hades—and shall be.
J. B. S.
- ↑ Sophocles (Antig., 248.)
