Duchy of Hesse: but as a fortress it appertained to the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps Bavarians)].
One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday a beautiful appearance—two rainbows, one on the top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced the rainbow-hues.
Arrived at Mayence at 612. Saw along the Rhine many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord] B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago: written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See Childe Harold, from "The Castled Crag of Drachenfels" to "Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine."[1]
May 14.—From Mayence, where I saw the spot where they said lately stood the house where printing was invented; it had been pulled down by the French. The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the last siege the town underwent. The reliefs—some of which were in a good style—many decapitated. There was a German marshal who was represented as gravely putting forth his powdered head from
- ↑ These are the precise words as they stand in Charlotte Polidori's transcript. It is to be presumed that Dr. Polidori wrote them some while after May 13, 1816.
