200 THE CHAMBER OF THE COUNCILS. cavern might be: but never did Thor or Freya look more ugly than the revered parent of that long and strong Lady with a plaited cap and the toothache, whom we saw slumbering in the North Transept. As for the poor Bishops, I pity them; not content with giving them the most uneasy nightcaps in the shape of mitres,-and as if it were insufficient to have mocked them by an attitude of stony slumber, they have propped the mutilated Objects in an upright position. Now if ever a gusty night and a cloudy moonlight were favorable to the horrors,-if ever it were laudable or even respectable in an Episcopal Effigy to imitate the ghost in Don Juan, and walk, I am feelingly convinced these much abused statues would be justified in their change of posture. But let us ascend several flights of well worn steps, and lo! what a change comes over the spirit of our dreams! It is not that we tread the black and yellow tiles of that very pavement which so often felt the footsteps of the amiable Melancthon: not that we see the old windows, the harshly fashioned chair, the cushioned divan of those ancient Councils where the phantoms of red capped Cardinals, and the crosiers and Rochets of Sovereign Prelates frown-visionary pictures of a waning Hierarchy: nor that Brazen Bust of Erasmus which still confronts you with his high sarcastic look. But it is that enormous Wooden THE GREAT CARVED CHEST. 201 Coffer, I am sure eight feet in length, with its armorial shields at every angle, forming a fine contrast with these heraldic colourings to its richly crowded, but delicately carved sculptures of the sablest oak, which attracted our most pleased attention. This huge Chest constituted formerly the archives of the Council. Oh! what thick yellow parchment,-Oh! what vermillion seals of saints, and shrines, and kingly benefactors, (those quaint engravings on the obedient wax, those representatives of broad fat meadows and steepled monasteries, and silver, and gold, and gems,) have once mouldered here! Shall I ever be forgiven by the Antiquary for avowing that my imagination served only to transport me to that exquisite story of Rogers, touching the Picture and the Coffer of carve work, "Her Vest of Gold, Broidered with Flowers; and clasped from head to foot And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, The ducal robes of some old Ancestor." 202 THE MINSTER OF MAYENCE. Mayence, October 1, 1844. IN our long day's journey of three hundred miles, to-day we were destined to behold the Rhine under a new aspect, utterly divested of every feature of sublimity or romance. Who that has beheld him for the first time between Strasburg and Mayence, his broad blank face pillowed between two banks, so flat and dull, that the very look of the two made you think of that bed which you had so reluctantly abandoned in the morning; would depicture the Traditionary Mountains, the Baronial Castles, and the wealthy vineyards, that region of Enchantment, of which the Rhine is the indisputable lord paramount, and into which if you will but have patience, he is hastening to usher you? Meantime the weather has undergone a most rigorous change. The cold has become intense, and my recollections of that Hyperborean region of Mayence would amount to something very like abhorrence were it not that the image of its old Cathedral somewhat mitigates my animosity. There is a vast deal of Barbaric grandeur about the exterior of that wild Teutonic pile. The THE CLOISTERS. 203 superb colour of its bloodred stone, the stupendous height of its two majestic Domes, together with their minarets (of which the roofless consorts at the east contrast with mutual advantage, their pinnacled and crocketed sisters at the West), are worthy that dignified fabric which in the Fatherland claims the lofty title of The Dom Kirch. The interior, not from its own fault, but from the fury of its Plunderers, and the fatuity of its Restorers, has suffered all that can unhallow Sanctity, make Vastness vulgar, and Decoration absurd. The Cloisters, navelled deep within a quadrangle, remain a most enchanting monument of what the Church might have been four or five hundred years ago. Piled with amazing majesty around a carpet of luxuriant turf, they are of the same murray coloured masonry with the rest of the Dom; and abound in large Gothic windows of variegated Mullions, and Wheelheads, whose tracery I never saw exceeded. Their walls, filled with curious monuments, coeval with themselves, and each embellished with its own Legend; the pavements, roughened with mitred, helmed, and coronetted Effigies, which once had doubtless been embossed with gorgeous brass, speedily withdrew our attention from the severe and unseasonable intensity of the cold. The gray sky, a dismal canopy to the warm red fabric above which it brooded, the hollow gusts 204 THE DECORATED DOORWAY. which waved the grove of the quadrangle, and moaned around the columns of its gloomy aisles, were in solemn accordance with that character of romantic magnitude which predominates over the whole. Leading from these Cloisters is a Doorway in the south side of the minster, which you discover to be a solitary exile from its Order of Architecture, delighting you as much by its excellent loveliness as it surprises you by its singularity. I say singularity, for you look in vain around the whole Cathedral for any trace of the Fourteenth Century which had the happiness to give this fair thing birth. I remembered Christabel and Geraldine under the leafless moonlight oak I guess 'twas frightful there to see A Lady richly dressed as she, Close by its side a Portal, now filled up, reveals all that heaviness of contour and quaintness of ornament, which distinguishes the Saxon order; and yet here also the contrast is by no means disadvantageous to either. These gorgeous examples of ancestral munificence and monastic skill embellish the ancient Chapter House, further adorned by an admirably proportioned Oriel, and distinguished as chamber of several Councils. The ponderous Doors of Bronze in the North |