new
acquaintance.

After breakfast, our party proceeded through the town towards the
wonderful castle which is its chief attraction, and the noblest wreck of
German grandeur.

And now pausing, the mountain yet unscaled, the stately ruin frowned
upon them, girt by its massive walls and hanging terraces, round which
from place to place clung the dwarfed and various foliage. High at the
rear rose the huge mountain, covered, save at its extreme summit, with
dark trees, and concealing in its mysterious breast the shadowy beings
of the legendary world. But towards the ruins, and up a steep ascent,
you may see a few scattered sheep thinly studding the broken ground.
Aloft, above the ramparts, rose, desolate and huge, the Palace of the
Electors of the Palatinate. In its broken walls you may trace the tokens
of the lightning that blasted its ancient pomp, but still leaves in the
vast extent of pile a fitting monument of the memory of Charlemagne.
Below, in the distance, spread the plain far and spacious, till the
shadowy river, with one solitary sail upon its breast, united the
melancholy scene of earth with the autumnal sky.

"See," said Vane, pointing to two peasants who were conversing near
them on the matters of their little trade, utterly unconscious of the
associations of the spot, "see, after all that is said and done about
human greatness, it is always the greatness of the few. Ages pass, and
leave the poor herd, the mass of men, eternally the same,--hewers of
wood and drawers of water. The pomp of princes has its ebb and flow, but
the peasant sells his fruit as gayly to the stranger on the ruins as to
the emperor in the palace."

"Will it be always so?" said the student.

"Let us hope not, for the sake of permanence in glory," said Trevylyan.
"Had _a people_ built yonder palace, its splendour would never have
passed away."

Vane shrugged his shoulders, and Du-----e took snuff.

But all the impressions produced by the castle at a distance are as
nothing when you stand within its vast area and behold the architecture
of all ages blended into one mighty ruin! The rich hues of the masonry,
the sweeping facades--every description of building which man ever
framed for war or for luxury--is here; all having only the common
character,--RUIN. The feudal rampart, the yawning fosse, the rude tower,
the splendid arch, the strength of a fortress, the magnificence of a
palace,--all united, strike upon the soul like the hist