for the house of Kinsky, and
in their possession it has ever since remained, neglected, indeed, till
of late, but holding time and decay alike at defiance.

Old chroniclers tell of many a lordly festival having been celebrated
within its walls. Repeatedly, too, it has withstood and repelled the
attacks of an enemy, once when an army of not less than fifteen
thousand men sat down before it, and a second time, when pressed by
thirteen thousand. But the invention of gunpowder, and still more
effectually the changes in men's manners which followed the discovery
of printing, slowly robbed it of its importance, till at last it was
deserted by its owners, who transferred their residence to the more
commodious, but far less picturesque mansion which they still continue
to inhabit. Then began a new race of tenants to occupy the rock, in
giving accommodation to whom the Graffs Kinsky doubtless believed that
they were benefiting their own souls, and doing their Maker laudable
service.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, while the lordship of the
manor yet remained in the hands of the Kokortzowas, a bouerman, or
small landed proprietor, distinguished in the circle for his skill in
agriculture, suddenly took it into his head to become a hermit, and
fixed on the deserted rock as his place of residence. The graefinn--for
a female seems then to have exercised the authority of count, gave
immediate attention to his wishes; and fitted up, at her own cost, such
a cell as the pious bouerman described. There, for some years, dwelt
Brother Constantine, telling his beads at stated periods, both by day
and night, and living abundantly on the alms which the pious of all
classes bestowed upon him. At his decease, an enthusiastic miller
stepped forward to fill the vacancy, and Brother Wentzel, so long as
the sands of life continued to run, was, to the good people of
Birkstein, and the districts around, all that Brother Constantine had
been. To him, in 1720, succeeded Brother Antony, or rather two
brothers, Antony and Jacob, who dwelt in cheerful community one with
another, praying before the same altar, and conversing during the hours
of relaxation, but, in strict propriety, occupying separate cells in
the rock. In 1735, however, Jacob died, when one Samuel Goerner, a
modelist, and perspective maker, took his place. Some ingenious
representations of Mount Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, executed in
wood by the hands of Brother Samuel