have gone about like that; because their bodies
may have swelled full of good humour, and their noses been coloured by the
burning reflection of the dark red flood; because their eyes may have
become fixed through being constantly turned upwards in silent
rapture,--are we to ascribe to the god the qualities of his servants?
The men of Bremen thought differently. How cheerily and gaily the old
boy rides on his cask: the round blooming face, the little bright eyes
that looked down so wisely and yet so mockingly, the wide laughing
mouth that has been the grave of so many a cask, the whole body
overflowing with comfortable good living. It was his arms and legs,
however, that specially delighted me. I almost expected to see him snap
his chubby fingers, and hear his voice sing out a gay hurrah! Why, he
looked as if at any moment he might jump off his seat and trundle his
cask round the cellar, till the Rose and the Apostles joined in the
merry dance, and chased each other round whooping. 'Merciful powers,'
cried the cellarmaster, clinging tightly to me, 'I saw his eye roll and
his feet move!' 'Peace, you old fool!' said I, feeling however rather
queer, and looking anxiously at the wine god; 'it's only the dancing
reflection of your taper. Well, we'll go on to the Apostle cellar, the
samples will taste better there.' But as I followed the old man out of
Bacchus' private room, I looked round, and the figure certainly seemed
to nod his little head, and stretch out his legs, and give a shake as
if from an inward giggle. One ascends from Bacchus to a smaller vault,
the subterranean celestial firmament I called it, the seat of
blessedness, where dwell the twelve mighty casks, each called after an
apostle. What funeral vault of a royal race can compare with such a
catacomb as this? Pile coffin on coffin, trim the everlasting lamps
that burn before the ashes of the mighty dead, let black-on-white
marble speak in epigrammatic phrase the virtues of the departed: take
your garrulous cicerone with his crape-trimmed hat and cloak, listen to
his praises of Prince This, who fell at the battle of That, and of
Princess Tother on whose tomb the virgin myrtle is intertwined with the
half-opened rosebud; see and drink in all the associations of such a
place; but will it move you like this? Here sleeps, and has slept for a
century, the noblest race of all. Dark-brown their coffins, and all
unadorned--no tinsel, no lying epitaphs, simply their name