Page:Metrical tales and other poems .. (IA metricaltalesoth00soutrich).pdf/16

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that he should be secure from the injury of Mice if he were in a certain tour, that standeth in the Rhine near to the towne, betook himself into the said tower as to a safe refuge and sanctuary from his enemies, and locked himself in. But the innumerable troupes a Mice chased him continually very eagerly, and swumme unto him upon the top of the water to execute the just judgment of God, and so at last he was most miserably devoured by those sillie creatures; who pursued him with such bitter hostility, that it is recorded they scraped and gnawed out his very name from the walls and tapistry mherein it was written, after they had so cruelly devoured his body. Wherefore the tower wherein he was eaten up by the Mice is shewn to this day, for a perpetual monument to all succeeding ages of the barbarous and inhuman tyranny of this impious Prelate, being situate in a little green Island in the midst of the Rhine near to the towne of [1]Bing, and is commonly called in the German Tongue, the Mowse-turn.

Coryat's Crud. P. 571, 572.

Other Authors who record this tale say that the Bishop was eaten by Rats.



The summer and autumn had been so wet
That in winter the corn was growing yet,
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The corn lie rotting on the ground.



  1. Hodie Bingen.