wood adjoining the hamlet. Here he was struck by the wonderful beauty of a little boy who was playing near the door, and who stood gazing at him with the clear blue eyes of a young Frank who did not seem at all abashed by his august presence. He dismounted, and taking the child in his arms, brought him into the cottage, with the thought that he, though chief of Christendom, would only be too happy to have such a grandson. Here he was humbly received by the child’s mother, who with muffled face and stifled voice, as if awe-struck, bade the Emperor welcome, and requested to be allowed to retire at once to provide him a collation according to her limited means. In due time a course was placed before the Emperor, and when it was withdrawn he recognised a dish which was the invention of his daughter Emma, and which had always in times past been prepared for him by her own fair hands. In his surprise he ordered his hostess to be brought before him, and immediately on her appearance locked in his arms his weeping and penitent child. Overjoyed, he granted his full forgiveness on the spot, and exclaimed, “Happy (selig) is the spot where I have found my daughter again.” And ever since that time Obermühlheim has borne the name of Seligenstadt.
A more prosaic account of the origin of the name, and one certainly more consistent with analogy, is that Obermühlheim was named Seligenstadt, or Town of the Blessed, in consequence of the relics of two martyrs, Peter and Marcellinus, having been brought thither, after a conventual church had been built there, about the time of Charlemagne. In 1840 the substructions of Roman buildings were found in digging for the foundations of a new school-house, and the mediæval remains show evidences of Roman masonry having been used in the construction of the town. The conventual church is first heard of in the ninth century, since which time it has undergone perpetual alterations, until the buildings were secularised in 1803. The lordship of the town was granted by Ludwig the Pious to Eginhard, who, after the death of his beloved Emma, retired into the convent. The outer shell of the marble sarcophagus containing their united bones is still shown, while the inner part has been transferred to the collection of stolen goods at Erbach in the Odenwald.[1] In 1013 the see of Mainz by craft obtained possession of Seligenstadt; but Rudolph von Hapsburg made it, in 1184, an imperial dependency, though it afterwards lapsed again to Mainz. The town lost many of its privileges by joining the peasants in the war of 1525, and it was so exposed to the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War that only a seventh of the inhabitants were said to have been left. When the Swedes came to it in their turn, it is said by Prior Waltz that Gustavus Adolphus himself was kind to the inhabitants; but “the Queen (of Sweden) behaved with stupidity, as she brought an ape in her carriage, with shorn crown and rosary, to mock the Catholic clergy.” After the French Revolution, Seligenstadt fell to Hessen-Darmstadt; it is now a quiet little place, and its dark old walls make a good picture on the side next the Main.
It is very nearly dusk when we reach Gross-Steinheim, on our way to Hanau. Its tower, with its fine heavy projecting turrets, looks grand in the red winter sunset, and its water-gate looks like the entrance to an imposing place, as we leave it to cross the ferry. But failing daylight obliges us to quicken our steps to the Hanau station, with the thought that Gross-Steinheim deserves a visit to itself.
DIONYSIUS THE SCHOOLMASTER.[2]
One little year ago and Syracuse,
Great Syracuse with all its royal towers,
Lay at my feet, as I leant back to hear
The Lydian flutes chasing the flying hours:
The Cystus-bloom, that scarce a day doth shine,
Was not more short-lived than that power of mine.
I looked and saw the triremes in the port,
And every trireme bore my purple flag;
And everywhere the vineyards caught the eye,
Wreathing each clayey cliff and stony crag,
And o’er the bay I saw proud Temples rise,
Built for my slaves to offer sacrifice.
My garment trailed upon the marble stone
Out in the sunshine; but a soft green shade
Played round my brows, and from the inner court
(On this day year) I mind me that there strayed
Ionian music, fluttering from the throat
Of a Greek boy, who mocked the thrush’s note.
My cedar chests were brimmed with Persian gold,
My vats with wine and oil were running o’er,
My Babylonian stuff, my citron woods,
Seemed in my treasuries to grow still more:
Gold was to me as dust, jewels as stones
That strew the weedy coast where ocean moans.
And now I sit upon a fig-tree stool,
My sceptre for a ferule well exchanged,
Plodding o’er Homer’s verse and Pindar’s hymns,
From all my brittle greatness long estranged;
And round me press the peasant boys, dismayed
At my stern face, the badge of my dull trade.
Under this Ilex we sit hour by hour,
The cicale droning on to mock the task
That drones below, and in the sunshine fierce
The sleeping tortoise crawls to rest and bask,
While in the myrtle brake beyond the shade
I see the green snake steal towards the glade.
Around me gather all the rosy lads,
The stalwart ploughman’s sturdy, restless child,
The fisherman’s rough boys, fresh from the gulf,
And still from their hard trade loud-voiced and wild.
My courtiers nor my parasites are these;
Discrowned, disrobed, I still can boast of ease.
This is my tiny world, and this my train
Of little subjects, trembling at my frown,
Smiling when I smile, as, with weary brain,
I hear the stammered lines of Homer’s rhyme,
And happier than of old, defying fate,
Beneath the Ilex rule my petty state.
And when I die, I shall leave gold enough
To buy them wine to hold a village feast
Each year upon my grave; and there the boys
Shall bask and play, and slay the votive beast;
And I beneath shall rest with peaceful face,
While rustic music cheers the dim, still place.
