Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/99

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MAYENCE
87

Duchy of Hesse: but as a fortress it appertained to the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps Bavarians)].

One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday a beautiful appearance—two rainbows, one on the top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced the rainbow-hues.

Arrived at Mayence at 6 1/2. Saw along the Rhine many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord] B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago: written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See Childe Harold, from "The Castled Crag of Drachenfels" to "Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine."[1]

May 14.—From Mayence, where I saw the spot where they said lately stood the house where printing was invented; it had been pulled down by the French. The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the last siege the town underwent. The reliefs—some of which were in a good style—many decapitated. There was a German marshal who was represented as gravely putting forth his powdered head from

  1. These are the precise words as they stand in Charlotte Polidori's transcript. It is to be presumed that Dr. Polidori wrote them some while after May 13, 1816.