EHRENBREITSTEIN. THE waters of the Rhine have long maintained their pre-eminence, as forming one of the mightiest and loveliest among the highways of Europe; and now that they have been polluted by the noisome but seemingly attractive accommodations of the Dampschiffe, the beauties of the Rhenish shores have been visited by pilgrims from our own country, more numerous, and more zealous than ever knelt before the shrine of Becket, or of Our Lady of Loretto. Many indeed, and various are the charms, by which the prince of rivers continues to allure the wanderings of the idle, the restless, and the rich. The quaint old-world cities which reflect themselves in its waves,offering the same contrast to their modern suburbs that a beauty in coif and farthingale would oppose to a Parisian grisette-and the tree-tufted villages which, with their rustic spires and whitened walls, might represent a third Grace, in the guise of a fair peasant, enliven the banks of the Rhine with a characteristic population. In the misty distance, the seven mountains display the rich and romantic grouping of their lofty summits; while, nearer to the shore, and apparently springing from the blue depths of the river, gigantic and pinnacled rocks spread their darkening shadows over the waters. Of these, many are crowned with the mouldering towers of feudal pride; others are adorned with a fringe of beech-trees which, springing from their shelving ledges, enliven the granite with their bright overhanging boughs; and some, and those the most inaccessible, have been transformed by the hand of industry into thriving vineyards, where the light foot of the winzer, or vintager, bounding to his labours, appears to emulate the peril of the samphire-gatherers of our native cliffs. Here, the spires of some lonely monastery surmount the highest crags of the rocky bank;-there, the cloistered votaries have sought a still more isolated seclusion, upon the very bosom of the waves. The towers and defences of obsolete warfare are contrasted with the iron strength of modern fortresses; and the embattled keep of some lord of Chivalry, frowns upon the green-shuttered lust-hans of the living Burgmeister. Thus rich in every variety of landscape, animate and inanimate, the successive scenery of the Rhine boasts an intensity of interest scarcely to be surpassed. But among all its united trophies of art and nature, there is not one more brightly endowed with picturesque beauty, or romantic association, than the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. When the eye of our own Childe Harold rested upon its "shattered wall," and when the pencil of Turner immortalized its season of desolation, it had been smitten in the pride of its strength, by the iron glaive of war; and its blackened fragments and stupendous ruins had their voice for the heart of the moralist, as well as their charm for the inspired mind of genius. But now that military art hath knit those granite ribs anew, now that the beautiful eminence rears once more its crested head, like a sculptured Cybele, with a coronet of towers, -new feelings, and an altered scale of admiration wait upon its glories. Once more it uplifts its giant height beside the Rhine, repelling in Titan majesty the ambition of France: once more, by its united gifts of natural position and scientific aid, it appears prepared to vindicate its noble appellation of "the broad stone of honour." We cannot more appropriately illustrate the accompanying engraving from Mr. Turner's splendid view of this strong-hold of power, taken in the hour of its desolation, than by quoting Lord Byron's description of it : Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wall, |