man poetry under the name of Henry von
Frauenlob.

His death caused a universal sorrow among the fair sex of Mayence, who
gave his funeral such honours as were never before known.

The majority of the great procession which conducted his remains to the
tomb, which had been prepared in the cathedral, were women, "eight of
the most beautiful bearing a crown of roses, lilies, and myrtle." This
is a pretty enough sentiment, but it seems quite inexplicable to-day.
History records that the master-singer's favourite drink was the noble
wine of the Rhingau, and it is commonly supposed to have inspired many
of his beautiful songs.

Legend steps in and says that "the naves of the cathedral were inundated
by the libations which went on at this funeral ceremony."

A modern white marble monument, put into place in 1842, and replacing
one that had previously disappeared, stands as a memorial to the sweet
singer of the praises of women.

XVII

BACHARACH, BINGEN, AND RUDESHEIM

Bacharach is famous for its legends and its wine. With the former is
associated the ruins of St. Werner's Church, a fragment of exquisite
flamboyant Gothic, though built of what looks like a red sandstone. The
Swedes demolished it in the Thirty Years' War, but the lantern and the
eastern lancet window still remain to suggest its former great beauty.

This beautiful chapel was built as a memorial to the child Werner, whose
body was fabled to have been thrown by the Jews, his supposed murderers,
into the Rhine at Oberwesel. Instead of floating down-stream with the
current, it went up-stream as far as Bacharach, where it was recovered.

There is at Bacharach a twelfth-century church in the Byzantine style,
which is now a Protestant temple. It is an incongruous affair in spite
of the fact that the style is fairly pure of its kind, so far as the
body of the church is concerned. Surmounting it is a needle-like spire
which rises above the crenelated battlement of its tower in a most
fantastic manner.

[Illustration]

The city walls have great ornamental and picturesque qualities, and
were, in former days, defended by twelve towers of imposing strength.

The evolution of the name of Bacharach is decidedly non-Christian. It is
frankly pagan, being descended from _Bacchi ara_,--the altar of
Bacchus,--which was the name originally given to a rock in the midst of
the river, which, in varying seasons, is sometimes covered by the flood,
and again quite