rent, in this loveliest time of the
year.

In those days, when steamboats were not, such a voyage was slow, and not
seldom in a high degree tedious. With such a company the want of speed
was a consideration of no importance, and the memory of this journey was
in after years among Beethoven's brightest. Those who know the Rhine and
the Main can easily conceive that this should be so. The route embraced
the whole extent of the famous highlands of the former river, from
the Drachenfels and Rolandseek to the heights of the Niederwald above
Ruedesheim, and that lovely section of the latter which divides the hills
of the Odenwald from those of Spessart. The voyagers passed a thousand
points of local and historic interest. The old castles--among them
Stolzenfels and the Brothers--looked down upon them from their rocky
heights, as long afterwards upon the American, Paul Flemming, when he
journeyed, sick at heart, along the Rhine, toward ancient Heidelberg.
Quaint old cities--Andernach, with "the Christ," Coblentz, home of
Beethoven's mother, Boppard, Bacharach, Bingen--welcomed them; Mainz,
the Electoral city, and Frankfurt, seat of the Empire. And still beyond,
on the banks of the Main, Offenbach, Hanau, Aschaffenburg, and so onward
to Wertheim, where they left the Main and ascended the small river
Tauber to their place of destination.

Among the places at which they landed and made merry upon the journey
was the Niederwald. Here King Lux advanced Beethoven to a more honorable
position in his court, and gave him a diploma, dated from the heights
above Ruedesheim, attesting his appointment to the new dignity. To this
important document was attached, by threads ravelled from a boat-sail,
a huge seal of pitch, pressed into a small box-cover, which gave
the instrument a right imposing look,--like the Golden Bull in the
Roemer-Saal at Frankfurt. This diploma from His Comic Majesty Beethoven
carried with him to Vienna, where Wegeler saw it several years afterward
carefully preserved.

At Aschaffenburg, the summer residence of the Electors of Mainz, Ries,
Simrock, and the two Rombergs took Beethoven with them to call upon the
great pianist, Sterkel. The master received the young men kindly, and
gratified them with a specimen of his powers. His style was in the
highest degree graceful and pleasing,--as Father Ries described it to
Wegeler, "somewhat lady-like." While he played, Beethoven stood by,
listening with the most eager atten