, not unpicturesque
character; to be distinguished almost as beautiful, in that region
of sand and moor. Lakes abound in it; tilled fields; heights called
"hills;" and wood of fair growth,--one reads of "beech-avenues" of "high
linden-avenues:"--a country rather of the ornamented sort, before the
Prince with his improvements settled there. Many lakes and lakelets in
it, as usual hereabouts; the loitering waters straggle, all over that
region, into meshes of lakes. Reinsberg itself, Village and Schloss,
stands on the edge of a pleasant Lake, last of a mesh of such: the
SUMMARY, or outfall, of which, already here a good strong brook or
stream, is called the RHEIN, Rhyn or Rein; and gives name to the little
place. We heard of the Rein at Ruppin: it is there counted as a kind of
river; still more, twenty miles farther down, where it falls into the
Havel, on its way to the Elbe. The waters, I think, are drab-colored,
not peat-brown: and here, at the source, or outfall from that mesh
of lakes, where Reinsberg is, the country seems to be about the
best;--sufficient, in picturesqueness and otherwise, to satisfy a
reasonable man.
The little Town is very old; but, till the Crown-Prince settled there,
had no peculiar vitality in it. I think there are now some potteries,
glass-manufactories: Friedrich Wilhelm, just while the Crown-Prince
was removing thither, settled a first Glass-work there; which took
good root, and rose to eminence in the crystal, Bohemian-crystal,
white-glass, cut-glass, and other commoner lines, in the Crown-Prince's
time. [_Bescheibung des Lutschlosses &c. zu Reinsberg_ (Berlin, 1788);
Author, a "Lieutenant Hennert," thoroughly acquainted with his subject.]
Reinsberg stands on the east or southeast side of its pretty Lake: Lake
is called "the GRINERICK SEE" (as all those remote Lakes have their
names); Mansion is between the Town and Lake. A Mansion fronting, we may
say, four ways; for it is of quadrangular form, with a wet moat from
the Lake begirdling it, and has a spacious court for interior: but the
principal entrance is from the Town side; for the rest, the Building is
ashlar on all sides, front and rear. Stands there, handsomely abutting
on the Lake with two Towers, a Tower at each angle, which it has on that
lakeward side; and looks, over Reinsberg, and its steeple rising amid
friendly umbrage which hides the house-tops, towards the rising sun.
Townward there is room for a spacious esplanade; and th
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