ds round among banks that do not yet
fulfil the promise of the Rhine; but they increase in interest as you
leave Surdt and Godorf. The peculiar character of the river does not,
however, really appear, until by degrees the Seven Mountains, and "THE
CASTLED CRAG OF DRACHENFELS" above them all, break upon the eye. Around
Nieder Cassel and Rheidt the vines lie thick and clustering; and, by the
shore, you see from place to place the islands stretching their green
length along, and breaking the exulting tide. Village rises upon
village, and viewed from the distance as you sail, the pastoral errors
that enamoured us of the village life crowd thick and fast upon us.
So still do these hamlets seem, so sheltered from the passions of the
world,--as if the passions were not like winds, only felt where they
breathe, and invisible save by their effects! Leaping into the broad
bosom of the Rhine come many a stream and rivulet upon either side.
Spire upon spire rises and sinks as you sail on. Mountain and city,
the solitary island, the castled steep, like the dreams of ambition,
suddenly appear, proudly swell, and dimly fade away.

"You begin now," said Trevylyan, "to understand the character of
the German literature. The Rhine is an emblem of its luxuriance, its
fertility, its romance. The best commentary to the German genius is a
visit to the German scenery. The mighty gloom of the Hartz, the feudal
towers that look over vines and deep valleys on the legendary Rhine;
the gigantic remains of antique power, profusely scattered over plain,
mount, and forest; the thousand mixed recollections that hallow the
ground; the stately Roman, the stalwart Goth, the chivalry of the feudal
age, and the dim brotherhood of the ideal world, have here alike their
record and their remembrance. And over such scenes wanders the young
German student. Instead of the pomp and luxury of the English traveller,
the thousand devices to cheat the way, he has but his volume in his
hand, his knapsack at his back. From such scenes he draws and hives
all that various store which after years ripen to invention. Hence
the florid mixture of the German muse,--the classic, the romantic, the
contemplative, the philosophic, and the superstitious; each the result
of actual meditation over different scenes; each the produce of separate
but confused recollections. As the Rhine flows, so flows the national
genius, by mountain and valley, the wildest solitude, the sudden spires