Spiers: Memoranda of an autumn tour in 1836

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CONT. AUG. 27. SAT.

[new page] found suitors bold enough to release them from their durance cold. They must rest contented with the knowledge that they are still an object of curiosity if not of warning. -

Oberwesel's towers & walls & spires & Schonberg castle, are they not a picture. - And its old town & new towers & Liebfraukirche, whence issued sounds that would have attracted us if we had not even intended to enter its old gothic walls. But when a hundred voices were chaunting that well remembered & dearly beloved hymn of "Mercy, justice, now my tongue" who could refuse to join; with heart & voice did I add my bass notes thereto. It was a jour de fete & the church was half filled with boys & girls & a pretty sight it was. And "the sculptured porch, the arched cloisters, the altar screen, the perfection of elegance & delicacy in the florid style; & about the nave, tombs of knights in armour, and noble dames, single or hand-in-hand, and infants in swaddling clothes" - these & many others tho' pleasant to look at, were inferior as an object of delight to the senses, to the living picture.

And as if to complete our joy who should we meet on emerging from the church but our 2 German friends of Kapellen. We walked on happily together until the Pfaltz castle, and its attendant sister of romance, Gutenfels, arrested our steps. Our friends the Germans were either less romantic in their dispositions or they had not been favoured with the Journal of legends which render all these places so interesting. As they cared not to visit this castle of Pfaltz & wished to reach Mayence tonight we were compelled to part company most reluctantly.

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