_9th._ We quitted Coblentz at about eight o'clock in the morning, in the midst of a thick fog, which in a short time cleared away, and afforded us a most magnificent spectacle; for it came rolling down the hills on each bank of the river like immense waves, through which the sunbeams broke in from every side, till it was at last quite dispersed, and unveiled to our view the numberless little towns and villages on the banks, leaving the Rhine glittering in the rays of the sun, like a stream of burnished gold, rushing along between its dark and rocky mountains. We changed horses at Boppart, and from thence drove on to St. Goar, where Sir Humphry has determined to stop till to-morrow. After dinner he took a ride along the banks of the river, followed by his servant. In the mean while I strolled up the hills, and amused myself by sketching the old ruins of the castle of Rheinfels, and the river below me in the distance. On our return, Sir Humphry told me that he had decided to include Heidelberg in his route, which he had not at first intended to do, passing through Mayence and Mannheim, so that I shall in a day or two again see my home. After having read the "Old English Baron" to Sir Humphry, we retired for the night; he to rest, and I to my chamber, where I could not but admire the scene around me. It was a beautiful starry night, and the lofty rocks opposite my window rose as it were from the rolling river beneath, awful and gigantic amid the shades of night, till their dark outlines, mingling with the more distant mountains, were lost in the clear sky. Every sound in the village was hushed, and it seemed as if even the air itself was lulled to rest by the stillness of night.
"All Heaven and Earth are still--though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-- All Heaven and Earth are still: from the high host Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast, All is concenter'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defence."
_10th._ Our drive this morning from St. Goar to Bingen was cold and rainy, and the Lurley rocks, and the wild and rugged banks of the Rhine between St. Goar and Oberwesel, looked more than usually dreary, the few vines and the little vegetation that appear upon them in summer not having yet begun to shoot. We quitted the banks of the Rhine at Bingen, and struck across the country through a fine rich plain stretching almost as far as the eye can reach, and every here and there diversified by low hills, to Mayence. Ingelheim, one of the numerous residences of Charlemagne, and where that monarch once had a magnificent palace, is now a little insignificant borough, and the palace with its hundred columns from Rome or Ravenna, has vanished, or nearly so, for the slight remains that are still standing, shew but little of former grandeur.