the building itself. We say of the reader, for we profess to write only for the amusement-fortunate shall we be if instruction may be added-of our own countrymen: should others be pleased to read these crude pages, we shall be flattered and of course grateful; but with this distinct avowal of our object in holding the pen, we trust they will read with the necessary amount of indulgence.

And here we shall take occasion to hold one moment's communion with that portion of the reading public of all nations, that, as respects a writer, com poses what is termed the world. Let it not be said of us, because we make frequent reference to opinions and circumstances as they exist in our native land, that we are profoundly ignorant of the existence of all others. We make these references, crime though it be in hostile eyes, because they best answer our end in writing at all, because they allude to a state of society most familiar to our own minds, and because we believe that great use has hitherto been made of the same things, to foster ignorance and prejudice. Should we unheedingly betray the foible of national vanity-that foul and peculiar blot of American character! we solicit forgiveness; urging, in our own justification, the aptitude of a young country for falling insensibly into the vein of imitation, and praying the critical observer to overlook any blunders in this way, if perchance we should not manifest that felicity of execution which is the fruit only of great practice. Hitherto we believe that our modesty cannot justly be impeached. As yet we have left the cardinal virtues to mankind in the gross, never, to our knowledge, having written of " American courage;"

or

"American honesty," nor yet of "American beauty," nor haply of "American manliness," nor even of "American strength of arm," as qualities abstracted and not common to our fellow-creatures;

out have been content, in the unsophisticated language of this western clime, to call virtue, virtue— and vice, vice. In this we well know how much we have fallen short of numberless but nameless classical writers of our own time, though we do not think we are greatly losers by the forbearance, because we have sufficient proof that when we wish to make our pages unpleasant to the foreigner, we can effect that object by much less imposing allusions to national merits; since we have good reason to believe, there exists a certain querulous class of readers who consider even the most delicate and reserved commendations of this western world, as so much praise unreasonably and dishonestly abstracted from themselves. As for that knot in our own fair country, who aim at success by flattering the stranger, and who hope to shine in their own little orbits by means of borrowed light, we commit them to the correction of a reproof which is certain to come, and, in their cases, to come embittered by the consciousness of its being merited by a servility as degrading as it is unnatural. As they dive deeper into the secrets of the human heart, they will learn there is a healthful feeling that cannot be repulsed with impunity, and that as none are so respected as they who fearlessly and frankly maintain their rights, so none are so contemned as those who ignobly desert them.

During the time that Berchthold was holding converse with Meta, on the mountain of the Heidenmauer, Emich of Leiningen was at rest in his castle of Hartenburg. It has already been said, that the hold was of massive masonry, the principal material being the reddish sand-stone, that is so abundantly found in nearly the whole region of the ancient Palatinate. The building had grown with time, and that which had originally been a tower had swelled into a formidable and extensive fortress. In the

H

ages which succeeded the empire of Charlemagne he who could rear one of these strong places, and maintain it in opposition to his neighbors, became noble, and in some measure a sovereign. He established his will as law for the contiguous territory, and they who could not enjoy their own lands, without subinitting to his pleasure, were content to purchase protection by admitting their vassalage. No sooner was one of these local lords firmly estabished in his hold, by receiving service and homage from the husbandmen, than he began to quarrel with his nearest neighbor of his own condition. The victor necessarily grew more powerful by his conquests, until, from being the master of one castle and one village, he became in process of time the master of many. In this manner did minor barons swell into power and sovereignty, even mighty potentates tracing their genealogical and political trees into roots of this wild growth. There still stands on an abrupt and narrow ledge of land, in the confederation of Switzerland and in the Canton of Argovie, a tottering ruin, that, in past ages, was occupied by a knight, who from his aerie overlooked the adjoining village, and commanded the services of its handful of boors. This ruined castle was called Hapsbourg, and is celebrated as the cradle of that powerful family which has long sat upon the throne of the Cæsars, and which now rules so much of Germany and Upper Italy. The King of Prussia traces his line to the House of Hohenzollern, the offspring of another castle; and number less are the instances in which he who thus laid the corner-stone of a strong place, in ages when security was only to be had by good walls, also laid the foundation of a long line of prosperous and puissant princes.

Neither the position of the castle of Hartenburg, however, nor the period in which it was founded,

.

was likely to lead to results great as these just named. As has been said, it commanded a pass important for local purposes, but not of so much moment as to give him who held the hold any material rights beyond its immediate influence. Still, as the family of Leiningen was numerous, and had other branches and other possessions in more favored portions of Germany, Count Emich was far from being a mere mountain chief. The feudal system had become methodized long before his birth, and the laws of the Empire secured to him many villages and towns on the plain, as the successor of those who had obtained them in more remote ages. He had recently claimed even a higher dignity, and wider territories, as the heir of a deceased kinsman; but in this attempt to increase his power, and to elevate his rank, he had been thwarted by a decision of his peers. It was to this abortive assumption of dignity, that he owed the soubriquet of the Summer Landgrave; for such was the rank he had claimed, and the period for which he had been permitted to bear it.

With this knowledge of the power of their family, the reader will not be surprised to hear that the castle of the Counts of Hartenburg, or, to be more accurate, of the Counts of Hartenburg-Leiningen, was on a commensurate scale. Perched on the advanced spur of the mountain, just where the valley was most confined, and at a point where the little river made a short bend, the pass beneath lay quite at the mercy of the archer on its battlements. In the fore-ground, all that part of the edifice which came into the view was military, and, in some slight degree, fitted to the imperfect use that was then made of artillery; while in the rear arose that maze of courts, chapels, towers, gates, portcullises, staterooms, offices, and family apartments, that marked the usages and tastes of the day. The hamlet which lay in the dell, immediately beneath the walls of the

salient towers, or bastions, for they partook of both characters, was insignificant, and of little account in estimating the wealth and resources of the feudal lord. These came principally from Deurckheim, and the fertile plains beyond, though the forest was not without its value, in a country in which the ax had so long been used.

We have said that Emich of Leiningen was taking his rest in the hold of Hartenburg. Let the reader imagine a massive building, in the centre of the confused pile we have mentioned, rudely fashioned to meet the wants of the domestic economy of that age, and he will get a nearer view of the interior. The walls were wainscoted, and had much uncouth and massive carving; the halls were large and gloomy, loaded with armor, and at this moment pregnant with armed men; the saloons of the medium size which suited a baronial state, and all the appliances of that mingled taste in which comfort and luxury, as now understood, were unknown, but which was not without a portion of the effect that is produced by an exhibition of heavy magnificence. With few but signal exceptions, Germany, even at this hour, is not a country remarkable for the elegancies of domestic life. Its very palaces are of simple decoration, its luxuries of a homebred and inartificial kind, and its taste is rarely superior, and indeed not always equal, to our own. There is still

a shade of the Gothic in the habits and opinions of this constant people, who seem to cultivate the subtie refinements of the mind, in preference to the more obvious and material enjoyments which address themselves to the senses.

Quaint and complicated ornaments, wrought by the patient industry of a race proverbial for this description of ingenuity; swords, daggers, morions, cuirasses, and all sorts of defensive armor then in use; such needle-work, as it befitted a noble dame