The little ruin in the Rhine, between the town of Bingen and the castle of Ehrenfels, and known by the name of the Mouse-Tower, was originally a station for enforcing the toll on the river, and most likely erected by Archbishop Hatto, when he rendered the Bingerloch navigable by blowing up the masses of rock which obstructed the current.

The Bishop of Mentz was a wealthy prince,
Wealthy and proud was he:

He had all that was worth a wish on earth-
But he had not charitie!

He would stretch out his empty hands to bless,
Or lift them both to pray;

But, alack! to lighten man's distress
They moved no other way!

A famine came; but his heart was still

As hard as his pride was high;

And the starving poor but throng'd his door

To curse him and to die.

At length from the crowd rose a clamour so loud,

That a cruel plot laid he;

He open'd one of his granaries wide,
And bade them enter free!

In they rush'd-the maid and the sire,
And the child that could barely run-
Then he closed the barn, and set it on fire,
And burnt them every one!

And loud he laugh'd at each terrible shriek,
And cried to his archer-train,

The merry mice!-how shrill they squeak!
They are fond of the Bishop's grain!"

But mark what an awful judgment soon

On the cruel Bishop fell!

With so many mice his palace swarm'd
That in it he could not dwell.

They gnaw'd the arras above and beneath,
They eat each savoury dish up,

And shortly their sacrilegious teeth
Began to nibble the Bishop!

'One morning his skeleton there was seen,
By a load of flesh the lighter:

They had pick'd his bones uncommonly clean,
And eaten his very mitre !

Such was the end of the Bishop of Mentz :

And oft, at the midnight hour,

He comes in the shape of a fog so dense,

And sits on his old " Mouse-Tower."'-pp. 14, 15.

One of the longest of the legends is that which is designated by the title of The Brothers.' We cannot afford space for the verses, but the interesting circumstances of the tradition are worthy of being recorded, and to Mr. Planche we are indebted for the narrative:

THE BROTHERS.

Tradition informs us, that the two Castles of Liebenstein and Sternfels, or Sternberg, generally known by the name of "Die Bruder," (the Brothers,) were once the property of an old nobleman, who had two sons, and a beautiful ward, of whom the said sons were both desperately enamoured. The elder, however, perceiving that the young lady preferred his brother, nobly resigned his pretensions, and retired to Rhense, to avoid the sight of so dangerous an object. Before the marriage could take place, the banner of the Cross was raised at Frankfort, and the young intended bridegroom, catching the general flame, resolved on joinging the crusade and deferring his nuptials till his return from the Holy Land. Neither the prayers of his father, nor the tears of his love, had power to damp this pious but ungallant determination. He assembled his little troop, and joined the Emperor Conrad at Frankfort. Shortly after his departure, the old Burg-grave dying, the eldest son returned from Rhense to take possession of his share of the estate; and, far from making use of the advantage which his power, and the absence of his brother gave him, he scrupulously behaved to the young lady as to a beloved sister. Two years had scarcely elapsed, when the crusader arrived from Palestine, bringing with him a beautiful Grecian lady, to whom he was betrothed! Indignant at his perfidy, the elder brother sent him a fierce defiance, and a bloody combat would have ensued but for the tears and entreaties of the forsaken fair one, who took the veil in the noble Convent of Marienberg at Boppart, and saw the brothers no more. The falsehood of the crusader was punished by the frailty of his new love, and the conclusion of the legend may be gathered from the ballad. It is certain that two brothers, Henry Bayer Von Liebenstein, and Henry Bayer Von Boppart Von Sterrenberg, possessed these

castles about the middle of the fourteenth century. The dear fair one said to have been of the family of Bremser Von Rudesheim; and John 3d Bromser founded the Capuchin Convent of Bornhoffen, at the foot of the vine covered mountain on which the two burgs stand, with the unfortunate lady's estate.'-p. 21.

The above is followed by a tale of still deeper interest; it is named 'Genofeva,' and contains the record of an act of cruel injustice against an innocent woman, who gives an example of the greatest fortitude, and the most unbounded confidence in the protection of providence. A Count Palatine of the Rhine, after the fashion of the time, proceeded with the Christian host to the Holy Land. When he returned from his expedition, his wife, whom he left behind him, was represented to him by a set of traducers as having proved unfaithful during his absence. He hastily condemned her, and caused her to be immediately banished from his palace at Andernach :

:

The unfortunate Countess strayed into the neighbouring forests of Laach; there, by the side of the lake, she gave birth to a boy, and lived with her innocent offspring several years in the wilderness, unseen by man, and unharmed by the beasts of prey with which it was peopled. One day, as Count Siegfried was hunting, he came by accident to the very spot which his persecuted lady had chosen for her retreat. Struck by the manifest protection which Providence had afforded her and her child, he listened to her justification, and returned with her immediately to Andernach, where her innocence was proven, and the traitor Golo underwent the punishment he so richly deserved. After her death the Countess was canonized, and the legend of St. Genofeva has found its way into the language of every country.

'Tis in the woody vales of Laach the hunter's horn is wound,
And fairly flies the falcon, and deeply bays the hound;

But little recks Count Siegfried for hawk or quarry now:

A weight is on his noble heart, a gloom is on his brow.

Oh he hath driven from his home—he cannot from his mind,—

A lady-ah! the loveliest of all her lovely kind;

His wife his Genofeva!-and at the word of one,

The blackest traitor ever looked upon the blessed sun!

'He hath let the hunters hurry by, and turn'd his steed aside,

And ridden where the blue lake spreads its waters calm and wide;
And lo! beneath a linden tree, there sits a lady fair,

But like some salvage maiden clad, in sylvan pageant rare.

Her kirtle's of the dappled skin of the rapid mountain roe;
A quiver at her back she bears, beside her lies her bow;
Her feet are bare, her golden hair adown her shoulders streams,
And in her lap a rosy child is smiling in its dreams.

"

The courser's tramp hath startled her-she rises in dismay :
It is the pearl of price he flung in evil hour away!

His banish'd love, who long hath dwelt amid these valleys lone;
And the little blooming sleeper there—that infant is his own!

'Oh there was joy in Andernach upon that happy night;
The palace rung with revelry, the city blazed with light;
And when the morn her paler beams upon the turrets shed,
Above the Roman gate was seen the traitor Golo's head!'

The number of lays and legends contained in the book is twentyfive, all indeed far above mediocrity of execution, but certainly very attractive for their plots in most instances. The illustrations are as numerous as the poetical pieces, and all executed on stone, with a degree of effect which marks an extrordinary improvement in the art of lithography. Many of these plates are so exquisitely impressed, as that the scenes which they represent appear as if drawn and relieved solely by means of a pencil. The work in general reflects great credit on the imagination and taste, as well as industry, of Mr. Planche.

ART. XII.-Reflections upon Tithes, with a Plan for a general Commutation of the same. By GEORGE HENRY LAW, D.D. F.R.S. and F.A.S. Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. Wells: 8vo. Backhouse. 1832.

EXTRAORDINARY events have been, from the earliest ages, portended by extraordinary signs, and a consciousness that the same dependance exists to this moment, has forced us into the conviction that the extirpation of the tithe system is mysteriously shadowed forth in the pamphlet of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. His Grace has dedicated the small work to the members of the legislative body. He abstains from the hacknied phraseology of literary flatterers, and instead of praising those to whom he pays the compliment of inscribing his pages, for supposed services performed, he merely expresses a hope that they will discharge their duty with integrity. The terms of the dedication include these remarkable words With an anxious hope that, by the blessing of Almighty God, they may become the humble means of procuring for our clergy a less exceptionable mode of remuneration than that which they now receive by the payment of tithes.'

The bishop sets out with the declaration, that tithes are at present an objectionable and impolitic mode of providing for the clergy. We should like to know at what period, since the malversation of the tithe money, they were otherwise in the sight of VOL. I. (1833) No. I.

K

the God of all Justice? Had the tenth of the produce of the land of these realms been applied as it ought, and as it was once applied by conscientious men, to the support of an humble and a working clergy-to the foundation and the repair of churches for the due accommodation of the people-and, above all, to the providing of adequate sustenance for those who had none to help them,'-then would the tithes have been a sacred and a secure fund, instead of being, as it now is, and has for a long time been, a confiscation of the property of the industrious of the land, for the aggrandizement of the worthless and the idle.

'But,' says the bishop, it is due to the cause of truth and justice, to observe, that this circumstance has been in no degree occasioned by the members of our established church, but, on the contrary, is by none more deeply regretted than it is by them.' What circumstance, in the name of wonder, does the bishop allude to? Is it to the fact of the tithes being an objectionable and impolitic mode of provision? Why-who has made it objectionable-who has turned it into an impolitic tax?-who, but the clergy themselves, who have levied it as a consideration for spiritual services, which, in a great majority of instances, they never render?

It is wrong to allow a clergyman to imagine that he has a vested right in the funds produced by tithes. The very institution of the tax is founded upon the principle which is briefly expressed by the words, a quid pro quo: clergymen, it was intended by divine institution, should be supported only when they devoted to spiritual duties that time which should have been employed in procuring the means of supporting themselves. They who preach the gospel should live by the gospel, is the maxim of the illustrious Paul; and it follows as a corollary, that those clergymen who, instead of preaching the gospel, pursue the sports of the field, and glory in the appellation of fox-hunters, who never see the flock which they are set over as shepherds, it follows, we say, as a necessary consequence, that such clergymen are not entitled to the benefit of the remuneration which the institution of tithes was intended to establish. Here, we repeat, in these facts,-in the circumstances first of the malversation of the tithes, and next of the enjoyment of them by persons who have no title to such an emolument-here is the explanation of the existence of that universal feeling of repugnance to the continuance of the tithe system. The bishop tells us, that

The present system has been alleged to be unfair, inasmuch as the amount of the value of the tithes is far greater now, than it was at the time of their first institution. Since that period the produce has much increased from the increased expense of labour and cultivation. According, therefore, to the industry and capital expended on the soil, is the sum now received by the owner of the tithes :-a mode of payment which, as