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HINTS of OCCURRENCES , &c.

of art; where fimplicity prevails in the one, the awful majedy of the other is proportionably foftened; where tre-mendous rocks form the natural fcene, the afpiring archite£t has exhibited the bolded features of his work, andchallenges his portion of admiration.

My next undertaking was the city of St. Goar, reprefented in the twelfth plate: the nature of the fubjeft, andthe great fatisfa&ion I had experienced during my day there, inclined me to be particularly attentive to the exe-cution of it. This city, which is the capital of Lower Heffe, was one of the places devoted by Louis the four-teenth to dedru&ion: it was accordingly inveded in December 1692, by the French army under the commandof field-marfhal Tallard, who was dangeroudy wounded in the attack; and obliged to retire with great precipita-tion, after lofing feveral thoufand men, and a confiderable part of his artillery.

It is pleafantly fituated on the margin of the river, at the foot of an immenfe rock which is almod perpendicu-lar, and approaches fo near to the dream, that the houfes, which are in general, handfome, are built in hangingdreets; many very convenient habitations being formed in the deeped parts of the rock itfelf. The accefs to theupper dreets is attended with fome inconvenience to the inhabitants; but when feated in their houfes, nothingcan exceed the beauty of the profpe< 5 t; the country round being cultivated with great indudry, and the rocks richlycovered with vines, planted in afcendant terraces, as in the Rhinegau. The inhabitants themfelves are lively, butthe town is indebted for a great part of its gaiety to the garrifon of Rhinfels. The extreme rapidity of the Rhine,both above and below St. Goar, occafions a great fcarcity of fifh: the want of this luxury doth not feem, however,to be much felt, nor indeed the enjoyment of it to be much underdood ; for what they do preferve, is eaten cold,and frequently without any fauce.

After having taken thefe feveral views at St. Goar, (the mod romantic fituation I have ever feen,) we embark-ed in a padage-boat on the Rhine, in qued of other pifturefque objects. We had ten or a dozen perfons on board :fome pading to villages at a little didance; others going for pleafure, forty or fifty miles, and returning the nextday. In pading down the river, they may be faid to be on parties of pleafure: but in their return, they are drawnby horfes clofe to the fhore, and againd the dream, which is fometimes ftrong and rapid.

One of the company fpoke French, with whom we entered into converfation; a privilege we generally lod onthe Rhine, by our unacquaintance with the German language. This circumdance the candid reader will bear inmind, if our orthography of German names diould not always be corredl, and if we fhould be thought cautious ofhazarding opinions on cudoms and occurrences which we might not fully comprehend.

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