THE RHINE, LEGENDS, TRADITIONS, HISTORY, FROM COLOGNE TO MAINZ. BY JOSEPH SNOWE, Esq. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: F. C. WESTLEY, CHILD'S PLACE, TEMPLE BAR. J. MADDEN & CO. 8 LEADENHALL STREET. M.DCCC.XXXIX. ६.. PREFACE. 66 THE want of a work which should include all the legends, traditions, and history" of that most romantic and remarkable portion of the RHINE lying between COLOGNE and MAINZ, has been long felt by the European public. It is quite true that much has been written on these subjects, in various languages, and that a great deal has been done towards elucidating them in several forms: so far the subject is not a new one. But still it is no less true, that the wild and wondrous legends which appertain to each particular castle on that immortal river - the extraordinary traditions which attach themselves to almost every spot on its shores-the spirit-stirring histories connected with its cities, and towns, and hamlets, through the long period when it was, not alone the sole highway of central Europe, but the centre of European civilization, have never as yet been gathered together, nor given in any thing like an entire form and complete shape to the world. The present attempt is made, to supply, as far as possible, that desideratum in general literature. To those who have traversed the shores of this noble stream, and to those who intend to travel thither, it is believed that than this work there can be no more acceptable offering. It is presumed that it will revive in the minds of the one the dormant beauties of those glorious scenes over which they have heretofore wandered, and fix them more firmly in remembrance, by connecting them with the facts of history or the fictions of romance; while to the other, it is trusted that it will serve as a stimulant to quicken their apprehension of coming pleasure, by exciting their reason, their memory, and their imagination. Thus, the recollection of the past, and the anticipation of the future, will, it is fondly hoped, be blended by its means into one bright and harmonious whole. The various subjects, whether "legend, tradition, or history," treated of in the succeeding pages, have been derived from so many sources, oral as well as written, that merely to quote them would be to swell this preface beyond all reasonable limits ; and as it could serve no useful purposes, either to the scholar who, from the nature of his acquirements, must know the well-springs whence they have been drawn, without being under obligation |