Graffs Kinsky doubtless believed that they were benefiting their own souls, and doing their Maker laudable service.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, while the lordship of the manor yet remained in the hands of the Kokortzowas, a bouerman, or small landed proprietor, distinguished in the circle for his skill in agriculture, suddenly took it into his head to become a hermit, and fixed on the deserted rock as his place of residence. The gräfinn—for a female seems then to have exercised the authority of count, gave immediate attention to his wishes; and fitted up, at her own cost, such a cell as the pious bouerman described. There, for some years, dwelt Brother Constantine, telling his beads at stated periods, both by day and night, and living abundantly on the alms which the pious of all classes bestowed upon him. At his decease, an enthusiastic miller stepped forward to fill the vacancy, and Brother Wentzel, so long as the sands of life continued to run, was, to the good people of Birkstein, and the districts around, all that Brother Constantine had been. To him, in 1720, succeeded Brother Antony, or rather two brothers, Antony and Jacob, who dwelt in cheerful community one with another, praying before the same altar, and conversing during the hours of relaxation, but, in strict propriety, occupying separate cells in the rock. In 1735, however, Jacob died, when one Samuel Görner, a modelist, and perspective maker, took his place. Some ingenious representations of Mount Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, executed in wood by the hands of Brother Samuel, still remain, and are exhibited to the stranger with becoming pride. And last of all came a weaver, hight Müller, who at the age of twenty-two, devoted himself to a life of seclusion, and dwelt apart upon the rock up to the year 1785. At that time, the strong arm of power was stretched out, and hermits, as well as many communities of monks, disappeared. Yet Joseph, who seems to have been conscientiously attached to his calling and place of abode, was not driven into exile. Being appointed parish-clerk to the church of Birkstein, he continued to hold the office several years; and dying at an advanced age was, by his own desire, buried in a grave which he had dug out for himself in one of the cells on the rock. Such are the circumstances which have contributed to cast into the shade the ancient and warlike name of this curious piece of architecture, and to describe as a hermit's cell, what was, in point of fact, one of the strongest among the many and strong baronial castles with which Bohemia abounds.

The hermits have not sat in the seats of armed men so long, without leaving numerous traces of their sojourn behind them. Three or four caves are hollowed out in the rock, one of which contains a skull, a rosary, and a narrow stone bedstead, overlaid with moss. In another, besides the usual ornaments, such as crucifixes, &c., we found an image of Brother Antony Müller, arrayed in his brown robe and hood, with beads, a long gray beard, and bare feet, just as he is stated to have exhibited himself in the land of the living. A third cave, or cell, contains a representation of the same hermit's dead body, as it lay in state,—for to the rock the corpse was carried both for exhibition and interment; and finally, we have his grave,—a small heap of stones, with a stone cross erected over them, and an epitaph inscribed on the rock at his feet. I subjoin the original, and give, for the benefit of such as may not be acquainted with the German, a loose translation.