took the taper and beckoned me to follow. We went first back through the great vault, then through a number of smaller ones, till our path came to an end in a narrow passage. Our steps echoed weirdly in the hollow way, and our very breath as it struck on the walls sounded like distant whisperings. At last we stood before a door, the keys rattled, with a groan the hinge opened, and the light of the candles streamed into the vault. Opposite me sat friend Bacchus on a mighty cask of wine: not slender and delicate like a Grecian youth had the cunning old wood carvers of Bremen made him; no, nor a drunken old sot with goggle eyes and hanging tongue, as vulgar mythology now and then blasphemously represents him (scandalous anthropomorphism I call it!). Because some of his priests, grown grey in his service, have gone about like that; because their bodies may have swelled full of good humour, and their noses been coloured by the burning reflection of the dark red flood; because their eyes may have become fixed through being constantly turned upwards in silent rapture,--are we to ascribe to the god the qualities of his servants? The men of Bremen thought differently. How cheerily and gaily the old boy rides on his cask: the round blooming face, the little bright eyes that looked down so wisely and yet so mockingly, the wide laughing mouth that has been the grave of so many a cask, the whole body overflowing with comfortable good living. It was his arms and legs, however, that specially delighted me. I almost expected to see him snap his chubby fingers, and hear his voice sing out a gay hurrah! Why, he looked as if at any moment he might jump off his seat and trundle his cask round the cellar, till the Rose and the Apostles joined in the merry dance, and chased each other round whooping. 'Merciful powers,' cried the cellarmaster, clinging tightly to me, 'I saw his eye roll and his feet move!' 'Peace, you old fool!' said I, feeling however rather queer, and looking anxiously at the wine god; 'it's only the dancing reflection of your taper. Well, we'll go on to the Apostle cellar, the samples will taste better there.' But as I followed the old man out of Bacchus' private room, I looked round, and the figure certainly seemed to nod his little head, and stretch out his legs, and give a shake as if from an inward giggle. One ascends from Bacchus to a smaller vault, the subterranean celestial firmament I called it, the seat of blessedness, where dwell the twelve mighty casks, each called after an apostle. What funeral vault of a royal race can compare with such a catacomb as this? Pile coffin on coffin, trim the everlasting lamps that burn before the ashes of the mighty dead, let black-on-white marble speak in epigrammatic phrase the virtues of the departed: take your garrulous cicerone with his crape-trimmed hat and cloak, listen to his praises of Prince This, who fell at the battle of That, and of Princess Tother on whose tomb the virgin myrtle is intertwined with the half-opened rosebud; see and drink in all the associations of such a place; but will it move you like this? Here sleeps, and has slept for a century, the noblest race of all. Dark-brown their coffins, and all unadorned--no tinsel, no lying epitaphs, simply their names inscribed on each in large plain letters, as I could see when the old fellow placed the taper on them. ANDREW, JOHN, JUDAS, PETER, and here on the right PAUL, on the left JAMES, good James. Paul is Nierstein of 1718, and James Rüdesheim, ye gods! Rüdesheim of 1726!

Ask not of their virtues; no one has any right to ask: like dark-red gold their blood sparkles in my glass; when it was first ripened on the hills of St. John it was pale and blonde, but a century has coloured it. What a bouquet! quite beyond the power of words to express. Take all the scents from all the flowers and trees, and all the spices of Araby and Ind, fill the cool cellar with ambergris, and let the amber itself be dissolved into fumes--and the result will be but poor and scentless compared to the liquid sunshine of Bingen and Laubenheim, of Nierenstein and Johannisberg. 'Why do you shake your head?' said I to my companion at last; 'you've no reason to be ashamed of these old fellows here. Come, fill your glass and here's good luck to the whole Twelve of them!'

'Heaven forbid that I should do anything of the kind,' he replied; 'it's an uncanny toast and an uncanny night for it. Taste them, sir, and let's pass on, I shiver in their presence.' 'Good-night, then, gentlemen--remember that I am everywhere and for ever at your service, most noble Lords of the Rhine.' 'Surely,' said the old fellow, 'those few drops haven't made you so drunk that you would raise the whole crew of sprites already? If you talk like that again I shall be off, though I should get the sack for it: I tell you that on this night the spirits imprisoned in these casks rise and hold infernal carnival here in this very spot, aye, and other spirits besides! I wouldn't be here after twelve o'clock for worlds.' 'Well, I'll be quiet, you old driveller, if you'll only take me on to my Lady Rose's apartment itself.' At last we reached it, the little garden of the queen of flowers. There she lay in all her majestic girth, the biggest cask I ever saw in my life, and every glass worth a golden guinea. Frau Rosa was born in 1615. Ah, where are the hands that planted her parent vine? where are the eyes that watched the ripening clusters? where the sun-browned feet that hurried to the festival when she was pressed in the sunny Rheingau, and streamed a pale gold rivulet into the vat? Like the waves of the stream that lapped the base of her cradle, they are gone no one knows whither. And where are their High-Mightinesses of the Hansa, who ruled when the Hansa was a League indeed, those worthy senators of Bremen who brought the blushing maiden to this cool grot for the edification of their grandchildren? Gone too--with two centuries over their heads, and we can only pour wine on their tombs.

Good luck to you, departed High-Mightinesses, and good luck to your living representatives, who have so courteously extended such hospitality to a Southerner! 'And goodnight to you, my Lady Rose,' added the old servant more kindly. 'Come along, sir, we can get out this way without going back, mind you don't stumble over the casks.' 'My good man, you don't imagine I'm going away, do you?' I replied. 'I have only just begun my night. Bring me some of that special '22, two or three bottles, into that big room behind there. I saw that wine growing green and saw it pressed, and now I'm going to prove to my palate that we can still grow something worth drinking.' The old boy expostulated, entreated, threatened, swore nothing should induce him to stay;--who wanted him to stay? Swore he daredn't leave me here;--did he think I was going to carry off Frau Rosa in my arms? Finally he agreed to let me remain if he might padlock me into the big room, and come at six o'clock tomorrow to wake me and receive his reward. Then, with a heavy heart, he put three bottles of the '22 on the table, wiped the glass, poured me out a little, and wished me good-night, double-locking and padlocking the door behind me, more apparently out of tender anxiety for me than out of fear for his cellar. The clock struck half-past eleven as I heard him say a prayer and hurry away. When he shut the outer door of the vaults at the top of the stairs, there was an echo like the thunder of cannons through the halls and passages.

So now I was alone keeping Retreat with my soul down in the bosom of the earth. Slumber above me and slumber around me, for the spirits of the dead are asleep by my side. I wonder if they dream of their brief childhood on the distant mountains, and the nightly lullabys sung to them by old Father Rhine; or the kisses of their tender mother the sun when they first opened their eyes in the bright spring air, of their first leafy garments which reflected themselves in their old Father's eyes.

Ah! my soul, I too have rosy days