colours; and at this moment I can fancy that even that circumstance gives a sweeter effect to the scene, though I have never wished to expel the crimson garments, or the blue, from any landscape." Here let me observe that grey clothing--the pastoral garb of _our_ mountains--does, when it is found on the banks of the Rhine, only look well at a certain distance. It seems not to be worn from choice, but poverty; and in this day's journey we have met with crowds of people whose dress was accordant with the appearance close at hand of their crumbling houses and fortifications. _Bingen, Tuesday, July 25th._--Most delightful to the imagination was our journey of yesterday, still tempting to hope and expectation! Yet wherever we passed through a village or small town the veil of romance was withdrawn, and we were compelled to think of human distress and poverty--their causes how various in a country where Nature has been so bountiful--and, even when removed from the immediate presence of painful objects, there is one melancholy thought which will attend the traveller along the ever-winding course of the Rhine--the thought that of those buildings, so lavishly scattered on the ridges of the heights or lurking in sheltering corners, many _have_ perished, all _are_ perishing, and _will entirely_ perish! Buildings that link together the Past and the Present--times of war and depredation, of piracy, of voyages by stealth and in fear, of superstitious ceremonies, of monastic life, of quiet, and of retreat from persecution! Yet some of the strongest of the fortresses may, for aught I know, endure as long as the rocks on which they have been reared, deserted as they are, and never more be tenanted by pirate, lord, or vassal. The parish churches are in bad repair, and many ruinous.... _Mayence._--I thought of some thriving friar of old times; but last night,[42] in reading Chaucer's Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_, mine host of the _Tabard_ recalled to my memory our merry master in the dining-room at Mayence. [Footnote 42: This was when writing out her Journal, begun two months after her return to Rydal Mount.--ED.] A seemly man our Hoste was with alle To han bene a Marshal in an Halle; A large man he was--bold of his speech.