The robbers of the Rhine were not content with building depôts for stolen, or rather plundered goods, on every eminence, and levying “black mail” on every kind of land carriage; but they invaded “the free navigation of the Rhine,” as some of their descendants now do. A rock on the river whereon to erect a toll-bar was a great treasure in days of yore. The quadrupeds of the mouse-tower were much less voracious and graminivorous, than the bipeds of the same. The latter might not perhaps have nibbled at the body of a bishop, but they took good care to shear his flocks, in their transit up and down the Rhine. Nearly opposite CAUB we pass close to an object which looks like a dwarf castle, sailing up the stream on the back of a whale. This was a very convenient edifice for the Rhenish palatines of the adjacent castle of _Stahlee_. It served the purpose of a custom-house, to collect the “rint,” and a prison to secure the refractory:—in other words, it performed the double function of dungeon and douane. One of the involuntary tenants of this narrow crib, was the own and the only daughter of Conrad, the palatine himself, whose name was Agnes. The lady had been betrothed, with her parents’ and her own consent, to Henry Duke of Brunswick; but a king having offered his hand, Conrad commanded her to change her affections, and set them on a higher rank than that of a duke. Agnes demurred in her own breast, though not openly; for affection, like faith or belief, will not come or go at our own bidding—much less at that of another. In the temporary absence of the father, Agnes, with the consent and privity of her mother, was privately married to the duke. When Conrad learnt this, he ordered his daughter to the Pfalz, till the marriage could be dissolved. Meantime it soon became evident that certain proofs of prior attachment on the part of Agnes, would be too unequivocal to escape the notice of the regal suitor, if the marriage were annulled; and Conrad, after a double confinement of Agnes in the Rhine prison, became reconciled to the duke—and all ended happily. * * * * * Passing BACHARACH and the “ARA BACCHI,” which shews its propitious face in fertile vintages, we soon come to LORCH, where we have a legend that must not be passed unnoticed. TEMPTATION, OR THE HALL OF A HUNDRED MIRRORS. (_Legend the Eighth._)