The Yachts get under way towards Mainz and down the Rhine-stream.

The Yachts glide swiftly on the favoring current, taking advantage of what wind there may be: were we once ashore at Wesel in our own country,--wait till then, thinks his Majesty! And so it was on these terms that Friedrich made his first acquaintance with the beauties of the Rhine;--readers can judge whether he was in a temper very open to the picturesque.

I know not that they paused at Mainz, or recollected Barbarossa's World-Tournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the young man's Yacht dashing in swift gallop, not without danger, through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly on the boiling whirlpools of St.Goar, well threading the cliffs;--the young man gloomily insensible to danger of life, and charm of the picturesque.
Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and Ehrenbreitstein: Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the Crown-Prince life itself is fallen haggard and bankrupt.
Over against Coblenz, nestled in between the Rhine and the foot of Ehrenbreitstein, [Pollnitz, _Memoirs and Letters,_ iii.

180.] there, perhaps even now, in his Hunting Lodge of Kerlich yonder, is his Serene Highness the fat little Kurfurst of Trier, one of those Austrian Schonborns (Brother to him of Bamberg); upon whom why should we make a call?
We are due at Bonn; the fortunate young Kurfurst of Koln, richest Pluralist in the Church, expects us at his Residence there.

Friedrich Wilhelm views the fine Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein:--what would your Majesty think if this were to be yours in a hundred years; this and much else, by way of compound-interest for the Berg-and-Julich and other outstanding debts?
Courage, your Majesty!--On the fat little Kurfurst, at Kerlich here, we do not call: probably out hunting; "hunts every day," [Busching, _Beitrage,_ iv.