ART. VI.—THE PALATINATE: A Historico-Geographical Sketch. Among the states that formed part of the German empire, the Palatinate became celebrated by the fertility of its soil and the active industry of its inhabitants. Though of small extent, when compared to other more powerful principalities, and having its territories scattered in separate parts among intervenient states, it nevertheless sustained its rank as the first of the secular electorates, and exercised an important influence on the political vicissitudes of Germany during the Reformation. The Palatinate, by its situation on the frontiers of Lorraine, formed the bulwark of the empire against France, and became repeatedly exposed to devastating invasions during the wars of the seventeenth century. Yet it slowly recovered from those disasters, and is at the present day one of the wealthiest and most productive provinces of the German Confederacy.

From the times of the middle ages until the outbreak of the thirty years war in 1620, it consisted of two separate provinces-the Upper and Lower Palatinate. The former, the Oberpfalz or the Palatinate of Bavaria, was composed of the eastern parts of the medieval province of the Nordgau, formerly belonging to the fendal dominions of the imperial dynasty of the Hohenstaufen, which became alienated on the death of Conradin of Swabia, the last descendant of that family, in 1268.

It was bounded on the north by Bayreuth; on the west by the territory of Nürnberg and part of Swabia; on the south by Bavaria, and on the east by Bohemia, from which it was separated by the Hercynian range or Böhmerwald. Its valleys, sloping down toward the large Frankonian plain, are irrigated by numerous rivers that descend in va ious directions from the Bohemian Range; of these, the

Maine runs in northwestern direction toward the Rhine, the Nab and Regen turn southward and fall in the Danube. It is very hilly, and was formerly considered as a barren coun. try, whose chief wealth consisted in forests and pastures; its iron mines were productive, and the silver mines of Amberg afforded the elector a yearly revenue of 60,000 crowns, yet it did not raise sufficient corn for the consumption of the inhabitants. Since the union with Bavaria, it forms part of the two circles of the Upper Maine and the Regen, and is in a high state of cultivation and improvement. In 1807 its area was 2,730 square miles, with a population of 284,000 souls.

When the traveler descends from the Bohemian mountains into the valleys of the Palatinate, he feels delighted at the rich variety of the scenery, the neat towns and villages embosomed in what appears to him to be vineyards, but in reality proves to be immense plantations of hops, and when he arrives at the frontier station of Mähring, the red bloated faces of the Bavarian gendarmes and custom-officers, who cunningly scrutinize his passports and baggage, give him the fullest evidence that he has arrived in the homestead of the bock. The Oberpfälzers are a tall, stout and active people, who make a pleasant impression when compared to their wretched neighbors, the Bohemians. Their dark, expressive eye, black hair and moustache, the round velvet jacket and steeple-crowned hat, adorned with a nosegay, presents the appearance of Tyrolians, while their neatly dressed women offer the hospitality of the cottage in that hearty, broad dialect, which at once reminds you that you are a welcome guest in bonny Bavaria. The ancient Oberpfalz was divided into bailiwics (ämter), and enclosed several seigniories and counties-such as those of Murdach and Cham, on the Bohemian frontier, and the Landgraviate of Leuchtenberg, which in our day was given as a duchy to the stepson of Napoleon I, Eugene Beauharnais, by the king of Bavaria. Amberg, on the river Vils, celebrated by its iron mines, was the capitol of Oberfalz, though the electors during their visits generally re

sided at the neighboring monastery of Castel. Neuburg, on the river Selwarzach, gave title to the second branch of the Palatine House, the counts of Pfalz-Neuburg, who in 1600 became dukes of Gülich-Cleve-Berg on the Rhine, and started the first hostilities between the Reformed and Catholle Confederacies. Other thriving cities were Auerbach. Tirschenreut, Neustadt and Nabburg. In the castle of Trausnitz, near Leuchtenberg, the archduke Frederic, the Handsome, was imprisoned after the battle of Ampfin zen in 1812, and there he became reconciled to the gener eus emperor. Lewis the Bavarian.

Different was the character of the smaller but more im

portant province, the Lower Palatinate (Unterpfalz). It was also called the Electoral Palatinate (Churpfalz), or the Palatinate on the Rhine (Pfalz am Rheine, or Rheinpfalz,) and was situated on both banks of the Rhine. The area of Rheinpfalz Proper was about 1600 square miles, with a population above 300.000 souls, and extended from the Odenwald on the east, across the Rhine to the western slope of the Vosges in Lorraine. It was bounded on the north by the electorate of Treves and the county of Katzenelnbogen, on the east by the electorate of Mayence and the duchy of Würtemberg, on the south by the margraviate of Baden and Alsace, and on the east by the duchy of Lorraine. Its frontiers had no regular outline, several of its domains being situated within the neighboring territories or on the Upper Rhine, while it enclosed within its own limits the bishoprics of Worms and Spire, belonging to the electorate of Mayence and the independent seigniories of Reipholzkirchen, Munchweiler and others.

Churpfalz was divided into eight bailiwies (Oberämter), five of which lay on the eastern bank of the Rhine. These were Heidelberg, on the Neckar, Ladenburg, between Neckar and Rhine, Lindenfels among the hills of the Odenwald, Mosbach, with the district of Bretten, on the eastern border, and Boxberg, inclosed in the electorate of Mayence.

The other three bailiwics on the western banks of the Rhine, were Alzey, with the counties and seigniorories of

Leiningen, Frankenstein, Kirchheim, Arnheim and others; Kaiserlautern, southward, with the seigniory of Landstubl; and Germersheim on the Rhine.

On the southwest of the Palatinate was situated the county and afterwards duchy of Zweibrücken, which in 1390 became the patrimony and title of a younger house of the Counts Palatine. These princes were by the Latin writers of that age called Principes Bipontani, and by the French, princes of Deuxponts. It was divided into five bailiwics: Zweibrücken, Bergzab, Gutenberg, Lichtenberg, and Selz, the latter on the Rhine in Alsace. Enclosed in the electorate of Treves lay the county of Veldenz on the banks of the Moselle, and on the north the principality of Simmern, with the bailiwies of Stromberg, Ingelheim, and Biberach on the right bank of the Rhine. Between these provinces lay the county of Sponheim.

The older residence of the electors was Heidelberg on the left bank of the Neckar. Its situation is one of the most picturesque in Germany, and its marble palace, on the hill above the city, was the admiration of the world, until it was ruthlessly despoiled and burnt by the French marauders in 1689. The celebrated Library of the University of Heidelberg had already had a similar fate in 1622, when Count Tilly, the general of the Catholic league, expelled the professors and students, and sent some three thousand of its precious manuscripts as a present to Pope Gregory XV., in Rome.

At the union of the Neckar with the Rhine, emigrants from the Netherlands built in 1606 the city of Manheim, which, though plundered by the Spaniards in 1622, and totally destroyed by the French in 1688, was rebuilt by the elector Frederic William in 1699, and became in 1720 the residence of Charles Philipp and his successors, and the most beautiful and thriving city in the Palatinate. The monastery Frankenthal, opposite to Manheim, on the left bank of the Rhine, was turned into a fortress by the Hollanders, who from its battlements heroically repelled the attacks of General Cordova and his Spaniards in 1622,

Other pleasant cities on the banks of the Rhine, were

Biberack, celebrated for its wines; Caub, in the Rhinegau, near the castle of Pfalz, the earliest seat of the Counts Palatine, and Ingelheim, the favorite residence of Charlemagne. At Germersheim died Rudolph of Habsburg, in 1293, and on the plain of Göllheim, at the base of the Donnersberg, his son, Albrecht of Austria, won the bloody diadem against Adolph of Nassau, who fell in the battle in 1298. The strong castle of Trives, in the high range of the Vosges, west of Landau, was the prison of Richard the Lion-hearted, on his return from the crusade in 1193, and at the fortress of Landstuhl, between Zweibrüken and Kaiserslautern, fell the last knight of feudal Germany, Francis of Sickingen, in 1523, in his vain attempt to defend his rocky strong-hold against the regular army and newly invented artillery of his sovereign.

The valleys of the Rhine, Neckar and Nahe, and the fertile slopes of the Vosges, of which the highest summit, the Donnersburg, has an elevation of twenty thousand and eighty-eight feet, are well cultivated, and present the most charming views to the traveller, by the picturesque variety of forest-clad mountains, everywhere crowned with the ru ins of medieval fortresses, and sloping vineyards or luxuriant plains, intersected by rivulets or canals, and dotted with numerous towns and villages. The wines of Ingelheim, Neustadt, Türkheim, Kreuznach, Oppenheim and Selz are among the best and most abundant of Germany. The almond, the chestnut, and various fruit trees; all kinds of grain, hemp, flax, and the most useful plants, grow here luxuriantly, and diffuse wealth and plenty over the land. It is particularly on the celebrated Bergstrasse, or mountain road leading from Frankfurt to Heidelberg, that the traveller discovers the remarkable difference in manners and superior cultivation of the Rheinpfälzers, when compared to the Bavarian Oberpfälzers or to the other German states north of the Maine. The beautiful high road, shaded by rows of fruit trees, runs along the base of the Odenwald range, through an almost uninterrupted succession of towns, villages and country seats; the white washed