OPPENHEIM.

This is the first town of the Palatinate, on arriving from the north; and it bears marks of the devastation, inflicted upon that country, in the last century, more flagrant than could be expected, when the length of the intervening time, and the complete recovery of other cities from similar disasters, are considered. Louis the Fourteenth's fury has converted it from a populous city into little more than a picturesque ruin. It was burned in 1668; and the walls, which remain in double, or sometimes in treble circles, are more visible, at a distance, than the streets, which have been thinly erected within them. Above all, is the Landscroon, or crown of the country, a castle erected on an eminence, which commands the Rhine, and dignifies the view from it, for several miles. The whole city, or rather ruin, stands on a brow, over this majestic river.

The gates do not now open directly into streets, but into lanes of stone walls between vineyards and gardens, formed on the site of houses, never restored, since the fire. The town itself has shrunk from its antient limits into a few streets in the centre. In some of the interstices, corn grows up to the walls of the present houses. In others the ruins of former buildings remain, which the owners have not been tempted to remove, for the sake of cultivating their sites. Of the cathedral, said to have been once the finest on the Rhine, nearly all the walls and the tower still exist; but these are the only remains of grandeur in a city, which seems entirely incapable of overcoming in this century the wretchedness it inherits from the last.

Had the walls been as strong as they are extensive, this place might not improbably have endured a siege in the present age, having been several times lost and regained. It was surrendered to the French, without a contest, in the campaign of 1792. After their retreat from Worms, and during the siege of Mentz, it was occupied by the Prussians; and, in December 1793, when the allies retired from Alsace, the Duke of Brunswick established his head-quarters in it, for the purpose of covering the fortress. His army ovens remained near the northern gate, in July 1794, when we passed through it. In October of the same year it fell again into the hands of the French.

No city on the banks of the Rhine is so well seated for affording a view of it as this, which, to the north, overlooks all its windings as far as Mentz, and, southward, commands them towards Worms. The river is also here of a noble breadth and force, beating so vehemently against the watermills, moored near the side, that they seem likely to be borne away with the current. A city might be built on the site of Oppenheim, which should faintly rival the castle of Goodesberg, in the richness, though not in the sublimity of its prospect.

From hence the road leads through a fertile country of corn and vines, but at a greater distance from the river, to Worms, five or six miles from which it becomes broad, straight, and bordered with regularly-planted trees, that form an avenue to the city. Soon after leaving Oppenheim, we had the first symptom of an approach to the immediate theatre of the war, meeting a waggon, loaded with wounded soldiers. On this road, there was a long train of carriages, taking stores to some military depôt. The defacement of the Elector's arms, on posts near the road, shewed also, that the country had been lately occupied by the French; as the delay in cutting the ripe corn did, that there was little expectation of their return.