Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/219

Rh which he swung himself very dexterously, and was again admired by us as a most worthy representative of Frederick the Second.

Now the curtain was for us once more let down. I had, indeed, tried to force my way into the church; but that place was more inconvenient than agreeable. The voters had withdrawn into the sanctum, where prolix ceremonies usurped the place of a deliberate consideration as to the election. After long delay, pressure, and bustle, the people at last heard the name of Joseph the Second, who was proclaimed King of Rome.

The thronging of strangers into the city became greater and greater. Everybody went about in his holiday clothes, so that at last none but dresses entirely of gold were found worthy of note. The emperor and king had already arrived at Heusenstamm, a castle of the Counts of Schönborn, and were there in the customary manner greeted and welcomed: but the city celebrated this important epoch by spiritual festivals of all the religions, by high masses and sermons; and, on the temporal side, by incessant firing of cannon as an accompaniment to the "Te Deums."

If all these public solemnities, from the beginning up to this point, had been regarded as a deliberate work of art, not much to find fault with would have been found. All was well prepared. The public scenes opened gradually, and went on increasing in importance; the men grew in number, the personages in dignity, their appurtenances, as well as themselves, in splendour,—and thus it advanced with every day, till at last even a well-prepared and firm eye became bewildered.

The entrance of the Elector of Mainz, which we have refused to describe more completely, was magnificent and imposing enough to suggest to the imagination of an eminent man the advent of a great prophesied world-ruler: even we were not a little