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CHAPTER III.
Muhlheim lies in the Duchy of Berg, the title of which,
after a long consolidation with Prussia, was revived by
Napoleon for a principality conferred upon Murat. The
former Duchy of Berg, which extended along the Rhine
from the Ruhr to the commencement of the territories of
the House of Nassau, has ever been famed for its richness
in minerals. Iron of the finest quality produced in Eu-
rope, lead, copper, zinc, and the precious metals, furnish
employment to the industrious inhabitants as miners and
founders still. To these pursuits manufactures of textile
wares have with considerable success been superadded.
The population is therefore more strictly manufacturing
than agricultural, and the agriculture of the Duchy of
Berg is too much modified by this mixture of occupations
to be of much interest to the farmer on a large scale.
We shall therefore continue our journey along the high
road to Essen, a town once governed by powerful Lady
Abbesses, with the double authority delegated imme-
diately from the Imperial crown and from the Church.
The convent of Essen dates from the ninth century, and,
according to tradition, occupies the site of the first Chris-
tian church erected in the district. The founder is named
Alfred, which indicates a Saxon origin, and an aqueduct
that imperfectly supplies the town with wτater is still
called Alfred’s “ brunnen.” The princely Abbess of
Essen had a seat and vote in the old Germanic diet, and
Agricultube on the bhine.
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nɪore than once have candidates for the vacant seat
called out their vassals, and asserted their clerical preten-
sions sword in hand. With the exception of the won-
derfully curious old church, the most curious in style and
form that we have met with, the town has now little that
attracts curiosity, but with its neighbourhood we enter
upon a different mode of landed tenure from all that pre-
vail upon the Lower Rhine. The powerful clerical foun-
dations of Westphalia and this neighbourhood were long
able to resist the touch of time that was incessantly
gnawing and leaving to moulder all the institutions that
surrounded them. Had not the convulsion occasioned by
the French invasion at once dispelled their glories, it is
impossible to say what antiquated forms of feudal tenure
might still exist in this nowr promising tract of country.
That the antiquated forms which the change made by the
French at once abolished, had lost all utility, was proved
by the fact that the feudal lords on that memorable
occasion were utterly unable to lend any vigour to the
tottering throne, and equally incapable of affording the
slightest protection to those whom they called their
subjects.
The old Minster of Essen bounds an open place ad-
joining the town, two other sides of which are surrounded
by irregular buildings that bear tokens of modernising
in various epochs, and not in the best taste. One of the
largest of these is devoted to the residences and bureaux
of the government officials, the legitimate heirs of the
old proprietors. The change, it is true, was made in the
style of that glorious monarch Henry VIII., of pious me-
mory, by a vote passed at a European congress, by which