W. Kinsey diary, 1817.

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  • UPenn Ms. Coll. 919
  • Diary of an Englishman, possibly W. Kinsey of Bognor Regis, England. The first nine pages of the diary are written in pencil with the remainder in ink. The journal begins on 4 July 1817 as Kinsey embarks on his trip from London, England on his way to France. In the first few pages Kinsey mentions he is traveling with a companion named Henry. Kinsey includes detailed descriptions of all his destinations. He describes the streets in large cities and small villages, activities he observes, the people, and relevant historical events or anecdotal stories. Kinsey observes the evening ritual in Paris, as people pour out of their homes crowding every street, some being entertained by jugglers. He visits major museums, cathedrals, large cities, and small villages. Highlights of his travels in France include Rouen, St. Cloud, and Lyon. At the beginning of August, Kinsey enters Switzerland, where he spends a large portion of his journey. Kinsey takes a three-day guided tour from Geneva to Marigny. After this tour Kinsey gives the reader travel advice on guided tours. He describes the valleys, the mountains, lakes, and landscape of Switzerland. In the journal Kinsey has sewn in small cut out engravings of some of the mountain areas in Switzerland. Also sewn in the journal is a folded paper strip of hand drawn, colored coats of arms representing twenty-two cities in Switzerland. By 10 September 1817 Kinsey is touring Germany and talks of the Danube and the Rhine Rivers. He visits Manheim, Cologne, and Münster, among other cities. Throughout his travels Kinsey records the hotels and inns where he stayed and the prices. He writes of the bookshops he goes to and the books and maps he buys on the journey. Kinsey also records when he posts and receives mail. By early October 1817 Kinsey returns to England. The last four leaves of the volume contain a catalog of books he has purchased and the city. A plan for a trip to Holland follows the list. On the second-to-last leaf of the volume is a colored engraving with the words "S. Vulnera Jesu," Kinsey writes: "Given by the Capuchin monk at Staatz."

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    high remain unfinished & the one on the north side is not above 21 ft above the ground, while the other has reached only the half of

    chapels have been finished. Groups of columns of immense height seen to shoot up into the sky, like the lofty trees of some ancient Forest, & at their highest point they are surmounted by a crown of branches, which form, with the neighbouring groupes a vaulted roof, ending in a point, as it were, to which it is difficult to strain one's sight. The Columns in the nave of the Church abut upon a [?diety] composed of simple planks of wood. At this moment this boarded covering is under repair, the dry-rot having damaged the timber. In the Choir we found a beautiful black marble altar, with two modern statues of the Virgin & St. Peter. In the middle was a tabernacle, decorated with 7 Columns, the idea of wh: is taken from the 9: ch: [?out] of the Proverb of Solomon " - Wisdom has built a house, & has employed seven pillars &c." - These Columns. of white marble, are fluted, & adorned with capitals, cornices,[?] & tiles of Gold. The whole of thier whimisical structure is in wretched taste with the ancient Gothic, that surrounds it. The original grand altar, 60 ft high, of dark marble, with its tasteful ornaments & magnificient Candelabra, was destroyed in 1769 by the advice of some ignorant members of the great Chapter. The walls of the Choir are lined with tapestry, of wh: the designs were furnished by Rubens & executed by him on several large pictures. The 12 stone statues of the apostles, on the side of the Columns, are in good style. The painted windows are very worthy of attention. On the glass are represented, [?ing] a great crowd of finely executed figures, the arms of many of the ancient patrician nobles of the town. Behind the great Altar was one in the Ionic style, of marble, containing the relie[?f] of the Magi or three Kings. It was built by the Elector Maxmilian Joseph of Bavaria. After the capture, & entire destruction of Milan, Frederic 1st., of the house of Hohenstaufen, presented to Reinold, Archbishop of Cologne, who had accompanied him in the campaign, the bones & skulls of the three Magi, & by the Archbishop they were deposited in that Chapel about 1170. The ancient tombs of the 3. Kings, as well as those of the Martyrs, Nabor, & Gregory of Spolette, were plundered of their treasures during the Meno[h?] revolution. Many have since been recovered & replaced,

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    Agrippina, aggrandized the city by a Roman Colony thence- forward called "Colonia Agrippina". She was born in the town of the Ubü during the campaings of her Father Germanicus. It continued to be the Capital of Rhenish Gaul until the Franks called Ripuanï, made themselves masters of the country in 462. But few monuments however are found of there proud masters of the Universe. Until the occupation of the town by the French the town has always prospered in patri- cian families, & the magistrates were invested with the consular toga, accompanied by [illegible?]. A substenane- -ous aqueduct, the work of the Romans,runs from Cologne to Treves, the purpose of [illegible?]:has not yet been determined by antiquaries. The Emperor Constantine established at Cologne, a stone bridge over the Rhine, of which the piers are still seen when the water is low. Fortifications are now throwing up in its [illegible?] by the Prussions. The town comprises about 7400 houses, & 50,000 of population. The streets however are narrow, & [illegible?] to remain in the now offensive condition. Before its occupation by the French it had 12,000 mendicants, who had fixed [illigible?] for the exercise of their trade, which descended as an hereditary prof -fession, to their children. The language, the manners, & the physiognomy of the inhabitants attest their descent from a Colony of foreigners. The new square planted with Linden trees, the haymarket, & that called deten- -markt aer the best part of the town. We lodged at the St.Esprit, which is abreast with the river, & looks upon the Quay. But the most interesting object is the Dôme, or great Gothic Church which tho' not finished, may well be reckoned one of the most beautiful & superb specimens of that style of ar-chitecture. The Archbishop Engelbert de Berg formed the plan of this vast & magnificent edifice, & his successor Conrad de Hochsteden commenced its execution in 1248, and continued in the 1499. It's built in the form of a Cross, & the arches of the vaulted roof are retained by a quadruple row of 100 columns. The four grand columns of the centre are nearly 30 ft in circumference, & each of the hundred columns is crowned by a capital of some particular design. The two towers, of [illegible?] each was intended to be 500 ft high remain unfinished, & the one on the north side is [illegible?]above 21 ft above the ground, while the other reached only the half of its intended height. the Choir of the Church however with its chapels, have been finished. Groupes of columns of imme-

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    The inhabitants have rich collection of Roman antiquities. The grand Electoral Palace, [illegible?] gate of which we en- -tered the town at its right extremity, built of white free-stone. Made a beautiful picture by moonlight. Formerly there was here an excellent school of necessity, & the celebrated Bethhoven, Salomon & several other great musicians learn the first principles of that divine art in this place. We found our hotel, the Star, excellent, & certainly the quality of the viands, & the clean state of our apartments did not lose by being contrasted with the filthy & miserable condition of our Auberge at Coblence. We observed that we were better off huddled & penned togetheras we were at the hospital on the Gremiel, than at the three rooms in Coblence. I have observed that the French money (Napoleons, & Franks) is by far the most servi- -ceable for the traveller in Germany, for it is easy to bring your accompts from the German Florins, [illegible?] into French money, by which you lose nothing. By many pieces of Germany money, the currency of smaller kingdoms you will lose something, & any worthy Landlord at Cob- -lence in changing me a double Napoleon into German money, for the road, availed himself of my inexperience to pass upon me as six frank pieces, the crown of the Empire, six-dollars, & the second in rank, as three frank pieces, from everyone of which is paying for ar- -ticles on the road a deduction has been made, & in the aggregated amounting to between three, & four French Franks. "Hic niger est, hunc tu Romane cavet."

    Bill at Hotel 8 Fr/ travelling} 23 d}per Port [illegible?] to Cologne --32 [illegible?] At G.A:m:we continued our route to Cologne through a country by no means interesting, a distance of about 4.L. This town was once the most flourishing in Germany. It extends itself on the left bank of the river for about 1.League in a semicircular form from the tower of Bayenthurme to that of Thürmchen. However its origin from an intrenched camp of the Romans, which Marcus Agrippa established on the ridge, which extends from Mt. St. Mergen to that of Mariengradenberg. On that spot was built the Capital town of the Ubü, who had lived on the right bank of the Rhine & were carried over to the left bank under Agrippa. The Emperor Claudian, to gratify his wife,

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    of monuments to the glory of these conquerors of the world. They were discovered in 1768, when the Elector, Charles Theodor established the route between Coblence & Bonn. The anitiquities found prove that the Emperors Marcus Aurelius, & Lucius Verus established a military way here. We had already seen them in the grand Ducal palace at Manheim. The situation of this village is char- ming, & the view of the Rhine. In short the road for some [illegible?] to Bonn is by far the most picturesque & romantic part of the country bordering on the Rhine. On either side the high rocks are exceedingly bold. It is at Königswinter on the opposite side of the Rhine, & nearly vis à vis Mehlem, thrû the latter of wh: [which] our route lay, that properly speaking the valley of the Rhine terminates, which had commenced at Bingen. The moun- -tains now begin to fall back on both banks of the Rhine, & its bed becomes imperceptibly larger, & longer until it has swelled into an immense breadth of water. Near the [illegible?] is situated teh Roderberg, one of the most interesting of the [illegible?] of the Bas Rhine, but which has ceased to throw out fire long since. On the Mt: Godesberg not far from here are the superb ruins of an ancient Roman fort & probably in former times the "Ara Ubiconem". It is said that the name of this mountain comes from an ancient temple of Wodan or Mercury on its summit, but with more probability from the German word Goding, wh: [which] signified tribunal of Justice & one was held here in the middle age. Not far from Bonn we passed on our right, a beautiful cross called Hochkreuz, in the Gothic style, constructed by the Archbishop, Waliam de Guilliers in 1330. We reached Bonn late but the brightness of the full moon rendered all the objects as dis- tinctly visible, as at noon-day. We found a Prussian Ge- -neral Hock in the town on our approach, & a couple of Lancers. Their horn musci was playing in the great square opposite our inn, adorned with the Hotel de Ville, & a Fountain, with a Pyramid. Bonn, the fourth town onthe banks of the Rhine once the residence fo an Elector of Germany, was in earlier times a colony of the Ubü. Tacitus, & Florus, make men- -tion of the place, as Bonna, & Bonnensia castra. The great church was built by the mother of Constantine, & the town was encompassed with a wall in 1240. The town is not large, but certainly has an agreeable appearance. The inhabitants have rich collection of Roman antiquities. The grand Electoral Palace, thru a gate of which we en-

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    & watered by the stream of the [illegible?] we had the town of Coblence, standing on the banks of the river, & two [illegible?] each possessing a convent. Behind the town to the left were the remains of the Chartreuse, crowning a height, adorned with vineyards, & orchards [illegible?] the plain before us were spread more than thrity villages & every point of the circle presented some new & interesting beauty to the eye. The principal part of the commerce at Coblence consists in transporting the merchandise of the Rhine up the Moselle or vice versa. The Moselle takes its [illegible?] in the Mt. Vosges & begins to be navigable at Metz. The view from the bridge at Coblence is beautiful. The tomb of the brave F. General Marceau, who perished at Altenkirchen in covering the retreat of Jourdan,

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