476 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 233. 



werth on the Rhine, forms the very pith of the 

 German local legend. From certain coincidences, 

 however, it was easy to blend the two stories to- 

 gether into one, as was done by Mrs. Hemans. 

 As to Schiller, we may suppose that he either fol- 

 lowed altogether a different legend, or, perhaps to 

 avoid misconception, substituted another name for 

 that of knight Roland, similar to what he has 

 done in other instances. R. R. 



Canterbury. 



I think your correspondent X. Y. Z. is mistaken 

 in attributing to Mrs. Hemans the lines on the 

 " Brave Roland." In Mr. Campbell's Poems he 

 will find some stanzas which bear a striking re- 

 semblance to those he has quoted. I subjoin 

 those stanzas to which X. Y. Z. has referred : 



" The brave Roland ! the brave Roland ! 

 False tidings reach'd the Rhenish strand 



That he had fall'n in fight ; 

 And thy faithful bosom swoon'd with pain, 

 O loveliest maiden of Allemayne ! 



For the loss of thine own true knight. 

 " But why so rash has she ta'en the veil, 

 In yon Nonnenwerder's cloisters pale, 



For her vow had scarce been sworn, 

 And the fatal mantle o'er her flung, 

 When the Drachenfels to a trumpet rung, 



'Twas her own dear warrior's horn ! 



** She died ! he sought the battle plain ; 

 Her image fill'd his dying brain, 



When he fell and wish'd to fall : 

 And her name was in his latest sigh, 

 When Roland, the flower of chivalry, 



Expired at Roncevall. " 



X. Y. Z. seems also to have forgotten what 

 Mr. Campbell duly records, viz. that Roland used 

 to station himself at a window overlooking " the 

 nun's green isle ; " it being after her decease that 

 he met his death at Roncevall, which event, by 

 the way, is alluded to by Sir W. Scott in Mar- 

 mion, canto vi. : 



" Oh, for a blast of that dread horn, 

 On Fontarahian echoes borne, 



That to King Charles did come ; 

 When Roland hrave, and Olivier, 

 And every paladin and peer, 



At Roncesvalles died ! " 



H. B. F. 



The legends of Roland, the nephew of Charle- 

 magne, are very numerous and vary much from 

 each other. The Orlando of Pulci has a very 

 different history from the Orlando of Bojardo and 

 Ariosto. 



The legend of "Rolandseck and the Nonnen- 

 werth," which has been adopted by Campbell, not 

 Mrs. Hemans, and charmingly set to music by 

 Mrs. Arkwright, is well known on the Rhine. 

 There are two poems on the legend in Simrock's 



Iihemsagen (12mo., Bonn, 1841), one by the 

 editor, and another by August Kopisch. They 

 exactly accord with Campbell's poem. 



The legend of Ritter Toggenburg resembles 

 that of Roland in many particulars, but it is not 

 the same, and it belongs to another locality, to 

 Kloster Fischingen, and not to Xonnenwerth. 

 " Roland the Brave " appears in all the later 

 editions of Campbell's Poems. Simrock's Rhein- 

 sagen is one of the most delightful handbooks that 

 any one can take through the romantic region 

 which the poems (partly well selected by the 

 editor, and partly as well written by himself) de- 

 scribe. E. C. H. 



The author of the beautiful lines which are 

 quoted by your correspondent X. Y. Z., is Camp- 

 bell, not Mrs. Hemans. The poet, in the fifth 

 stanza of his ballad, tells how the unfortunate 

 Roland, on finding that Hildegund had taken the 

 veil, was accustomed to sit at his window, and 

 " sad and oft " to look " on the mansion of his 

 love below." 



" There's yet one window of that pile, 

 Which he built above the nun's green isle ; 



Thence sad and oft look'd he 

 (When the chant and organ sounded slow) 

 On the mansion of his love below, 



For herself he might not see. 

 " She died ! He sought the battle plain, 

 Her image fill'd his dying brain, 



When he fell and wish'd to fall ; 

 And her name was in his latest sigh, 

 When Roland, the flower of chivalry, 



Expired at Roncevall." 



F. M. MlDDLETON. 



Scott has, in Marmion, — 



" When Roland brave, and Olivier, 

 And every paladin and peer, 

 At Roncesvalles died!" 



I quote from memory, and have not the poem. 



F. C. B. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



Recovery of Silver. — As many correspondents of 

 " N. & Q." have asked how to recover the silver from 

 their nitrate baths when deteriorated or spoiled, 

 perhaps the following hints may be acceptable to 

 them. Let them first precipitate the silver in the 

 form of a chloride by adding common salt to the 

 nitrate solution. Let them then filter it, and it may 

 be reduced to its metallic state by either of the three 

 following methods. 



1. Bv adding to the wet chloride at least double its 

 volume of water, containing one-tenth part of sul- 

 phuric acid ; plunge into this a thick piece of zinc, 

 and leave it here for four-and-twenty hours. The 

 chloride of silver will be reduced by the formation of 



