MENTZ, a considerable town of Germany, in the circle of the Lower Rhine, and capital of the late electorate of the same name, is situated on the Rhine near its confluence with the Maine, 20 miles north-west of Worms, 15 west of Francfort, and 75 east of Triers, in E. Long. 8. 20. N. Lat. 40. 51. This city claims a right to the invention of the art of printing: (see History of PRINTING). Here is a very beautiful quay along the river, defended by several works well fortified with cannon. That part of the city which extends towards the river is most populous. The best vineyards for Rhenish wine being in this neighbourhood, Mentz has a flourishing trade in that commodity more particularly; and its commerce is the brisker, by reason that all the merchandise which passes up and down the Rhine stops in its harbour to change bottoms.
The northern part of the city, in which the archbishop resides, is full of very regular buildings. Here are three regular streets, called the Bierchen, which run parallel to each other from the banks of the Rhine to 600 yards within the city, and are cut almost regularly by very pretty cross streets. The archbishop's palace has a most commanding view of these streets, the Rhine, and the Rhinegau. There are also some good buildings in the old part of the city. The market of beasts is extremely well worth seeing; and you here and there meet with other agreeable spots. The market in the middle of the town, though not regular, is one of the prettiest places in Germany. The cathedral is well worth notice. It is an immense large old Gothic building, the spire of which was struck with lightning many years ago, and entirely laid in ashes. As it contained much wood, it burned 14 hours before it was entirely consumed. To prevent these accidents for the future, the chapter had the present one built to the same height in stone, an undertaking which cost them 40,000 guilders or 4000l. It is a great pity (Baron Riesbeck observes) that it is overloaded with small ornaments: and a still greater, that this wonderful edifice is so choked up with shops and houses as to be hardly more than half visible. As, however, houses and shops are very dear in this part of the town, one cannot be very angry with the chapter for choosing rather to make the most of its ground, than to show off the church to the best advantage. The rent of a shop and a single room to live in is 150 guilders or 15l. per annum in this part of the town. There is hardly another church in Germany of the height and length of this cathedral; and the inside of it is decorated with several magnificent monuments of princes and other great personages. Besides the cathedral, the city of Mentz contains several other churches in the modern style, very well worth seeing. St Peter's, and the Jesuits church, though both too much loaded with ornament, are among this number. The church of the Augustins, of which the inhabitants of Mentz are so proud, is a masterpiece of bad taste; but that of Ignatius, though little is said about it, would be a model of the antique, if here likewise there had not been too much ornament lavished. Upon the whole, the palaces of the noblesse want that noble
simplicity which alone constitutes true beauty and magnificence. In another century the externals of the city will be quite changed. The late prince built a great deal, and the present has a taste for the same sort of expence. The monks and governors of hospitals also have been forced to rebuild their houses; so that when a few more streets are made broader and straighter, the whole will have no bad appearance. The inhabitants, who together with the garrison amount to 30,000, are a good kind of people, and, like all the catholics of Germany, make great account of a good table. Their faces are interesting, and they are not deficient either in wit or activity.
There are few cities in Germany besides Vienna which contain so rich and numerous a nobility as this does: there are some houses here which have estates of 100,000 guilders, or 10,000l. a-year. The counts of Bassenheim, Schonborn, Stadion, Ingelheim, Elz, Osten, and Walderdorf, and the lords of Dahlberg, Breitenbach, with some others, have incomes of from 30,000 to 100,000 guilders. Sixteen or eighteen houses have from 15,000 to 30,000 guilders annual revenue. The nobility of this place are said to be some of the oldest and most untainted in Germany. There are amongst them many persons of extraordinary merit, who join uncommon knowledge to all the duties of active life. Upon the whole, they are far superior to the greater part of the German nobility. Their education, however, is still too stiff. The first minister of the court was refused admittance into their assemblies for not being sufficiently noble; and they think they degrade themselves by keeping company with bourgeois.
The clergy of this place are the richest in Germany. A canonry brings in 3500 Rhenish guilders in a moderate year. The canonry of the provost brings him in 40,000 guilders a-years; and each of the deaneries is worth 2600 guilders. The income of the chapter altogether amounts to 300,000 guilders. Though it is forbidden by the canons of the church for any one to have more than a single prebend, there is not an ecclesiastic in this place who has not three or four; so that there is hardly a man amongst them who has not at least 8000 guilders a-year. The last provost, a count of Elz, had prebends enough to procure him an income of 75,000 guilders. Exclusive of the cathedral, there are several other choirs in which the canons bring in from 1200 to 1500 guilders a-year. To give an idea of the riches of the monasteries of this place, Baron Riesbeck informs us, that at the destruction of the Jesuits, their wine, which was reckoned to sell extremely cheap, produced 120,000 rixdollars. A little while ago the elector abolished one Carthusian convent and two nunneries, in the holy cellars of which there was found wine for at least 500,000 rixdollars. "Notwithstanding this great wealth (continues our author), there is not a more regular clergy in all Germany. There is no diocese, in which the regulations made by the council of Trent have been more strictly adhered to than they have here; the archbishops having made a particular point of it both at the time of the reformation and ever since. One thing which greatly contributes to keep up discipline is the not suffering any priest to remain in the country who
who has not fixed and stated duties, and a revenue annexed to them. Most of the irregularities in Bavaria, Austria, and other countries, arise from abbés who are obliged to subsist by their daily industry and any masses which they can pick up. These creatures are entirely unknown here. The theological tenets of this court are also much purer than those of any other ecclesiastical prince in Germany. I was pleased to see the Bible in the hands of so many common people, especially in the country. I was told that the reading of it was not forbidden in any part of the diocese; only persons were enjoined not to read it through, without the advice of their confessors. For a long time superstition has been hunted through its utmost recesses; and though it is not quite possible to get entirely clear of pilgrimages and wonder-working images, you will meet with no priest bold enough to exercise or to preach such nonsense as we hear in the pulpits of other German churches."
Though the trade of this place has been constantly on the increase for these 18 or 20 years past, yet it is by no means what it ought to be from the situation and other advantages. The persons here who call themselves merchants, and who make any considerable figure, are in fact only brokers. A few toy-shops, five or six druggists, and four or five manufacturers of tobacco, are all that can possibly be called traders. There is not a banker in the whole town; and yet this country enjoys the staple privilege, and commands by means of the Maine, Necker, and Rhine, all the exports and imports of Alsatia, the Palatinate, Franconia, and a part of Suabia and Hesse, as far as the Netherlands. The port too is constantly filled with ships, but few of them contain any merchandise belonging to the inhabitants of the place. The French took it by surprise in October 1792; it surrendered to the king of Prussia in 1793; but the French again got possession of it in October 1797; and it continued united to the French empire till 1814, when it passed into the hands of the allies. It now forms a part of Germany.