[A]
From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.
From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.
[B]
This was written about 1848. The population of Munich is now (1914), 595,000. Munich is rated as third in importance among German cities.
This was written about 1848. The population of Munich is now (1914), 595,000. Munich is rated as third in importance among German cities.
BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN
In ancient times—that is to say, upward of three centuries ago—the city of Augsburg was probably the most populous and consequential in the kingdom of Bavaria. It was the principal residence of the noblesse, and the great mart of commerce. Dukes, barons, nobles of every rank and degree, became domiciled here. A thousand blue and white flags streamed from the tops of castellated mansions, and fluttered along the then almost impregnable ramparts. It was also not less remarkable for the number and splendor of its religious establishments. Here was a cathedral, containing twenty-four chapels; and an abbey or monastery (of Saints Ulric and Afra) which had no rival in Bavaria for the size of its structure and the wealth of its possessions. This latter contained a Library, both of MSS. and printed books, of which the recent work of Braun has luckily preserved a record; and which, but for such record, would have been unknown to after ages. The treasures of this library are now entirely dispersed; and Munich, the capital of Bavaria, is the grand repository of them. Augsburg, in the first instance, was enriched by the dilapidations of numerous monasteries; especially upon the suppression of the order of the Jesuits. The paintings, books, and relics, of every description, of such monasteries as were in the immediate vicinity of this city, were taken away to adorn the town hall, churches, capitals and libraries. Of this collection (of which no inconsiderable portion, both for number and intrinsic value, came from the neighboring monastery of Eichstadt), there has of course been a pruning; and many flowers have been transplanted to Munich.
The principal church, at the end of the Maximilian Street, is that which once formed the chief ornament of the famous Abbey of Sts. Ulric and Afra. I should think that there is no portion of the present building older than the fourteenth century; while it is evident that the upper part of the tower is of the middle of the sixteenth. It has a nearly globular or mosque-shaped termination—so common in the greater number of the Bavarian churches. It is frequented by congregations both of the Catholic and Protestant persuasion; and it was highly gratifying to see, as I saw, human beings assembled under the same roof, equally occupied in their different forms of adoration, in doing homage to their common Creator.
Augsburg was once distinguished for great learning and piety, as well as for political consequence; and she boasts of a very splendid martyrological roll. At the present day, all is comparatively dull and quiet; but you can not fail to be struck with the magnificence of many of the houses, and the air of importance hence given to the streets; while the paintings upon the outer walls add much to the splendid effect of the whole. The population of Augsburg is supposed to amount to about thirty thousand. In the time of Maximilian and Charles V. it was, I make no doubt, twice as numerous.[B]
[A]
From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Taur," published in 1821.
From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Taur," published in 1821.
[B]
Augsburg has now (1914) a population of 102,000. Woolen and cotton goods and machinery are its manufactured products.
Augsburg has now (1914) a population of 102,000. Woolen and cotton goods and machinery are its manufactured products.
BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN
It was dark when we entered Ratisbon, and, having been recommended to the Hotel of the Agneau Blanc, we drove thither, and alighted—close to the very banks of the Danube—and heard the roar of its rapid stream, turning several mills, close, as it were, to our very ears. The master of the hotel, whose name is Cramer, and who talked French very readily, received us with peculiar courtesy; and, on demanding the best situated room in the house, we were conducted on the second floor, to a chamber which had been occupied, only two or three days before, by the Emperor of Austria himself, on his way to Aix-la-Chapelle. The next morning was a morning of wonder to us. Our sitting-room, which was a very lantern, from the number of windows, gave us a view of the rushing stream of the Danube, of a portion of the bridge over it, of some beautifully undulating and vine-covered hills, in the distance, on the opposite side—and, lower down the stream, of the town walls and water-mills, of which latter we had heard the stunning sounds on our arrival. The whole had a singularly novel and pleasing appearance.
The Town Hall was large and imposing; but the Cathedral, surrounded by booths—it being fair-time—was, of course, the great object of my attention. In short, I saw enough within an hour to convince me that I was visiting a large, curious, and well-peopled town; replete with antiquities, and including several of the time of the Romans, to whom it was necessarily a very important station. Ratisbon is said to contain a population of about 20,000 souls.[B]
The cathedral can boast of little antiquity. It is almost a building of yesterday; yet it is large, richly ornamented on the outside, especially on the west, between the towers—and is considered one of the noblest structures of the kind in Bavaria. The interior wants that decisive effect which simplicity produces. It is too much broken into parts, and covered with monuments of a very heterogeneous description. Near it I traced the cloisters of an old convent or monastery of some kind, now demolished, which could not be less than five hundred years old. The streets of Ratisbon are generally picturesque, as well from their undulating forms, as from the antiquity of a great number of the houses. The modern parts of the town are handsome, and there is a pleasant intermixture of trees and grass plats in some of these more recent portions. There are some pleasing public walks, after the English fashion; and a public garden, where a colossal sphinx, erected by the late philosopher Gleichen, has a very imposing appearance. Here is also an obelisk erected to the memory of Gleichen himself, the founder of these gardens; and a monument to the memory of Kepler, the astronomer; which latter was luckily spared in the assault of this town by the French in 1809.
But these are, comparatively, every-day objects. A much more interesting source of observation, to my mind, were the very few existing relics of the once celebrated monastery of St. Emmeram—and a great portion of the remains of another old monastery, called St. James—which latter may indeed be designated the College of the Jacobites; as the few members who inhabit it were the followers of the house and fortunes of the Pretender, James Stuart. The Monastery or Abbey of St. Emmeram was one of the most celebrated throughout Europe; and I suspect that its library, both of MSS. and printed books, was among the principal causes of its celebrity. Of all interesting objects of architectural antiquity in Ratisbon, none struck me so forcibly—and, indeed, none is in itself so curious and singular—as the Monastery of St. James. The front of that portion of it, connected with the church, should seem to be of an extremely remote antiquity. It is the ornaments, or style of architecture, which give it this character of antiquity. The ornaments, which are on each side of the doorway, or porch, are quite extraordinary.
[A]
From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour," published in 1821.
From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour," published in 1821.
[B]
Ratisbon has now (1914) a population of 53,000. Its manufactured products consist chiefly of pottery and lead pencils.
Ratisbon has now (1914) a population of 53,000. Its manufactured products consist chiefly of pottery and lead pencils.
BY THEOPHILE GAUTIER
The train spins along across great plains gilded by the setting sun; soon night comes, and with it, sleep. At stations remote from one another, German voices shout German names; I do not recognize them by the sound, and look for them in vain upon the map. Magnificent great station buildings are shown up by gaslight in the midst of surrounding darkness, then disappear. We pass Hanover and Minden; the train keeps on its way; and morning dawns.
On either side stretched a peat-moss, upon which the mist was producing a singular mirage. We seemed to be upon a causeway traversing an immense lake whose waves crept up gently, dying in transparent folds along the edge of the embankment. Here and there a group of trees or a cottage, emerging like an island, completed the illusion, for such it was. A sheet of bluish mist, floating a little above the ground and curling up along its upper surface under the rays of the sun, caused this aqueous phantasmagoria, resembling the Fata Morgana of Sicily. In vain did my geographical knowledge protest, disconcerted, against this inland sea, which no map of Prussia indicates; my eyes would not give it up, and later in the day, when the sun, rising higher, had dried up this imaginary lake, they required the presence of a boat to make them admit that any body of water could be real.
Suddenly upon the left were massed the trees of a great park; Tritons and Nereids appeared, dabbling in the basin of a fountain; there was a dome and a circle of columns rising above extensive buildings; and this was Potsdam....
A few moments later we were in Berlin, and a fiacre set me down at the hotel. One of the keenest pleasures of a traveler is that first drive through a hitherto unknown city, destroying or confirming his preconceived idea of it. All that is peculiar and characteristic seizes upon the yet virgin eye, whose perceptive power is never more clear.
My idea of Berlin had been drawn in great measure from Hoffman's fantastic stories. In spite of myself, a Berlin, strange and grotesque, peopled with Aulic councillors, sandmen, Kreislers, archivist Lindursts, and student Anselms, had reared itself within my brain, amid a fog of tobacco-smoke; and there before me was a city regularly built, stately, with wide streets, extensive public grounds, and imposing edifices of a style half-English, half-German, and modern to the last degree.
As we drove along I glanced down into those cellars, with steps so polished, so slippery, so well-soaped, that one might slide in as into the den of an ant-lion—to see if I might not discover Hoffman himself seated on a tun, his feet crossed upon the bowl of his gigantic pipe, and surrounded by a tangle of grotesque chimeras, as he is represented in the vignette of the French translation of his stories; and, to tell the truth, there was nothing of the kind in these subterranean shops whose proprietors were just opening their doors! The cats, of benignant aspect, rolled no phosphorescent eyeballs, like the cat Murr in the story, and they seemed quite incapable of writing their memoirs, or of deciphering a score of Richard Wagner's.
These handsome stately houses, which are like palaces, with their columns and pediments and architraves, are built of brick for the most part, for stone seems rare in Berlin; but the brick is covered with cement or tinted stucco, to simulate hewn stone; deceitful seams indicate imaginary layers, and the illusion would be complete, were it not that in spots the winter frosts have detached the cement, revealing the red shades of the baked clay. The necessity of painting the whole façade, in order to mask the nature of the material, gives the effect of enormous architectural decorations seen in open air. The salient parts, moldings, cornices, entablatures, consoles, are of wood, bronze, or cast-iron, to which suitable forms have been given; when you do not look too closely the effect is satisfactory. Truth is the only thing lacking in all this splendor.
The palatial buildings which border Regent's Park in London present also these porticoes, and these columns with brick cores and plaster-fluting, which, by aid of a coating of oil paint, are expected to pass for stone or marble. Why not build in brick frankly, since its water-coloring and capacity for ingeniously varied arrangement furnish so many resources? Even in Berlin I have seen charming houses of this kind which had the advantage of being truthful. A fictitious material always inspires a certain uneasiness.
The hotel is very well located, and I propose to sketch the view seen from its steps. It will give a fair idea of the general character of the city. The foreground is a quay bordering the Spree. A few boats with slender masts are sleeping on the brown water. Vessels upon a canal or a river, in the heart of a city, have always a charming effect. Along the opposite quay stretches a line of houses; a few of them are ancient, and bear the stamp thereof; the king's palace makes the corner. A cupola upon an octagonal tower rises proudly above the other roofs, the square sides of the tower adding grace to the curve of the dome.
A bridge spans the river, reminding me, with its white marble groups, of the Ponte San Angelo at Rome. These groups—eight in number, if my memory does not deceive me—are each composed of two figures; one allegorical, winged, representing the country, or glory; the other, a young man, guided through many trials to victory or immortality. These groups, in purely classic taste, are not wanting in merit, and show in some parts good study of the nude; their pedestals are ornamented with medallions, whereon the Prussian eagle, half-real, half-heraldic, makes a fine appearance. Considered as a decoration, the whole is, in my opinion, somewhat too rich for the simplicity of the bridge, which opens midway to allow the passage of vessels.
Farther on, through the trees of a public garden of some kind, appears the old Museum, a great structure in the Greek style, with Doric columns relieved against a painted background. At the corners of the roof, bronze horses held by grooms are outlined upon the sky. Behind this building, and looking sideways, you perceive the triangular pediment of the new Museum.
On crossing the bridge, the dark façade of the palace comes in view, with its balustraded terrace; the carvings around the main entrance are in that old, exaggerated German rococo which I have seen before and have admired in the palace in Dresden. This kind of barbaric taste has something charming about it, and entertains the eye, satiated with chefs d'oeuvre. It has invention, fancy, originality; and tho I may be censured for the opinion, I confess I prefer this exuberance to the coldness of the Greek style imitated with more erudition than success in our modern public buildings. At each side stand great bronze horses pawing the ground, and held by naked grooms.
I visited the apartments of the palace; they are rich and elegant, but present nothing interesting to the artist save their ancient recessed ceilings filled with curious figures and arabesques. In the concert-hall there is a musicians' gallery in grotesque carving, silvered; its effect is really charming. Silver is not used enough in decorations; it is a relief from the classic gold, and forms admirable combinations with colors. The chapel, whose dome rises above the rest of the building, is well planned and well lighted, comfortable, reasonably decorated.
Let us cross the square and take a look at the Museum, admiring, as we pass, an immense porphyry vase standing on cubes of the same material, in front of the steps which lead up to the portico. This portico is painted in fresco by various hands, under the direction of the celebrated Peter Cornelius. The paintings form a broad frieze, folding itself back at each end upon the side wall of the portico, and interrupted in the middle to give access to the Museum. The portion on the left contains a whole poem of mythologic cosmogony, treated with that philosophy and that erudition which the Germans carry into compositions of this kind; the right, purely anthropologie, represents the birth, development, and evolution of humanity.
If I were to describe in detail these two immense frescoes, you would certainly be charmed with the ingenious invention, the profound knowledge, and the excellent judgment of the artist. The mysteries of the early creation are penetrated, and everything is faultlessly scientific. Also, if I should show you them in the form of those fine German engravings, the lines heightened by delicate shadows, the execution as accurate as that of Albrecht Dürer, the tone light and harmonious, you would admire the ordering of the composition, balanced with so much art, the groups skilfully united one to another, the ingenious episodes, the wise selection of the attributes, the significance of each separate thing; you might even find grandeur of style, an air of magisterial dignity, fine effects of drapery, proud attitudes, well-marked types, muscular audacities à la Michel Angelo, and a certain Germanic savagery of fine flavor. You would be struck with this free handling of great subjects, this vast conceptive power, this carrying out of an idea, which French painters so often lack; and you would think of Cornelius almost as highly as the Germans do. But in the presence of the work itself, the impression is completely different.
I am well aware that fresco-painting, even in the hands of the Italian masters, skilful as they were in the technical details of their art, has not the charm of oil. The eye must become habituated to this rude, lustreless coloring, before we can discern its beauties. Many people who never say so—for nothing is more rare than the courage to avow a feeling or an opinion—find the frescoes of the Vatican and the Sistine frightful; but the great names of Michel Angelo and Raphael impose silence upon them; they murmur vague formulas of enthusiasm, and go off to rhapsodize—this time with sincerity—over some Magdalen of Guido, or some Madonna of Carlo Dolce. I make large allowance, therefore, for this unattractive aspect which belongs to fresco-painting; but in this case, the execution is by far too repulsive. The mind may be content, but the eye suffers. Painting, which is altogether a plastic art, can express its ideal only through forms and colors. To think is not enough; something must be done....
I shall not now give an inventory of the Museum in Berlin, which is rich in pictures and statues; to do this would require more space than is at my command. We find represented here, more or less favorably, all the great masters, the pride of royal galleries. But the most remarkable thing in this collection is the very numerous and very complete collection of the primitive painters of all countries and all schools, from the Byzantine down to those which immediately precede the Renaissance. The old German school, so little known in France, and on many accounts so curious, is to be studied to better advantage here than anywhere else. A rotunda contains tapestries after designs by Raphael, of which the original cartoons are now in Hampton Court.
The staircase of the new Museum is decorated with those remarkable frescoes by Kaulbach, which the art of engraving and the Universal Exposition have made so well known in France. We all remember the cartoon entitled "The Dispersion of Races," and all Paris has admired, in Goupil's window that poetic "Defeat of the Huns," where the strife begun between the living warriors is carried on amidst the disembodied souls that hover above that battlefield strewn with the dead. "The Destruction of Jerusalem" is a fine composition, tho somewhat too theatrical. It resembles a "close of the fifth act" much more than beseems the serious character of fresco painting. In the panel which represents Hellenic civilization, Homer is the central figure; this composition pleased me least of all. Other paintings as yet unfinished present the climacteric epochs of humanity. The last of these will be almost contemporary, for when a German begins to paint, universal history comes under review; the great Italian painters did not need so much in achieving their master-pieces. But each civilization has its peculiar tendencies, and this encyclopedic painting is a characteristic of the present time. It would seem that, before flinging itself into its new career, the world has felt the necessity of making a synthesis of its past....
This staircase, which is of colossal size, is ornamented with casts from the finest antiques. Copies of the metopes of the Pantheon and friezes from the temple of Theseus are set into its walls, and upon one of the landings stands the Pandrosion, with all the strong and tranquil beauty of its Caryatides. The effect of the whole is very grand. At the present day there is no longer any visible difference between the people of one country and of another. The uniform domino of civilization is worn everywhere, and no difference in color, no special cut of the garment, notifies you that you are away from home. The men and women whom I met in the street escape description; the flâneurs of the Unter den Linden are exactly like the flâneurs of the Boulevard des Italiens. This avenue, bordered by splendid houses, is planted, as its name indicates, with lindens; trees "whose leaf is shaped like a heart," as Heinrich Heine remarks—a peculiarity which makes Unter den Linden dear to lovers, and eminently suited for sentimental interviews. At its entrance stands the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great. Like the Champs-Elysées in Paris, this avenue terminates at a triumphal arch, surmounted by a chariot with four bronze horses. Passing under the arch, we come out into a park in some degrees resembling the Bois de Boulogne.
Along the edge of this park, which is shadowed by great trees having all the intensity of northern verdure, and freshened by a little winding stream, open flower-crowded gardens, in whose depths you can discern summer retreats, which are neither châlets, nor cottages, nor villas, but Pompeiian houses with their tetrastylic porticos and panels of antique red. The Greek taste is held in high esteem in Berlin. On the other hand, they seem to disdain the style of the Renaissance, so much in vogue in Paris; I saw no edifice of this kind in Berlin.
Night came; and after paying a hasty visit to the zoological garden, where all the animals were asleep, except a dozen long-tailed paroquets and cockatoos, who were screaming from their perches, pluming themselves, and raising their crests, I returned to my hotel to strap my trunk and betake myself to the Hamburg railway station, as the train would leave at ten, a circumstance which prevented me from going, as I had intended, to the opera to hear Cherubini's "Deux Journées," and to see Louise Taglioni dance the Sevillana....
For the traveler there are but two ways: the instantaneous proof, or the prolonged study. Time failed me for the latter. Deign to accept this simple and rapid impression.
[A]
From "A Winter in Russia." By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1874. Since Gautier wrote, Berlin has greatly increased in population and in general importance. What is known as "Greater Berlin" now embraces about 3,250,000 souls. Many of the quaint two-story houses, which formerly were characteristic of the city, have given way to palatial houses and business blocks. Berlin is a thoroughly modern commercial city. It ranks among European cities immediately after London and Paris.
From "A Winter in Russia." By permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1874. Since Gautier wrote, Berlin has greatly increased in population and in general importance. What is known as "Greater Berlin" now embraces about 3,250,000 souls. Many of the quaint two-story houses, which formerly were characteristic of the city, have given way to palatial houses and business blocks. Berlin is a thoroughly modern commercial city. It ranks among European cities immediately after London and Paris.
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
Then we drove to Charlottenburg to see the Mausoleum. I know not when I have been more deeply affected than there; and yet, not so much by the sweet, lifelike statue of the queen as by that of the king, her husband, executed by the same hand.[B]Such an expression of long-desired rest, after suffering the toil, is shed over the face—so sweet, so heavenly! There, where he has prayed year after year—hoping, yearning, longing—there, at last, he rests, life's long anguish over! My heart melted as I looked at these two, so long divided—he so long a mourner, she so long mourned—now calmly resting side by side in a sleep so tranquil.
We went through the palace. We saw the present king's writing desk and table in his study, just as he left them. His writing establishment is about as plain as yours. Men who really mean to do anything do not use fancy tools. His bedroom, also, is in a style of severe simplicity. There were several engravings fastened against the wall; and in the anteroom a bust and medallion of the Empress Eugenie—a thing which I should not exactly have expected in a born king's palace; but beauty is sacred, and kings can not call it parvenu. Then we went into the queen's bed-room, finished in green, and then through the rooms of Queen Louisa. Those marks of her presence, which you saw during the old king's lifetime, are now removed; we saw no traces of her dresses, gloves, or books. In one room, draped in white muslin over pink, we were informed the Empress of Russia was born.
In going out to Charlottenburg, we rode through the Thiergarten, the Tuileries of Berlin. In one of the most quiet and sequestered spots is the monument erected by the people of Berlin to their old king. The pedestal is Carrara marble, sculptured with beautiful scenes called garden pleasures—children in all manner of outdoor sports, and parents fondly looking on. It is graceful, and peculiarly appropriate to those grounds where parents and children are constantly congregating. The whole is surmounted by a statue of the king, in white marble—the finest representation of him I have ever seen. Thoughtful, yet benign, the old king seems like a good father keeping a grave and affectionate watch over the pleasures of his children in their garden frolics. There was something about these moss-grown gardens that seemed so rural and pastoral, that I at once preferred them to all I had seen in Europe. Choice flowers are planted in knots, here and there, in sheltered nooks, as if they had grown by accident: and an air of sweet, natural wildness is left amid the most careful cultivation. The people seemed to be enjoying themselves less demonstratively and with less vivacity than in France, but with a calm inwardness. Each nation has its own way of being happy, and the style of life in each bears a certain relation of appropriateness to character. The trim, dressy, animated air of the Tuileries suits admirably with the mobile, sprightly vivacity of society there. Both, in their way, are beautiful; but this seems less formal, and more according to nature.
[A]
From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."
From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."
[B]
King Frederick William III. and Queen Louise are here referred to. Since Mrs. Stowe's visit (1854) the Emperor William I. and the Empress Augusta have been buried in this mausoleum.
King Frederick William III. and Queen Louise are here referred to. Since Mrs. Stowe's visit (1854) the Emperor William I. and the Empress Augusta have been buried in this mausoleum.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
I have now been nearly two days in wide-famed Leipsic, and the more I see of it, the better I like it. It is a pleasant, friendly town, old enough to be interesting and new enough to be comfortable. There is much active business-life, through which it is fast increasing in size and beauty. Its publishing establishments are the largest in the world, and its annual fairs attended by people from all parts of Europe. This is much for a city to accomplish situated alone in the middle of a great plain, with no natural charms of scenery or treasures of art to attract strangers. The energy and enterprise of its merchants have accomplished all this, and it now stands in importance among the first cities of Europe.
On my first walk around the city, yesterday morning, I passed the Augustus Platz—a broad green lawn on which front the university and several other public buildings. A chain of beautiful promenades encircles the city on the site of its old fortifications. Following their course through walks shaded by large trees and bordered with flowering shrubs, I passed a small but chaste monument to Sebastian Bach, the composer, which was erected almost entirely at the private cost of Mendelssohn, and stands opposite the building in which Bach once directed the choirs. As I was standing beside it a glorious choral swelled by a hundred voices came through the open windows like a tribute to the genius of the great master.
Having found my friend, we went together to the Sternwarte, or observatory, which gives a fine view of the country around the city, and in particular the battlefield. The castellan who is stationed there is well acquainted with the localities, and pointed out the position of the hostile armies. It was one of the most bloody and hard-fought battles which history records. The army of Napoleon stretched like a semicircle around the southern and eastern sides of the city, and the plain beyond was occupied by the allies, whose forces met together here. Schwarzenberg, with his Austrians, came from Dresden; Blücher, from Halle, with the Emperor Alexander. Their forces amounted to three hundred thousand, while those of Napoleon ranked at one hundred and ninety-two thousand men. It must have been a terrific scene. Four days raged the battle, and the meeting of half a million of men in deadly conflict was accompanied by the thunder of sixteen hundred cannon. The small rivers which flow through Leipsic were swollen with blood, and the vast plain was strewed with more than fifty thousand dead.
It is difficult to conceive of such slaughter while looking at the quiet and tranquil landscape below. It seemed more like a legend of past ages, when ignorance and passion led men to murder and destroy, than an event which the last half century witnessed. For the sake of humanity it is to be hoped that the world will never see such another.
There are some lovely walks around Leipsic. We went yesterday afternoon with a few friends to the Rosenthal, a beautiful meadow, bordered by forests of the German oak, very few of whose Druid trunks have been left standing. There are Swiss cottages embowered in the foliage where every afternoon the social citizens assemble to drink their coffee and enjoy a few hours' escape from the noisy and dusty streets. One can walk for miles along these lovely paths by the side of the velvet meadows or the banks of some shaded stream. We visited the little village of Golis, a short distance off, where, in the second story of a little white house, hangs the sign, "Schiller's Room." Some of the Leipsic "literati" have built a stone arch over the entrance, with the inscription above: "Here dwelt Schiller in 1795, and wrote his Hymn to Joy." Everywhere through Germany the remembrances of Schiller are sacred. In every city where he lived they show his dwelling. They know and reverence the mighty spirit who has been among them. The little room where he conceived that sublime poem is hallowed as if by the presence of unseen spirits.
I was anxious to see the spot where Poniatowsky fell. We returned over the plain to the city, and passed in at the gate by which the Cossacks entered, pursuing the flying French. Crossing the lower part, we came to the little river Elster, in whose waves the gallant prince sank. The stone bridge by which we crossed was blown up by the French to cut off pursuit. Napoleon had given orders that it should not be blown up till the Poles had all passed over as the river, tho narrow, is quite deep and the banks are steep. Nevertheless, his officers did not wait, and the Poles, thus exposed to the fire of the enemy, were obliged to plunge into the stream to join the French army, which had begun retreat toward Frankfort. Poniatowsky, severely wounded, made his way through a garden near, and escaped on horseback into the water. He became entangled among the fugitives, and sank. By walking a little distance along the road toward Frankfort we could see the spot where his body was taken out of the river; it is now marked by a square stone covered with the names of his countrymen who have visited it. We returned through the narrow arched way by which Napoleon fled when the battle was lost.
Another interesting place in Leipsic is Auerbach's Cellar, which, it is said, contains an old manuscript history of Faust from which Goethe derived the first idea of his poem. He used to frequent this cellar, and one of his scenes in "Faust" is laid in it. We looked down the arched passage; not wishing to purchase any wine, we could find no pretense for entering. The streets are full of book-stores, and one-half the business of the inhabitants appears to consist in printing, paper-making and binding. The publishers have a handsome exchange of their own, and during the fairs the amount of business transacted is enormous.
At last in this "Florence of the Elbe," as the Saxons have christened it! Exclusive of its glorious galleries of art, which are scarcely surpassed by any in Europe, Dresden charms one by the natural beauty of its environs. It stands in a curve of the Elbe, in the midst of green meadows, gardens and fine old woods, with the hills of Saxony sweeping around like an amphitheater and the craggy peaks of the highlands looking at it from afar. The domes and spires at a distance give it a rich Italian look, which is heightened by the white villas embowered in trees gleaming on the hills around. In the streets there is no bustle of business—nothing of the din and confusion of traffic which mark most cities; it seems like a place for study and quiet enjoyment.
The railroad brought us in three hours from Leipsic over the eighty miles of plain that intervene. We came from the station through the Neustadt, passing the Japanese palace and the equestrian statue of Augustus the Strong. The magnificent bridge over the Elbe was so much injured by the late inundation as to be impassable; we were obliged to go some distance up the river-bank and cross on a bridge of boats. Next morning my first search was for the picture-gallery. We set off at random, and after passing the church of Our Lady, with its lofty dome of solid stone, which withstood the heaviest bombs during the war with Frederick the Great, came to an open square one side of which was occupied by an old brown, red-roofed building which I at once recognized from pictures as the object of our search.
I have just taken a last look at the gallery this morning, and left it with real regret; for during the two visits Raphael's heavenly picture of the Madonna and Child had so grown into my love and admiration that it was painful to think I should never see it again. There are many mere which clung so strongly to my imagination, gratifying in the highest degree the love for the beautiful, that I left them with sadness and the thought that I would now only have the memory. I can see the inspired eye and godlike brow of the Jesus-child as if I were still standing before the picture, and the sweet, holy countenance of the Madonna still looks upon me. Yet, tho this picture is a miracle of art, the first glance filled me with disappointment. It has somewhat faded during the three hundred years that have rolled away since the hand of Raphael worked on the canvas, and the glass with which it is covered for better preservation injures the effect. After I had gazed on it a while, every thought of this vanished.
The figure of the Virgin seemed to soar in the air, and it was difficult to think the clouds were not in motion. An aërial lightness clothes her form, and it is perfectly natural for such a figure to stand among the clouds. Two divine cherubs look up from below, and in her arms sits the sacred Child. Those two faces beam from the picture like those of angels. The mild, prophetic eye and lofty brow of the young Jesus chain one like a spell. There is something more than mortal in its expression—something in the infant face which indicates a power mightier than the proudest manhood. There is no glory around the head, but the spirit which shines from those features marks its divinity. In the sweet face of the mother there speaks a sorrowful foreboding mixed with its tenderness, as if she knew the world into which the Savior was born and foresaw the path in which he was to tread. It is a picture which one can scarce look upon without tears.
There are in the same room six pictures by Correggio which are said to be among his best works—one of them, his celebrated Magdalen. There is also Correggio's "Holy Night," or the Virgin with the shepherds in the manger, in which all the light comes from the body of the Child. The surprise of the shepherds is most beautifully exprest. In one of the halls there is a picture of Van der Werff in which the touching story of Hagar is told more feelingly than words could do it. The young Ishmael is represented full of grief at parting with Isaac, who, in childish unconsciousness of what has taken place, draws in sport the corner of his mother's mantle around him and smiles at the tears of his lost playmate.
Nothing can come nearer real flesh and blood than the two portraits of Raphael Mengs, painted by himself when quite young. You almost think the artist has in sport crept behind the frame and wishes to make you believe he is a picture. It would be impossible to speak of half the gems of art contained in this unrivalled collection. There are twelve large halls, containing in all nearly two thousand pictures.
The plain south of Dresden was the scene of the hard-fought battle between Napoleon and the allied armies in 1813. On the heights above the little village of Räcknitz, Moreau was shot on the second day of the battle. We took a footpath through the meadows, shaded by cherry trees in bloom, and reached the spot after an hour's walk. The monument is simple—a square block of granite surmounted by a helmet and sword, with the inscription, "The hero Moreau fell here by the side of Alexander, August 17, 1813," I gathered as a memorial a few leaves of the oak which shades it.
By applying an hour before the appointed time, we obtained admission to the royal library. It contains three hundred thousand volumes—among them, the most complete collection of historical works in existence. Each hall is devoted to a history of a separate country, and one large room is filled with that of Saxony alone. There is a large number of rare and curious manuscripts, among which are old Greek works of the seventh and eighth centuries, a Koran which once belonged to the Sultan Bajazet, the handwriting of Luther and Melanchthon, a manuscript volume with pen-and-ink sketches by Albert Dürer, and the earliest works after the invention of printing. Among these latter was a book published by Faust and Schaeffer, at Mayence, in 1457. There were also Mexican manuscripts written on the aloe leaf, and many illuminated monkish volumes of the Middle Ages.
We were fortunate in seeing the Grüne Gewölbe, or Green Gallery, a collection of jewels and costly articles unsurpassed in Europe. The first hall into which we were ushered contained works in bronze. They were all small, and chosen with regard to their artistical value. Some by John of Bologna were exceedingly fine, as was also a group in iron cut out of a single block, perhaps the only successful attempt in this branch. The next room contained statues, and vases covered with reliefs in ivory. The most remarkable work was the fall of Lucifer and his angels, containing ninety-two figures in all, carved out of a single piece of ivory sixteen inches high. It was the work of an Italian monk, and cost him many years of hard labor. There were two tables of mosaic-work that would not be out of place in the fabled halls of the Eastern genii, so much did they exceed my former ideas of human skill. The tops were of jasper, and each had a border of fruit and flowers in which every color was represented by some precious stone, all with the utmost delicacy and truth to nature. It is impossible to conceive the splendid effect it produced. Besides some fine pictures on gold by Raphael Mengs, there was a Madonna, the largest specimen of enamel-painting in existence.
However costly the contents of these halls, they were only an introduction to those which followed. Each one exceeded the other in splendor and costliness. The walls were covered to the ceiling with rows of goblets, vases, etc., of polished jasper, agate, and lapis lazuli. Splendid mosaic tables stood around with caskets of the most exquisite silver and gold work upon them, and vessels of solid silver, some of them weighing six hundred pounds, were placed at the foot of the columns. We were shown two goblets, each prized at six thousand thalers, made of gold and precious stones; also the great pearl called the "Spanish Dwarf," nearly as large as a pullet's egg, globes and vases cut entirely out of the mountain-crystal, magnificent Nuremberg watches and clocks, and a great number of figures made ingeniously of rough pearls and diamonds.
The officer showed me a hen's egg of silver. There was apparently nothing remarkable about it, but by unscrewing it came apart and disclosed the yolk of gold. This again opened, and a golden chicken was seen; by touching a spring a little diamond crown came from the inside, and, the crown being again taken apart, out dropt a valuable diamond ring. The seventh hall contains the coronation-robes of Augustus II. of Poland, and many costly specimens of carving in wood. A cherry-stone is shown in a glass case which has one hundred and twenty-five facets, all perfectly finished, carved upon it.
The next room we entered sent back a glare of splendor that perfectly dazzled us; it was all gold, diamond, ruby, and sapphire. Every case sent out such a glow and glitter that it seemed like a cage of imprisoned lightnings. Wherever the eye turned it was met by a blaze of broken rainbows. They were there by hundreds, and every gem was a fortune—whole cases of swords with hilts and scabbards of solid gold studded with gems, the great two-handed coronation sword of the German emperors, daggers covered with brilliants and rubies, diamond buttons, chains, and orders, necklaces and bracelets of pearl and emerald, and the order of the Golden Fleece made in gems of every kind.
We were also shown the largest known onyx, nearly seven inches long and four inches broad. One of the most remarkable works is the throne and court of Aurungzebe, the Indian king, by Dinglinger, a celebrated goldsmith of the last century. It contains one hundred and thirty-two figures, all of enameled gold and each one most perfectly and elaborately finished. It was purchased by Prince Augustus for fifty-eight thousand thalers,[B]which was not a high sum, considering that the making of it occupied Dinglinger and thirteen workmen for seven years.
It is almost impossible to estimate the value of the treasures these halls contain. That of the gold and jewels alone must be many millions of dollars, and the amount of labor expended on these toys of royalty is incredible. As monuments of patient and untiring toil they are interesting, but it is sad to think how much labor and skill and energy have been wasted in producing things which are useless to the world and only of secondary importance as works of art. Perhaps, however, if men could be diverted by such playthings from more dangerous games, it would be all the better.