A STREET IN BERLIN.
Berlin is a fine city, let the wise Germans of the East say what they
will. It may be deficient in those monumental records of "the good old
times," the crumbling church, the thick-walled tower, the halls and
dungeons of feudal barbarism, but it abounds with evidences of the vigour
and life of modern taste and skill; and instead of daily sinking into
rotten significance, like some of its elder brethren, is hourly growing
in beauty and strength. It has all the attributes of a great
city--spacious "places," handsome edifices, broad and well-paved streets.
Its monuments, while they are evidences of great cultivation in the arts,
tell of times and events just old enough to be beyond the ken of our own
experiences, yet possess all the truth and vividness of recent history.
"Der Alter Fritz," Blucher, Zieten, Seyditz, Winterfeldt, Keith, and "Der
Alter Dessauer"--what names are these in Prussian story!
The entrance into Berlin, on the western side, from Spandau, by the
Brandenburger Gate, is the finest that the capital of Prussia has to
present. A thickly-planted wood skirts the road for a mile or two before
you reach the city. The trees are dwarfed and twisted, for they cannot
grow freely in the dense, eternal sands of this part of North Germany,
but they form a rough fringing to the white road; while the noble gate
itself, built of massive stone in the Doric order of architecture, and
surmounted by an effective group of a four-horse chariot, within which
stands the figure of Victory raising the Roman eagle above the almost
winged steeds, might grace the entrance to the city of the Caesars.
This Brandenburger Thor, as it is called, is a copy of the Propylaea of
the Acropolis of Athens, but built on a much grander scale. The central
gate is of iron, eighteen feet high; of the fourteen land gates of Berlin
it is immeasurably the finest, and it acquires a still deeper interest
when some enthusiastic Berliner, pointing to the prancing steeds upon the
summit of the arch, tells you how Napoleon in his admiration had ordered
this self-same group to be transported to Paris in 1807, to ornament a
French "_arch de triomphe_," and how "We, the Prussians," had torn the
spoil from the eagle's very nest in 1814, to replant it on its original
site. A glow of military ardour flushes over your heart at the recital,
and the echoes of a hundred battles thunder in your ears.
Through this gate, which is in the Dorotheen Stadt, after crossing the
Square of Paris, we enter upon one of the handsomest streets in the
world, and one bearing the most poetical of titles:
"Unter-den-Linden,"--"Under the Lime Trees!"--there is something at once
charming and imposing in the very sound. Nor is this appellation an
empty fiction, for there stand the lime trees themselves, in two double
rows with their delicate green leaves rustling in the breeze, forming a
two-fold verdant allee, vigorous and fragrant, down the centre of the
street, and into the very heart of the city. Unter-den-Linden itself is
two thousand seven hundred and fifty-four feet in length, and one hundred
and seventy-four in width; but it extends, under another title, for a
much greater distance. This is the summer evening's ramble of your true
Berliner, and not a little proud and pompous he is as he parades himself
and family beneath the leafy canopy; and here, in the snowy winters, when
the city lies half buried in the snowdrift, the gaily dressed sleighs go
skimming under the leafless branches, filling the bright cold air with
the music of their bells.
As we proceed deeper into the city, we find gay shops and stately houses.
A noble range of buildings appropriated to the foreign embassies rises
upon the left hand, and is succeeded by the Royal Academy; while some
distance beyond stands the University, an edifice of a rather sombre
appearance, although graced with columns and pilasters of the Corinthian
order. To enter it you traverse a spacious court-yard, and it may be
that the nature of its contents impart a melancholy character to the
building itself; for, on ascending its stone staircase, and wandering for
a brief period among its bottles and cases, its wax models and human
preserves, we find them of so unsightly and disgusting a character that
we are happy to regain the echoing corridor which had led us into this
huge, systematised charnel-house.
As we cross to the opposite side of the broad street, the Royal Library
faces us; a massive temple of stored knowledge, polyglot and universal;
while to the right of it, in the centre of a paved space of considerable
extent, stands the Catholic church of St. Hedwig, at once a model of
Roman architecture, and the emblem of the liberty of faith.
Close at hand is the Opera-house, once already purified by fire, like so
many of its companion edifices, and only lately rebuilt. Some idea may
be formed of the extent of its interior from the fact that it affords
accommodation for three thousand spectators. Our way lies onward still.
What noble figure is this? Simple but commanding in character and
attitude, it fixes your attention at once. Look at the superscription.
Upon a scroll on its pedestal are the words "Frederick William III. to
Field Marshal Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt, in the year 1826." Yes! the
impetuous soldier, figured in eternal bronze by the first sculptor of
Prussia, Rauch himself, here claims and receives the admiration of his
countrymen. Bare-headed stands the old warrior, but is duly crowned with
laurels on every returning anniversary of the well remembered day, the
18th of June.
Leaving the sanctuary of the Christian Deity, the heathen temple of
Terpsichore, and the effigy of the renowned soldier, thus grouped
together, we traverse the fine road, and pause for a moment to look at a
severe but elegant structure, erected, we are told, in exact imitation of
a Roman _castrum_, or fortress, and therefore eminently in character with
the purpose for which it is intended. The smart Prussian infantry are
grouped about its pillared entrance, which is graced also by two statues
of military celebrities--for this is the royal guard-house.
"Der Alter Fritz." "Old Fred!" This is the familiar title bestowed upon
a great monarch; and there is something in this nickname a thousand times
more telling to the ear and heart of a Prussian than the stately
appellation of "Frederick the Great." The former is for their own hearts
and homes, the latter for the world. And for the world also is the noble
equestrian statue upon which we now gaze. It is a question whether a
work of sterling genius does not speak as effectively to the eye of the
uninitiated as to that of the most inveterate stickler for antecedents of
grace and technicalities of beauty. This statue of Frederick of Prussia
tells upon the sense at once, because it is true to art as established by
ancient critics, but more so, because it is imitated nature, which art
too often only presumes to be, reckoning too much upon fixed rules and
time-honoured dogmas. It is noble and impressive, because it is _like_;
no antiquated Roman figure in _toga_ and _calcei_, but the representation
of the living man.
Das Zeughaus, or arsenal, which we now approach, is a massive
quadrangular building, and the warlike character of its architectural
decorations strikingly indicate the nature of its contents. We pass
through the open gate into an inner court, and looking round upon the
sombre walls which inclose us, see the fearful faces of dead and dying
men, cut in stone, which the taste or caprice of the architect has
considered their fittest ornament. There is something strangely original
and attractive in the grotesque hideousness of these heads, agonised with
pain, scowling in anger, or frightful with their upturned eyes in the
rigidity of death, all bleached and shadowed as they are by the
vicissitudes of the weather.
Within the arsenal we find walls of glistening steel, columns of lances,
architectural and other devices worked out in dagger blades and pistol
handles; while battered armour and faded draperies, in the shape of
pennons and standards, storm and battle-tattered, help to make up
trophies, and swing duskily in every corner.
After a rapid survey, we are about to leave this magazine of Bellona,
when we are struck by the sight of an object which reminds us so
completely of one of those "gorgeous processions" in Eastern "spectacles"
at home, that we wonder for a moment whether it be "part of the play," or
tangible, sober reality. Yes! placed upon a scarlet cushion lies an
enormous gilt key (such a one as clown in the pantomime might open his
writing-desk with, or such as hangs over a locksmith's door), and above
it glistens a golden legend to the effect that the treasure beneath was
presented to "William of Prussia by his loving cousin, Nicolas, Emperor
of all the Russias," and is no less a prize than the identical key of the
captured city of Adrianople! Has, then, the Russian Emperor so many such
trophies of Eastern spoliation that his own museums at Petersburg are
insufficient to contain them?
Up the steep way towards the residence of the Prince of Prussia, guarded
by its zealous sentries, we pursue our course, and reach the first bridge
we have yet seen, being one of the very many which span the Spree as it
meanders through the city. This river does not present an imposing
appearance in any part of Berlin. The Berliners may shake their heads,
and talk of the "Lange Brucke," but let them remember that in no part
does the Spree exceed two hundred feet in width. Moreover, the manner in
which it is jammed up between locks, like a mere canal--one is puzzled
sometimes to know which is canal and which river--does not improve its
appearance, while the use to which some of its bridges are appropriated
does not increase its purity. Passing onwards we come upon the Schloss
Platz, which is itself half a garden, and find ourselves in the midst of
an assemblage of public wonders--the Museum, the Protestant Cathedral, a
handsome basin and fountain (the pride of the true Berliner), the
Exchange, and the Old Palace.
The Museum stands on the left-hand, gracefully shaded by young trees.
Traversing this miniature grove, which guards its entrance, and passing
by the lofty fountain scattering its spray upon the leaves, we come upon
an elegant vase of gigantic proportions, sculptured from a solid mass of
native granite. Ascending into the body of the building by a sombre
stone staircase, we reach the Gallery of Antiquities and the Museum of
Paintings. The latter, though no doubt very valuable, appeals
unsatisfactorily to me (not presuming to be a critic), and is of a
peculiarly rigid, ecclesiastical character, of the early school;
certainly one of its chief features is a crowd of martyred St.
Sebastians.
The portion of the Museum appropriated to painting, unlike the National
Gallery of London, and the Pinakothek at Munich, receives a lateral
light. Imagine a long gallery divided into small cabinets by partitions,
which advance only so far from the outer wall as to leave a commodious
passage along its entire extent; imagine also that each of these cabinets
has a lofty window, and that on its side walls (the partitions) are
suspended the paintings for exhibition,--and you will form something like
a notion of the general arrangement. An effective _ensemble_ is out of
the question; but, on the other hand, every painting is well lighted, and
a better opportunity is afforded for quiet observation and study.
We descend into the "Platz," and proceed towards the palace, a huge
rectangular building, striped with columns, dotted with windows, and
blackened as few continental edifices are.
The palace of the kings of Prussia--few as they have been--has surely its
thrilling historical records. Doubtless; and through them all the spirit
of the _one_ king, "Der Alter Fritz," shines, all but visible. Here did
he hold his councils, here sit in private study; this was his favourite
promenade, here did he take his rest. These details light up the
imagination; but when we have traversed the echoing galleries, admired
the gilt mouldings and the costly hangings, the quaint furniture and
beautiful pictures: when we have, in short, become wrought into
enthusiasm by the clustering memories of a great monarch, by traits and
traditions which fill the very air, what do we see next? We are ushered
into a private chamber, and called upon to express our especial reverence
for a miserable figure, dressed up in the Great Frederick's "own
clothes;" seated in his own chair, stuck into his identical boots; his
own redoubtable stick dangling from its splayed fingers, and the whole
contemptible effigy crowned by the very three-cornered hat and crisp wig
he last wore! The spirit of mountebankism overshadows the spirit of the
mighty man, and his very relics are rendered ridiculous.
We turn from this puppet-show to contemplate with a melancholy wonder the
truly iron records of the almost life-imprisonment of Baron von Trenck.
For here, a silent memorial of at least one bad act of the Prussian
monarch, are iron cups and utensils engraved with scrolls and legends;
the work, not of the skilled artisan with tempered and well-prepared
gravers, but of the patient hands of a state prisoner with a mere nail
sharpened on the stony walls of his dungeon, and the painful result of
long and weary years. A strange contrast! the waxen image of the jailer,
tricked out in his last garments; the solitary labours of his captive.
Thinking more of the soldier and less of the king, we quit the palace and
turn on the left hand once more towards the waters of the Spree. Here is
one other monument we must not forget in our hasty ramble through the
main artery of the Prussian capital. In the centre of the Lange Brucke
(the Long Bridge) stands the bronze figure of the last Elector and Duke
of Brandenburg, Frederick William, the grandfather of Frederick the
Great. It is a well-executed equestrian statue, but to my mind the four
figures clustered round the pediment, on whose hands still hang the
broken chains of slavery, are better works of art, as well as admirable
emblems of the energetic materials--the oppressed but spirited
inhabitants of a few small states--of which the now powerful kingdom of
Prussia was originally formed.
We might follow the course of the wandering river over whose waters we
now stand, and thus penetrate into the heart of the old city, but we
should find little that was picturesque, and a great deal that was very
unclean. Indeed, in spite of its general beauty, Berlin is lamentably
deficient in the modern and common-place article, sewerage. But even
this will come; and in the meantime we may well ponder over the rapid
growth of the city, since the brief space of time that has elapsed since
it was the little town of Cologne upon the Spree, to distinguish it from
the then greater one of Cologne upon the Rhine.