precipitous ascents and descents, its completely gothic physiognomy--is
by far the strangest old city I ever beheld; it has retained in every
part the aspect of the middle ages. No two houses resemble each other;
yet, differing in form, in colour, in height, in ornament, all have a
family likeness; and with their peaked and carved gabels, and projecting
central balconies, and painted fronts, stand up in a row, like so many
tall, gaunt, stately old maids, with the toques and stomachers of the
last century. In the upper part of the town, we find here and there a
new house, built, or rebuilt, in a more modern fashion; and even a gay
modern theatre, and an unfinished modern church; but these, instead
of being embellishments, look ill-favoured and mean, like patches of
new cloth on a rich old brocade. Age is here, but it does not suggest
the idea of dilapidation or decay, rather of something which has been
put under a glass-case, and preserved with care from all extraneous
influences. The buildings are so ancient, the fashions of society so
antiquated, the people so penetrated with veneration for themselves and
their city, that in the few days I spent there, I began to feel quite
old too--my mind was _wrinkled up_, as it were, with a reverence for
the past. I wondered that people condescended to talk of any event
more recent than the thirty years' war, and the defence of Gustavus
Adolphus;[21] and all names of modern date, even of greatest mark, were
forgotten in the fame of Albert Durer, Hans Sachs, and Peter Vischer:
the trio of worthies, which, in the estimation or imagination of the
Nurembergers, still live with the freshness of a yesterday's remembrance,
and leave no room for the heroes of to-day. My enthusiasm for Albert
Durer was all ready prepared, and warm as even the Nurembergers could
desire; but I confess, that of that renowned cobbler and meister-singer,
Hans Sachs, I knew little but what I had learnt from the pretty comedy
bearing his name, which I had seen at Manheim; and of the illustrious
Peter Vischer I could only remember that I had seen, in the academy at
Munich, certain casts from his figures, which had particularly struck
me. Yet to visit Nuremberg without some previous knowledge of these
luminaries of the middle ages, is to lose much of that pleasure of
association, without which the eye wearies of the singular, and the mind
becomes satiated with change.
Nuremberg was the gothic Athens: it was never the seat of government,
but as a free imperial city it was independent and self-governed, and
took the lead in arts and in literature. Here it was that clocks and
watches, maps and musical instruments, were manufactured for all
Germany; here, in that truly German spirit of pedantry and simplicity,
were music, painting, and poetry, at once honoured as sciences, and
cultivated as handicrafts, each having its guild, or corporation,
duly chartered, like the other trades of this flourishing city, and
requiring, by the institution of the magistracy, a regular apprenticeship.
It was here that, on the first discovery of printing, a literary barber
and meister-singer (Hans Foltz) set up a printing-press in his own
house; and it was but the natural consequence of all this industry,
mental activity, and social cultivation, that Nuremberg should have
been one of the first cities which declared for the Reformation.
But what is most curious and striking in this old city, is to see
it stationary, while time and change are working such miracles and
transformations every where else. The house where Martin Behaim, four
centuries ago, invented the sphere, and drew the first geographical
chart, is still the house of a map-seller. In the house where cards were
first manufactured, cards are now sold. In the very shops where clocks
and watches were first seen, you may still buy clocks and watches. The
same families have inhabited the same mansions from one generation to
another for four or five centuries. The great manufactories of those
toys, commonly called Dutch toys, are at Nuremberg. I visited the
wholesale depot of Pestelmayer, and it is true that it would cut a poor
figure compared to some of our great Birmingham show-rooms; but the
enormous scale on which this commerce is conducted, the hundreds of
waggon-loads and ship-loads of these trifles and gimcracks, which find
their way to every part of the known world, even to America and China,
must interest a thinking mind. Nothing gave me a more comprehensive
idea of the value of the whole, than a complaint which I heard from a
Nuremberger, (and which, though seriously made, sounded not a little
ludicrous,) of the falling off in the trade of _pill-boxes_! he said
that since the fashionable people of London and Paris had taken to
paper pill-boxes, the millions of wooden or chip boxes which used to
be annually sent from Nuremberg to all parts of Europe were no longer
required; and he computed the consequent falling off of the profits
at many thousand florins.
Nuremberg was rendered so agreeable to me by the kindness and hospitality
I met with, that instead of merely passing through it, I spent some days
wandering about its precincts; and as it is not very frequently visited
by the English, I shall note a few of the objects which have dwelt on
my memory, premising, that for the artist and the antiquary it affords
inexhaustible materials.
The whole city, which is very large, lies crowded and compact within its
walls; but the fortifications, once the wonder of all Germany, and their
three hundred and sixty-five towers, once the glory and safeguard of
the inhabitants, exist no longer. Four huge circular towers stand at the
principal gates,--four huge towers of almost dateless antiquity, and
blackened with age, but of such admirable construction, that the masonry
appears, from its entireness and smoothness, as if raised yesterday.
The old castle or fortress, which stands on a height commanding the
town and a glorious view, is a strange, dismantled, incongruous heap of
buildings. It happened, that in the summer of 1833, the king of Bavaria,
accompanied by the queen and the princess Matilda, had paid his good
city of Nuremberg a visit, and had been most royally entertained by the
inhabitants. The apartments in the old castle, long abandoned to the
rats and spiders, had been prepared for the royal guests, and, when I
saw it, three or four months afterwards, nothing could be more uncouth
and fantastical than the effect of these irregular rooms, with all
manner of angles, with their carved worm-eaten ceilings, their curious
latticed and painted windows, and most preposterous stoves, now all
tricked out with fresh paint here and there, and hung with gay glazed
papers of the most modern fashion, and the most gaudy patterns. Even the
chapel, with its four old pillars, which, according to the legend, had
been brought by Old Nick himself from Rome, and the effigy of the monk
who had cheated his infernal adversary, by saying the Litanies faster
than had ever been known before or since, had, in honour of the king's
visit, received a new coat of paint. There are some very curious old
pictures in the castle, (which luckily were not repainted for the same
grand occasion,) among them an original portrait of Albert Durer. In
the courtyard of the fortress stands an extraordinary relic--the old
lime-tree planted by the Empress Cunegunde, wife of the Emperor Henry
III.; every thing is done to preserve it from decay, and it still bears
its leafy honours, after beholding the revolution of seven centuries.
From the fortress we look down upon the house of Albert Durer, which
is preserved with religious care; it has been hired by a society of
artists, who use it as a club-room: his effigy in stone is over the
door. In every house there is a picture or print of him; or copies,
or engravings from his works, and his head hangs in every print shop.
The street in which he lived is called by his name; and the inhabitants
have moreover built a fountain to his honour, and planted trees around
it;--in short, Albert Durer is wherever we look--wherever we move. What
can Fuseli mean by saying that Albert Durer "was a man of extreme
ingenuity without being a genius?" Does the man of mere ingenuity step
before his age as Albert Durer did, not as an artist only, but as a man
of science? Is not genius the creative power? and did not Albert Durer
possess this power in an extraordinary degree? Could Fuseli have seen
his four apostles, now in the gallery of Munich, when he said that
Albert Durer never had more than an occasional _glimpse_ of the sublime?
Fuseli, as an _artist_, is an example of what I have seen in other
minds, otherwise directed. The stronger the faculties, the more of
original power in the mind, the less diffused is the sympathy, and the
more is the judgment swayed by the individual character. Thus Fuseli, in
his remarks on painters--excellent and eloquent as they are--scarcely
ever does justice to those who excel in colour. He perceives and admits
the excellence, but he shows in his criticisms, as in his pictures,
that the faculty was wanting to feel and appreciate it: his remarks on
Correggio and Rubens are a proof of this. In listening to the criticisms
of an author on literature--of a painter on pictures--and, generally, to
the opinion which one individual expresses of the character and actions
of another, it is wise to take into consideration the modification of
mind in the person who speaks, and how far it may, or _must_, influence,
even where it does not absolutely distort, the judgment; so many minds
are what the Germans call _one-sided_! The education, habits, mental
existence of the individual, are the refracting medium through which the
rays of truth pass to the mind, more or less bent or absorbed in their
passage. We should make philosophical allowance for different degrees
of density.
Hans Sachs,[22] the old poet of Nuremberg, did as much for the Reformation
by his songs and satires, as Luther and the doctors by their preaching;
besides being one of the worshipful company of meister-singers, he found
time to make shoes, and even enrich himself by his trade: he informs us
himself that he had composed and written with his own hand "four thousand
two hundred mastership songs; two hundred and eight comedies, tragedies,
and farces; one thousand seven hundred fables, tales, and miscellaneous
poems; and seventy-three devotional, military, and love songs." It is
said he excelled in humour, but it was such as might have been expected
from the times--it was vigorous and coarse. "Hans," says the critic,
"tells his tale like a convivial burgher, fond of his can, and still
fonder of his drollery."[23] If this be the case, his house has received
a very appropriate designation: it is now an ale-house, from which, as I
looked up, the mixed odours of beer and tobacco, and the sound of voices
singing in chorus, streamed through the old latticed windows. "Drollery"
and "the can" were as rife in the dwelling of the immortal shoemaker as
they would have been in his own days, and in his own jovial presence.
In the church of St. Sibbald, now the chief Protestant church, I was
surprised to find that most of the Roman Catholic symbols and relics
remained undisturbed: the large crucifix, the old pictures of the saints
and Madonnas had been reverentially preserved. The perpetual light which
had been vowed four centuries ago by one of the Tucher family, was still
burning over his tomb; no puritanic zeal had quenched that tiny flame
in its chased silver lamp; and through successive generations, and all
revolutions of politics and religion, maintained and fed by the pious
honesty of the descendants, it still shone on,
Like the bright lamp that lay in Kildare's holy fane,
And burned through long ages of darkness and storm!
In this Protestant church, even the shrine of St. Sibbald has kept its
place, if not to the honour and glory of the saint, at least to the
honour and glory of the city of Nuremberg; it is considered as the
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of Peter Vischer, a famous sculptor and caster in
bronze, cotemporary with Albert Durer. It was begun in 1506, and
finished in 1519, and is adorned with ninety-six figures, among which
the twelve apostles, all varying in character and attitude, are really
miracles of grace, power, and expression; the base of the shrine rests
upon six gigantic snails, and the whole is cast in bronze, and finished
with exquisite skill and fancy. At one end of this extraordinary
composition the artificer has placed his own figure, not obtrusively,
but retired, in a sort of niche; he is represented in his working dress,
with his cap, leather apron, and tools in his hand. According to
tradition, he was paid for his work by the pound weight, twenty gulden
(or florins) for every hundred weight of metal; and the whole weighs one
hundred and twenty centners, or hundred weight.
The man who showed us this shrine was descended from Peter Vischer,
lived in the same house which he and his sons had formerly inhabited,
and carried on the same trade, that of a smith and brass-founder.
The Moritz-Kapel, near the church, is an old gothic chapel once
dedicated to St. Maurice, now converted into a public gallery of
pictures of the old German school. The collection is exceedingly
curious; there are about one hundred and forty pictures, and besides
specimens of Mabuse, Albert Durer, Van Eyck, Martin Schoen, Lucas
Kranach, and the two Holbeins, I remember some portraits by a certain
Hans Grimmer, which impressed me by their truth and fine painting. It
appears from this collection that for some time after Albert Durer, the
German painters continued to paint on a gold ground. Kulmbach, whose
heads are quite marvellous for finish and expression, generally did so.
This gallery owes its existence to the present king, and has been well
arranged by the architect Heideldoff and professor von Dillis of Munich.
In the market-place of Nuremberg stands the Schoenebrunnen, that is,
the beautiful fountain; it bears the date 1355, and in style resembles
the crosses which Edward I. erected to Queen Eleanor, but is of more
elaborate beauty; it is covered with gothic figures, carved by one of
the most ancient of the German sculptors, Schonholfer, who modestly
styles himself a stone-cutter. Here we see, placed amicably close,
Julius Caesar, Godfrey of Boulogne, Judas Maccabaeus, Alexander the Great,
Hector of Troy, Charlemagne, and king David: all old acquaintances,
certainly, but whom we might have supposed that nothing but the day of
judgment could ever have assembled together in company.
Talking of the day of judgment reminds me of the extraordinary cemetery
of Nuremberg, certainly as unlike every other cemetery, as Nuremberg is
unlike every other city. Imagine upon a rising ground, an open space
of about four acres, completely covered with enormous slabs, or rather
blocks of solid stone, about a foot and a half in thickness, seven feet
in length, and four in breadth, laid horizontally, and just allowing
space for a single person to move between them. The name, and the
armorial bearings of the dead, cast in bronze, and sometimes rich
sculpture, decorate these tombs: I remember one, to the memory of a
beautiful girl, who was killed as she lay asleep in her father's garden
by a lizard creeping into her mouth. The story is represented in bronze
bas-relief, and the lizard is so constructed as to move when touched.
From this I shrunk with disgust, and turned to the sepulchre of a famous
worthy, who measured the distance from Nuremberg to the holy sepulchre
with his garter: the implement of his pious enterprise, twisted into a
sort of true-love knot, is carved on his tomb. Two days afterwards I
entered the dominions of a reigning monarch, who is at this present
moment performing a journey to Jerusalem round the walls of his room.[24]
How long-lived are the follies of mankind! Have, then, five centuries
made so little difference?
The tombs of Albert Durer, Hans Sachs, and Sandraart, were pointed out
to me, resembling the rest in size and form. I was assured that these
huge sepulchral stones exceed three thousand in number, and the whole
aspect of this singular burial-place is, in truth, beyond measure
striking--I could almost add, appalling.
I was not a little surprised and interested to find that the principal
Gazette of Nuremberg, which has a wide circulation through all this part
of Germany, extending even to Frankfort, Munich, Dresden, and Leipsig,
is entirely in female hands. Madame de Schaden is the proprietor, and
the responsible editor of the paper; she has the printing apparatus
and offices under her own roof, and though advanced in years, conducts
the whole concern with a degree of activity, spirit, and talent, which
delighted me. The circulation of this paper amounts to about four
thousand: a trifling number compared to our papers, but a large number
in this economical country, where the same paper is generally read by
fifty or sixty persons at least.
* * * * *
All travellers agree that benevolence and integrity are the national
characteristics of the Germans. Of their honesty I had daily proofs:
I do not consider that I was ever imposed upon or overcharged during my
journey, except once, and then it was by a Frenchman. Their benevolence
is displayed in the treatment of animals, particularly of their horses.
It was somewhere between Nuremberg and Hof, that, for the first and
only time, I saw a postilion flog his horse unmercifully, or at least
unreasonably. The Germans very seldom beat their horses: they talk to
them, remonstrate, encourage, or upbraid them. I have frequently known
a voiturier, or a postilion, go a whole stage--which is seldom less
than fifteen English miles--at a very fair pace, without once even
raising the whip; and have often witnessed, not without amusement, long
conversations between a driver and his steed--the man, with his arm
thrown over the animal's neck, discoursing in a strange jargon, and the
intelligent brute turning his eye on his master with such a responsive
expression! In this part of Germany there is a popular verse repeated by
the postilions, which may be called the German _rule of the road_. It is
the horse who speaks--
Berg auf, ubertrieb mich nicht;
Berg ab, ubereil mich nicht;
Auf ebenen Weg, vershoene mich nicht;
Im Stahl, vergiss mich nicht.
which is, literally,
Up hill, overdrive me not;
Down hill, hurry me not;
On level ground, spare me not;
In the stable, forget me not.
The German postilions form a very numerous and distinct class; they wear
a half-military costume--a laced or embroidered jacket, across which
is invariably slung the bugle-horn, with its parti-coloured cord and
tassels: huge jack-boots, and a smart glazed hat, not unfrequently
surmounted with a feather (as in Hesse Cassel and Saxe Weimer) complete
their appearance. They are in the direct service and pay of the
government; they must have an excellent character for fidelity and good
conduct before they are engaged, and the slightest failing in duty
or punctuality, subjects them to severe punishment; thus they enjoy
some degree of respectability as a body, and Marschner thought it not
unworthy of his talents to compose a fine piece of music, which he
called The Postilion's "Morgen-lied," or morning song. I found them
generally a good-humoured, honest set of men; obliging, but not servile
or cringing; they are not allowed to smoke without the express leave
of the traveller, nor to stop or delay on the road on any pretence
whatever. In short, though the burley German postilions do not present
the neat compact turn-out of an English post-boy, nor the horses any
thing like the speed of "Newman's greys," or the Brighton Age, and
though the traveller must now and then submit to arbitrary laws and
individual inconvenience; still the travelling regulations all over
Germany, more especially in Prussia, are so precise, so admirable,
and so strictly enforced, that no where could an unprotected female
journey with more complete comfort and security. This I have proved by
experience, after having tried every different mode of conveyance in
Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Saxony, and Hesse. My road expenses, for myself
and an attendant, seldom exceeded a Napoleon a-day.
III.
MEMORANDA AT DRESDEN.[25]
Beautiful, stately Dresden! if not the queen, the fine lady of the
German cities! Surrounded with what is most enchanting in nature, and
adorned with what is most enchanting in art, she sits by the Elbe like
a fair one in romance, wreathing her towery diadem--so often scathed by
war--with the vine and the myrtle, and looking on her own beauty imaged
in the river flood, which, after rolling an impetuous torrent through
the mountain gorges, here seems to pause and spread itself into a lucid
mirror to catch the reflection of her airy magnificence. No doubt misery
and evil dwell in Dresden, as in all the congregated societies of men,
but no where are they less obtrusive. The city has all the advantages,
and none of the disadvantages, of a capital; the treasures of art
accumulated here, the mild government, the delightful climate, the
beauty of the environs, and the cheerfulness and simplicity of social
intercourse, have rendered it a favourite residence for artists and
literary characters, and to foreigners one of the most captivating
places in the world. How often have I stood in the open space in front
of the gorgeous Italian church, or on the summit of the flight of steps
leading to the public walk, gazing upon the noble bridge which bestrides
the majestic Elbe, and connects the new and the old town; or, pursuing
with enchanted eye the winding course of the river to the foot of those
undulating purple hills, covered with villas and vineyards, till a
feeling of quiet grateful enjoyment has stolen over me, like that which
Wordsworth describes:--
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration.
But it is not only the natural beauties of the scene which strike a
stranger; the city itself has this peculiarity in common with Florence,
to which it has been so often compared, that instead of being an
accident in the landscape--a dim, smoky, care-haunted spot upon the
all-lovely face of nature--a discord in the soothing harmony of that
quiet enchanting scene which steals like music over the fancy;--it is
rather a charm the more--an ornament--a crowning splendour--a fulfilling
and completing chord. Its unrivalled elegance and neatness, a general
air of cheerfulness combined with a certain dignity and tranquillity,
the purity and elasticity of the atmosphere, the brilliant shops, the
well-dressed women, and the lively looks and good-humoured alertness
of the people, who, like the Florentines, are more remarkable for
their tact and acuteness than for their personal attractions;--all
these advantages render Dresden, though certainly one of the smallest,
and by no means one of the richest capitals in Europe, one of the
most delightful residences on the continent. I am struck, too, by the
silver-toned voices of the women, and the courtesy and vivacity of the
men; for in Bavaria the intonation is broad and harsh, and the people,
though frank, and honest, and good-natured, are rather slow, and not
particularly polished in their demeanour.