THE SACRAMENTS HAUSLEIN. 245 own double lattices to fence out the blasts of the Schwartzburg, and the snows that sweep the far Thuringian Hills. The Gondola, the sable, the silent, the gracefully gliding Gondola alone is wanting! If ever Labour lived in Stone, if ever Art was Immortality, a palm-branch shall be thine, thou Adam Kraft! a palm-branch in the choir of St. Lorenz. Scarcely have we recovered from our eulogies of the luxuriant sculptures of the decorated Western Gateway, and the starry petals of the great Marigold Window above it, before we become breathless with admiration of that marvellous Tabernacle, thy Sacraments Hauslein. Elaborated into so much delicacy of sculpture, that it might be the fusion of a Silesian forge,this towering Ark claims to be the Child of the Quarry, not of the Mine, the creation of thy patient genius, not of a steam engine of one hundred horse power. Glory to Nuremberg, which, rejecting the bigot tyranny of the Roman Idolator, fettered likewise the insane brutality of Iconoclasm! Glory to Nuremberg, who having bearded her Domestic Tyrant, the Burg Graaf, endured not the profanation of a foreign rapacity! Glory to Nuremberg! from whose undaunted public spirit it has resulted, not only that she has 246 PAINTED WINDOWS OF ST. LORENZ. preserved inviolate her ancient Municipal and Ecclesiastic Monuments; but further, that the chief of her old Families do, to this day, maintain the Mansions which, centuries ago, their forefathers embellished with such laboured prodigality of Art. I have just been reading a passage from Ranke's Reformation in Germany which comes in here so well, that I must be permitted to insert it. "How admirably did Nürnberg defend herself! For every injury she sustained she carried her vengeance home to the territory of the aggressor, and her mounted bands frequently made rich captures. Woe to the nobles who fell into their hands! No intercession either of kinsmen or of neighbouring princes availed to save them; the Council was armed with the ever-ready excuse that the Citizens absolutely demanded the punishment of the offender. "In vain did he look out from the bars of his prison towards the forest, watching whether his friends and allies were not coming to his rescue. Berlichengen's story sufficiently shews us with how intense a dread even those of her neighbours, who delighted the most in wild and daring exploits, regarded the Towers of Nürnberg. Noble blood was no security either from the horrors of the Question or the Axe of the Executioner." The Painted Glass at Saint Lorenz exhibits a signal eminence in that magic art, and might almost make one rave about Monastic Legends, THE NASSAUER HAUS. 247 together with the blues, the yellows, and the reds, and the pervading ground of gold which illuminates their venerable tale. But in sooth, I have rioted so long amongst these Pictures of the Sun, -I have seen great Arches so replenished with their sombre effulgence, Mullions bursting with their mitres, and coronets, and sceptres, and swords, and the very daylight indignant at seeing himself compelled to become an involuntary accomplice in this usurpation of himself,—that I forbear, much against my will, and leave the lover of Painted Glass to imagine the windows in the Tribuna of Saint Lorenz, until, like myself, he has become a pilgrim at their shrine. "Within these Oratories might you see The Palace of Adolphe of Nassau, the family residence of his illustrious Lineage, I have the rather distinguished by this title from the thrilling interest with which the traditions of that unfortunate and romantic Monarch inspired me when a boy. It is unquestionably the most ancient and, I think, the most beautiful mansion in the city. Manifesting the commanding majesty of the Burgundian order, it seems to disclaim its caprice, and, by the side of its fantastic neighbours, appears the unimpeachable model of its Style. Massive and broad, it escapes the imputation of unwieldi 248 THE NASSAUER HAUS. ness by maintaining the dimensions of a Tower. Surely nothing ever equalled the loveliness of that foliated Balcony, emblazoned with Armorial Shields, which, with four open Gloriettes at each angle, embraces the parapet of this princely habitation. The steep roof, with its dormer windows, rises like an Imperial burgonet out of this heraldic wreath. That shrine of an Oriel in the centre of its front resembles a Star, on some bold Baron's breast; and the mimic porphyry of its crimson stonework accomplishes the regal character of the whole. But it is the story of Adolf that weaves a spell about the Nassauer Haus, which not even its pomp of name or nobility of architecture could create. How feelingly might this hapless Sovereign have exclaimed with our Fifth Henry "No, thou proud Dream! That play'st so subtly with a King's repose, The Throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave." You remember the wounded Emperor in the cloistered garden where he was healed; the Nun THE RATH HAUS. 249 whose affections he perverted; the escape in which she was his guilty associate; the towery Retreat he built for her upon the Rhine; the solemn and appalling sentence that pursued them thither; the Ban of the Empire; the formal dethronement; the battle; and the death of the Imperial Outcast: and if you withdraw your thoughts from the tragic Chronicle to contemplate again and again the stately loftiness of his ancestral palace, it is only to congratulate yourself that you have found for so rare a Romance so rare a Home. In a city like Nuremburg, one would suppose that the Rath Haus ought not to be omitted. But in place of the primitive Gothic pile, a meretricious specimen of the Cinque Cento has started up, miserably betraying the solemn and stately Taste which originally designed the pile for solemn and stately Transactions. There is a majestic vaulted Hall, familiar to most people as the chamber where Albrecht the Painter did honour to Maximilian the Emperor, by adorning its walls with his glowing Allegory; of them, therefore, I need not write. And there are certain Souterrains and pits where, in the good old time, men used to broil, and hash, and pot their fellow-creatures; but they are walled up; of them therefore I cannot write. By an excess of folly which would be ludicrous were it not so insolent, the same sacrilegious hands which dismembered the original edifice, have spared a most exquisitely chi |