"The bronze foundery of Steiglmaier, at which we next arrived (he says) is the continuation, or, as it were, the appendix to the atelier of Schwanthaler. Here his teeming models are converted into bronze. These works are again immense. We went into four or five great rooms, each of which were full of workmen, busily employed in hammering, polishing and filing huge limbs of bronze, just turned out of the moulds; others in preparing the moulds themselves. Here long Titanic heads, here a booted leg of bronze as big as an ordinary man. Groups of workmen reminding us of the earlier outlines of Retsch's Song of the Bell, are building up and screwing together these huge forms. The sounds are deafening. We were then ushered into a small room, in which, like a scene of an Arabian tale, stood eight colossal golden statues of the Electors of Bavaria; part of those which we have mentioned as preparing for the throne-room. The effect was perfectly dazzling. These statues are each ten feet high. Masterly figures wrought in the costume each of his own age, in the most exquisite style of workmanship. Every smallest fold of raiment or piece of armour, their massy swords and flowing locks, are most beautifully finished, and the splendour of such masses of gold is superb beyond description. The whole series consists of fourteen of these gigantic figures, of which eight were here complete, and the remainder were to be finished in the course of the following year. Five years had already been employed on them, and, including the designing and modelling, each figure costs 20001. sterling; half the value consisting in the gold with which they are overlaid. Coming out of these With one more quotation we must "People are fond of comparing the voyages of the Danube and the Rhine, and of pronouncing which is the more beautiful. I should, myself, find it difficult to say which is the more beautiful or interesting. The two great rivers have a certain similarity, and yet very great differences. They have both their woods, their mountains, their castles, their vineyards, and their legends; but the Rhine is more populous and cheerful, the Danube more solitary and solemn. You have not those large and populous towns seated on the banks of the Danube, nor the same life of commerce on its waters. You have not the same extent of finely cultivated vineyards, the same continued stretch of rocks and precipices, at least so far as I traversed it, from Lintz to Vienna. But you have more splendid woods, more rude We en What works, we observed a lofty tower near, and asked what it was. O, that was only the wooden structure in which the men were building the clay model of the figure of the Bavaria, intended to stand on the Theresian Meadow, where the people hold their annual feast in October. tered and stood in astonishment. a figure! It is that of a female standing, with a lion by her side; a female figure of fifty-five feet high, and to be placed on a pedestal of thirty feet, altogether eightyfive feet in height. It was as if the days of the Arabians had come back, and this was the statue of one of their queens. The statue is perfectly sublime in its immensity. The grace and majesty of the design are no less wonderful than the boldness of the idea. The first model from which the workmen mould, although many degrees larger than life, appeared dwarfish in the presence of this nearlycompleted Titaness. The head alone of the Bavaria is taller than the tallest man, and the thumb-nail of one of the hands, which was reared against the wall, was as long as a man's whole hand. Scaffolding, a perfect network of poles and ladders, was raised about this female modern Colossus, on which swarmed the workmen busily building it. In one corner stood Schwanthaler's plaster-model, and in another lay a mountain of clay for completing the figures. When this stupendous statue is set on the place of its destination, lofty as a tolerable church-tower, it will be an animating thought for the people, when they collect around it, that it is not only a symbolic sign of their country, but is formed of the cannon taken from their enemies, masses of which were lying about ready for the purpose." conclude: and solemn scenery, mingled with slopes and meadows of the most soft and beautiful character. The Danube has not been for ages, like the Rhine, the great highway of commerce, though it has been the scene of bloody contests, and of the march of armies. Its towns, therefore, are small, few, and far between. Its villages have' an antiquated, weather-beaten, and half decaying air; its only life a few ill-dressed peasants, gazing at the stream as it flies past. Its current is rapid and irregular, and views into distant glens and dark woodlands, make you feel that you are in a far wilder and more savage region than that of the Rhine. Campbell, in his so often quoted verses 'On leaving a scene in Bavaria,' has strikingly indicated the spirit of the Danube. Yes, I have lov'd thy wild abode, Unknown, unplough'd, untrodden shore, Where scarce the woodman finds a road, And scarce the fisher plies an oar. For man's neglect I love thee more; That art nor avarice intrude To tame thy torrent's thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock, Magnificently rude. But all is not so solemn or savage on the Danube. There is much of the beautiful and cheerful mingled with it. The castle of Grainberg, a seat of the Duke of Saxe Coburg, the imperial palace of Bösenberg, interrupted with shoals and sandbanks, and marshy meadows, where heaps of pebbles, thrown up by the floods, testify to its fury in winter and in rainy weather. The Rhine has a more joyous and flourishing aspect, with its cities, its populous villages stretching along its banks, and those banks so green, and smoothed for the purposes of navigation. On the Danube you have solitude, an air of neglect, a stern and brooding spirit, which seems to belong to the genius of the past; of trackless woods,-of solitary mines,-of rude feudal chiefs hunting the boar and the hart in the wild glens and deep forests, a genius which gives reluctantly way to the spirit of steam which invades it. You meet or pass on its waters scarcely a boat. There is no white sail greeting you in the distant sunshine, for the boatman does not hoist one, least the sudden squalls from the hills should sink his craft. Vast rafts, now and then, with rude-looking men, float down from the distant Bohemian forests. Old and weatherbeaten towers give you a grim greeting from the shaggy rocks as you pass; where Francis the First used to spend so much of his time in the summer; the immense Convent of Mölk, with other castles, churches, and villages on the banks, or more distantly in view, breaks brightly and pleasantly forth; and particularly as you approach Vienna, the green steep slopes, scattered with beautiful trees, the neat cottages and vineyards, alternating with woods and rocks, have an indescribable charm but far distant from Vienna you descry the vast pile of Klosternewberg a good way from the river; and, emerging from the hills, the woods of the Prater lie before you; Vienna itself on the sloping land to your right, with its lofty tapery tower of St. Stephen, offering a noble termination to the voyage.' We must now finish our extracts with an account of the visits which Mr. Howitt paid to the kindred sons of genius, and get a peep at the great artists of the day, as they live among their own creations. "Near this old palace, (at Stuttgard,) and in front of the Stefts Kirche, stands the statue of Schiller by Thorwaldsen, cast in bronze by Steiglmaier, of Munich. It is a figure larger than life, wrapped in a long robe, and covered with laurel. The head is inclined, as deeply thinking. I cannot say that it strikes me as one of Thorwaldsen's happiest efforts, not to be compared at all in merit to Dannecker's fine intellectual bust. The figures of Schiller in plaster are miniature copies of this statue. The house and studio of Dannecker are near the palace. The house is small and modest, seeming, by its contrast with the palace and theatre, and other buildings around, to say, as plainly as possible, that genius beautifies large houses, but does not dwell in them. The interior had the same domestic look, yet you saw at once that you had entered the abode of mind. A maid servant opened the door for us, and conducted us into the studio. An outer room was filled with casts from the most celebrated antiques, as the Apollo, Venus, head of Antinous, the Sleeping Fawn, &c. The studio itself seemed to present you the history of the artist. The walls were covered with rough sketches. There were numbers of first attempts, and the models of works afterwards completed and become celebrated. There stood the model of the first work which won him fame, the Milo of Cortona; but glorious, amid these, stood forth one of his most noble works, the magnificent bust of Schiller. We had heard that Dannecker, in his later years, and when his genius was sinking beneath the ruins of a time-worn constitution, had, with a fatal fondness, been perpetually at work on this splendid image of his old friend and countryman, touching and retouching till he had annihilated the most striking marks of genius. How great was our surprise and pleasure to find how happily unfounded this was. it had been, indeed, now inferior to what it ever was, we may lament the fact, but we cannot in any way feel sensible of it, for a more beautifully expressive bust cannot be imagined. It is colossal, but only enough so to answer to our conception of the genius of the man. The fine philosophic calm, the lofty, pure, and gentle humanity which breathes from every feature, are wholly worthy both of the poet and sculptor. The author of Wallenstein and the Robbers stood before us as we imagine him in the moment If when he had sketched the lovely character of Theela or the erratic nobility of Karl Moor, and reflected on his work with the deep satisfaction of the intellectual creator, who feels that he has realized his fairest conceptions of human nature, and conferred on mankind a perpetual addition to their objects of admiration and affection. *** There was also a cast of Schiller's features taken after death, equally bearing testimony to the fidelity of the sculptor in preserving the genuine features of the man, while, by his faculty of ideality, he has given to us a satisfying image of the greatest writer in Germany, so far as true greatness consists in a godlike use of godlike qualities and faculties, a lofty and independant nature, a noble heart, a proud and magnanimous love of freedom and of intellect, and an incorruptible sentiment of purity, modesty, affection, and gentleness. A cast of his bust of Goethe, equally excellent in its kind, testifies how perfectly Dannecker has entered into the different geniuses of the two great intellectual lights of Germany. Here stands Schiller in his simple greatness, the very embodiment of a man who bore his faculties meekly; here Goëthe in his more knowing and many-sided character. Here is the unworldly, pure, patriotic, and philosophic essence; here the courtier, the Geheimrath, the man of the world and of the age. Here the broad transparent mind, which seeks and commands admiration rather by its clear breadth, by the grasp and compass of a production as a whole, than by the verbal and fanciful beauties of any individual part. The one, perhaps, the most wonderful in the extent and variety of his powers, his tastes, his arguments, and his experience; the other more sublimely great by the full, conscientious embodiment in himself of all that is high, and pure, and magnanimous in the heart and soul of man. The simple-minded sculptor has given to his country gifts of remarkable value in the exquisite busts of these two great men, but he has given to mankind at large a still more precious one in his statue of the Christ. This, which was his favourite work, the offspring of his inmost heart and mind, has been often sharply criticised, and much carped at by some of his own countrymen. Bonstetten, in a letter to Frederic Brunn, from Stutgard, in 1822, says, 'I was yesterday with Dannecker. I thought myself in Italy, and sought you in all corners. Dannecker was so kind to me. He spoke to me his inmost thoughts. For three years he has been employed on a statue of Christ, which commands his whole soul. He related to me many things of ladies and children, who, at the sight of the statue, were so greatly moved that it gave him the greatest joy. I restrained myself from saying that they would have wept just as much before the most wretched image of the Virgin, as perhaps the Egyptians before their dogs and birds. However, to me this statue of Jesus, which the Empress-mother has ordered for PeI hate alletersburg, is not striking. gorical images in general; and Jesus-God is to me too metaphysical for an image. Very beautiful it cannot be, on account of the coarse clothing. Bodily beautiful as Apollo or Hebe it may not be. The gentlemen from Olympus are beautiful, since they are idolized; but a God-Man appears to me as adventurous as an Anubis with a dog's head. As I observed to Dannecker that there was something in the under lip from the Apollo, he told me that he had been obliged to chase the Apollo out of his studio as a seducer. The Jesus strikes me as a handsome country clergyman. Michael Angelo alone has in his Moses hit off our demigods. But Dannecker is quite Michael Angelo in Schiller's bust. Flesh, life and truth are in his bust; so they are in no others. There is no death in his marble-not in the eyes even-and there reigns a German nobility in his portraits which cling fast to the truth, but feebly reach it.'-In the artist's studio were also the three heads of Christ which he had successively modelled, till he had completely developed his conception; and each succeeding one shews for itself that each following attempt brought him nearer to it. By the side of these his Psyche appeared somewhat childish; his Cupid and the Nymph weeping over the dead bird, his St. John and Sappho, and others, particularly charmed us; but a bust of Lavater, and two heads of a husband and wife, whose names I have forgotten, attracted more our admiration. Besides these were heads numberless of kings and queens, dukes and duchesses; amongst them a very fine and characteristic one of Prince Metternich. It was a high gratification to us, after quitting the studio, to be introduced to the venerable sculptor himself. It was but just in time--they who seek him here now will not find him-heis since deceased. We found him seated on an elevated wooden bench in his garden, under the shade of a large pear-tree, where he could overlook the square in which stands the palace and theatre, and amuse himself by watching the people. He was upwards of eighty years of age, of healthy but of feeble appearance, and looking himself like one of Homer's old men, sitting on the wall of Troy, in the sun-shine, in the quiet enjoyment of nature's out-ofdoor blessings. We had heard that he was quite childish, and were agreeably surprised to find him so perfectly rational, collected, and with no further appearance of childishness than that resulting from the feebleness of old age. In his venerable face and white locks we could recognise much of that simple and Christian character which has dictated the statue of Christ, and in his cordial manner the spirit which he had drawn from Christ's religion. He came to meet us, told us he had planted that pear-tree with his own hands, as well as most of the plants in the garden, and gathered us pears and roses for our daughter. Mrs. Dannecker, who is much younger, appeared a very kind and judicious guardian of his age." We must next give Mr. Howitt's account of his visit to a scarce less illustrious brother-artist, and one more immediately connected with this country, from his outlines from Shakspere-we mean Retsch : "This noble artist has a house in the Neustadt in Dresden, where in the winter he receives his friends, and where a most interesting class of persons is to be met; but in summer he returns to his Weinberg hills, his vineyard at Tösnitz, six or seven miles down the valley. They who would know exactly where his abode then is, may readily see it, by standing on the fine airy bridge of Dresden, and looking down the valley to the next range of hills. On their ridge at Tösnitz stands a tower; directly below it, at the foot of the hills, is a white house, and there nestles Retsch in his poetical retirement, maturing those beautiful conceptions which have given him so wide a fame. A pleasant drive down the valley brought us into this region of vineyards, which in the bright colour of autumn does not want for pic turesque effect. In the midst of these we found the very simple cottage of the artist. His wife and niece compose all his family, and he can muse on his fancies at will. His house was furnished, as German houses often are, somewhat barely, and with no traces of picture or print on the walls, but a piano and heaps of music told the art of which his wife is passionately fond. While noticing these things, a very broad and stout-built man, of middle stature, and with a great quantity of grey hair, stood before us. By portraits which we had seen of him, and which are like and yet unlike, we immediately recognised him. Though polite, yet there was a coldness in his manner, which seemed plainly to say, Who are these who come to interrupt me out of mere curiosity, for they are quite strangers to me? When, however, he understood that Mrs. Howitt was the, English poetess in whom he had expressed so much interest, a mist seemed to pass from his eyes, he stretched out his arms, grasped her hand in both his, and shook it with a heartiness that must have been felt some minutes after. He then gave one of his hands to our daughter, another to myself, with equally vigourous demon strations of pleasure, and set about to display to us everything that he thought could gratify us. Through various narrow passages, and up various stairs of his rustic abode he conducted us to his own little study, where he shewed to us from his window his vineyard running up the hill, pulled from a shelf a copy of Mrs. Howitt's Seven Temptations,' and sate down to a little table, where he told us he had sketched most of the outlines of Faust and Shakspere. He exhibited to us drawings and paintings in profusion, 'till his niece appeared with a tray, bearing splendid wine and grapes from his own vineyard: a perfect little picture in itself, for in the pretty and amiable looking niece we could see the prototype of many of his young damsels in his sketches. He then drew from the fireside a heap of drawings-the album of his wife, a book which, from Mrs. Jamieson's interesting description, we had a great desire to see. This is unquestionably the most valuable and beautiful album in the world. It is filled with the most perfect creations of his fancy, whether sportive or solemn, as they have accumulated through years, and it is a thousand pities that they were not published during his lifetime, while he could superintend their execution, and see that justice was done to them. It is a volume of the poetry of sublimity, beauty and piety; for while he is the finest illustrator of the ideas of great poets, he is also a great poet himself, writing out his imaginations with his pencil. The zephyr besetting his wife in a walk, fluttering her dress, and carrying off her hat,is a charming piece of sportiveness. The Angel of Goodness blessing her, is most beautiful, with the heavenly beauty of love. Christ as a youth, standing with an axe in his hand, before the shop of Joseph, with children about him, to whom he is pointing out the beauties of nature, and thence unfolding to them the Creator, is full of the holiest piety and youthful grace. The Angel of Death, severe in youthful beauty; and the sublime figure of Imagination advancing on its way, and looking forward into the mysteries of futurity, are glorious creations. In short, this gem of a book, with its truly wondrous drawings-not mere outlines, but most delicately and exquisitely finished-will one day raise still higher the true fame of this With true great and original artist. At Weimar the travellers visited the houses of Schiller and Goëthe : "How exactly," says Mr. Howitt, "did their respective aspects correspond with the fortunes of the two poets. Schiller's, a modest and somewhat common looking house, was that of a man who had neither the worldly tact nor a life sufficiently prolonged to rise out of the narrowness of poetic circumstances. That of Goethe, on the other hand, was the handsome abode of the cosmopolitan old Geheimrath, who had as much of the man of the world as of the poet in him; who knew the world and made it serve him; who lived long to enjoy it, and left some of its goods to his descendants. * * It may be imagined with what interest we surveyed this house, which is at once handsome and yet unimposing. It seemed to us as if Goëthe was still living, and might at any moment walk into the room where we happened to be. Here was his drawing-room, with the last and best portrait of him, full of spirit and character. His bust taken in his youth, with flowing hair, and uncommonly handsome; by which the Frau Von Goëthe had set a cast of Lord Byron, which she said she feared at first would have been too great a trial for M. Goëthe, but which she now thought he stood very well. There was his study as he left it, with the breakfast-table of Schiller, which the son of Schiller gave to Goëthe: a small oval table with a high rim round it, evidentfy calculated for a solitary student, breakfasting, not with his family, but alone among his books, and probably used when working too intensely at some of his more absorbing dramas to quit his room for a moment. Here was the hall filled with some of the finest casts from the antique, giving a very classical aspect to the house as you enter; and behind the house the little retired garden, where Goëthe used to walk daily for hours, working out the progress of the compositions on which he was engaged. This interesting house was formerly opened to strangers, but the great inconvenience to the family has compelled the restriction of this privilege to their own friends."'* [Mr. Howitt has also published a volume called the "Student Life in Germany," translated from a work by Dr. Cornelius, written for him; but, as it is neither amusing or instructive, we have given no extracts from it. The translation of the poetry is often incorrect, and often inelegant; and there is not a syllable of the studies of the Student in the whole volume.] EFFIGY IN ST. MARY'S CHURCH, NOTTINGHAM. MR. URBAN, when that church was undergoing repairs. I know not if it is still in existence, for it was then in three pieces. Its costume is evidently, from the cut of the beard, of the period of Richard the Second, who reigned from 1377 to 1399, and I find "that King by Letters Patent, bearing date at Nottingham, 8th July, in the 16th year of his reign, 1392, granted a license to John Plumptre of Nottingham, to found and endow within the said town, *It has been recently determined, by a decision of the Diet, on the 16th Sept. to purchase Goethe's house, and engraft thereon a national museum, at the expense of the German Confederation.-Edit. |