St. Stephen’s Cathedral, in the centre of the old city, is one of the finest specimens of Gothic architecture in Germany.  Its unrivalled tower, which rises to the height of four hundred and twenty-eight feet, is visible from every part of Vienna.  It is entirely of stone, most elaborately ornamented, and is supposed to be the strongest in Europe.  If the tower was finished, it might rival any church in Europe in richness and brilliancy of appearance.  The inside is solemn and grand; but the effect is injured by the number of small chapels and shrines.  In one of these rests, the remains of Prince Eugene of Savoy, “der edle Ritter,” known in a ballad to every man, woman and child in Germany.

The Belvidere Gallery fills thirty-five halls, and contains three thousand pictures!  It is absolutely bewildering to walk through such vast collections; you can do no more than glance at each painting, and hurry by face after face, and figure after figure, on which you would willingly gaze for hours and inhale the atmosphere of beauty that surrounds them.  Then after you leave, the brain is filled with their forms—­radiant spirit-faces look upon you, and you see constantly, in fancy, the calm brow of a Madonna, the sweet young face of a child, or the blending of divine with mortal beauty in an angel’s countenance.  I endeavor, if possible, always to make several visits—­to study those pictures which cling first to the memory, and pass over those which make little or no impression.  It is better to have a few images fresh and enduring, than a confused and indistinct memory of many.

From the number of Madonnas in every European gallery, it would almost seem that the old artists painted nothing else.  The subject is one which requires the highest genius to do it justice, and it is therefore unpleasant to see so many still, inexpressive faces of the virgin and child, particularly by the Dutch artists, who clothe their figures sometimes in the stiff costume of their own time.  Raphael and Murillo appear to me to be almost the only painters who have expressed what, perhaps, was above the power of other masters—­the combined love and reverence of the mother, and the divine expression in the face of the child, prophetic of his mission and godlike power.

There were many glorious old paintings in the second story, which is entirely taken up with pictures; two or three of the halls were devoted to selected works from modern artists.  Two of these I would give every thing I have to possess.  One of them is a winter scene, representing the portico of an old Gothic church.  At the base of one of the pillars a woman is seated in the snow, half-benumbed, clasping an infant to her breast, while immediately in front stands a boy of perhaps seven or eight years, his little hands folded in prayer, while the chill wind tosses the long curls from his forehead.  There is something so pure and holy in the expression of his childish countenance, so much feeling in the lip