It would employ one a week to visit all the rich collections of art in Vienna.  They are all open to the public on certain days of the week, and we have been kept constantly in motion, running from one part of the city to another, in order to arrive at some gallery at the appointed time.  Tickets, which have to be procured often in quite different parts of the city, are necessary for admittance to many; on applying after much trouble and search, we frequently found we came at the wrong hour, and must leave without effecting our object.  We employed no guide, but preferred finding every thing ourselves.  We made a list every morning, of the collections open during the day, and employed the rest of the time in visiting the churches and public gardens, or rambling through the suburbs.

We visited the Imperial Library a day or two ago.  The hall is 245 feet long, with a magnificent dome in the centre, under which stands the statue of Charles V., of Carrara marble, surrounded by twelve other monarchs of the house of Hapsburg.  The walls are of variegated marble, richly ornamented with gold, and the ceiling and dome are covered with brilliant fresco paintings.  The library numbers 300,000 volumes, and 16,000 manuscripts, which are kept in walnut cases, gilded and adorned with medallions.  The rich and harmonious effect of the whole cannot easily be imagined.  It is exceedingly appropriate that a hall of such splendor, should be used to hold a library.  The pomp of a palace may seem hollow and vain, for it is but the dwelling of a man; but no building can be too magnificent for the hundreds of great and immortal spirits to dwell in, who have visited earth during thirty centuries.

Among other curiosities preserved in the collection, we were shown a brass plate, containing one of the records of the Roman Senate, made 180 years before Christ, Greek manuscripts of the fifth and sixth centuries, and a volume of Psalms, printed on parchment, in the year 1457, by Faust and Schaeffer, the inventors of printing.  There were also Mexican manuscripts, presented by Cortez; the prayer-book of Hildegard, wife of Charlemagne, in letters of gold; the signature of San Carlo Borromeo, and a Greek testament of the thirteenth century, which had been used by Erasmus in making his translation and contains notes in his own hand.  The most interesting article was the “Jerusalem Delivered” of Tasso, in the poet’s own hand, with his erasions and corrections.

We also visited the Cabinet of Natural History, which is open twice a week “to all respectably dressed persons,” as the notice at the door says.  But Heaven forbid that I should attempt to describe what we saw there.  The Mineral Cabinet had a greater interest to me, inasmuch as it called up the recollections of many a school-boy ramble over the hills and into all kinds of quarries, far and near.  It is said to be the most perfect collection in existence.  I was pleased to find many old