The first view of the spires and turretted walls of Nuremberg[165] filled me with a sensation which it is difficult to describe.  Within about five English miles of it, just as we were about to run down the last descent, from the bottom of which it is perfectly level to the very gates of the city—­we discovered a group of peasants, chiefly female, busied in carrying barrows, apparently of fire wood, towards the town.  On passing them, the attention of Mr. Lewis was caught by one female countenance in particular—­so distinguished by a sweetness and benevolence of expression—­that we requested the postilion to stop, that we might learn some particulars respecting this young woman, and the mode of life which she followed.  She was without stockings; of a strong muscular form, and her face was half buried beneath a large flapping straw hat.  We learnt that her parents were engaged in making black lead pencils (a flourishing branch of commerce, at this moment, at Nuremberg) for the wholesale dealers; and they were so poor, that she was glad to get a florin by conveying wood (as we then saw her) four miles to Nuremberg.

It was market-day when we entered Nuremberg, about four o’clock.  The inn to which we had been recommended, proved an excellent one:  civility, cleanliness, good fare, and reasonable charges—­these form the tests of the excellence of the Cheval Rouge at Nuremberg.  In our route thither, we passed the two churches of St. Lawrence and St. Sebald, of which the former is the largest—­and indeed principal place of worship in the town.  We also passed through the market-place, wherein are several gothic buildings—­more elaborate in ornament than graceful in form or curious from antiquity.  The whole square, however, was extremely interesting, and full of population and bustle.  The town indeed is computed to contain 30,000 inhabitants.  We noticed, on the outsides of the houses, large paintings, as at Ratisbon, of gigantic figures:  and every street seemed to promise fresh gratification, as we descended one and ascended another.

My first object, on settling at the hotel, was to seek out the PUBLIC LIBRARY, and to obtain an inspection of some of those volumes which had exercised the pen of DE MURR, in his Latin Memoirs of the Public Library of Nuremberg.  I was now also in the birthplace of PANZER—­another, and infinitely more distinguished bibliographer,—­whose Typographical Annals of Europe will for ever render his memory as dear to other towns as to Nuremberg.  In short, when I viewed the Citadel of this place—­and witnessed, in my perambulations about the town, so many curious specimens of gothic architecture, I could only express my surprise and regret that more substantial justice had not been rendered to so interesting a spot.  I purchased every thing I could lay my hand upon, connected with the published antiquities of the town; but that “every thing” was sufficiently scanty and unsatisfactory.