of handling, and may be considered magnificent specimens of that master’s better manner of portrait painting.  The heads are rather of colossal size.  The draperies are most elaborately executed.  I observed here, with singular satisfaction, two of the well-known series of the TWELVE APOSTLES, supposed to be both painted and engraved by Albert Durer.  They were St. John and St. Paul; the drapery, especially of the latter, has very considerable merit.  But probably the most interesting picture to the generality of visitors—­and indeed it is one entitled to particular commendation by the most curious and critical—­is, a large painting, by Sandrart, representing a fete given by the Austrian Ambassador, at Nuremberg, upon the conclusion of the treaty of peace at Westphalia, in 1649, after the well known thirty year’s war.  This picture is about fourteen feet long, by ten wide.  The table, at which the guests are banquetting, is filled by all the great characters who were then assembled upon the occasion.  An English knight of the garter is sufficiently conspicuous; his countenance in three quarters, being turned somewhat over his left shoulder.  The great fault of this picture is, making the guests to partake of a banquet, and yet to turn all their faces from it—­in order that the spectator may recognise their countenances.  Those who sit at table, are about half the size of life.  To the right of them, is a group as large as life, in which Sandrart has introduced himself, as if painting the picture.  His countenance is charmingly coloured; but it is a pity that all propriety of perspective is so completely lost, by placing two such differently sized groups in the same chamber.  This picture stands wofully in need of being repaired.  It is considered—­and apparently with justice—­to be the CHEF D’OEUVRE of the master.  I have hardly ever seen a picture, of its kind, more thoroughly interesting—­both on the score of subject and execution; but it is surely due to the memory of an artist, like Sandrart,—­who spent the greater part of a long life at Nuremberg, and established an academy of painting there—­that this picture ... be at least preserved ... if there be no means of engraving it.

In these curious old chambers, it was to be expected that I should see some Wohlegemuths—­as usual, with backgrounds in a blaze of gold, and figures with tortuous limbs, pinched-in waists, and caricatured countenances.  In a room, pretty plentifully encumbered with rubbish, I saw a charming Snyders; being a dead stag, suspended from a pole.  There is here a portrait of Albert Durer, by himself; but said to be a copy.  If so, it is a very fine copy.  The original is supposed to be at Munich.  There was nothing else that my visit enabled me to see, particularly deserving of being recorded; but, when I was told that it was in THIS CITADEL that the ancient Emperors of Germany used oftentimes to reside, and