make carousal, and when I saw, now, scarcely any thing but dark passages, unfurnished galleries, naked halls, and untenanted chambers—­I own that I could hardly refrain from uttering a sigh over the mutability of earthly fashions, and the transitoriness of worldly grandeur.  With a rock for its base, and walls almost of adamant for its support—­situated also upon an eminence which may be said to look frowningly down over a vast sweep of country—­THE CITADEL OF NUREMBERG should seem to have bid defiance, in former times, to every assault of the most desperate and enterprising foe.  It is now visited only by the casual traveller ... who is frequently startled at the echo of his own footsteps.

While I am on the subject of ancient art—­of which so many curious specimens are to be seen in this Citadel—­it may not be irrelevant to conduct the reader at once to what is called the Town Hall—­a very large structure—­of which portions are devoted to the exhibition of old pictures.  Many of these paintings are in a very suspicious state, from the operations of time and accident; but the great boast of the collection are the Triumphs of Maximilian I, executed by Albert Durer—­which, however, have by no means escaped injury.  I was accompanied in my visit to this interesting collection by Mr. Boerner, a partner in the house of Frauenholz and Co.—­and had particular reason to be pleased by the friendliness of his attentions, and by the intelligence of his observations.  A great number of these pictures (as I understood) belonged to Messrs. Frauenholz and Co.; and among them, a portrait by Pens, struck me as being singularly admirable and exquisite.  The countenance, the dress, the attitude, the drawing and colouring, were as perfect as they well might be.  But this collection has also suffered from the transportation of many of its treasures to Munich.  The rooms, halls, and corridors of this Hotel de Ville give you a good notion of municipal grandeur.

Nuremberg was once the life and soul of art as well as of commerce.  The numismatic, or perhaps medallic, productions of her artists, in the XVIth century, might, many of them, vie with the choicest efforts of Greece.  I purchased two silver medals, of the period just mentioned, which are absolutely perfect of their kind:  one has, on the obverse, the profile of an old man with a flowing beard and short bonnet, with the circumscription of AEtatis Suae LXVI.; and, on the reverse, the words De Coelo Victoria.  Anno M.D.  XLVI. surrounding the arms of Bavaria.  I presume the head to be a portrait of some ancient Bavarian General; and the inscription, on the reverse, to relate to some great victory, in honour of which the medal was struck.  The piece is silver-gilt.  The boldness of its relief can hardly be exceeded.  The other medal represents the portrait of Joh.  Petreius Typographus, Anno AEtat.  Suae. IIL. (48), Anno 1545—­executed