The King replied “he saw no objection whatever to the proposed exchange—­and left the forms of carrying it into execution with his head librarian M. Le Bret.”  Having gained my point, it only remained to make my bow.  The King then passed on to the remainder of the circle, and was quickly followed by the Queen.  I heard her Majesty distinctly tell General Allan,[20] in the English language, that “she could never forget her reception in England; that the days spent there were among the happiest of her life, and that she hoped, before she died, again to visit our country.”  She even expressed “gratitude for the cordial manner in which she had been received, and, entertained in it."[21]

The heat had now become almost insupportable; as, for the reason before assigned, every window and door was shut.  However, this inconvenience, if it was severe, was luckily of short duration.  A little after nine, their Majesties retired towards the door by which they had entered:  and which, as it was reopened, presented, in the background, the attendants waiting to receive them.  The King and Queen then saluted the circle, and retired.  In ten minutes we had all retreated, and were breathing the pure air of heaven.  I preferred walking home, and called upon M. Le Bret in my way.  It was about half past nine only, but that philosophical bibliographer was about retiring to rest.  He received me, however, with a joyous welcome:  re-trimmed his lamp; complimented me upon the success of the negotiation, and told me that I might now depart in peace from Stuttgart—­for that “the affair might be considered as settled."[22]

I have mentioned to you, more than once, the name of DANNECKER the sculptor.  It has been my good fortune to visit him, and to converse with him much at large, several times.  He is one of the most unaffected of the living Phidias-tribe; resembling much, both in figure and conversation, and more especially in a pleasing simplicity of manners, our celebrated Chantry.  Indeed I should call Dannecker, on the score of art as well as of person, rather the Chantry than the Flaxman or Canova of Suabia.  He shewed me every part of his study; and every cast of such originals as he had executed, or which he had it in contemplation to execute.  Of those that had left him, I was compelled to be satisfied with the plaster of his famous ARIADNE, reclining upon the back of a passant leopard, each of the size of life.  The original belongs to a banker at Frankfort, for whom it was executed for the sum of about one thousand pounds sterling.  It must be an exquisite production; for if the plaster be thus interesting what must be the effect of the marble?  Dannecker told me that the most difficult parts of the group, as to detail, were the interior of the leopard’s feet, and the foot and retired drapery of the female figure—­which has one leg tucked under the other.  The whole composition has an harmonious, joyous effect; while health, animation, and beauty breathe in every limb and lineament of Ariadne.