Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume V Part 11

After the band had finished tuning their instruments, a middle-sized, handsome man stept forward with long strides, with a violin in one hand and bow in the other, and began waving the latter up and down, like a magician summoning his spirits. As if he had waved the sound out of his bow, the tones leaped forth from the instruments, and, guided by his eye and hand, fell into a merry measure. The accuracy with which every instrument performed its part was truly marvelous. He could not have struck the measure or the harmony more certainly from the keys of his own piano than from that large band. The sounds struggled forth so perfect and distinct that one almost expected to see them embodied, whirling in wild dance around him. Sometimes the air was so exquisitely light and bounding the feet could scarcely keep on the earth; then it sank into a mournful lament with a sobbing tremulousness, and died away in a long-breathed sigh.

Strauss seemed to feel the music in every limb. He would wave his fiddle-bow a while, then commence playing with desperate energy, moving his whole body to the measure, till the sweat rolled from his brow. A book was lying on the stand before him, but he made no use of it. He often glanced around with a kind of half-triumphant smile at the restless crowd, whose feet could scarcely be restrained from bounding to the magic measure. It was the horn of Oberon realized. The composition of the music displayed great talent, but its charm consisted more in the exquisite combination of the different instruments, and the perfect, the wonderful, exactness with which each performed its part--a piece of art of the most elaborate and refined character.

The company, which consisted of several hundred, appeared to be full of enjoyment. They sat under the trees in the calm, cool twilight with the stars twinkling above, and talked and laughed sociably together between the pauses of the music, or strolled up and down the lighted alleys. We walked up and down with them, and thought how much we should enjoy such a scene at home, where the faces around us would be those of friends and the language our mother-tongue.

We went a long way through the suburbs one bright afternoon to a little cemetery about a mile from the city to find the grave of Beethoven. On ringing at the gate a girl admitted us into the grounds, in which are many monuments of n.o.ble families who have vaults there. I pa.s.sed up the narrow walk, reading the inscriptions, till I came to the tomb of Franz Clement, a young composer who died two or three years ago. On turning again my eye fell instantly on the word "Beethoven" in golden letters on a tombstone of gray marble. A simple gilded lyre decorated the pedestal, above which was a serpent encircling a b.u.t.terfly--the emblem of resurrection. Here, then, moldered the remains of that restless spirit who seemed to have strayed to earth from another clime, from such a height did he draw his glorious conceptions.

The perfection he sought for here in vain he has now attained in a world where the soul is freed from the bars which bind it in this. There were no flowers planted around the tomb by those who revered his genius; only one wreath, withered and dead, lay among the gra.s.s, as if left long ago by some solitary pilgrim, and a few wild b.u.t.tercups hung with their bright blossoms over the slab. It might have been wrong, but I could not resist the temptation to steal one or two while the old gravedigger was busy preparing a new tenement. I thought that other buds would open in a few days, but those I took would be treasured many a year as sacred relics. A few paces off is the grave of Schubert, the composer whose beautiful songs are heard all over Germany.

We visited the imperial library a day or two ago. The hall is two hundred and forty-five feet long, with a magnificent dome in the center, 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 three hundred thousand volumes and sixteen thousand ma.n.u.scripts, which are kept in walnut cases gilded and adorned with medallions. The rich and harmonious effect of the whole can not 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 bra.s.s plate containing one of the records of the Roman Senate made one hundred and eighty years before Christ, Greek ma.n.u.scripts of the fifth and sixth centuries, and a volume of Psalms printed on parchment in the year 1457 by Faust and Schoeffer, the inventors of printing. There were also Mexican ma.n.u.scripts 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 Ta.s.so, in the poet's own hand, with his erasures and corrections.

The chapel of St. Augustine contains one of the best works of Canova--the monument of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Maria Christina of Sachsen-Teschen. It is a pyramid of gray marble, twenty-eight feet high, with an opening in the side representing the entrance to a sepulcher. A female figure personating Virtue bears in an urn to the grave the ashes of the departed, attended by two children with torches. The figure of Compa.s.sion follows, leading an aged beggar to the tomb of his benefactor, and a little child with its hands folded. On the lower step rests a mourning genius beside a sleeping lion, and a bas-relief on the pyramid above represents an angel carrying Christina's image, surrounded with the emblem of eternity, to heaven. A spirit of deep sorrow, which is touchingly portrayed in the countenance of the old man, pervades the whole group.

While we looked at it the organ breathed out a slow, mournful strain which harmonized so fully with the expression of the figures that we seemed to be listening to the requiem of the one they mourned. The combined effect of music and sculpture thus united in their deep pathos was such that I could have sat down and wept. It was not from sadness at the death of a benevolent tho unknown individual, but the feeling of grief, of perfect, unmingled sorrow, so powerfully represented, came to the heart like an echo of its own emotion and carried it away with irresistible influence. Travelers have described the same feeling while listening to the "Miserere" in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. Canova could not have chiselled the monument without tears.

One of the most interesting objects in Vienna is the imperial armory. We were admitted through tickets previously procured from the armory direction; as there was already one large company within, we were told to wait in the court till our turn came. Around the wall, on the inside, is suspended the enormous chain which the Turks stretched across the Danube at Buda in the year 1529 to obstruct the navigation. It has eight thousand links and is nearly a mile in length. The court is filled with cannon of all shapes and sizes, many of which were conquered from other nations. I saw a great many which were cast during the French Revolution, with the words "Liberte! Egalite!" upon them, and a number of others bearing the simple letter "N."....

The first wing contains banners used in the French Revolution, and liberty-trees with the red cap, the armor of Rudolph of Hapsburg, Maximilian, I., the emperor Charles V., and the hat, sword and order of Marshal Schwarzenberg. Some of the halls represent a fortification, with walls, ditches and embankments, made of muskets and swords. A long room in the second wing contains an encampment in which twelve or fifteen large tents are formed in like manner. There was also exhibited the armor of a dwarf king of Bohemia and Hungary who died a gray-headed old man in his twentieth year, the sword of Marlborough, the coat of Gustavus Adolphus, pierced in the breast and back with the bullet which killed him at Lutzen, the armor of the old Bohemian princess Libussa, and that of the amazon Wlaska, with a steel vizor made to fit the features of her face.

The last wing was the most remarkable. Here we saw the helm and breastplate of Attila, king of the Huns, which once glanced at the head of his myriads of wild hordes before the walls of Rome; the armor of Count Stahremberg, who commanded Vienna during the Turkish siege in 1529, and the holy banner of Mohammed, taken at that time from the grand vizier, together with the steel harness of John Sobieski of Poland, who rescued Vienna from the Turkish troops under Kara Mustapha; the hat, sword and breastplate of G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, the crusader-king of Jerusalem, with the banners of the cross the crusaders had borne to Palestine and the standard they captured from the Turks on the walls of the Holy City. I felt all my boyish enthusiasm for the romantic age of the crusaders revive as I looked on the torn and moldering banners which once waved on the hills of Judea, or perhaps followed the sword of the Lion-Heart through the fight on the field of Ascalon. What tales could they not tell, those old standards cut and shivered by spear and lance!

What brave hands have carried them through the storm of battle, what dying eyes have looked upward to the cross on the folds as the last prayer was breathed for the rescue of the holy sepulcher.

[Footnote A: From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.]

[Footnote B: The population of Vienna, according to the census of 1910, was 2,085,888.]

ST. STEPHEN'S CATHEDRAL[A]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN

Of the chief objects of architecture which decorate street scenery in Vienna, there are none, to my old-fashioned eyes, more attractive and thoroughly beautiful and interesting--from a thousand a.s.sociations of ideas than places of worship, and of course, among these, none stands so eminently conspicuous as the mother-church, or the cathedral, which in this place, is dedicated to St. Stephen. The spire has been long distinguished for its elegance and height. Probably these are the most appropriate, if not the only, epithets of commendation which can be applied to it. After Strasburg and Ulm, it appears a second-rate edifice. Not but what the spire may even vie with that of the former, and the nave may be yet larger than that of the latter; but, as a whole, it is much inferior to either--even allowing for the palpable falling off in the nave of Strasburg cathedral.

The spire, or tower--for it partakes of both characters--is indeed worthy of general admiration. It is oddly situated, being almost detached--and on the south side of the building. Indeed the whole structure has a very strange, and I may add capricious, if not repulsive, appearance, as to its exterior. The western and eastern ends have nothing deserving of distinct notice or commendation. The former has a porch; which is called "the Giant's porch;" it should rather be designated as that of the Dwarf. It has no pretensions to size or striking character of any description. Some of the oldest parts of the cathedral appear to belong to the porch of the eastern end. As you walk round the church, you can not fail to be struck with the great variety of ancient--and to an Englishman, whimsical looking mural monuments, in ba.s.so and alto relievos. Some of these are doubtless both interesting and curious.

But the spire is indeed an object deserving of particular admiration.

It is next to that of Strasburg in height; being 432 feet of Vienna measurement. It may be said to begin to taper from the first stage or floor; and is distinguished for its open and sometimes intricate fretwork. About two-thirds of its height, just above the clock, and where the more slender part of the spire commences, there is a gallery or platform, to which the French quickly ascended, on their possession of Vienna, to reconnoiter the surrounding country. The very summit of the spire is bent, or inclined to the north; so much so, as to give the notion that the cap or crown will fall in a short time.

As to the period of the erection of this spire, it is supposed to have been about the middle, or latter end, of the fifteenth century. It has certainly much in common with the highly ornamental Gothic style of building in our own country, about the reign of Henry VI. The colored glazed tiles of the roof of the church are very disagreeable and unharmonizing. These colors are chiefly green, red, and blue. Indeed the whole roof is exceedingly heavy and tasteless.

I will now conduct you to the interior. On entering, from the southeast door, you observe, to the left, a small piece of white marble--which every one touches, with the finger or thumb charged with holy water, on entering or leaving the cathedral. Such have been the countless thousands of times that this piece of marble has been so touched, that, purely, from such friction, it has been worn nearly half an inch below the general surrounding surface. I have great doubts, however, if this mysterious piece of masonry be as old as the walls of the church (which may be of the fourteenth century), which they pretend to say it is.

The first view of the interior of this cathedral, seen even at the most favorable moment--which is from about three till five o'clock--is far from prepossessing. Indeed, after what I had seen at Rouen, Paris, Stra.s.sburg, Ulm, and Munich, it was a palpable disappointment. In the first place, there seems to be no grand leading feature of simplicity; add to which, darkness reigns everywhere. You look up, and discern no roof--not so much from its extreme height, as from the absolute want of windows. Everything not only looks dreary, but is dingy and black--from the mere dirt and dust which seem to have covered the great pillars of the nave--and especially the figures and ornaments upon it--for the last four centuries. This is the more to be regretted, as the larger pillars are highly ornamented; having human figures, of the size of life, beneath sharply pointed canopies, running up the shafts. The extreme length of the cathedral is 342 feet of Vienna measurement. The extreme width, between the tower and its opposite extremity--or the transepts--is 222 feet.

There are comparatively few chapels; only four--but many Bethstuhle or Prie-Dieus. Of the former, the chapels of Savoy and St. Eloy are the chief; but the large sacristy is more extensive than either. On my first entrance, while attentively examining the choir, I noticed--what was really a very provoking, but probably not a very uncommon sight--a maid servant deliberately using a long broom in sweeping the pavement of the high altar, at the moment when several very respectable people, of both s.e.xes, were kneeling upon the steps, occupied in prayer. But the devotion of the people is incessant--all the day long--and in all parts of the cathedral.

Meanwhile, service is going on in all parts of the cathedral. They are singing here; they are praying there; and they are preaching in a third place. But during the whole time, I never heard one single note of the organ. I remember only the other Sunday morning--walking out beneath one of the brightest blue skies that ever shone upon man--and entering the cathedral about nine o'clock. A preacher was in the princ.i.p.al pulpit; while a tolerably numerous congregation was gathered around him. He preached, of course, in the German language, and used much action. As he became more and more animated, he necessarily became warmer, and pulled off a black cap--which, till then, he had kept upon his head; the zeal and piety of the congregation at the same time seeming to increase with the accelerated motions of the preacher.

In other more retired parts, solitary devotees were seen--silent, and absorbed in prayer. Among these, I shall not easily forget the head and the physiognomical expression of one old man--who, having been supported by crutches, which lay by the side of him--appeared to have come for the last time to offer his orisons to heaven. The light shone full upon his bald head and elevated countenance; which latter indicated a genuineness of piety, and benevolence of disposition, not to be soured, even by the most bitter of worldly disappointments! It seemed as if the old man were taking leave of this life, in full confidence of the rewards which await the righteous beyond the grave.

So much for the living. A word or two now for the dead. Of course this letter alludes to the monuments of the more distinguished characters once resident in and near the metropolis. Among these, doubtless the most elaborate is that of the Emperor Frederick III.--in the florid Gothic style, surmounted by a tablet, filled with coat-armor, or heraldic shields. Some of the mural monuments are very curious, and among them are several of the early part of the sixteenth century--which represent the chins and even mouths of females, entirely covered by drapery; such as is even now to be seen and such as we saw on descending from the Vosges. But among these monuments--both for absolute and relative antiquity--none will appear to the curious eye of an antiquary so precious as that of the head of the architect of the cathedral, whose name was Pilgram.

[Footnote A: From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour,"

published in 1821.]

THE BELVEDERE PALACE[A]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN

To the Belvedere Palace, therefore, let us go. I visited it with Mr.

Lewis--taking our valet with us, immediately after breakfast--on one of the finest and clearest-skied September mornings that ever shone above the head of man. We had resolved to take the Ambras, or the little Belvedere, in our way; and to have a good, long, and uninterrupted view of the wonders of art--in a variety of departments.

Both the little Belvedere and the large Belvedere rise gradually above the suburbs; and the latter may be about a mile and a half from the ramparts of the city. The Ambras contains a quant.i.ty of ancient horse- and foot-armor, brought thither from a chateau of that name, near Inssbruck, built by the Emperor Charles V. Such a collection of old armor--which had once equally graced and protected the bodies of their wearers, among whom the n.o.blest names of which Germany can boast may be enrolled--was infinitely gratifying to me. The sides of the first room were quite embossed with suspended shields, cuira.s.ses, and breast-plates. The floor was almost filled by champions on horseback--yet poising the spear, or holding it in the rest--yet almost shaking their angry plumes, and p.r.i.c.king the fiery sides of their coursers.

Here rode Maximilian--and there halted Charles his son. Different suits of armor, belonging to the same character, are studiously shown you by the guide; some of these are the foot-, and some the horse-, armor; some were worn in fight--yet giving evidence of the mark of the bullet and battle-ax; others were the holiday suits of armor, with which the knights marched in procession, or tilted at the tournament. The workmanship of the full-dress suits, in which a great deal of highly wrought gold ornament appears, is sometimes really exquisite.

The second, or long room, is more particularly appropriated to the foot- or infantry-armor. In this studied display of much that is interesting from antiquity, and splendid from absolute beauty and costliness, I was particularly gratified by the sight of the armor which the Emperor Maximilian wore as a foot-captain. The lower part, to defend the thighs, consists of a puckered or plated steel petticoat, sticking out at the bottom of the folds, considerably beyond the upper part. It is very simple, and of polished steel. A fine suit of armor--of black and gold--worn by an Archbishop of Salzburg in the middle of the fifteenth century, had particular claims upon my admiration. It was at once chaste and effective. The mace was by the side of it.

This room is also ornamented by trophies taken from the Turks; such as bows, spears, battle-axes, and scimitars. In short, the whole is full of interest and splendor. I ought to have seen the a.r.s.enal--which I learn is of uncommon magnificence; and, altho not so curious on the score of antiquity, is yet not dest.i.tute of relics of the warriors of Germany.

Among these, those which belong to my old bibliomaniacal friend Corvinus, King of Hungary, cut a conspicuous and very respectable figure. I fear it will be now impracticable to see the a.r.s.enal as it ought to be seen.

It is now approaching mid-day, and we are walking toward the terrace in front of the Great Belvidere Palace, built by the immortal Eugene[B] in the year 1724, as a summer residence. Probably no spot could have been selected with better judgment for the residence of a Prince--who wished to enjoy, almost at the same moment, the charms of the country with the magnificence of a city view, unclouded by the dense fumes which forever envelop our metropolis. It is in truth a glorious situation. Walking along its wide and well-cultivated terraces, you obtain the finest view imaginable of the city of Vienna.

Indeed it may be called a picturesque view. The spire of the cathedral darts directly upward, as it were, to the very heavens. The ground before you, and in the distance, is gently undulating; and the intermediate portion of the suburbs does not present any very offensive protrusions. More in the distance, the windings of the Danube are seen; with its various little islands, studded with hamlets and fishing-huts, lighted up by a sun of unusual radiance. Indeed the sky, above the whole of this rich and civilized scene, was at the time of our viewing it, almost of a dazzling hue; so deep and vivid a tint we had never before beheld. Behind the palace, in the distance, you observe a chain of mountains which extends into Hungary. As to the building itself, it is perfectly palatial in its size, form, ornaments, and general effect.

Among the treasures, which it contains, it is now high time to enter and to look about us. My account is necessarily a mere sketch. Rubens, if any artist, seems here to "rule and reign without control!" Two large rooms are filled with his productions; besides several other pictures, by the same hand, which are placed in different apartments. Here it is that you see verified the truth of Sir Joshua's remark upon that wonderful artist: namely, that his genius seems to expand with the size of his canvas.

His pencil absolutely riots here--in the most luxuriant manner--whether in the majesty of an altarpiece, in the gaiety of a festive scene, or in the sobriety of portrait-painting. His Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier--of the former cla.s.s--each seventeen feet high, by nearly thirteen wide--are stupendous productions in more senses than one. The latter is, indeed, in my humble judgment, the most marvelous specimen of the powers of the painter which I have ever seen; and you must remember that both England and France are not without some of his celebrated productions, which I have frequently examined.

In the old German School, the series is almost countless; and of the greatest possible degree of interest and curiosity. Here are to be seen Wohlgemuths, Albert Durers, both the Holbeins, Lucas Cranachs, Ambergaus, and Burgmairs of all sizes and degrees of merit. Among these ancient specimens--which are placed in curious order, in the very upper suite of apartments, and of which the backgrounds of several, in one solid coat of gilt, lighten up the room like a golden sunset--you must not fail to pay particular attention to a singularly curious old subject--representing the Life, Miracles, and Pa.s.sion of our Savior, in a series of one hundred and fifty-eight pictures--of which the largest is nearly three feet square, and every other about fifteen inches by ten. These subjects are painted upon eighty-six small pieces of wood; of which seventy-two are contained in six folding cabinets, each holding twelve subjects. In regard to Teniers, Gerard Dow, Mieris, Wouvermann, and Cuyp, you must look at home for more exquisite specimens. This collection contains, in the whole, not fewer than fifteen hundred paintings, of which the greater portion consists of pictures of very large dimensions. I could have lived here for a month; but could only move along with the hurried step, and yet more hurrying eye, of an ordinary visitor.

[Footnote A: From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour,"

published in 1821.]

[Footnote B: The celebrated Austrian general, who defeated the Turks in 1697, and shared with Marlborough in the victories of Blenheim and Malplaquet.]

SCHoNBRUNN AND THE PRATER[A]