So Nuremberg.  Its fortifications are rugged and strong.  Its towers imposing.  It dates back to the Huns.  Frederick Barbarossa frequently occupied the castle which frowns down on you from the heights.  Hans Sachs, the poet, sang here.  Albrecht Durer painted here.  Peter Vischer perhaps dreamed out the noble original of my beautiful King Arthur here.

From the quaint and awkward statues of saints and heroes in church and state, to such delicate examples of sculpture as the figure of the Virgin in the Hirschelgasse, so delicate and graceful that it was once attributed to an Italian master, you realise how early the arts were established here and how sedulously they were pursued.  Everywhere are works of art, from the cruder decorations over doorways and windows to the paintings of Durer in the Germanic Museum.  It is a sad reflection to me that most of Durer’s work, and all of his masterpieces, are in other cities—­Munich, Berlin, and Vienna, and that, as it is in Greece, only their fame remains to glorify the city of his birth.

His statue, copied from a portrait painted by himself, stands in the Albrecht-Durer Platz, and in his little house are copies of his masterpieces and a collection of typical antique German furniture and utensils.  The exquisite art of glass-staining is the suitable occupation of the custodian who shows you about the house.

Indeed, wood carving, glass staining, engraving of medals and medallions, copying ancient cabinets and quaint furniture are, if not the principal, at least the most interesting occupations pursued in Nuremberg to-day.  In searching out the little shops I also found that table linen, superbly embroidered and decorated with drawn-work of intricate patterns was here in a bewildering display.

Dear Nuremberg!  A stroll through your lovely streets is a feast for the eye and a whip to the imagination that no other city in the German Empire can duplicate or approach.  You abound in quaint doorways, over which if I step, I find myself transplanted to the scenes of tapestries and old prints, and I can easily imagine myself framed and hanging on the wall quite comfortable and happy.

One of these tiny doorways led us, on a bright Sunday afternoon, into one of the oddest places we ever saw.  It was the Bratwurst-Glocklein—­such a restaurant as Doctor Johnson would have deserted the Cheshire Cheese for, and revelled in the change.

It appeared to be a thousand years old.  Perhaps Melanchthon expounded the theories of the Reformation on the very benches on which we sat.

The door-sill was high, and we stepped over it on to a stone floor, the flagging of which was sunken in many places, causing pitfalls to the unwary.  The room was small and only half lighted by infinitesimal windows.  One end of the room was given up to what appeared to be a charcoal furnace built of bricks, over which in plain view buxom maids, whose red cheeks were purple from the heat, were frying delicious little