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 Duerer, 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 make carousal, and when I saw, now, scarcely anything 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 traveler—­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 is the “Triumphs of Maximilian I.,” executed by Albert Duerer—­which, however, has by no means escaped injury.  I was accompanied in my visit to this interesting collection by Mr. Boerner, 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 a house in which he was a partner; and among them a portrait, by Pens, struck me as being singularly admirable and exquisite.  The countenance, the dress, the attitude, the drawing and coloring, 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.