three inches below the knee, with a square-cut collar. I will pass over my journey to Hamburg, till my arrival in a little common inn, in the old part of the town. Not having a pfennig to spare, I set out early the next morning to look out for a lodging, and saw several that would have suited myself very well, but which did not suit my finances. At length, seeing the wife of a grocer standing at the door, with a good-humoured countenance, in a narrow and dark street, containing some large, fine houses, which had seen the splendours of former times, I walked up to her and asked if she could recommend a lodging to a young man who was not over rich. After thinking for a moment, she pointed over the way, to a house with a decorated front, which had become as black as ink with age. The lower story was entirely occupied by an iron-warehouse; but she said that up above on the first floor I should find Widow Gentner, who let one room, and who had, she believed, no lodger at the time. I thanked her many times for her civility, and walking across the street to the point she indicated, I looked up at the cornices and other ornaments which were displayed upon the facade. Dirty they were beyond all doubt. A pair of stone ladies with baskets in their hands, which had probably been once as white as snow, now displayed long dripping lines of black upon their garments; their noses had disappeared, but the balls of the eyes were of the deepest brown, though above the centre appeared a white spot, which seemed to show the presence of cataract. The fruit in the baskets, however, consisted apparently of black cherries, and a dingy cornucopia, which stood by the side of each, vomited forth swarthy fruit and flowers of a very uninviting quality. I gazed in surprise and admiration, and asked myself if it ever would be my fate to live in so fine a mansion. Taking courage, however, I inquired at the ironmonger's which was the door of Widow Gentner, and of the three which opened into the lower part of the house, I was directed to the second. On the first floor I found a tidy little maid, who introduced me to the presence of her mistress, a quiet, dry old lady, who was seated in a room which had apparently formed part of a magnificent saloon--I say formed part, for it was evident that the size of the chamber had been much curtailed. On the ceiling, which was of the most magnificent stucco work I ever saw, appeared various groups of angels and cherubs in high relief, as large as life, and seated amidst clouds and bunches of flowers as big as feather-beds. But that ceiling betrayed the dismemberment of the room; for all along the side where ran the wall behind the good lady were seen angels' legs without the heads and bodies, baskets of flowers cut in two, and cherubs with not above one-half of the members even, which sculptors have left them. This was soon explained: the widow informed me that she had divided