To say this, is simply to add the testimony of another witness to that which has set down Nuremburg as the city of all Europe least changed with changing times. The very little that has been done of late years in the way of repairing and rebuilding, within the walls, has been done in strict accordance with the prevalent mediæval style. The result is that--whereas elsewhere, when you stumble upon a private dwelling of moderate proportions showing plainly that it was built some two or three or four or five centuries ago, you congratulate yourself upon having discovered a curiosity (as such a one really would be in Paris, for instance)--here the difficult search would be for a house, modern and spruce. Not that a rectangularly-ornamented gable-end is the quintessence of architectural beauty, or that a basement front of low iron-barred windows suggests an agreeable or hospitable interior. By no means. If this were all, there would be considerable quaintness, and nought beyond. But it is otherwise. Some of the decorative bits that catch the eye right and left, are absolute gems in their way--whether oriel windows, or fantastic turrets, or figures and devices embossed and sculptured. Taste, generally for the Gothic, but diverging at a later date into the Renaissance style, seems to have run riot here in wilful playfulness. Of the regular sights set down in the hand-books, and explored by conscientious Englishmen with their Murrays under their arms, it would not be appropriate to speak at length. I may however indulge in an allusion to the different material, whereof are constructed two of the most highly-laboured marvels, here exhibited. Now the city itself is divided into two nearly equal parts by the small river Pegnitz, these parts bearing the names respectively of the principal church that stands in either. The one is dedicated to St. Sebald, the other to St. Lawrence. The former, as its chief curiosity, contains the shrine of its patron Saint, an elaborate and most exquisitely wrought fretwork canopy, about fifteen feet in height, beneath which repose his remains. The design is in a measure architectural, and Gothic of course; but the ornamentation is its great glory, though one is staggered somewhat at the irreverent juxtaposition of the twelve Apostles with Cupids and Mermaids, and at sundry Fathers of the Church disporting themselves amid clusters of fruit and bouquets of flowers. This monument of artistic skill was the work of Peter Vischer, one of the worthies of Nuremburg, and has been completed three hundred and forty years. The able worker, having dispensed with consistency in the admixture of Christian and Pagan accessories, as I have mentioned, was at least justified in introducing a figure of himself as one of the human animals; and a very fine statuette he makes, with chisel in hand and his working apron about him. Now mark, if you please, O attentive reader, this shrine of St. Sebald is entirely cast in bronze.