If a tour through the Green Vaults excites reflections on the ingenuity which man has evinced in carving inanimate materials into the shapes and forms of various living things, an inspection of the immense armoury here, is calculated to call forth emotions of a very different description! Here we find the ingenuity of man exerted and tortured in the invention of innumerable deadly weapons by which his fellow man may be carved into fragments, pierced with wounds, or battered into mummies![90] The Rustkammer certainly leaves the Tower of London at immeasurable distance in the rear, not only for the variety of instruments used in general warfare, but for those which were employed in tilts, tournaments, and the chase. Here we see not merely the arms of the feudal ages, but the horses, the knights themselves, and all the trappings and accoutrements thereunto belonging. The prodigious labour and wealth expended on man, horse, armour, and trappings, excite our astonishment rather than our admiration. The great variety of drinking vessels, horns, goblets and cups of all dimensions, and adapted for all depths of potation, would have charmed the heart of the Baron of Bradwardine, and, well nigh eclipsed the “BLESSED BEAR” of that hospitable old Highlander! But what shall we say to the armour of those days—for instance, that of Augustus the Second, surnamed the Strong? The French giant, who displayed his powers some years ago, at the Adelphi theatre, would hardly strut under it, weighing, as it does, more than two hundred pounds! It has been observed that—“were Europe thrown back, by the word of an enchanter, into the middle-ages, Saxony could take the field, with a duly equipped army, sooner than any other power. We cannot easily form any idea of the long practice which have been necessary to enable a man to wear such habiliments with comfort, much more to wield such arms with agility and dexterity. But the young officers of those days wore armour almost as soon as they could walk, and transmigrated regularly from one iron shell into another, more unwieldy than its predecessor, till they reached the full stature of knighthood, and played at broad-sword, _with the weight of a twelve-pounder on their backs_, as lightly as a lady bears a chaplet of silken flowers on her head in a quadrille.”