"Well," said the goldsmith, "there used to be splendid weddings in those old days in the Town-hall--very different affairs from the weddings nowadays. Plenty of happy brides used to look out of those Tower-windows in those days, so that it's a piece of pleasant glamour when an aerial form comes and tells us what is going to happen now, from knowledge of olden times. Let me tell you, this Berlin was a very different place in those old days; nowadays everything is marked with the same stamp of tediousness and _ennui_, and people _ennuyer_ one another just because they are so _ennuyées_ and weary in themselves. In those days there were entertainments, feastings, rejoicings worthy the name, very different from the affairs that are so called now. I shall only speak of what was done at Oculi, in the year 1581, when the Elector Augustus of Saxony, with his Consort, and Don Christian, his son, were escorted to Cologne by all the nobles and gentry. There were over a hundred horse, and the citizens of both the cities--Berlin and Cologne--and those of Spandau lined both sides of the road from the gate to the palace in complete armour. Next day there was a splendid running at the ring, at which the Elector of Saxony and Count Jost of Barby appeared, with many nobles--in fine suits of gold embroidery, and tall golden helms, golden lions' heads on their shoulders, knees, and elbows, with flesh-coloured silk on the other parts of their arms and legs, just as if they had been naked---exactly as you see the heathen warriors painted in pictures. There were singers and musicians hidden inside a gilt Noah's Ark, and on the top of it sat a little boy in flesh-coloured silk tights, with his eyes bandaged, as Cupid is represented. Two other boys, dressed as doves, with white ostrich feathers, golden eyes and beaks, drew ±he ark along; and when the prince had run at the ring and been successful, the music in the ark played, and a number of pigeons were let fly from it. One of them flapped its wings and sang a most delightful Italian _aria_, and did it much better than our Court singer Bernard Pasquino Grosso from Mantua did seventy years afterwards (but not so charmingly as our _prime donne_ sing nowadays). Then there was a foot tournay, to which the Elector and the Count went in a ship, which was all dressed over with black and yellow cloth, and had a sail of gold taffeta; and behind His Highness sate the little boy who had been Cupid the day before, in a long coat of many colours, a peaked black and yellow hat, and a long grey beard. The singers and musicians were dressed in the same way; and nil round about the ship a number of gentlemen danced and jumped--gentlemen of good family, mind you!--with heads and tails of salmon, herrings, and fishes of other sorts: most delightful to behold. In the evening, about ten, there was a grand display of fireworks, with thousands of detonations; and the master-gunners played all sorts of