The hall on the other side of the house, looking on the park, commands a view which struck me as quite peculiar. You see a large open grassy plain, skirted on either side by an oak wood, and in the middle and back ground meadows and wood interspersed. In the centre of the plain, about sixty or seventy paces from the house, stands, perfectly isolated, a colossal snow-white equestrian statue, of admirable workmanship. The pedestal is so high that the horseman seems to rest on the top of the wood behind him. Not a building, nor any other object than trees, grass, and sky, are visible; and the whole scene so utterly still and inanimate, that the white spectral image rivets the attention:--no finer decoration for Don Juan could be imagined. It happened, too, by a fortunate chance, that the sky on that side of the house was perfectly black with a threatening snow-storm, so that the dazzling white statue stood out in almost fearful grandeur. At the moment, it looked alive, and every muscle seemed to rise in the sharp lights. Among the pictures is a treasure which seems to be unknown to our German travellers, at least I never saw it noticed:--a genuine portrait of Shakspeare, painted during his lifetime by Barnage. The hypercritics of England will have it there is no genuine portrait of Shakspeare; but it seems to me almost impossible to _invent_ a physiognomy carrying on it such a triumphant air of truth, so fully expressing the grandeur and originality of the man; furnished with all the intellectual elevation, all the acuteness, wit, delicacy, all the genuine humour, whose exhaustless treasures were never so lavished on any mortal. The countenance is nowise what is vulgarly called handsome; but the sublime beauty of the mind within beams from every part. Across the lofty forehead gleam the bright flashes of that daring spirit; the large dark brown eyes are penetrating, fiery, yet mild; around the lips play light irony and good-natured archness, but wedded to a sweet benevolent smile, which lends the highest, the most heart-winning charm to the lofty, awful dignity of the intellectual parts of the face. Wondrously perfect appears the structure of the skull and forehead; there are no single prominences, but all the organs so capacious and complete that we stand astonished before such a glorious pattern of perfect organization, and feel a deep joy at finding the man in so beautiful a harmony with his works. Two excellent Albrecht Dürers--a pair of female saints in a fantastic landscape--attracted me, particularly by their primitive German character. They are two genuine Nürnberg housewives, dressed in their fatherlandish caps, and taken from nature itself; good-natured, and busied about their saintly affairs.--A picture of Luther, by Holbein, is more intellectual and less fat than usual.