The most distinguished sculptors in Germany are Christian Rauch, and Christian Friedrich Tieck, of Berlin; Johan Heinrich von Dannecker, of Stuttgardt; Schwanthaler, Eberhardt, Bandel, Kirchmayer, Mayer, all of Munich; Reitschel of Dresden; and Imhoff, of Cologne. Those of their works which I had an opportunity of seeing have been mentioned in the course of these sketches. [Illustration] HARDWICKE. Who that has exulted over the heroic reign of our gorgeous Elizabeth, or wept over the fate of Mary Stuart, but will remember the name of the only woman whose high and haughty spirit out-faced the lion port of one queen, and whose audacity trampled over the sorrows of the other-- "Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride!" But this is anticipation. If it be so laudable, according to the excellent, oft quoted advice of the giant Moulineau, to _begin at the beginning_,[41] what must it be to improve upon the precept? for so, in relating the fallen and fading glories of Hardwicke, do I intend to exceed even "mon ami le Belier," in historic accuracy, and take up our tale at a period ere Hardwicke itself--the Hardwicke that now stands--had a beginning. There lived, then, in the days of queen Bess, a woman well worthy to be her majesty's namesake,--Elizabeth Hardwicke, more commonly called, in her own country, Bess of Hardwicke, and distinguished in the page of history as the _old_ Countess of Shrewsbury. She resembled Queen Elizabeth in all her best and worst qualities, and, putting royalty out of the scale, would certainly have been more than a match for that sharp-witted virago, in subtlety of intellect, and intrepidity of temper and manner. She was the only daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke,[42] and being early left an orphan and an heiress, was married ere she was fourteen to a certain Master Robert Barley, who was about her own age. Death dissolved this premature union within a few months, but her husband's large estates had been settled on her and her heirs; and at the age of fifteen, dame Elizabeth was a blooming widow, amply dowered with fair and fertile lands, and free to bestow her hand again where she listed.