question its ultimate mastery of trifles | Haupt Strasse merges at either extremity such as these. Meanwhile, however, we into an open place or square, that towards are fain to continue our lucubrations the northwest presided over by the new under the first-mentioned system.

II.

Albert-Theater, while the southwestern one is forced to be content with that foolish old Augustus, surnamed the IT would be of convenience to me Strong-bare-headed, bare-armed, barecould I declare at the outset what the legged, and astride of an incredible steed distinctive characteristics of Dresden which squats on its hind legs, and paws streets and houses are: whether the the air with its fore-feet like a gigantic streets are all narrow, dark, and devious; kangaroo. Standing in the shadow of or broad, straight, and open: whether this worthy, we see the street pass on the houses were invariably gabled, quaint, over the ancient bridge to the Altstadt; and crooked; or erect, fair-proportioned, on our left, across the market-place, is and spacious: whether the city were one the hospitable door of our old friend of magnificent distances, or contracted Werthmann's beer-saloon, while nearly within the limits of a bow-shot. Unfor- in front of us lies the black guard-house, tunately any such definite generalities like a sullen mastiff; stacked arms glitare out of place in speaking of Dresden. ter before the entrance, and the sentry Its only distinctive characteristics, so far paces his short beat to and fro, on the as my observation goes, are its ubiqui-look-out for officers and royal carriages. tous evil odour and its omnipresent dirty If the street dwarfs its houses, it plaster. For the rest, what it asserts in pushes its sidewalks out of sight. Dresone quarter it contradicts in another, and den is sometimes said to bear a distant hardly allows us finally to make up our resemblance to Florence; and, hearing mind to either condemnation or approval. this, the Dresdeners perhaps thought it There is one thoroughfare, which, incumbent upon them to dispense with under five different names, traverses the all invidious distinctions between road city from north to south, as a diameter and footway. But they proceeded upon a its circle. This fickleness in the matter mistaken principle in so doing; for of names becomes less surprising when whereas in Florence the streets are all we consider that the street has been sev-sidewalk, in Dresden the sidewalks are eral centuries growing, and that its course all street, or nearly so. The houses edge takes it through nearly every phase of forward their broad stone toes towards life which the city affords, excepting only the curb, and often quite overstep it; or, the lowest. Traversing its two or three if otherwise, the path is mounded up to miles of length from end to end, we shall make as thorough an acquaintance with the genius of Dresden streets as it suits our purposes to do. If once or twice we make a short incursion to the right or left, it will only be for the end of recreation.

such a ticklish height, that walking upon it becomes precarious. In some districts, the matter is compromised by putting the sidewalk in the centre of the street, where it ekes out a slender existence, forming, on rainy days, the bed of an unsavoury little torrent which bears away in its current such domestic superfluities as the adjoining houses find it inconvenient to retain.

It begins-locally if not chronologically speaking-in the Neustadt, on the northern bank of the Elbe, being known there as the Haupt Strasse. Considered This, however, more accurately dein itself, this Haupt Strasse is the finest scribes the condition of things ten years street in Dresden. It is sixty yards or ago. An improvement-spasm has seized more in width, and nearly a mile long; Dresden of late, and sidewalks have bedown its centre runs a broad walk bor-gun to broaden here and there, and dered with trees; on either side is a car-laws have been made as to the condiriage-way and sidewalks. But the street tions under which they are to be used, dwarfs the houses, which are here quite which are rigidly enforced by the police. low and mean, and shops into the bar-It is observable, nevertheless, that algain. Shops and, still more, shop-signs, though sidewalks are coming into existhowever intrinsically attractive and bril-ence, the Dresdeners either do not know liant, are not consonant with architect- how to use them, or do not much care ural dignity; and these Saxon shop- to do so; they prefer the pavement. signs, with their impossible names and They stray on to the sidewalk in an grotesque announcements, would turn a incidental sort of way, but do not find street of Parthenons to ridicule. The' themselves at home there, and soon re

turn to the gutter. To a foreign mind a | vaded by a strange and most unwelcome sidewalk is desirable not so much on ac- odour, which nothing will eradicate. It count of its utility as because it assists, arouses the darkest suspicions, though like a decent hat and coat, in the preser- every ocular appearance be calculated vation of a certain self-respect and dig- to inspire confidence. However spot

nity. As men, we wish to separate our-less the outside may seem to the eye, selves as far as we may from the chaos the nose is not to be beguiled; there of the roadway, where we are on no bet- must be impurity somewhere. And ter a footing than the dogs, horses, peas- surely there is something horrible about ant-women, and other draught-animals. a thing that looks clean and yet smells Sidewalks are, in our view, the etiquette badly. What pleases the sight is the -the courtesy of streets; as significant more bound to gratify the nostrils. Nothere as tasteful upholstery in a drawing-blesse oblige. room. The Saxon, however, either has a soul above such considerations, or, shall we say? alien to them.

Now, in connection with this circumstance, is to be taken another, the explanation of which will, I think, solve thè Be it said, meanwhile, that the streets whole mystery. If we pass from the are kept from dirt to an extent that would clean exterior of a Saxon's house to its astonish a Cockney, or even a New-interior, we shall find his drawing-room Yorker. This is partly due, of course, to somewhat less immaculate than his pasthe circumstance that there is compara-sage, his dining-room than his drawingtively little traffic in the city, and the dirt never has a fair show as against the cleansers. Possibly, since every case has two sides, something might be said in defence of streets which have a strong tendency to get dirty. A street without dirt is like a man without blood pallid, forlorn, and lacking vigour. Nobody, let us hope, likes unclean streets; but perhaps some people have a secret partiality for streets which demand incessant toil and struggle to keep them pure, and thereby prove their possession of energetic life and powerful vitality. No dead streets should be allowed in this busy world; when they cease to be thronged, they cease to have an excuse for being at all. The same is true of houses, of which many in Dresden are lifeless shells, or nearly so. They look like empty, ugly, overgrown hotels; no human life and bustle informs them. They would seem to have been born insignificant, and subsequently, for no sufficient reason, to have expanded into gawky giantship. In this respect they might be compared with the Saxon people, who possess no qualities to warrant their rising above pigmydom, but whom an ironic freak of destiny has uplifted to a foremost place among nations. They should be taken down and reconstructed upon a smaller and more economic scale.

This, however, is by the way. I wish to remark that there is something peculiar about Dresden cleanliness I had almost said, something horrible; for though streets, entrance-halls, and stairways are washed, brushed, and put in order with as much careful regularity as if they were race-horses, they are not the less per

room, his bed-chamber than his diningroom; while he himself is by far the least immaculate of all, tried whether by nose or eye-there is no whited sepulchre about him, at all events. An evil odour is something which only inward cleanliness, working outward, can remove. Men · are more apt to desire that their emanations, their works, their expressed and embodied thoughts, should appear pure, than that their proper selves should be so. Their surroundings, they argue, are more seen than they; and it is their continual delusion that though their actions, having once been acted, are no longer to be concealed, yet it is always easy to hide themselves. The Saxon, consequently, diligently expends his lustrative energies upon his street and stairway, but never thinks of washing his own shirt. Of the omnipresent evil odour he is never conscious, but it is the very essence and betrayal of the whole matter. Dogs are more sagacious; do not trust to ocular appearances; the cloven foot of the devil would not move them; but let them once get to leeward of him, and he stands convicted in a moment. He, in his innocence, would probably be at far greater pains to cover those awkward hoofs of his than to determine the direction of the wind. But it is by oversight such as this that so many honest people get into trouble.

III.

THE ancient bridge which joins Haupt Strasse to the Schloss-Platz is the only respectable piece of architecture in Dres den. But it seems nearly impossible to make an ugly bridge. Its necessity is to

ventionalism is our Saxon hero's best virtue; when he abandons it he becomes, not picturesque, but brutal. However, tired and shabby people do sometimes sit down on these stone benches, with due heed to the police regulations; so let us not be ungrateful.

produce an impression of combined light- build a theory of a city which lay on the ness and power-of one kind of strength river-banks some time in the prehistoric overcoming another which is the es- past. sence of vitality. It requires genius to The bridge is not a wide one, but the erect an edifice which shall appear other summits of the outstanding piers are furthan dead, but to build a lifeless bridge nished with a semicircle of stone bench, would need almost as much talent per- which makes them look particularly comverted. Man has seldom made anything fortable on midsummer afternoons. Were so flattering at once to the eye and to the Dresden Florence indeed, these recesses self-esteem of his kind. For bridges are would be spread two-deep with lazy lazfascinating not only at a distance; it is zaroni all day long. But somehow or a triumph even greater to stand upon other (though heaven knows there is little them and watch the baffled current fret enough briskness or wide-awakeness in vainly below, slipping helpless past the them), Saxons never lie about in pictusturdy feet of the piers, and hurrying in resque attitudes, with their hat-brims confusion away beneath the shadow of drawn over their eyes. Saxons cannot the arches. Here is a direct and palpable be picturesque, and would only dislocate victory gained over nature, less exhilarat- their joints if they tried to be so. To be ing no doubt, than a ship's, but more as-picturesque requires an unconscious harsured. As we saunter across the pave- mony of nature, and disregard of the rules ment, firm in mid-air, we mentally exult of vulgar conventionalism, or, better, in our easy superiority to the discomfort still, ignorance of them. But vulgar conand peril from which we are protected. In every step we feel the whole pride of the builders in their accomplished work. Beholding the swirling charge of the river down upon us, we half-consciously identify ourselves with the massive masonry, and share its defiance of the onset. Yet it behooves our pride not to over- The law of keep-to-the-right, which is ween too far, since the immortal river strictly enforced on this bridge, throws must in the end overcome its stubborn light on some of the traits both of the old adversary. Indeed, one pier already government and the governed. The succumbed, in days gone by, to the ter- scheme works admirably; there is never rific down-rush of a spring flood, armed any jostling or hindrance; we roll along with huge battering-rams of ice. I have with our backs all turned to one another, myself often watched great ice-slabs come and entirely relieved from the responsisweeping on and dash harsh-splintering bility of self-guidance. But we pay the against the buttresses, and pile them- penalty of this sweet immunity as soon selves suddenly up on one another's as we get beyond the law's jurisdiction. hoary shoulders, as if to scale the angry We are run into so constantly that it ramparts. But, though seeing, I could seems as though the world had conspired never feel the shock, or fancy the bridge against us. Everybody appears bent endangered. In great freshets, however, when the river boils upwards to the keystone and higher, the push must be like that of a giant's hand. The arches are narrow, so that the stout piers seem to have pressed close to one another for mutual support; they stand foot to foot and shoulder to shoulder, close embattled against their interminable foe. It is sad to think that the successful contest of hundreds of years must issue in ultimate defeat. It will be broken, one day that rigid phalanx; first one and then another ancient warrior will crumble away, conquered but not subdued, and their stony remains will stand, for centuries longer, in the river-bed where they fought; and a future age will dig up their foundation-piles, and out of them

upon button-holing us on particular business. If there be a moderate crowd in the streets, no amount of agility in dodging will enable us to get on fast; either we must shoulder down every one we meet, or else resign ourselves to a mile and a half per hour. It is useless to blame the Saxons for this - they cannot help it. They are so accustomed to walking through life with a policeman's hand on their coat-collar, that when his grasp is relaxed they stray without helm or compass, and could not get out of the way of the devil, if he happened to be in their path. A fairer mark for criticism is their lack of that American or English sense of humour which alone can compensate for the annoyance of such encounters. To be easily put out or insult

ed, cannot be said to prove a lofty mag-the very nucleus of quaint antiquarian nanimity. How we like men who can be interest. Let us therefore pause a moamused where most people would get in ment to admire, before proceeding fura passion! Such men are stout-souled ther. and self-respectful; but thin patiences That the archway is not ornamental proclaim meagre natures. And a Sax- must be admitted, but its parent was on crowd is deficient not in temper only. necessity, not art. The way of it was There is in the world none to which I this: -Once upon a time, but for no would less willingly trust a lady. As I good reason that I ever heard, a royal have before had occasion to point out, palace was born into the world, and, as the Saxons are a strictly logical people; luck would have it, in Dresden. A more they have sufficient intelligence to under- awkward, flat-faced, shapeless, insufferstand that woman is the weaker vessel;able barn of royal palace was never and if she be unprotected, the syllogism is complete; over she goes into the gutter, and let her thank her stars if no worse befall her.

before smeared with yellow plaster. Nevertheless, like other ill weeds, it grew apace, and, before long, had sprawled itself over a good part of the city; but as there happened to be plenty of waste land thereabouts, which people thought might be covered with one kind of rubbish as well as with another, nothing was said, and the royal palace went on growing bigger and uglier every day. At length, however, it began to approach

At night the bridge is lit with a double row of lamps; and, seen from a distance, the dark arches vanish, and the firepoints seem strung upon a thread, and suspended high over the river, which lovingly repeats them. Reflected in water, fire enriches both its mirror and itself like truth discerned in the shad-the main thoroughfare of the city, and owy bosom of allegory. But the Saxons actually seemed to threaten interference are thrifty souls, who do not believe in with the popular freedom of traffic. Now, letting their lights shine before men, indeed, the wiseacres began to shake after the hour when sober citizens should their heads, and whisper to one another be abed. Accordingly, one half of them that they should have fenced the royal are extinguished by eleven o'clock, and palace in while it was yet young, and the remainder two or three hours later. have obliged it to agree never to exceed There is nothing more strongly suggest-reasonable bounds, and on no account to ive of incorrigible death than a street-interfere with the lawful public freedom. lamp put out before daylight. It is the But, alas! their wisdom came too late ; more forlorn because it had been so for what was their consternation, ou cheerful. No belated traveller needs waking up one morning, at finding that other companions, if he be provided with this ugly, good-for-nothing, barefaced an occasional lamp along his way. It royal palace had grown clear across their shines and wavers, and has in it the mar- main thoroughfare, and then, to prevent vellous sun-born quality of positive life; its flank from being turned, it had scramit warms and burns, like his own house-bled hastily down a side street, and made hold fire, and is thus a link between his home and him; it brings memories of genial hours, and doubly lights his way. The most natural god of fallen man was fire; his was an ardent, and withal a poetic and refined religion. Perhaps we should be no worse off were there more men, nowadays, simple and reverent enough to reinstate his worship. They would possibly be no further from the ultimate truth than were they to evolve God from philosophical mud-pies and chaos.

IV.

HAVING crossed the bridge, and walked the length of a melancholy droschkestand, we reach the Georgen Thor - the triple archway, beneath which entrance is made into Dresden proper which is

fast its further end to a great sulky block of a building, nearly a quarter of a mile off! All direct access to the market-place was thus obstructed, and the city lay prone beneath the foot of this intolerable royal palace. And so, doubtless, would it have remained to the present day, had it not been for the fairy godmother, necessity. That redoubtable old personage, who has the valuable quality of always being on hand when she is wanted, was not long in making her appearance; and, seeing how matters lay, with her customary readiness of resource, she thrust three of her long fingers directly through the body of the royal palace, thereby opening a way for the people to run to and fro as before. So the people exulted, freedom of traffic was restored, and the lubberly palace

not

was obliged to put the best possible face romantic charm wrought upon us by the upon its discomfiture. This it literally mysterious old archway has quite worn accomplished by setting the royal coat- off, and, alas! is never to be conjured of-arms over the tunnel, by declaring that back again. Once more we reiterate it it had itself caused the tunnel to be made - would that mankind knew where to for the good of the people, and by chris-stop! Dresden, with all its faults, might tening it "George's Gate;" though why at least have remained Dresden; but "Limited-Monarchy Gate," or even these monstrous outgrowths throw con"Conservative-Republican Gate," I never tempt not only upon the quaint simplicity was able to discover. But it is said that of the original town, but still more upon the royal palace never grew any more themselves for pretending to belong to after that deadly thrust given it by neces-it. sity; nay, there are those who maintain that it is beginning to dwindle away, and who cherish hopes of finally getting rid of it altogether. Meanwhile, however, this is the end of the story; and the moral is in the story itself.

Let us saunter back to the Altmarkt, which is full of suggestions. On our way we may observe, at the entrance of more than one street, a bit of board nailed to a stick, bearing the announcement, "Strasse Gesperrt." Let no rude hoof Like many seeming misfortunes, this approach, no wheel invade. The poor triple tunnel is of more service to Dres- street is diseased, and the surgeons are den than an unobstructed roadway would at work upon it. This warning-off lends have been it is so delightfully gro- a peculiar interest to the forbidden spot; tesque, mediæval, and mysterious. Its for the first time we feel impelled to low-browed arches, as our imagination make it a visit. Still more remarkable is peeps beneath them, lend the city be- the fascination attaching to empty houseyond a peculiar flavour of romance. lots, so soon as they are boarded up prePassing through the dusky groined pas-paratory to beginning building. I know sage-way, we seem to enter an interior no place of public entertainment more world; we bid farewell to the upper life, sedulously visited. The moment the and greet the narrow strip of sky, which screen is well up, each knot-hole and shows between the high-shouldered roofs crack becomes a prize to be schemed and of the antique houses, as the first glimpse fought for. Staid citizens, anxious busiof a firmament hitherto unknown. That ness men, blasé men of the world, will ideal German life-foreshadowed in pause for half an hour, eagerly scrutiniznursery songs and story-books-is nowing a bed of slaked lime, a pile of bricks on the point of realization; we keep our under a shed, a couple of dirty ladders eyes open, half expecting to encounter a gnome or a good-natured giant at every step; and are not a little indignant at meeting so many people with every-day dresses on. We make the most out of the old-fashioned black and yellow uniforms of the royal messengers, the scanty petticoats of the bare-legged peasant girls, and the spiked helmets of the soldiery. We rejoice in the narrow gloom of the byways, in the gabled unevenness of the houses, in the fantastic enchantment of the shop-windows. And by the time we have traversed Schloss-Strasse and reached the Altmarkt, we are ready to pronounce Dresden the genuine German Eldorado.

Here, however, the real old city comes to an end, and disenchantment grows upon us at every fresh step; until, having wandered down See Strasse and Prager Strasse, and, from the verge of the railway, cast a glance at the brand-new block of sandstone palaces on the further side, which front the Reich Strasse and the Bismarck Platz, we discover that the

leaning against a maze of scaffolding, half-a-dozen old wheelbarrows, and as many workmen leisurely building a house with a pipe of tobacco and a can of beer each. The fairest coryphées of a ballet would be vain of half the attention which these fellows receive. The explanation is to be sought not only in the perverse instinct to see what is not meant to be seen; it is traceable likewise to that universal interest in the process of creation, which is among the most pregnant and significant traits of humanity. Who would not rather witness a house being built, or a book being written, than see either completed? And when the process may be viewed through surreptitious knot-holes, it is enough to captivate a stoic!

"Strasse Gesperrt" is all too familiar to Dresdeners. The city is forever undergoing disembowelment; some part of her internal economy is chronically out of kelter. It is the curse of Dresden that she is founded upon a rock: she lies in a granite basin, and can never get rid