the composition now called brass, was discovered here in 1550; the air-gun invented in 1560; and Denner produced the first clarionet in 1690.
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Street in Nuremberg.
For several centuries Nuremberg was an Imperial residence. Even now, the suite of rooms fitted up in the castle for the King of Bavaria, would not be a despicable residence for a monarch making short visits, without a large and costly retinue. In the Middle Ages, this important Free City was governed by an oligarchy; and a Council of eight seems to have lorded it over their fellow-townsmen, not without a spice of arrogance. Power and secrecy made them cruel; and the dark passages and chambers of the Rath-haus must often have listened to helpless and agonising groans of prisoners subjected to torture, and afterwards consigned to the Oubliettes. Subterranean ways led from this same town-hall beyond the city walls, for the unobserved exit and entrance of the council, or of prisoners.
In walking through the town, denuded now of pride and power, rich only in memories and material relics, the visitor will be struck by a peculiar duality about it. Its two great churches have a considerable similarity. Each has two spires of equal height, and both have the peculiarity of the chancel being much higher than the nave. The churches belong to the Lutheran congregations; and owing to the great moderation which here marked the coming in of the Reformed Religion, altars, and roods, and triglyphs, niches and saints, and many of the other symbols of the Roman Catholic faith, remain untouched. The Roman communion occupy the Egidienkirche and the Frauenkirche: the latter possesses a magnificent west front and doorway, and near it, in the market-place, stands The Beautiful Fountain, a high and elaborately carved cross, decorated with figures of the world’s worthies, and supplying water to that quarter of the town. It is to be regretted that round this noticeable church there is a parasitic growth of shops and stalls, clinging to its lower walls, which detracts much from its beauty. It would require the strong file of public opinion to scrape away this rust of prescriptive rights.
The two great churches create a rivalry of interest in the visitor’s mind. St. Laurenz, on the south side, is the larger, as well as the older edifice. It is particularly rich in its glass, and possesses the remarkable work of Adam Kraft, the Sacraments-Häuslein, a spiring canopy in stone, climbing upwards, as it were, against one of the pillars, and then gracefully bending its extreme point at the springing of the arch, like some tall grown plant that has reached the roof of a greenhouse. The same conceit is seen in the canopy of the pulpit in Antwerp Cathedral. Equal in