Excerpt from Sentimental Sketches: Written During a Late Journey Through the North of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway
Cologne.
Cologne, formerly termed the holy city, reckoned nearly 50,000 inhabitants, and among them 11,000 buried virgins! There must have been a great scarcity of young women, when such a number left the world, to enlist under the banners of St. Ursula! Cologne being now a garrison-town, and the seat of government, will not again experience, in that way, the loss of so many of her fair maidens, of whom indeed that place may yet be justly proud.
The cathedral is the triumph of gothic architecture, in the thirteenth century. After-ages, as if they felt ashamed, surrounded this master-piece of building with barracks, to obscure its beauty, by a monument of a different kind; but the enterprize was unattainable. This vast work of art, confident of superiority, ascends above the other crippled figures; and the spectator of sensibility will turn away from the trash in disgust. Much has been said and written about perfecting the works of the cathedral, but what presumptuous mortal would put his hand to a poem, begun by a Lycophron or a Persius? It must then, for ever, remain in its present incomplete state.
Dusseldorf.
Dusseldorf is a busy, cheerful place, and the cast of its landscapes will raise pleasing sensations. The part called the Charles-stadt exhibits large broad streets, without much magnificence, but consisting of good houses, that belong to substantial citizens; and there is an English garden, that charms, that enchants with its beauty; it might be taken for the park of a princely villa. In other respects, it does not realise that appearance of striking grandeur which public walks in cities seem to imply.
Dusseldorf was once the seat of government for the Duchy of Juliers and Berg, the chief city of the province, and the residence of the duke. Five garrison-regiments, and the assemblages of the states, were there; all this importance has now disappeared. Nothing remains to its inhabitants but their recollection of times past, and the interesting topics they teemed with.
Munster.
To Munster, the road leads through heaths and sand-wastes; the people are robust, but with little distinction of character, and cultivation is generally neglected.
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