institutions, combine to render it a most desirable place of residence.

In passing from the Neustadt, where we noticed, in a handsome square facing the windows of our apartments, a colossal equestrian statue of gilt bronze, erected in memory of the Second Augustus of Saxony, to the Old Town, or Dresden Proper, we crossed over the connecting bridge, one of the finest structures of the kind in Germany. Mr. Russell objects to the presence of the colossal Crucifix placed on one side of the centre arch, and rising from a mass of artificial rocks, twenty-five feet high, the whole of which is of bronze, and wishes it had not been restored after being once fairly blown up by the French, along with the centre arch. Now in the first place, that monument was never blown up by Marshal Davoust, when on the 19th of March 1813, he ordered the centre arch to be demolished, but was previously removed to a safe place. Its subsequent restoration, therefore, along with that of the bridge, agreeably to the will of Alexander of Russia, was a matter of course. In the second place, the Crucifix itself is a work of great merit, and much admired, and reflects great credit on Herold who cast it. Its magnitude and the quantity of metal it contains, tional features of interest belonging to it. not help thinking, that in a city governed by an eminently Catholic Royal family, and inhabited by German Lutherans, who have themselves a great veneration for the symbol of our redemption, the presence of a gigantic crucifix beautifully wrought, in one of the most frequented thoroughfares, is neither out of character nor devoid of interest. Mr. Russell might have better directed his humorous satire against that Pope, who, to assist the Saxon Elector in rebuilding this identical bridge, of stone, sent him several thousand dispensations for the eating of butter, milk, and eggs,

are two addiLastly, I can

during Lent, to be sold to the devout, and with the money of which the bridge was actually constructed in 1344. In one part of this bridge, there used to be in former times an open portion of the balustrade, from which malefactors condemned to be drowned, were precipitated into the Elbe. The last victim who suffered in this manner, was a man who had murdered his wife in 1715. There is a regulation respecting the passing over this bridge, of which we were for ever reminded by the police, and in virtue of which pedestrians from the Neustadt must take the one, and those from the Old Town the other side of it. Waggons and cattle pay a toll, but not private carriages, or people on foot.

"The prospect," observes Mr. Russell, "from the bridge is celebrated all over Germany, and deserves to be so. Whether you look up or down the river, the towers and palaces of the city are pictured in the stream. A lovely plain groaning beneath population and fertility, retires for a short distance from the farther bank, then swells up into an amphitheatre of gentle slopes, laid out in vineyards, interspersed with an endless succession of villages and villas, and shut in towards the south by the summits of the Sachsische Schweitz, a branch of the mountains of Bohemia."

Beyond the last arch of the bridge, and on the right, stands the Court Chapel, or Catholic Church, one of the most gorgeous, but not the finest buildings of the kind in Germany. It was designed and began by Gaetano Chiaveri, and completed by the architects Sebastiani, Knöfler, and Schwarz. Its style of architecture may be said to be par excellence Catholic. It is neither Gothic nor Grecian; it approaches not the Saxon character of building; nor is it like a Mosque, or a Russian Church; and much less like a theatre, as some modern churches are; but it is Catholic, an order too frequently met with in Milan, Venice,

Genoa, and Turin, not to deserve a specific rank among the various styles of architecture. Two millions of Thalers (388,3331. sterling,) were expended on this structure, including internal and external decorations, sacred utensils, &c. The principal ornament, however, is the great altar-piece thirty-three feet high, and sixteen feet wide, representing the Ascension of Christ, painted by Raphael Mengs, who was a native of Dresden, whither he sent it from Spain in 1766. Besides this exquisite painting, there are two other smaller performances by the same master, in the side-chapels. Every Sunday, and other church holydays, according to the Roman Catholic rites, a high mass is celebrated at eleven o'clock in this church, accompanied by all the chapel music of the Court, which is perhaps the finest in Europe, after that of St. Petersburgh, and the Capella Sistina. We were present at one of these solemn ceremonies the day after Christmas, when I noticed several strict regulations respecting the separation of the two sexes in the principal aisle. The Royal Family attend on all these occasions in their covered gallery over the choir, having an easy access to it through a corridor, which connects the church with the palace.

Opposite to the church, a grand flight of forty steps, fifty feet wide, leads to the terrace called the Brühl. This is a magnificent promenade, which follows the tortuous bank of the Elbe, to a certain extent, and surrounds a garden and Palace formerly belonging to the Count de Brühl; but is now converted to different purposes, among which I may mention the annual exhibition of fine arts, and the apartments for the Academy of Arts. In one part of this succession of walks, gardens, and plantations, a Belvedere has been erected, which would be considered as a fine specimen of Doric architecture, had it not been spoiled by the subsequent addition of wooden sheds for the purpose of