that nothing seems superfluous. Well may Nuremberg be proud of having given birth to Georg and Fritz Rupprecht, whose combined genius designed this monument. We cannot wonder that the possessors of such a fountain have enshrined it among their penates, and that every evening towards sunset, the maidens of Nuremberg are seen wending their way to the Schöne Brunnen, each accompanied by her "Schatz," or lover, who aids her in the task of filling her "Wasserbutte," the beautiful fountain thus becoming, like the wells of olden time, a rallying point of news, gossip, and scandal.

The spacious market-place whereon this Brunnen stands, was in ancient times the Judenstadt, or Jews' quarter of the town. On the breaking out of the plague in 1349, popular belief traced the origin of that fearful malady to the Jews, who had settled here in multitudes, and the strange accusation was preferred against them of poisoning the public wells. This was the beginning of a system of relentless persecution, which ended in the expulsion of the Hebrew race and the destruction of their houses and their synagogue, the Frauenkirche being built on the site of the latter. The advantage in point of space acquired by the removal of the Judenstadt, has to a certain extent been lost again by the erection of a row of unsightly market booths, in such a situation as considerably to obstruct the view of the Frauenkirche and the Schöne Brunnen; but we may hope, that the justifiable pride with which the Nurembergers regard their old city, will yet lead some public spirited individuals among them to unite in buying up these obnoxious erections.

Replete as Nuremberg is with the domestic architecture of the middle ages, comparatively few dwelling-houses are extant of an older date than the fifteenth century. This principally arises from the limited use of stone in private

houses during the early periods of Nuremberg's history; but we have one noble example of a private dwelling of stone contemporary with the Frauenkirche and the Schöne Brunnen; I mean the so-called Nassauer Haus, the corner house opposite the Lorenzokirche, represented in the subjoined

woodcut. It was built by the family of Schlüszelfelder, about the year 1350 or 1360; such at least is the opinion of the best informed Nuremberg antiquaries, though an earlier date has been assigned to it. It has four lofty storeys, undivided by string-courses; the windows are placed with tolerable regularity, and those in the upper storey were originally pointed. A beautiful semioctagonal oriel, with reliefs from the life of the Virgin, occupies the central part of one of the walls, and to each of the upper angles of the

building is attached a hexagonal or octagonal turret pierced with trifoliated apertures. The walls are crowned with an embattled parapet, and the armorial bearings of the electors and of the town of Ratisbon are carved immediately below the merlons, on a tablet which runs round the turrets. If we except a little sculptured figure of an angel, with a corbel and canopy attached to the corner of the house, the whole ornament is confined to the turrets, parapet, and oriel, the rest of the wall being studiously plain.

In point of size and pretensions, however, there can be no doubt that the Nassau House was entirely exceptional. The other early houses, even of the principal Nuremberg citizens, were homely and unambitious. They were built of

a framework of timber, with the interstices filled up with brick. As space was precious in a walled town, the streets were narrow, and each ascending storey was made to project beyond that below it, till the opposite houses approached so as almost to exclude the light. Albert Dürer's house is a late example of this species of architecture. In the earlier houses of this description, the roofs, always steep, generally project over the gable, and have an inward angle—a most characteristic and picturesque feature of the domestic architecture of Germany. A gable is often truncated and finished off by a sloping roof. Still there are no timber-beam houses so quaintly constructed, or elaborately carved, as may be met with in Hanover, Münden, Hildburghausen, and many other towns in North Germany. In comparison with other old German towns, we rather remark the absence of this description of architecture, the people of Nuremberg having begun at an earlier period to build their houses of stone.

I have already said, that the old Nuremberg citizens, in constructing their dwellings, studied comfort rather than ostentation. In the spirit of the "Lamp of Sacrifice," whatever they had that was costly or precious, was dedicated to the service of the Church; and that not because it was useful or necessary for religious worship, but simply because it was costly or precious. In their private habitations, works of high art would generally have been thought out of place; what was principally aimed at being the useful and the appropriate. Yet there was no marked difference in style between ecclesiastical and domestic architecture. The same habits of thought, the same taste, and the same constructive skill, which we admire in buildings dedicated to sacred purposes, were exhibited in the simple habitation of the simple citizen. The head and the hand of the artist were to be traced in all the minutiae of household decoration, in the

forms of tables and chairs, of doors, locks, and knockers. An angular niche was often filled by a figure of the Madonna or a saint.

As stone comes into use as a building material, the features of Nuremberg Architecture become more distinctive and characteristic. The houses are generally deep and narrow in front, and the gables often, though not uniformly, turned to the street. Specimens of gables may be seen in Plate I. p. 51, figs. 3, 4, 5. Some of them ascend in steps; others are divided by horizontal strings and vertical pilasters, connected by pointed or straight-sided arches, like the façade of the Frauenkirche, with or without pinnacles. Sometimes the horizontal divisions are altogether wanting. This species of ornamentation is always confined to the gable proper; I know no instance of its extending below the eaves. At a later period, round shafts, with a ball resting on their capital, often take the place of the pilasters and arches. Sometimes these shafts terminate abruptly in corbels; at other times the corner shafts are carried down to the ground in short, there is an infinite variety in the ornamentation of Nuremberg gables.

As a general rule, the surface of the wall becomes more broken as it ascends, and the windows more numerous. The roofs, always acutely pitched, are covered with red tiles of the pointed shape common in Germany, and time has imparted to them a mellow brown tinge. These roofs luxuriate in combinations of fantastic turrets and dormer windows, the latter often occurring in tiers one above another; but a species of dormer, represented in Plate I. fig. 6, deserves separate notice. I do not know whether English architects would allow it to be a dormer window, as in fact it is not a window at all; but in Germany it is included under the same general term, "Erker." It rises on a line with the wall; the sill or