Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/277

 exalting a human being above his fellows—and glorifying weak humanity in his image. Show me a room in which a fellow-creature is accustomed to live, where all he or she touches might ransom a king, and a thousand feelings and sympathies are awakened. Thus if we read in the “Arabian Nights,” of apartments supported by columns encrusted in jewels; then also we find some enchanted prince, who inhabits the wondrous chamber; or if we read of basins of diamonds and cups of a single pearl, they are tributes to beauty from love. With regard to these gems, indeed, we need not go so far afield as the “Arabian Nights” to imagine regal splendour. When Napoleon held his court in the North, to which “thrones, dominations, princedoms” thronged—proud hearts swelled beneath these stones, lifted up with a sense of greatness, and the lovely adorned by them were made glad by the consciousness of admiration.

I am afraid my lion-hunting at Dresden is over. After the Grüne Gewolbe I went to see the collection of porcelain, in an underground suite of rooms at the Japanese palace. I own I was disappointed. I expected to find a quantity of curious and exquisite Dresden china. The collection consists in specimens of porcelain, fabricated from the earliest times in all parts of the world. I confess a very slight inspec-