Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/551



threshold for the greeting; but instead, there stands with the old king a noble youth who, to all appearances, seems to have been beforehand, in the business of wooing and winning the young princess's heart, with the last comer. There are these words upon the scroll,—"Ich hab vor einem gericht einer tuben und mich yr verpflicht;" "I have before a  tribunal of a dove, and have myself engaged to her;" meaning that already had he himself betrothed the king's daughter, by swearing to her his love and truth before a dove—a thing quite mediæval, like the vows of the swan, the peacock, and the pheasant, as we have noticed in the Introduction, and again while treating of the Syon Cope, at p. 28. On his side, the old king thus addresses him,—"Mich dunckt du komst uber land zu der hochzeit;" "Methinks thou comest over-land  to see the wedding." In this, as in other inscriptions, the whole of the words cannot be made out.

The fifth compartment shows us the second and successful wooer, dressed out in the same attire as before, but now riding a well-appointed steed, and booted in the manner of those times. He is waited on by a mounted page. On a scroll are the words,—"Umb sehnlichst ich nun köme ist die ewige ;" "That I most passionately now can  is the eternal," &c.

In the last compartment the rejected wooer is seen riding away as he came—without a bride—followed by two grooms.

Though rough in its execution, this piece of tapestry is valuable not only for its specimens of costume, like our own at the period, but especially for its inscriptions, which betray the provincialisms belonging to the south of Germany; and some of their expressions are said to be even yet in daily use about the neighbourhood of Nuremberg, to which locality we are warranted, for several reasons, in ascribing the production of this early example of the German loom.

1480.

Tapestry Hanging; within a narrow border of a dark green ground, ornamented with flowers mostly pink, and fruit-bearing branches of the vine, is figured a subject just outside the gates of a large walled city, and upon the flowery turf. Flemish, beginning of the 16th century, 13 feet by 11 feet 6 inches.

To all appearance the subject is taken from the Gospel of St. John, chap. 9, where the miracle is related of our Lord giving sight to the