The route to this churchyard the reader already knows, for it lies along Burgschmietstrasse, along that road to Calvary marked by Ketzel’s pious Stations of the Cross (see p. [200]).
A low walk and pillared gateway, over whose broken pediment the willow bends mournfully, mark this place of tombs. The churchyard is sprinkled with trees: to the south, the shadows of a thicker fringe of branches deepen the natural solemnity of the place. It is here that the mighty dead of the White City are sleeping the sleep that knows no waking; but, as we seek the graves of Durer, Sachs, or Pirkheimer, we pass along the rows of flat tombstones quietly, with hushed voices and reverent steps, as if dreading to disturb even the silence of their inviolable repose.[64] On every side of us are emblems of the past glory and pride of Nuremberg. There are no headstones to the tombs, but every slab, in high relief of imperishable bronze fashioned by the skill of the most distinguished artists,[65] bears the coats-of-arms and devices of the civic noble who moulders beneath. What pomp of funeral processions must have ascended the steep from the city, year by year, through that gateway, to convey another, and yet another, wealthy burgher from the busy scenes of commerce and office, to the silent abodes of the dead! Poets and artists, too, as well as patricians, lie here; and the indistinguishable dust of the famous and infamous, of rich and poor, known and unknown, old and young mingles in this still churchyard of St. John.
“Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”
We feel the pathos, the pity of it, as we stand here and read the message of the tombstones; but even more clearly does St. John’s Churchyard suggest that other mood:—
“Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around
Bids ev’ry fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.”
CHAPTER X
The Houses, Wells, and Bridges
EVERY other house in Nuremberg, whether in the narrow and crooked side streets, or in the busy thoroughfares, is, as it were, a leaf from some mediæval chronicle. Here, in the Hirschelgasse or the Ægidien Platz, we read the story of some rich merchant prince, returning from Venice or from Palestine, eager to spend some of the fruits of his emprise in the decoration of his house, according to the style of the country which had fascinated him in his travels. There, in the Tetzel-or the Schild-Gasse, we read in the overhanging upper stories the desire of the architect in this crowded mediæval city to utilise every foot of available space, and the device is revealed to us which he adopted when the Council forbade the projection of the ground floor into the street. And those statues of Saints and Madonnas, which still stand in their niches at the corners of so many houses, those reliefs by Adam Krafft or other artists, which adorn the mansions of the great with the story of Christ and His followers, are they not eloquent, in the very lack of variety displayed in the choice of subjects, of the simple child-like faith of the Middle Ages, ever ready to hear once more the story of the Redeemer’s suffering for the sake of man who had sinned?
From the varying height, breadth, and styles of the houses the streets of Nuremberg gain the mediæval charm of irregularity. There is the usual happy