Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1841 Excerpt:... 101 LETTER XXXI. TO A. J. KEMPE, ESQ., F.S.A. Cologne.--The Commissionnaire; a Character.--Set out to see the Town.--Public Places of In-terest.--The Market Peasantry Remains of ancient Roman Costume.--Colonia Agrippina.--Cathedral.--Description of it.--Its Beauties and Injuries.--The Treasury.--Chapel of the Three Kings.--The Shrine.--Beautiful Altar-piece by Stephen of Cologne.--Rising of the Rhine.--Church of the Twelve Apostles.--St. Peters.--The Sexagenarian's Remarks on Rubens's Picture in that Church.--Rubens's House.--Church of St. Jerome.--Old Sculls Empress Hellena--Crypt.--Great Antiquity of its Pavement.--Roman Tower Eau de Cologne.--View of the Cathedral and City from the opposite Shore. My dear Brother, I Shall touch very briefly on Cologne; for I feel no desire to give you any detailed accounts of such places as have already been so repeatedly described by all classes of travellers. I shall do little more than give you our own thoughts and feelings on a few particulars of interest. On the morning after our arrival, July the 9th, not wishing to lose our time by losing our way, as we purposed seeing the town, we inquired for a commissionnaire or valet de place. One was speedily introduced to us. I do not know what might have been his name, but I shall give him one by-and-bye, and that will do just as well for this letter. Monsieur, the commissionnaire, was a man seemingly about forty-five years old--well dressed, and altogether of a most respectable and even demure appearance. He walked in with a modest, quiet air, cast his eyes on the ground, and never discomposed the gravity of his countenance by any thing approaching to a smile. In the little introductory conversation that we had with him, that which struck me most was the disinterestedness...