ll that, his astonishment would be
extreme, and perhaps in a degree painful and salutary to him.

In one of these Towers the Crown-Prince has his Library: a beautiful
apartment; nothing wanting to it that the arts could furnish, "ceiling
done by Pesne" with allegorical geniuses and what not,--looks out on
mere sky, mere earth and water in an ornamental state: silent as in
Elysium. It is there we are to fancy the Correspondence written, the
Poetries and literary industries going on. There, or stepping down for
a turn in the open air, or sauntering meditatively under the Colonnade
with its statues and vases (where weather is no object), one commands
the Lake, with its little tufted Islands, "Remus Island" much famed
among them, and "high beech-woods" on the farther side. The Lake is very
pretty, all say; lying between you and the sunset;--with perhaps some
other lakelet, or solitary pool in the wilderness, many miles away,
"revealing itself as a cup of molten gold," at that interesting moment.
What the Book-Collection was, in the interior, I know not except by mere
guess.

The Crown-Princess's Apartment, too, which remained unaltered at the
last accounts had of it, [From Hennert, namely, in 1778.] is very
fine;--take the anteroom for specimen: "This fine room," some twenty
feet height of ceiling, "has six windows; three of them, in the main
front, looking towards the Town, the other three, towards the Interior
Court. The light from these windows is heightened by mirrors covering
all the piers (SCHAFTE, interspaces of the walls), to an uncommonly
splendid pitch; and shows the painting of the ceiling, which again is
by the famous Pesne, to much perfection. The Artist himself, too, has
managed to lay on his colors there so softly, and with such delicate
skill, that the light-beams seem to prolong themselves in the painted
clouds and air, as if it were the real sky you had overhead." There in
that cloud-region "Mars is being disarmed by the Love-goddesses, and
they are sporting with his weapons. He stretches out his arm towards the
Goddess, who looks upon him with fond glances. Cupids are spreading
out a draping." That is Pesne's luxurious performance in the
ceiling.--"Weapon-festoons, in basso-relievo, gilt, adorn the walls of
this room; and two Pictures, also by Pesne, which represent, in life
size, the late King and Queen [our good friends Friedrich Wilhelm and
his Sophie], are worthy of attention. Over each of the doors,