ed the designs. The ante-chambers are
devoted to Orpheus and Hesiod, and the ornaments are in the oldest
Greek style; severely simple; archaic, but not rude; the figures of the
friezes in outline, and without relief. The saloon of reception, on the
contrary, is Homeric; and in its colouring, design, and decoration, as
brilliant, as free, and as flowing as the genius of the great Maeonian.
The chamber of the throne is entirely adorned with white bas-reliefs,
raised on a ground of dead gold; the subjects Pindaric; not inferior
in many instances to the Attic remains, and characterised, at the same
time, by a singular combination of vigour and grace. Another saloon is
devoted to AEschylus, and the library to Sophocles. The gay, wild muse of
Aristophanes laughs and sings in his Majesty's dressing-room; while
the king is lulled to slumber by the Sicilian melodies and the soothing
landscapes of Theocritus.

Of these chambers, I should say that they were a perfect creation of
Art. The rooms themselves are beautifully proportioned; the subjects of
their decorations are the most interesting in every respect that could
be selected; and the purity, grace, and invention of the designs, are
equalled only by their colouring, at the same time the most brilliant
and harmonious that can be conceived; and the rich fancy of the
arabesques and other appropriate decorations, which blend with all
around, and heighten the effect of the whole. Yet they find no mean
rivals in the private chambers of the queen, decorated in an analogous
style, but entirely devoted to the poets of her own land. The
Minnesingers occupy her first apartments, but the brilliant saloon is
worthy of Wieland, whose Oberon forms it frieze; while the bedchamber
gleams with the beautiful forms and pensive incidents of Goethe's
esoteric pen. Schiller has filled the study with his stirring characters
and his vigorous incidents. Groups from 'Wallenstein' and 'Wilhelm Tell'
form the rich and unrivalled ceiling: while the fight of the dragon and
the founding of the bell, the innocent Fridolin, the inspired maiden of
Orleans, breathe in the compartments of the walls.

When I beheld these refined creations, and recalled the scenes and
sights of beauty that had moved before me in my morning's wanderings, I
asked myself, how Munich, recently so Boeotian, had become the capital
of modern Art; and why a country of limited resources, in a brief space,
and with such facility and comple