eyes the wonderful
hall into which I will now take you--I mean Arthur's Hall.[2]

At the hour of noon the hall was crammed full of men of the most
diverse nations, all pushing about and immersed to the eyes in
business, so that the ears were deafened by the confused din. But when
the exchange hours were over, and the merchants had gone to dinner, and
only a few odd individuals hurried through the hall on business (for it
served as a means of communication between two streets), that I dare
say was the time when you, gracious reader, liked to visit Arthur's
Hall best, whenever you were in Dantzic. For then a kind of magical
twilight fell through the dim windows, and all the strange reliefs and
carvings, with which the wall was too profusely decorated, became
instinct with life and motion. Stags with immense antlers, together
with other wonderful animals, gazed down upon you with their fiery eyes
till you could hardly look at them; and the marble statue of the king,
also in the midst of the hall, caused you to shiver more in proportion
as the dusk of evening deepened. The great picture representing an
assemblage of all the Virtues and Vices, with their respective names
attached, lost perceptibly in moral effect; for the Virtues, being
high up, were blended unrecognisably in a grey mist, whilst the
Vices--wondrously beautiful ladies in gay and brilliant costumes--stood
out prominently and very seductively, threatening to enchant you with
their sweet soft words. You preferred to turn your eyes upon the narrow
border which went almost all round the hall, and on which were
represented in pleasing style long processions of gay-uniformed militia
of the olden time, when Dantzic was an Imperial town. Honest
burgomasters, their features stamped with shrewdness and importance,
ride at the head on spirited horses with handsome trappings, whilst
the drummers, pipers, and halberdiers march along so jauntily and
life-like, that you soon begin to hear the merry music they play, and
look to see them all defile out of that great window up there into the
Langemarkt.[3]

While, then, they are marching off, you, indulgent reader,--if you
were, that is, a tolerable sketcher,--would not be able to do otherwise
than copy with pen and ink yon magnificent burgomaster with his
remarkably handsome page. Pen and ink and paper, provided at public
cost, were always to be found lying about on the tables; accordingly
the material would be all ready at