y edifice,
for the choir is all, of his own noble plan, which Charles was
permitted to complete, and there has arisen no king of Bohemia since
his day, who has cared to bring the work to a conclusion. At the same
time, both the choir, and the unfinished chapels that surround it, are
strikingly beautiful. The former, emblazoned within with the shields of
the house of Hapsburg, with the armorial bearings of Bohemia, Hungary,
Styria, Moravia, Burgundy, Spain, and Brabant, more resembles the
private chapel of a prince, than the metropolitical church of a nation;
while the latter, crowded with memorials of other and earlier days,
were, at least by us, regarded with still deeper and holier interest.
One of these, the chapel of St. Wenceslas, the fourth Christian duke of
Bohemia, has its walls inlaid with native jasper, agate, and other
precious stones, and adorned with frescoes, inferior, in point of
merit, to none which this century has produced. They are attributed,
some to Nicholas Wurmser of Strasburg, some to Dietrich of Prague, two
of the most renowned artists of their day, who with many others,
received at the hands of Charles, the most liberal patronage and
encouragement. Moreover, the exterior of the wall, which looks towards
the palace, is richly ornamented with mosaics. Many of the old
Slavonian saints are there, such as St. Sigismond, St. Procopius, St.
Vitus, St. Wenceslas, and others finely grouped together; while above
them is a St. Veronica head of Christ, which would not disgrace St.
Mark's in Venice itself.

From the cathedral to the palace is but a step. Though called old in
contradistinction to a modern edifice which confronts it, and which the
emperor, when he visits his Bohemian capital, usually occupies, this
building, in almost all its portions, is of a date not more ancient
than the fourteenth century. The Hall of Ladislas, with two or three
towers near the postern, belong, indeed, to the original building, but
the remainder of the pile, with the cathedral beside it, uprose at the
bidding of Charles IV. Nothing can exceed the splendour of the view
which you obtain from the windows of its apartments. The whole of
Prague is beneath you. There lies the Kleinseite, with the great cupola
of St. Nicholas, a church of the Jesuits, in the foreground: there is
Wallenstein's palace, gathered round the base of the rock, and
testifying to the enormous wealth and princely expenditure of its
founder;--here, on the