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The Upper Rhine : Mayence to the Lake of Constance
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STBASBUEG.

169

These bodies are said to have been discovered some fewyears since in the vaults of the chapel, and they have not beenre-interred, on acconnt of tlieir being, it is urged, "naturalcuriosities." It is hardly credible, however, that such utterdisrespect to the dead should be permitted.

The spectacle itself is simply disgusting, and should beavoided by all who are anxious to discountenance this trickingout of skeletons in new clothes, as a means of turning a fewpence by the odious exhibition.

The other pieces of scnlpture at Strasburg — such asthe statues of Gutenberg the first printer, and Kleber therepublican warrior—are unimportant as works of art. That ofGutenberg, in the Place ditto, is by no means comparable tothe fine figure of the printer by Thorwalsden at Mainz.

The Strasburg statue is represented in a long flowing robe,holding a printed sheet in the hand, and with the press andforms of type on one side at the foot. The figure, however,wants dignity; it seems to have no sense of the grandeur of thediscovery, and to clutch the first printed sheet with no morepride of power than if it represented a "flying stationer"hawking a halfpenny murder. Hence the story has to bemade out on the pedestal; and this is accordingly set roundwith a series of rüde bas-reliefs, in the regulär French intensestyle. Here we have a crowd of philosophers, poets, and his-torians from all countries — each with their names engravedunder them—such as Tasso, Cervantes, Milton, Buffon,Erasmus, Voltaire, Racine, Moliere, Shakspeare, Corneille,D'Alembert, Rousseau, Lessing, Leibnitz, Kant, Copernicus,Newton, Goethe, Schiller, Watt, Papin, &c. &c.—and allgrouped round Descartes (of all men in the world!), who isresting on a pillar, with a press at the top. Then anothermetal tableau represents all the foremost American heroes—■