with a view to the nearer inspection of the cunning workmanship of the
aforesaid carcanets of silver, a light sprinkling of April rain began to
moisten the pavement--one of those unheard, unseen, revivifying showers,
which weep the earth into freshness, and the buds into maturity. I was
anxious, however, to withdraw my mere human nature from participation in
these herbaceous advantages; and looking about for some shelter which
might preserve me from the mischiefs of the shower, without depriving me
of its refreshing fragrance, I espied in the centre of the Platz--a
square of no mighty area--a low, rotunda-like building, with slated
roof, overhanging and resting upon wooden pillars, so as to form a sort
of covered walk.

I settled with myself that this was the market-house of the town, and
hastened to besiege so desirable a city of refuge. But during my rapid
approach, I observed that the external walls of the nameless edifice
beneath the arcade were covered, and without a single interstitial
interval, by small pictures in oil-colours, equal in size, and equal in
demerit, and each and all representing some calamitous crisis of human
existence--a fire, a ship-wreck, a boat-wreck, a battle, a leprosy! It
occurred to me at the same moment, that this gallery of mortal
casualties and afflictions must be a collection of votive offerings, and
that the seeming market-house was, probably, a shrine of especial
sanctity. And so it was!--the shrine of "The Black Lady of Altenötting."

Instigated by somewhat more than a traveller's vague curiosity, I
entered the chapel; the brilliancy of which, eternally illuminated by
the reflection of a profusion of silver lamps upon the thousand precious
objects which decorate the walls, forms a startling contrast with the
dim shadows of the external arcade. In most cases, the entrance to a
religious edifice impresses the mind with a consciousness of vastness,