How different the English landscape
garden, where graceful sweeps and irregular masses of foliage meet the
eye with unlooked-for beauties at every turn! Well do we remember how,
after a few days spent in viewing the grand dullness of the Bavarian
capital, we looked wearily back to the delightful visit we made at
Nuremberg, with its curious old streets and fountains:
'Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song;
Memories haunt thy pointed gables like the rooks that round them throng.'
To claim the merit of variety for our streets is wrong, for they are not
varied, but only incongruous. Their variety is rather that of an
architectural museum than the result of any combination. We have styles
enough, in all conscience, but none that will tolerate any other.
Against this may be urged the very argument with which we set out, that
a nation's architecture should be the exponent of its national
character, and as we are made up of every people and every class, that
this heterogeneous _melange_ is our normal style.
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