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DOMESTIC MANNEBS OF THE PKUSSIANS.

Interplittcb %\m\ itas.

(4.)

SPEIER.

The " Kaiserdom " (Imperial Cathedral) at Speier, is oneof the most notable edifices in all Germany: that of Köln(or Cologne, to adopt the French corruption of the name) isremarkable for the grace of its architecture—that of Worms,for the charm of its associations with the first " decisive hattle "of the Reformation—and that of Speier, as being the gaudiestbit of gilt plaster-work in Rhineland.

The little toy Cathedral of Apollinaris-kirche at Remagen(hardly bigger than a park lodge) is, as it were, a mere paintedplaything of a temple — a gewgaw model of an ecclesiasticaldoll's house built for some puppet saint.

Still the miniature character of the shrine serves, in ameasure, to sober the tawdriness of the interior down tosomething like barbaric prettiness. The gilt walls of thechoir and nave, though gay as a harlequin's jacket withthe glitter and many colours of their frescoes, belong to sucha mere " bijou" of an edifice— a little thing that seems fitas an ivory man-of-war to be put under a glass-case—thatthey remind one more of the illuminated missals of the oldmonks than, as the Kaiserdom does, of the savage splendourof an Indian temple beplastered with mud, jewels, and gold.

At Speier, however, the eye is dazzled to surfeit with theacres of gold-leaf and long panoramas of apotheoses in frescocovering the walls; so that what had almost the grace of acabinet picture at Apollinaris-kirche becomes vulgär as atheatrical pageant at the Kaiserdom: and no sooner do we