From Metz I made my way by Sierck (whose small church has a groined roof forty feet in clear width) to Saarburg; here the church is noticeable for a tower oblong in plan, and roofed with two thin octagonal spires which unite together at the base; and from Saarburg I went to Trèves.

Trèves well deserves a long notice. Its churches are full of interest, the cathedral for students of early art, and the Liebfraukirche, as being (I think) the most beautifully planned thirteenth century church in Germany. The close juxtaposition of these two churches is singularly effective in all points of view. Then there are the very fine Roman remains, and finally a really enormous number of houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth century, all in very fair preservation. From Trèves, by the interesting abbey of Laach, I reached Cologne, and at once made my way to the cathedral, anxious to see whether the opinions which have grown on me more strongly the more often I have visited it would remain unshaken now that so great progress has been made in the new work. It is impossible to overrate the excellence of all the new constructions; nor are they obviously open to any hostile criticism in regard to their conformity with the general character of the old work; but it is at the same time useless to conceal the fact, that the work is of a poor kind, and that it certainly does not improve as one sees more of it. The only comfort is that the interior will be much finer than the exterior, and that it is worth while therefore, to put up with some shortcomings in the latter in order to obtain what will, no doubt, be the sumptuous effect of space, height, and (I hope) colour, which the former promises to afford. It is much more difficult to spoil the interior than the exterior; it must of necessity be simple and uniform, and it admits of less attempt at enrichment with such crockets and pinnacles as cover the exterior. The south transept front, which is the most conspicuous portion of the new work finished, is, I think, thoroughly unsatisfactory. The crocketed gable over the great window, repeated again just above up the roof gable, is perhaps the most unhappy repetition of a leading line that could have been hit upon. If a gable was necessary over the window, it should have been different in its pitch from the other; and then again, however much the old architect indulged in reedy mouldings and endless groups of crockets, it does seem to be a sad thing that a nineteenth century artist should feel bound to emulate his enthusiasm for such worthless things. I grant at once, that he has done no more than follow precedents. In the old west front of the cathedral, there is scarcely a moulding three inches in diameter, whilst the central doorway between the steeples is very small, and made up of a repetition usque ad nauseam of orders of reedy mouldings and small flowers, and admits not for one instant of comparison with any good examples of French doorways; and, it is indeed very striking how, as one comes fresh from French churches, all this work looks thin, petty, and wanting in expression.

In the sculpture of foliage in the new works, the system seems to be to take sprigs of two or three leaves and fasten them against a circular bell, with no evidence of any kind of natural growth, and no proper architectural function to perform. They seem to require a piece of string or a strap round them to attach them to the bell. The copying of the foliage is perfectly naturalesque, even to the marking of the fibres on leaves which are to be elevated to a great height in the building. I have heard all this sculpture so often referred to in terms of the highest praise, that unpleasant as it is to criticize work executed at the present day, I feel that I am bound to express my dissent from those who so speak of it. The whole work is so famous that all the world is interested in it. English tourists, year after year, going in great numbers on their travels, admire thoughtlessly everything that they see, and architects even seem to me to follow in their wake, forgetting that our true function is not simply to admire the work, because it is a vast and noble enterprise, but to weigh and compare it with the most perfect work we can find, and to endeavour, if the faults we see in it are great, to point them out by way of warning for ourselves and others. Indiscriminate admiration of such a building does enormous mischief, just as a wild enthusiasm for the fourteenth century work which we see throughout Germany would be fatal to the eye and taste of the enthusiast.

Undoubtedly the architect of Cologne has had an office of enormous difficulty. The national enthusiasm, which has raised the funds hitherto expended, must have needed very cautious treatment. It would probably indeed be indispensable that the steeples, if ever completed, should be built exactly on the old plan so curiously preserved and discovered, but the elevation of the transepts, on which so very much of the external effect of the whole church depended, was just one of those points on which the architect might have ventured (one would have thought) to step out of the old path a little, and—just as the old architect when he wanted a perfect ground-plan went to Amiens for his example—he might at this day have gone to Chartres or Amiens, Rouen or Paris, and grafted something of their grace and grandeur on the otherwise merely German conception of façade which he has given us. That this might have been done without detriment to the old portions of the building is I am sure unquestionable; and that if well done it must have resulted in great gain and increased beauty is equally certain. If (as we all, with insignificant exceptions, admit) it is well for us to study early French art as well as English, surely some attention to it must be even more necessary in Germany, whose national art was inferior, in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, not only to that of France, but almost as much to that of England.