PROFESSOR IN BERLIN 325 



to a degree, and almost meagre. The church, on the other 

 hand, is of vast proportions, erected with taste and simplicity 

 by Neapolitan architects, something after the model of what 

 S. Peter's in Rome might have been if the rococo style had 

 not spoiled it. What Philip's successors added is merely 

 childish, with the exception of some beautiful Gobelins after 

 Teniers' sketches, for which indeed the finest pictures of 

 Raphael and Titian were sent to the lumber-room, whence 

 they were rescued for the Museum. Taken as a whole it is 

 an historical monument, testifying to the spirit of its age, even 

 if that was antagonistic to us. ... The Picture Gallery is 

 imposing; the collection of people whom Velasquez counter- 

 feited is so extraordinarily fresh and full of expression, that 

 they seem to be our contemporaries. . . . Yesterday I went 

 early to Toledo, the former Palace ; a crowded mountain nest, 

 surrounded on three sides by the Tagus in a deep gorge, 

 a natural fortress with all kinds of Ostrogothic and Moorish 

 remains ; these are insignificant, but the Gothic Cathedral is so 

 pure, fine, and luxuriant in form, with such elegance of stone- 

 and woodwork, in which the influence of the Alhambra School 

 seems to survive, that it overshadows everything I have 

 previously seen in Gothic churches. Besides, it has been 

 comparatively little spoilt by later additions from the Jesuit 

 period. It is far more characteristically and consistently 

 Gothic than the Cathedral at Milan, and therefore makes an 

 even purer impression of perfect beauty of form and dignity. . . . 

 Unfortunately the exterior is almost invisible. . . .' 



' Cordova, Tuesday, March 30. Here then is the great mosque, 

 the Cathedral of to-day, a wonder of architecture, exotic and 

 fabulous, an immense flat tent-roof supported by more than 

 1,000 pillars, united by fantastic double arches, origin- 

 ally open everywhere to the orangery of the fore-court, with 

 the chapel for the preservation of the Koran behind, adorned 

 with wondrous marble work and mosaics, all in carpet patterns. 

 Not far off is a similarly decorated chapel, the place of prayer 

 of the Khalif. Unfortunately they have closed it in as a church, 

 separating it with walls from the court, and have erected 

 a high choir in the baroque style, so that one can only imagine 

 how airy, and clear, and cool, and light it must have been 

 before they made a church out of it. The question is forced 



