LETTERS PROM A TRAVELLER AT BERLIN. I35 



Of the tafte in architecture, alas ! I have not much 

 good to fay; it is not only not really grand, but it 

 never in any one inftance comes nearly up to that idea. 

 What are properly called palaces are not in great num- 

 bers here ; that of prince Henry is almoft the only one 

 to which the term can be applied. The houfes in ge- 

 neral, exclufive of thofe under the Lindens, are by far 

 too mean, and are in no proportion to the extraordinary 

 breadth of the ftreets. It was determined immediately 

 to have a great city, and therefore the ftreets were made 

 broader than they are in any other city except Peterf* 

 ]burg, and far exceed in that refpecl what is fufficient 

 for real ornament. In many of them this circumftance, 

 and their being drawn in a ftraight line compofe their 

 only beauty, as we meet with not one remarkable houfe 

 in them. Of this kind are the fo-much- celebrated 

 Frederic's ftreet and William's ftreet, the too longer!; in 

 Berlin. The windows are every where too numerous, 

 the walls too flender, infomuch that on considering the 

 multitude of ornament, with which they abound, the 

 reflection immediately arifes, that the flender and thin 

 walls are not able to fuftain their burden. The king 

 has a lingular maxim for exculing this whimfical tafte, 

 I keep, fays he, not only bricklayers and carpenters, 

 but alfo carvers and artifts in ftucco ; that thefe may be 

 able to live, as well as the others, I muft find them in 

 work. — —The opera-houfe is unqueftionably the hand- 

 fomeft building in Berlin ; the front towards the Lin- 

 dens is in a grand ftyle ; the fluted columns of the por- 

 tico are of an excellent competition ; pity that baron 

 K-nobeldfdorf , who gave it, could think of putting that 

 little ftair in the facade, the balluilrade whereof runs 



k 4 parallel 



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