BRUNSWICK.
Though a very unpromising name to Englishmen, who are accustomed to associate it with very modern times and places in their own country, is a most interesting ancient city, full of fine mediæval remains, and curious domestic architecture. The Dom (Lutheran) contains the remains of a rood screen and loft, with a central altar; but in a church now disused for worship, and of which I was unable to ascertain the name, a most elaborate screen, partly of stone, and partly of wood, is still standing uninjured; the style verges on the cinque-cento, but all the traditional forms and enrichments are preserved, and altogether it is a magnificent and imposing work.
The other churches have been much modernized in adapting them to Lutheran worship, which appears to vary in different places and countries to a very considerable extent; for while at Lubeck and Nuremberg the Catholic fittings remain intact, at Brunswick and other places they have nearly disappeared, and been replaced by modern abominations. Perhaps the preservation of these fine remains is principally owing to the want of funds in the cities whose commerce has decayed; they have not had the temporal means to spoil them. This is strikingly observable in remote parish churches in England, where no rates could be raised for their repairs, for they are usually in a very perfect state; while in large and populous towns, the churchwardens have had so much to expend, that they are completely gutted and ruined.