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Rh bk. IV. ch. t[i. brick architecture. 89 CHAPTER VII. NORTHERN GERMANY. BRICK ARCHITECTURE. CONTENTS. Churches at Lubeck — in Brandenburg — in Ermenland — Castle at Marienburg — Town-hall at Brunswick. ALONG the whole of the southern shores of the Baltic extends a vast series of sandy plains, now composing the greater part of the kingdom of Prussia, with Hanover and Mecklenburg and the duchies of Bran- denburg and Brunswick. This district was to a considerable extent cultivated during the Middle Ages, and contained several cities of o-reat commercial and political importance, which still retain many of their ecclesiastical and civil buildings. These plains are almost wholly destitute of any stone suitable for building purposes, and brick has alone been employed in the erection, not only of their houses, but of their churches and most monumental buildings. This circumstance has induced such a variation in the character of the architecture as to justify the North of Germany being treated as a separate province. The differences which are apparent may also be owing to some extent to ethnographic differences of race, though it is not easy to say how much may l)c owing to this cause. Ill early Christian times tl)e wliole province was inhabited by the Wends, a race of Sclavonic stock ; they have been superseded by the Teutonic races and their language has disapjieared, l)ut their blood must still remain, and a knowledge of tliis fact would at once account to an ethnologist for the absence of art. A Teutonic race, based on a Celtic substratutn, would have wrought beauty out of bricks, and the constructive difficulties would not have prevented the development of the art. But a Teutonic foi-mation overlying a Sclavonic base is about as unfortunate a combination for architectural development as can well be conceived. This, added to the deficiency of appropriate building materials, will more than suffice to account for the phenomena we meet with on the southern shores of the Baltic. It is true that in the hands of a refined and art-loving people like the inhabitants of the North of Italy, brick architecture may be made to possess a considerable amount of beauty. Burnt clay may be