Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/641

 Bk. III. Ch. III. CIVIL AND DOMESTIC BUILDINGS. 609 Bad as are the churches of Holland, the town-halls and civic buildings are even worse. There is not, in the whole of the Netherlands, one that can be classed as a work of fine art. Even age has been unable to render them tolerabl)' picturesque ; nor are there in the province any belfries with their picturesque forms, nor any palaces worthy of note, which belong -to the Middle Ages. The older dwelling-houses are sometimes jncturesque and pleasing, but less so than those of Belgium. Most of them are unpretending specimens of honest building, the result of w^hich is often satisfac- tory ; and combined, as they generally are in Dutch towns, with water and trees, and with the air of neatness and comfort Avhich pervades the whole, we sometimes scarcely feel inclined to quarrel with the absence of higher elements of art when so pleasing a result has been produced without them. Notwithstanding all this, it might be well worth while to give one or two examples of the plans and illustrations of some of the churches in Holland in a work like the present, not so much for their own sake, as for comparison with other buildings ; but the materials do not exist. The Dutch have shown the same indifference to the conservation of their Mediaeval monuments which their forefathers exhibited in their erection, and not one has been edited in modern times in such a manner as to admit of being quoted. ^ The history of this variety remains for the present to be written, but fortunately it is one of the least important of its class. years ago on the church at Bois le Due ; been since heard of — in this country at but after the first numbers it seems to | least. VOL. I. — 39 END OF VOL. I.
 * A large work was commenced a few have been discontinued, and has not