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 moulded into shapes as elegant, and as artistic as can be carved in stone; and the various colours which it is easy to impart to bricks may be used to form mosaics of the most beautiful patterns; but to carry out all this with success requires a genuine love of art, and an energy in the prosecution of it, which will not easily be satisfied. Without this the facilities of brick architecture are such that it can be executed by the commonest workman, and is best done in the least artistic forms. While this is the case, it requires a very strong feeling for art to induce anyone to bestow thought where it is not needed, and to interrupt construction to seek for forms of beauty. In brick architecture, the best walls are those with the fewest breaks and projections, so that if relief and shadow are to be obtained, they must be added for their own sake; and more than this, walls may be built so thin that they must always appear weak as compared with stone walls, and depth of relief becomes almost impossible. Another defect is, that a brick building almost inevitably suggests a plaster finishing internally; and every one knows how easy it is to repeat by casting the same ornaments over and over again, and to apply such ornaments anywhere and in any way without the least reference to construction or propriety. All these temptations may of course be avoided. They were so at Granada by the Saracens, who loved art for its own sake. They were to a considerable extent avoided in the valley of the Po, though by a people far less essentially art-loving than the Moors. But it will easily be supposed that this taste and perception of beauty exerted less influence in the valley of the Elbe. There the public buildings were raised as simply as the necessities of construction would allow, and ornaments were applied only to the extent absolutely requisite to save them from absolute plainness. Thus the churches represent in size the wealth and population of the cities, and were built in the style of Gothic architecture which prevailed at the time of their erection; but it is in vain to look in them for any of the beauties of the stone Gothic buildings of the same period, though the variety which they gave to their moulded brickwork, and the dexterity with which they treated it, imparted a character to it which is not without its interest. [Illustration: 770. Plan of Marien Kirche, Lubeck. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]