The next illustration, of the church at Santoppen (Woodcut No. 774) is of a type infinitely more common in Ermeland. In Quast’s work[81] are some dozen churches varying only slightly from this in design, but in many the western tower is more like a many-storeyed warehouse than a building designed either for ornament or any church-like use. They all, however, possess some character and charm from their novelty, being very unlike anything found elsewhere. [Illustration: 774. View of Church at Santoppen. (From Quast.)] The Marien Church at Brandenburg (Woodcut No. 775) exhibits this style carried to an excess which renders it almost bizarre. The lower part is unobjectionable, the ornament around the doors and under the windows being appropriate and well placed; but the windows themselves are too plain even in this style, and above this the ornament is neither constructive nor elegant. The building might be either a dwelling or a civil building, or anything else, as well as a church, and it is difficult to find on what principle the design is varied or arranged. In true Art the motive is apparent at a glance, and should always be so. At Hamburg, fires, and the improvements consequent on modern activity and prosperity, have nearly obliterated all the more important buildings which at one time adorned that city. [Illustration: 775. Façade of Marien Kirche, Brandenburg. (From Rosengarten.)] At Königsberg, at the opposite extremity of the district, there seems to be little that is remarkable, except a cathedral, possessing an enormous façade of brickwork, adorned with blank arches, but without the smallest pretensions to beauty, either internally or externally. CIVIL BUILDINGS. [Illustration: 776. Façade of the Knight-hall in the Castle of Marienburg. (From Rosengarten.)] The most remarkable among the civil buildings of the province is the castle at Marienburg, which was for nearly a century and a half the residence of the masters of the once powerful knights of the Teutonic order. The Alte Schloss was built in 1276, the middle castle in 1309; so that it belongs to the best age of Gothic art: and, being half palace, half castle, ought to possess both dignity and grandeur. It betrays, however, in every part the faults of brick architecture in this province, and though curious, is certainly not beautiful. All the windows are square-headed, though filled with tracery, and the vaultings of the principal apartments are without grace in themselves, and do not fit the lines of the openings; even the boldly projecting machicolations, which in stone architecture give generally such dignity to castellated buildings, here fail in producing that effect, from the tenuity of the parts and the weakness of their apparent supports.