My friend, Mr. John Buchan, always declares that countries which have been romanised stand in a wholly different category from savage lands, such as Prussia, which have never known that great civilising influence. The Rhineland, with its more liberal culture and gentler manners than Germany east of the Elbe, is a good illustration of this theory. Rome has been here, and where Rome has passed some element of quality abides. Famous among the Roman settlements, Cologne played a part no less important in mediaeval history. A leading member of the Hanseatic League, the relations between Cologne and London in the fifteenth century were close. If we rule Cologne to-day, Cologne at an earlier date has dictated to us. In the reign of Edward III, foreign trade in the city of London was largely conducted through the corporation of Cologne merchants established in the Steelyard. The internal life of Cologne was torn in mediaeval times by fierce dissensions. Nevertheless, mediaeval German art owed much of its development in painting and architecture to the artists and master builders of the lower Rhine. After the sixteenth century Cologne, like other cities of the Hanseatic League, lost much of its importance, and the place fell to a low ebb for more than two centuries. Its rise into new prosperity during the nineteenth century registers various phases in the great national revival which took place throughout Germany, and also the considerable social improvements which, it must be admitted, followed on Prussian rule. The traces of mediaeval Cologne are sadly obliterated. Of the Roman period practically nothing remains. The Germans are desperate people in all matters concerning the upkeep and restoration of ancient buildings. They are terribly painstaking and have the best intentions, unhappily with dire results. No words in Baedeker lay so cold a hand on my heart as the frequent phrase, “the church has in recent times undergone a thorough restoration.” Thorough in their vandalism such efforts are. Meagrely endowed with artistic taste, no nation in the world lays hands so heavy and so obliterating on the monuments of the past. The one idea apparently is to make everything clean and tidy. To this end interiors of ancient Romanesque churches are covered with a pitiless layer of reinforced concrete on which lines are scratched to represent stones. German taste further revels in modern mosaics of a gross and gaudy character sprawling over wall and vault. Church after church in the Rhineland have I seen ruined in such fashion. In Cologne the noble proportions of ancient Romanesque buildings, such as the Apostelkirche, the Gereonskirche, Santa Maria im Capitol, stagger under the weight of the artistic atrocities they are forced to carry.