city, and was rarely visited by foreigners. Since that time
its population and limits have been doubled, and magnificent edifices in
every style of architecture erected, rendering it scarcely secondary in
this respect to any capital in Europe. Every art that wealth or taste
could devise, seems to have been spent in its decoration. Broad,
spacious streets and squares have been laid out, churches, halls and
colleges erected, and schools of painting and sculpture established,
which draw artists from all parts of the world. All this was principally
brought about by the taste of the present king, Ludwig I., who began
twenty or thirty years ago, when he was Crown Prince, to collect the
best German artists around him and form plans for the execution of his
grand design. He can boast of having done more for the arts than any
other living monarch, and if he had accomplished it all without
oppressing his people, he would deserve an immortality of fame.

Now, if you have nothing else to do, let us take a stroll down the
Ludwigstrasse. As we pass the Theatiner Church, with its dome and
towers, the broad street opens before us, stretching away to the north,
between rows of magnificent buildings. Just at this southern end, is the
_Schlusshalle_, an open temple of white marble terminating the avenue.
To the right of us extend the arcades, with the trees of the Royal
Garden peeping above them; on the left is the spacious concert building
of the Odeon, and the palace of the Duke of Leuchtenberg, son of Eugene
Beauharnois. Passing through a row of palace-like private buildings, we
come to the Army Department, on the right--a neat and tasteful building
of white sandstone. Beside it stands the Library, which possesses the
first special claim on our admiration. With its splendid front of five
hundred and eighteen feet, the yellowish brown cement with which the
body is covered, making an agreeable contrast with the dark red
window-arches and cornices, and the statues of Homer, Hippocrates,
Thucydides and Aristotle guarding the portal, is it not a worthy
receptacle for the treasures of ancient and modern lore which its halls
contain?

Nearly opposite stands the Institute for the Blind, a plain but large
building of dark red brick, covered with cement, and further, the
Ludwig's Kirche, or Church of St. Louis. How lightly the two square
towers of gray marble lift their network of sculpture! And what a novel
and beautiful effect is produced by