e influence of antique taste. The abundant supply of water was the
grand feature of the Rome of the Caesars, as it still is of the Rome of
the Popes; and the liberality with which every house is served has
frequently induced the owners of large mansions to decorate one corner
of their external walls with a fountain, at which all wayfarers may be
supplied. In a recess of the lowermost story of one of the great
_palazzi_ which line the principal street of Rome, "the Corso," our
second specimen (Fig. 52) is placed. It represents a wine-merchant
liberally pouring from the bung-hole of his barrel its inexhaustible
contents. On great _festas_ in the olden time it was not unusual to make
public fountains run with wine for an hour or two, and this may have
occurred with the one engraved; it is a work of the latter part of the
sixteenth century, when luxury reigned in Rome. As a design it is
exceedingly simple and appropriate, reminding, by its quaintness, of
German rather than Italian design. The old Teutonic cities present very
many striking inventions of the kind: and the promoters and designers of
our drinking fountains may obtain good and useful hints from that
quarter.

[Illustration: Fig. 49.]

[Illustration: Fig. 50.]

[Illustration: Fig. 51.]

[Illustration: Fig. 52.]

Our street architecture has shown recently a greater freedom of design,
and range of study, than was ever exhibited before. We may owe this, in
some degree, to the excellent works on the domestic and palatial
edifices of the Low Countries, which have issued from the press, and
have vindicated the true character of the great mediaeval builders.
Germany--taking the term for the nation in its widest sense--can show in
its antique cities a vast variety of fancy in architecture and its
ornamental details. Each city may be made a profitable residence for
the study of a young architect; and the superior knowledge of the
leading principles of mediaeval art, now exhibited in their adaptation of
the style to home events, is a clear proof that the fact has been felt
and acted on. The "infinite variety" of the old decorator is everywhere
apparent, and the play he gave to his invention. We give in Fig. 53, as
one instance, the ornamental mouldings of the Chapel of St. Nicholas, in
the Cathedral of Aix; in this instance the rigidity of the rule which
enforces geometric form to the whole is softened by the introduction of
the cable moulding to a portion thereof, w