taxes, and some of the good-looking brick buildings of that day
turn out to have been very badly built when they are pulled about for
alterations. With the rapid, wonderful increase in population and wealth
in this metropolis during the last 50 years a vast consumption of bricks
has taken place, and a year or two back it was reported by the
commissioners of police that the extensions of London equaled in a year
70 miles of new house property, practically all of brick. Brick were
heavily taxed in the war time which I have referred to, and the tax was
levied before burning.

There was a maximum size for the raw brick, which it was supposed served
to keep bricks uniform, and the expectation was entertained that when
the duty came off, many fancy sizes of bricks would be used. This has
not, however, turned out to be the case. The duty has been taken off for
years; but the differences in the size of bricks in England are little
more than what is due to the different rate of shrinkage of brick earth
under burning. It must not, however, be supposed that they have always,
and in all countries, been of about the same dimensions.

The size and proportions of bricks have varied extremely in different
countries and in the same country at different periods. Some bricks of
unusual shapes have also been employed from time to time. Other
countries besides England possess districts which from various
circumstances have been more or less densely built on, but do not yield
much stone or timber; and, accordingly, brickwork is to be met with in
many localities. Holland and Belgium, for example, are countries of this
sort; and the old connection between Holland and England led to the
introduction among us, in the reign of William III., of the Dutch style
of building, which has been in our own day revived under the rather
incorrect title of Queen Anne architecture. Another great brick district
exists on the plains of Lombardy and the northern part of Italy
generally, and beautiful brickwork, often with enrichments in marble, is
to be found in such cities as Milan, Pavia, Cremona, and Bologna.

Many cities and towns in Northern Germany are also brick built, and
furnish good examples of the successful treatment of the material. In
some of these German buildings, indeed, very difficult pieces of
construction, such as we are in the habit of thinking can only be
executed in stone, are successfully attempted in brick. For example,
they execute l