hem.

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastic architecture]

After the Reformation ecclesiastical architecture followed two diverse
styles; the Protestants cultivated excessive plainness, the Catholics
excessive ornament. The iconoclasts had no sense for beauty, and
thought, as Luther put it, that faith was likely to be neglected by those
who set a high value on external form. Moreover the Protestant services
necessitated a modification of the medieval cathedral style. What they
wanted was a lecture hall with pews; the old columns and transepts and
the roomy floor made way for a more practical form.

The Catholics, on the other hand, by a natural reaction, lavished
decoration on their churches as never before. Every column was made
ornate, every excuse was taken for adding some extraneous embellishment;
the walls were crowded with pictures and statues and carving to delight,
or at least to arrest, the eye. But it happened that the noble taste of
the earlier and simpler age failed; amid all possible devices to give
effect, quiet grandeur was wanting.

[Sidenote: Castles]

What the people of that secular generation really built with enthusiasm
and success were their own {688} dwellings. What are the castles of
Chambord and Blois and the Louvre and Hampton Court and Heidelberg but
houses of play and pleasure such as only a child could dream of? King
and cardinal and noble vied in making tower and gable, gallery and court
as of a fairy palace; banqueting hall and secret chamber where they and
their playmates could revel to their heart's content and leave their
initials carved as thickly as boys carve them on an old school desk. And
how richly they filled them! A host of new arts sprang up to minister to
the needs of these palace-dwellers: our museums are still filled with the
glass and enamel, the vases and porcelain, the tapestry and furniture and
jewelry that belonged to Francis and Catharine de' Medici and Leo X and
Elizabeth. How perfect was the art of many of these articles of daily
use can only be appreciated by studying at first hand the salt-cellars of
Cellini, or the gold and silver and crystal goblets made by his compeers.
Examine the clocks, of which the one at Strassburg is an example; the
detail of workmanship is infinite; even the striking apparatus and the
dials showing planetary motions are far beyond our own means, or perhaps
our taste. When Peter Henlein invented the watch, using as the
mainspring a coiled