in pointed shapes.  Indeed, the Germans, who were great rivals of the Italians in those days, not only in matters pertaining to architecture, but to literature also, in the same independent spirit which induced them alone, of all civilized peoples, to retain through all time the cramped, angular letters of monkish transcribers, in preference to the fair and square Roman forms, took particular pride in avoiding horizontal lines entirely at the tops of their towers, as they did at the tops of their letters.  Wherever they so occur, they are insignificant,—­rather ornamental than constructive.  Not so with the English; they kept the square tops to their towers, and contented themselves with the pointed superstructure.  Let us see how Teutonic stubbornness arranged the matter.  Each separate face of their towers, whether these towers were square or octangular, ended above in a gable; and from these gables, in various ways, arose the octangular pointed roof or spire.  This circumstance, more than any other, tended to give a peculiar character to German Gothic.  The simplest type of the gabled spire was magnificently used in the spire of St. Peter’s at Hamburg.  This was the finest in North Germany; it was four hundred and sixteen feet high, and, if still standing, would be the third in height in the world.  But it was destroyed by the great fire of 1842.  Many a traveller can bear witness to the sweet melody of the chimes that used to sound beneath it every half-hour.

In later times, between the Germans and the French, was invented the lantern,—­a feature so often and so superbly used, not only on the Continent, but more lately in England, that we must needs glance at it.  This consisted in a tall, perpendicular, octangular structure, placed upon the tower, quite light and open, and pierced with long windows.  Here they used to swing the bells, and the place was called the lantern or louvre; thence the octangular spire arose easily and naturally.  Now, notwithstanding this device, those troublesome triangular spaces still remained unoccupied at the top of the square tower.  The manner in which this difficulty was remedied was exceedingly ingenious and beautiful.  It was by building on them very delicate pinnacles or turrets, peopled, perhaps, as at Freiburg, with a silent and serene concourse of saints in rich niches, or inclosing, as at Strasburg, spiral open-work stairs.  These structures accompanied the tall lantern through its whole height; thus rendering the entire group a memory, as it were, of the square tower below, while, at the same time, it beautifully foreshadowed the octangular character of the sky-seeking spire above,—­a significant symbolism.