The porch, or, more properly speaking, the oropylaion, or fore-temple, is about the height of our Pantheon facade in Oxford Street; and the apex of the dome may probably correspond in elevation with the roof of that building.  The whole effect, however, when viewed from the great square in front of the opera house at Berlin, is extremely pleasing; and, associating itself by general outline with the ideas of the grand prototype of the eternal city, derives a degree of importance which a minuter inspection would not confer.  There are numerous churches in Berlin, but three only which lay claim to particular notice, St. Nicolas, the French Church, (standing on one side of the above mentioned square) and the Catholic Church.  The architecture of these is not pure in any single instance; it having been the prevailing taste of the period when they were erected to over-charge the building with ornament, and substitute one or more gorgeous embellishments as appendages to the design, for that chaste and elegant simplicity which is so essential a part of grandeur.  Accordingly we find several of the largest ecclesiastical edifices, the site and contour of which would otherwise entitle them to distinction, disfigured by some overpowering frontispizio, and presenting a complication of decorative details which distort the outline, and, in spite of toilsome and finished sculpture, mar the truth and elegance of classic design.

There are seven doors surmounted by tablets of tolerably good sculpture from scriptural history, five in the front and two at the sides of the porch, the pediment of which rests on six columns of the Ionic order, and is enriched by alto relievos, illustrative of our Saviour’s ministry, as also by marble statues representing the Virtues, &c.  The entablature bears an inscription relative to the occasion and date of this building being erected in the last century.  The interior is plain, and more conspicuous for an accumulation of dirt and dust (a very common characteristic of Berlin) than of ornament; the four-and-twenty Corinthian columns, however, which contribute their support to the dome are imposing in their appearance.  The high altar and sacristy are constructed in a recess formed by the annexation of a small chancel to the rotunda.  This church, built of freestone, stands in an angle of the Place des Gens d’ Armes, immediately behind the great Salle des Spectacles (schauspielhaus) or theatre, in one of the finest squares of Berlin.  With the exception of a few small chapels, it is the only Catholic place of worship in that city, the religion of Prussia being chiefly Lutheran.

J.R.

* * * * *

HOGARTH.

(For the Mirror.)