The Cathedral of Burgos by Esther Singleton

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

Notwithstanding that Burgos was for so long a time the first city of Castile, it is not very Gothic in appearance; with the exception of a street where there are several windows and doors of the Renaissance, ornamented with coats of arms and their supporters, the houses do not date further back than the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, and are exceedingly commonplace; they are old, but not antique. But Burgos has her Cathedral, which is one of the most beautiful in the world; unfortunately, like all the Gothic cathedrals, it is shut in by a number of ignoble buildings which prevent you from appreciating the structure as a whole and grasping the mass at a glance. The principal porch looks upon a square, in the centre of which is a beautiful fountain surmounted by a delightful statue of Christ, the target for all the ruffians of the town who have no better pastime than throwing stones at its sculptures. The magnificent porch, like an intricate and flowered embroidery of lace, has been scraped and rubbed as far as the first frieze by I don't know what Italian prelates, -- some important amateurs in architecture, who were great admirers of plain walls and ornamentation in _good taste_, and who, having pity for those poor barbarian architects who would not follow the Corinthian order and had no appreciation of Attic grace and the triangular fronton, wished to arrange the Cathedral in the Roman style. Many people are still of this opinion in Spain, where the so-called Messidor style flourishes in all its purity, and, exactly as was the case in France before the Romantic School brought the Middle Ages into favour again and caused the beauty and meaning of the cathedrals to be understood, prefer all kinds of abominable edifices, pierced with innumerable windows and ornamented with Pestumian columns, to the most florid and richly-carved Gothic cathedrals.