text:  Nothing can be more _barbarian_ (with one or two exceptions) than the whole range of buildings public and private along the Rhine; gloomy huge and heavy--whether palace convent or chateau they have all a prison-look; and if some English philanthropist in pity to the Teutonic taste would erect one or two "English villas" on the banks of the Rhine to give the Germans some idea of what architecture ought to be he would render them a national service scarcely inferior to the introduction of carpets and coal-fires