_(For the Mirror.)_


The legitimate name of Mr. Hornor's colossal edifice in the Regent's
Park, we believe, was first set forth as the Gyrôrama, Girorama,
Panopticon, or General View. The Catholic Church of Berlin, although
diminutive in proportion to the Marylebone wonder, is, with the solitary
exception of the Pantheon at Rome, the only structure, perhaps, that
bears any resemblance to it in form and feature.

The porch, or, more properly speaking, the ôropylaion, 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,