MULLET-MULREADY. sometimes two feet. The colour is steel-gray on the back, with bluish and yellowish reflections; the belly silvery white; the flanks with six or eight longitudinal lines of rosy brown. It often ascends rivers, generally selecting soft or fat substances for food, and often seeking food by thrusting its mouth into the soft mud. It is most readily taken by a bait of the boiled entrails of fish, or cabbage boiled in broth. It is easily reared in ponds, and readily answers the call which usually summons it to be fed. It is highly esteemed for the table.-A very nearly allied species, also called GRAY M. (M. cephalus), a native of the Mediterranean, is distinguished by having the eyes half covered with an Common, or Gray Mullet (Mugil capito). adipose membrane, and by a large triangular scale pointing backwards, just over the origin of each pectoral fin. It attains a larger size than the former species, sometimes ten or twelve pounds weight. It enters the mouths of rivers at certain seasons, and ascends into the fresh water. It is the most esteemed of all the mullets, and was in great request among the ancients. Enormous prices were given by the Romans for unusually large mullets, the price increasing, like that of diamonds, far more rapidly than the size. Mullets are used fresh, salted, and smoke-dried. A preparation of their roe, called Botarcha, is in great esteem as a condiment in Italy and the south of France. Mullets are often caught in the Mediterranean by angling from a rock, with a bait of paste, when they have been previously attracted to the spot by macaroni thrown into the water.-A third species of GRAY M. (M. chelo) is not unfrequent on the coasts of England, and even of Scotland. It is remarkable for its large fleshy lips. It swims in great shoals. In the Mediterranean, it sometimes attains the weight of eight pounds.-The AMERICAN M. (M. albula) is very like the Common M., but more slender, the tail large and forked. It abounds about the Bahama Islands, and extends far northwards. It is highly esteemed for the table. The name M. is also given to the genus Mullus of the family Percida. See SURMULLET. MULLET, or MOLLET, in Heraldry, is a charge in the form of a star, generally with five points, Mullets. intended to represent a spur-rowel, and of frequent occurrence from the earliest beginnings of coatGwillim, Sir George Mackenzie, and armour. Nisbet lay it down that mullets should always be pierced to represent the round hole in which the spur-rowel turns, but this has been by no means uniformly attended to in practice. Much confusion exists in blazonry between mullets and stars; in England, the rule most generally adopted is, that the mullet has five points, whereas the star has six, unless any other number be specified. Nisbet lays down a canon nearly the converse of this, which has never been adhered to; and in Scottish heraldry the same figure seems to be often blazoned as a mullet or a star, according as it accompanies military or celestial figures. The mullet is the mark of cadency assigned to the third son, 'to incite him to chivalry.' The word mullet is occasionally used in heraldry for the fish so called. MULLINGA'R, chief town of the county of Westmeath, in Ireland, is situated on the great western road from Dublin to Galway, distant from the former, with which it is connected by the Royal Canal and the Midland Western Railway, 50 miles north-north-west. Its population, in 1861, was 5359, of whom 4836 were Roman Catholics, 392 Protestants of the established church, the rest members of other denominations. It is the centre of a poor-law union of 48 divisions, comprising an area of 208,401 acres. M. is a place of little historical interest, although its immunities date from the reign of Elizabeth. Its public buildings are in no way remarkable, but it possesses several schools; among the number, one recently endowed for general educational purposes. It is without manufactures, but has considerable celebrity as the site of several of the most important horse and cattle fairs in Ireland. MU'LLION, the upright division between the lights of windows, screens, &c., in Gothic architec ture. Mullions are rarely met with in Norman Window from Carlisle Cathedral. architecture, but they become more frequent in the Early English style, and in the Decorated and Perpendicular are very common. They have sometimes small shafts attached to them, which carry the tracery of the upper part of the windows. In late domestic architecture, they are usually plain. The fig. shews mullions (a, a) supporting tracery. MULREADY, WILLIAM, R.A. was born at Ennis, in Ireland, about the year 1786. When a boy, he went to London with his parents; at the age of fifteen, entered as a student in the Royal Academy, and made good progress, aiming at first at the classic style, or what, according to the MULTAN-MULTURES. Arabian Sea by Hyderabad and Karachi. In 1849, MULTIPLE-POINDING is a well-known form of action in Scotland, by which competing claims to one and the same fund are set at rest. It means double poinding or double distress, suggesting that a person who has funds in his possession is liable to be harassed by double distress; and hence he commences a suit called the action of multiple-poinding, by which he alleges that he ought not to be made to pay the sum more than once; and as he does not know who is really entitled to payment, he cites all the parties claiming it, so that they may fight out their claims among themselves. The suit corresponds to what is known in England as a bill or notions of the day, was called high art. Following the bent of his genius, however, he soon relinquished this course, and devoted himself to the study of nature and the works of those artists who attained high reputation in a less pretentious walk of art. His first pictures were landscapes of limited dimension and subject, views in Kensington gravelpits, old houses at Lambeth, and interiors of cottages. He next essayed figure-subjects of incidents in every-day life, such as A Roadside Inn,' Horses Baiting,' the Barber's Shop,' and 'Punch' (painted in 1812), 'Boys Fishing' (1813), 'Idle Boys' (1815). M. was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in November 1815, and an Academician in February 1816; a strong proof of the high estimation in which his talents were held by his brethren, for the higher dignity is rarely conferred till after a probation of several years as Associate. Even in his earliest time, his works were characterised by much elabora-order of interpleader. tion; but those he executed about the middle period MULTIPLICA'TION, the third and most of his career exhibit an extraordinary amount of finish and greater brilliancy of colouring, qualities metic, is a compendious mode of addition, when a important of the four principal processes of ariththat he carried further and further as he advanced number is to be added to itself a given number of in years; and though he lived to a great age (he times. The three terms of a multiplication are the died on July 7, 1863), he continued to work with undiminished powers till within a day of his death. multiplicand, or number to be multiplied; the A great number of M.'s best works now belong to multiplier, or number by which it is to be multithe public, as portions of the Vernon and Sheep- would be obtained if the multiplicand were added plied; and the product, giving the amount which shanks' collections. In the first-named, there are four pictures, one of these, 'The Last in, or Truant to itself the number of times denoted by the multiBoy, exhibited in 1835, being one of the most elabo-plier. The symbol of multiplication is x; and in rate works of his middle period; while in the arithmetic, the numbers are placed above each other as in addition, with a line drawn under them; in Sheepshanks' collection there are no fewer than 28 of his works, among which, 'First Love,' exhibited algebra, the quantities are merely placed side by in 1840, is a remarkable example of refinement in side, with or without a dot between them-c. g., the drawing, and delicacy of feeling and expression. of a by b, a x b, a.b, or ab. For multiplication of multiplication of 2 by 4 may be written 2 x 4, and 'The Sonnet,' exhibited in 1839, is perhaps his fractions, see FRACTIONS. highest effort in point of style; and by The Butt -Shooting a Cherry,' exhibited in 1848, is best exemplified the remarkable minuteness of his finish and richness of his colouring. He occasionally executed designs for publishers. An edition of the Vicar of Wakefield, published in 1840, by Van Voorst, embellished with 20 wood-cuts from M.'s drawings, is generally acknowledged to be one of the finest works of the kind produced in this country. M. was buried in the cemetery, Kensal Green, privately; but a movement is at present on foot to do honour to his memory by a public testimonial. a MULTA'N (or Mooltan), an ancient and important city of India, in the Punjab, on mound consisting of the ruins of ancient cities that occupied the same site, three miles from the left bank of the Chenab-the inundations of which sometimes reach M.-and 200 miles south-west of Lahore. In 1859, a railway to Lahore and Amritsir, 230 miles in length, was commenced. The city is surrounded by a dilapidated wall, from 40 to 50 feet in height. The vicinity abounds in mosques, tombs, shrines, &c., attesting alike the antiquity and magnificence of the former cities; and the country around is remarkable for its fertility. M. is a military station, with a small redoubt in the rear of the cantonment. Its bazaars are numerous, extensive, and well stocked; and its shops, 6000 in number, are well supplied with European and Asiatic commodities. Manufactures of silks, cottons, shawls, scarfs, brocades, tissues, &c., are carried on, and there is an extensive banking trade. The merchants of M. are proverbially esteemed extremely rich. Steamers ply between this city and Hyderabad, a distance of 570 miles; and the new railway opens up a commercial outlet from Central Asia, the Punjab and the North-west Provinces, to the abbreviated by the use of Logarithms (q. v.), and The operation of multiplication has been much has been rendered a mere mechanical process, by the invention of Napier's Bones, the Sliding Rule, Gunter's Scale, &c. In MULTIVALVE SHELLS, or MULTIVALVES, are those shelly coverings of molluscs which are formed of more than two distinct pieces. systems of Conchology (q. v.), the term is one of primary importance; but since the study of the living animals has led to arrangements very different from those founded on their mere shells, a very subordinate place has been assigned to it, as indicating a distinction much less important than was at first supposed. Thus, Chitons (q. v.), which have multivalve shells, are now placed in the same order of gasteropods with Limpets (q. v.), of which the shells are univalve; and Pholas (q. v.) and Teredo (q. v.), which have two principal valves and some small accessory valves, the latter also a long shelly tube, are placed among lamellibranchiate molluscs, along with most of the bivalves of conchologists. In conchological systems, barnacles and acorn-shells were also generally included, and ranked among multivalves; but these are now no longer referred even to the same division of the animal kingdom. See CIRRHOPODA. MU'LTURES, in Scotch Law, mean a quantity of grain either manufactured or in kind deliverable to the proprietor or tacksman of a mill for grinding the corn sent there. Some persons living in the neighbourhood are bound to send their corn to be ground at a particular mill, in which case the lands are said to be astricted to the mill, and form the thirl or sucken, and the tenants or proprietors of the lands are called insucken multurers. Those who are not bound to go to the mill are called outsucken multurers. Thirlage is thus classed among MUM-MUNGO. servitudes, being a kind of burden on the lands. Such a right is unknown in England, except sometimes in old manors. MUM, a peculiar kind of beer, formerly used in this country, and still used in Germany, especially in Brunswick, where it may be almost regarded as the national drink. Instead of only malt being used, it is made of malt and wheat, to which some brewers add oats and bean-meal. It is neither so wholesome nor so agreeable as the common ale or beer. MUMMY. See EMBALMING. MUMMY-WHEAT is said to be a variety of wheat produced from grains found in an Egyptian mummy. But no good evidence of this origin has been adduced-in fact, it is as good as proved to be impossible; and the same variety has long been in general cultivation in Egypt and neighbouring countries. The spike is compound-a distinguishing character, by which it is readily known, but which is not altogether permanent. It is occasionally cultivated in Britain, but seems more suitable to warmer regions. MUMPS, THE, is a popular name of a specific inflammation of the salivary glands described by nosologists as Cynanche Parotidæa, or Parotitis. In Scotland, it is frequently termed The Branks. The disorder usually begins with a feeling of stiffness about the jaws, which is followed by pains, heat, and swelling beneath the ear. The swelling begins in the parotid, but the other salivary glands (q. v.) usually soon become implicated, so that the swelling extends along the neck towards the chin, thus giving the patient a deformed and somewhat grotesque appearance. One or both sides may be affected, and, in general, the disease appears first on one side and then on the other. There is seldom much fever. The inflammation is usually at its highest point in three or four days, after which it begins to decline, suppuration of the glands scarcely ever occurring. In most cases no treatment further than antiphlogistic regimen, due attention to the bowels, and protection of the parts from cold, by the application of flannel or cotton-wool, is required, and the patient completely recovers in eight or ten days. The disease often originates from epidemic or endemic influences, but there can be no doubt that it spreads by contagion; and, like most contagious diseases, it seldom affects the same person twice. It chiefly attacks children and young persons. A singular circumstance connected with the disease is, that in many cases the subsidence of the swelling is immediately followed by swelling and pain in the testes in the male sex, and in the mamma in the female. The inflammation in these glands is seldom very painful or long continued, but occasionally the inflammation is transferred from these organs to the brain, when a comparatively trifling disorder is converted into a most perilous disease. MÜNCHHAUSEN, HIERONYMUS KARL FRIEDRICH, BARON VON, a member of an ancient and noble German family, who attained a remarkable celebrity by false and ridiculously exaggerated tales of his exploits and adventures, so that his name has become proverbial. He was born in 1720, at the family estate of Bodenwerder, in Hanover, served as a cavalry officer in the Russian campaigns against the Turks in 1737-1739, and died in 1797. A collection of his marvellous stories was first published in England under the title of Baron Münchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (Lond. 1785). The compiler was one Rudolf Erich Raspe, an expatriated countryman of the baron's. A second edition appeared at Oxford (1786) under the title of The Singular Travels, Campaigns, Voyages, and Sporting Adven tures of Baron Munnikhousen, commonly pronounced Munchausen; as he relates them over a bottle when Several other editions surrounded by his friends. rapidly followed. In the same year (1786) appeared the first German edition, edited by the poet Bürger; the latest-entitled Des Freiherrn von Münchhausen, wunderbare Reisen und Abenteuer (Gött. and Berl. 1849)-is enriched by an admirable introduction by Adolf Ellisen, on the origin and sources of the famous book, and on the kind of literary fiction to which it belongs. Ellisen's father knew the splendid old braggart in his latter days, and used to visit him. Nevertheless, although Raspe may have derived many of his narratives from M. himself, he appears to have drawn pretty largely from other sources. Several of the adventures ascribed to the baron are to be found in older books, particularly in Bebel's Facetic (Strasb. 1508); others in Castiglione's Cortegiano, and Bildermann's Utopia, which are included in Lange's Delicia Academica (Heilbronn, 1765). M.'s stories still retain their popularity, especially with the young. MU'NDANE EGG. In many heathen cosmogonies, the world (Lat. mundus) is represented as evolved from an egg. The production of a young animal from what neither resembles it in form nor in properties, seems to have been regarded as affording a good figure of the production of a well-ordered world out of chaos. Thus, in the Egyptian, Hindu, and Japanese systems, the Creator is represented as producing an egg, from which the world was produced. The same notion is found, in variously modified forms, in the religions of many of the ruder heathen nations. Sometimes a bird is represented as depositing the egg on the primordial waters. There are other modifications of this notion or belief in the classical and other mythologies, according to which the inhabitants of the world, or some of the gods, or the powers of good and evil, are represented as produced from eggs. The egg appears also in some mythological systems as the symbol of reproduction or renovation, as well as of creation. The Mundane Egg belonged to the ancient Phoenician system, and an egg is said to have been an object of worship. MUNGO, ST, the popular name of St Kenti gern, one of the three great missionaries of the Christian faith in Scotland. St Ninian (q. v.) converted the tribes of the south; St Columba (v) was the apostle of the west and the north; St Kentigern, restored or established the relicountry between the Clyde on the north, and the gion of the Welsh or British people, who held the furthest boundaries of Cumberland on the south (see BRETTS AND SCOTS). He is said to have been the son of a British prince, Owen ab Urien Rheged, and of a British princess, Dwynwen or Thenaw, the daughter of Llewddyn Lueddog of Dinas Eiddyn, or Edinburgh. He was born about the year 514, it is believed at Culross, on the Forth, the site of a monastery then ruled by St Serf, of whom St Kentigern became the favourite disciple. It is said, indeed, that he was so generally beloved by the monastic brethren, that his baptismal name of Kentigern or Cyndeyrn, signifying chief lord,' was exchanged in common speech for Mungo, signifying lovable' or 'dear friend.' Leaving Culross, he planted a monastery at a place then called Cathures, now known as Glasgow, and became the bishop of the kingdom of Cumbria (q. v.). The nation would seem to have been only partially converted, and the accession of a new king drove St Kentigern from the realm. He found refuge among the kindred MUNI-MUNICH. people of Wales, and there, upon the banks of another Clyde, he founded another monastery and a bishopric, which still bears the name of his disciple, St Asaph. Recalled to Glasgow by a new king, Rydderech or Roderick the Bountiful, Kentigern renewed his missionary labours, in which he was cheered by a visit from St Columba, and dying about the year 601, was buried where the cathedral of Glasgow now stands. His life has been often written. A fragment of a memoir, composed at the desire of Herbert, Bishop of Glasgow, between 1147 and 1164, has been printed by Mr Cosmo Innes in the Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis. The longer life by Joceline of Furness, written about 1180, was published by Pinkerton in his Vite Antique Sanctorum Scotia. It appeals to two still older lives. The fame of St Kentigern is attested by the many churches which still bear his name, as well in Scotland as in the north of England. The church of Crosthwaite, where Southey is buried, is dedicated to him. The miracles which he was believed to have wrought were so deeply rooted in the popular mind, that some of them sprung up again in the 18th c. to grace the legends of the Cameronian martyrs. Others are still commemorated by the armorial ensigns of the city of Glasgow-a hazel-tree whose frozen branches he kindled into a flame, a tame robin which he restored to life, a hand-bell which he brought from Rome, a salmon which rescued from the depths of the Clyde the lost ring of the frail queen of Cadyow. Nor is it St M. only whose memory survives at Glasgow; the parish church of St Enoch' commemorates his mother, St Thenaw; and it is not many years since a neighbouring spring, which still bears her name, ceased to be an object of occasional pilgrimage. MUNI, a Sanscrit title, denoting a holy sage, and applied to a great number of distinguished personages, supposed to have acquired, by dint of austerities, more or less divine faculties. MUNICH (Ger. München), the capital of Bavaria, is situated in 48° 8' N. lat., and 11° 35' E. long., in the midst of a barren and flat elevated plain, at a height of about 1700 feet above the level of the sea. Its population, including the military, was, in 1862, 148,201. M., which is also the principal city of the province of Upper Bavaria, lies on the left bank of the Iser, and consists, in addition to the old town, of five suburbs, and of the three contiguous districts of Au, Haidhausen, and Obergiesing. By the efforts of the late King Ludwig, who spent nearly 7,000,000 thalers on the improvements of the city, M. has been decorated with buildings of almost every style of architecture, and enriched with a larger and more valuable collection of art-treasures than any other city of Germany. It possesses 28 churches, of which all but two or three are Catholic, and of these, the most worthy of note are: the cathedral, which is the see for the archbishopric of Munich-Freising, built between 1468-1494, and remarkable for its two square towers, with their octagonal upper stories, capped by cupolas, and its 30 lofty and highly-decorated windows; the church of the Jesuits, or St Michael's, which contains a monument by Thorwaldsen to Eugene Beauharnais; the Theatiner Kirche, completed in 1767, and containing the burying-vaults of the royal family; the beautiful modern church of St Mariahilf, with its gorgeous painted glass and exquisite wood-carvings; the round church, or Basilica of St Boniface, with its dome resting on 64 monoliths of gray Tyrolean marble, and resplendent with gold, frescoes, and noble works of art; the cruciform-shaped Ludwig Kirche, embellished with Cornelius's fresco of the Last Judgment; and lastly, the Court Chapel of All 299 Saints, a perfect casket of art-treasures. Among the other numerous public buildings, a description of which would fill a volume, we can only briefly refer to a few of the more notable; as the theatre, the largest in Germany, and capable of accommodating 2400 spectators, erected in 1823; the post-office; the new palace, including the older royal resi dence, the treasury and chapel, antiquarian collections, &c.; and the Königsbau, designed by Klenze in imitation of the Pitti Palace, and built at a cost of 1,250,000 thalers, containing J. Schnorr's frescoes of the Nibelungen; the Banqueting Halls, rich in sculpture by Schwanthaler, and in grand fresco and other paintings. In the still incomplete suburb of Maximilian are situated the old Pinakothek, or picture-gallery, erected in 1836 by Klenze, containing 300,000 engravings, 9000 drawings, a collection of Etruscan remains, &c.; and immediately opposite to it, the new Pinakothek, completed in 1853, and devoted to the works of recent artists; the Glyptothek, with its twelve galleries of ancient sculpture, and its noble collection of the works of the great modern sculptors, as Canova, Thorwaldsen, Schadow, &c. Among the gates of M., the most beautiful are the Siegesthor (The Gate of Victory'), designed after Constantine's triumphal arch in the Forum, and the Isarthor with its elaborate frescoes. In addition to these and many other buildings intended either solely for the adornment of the city, or to serve as depositories for works of art, M. possesses numerous scientific, literary, and benevolent institutions, alike remarkable for the architectural and artistic beauty of their external appearance, and the liberal spirit which characterises their internal organisation. The library, which is enriched by the biblical treasures of numerous suppressed monasteries, contains about 600,000 volumes, of which 13,000 are incunabula, with nearly 22,000 MSS. The university, with which that of Landshut was incorporated in 1826, and now known as the Ludwig-Maximilian University, comprises 5 faculties, with a staff of 60 ordinary, and 12 extraordinary professors, among whom are included such men as Liebig, Bischoff, Schelling, Jacobi, &c. In association with it are numerous medical and other schools, a library of 160,000 vols., and various museums and cabinets. M. has an ably-conducted observatory, supplied with first-rate instruments by Fraunhofer and Reichenbach; 3 gymnasia, 4 Latin, 1 normal, various military, professional, polytechnic, and parish schools, of which the majority are Catholic; institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, and crippled, and for female orphans, besides numerous hospitals, asylums, infant schools, &c.; an academy of sciences; royal academies of painting, sculpture, music, &c.; a botanic garden, parks, public walks, and gardens, adorned with historic, patriotic, and other monuments, and designed for the celebration of annual and other national fairs and festivals; spacious cemeteries, &c. M. is mainly indebted to the ex-king, Ludwig I., for its celebrity as a seat of the fine arts, as the greater number of the buildings, for which it is now famed, were erected between 1820 and 1850, although, since the accession of the present king, Maximilian, in 1848, the progress of the embellishments of the city has been continued on an equally liberal scale. M. is somewhat behind many lesser towns of Germany in regard to literary advancement and freedom of speculation, while its industrial activity is also inferior to its state of high artistic development. It has, however, some eminently good iron, bronze, and bell foundries, and is famed for its lithographers and engravers, and its optical, mathematical, and mechanical instrumentmakers, amongst whom Utzschneider, Fraunhofer, 609 MUNICH-MUNICIPAL ARCHITECTURE. and Ertl have acquired a world-wide renown. M. is noted for its enormous breweries of Bavarian beer; and has some good manufactories for cotton, wool, and damask goods, wax-cloth, leather, paperhangings, carriages, pianos, gold, silver, and steel wares, &c. The present name of this city cannot be traced further than the 12th c., when Henry the Lion raised the Villa Munichen from its previous obscurity, by establishing a mint within its precincts, and making it the chief emporium for the salt which was obtained from Halle and the neighbouring districts. In the 13th c., the dukes of the Wittelsbach dynasty selected M. for their residence, built the Ludwigsburg, some parts of whose original structure still exist, and surrounded the town with walls and other fortified defences. In 1327, the old town was nearly destroyed by fire, and rebuilt by the Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria very much on the plan which it still exhibits; but it was not till the close of last century, when the fortifications were razed to the ground, that the limits of the town were enlarged to any extent. The last fifty years indeed comprise the true history of M., since within that period all its finest buildings have been erected, its character as a focus of artistic activity has been developed, its population has been more than doubled, and its material prosperity augmented in a proportionate degree. MUNICIPAL ARCHITECTURE, the style of the buildings used for municipal purposes, such as town-halls, guild-halls, &c. These were first used when the towns of the middle ages rose in importance, and asserted their freedom. Those of North Italy and Belgium were the first to move, and consequently we find in these countries the earliest and most important specimens of municipal architecture during the middle ages. It is only in the free cities' of that epoch that town-halls are found. We therefore look for them in vain in France or England till the development of industry and knowledge had made the citizens of the large towns so wealthy and important as to enable them to raise the municipal power into an institution. When this became the case in the 15th and 16th centuries, we find in these countries abundant instances of buildings erected for the use of the guilds and corporations and the municipal courts. Many of these still exist along with the corporate bodies they belong to, especially in London, where the halls are frequently of great magnificence. Many of these corporation halls have recently been rebuilt by the wealthy bodies they belong to, such as the Fishmongers, Merchant Taylors, Goldsmiths, and other companies. Municipal buildings on a large scale for the use of the town councils and magistrates have also been recently erected in many of our large towns, which had quite outgrown their original modest buildings; and now no town of importance is complete without a great town-hall for the use of the inhabitants. Municipal buildings always partake of the character of the architecture of the period when they are erected; thus, we find in Italy that they are of the Italian-Gothic style in Como, Padua, Vicenza, Venice, Florence, &c., during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. In Belgium, during the same period, they are of the northern Gothic style, and are almost the only really fine specimens of the civil architecture of the middle ages we possess. The Cloth-hall at Ypres, and the town-halls of Brussels, Louvain, Bruges, Oudenarde, &e, the Exchange at Antwerp, and many other markets, lodges, halls, &c., testify to the early importance of the municipal institutions in Belgium. It is a curious fact, that in France, where the towns became of considerable importance during the middle ages, so few municipal buildings remain. This arises from the circumstance, that the resources of the early municipalities of France were devoted to aid the bishops in the erection of the great French cathedrals, and the townspeople used these cathedrals as their halls of assembly, and even for such purposes as masques and amusements. Of the English corporation halls, those which remain are nearly all subsequent to the 14th c |