In the instance (Woodcut No. 5), any amount of literal imitation that the sculptor thought proper may be indulged in, because in it the stone construction is so apparent everywhere, that the vegetable form is the merest supplement conceivable; or in a hollow moulding round a doorway, a vine may be sculptured with any degree of imitation that can be employed; for as it has no more work to do than the object represented would have in the same situation, it is a mere adjunct, a statue of a plant placed in a niche, as we might use the statue of a man: but if in the woodcut (No. 6) imitations of real leaves were used to support the upper moulding, the effect would not be so satisfactory; indeed it is questionable if in both these last examples a little more conventionality would not be desirable.

In too many instances, even in the best Gothic architecture, the construction is so overlaid by imitative vegetable forms as to be concealed, and the work is apparently done by leaves or twigs, but in the earliest and purest style this is almost never the case. As a general rule it may be asserted that the best lithic ornaments are those which approach nearest to the grace and pliancy of plants, and that the best vegetable forms are those which most resemble the regularity and symmetry of such as are purely conventional.

Although the Greeks in one or two instances employed human figures to support entablatures or beams, the good taste of such an arrangement is more than questionable. They borrowed it, with the Ionic order, from the Assyrians, with whom the employment of caryatides and animal forms was the rule, not the exception, in contradistinction from the Egyptians, who never adopted this practice.^[14] Even the Romans avoided this mistake, and the Gothic architects also as a general rule kept quite clear of it. Whenever they did employ ornamented figures for architectural purposes, they were either monsters, as in gargoyles or griffons; or sometimes, in a spirit of caricature, they used dwarfs or deformities of various sorts; but their sculpture, properly so called, was always provided with a niche or pedestal, where it might have been placed after the building was complete, or from which it might be removed without interfering with the architecture.

XII.—Decorative Colour.

Colour is one of the most invaluable elements placed at the command of the architect to enable him to give grace or finish to his designs. From its nature it is of course only an accessory, or mere ornament; but there is nothing that enables him to express his meaning so cheaply and easily, and at the same time with such brilliancy and effect. For an interior it is absolutely indispensable; and no apartment can be said to be complete till it has received its finishing touches from the hand of the painter. Whether exteriors ought or ought not to be similarly treated admits of more doubt.

Internally the architect has complete command of the situation: he can suit his design to his colours, or his colours to his design. Walls, roof, floor, furniture, are all at his disposal, and he can shut out any discordant element that would interfere with the desired effect.

Externally this is seldom, if ever the case. A façade that looks brilliant and well in noonday sun may be utterly out of harmony with a cold grey sky, or with the warm glow of a setting sun full upon it: and unless all other buildings and objects are toned into accordance with it, the effect can seldom be harmonious.

There can be now no reasonable doubt that the Greeks painted their temples both internally and externally, but as a general rule they always placed them on heights where they could only be seen relieved against the sky; and they could depend on an atmosphere of almost uniform, unvarying brightness. Had their temples been placed in groves or valleys, they would probably have given up the attempt, and certainly never would have ventured upon it in such a climate as ours.

Except in such countries as Egypt and Greece, it must always be a mistake to apply colour by merely painting the surface of the building externally; but there are other modes of effecting this which are perfectly legitimate. Coloured ornaments may be inlaid in the stone of the wall without interfering with the construction, and so placed may be made more effective and brilliant than the same ornaments would be if carved in relief. Again, string-courses and mouldings of various coloured stones or marbles might frequently be employed with better effect than can be obtained in some situations by depth of cutting and boldness of projection. Such a mode of decoration can, however, only be partial; if the whole building is to be coloured, it must be done constructively, by using different coloured materials, or the effect will never be satisfactory.

In the Middle Ages the Italians carried this mode of decoration to a considerable extent; but in almost all instances it is so evidently a veneer overlying the construction that it fails to please; and a decoration which internally, where construction is of less importance, would excite general admiration, is without meaning on the outside of the same wall.

At the same time it is easy to conceive how polychromy might be carried out successfully, if, for instance, a building were erected, the pillars of which were of red granite or porphyry, the cornices or string-courses of dark coloured marbles, and the plain surfaces of lighter kinds, or even of stone. A design so carried out would be infinitely more effective than a similar one executed in materials of only one colour, and depending for relief only on varying shadows of daylight. There is in fact just the same difficulty in lighting monochromatic buildings as there is with sculpture. A coloured painting, on the other hand, requires merely sufficient light, and with that expresses its form and meaning far more clearly and easily than when only one colour is employed. The task, however, is difficult; so much so, indeed, that there is hardly one single instance known of a complete polychromatic design being successfully carried out anywhere, though often attempted. The other mode of merely inlaying the ornaments in colour instead of relieving them by carving as seldom fails.

Notwithstanding this, an architect should never neglect to select the colour of his materials with reference to the situation in which his building is to stand. A red brick building may look remarkably well if nestling among green trees, while the same building would be hideous if situated on a sandy plain, and relieved only by the warm glow of a setting sun. A building of white stone or white brick is as inappropriate among the trees, and may look bright and cheerful in the other situation.

In towns colours might be used of very great brilliancy, and if done constructively, there could be no greater improvement to our architecture; but its application is so difficult that no satisfactory result has yet been attained, and it may be questioned whether it will be ever successfully accomplished.

With regard to interiors there can be no doubt. All architects in all countries of the world resorted to this expedient to harmonise and to give brilliancy to their compositions, and have depended on it for their most important effects.

The Gothic architects carried this a step further by the introduction of painted glass, which was a mode of colouring more brilliant than had been ever before attempted. This went beyond all previous efforts, inasmuch as it coloured not only the objects themselves, but also the light in which they were seen. So enamoured were they of its beauties, that they sacrificed much of the constructive propriety of their buildings to admit of its display, and paid more attention to it than to any other part of their designs. Perhaps they carried this predilection a little beyond the limits of good taste; but colour is in itself so exquisite a thing, and so admirable a vehicle for the expression of architectural as well as of æsthetic beauty, that it is difficult to find fault even with the abuse of what is in its essence so legitimate and so beautiful.

XIII.—Sculpture and Painting.

Carved ornament and decorative colour come within the especial province of the architect. In some styles, such as the Saracenic, and in many buildings, they form the Alpha and the Omega of the decoration. But, as mentioned above, one of the great merits of architecture as an art is that it affords room for the display of the works of the sculptor and the painter, not only in such a manner as not to interfere with its own decorative construction, but so as to add meaning and value to the whole. No Greek temple and no Gothic cathedral can indeed be said to be perfect or complete without these adjuncts; and one of the principal objects of the architects in Greece or in the Middle Ages was to design places and devise means by which these could be displayed to advantage, without interfering either with the construction or constructive decoration. This was perhaps effected more successfully in the Parthenon than in any other building we are acquainted with. The pediments at either end were noble frames for the exhibition of sculpture, and the metopes were equally appropriate for the purpose; while the plain walls of the cella were admirably adapted for paintings below and for a sculptured frieze above.

The deeply recessed portals of our Gothic cathedrals, their galleries, their niches and pinnacles, were equally appropriate for the exuberant display of this class of sculpture in a less refined or fastidious age; while the mullion-framed windows were admirably adapted for the exhibition of a mode of coloured decoration, somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed, but wonderfully brilliant.

The system was carried further in India than in any other country except perhaps Egypt. Probably no Hindu temple was ever erected without being at least intended to be adorned with Phonetic sculpture, and many of them are covered with it from the plinth to the eaves, in strong contrast with the Mahomedan buildings that stand side by side with them, and which are wholly devoid of any attempt at this kind of decoration. The taste of these Hindu sculptures may be questionable, but such as they are they are so used as never to interfere with the architectural effect of the building on which they are employed, but always so as to aid the design irrespective of the story they have to tell. There is probably no instance in which their removal or their absence would not be felt as an injury from an architectural point of view.

It is difficult now to ascertain whether Phonetic painting was used to the same extent as sculpture in ancient times. From its nature it is infinitely more perishable, and a bucket of whitewash will in half an hour obliterate the work of years, and, strange to say, there are ages, both in the East and the west, where men’s minds are so attuned that they consider whitewash a more fitting decoration than coloured paintings of the most elaborate and artistic character. While this is so we need hardly wonder that our means of forming a distinct opinion on this subject are somewhat limited.

Be this as it may, it is still one of the special privileges of architecture that she is able to attract to herself these phonetic arts, and one of the greatest merits a building can possess is its affording appropriate places for their display without interfering in any way with the special department of the architect. But it is always necessary to distinguish carefully between what belongs to the province of each art separately. The work of the architect ought to be complete and perfect without either sculpture or painting, and must be judged as if they were absent; but he will not have been entirely successful unless he has provided the means by which the value of his design may be doubled by their introduction. It is only by the combination of the Phonetic utterance with the Technic and Æsthetic elements that a perfect work of art has been produced, and that architecture can be said to have reached the highest point of perfection to which it can aspire.

Considerable confusion has been introduced into the reasoning on the subject of architectural Uniformity from the assumption that the two great schools of art—the classical and the mediæval—adopted contrary conclusions regarding it, Formality being supposed to be the characteristic of the former, Irregularity of the latter. The Greeks, of course, when building a temple or monument, which was only one room or one object, made it exactly symmetrical in all its parts; but so did the Gothic architects when building a church or chapel or hall, or any single object: in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a line drawn down the centre divides it into two equal and symmetrical halves; and when an exception to this occurs, there is some obvious motive for it.

But where several buildings of different classes were to be grouped, or even two temples placed near one another, the Greeks took the utmost care to prevent their appearing parts of one design or one whole; and when, as in the instance of the Erechtheium,^[15] three temples are placed together, no Gothic architect ever took such pains to secure for each its separate individuality as the Grecian architect did. What has given rise to the error is, that all the smaller objects of Grecian art have perished, leaving us only the great monuments without their adjuncts.

If we can conceive the task assigned to a Grecian architect of erecting a building like one of our collegiate institutions, he would without doubt have distinguished the chapel from the refectory, and that from the library, and he would have made them of a totally different design from the principal’s lodge, or the chambers of the fellows and students; but it is more than probable that, while carefully distinguishing each part from the other, he would have arranged them with some regard to symmetry, placing the chapel in the centre, the library and refectory as pendants to one another, though dissimilar, and the residences so as to connect and fill up the whole design. The truth seems to be that no great amount of dignity can be obtained without a certain degree of regularity; and there can be little doubt that artistically it is better that mere utilitarian convenience should give way to the exigencies of architectural design than that the latter should be constrained to yield to the mere prosaic requirements of the building. The chance-medley manner in which many such buildings were grouped together in the Middle Ages tells the story as clearly, and may be productive of great picturesqueness of effect, but not of the same nobility as might have been obtained by more regularity. The highest class of design will never be reached by these means.

It is not difficult to discover, at least to a certain extent, that the cause of this is that no number of separate units will suffice to make one whole. A number of pebbles will not make a great stone, nor a number of rose-bushes an oak; nor will any number of dwarfs make up a giant. To obtain a great whole there must be unity, to which all the parts must contribute, or they will remain separate particles. The effect of unity is materially heightened when to it is added uniformity: the mind then instantly and easily grasps the whole, knows it to be one, and recognises the ruling idea that governed and moulded the whole together. It seems only to be by the introduction of uniformity that sufficient simplicity for greatness can be obtained, and the evidence of design made so manifest that the mind is satisfied that the building is no mere accumulation of separate objects, but the production of a master-mind.

In a palace irregularity seems unpardonable. The architect has there practically unlimited command of funds and of his arrangements, and he can easily design his suites of rooms so as to produce any amount of uniformity he may require: the different heights of the different storeys and the amount of ornament on them, with the employment of wings for offices, is sufficient to mark the various purposes of the various parts; but where the system is carried so far in great public buildings, that great halls, libraries, committee-rooms, and subordinate residences are all squeezed into one perfectly uniform design, the building loses all meaning, and fails from the opposite error.

The rule seems to be, that every building or every part of one ought most distinctly and clearly to express not only its constructive exigencies, but also the uses for which it is destined; on the other hand, that mere utility, in all instances where architectural effect is aimed at, ought to give way to artistic requirements; and that an architect is consequently justified, in so far as his means will admit, in producing that amount of uniformity and regularity which seems indispensable for anything like grandeur of effect. In villas and small buildings all we look for is picturesqueness and meaning combined with elegance; but in larger and more monumental erections we expect something more; and this can hardly be obtained without the introduction of some new element which shall tell, in the first place, that artistic excellence was the ruling idea of the design, and in the next should give it that perfect balance and symmetry which seems to be as inherent a quality of the higher works of nature as of true art.

XV.—Imitation of Nature.

The subject of the imitation of Nature is one intimately connected with those mooted in the preceding paragraphs, and regarding which considerable misunderstanding seems to prevail. It is generally assumed that in architecture we ought to copy natural objects as we see them, whereas the truth seems to be that we ought always to copy the processes, never the forms of Nature. The error apparently has arisen from confounding together the imitative arts of painting and sculpture with the constructive art of architecture. The former have no other mode of expression than by copying, more or less literally, the forms of Nature; the latter, as explained above, depends wholly on a different class of elements for its effect; but at the same time no architect can either study too intently, or copy too closely, the methods and processes by which Nature accomplishes her ends; and the most perfect building will be that in which these have been most closely and literally followed.

To take one prominent instance:—So far as we can judge, the human body is the most perfect of Nature’s works; in it the groundwork of skeleton is never seen, and though it can hardly be said to be anywhere concealed, it is only displayed at the joints or more prominent points of support, where the action of the frame would be otherwise unintelligible. The muscles are disposed not only where they are most useful, but so as to form groups gracefully rounded in outline. The softness and elegance of these are further aided by the deposition of adipose matter, and the whole is covered with a skin which with its beautiful texture conceals the more utilitarian construction of the internal parts. In the trunk of the body the viscera are disposed wholly without symmetry or reference to beauty of any sort—the heart on one side, the liver on the other, and the other parts exactly in those positions and in those forms by which they may most directly and easily perform the essential functions for which they are designed. But the whole is concealed in a perfectly symmetrical sheath of the most exquisitely beautiful outline. It may be safely asserted that a building is beautiful and perfect exactly in the ratio in which the same amount of concealment and the same amount of display of construction is preserved, where the same symmetry is shown as between the right and left sides of the human body—the same difference as between the legs and arms, where the parts are applied to different purposes, and where the same amount of ornament is added, to adorn without interfering with what is useful. In short, there is no principle involved in the structure of man which may not be taken as the most absolute standard of excellence in architecture.

It is in Nature’s highest works that we find the symmetry of proportion most prominent. When we descend to the lower types of animals we lose it to a great extent, and among trees and vegetables generally find it only in a far less degree, and sometimes miss it altogether. In the mineral kingdom among rocks and stones it is altogether absent. So universal is this principle in Nature that we may safely apply it to our criticism on art, and say that a building is perfect as a whole in proportion to its motived regularity, and departs from the highest type in the ratio in which symmetrical arrangement is neglected. It may, however, be incorrect to say that an oak-tree is a less perfect work of creation than a human being, but it is certain that it is lower in the scale of created beings. So it may be said that a picturesque group of Gothic buildings may be as perfect as the stately regularity of an Egyptian or classic temple; but if it is so, it is equally certain that it belongs to a lower and inferior class of design.

This analogy, however, we may leave for the present. The one point which it is indispensable to insist on here is, that man can progress or tend towards success only by following the principles and copying, so far as he can understand them, the processes which Nature employs in her works; but he can never succeed in anything by copying forms without reference to principles. If we could find Nature making trees like stones, or animals like trees, or birds like fishes, or fishes like mammalia, or using any parts taken from one kingdom for purposes belonging to another, it would then be perfectly legitimate for us to use man’s stature as the modulus for a Doric, or woman’s as that of an Ionic column—to build cathedrals like groves, and make windows like leaves, or to estimate their beauty by their resemblance to such objects; but all such comparisons proceed on an entire mistake of what imitation of Nature really means.

It is the merest and most absolute negation of reason to apply to one purpose things that were designed for another, or to imitate them when they have no appropriateness; but it is our highest privilege to understand the processes of Nature. To apply these to our own wants and purposes is the noblest use of human intellect and the perfection of human wisdom.

So instinctively, but so literally, has this correct process of imitating Nature been followed in all true styles of architecture, that we can always reason regarding them as we do with reference to natural objects. Thus, if an architect finds in any quarter of the globe a Doric or Corinthian capital with a few traces of a foundation, he can, at a glance, tell the age of the temple or building to which it belonged. He knows who the people were who erected it, to what purpose it was dedicated, and proceeds at once to restore its porticos, and without much uncertainty can reproduce the whole fabric. Or if he finds a few Gothic bases in situ, with a few mouldings or frusta of columns, by the same process he traces the age, the size, and the purposes of the building before him. A Cuvier or an Owen can restore the form and predicate the habits of an extinct animal from a few fragments of bone, or even from a print of a foot. In the same manner an architect may, from a few fragments of a building, if of a true style of architecture, restore the whole of its pristine forms, and with almost the same amount of certainty. This arises wholly because the architects of former days had correct ideas of what was meant by imitation of Nature. They added nothing to their buildings which was not essential; there was no detail which had not its use, and no ornament which was not an elaboration or heightening of some essential part, and hence it is that a true building is as like to a work of Nature as any production of man’s hands can be to the creations of his Maker.

XVI.—Association.

There is one property inherent in the productions of architectural art, which, while it frequently lends to them half their charm, at the same time tends more than anything else to warp and distort our critical judgments regarding them. We seldom can look at a building of any age without associating with it such historical memories as may cling to its walls; and our predilections for any peculiar style of architecture are more often due to educational or devotional associations than to purely artistic judgments. A man must be singularly ignorant or strangely passionless who can stand among the fallen columns of a Grecian temple, or wander through the corridors of a Roman amphitheatre, or the aisles of a ruined Gothic abbey, and not feel his heart stirred by emotions of a totally different class from those suggested by the beauty of the mouldings or the artistic arrangement of the building he is contemplating.

The enthusiasm which burst forth in the 15th century for the classical style of art, and then proved fatal to the Gothic, was not so much an architectural as a literary movement. It arose from the re-discovery—if it may be so called—of the poems of Homer and Virgil, of the histories of Thucydides and Tacitus, of the Philosophy of Aristotle and the eloquence of Cicero. It was a vast reaction against the darkness and literary degradation of the Middle Ages, and carried the educated classes of Europe with it for the next three centuries. So long as classical literature only was taught in our schools, and classical models followed in our literature, classical architecture could alone be tolerated in our buildings, and this generally without the least reference either to its own peculiar beauties, or its appropriateness for the purposes to which it was applied.

A second reaction has now taken place against this state of affairs. The revival of the rites and ceremonies of the mediæval Church, our reverent love of our own national antiquities, and our admiration for the rude but vigorous manhood of the Middle Ages,—all have combined to repress the classical element both in our literature and our art, and to exalt in their place Gothic feelings and Gothic art, to an extent which cannot be justified on any grounds of reasonable criticism.

Unless the art-critic can free himself from the influence of these adventitious associations, his judgments lose half their value; but, on the other hand, to the historian of art they are of the utmost importance. It is because architecture so fully and so clearly expresses the feelings of the people who practised it that it becomes frequently a better vehicle of history than the written page; and it is these very associations that give life and meaning to blocks of stone and mounds of brick, and bring so vividly before our eyes the feelings and the aspirations of the long-forgotten past.

The importance of association in giving value to the objects of architectural art can hardly be overrated either by the student or historian. What has to be guarded against is that unreasoning enthusiasm which mistakes the shadow for the reality, and would force us to admire a rude piece of clumsy barbarism erected yesterday, and to which no history consequently attaches, because something like it was done in some long past age. Its reality, its antiquity, and its weather stains may render its prototype extremely interesting, even if not beautiful; while its copy is only an antiquarian toy, as ugly as it is absurd.

XVII.—New Style.

There is still one other point of view from which it is necessary to look at this question of architectural design before any just conclusion can be arrived at regarding it. It is in fact necessary to answer two other questions, nearly as often asked as those proposed at the beginning of Section III. “Can any one invent a new style?”—“Can we ever again have a new and original style of architecture?” Reasoning from experience alone, it is easy to answer these questions. No individual has, so far as we know, ever invented a new style in any part of the world. No one can even be named who during the prevalence of a true style of art materially advanced its progress, or by his individual exertion did much to help it forward; and we may safely answer, that as this has never happened before, it is hardly probable that it will ever occur now.

If this one question must be answered in the negative, the other may as certainly be answered in the affirmative, inasmuch as no nation in any age or in any part of the globe has failed to invent for itself a true and appropriate style of architecture whenever it chose to set about it in the right way, and there certainly can be no great difficulty in our doing now what has been so often done before, if we only set to work in a proper spirit, and are prepared to follow the same process which others have followed to obtain this result.

What that process is, may perhaps be best explained by such an example as that of ship-building before alluded to, which, though totally distinct, is still so nearly allied to architecture, as to make a comparison between the two easy and intelligible.

Let us, for instance, take a series of ships, beginning with those in which William the Conqueror invaded our shores, or the fleet with which Edward III. crossed over to France. Next take the vessels which transported Henry VIII. to his meeting with Francis I., and then pass on to the time of the Spanish Armada and the sea fights of Van Tromp and De Ruyter, and on to the times of William III., and then through the familiar examples till we come to such ships as the ‘Wellington’ and ‘Marlborough’ of yesterday, and the ‘Warrior’ or ‘Minotaur’ of to-day. In all this long list of examples we have a gradual, steady, forward progress without one check or break. Each century is in advance of the one before it, and the result is as near perfection as we can well conceive.

But if we ask who effected these improvements, or who invented any part of the last-named wonderful fabrics, we must search deep indeed into the annals of the navy to find out. But no one has inquired and no one cares to know, for the simple reason that, like architecture in the Middle Ages, it is a true and living art, and the improvements were not effected by individuals, but by all classes—owners, sailors, shipwrights, and men of science, all working together through centuries, each lending the aid of his experience or of his reasoning.

If we place alongside of this series of ships a list of churches or cathedrals, commencing with Charlemagne and ending with Charles V., we find the same steady and assured progress obtained by the same identical means. In this instance, princes, priests, masons, and mathematicians, all worked steadily together for the whole period, striving to obtain a well-defined result.

In the ship the most suitable materials only are employed in every part, and neither below nor aloft is there one single timber nor spar nor one rope which is superfluous. Nor in the cathedral was any material ever used that was not believed to be the most suitable for its purpose; nor any form of construction adopted which did not seem the best to those who employed it; nor any detail added which did not appear necessary for the purpose it was designed to express? the result being, that we can look on and contemplate both with the same unmitigated satisfaction.

The one point where this comparison seems to halt is, that ship-building never became a purely fine art, which architecture really is. The difference is only one of aim, which it would be as easy to apply to the one art as it has been to the other. Had architecture never progressed beyond its one strictly legitimate object of house-building, it would never have been more near a fine art than merchant ship-building, and palaces would only have been magnified dwelling-places. Castles and men-of-war advanced both one stage further towards a fine art. Size and power were impressed on both, and in this respect they stand precisely equal to one another. Here ship-building halted, and has not progressed beyond, while architecture has been invested with a higher aim. In all ages men have sought to erect houses more dignified and stately than those designed for their personal use. They attempted the erection of dwelling-places for their Gods, or temples worthy of the worship of Supreme Beings; and it was only when this strictly useful art threw aside all shadow of utilitarianism, and launched boldly forth in search of the beautiful and the sublime, that it became a truly fine art, and took the elevated position which it now holds above all other useful arts. It would have been easy to supply the same motive to ship-building. If we could imagine any nation ever to construct ships of God, or to worship on the bosom of the ocean, ships might easily be made such objects of beauty that the cathedral could hardly compete with them.

It is not, however, only in architecture or in ship-building that this progress is essential, for the progress of every art and every science that is worthy of the name is owing to the same simple process of the aggregation of experiences; whether we look to metallurgy or mechanics, cotton-spinning or coining, their perfection is due to the same cause. So also the sciences—astronomy, chemistry, geology—are all cultivated by the same means. When the art or science is new, great men stand forth and make great strides; but when once it reaches maturity, and becomes the property of the nation, the individual is lost in the mass, and a thousand inferior brains follow out steadily and surely the path which the one great intellect has pointed out, but which no single mind, however great, could carry to its legitimate conclusion.

So far as any reason or experience yet known can be applied to this subject, it seems clear that no art or science ever has been or can be now advanced by going backwards, and copying earlier forms, or those applicable to other times or other circumstances; and that progress towards perfection can only be obtained by the united efforts of many steadily pursuing a well-defined object. Whenever this is done, success appears to be inevitable, or at all events every age is perfectly satisfied with its own productions. Where forward progress is the law, it is certain that the next age will surpass the present; but the living cannot conceive anything more perfect than what they are doing, or they would apply it. Everything in any true art is thoroughly up to the highest standard of its period, and instead of the dissatisfied uncertainty in which we are wandering in all matters concerning architecture, we should be exulting in our own productions, and proud in leaving to our posterity the progress we have made, feeling assured that we have paved the way for them to advance to a still higher standard of perfection.

As soon as the public are aware of the importance of this rule, and of its applicability to architecture, a new style must be the inevitable result; and if our civilisation is what we believe it to be, that style will not only be perfectly suited to all our wants and desires, but also more beautiful and more perfect than any that has ever existed before.

XVIII.—Prospects.

If we turn from these speculations to ask what prospect there is of the public appreciating correctly this view of the matter, or setting earnestly about carrying it out, the answer can hardly be deemed satisfactory; in fact, if it were left to the public, very little progress, except from an utilitarian point of view, would probably be made.

The study of the classical languages, to which so much importance is attached in our public schools, and in our own and most foreign universities, tended at one time in another way to draw attention from the formation of a true style of architecture by fixing it exclusively on Greek and Roman models. The Renaissance in the 15th century, as pointed out above, arose much more from admiration of classic literature than from any feeling for the remains of buildings which had been neglected for centuries, and were far surpassed by those which succeeded them. The same feelings perpetuated by early association are the great cause of the hold that classic art still has on the educated classes in Europe.

On the other hand, the revival of the Gothic style fifty years ago enlisted the sympathy of the clergy, not only in England, but on the continent of Europe, when they arrived at the conclusion that the Gothic style was the one most suited for church-building purposes; and attempted to establish a point that no deviation from Gothic models should be tolerated.

Beyond these there was another class of men who had but little sympathy with Greece or Rome, and still less with mediæval monasticism or feudalism, but who in their own strong sense were inclined to take a more reasonable view of the matter, and these men have for years been erecting in London, Manchester, Leeds, and in other cities of England a series of warehouses and other buildings designed wholly with reference to their uses, and ornamented only in their construction, and which consequently are—as far as their utilitarian purposes will allow—as satisfactory as anything of former days.

In addition to these, and within the last fifteen to twenty years, a very great progress has taken place in domestic architecture, not only in London and its suburbs, but throughout England, where buildings have been erected of a new and an original type, peculiarly applicable to the requirements of English domestic life, and of great variety and picturesque design; and these remarks apply not only to mansions, but to the residences of a much humbler and more simple kind.

In civil engineering, the lowest and most prosaic branch of architectural art, our progress has been brilliant and rapid. Of this no better example can be given than the four great bridges erected over the Thames. The old bridges of Westminster and Blackfriars, and those of Waterloo and London, were erected at nearly equal intervals during one century, and the steady progress which they exhibit is greater than that of almost any similar branch of art during any equal period of time.

In this department our progress is so undeniable that we saw old London Bridge removed without regret, though it was a work of the same age and of the same men who built all our greatest and best cathedrals, and in its own line was quite as perfect and as beautiful as they. But it had outlived its age, and we knew we could replace it by a better—so its destruction was inevitable; and if we had made the same progress in the higher that we have in the lower branches of the building art, we should see a Gothic cathedral pulled down with the same indifference, content to know that we could easily replace it by one far nobler and more worthy of our age and intelligence. No architect during the Middle Ages ever hesitated to pull down any part of a cathedral that was old and going to decay, and to replace it with something in the style of the day, however incongruous that might be; and if we were progressing as they were, we should have as little compunction in following the same course.

Besides this, however, the narrative form as applied to Architecture has advantages of its own greater than those of any other art of the same class, inasmuch as it is a great stone book in which most of the nations of the earth have recorded their annals, and written their thoughts, and even expressed their feelings in clearer and truer language than by any other form of utterance. The pyramids and temples of Egypt are a truer expression of the feelings and aspirations of their builders than we can obtain from any other source. The Parthenon at Athens brings the age of Pericles more clearly before our eyes in all its perfection of art than any written page. The Flavian Amphitheatre and the Baths of Caracalla enable us to realise imperial Rome more vividly than even the glowing pages of Tacitus. Our Mediæval cathedrals are a living record of the faith and feelings of peoples, who have left, besides these, but few materials by which one could judge of their aspirations or of their civilisation; while, if we wish to know in what India differed from Europe in those ages, and in what respect she still resembled it, it is to her contemporary temples that we must turn, and they tell us in a language not to be mistaken wherein lay the differences, and still how nearly alike the civilisations at one time were. All this, and infinitely more, we may learn from a record, which, though often ruined and nearly obliterated, never deceives. Where it first was placed, there it still remains to tell to future generations what at that spot, at some previous time, men thought and felt; what their state of civilisation enabled them to accomplish, and to what stage they had attained in their conception of a God.