ERRATA.

Page 81, Fig. 19, for Temple of Mars, Ultor, read Temple of Mars Ultor.
“  94, line 26, for Choir at the Trinity Chapel, read Choir and the Trinity Chapel.
“ 170, Contents, line 6, for Stanford, read Stamford.
“ 175, foot-note, for Beavais, read Beauvais.

MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE.

LECTURE I.

The Claims of Mediæval Architecture upon our Study.

IT is with feelings somewhat closely bordering upon trepidation that, availing myself of the liberty given by the regulations recently passed by the Council of the Royal Academy, I venture to address you on a subject which has never, till now, been more than incidentally touched upon within these walls; a subject, indeed, dear to my heart, and entwined among my inmost thoughts and affections, but one which, perhaps for that very reason, I feel it the more difficult to bring before you through the medium of a lecture. It may be at first sight imagined that love, of all the human feelings, is that best calculated to aid in describing the beauties of its object, and in advocating its claims upon the admiration; but it is not so. We can hardly state the reasons why we love our parents or our brothers. We know that it is a feeling which has grown with our growth, and is a part of our very existence; yet it is probable that an acquaintance who has never shared in these warmer sentiments might describe their character and even their virtues more successfully than ourselves. If we seek to investigate them, we find the research all too cold and too methodical to accord with the tone of our feelings; and, like the poet who wished to sing of the Atrides and of Cadmus, the chords of our hearts respond only of love.

So it is with those who have harboured an early affection for the architecture of their native land. Strongly as I appreciate the intrinsic beauty of the monuments of classic antiquity, and the merits of very many works of the Revival, I should doubt whether it were possible for any unsophisticated youth, before studying their architecture as a science, to entertain towards its productions in this country any feelings bordering upon real affection. He may see in them much to admire—much to lead him to study the art which has produced them; and this study will, no doubt, often kindle those warmer feelings which ripen into love. But this is a very different feeling from that deep and filial affection which many a youth, untaught in art, but gifted by nature with a perception of its beauties, has entertained from his tenderest years towards the old churches of his neighbourhood, and which has impelled him to walk from village to village, not only under the balmy influences of summer, but along muddy roads or snowy paths, and, with glowing heart but shivering hand, to sketch the humble porch, the unaspiring steeple, and the mutilated though venerable monument, with feelings of indescribable delight.

It is this instinctive affection which it is so difficult to reason upon, and to which cold investigation seems so uncongenial; yet most pleasant it is, in after life, to find ever new proof that our early feelings have not been misplaced; that those once callous warm up when they are led to examine; that those who, strange to say, disliked the architecture of their forefathers, are now forced to admit some of its beauties; that the style, once despised, has become gradually appreciated, and its study become the favourite pursuit of thousands—every county having its society organised to promote it; that in every country in which it once flourished (Italy herself not excepted), the same revived feeling towards it has arisen; and, finally, that this distinguished Academy has stamped it as equally classic with the architecture of the ancient world, and admitted it to an equal place in the instructions offered to her students.

Having found it impracticable, from previous engagements, to give, as had been kindly suggested to me, a short course of lectures during this season, I propose on the present occasion to limit myself to some introductory remarks on the study of Mediæval architecture, which I trust, with the kind permission of the Council, to follow up next year by one or two further lectures, both upon its original productions, and upon the bearing of the study of them upon our own practice and the architecture of the future.

I will commence by considering the different claims which Pointed architecture has upon our study.

The more carefully we examine into the subject, the stronger and the more numerous do we find these claims to be. To a casual observer, the interest we feel in the subject may appear to be the result of local prejudice or of arbitrary choice, and our Mediæval styles may seem to have no greater claim upon us than those of a hundred other periods or countries. The fact, however, is the very reverse—that Pointed architecture is marked out from others in the most signal and remarkable manner. I will briefly point out some of the circumstances which thus especially single it out.

In tracing the history of civilisation, we cannot fail to perceive that, from the earliest ages to the present, it has followed one not unbroken, yet connected stream, and though branches have struck off in different directions, it has ever had one main channel, which at each period represents the central mass of civilisation; this stream, passing now through this country and now through that, but its place being nearly always so marked as to leave no doubt as to where, in each succeeding age, the main seat of civilisation is to be found. Art has in regular succession followed in the same course—the main channel of civilisation and art having been the same, though each possessing its minor branches.

The earliest seats of mental culture were the great valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia. There, too, were the cradles of primitive art. The less enduring materials of the Eastern valley have deprived us of the remains of its earlier architecture, but the imperishable ruins of Egypt will tell till earth’s closing day how mighty was her primæval civilisation.

Persia seems to have succeeded to Egypt and Assyria as well in art as in dominion; but long before her political power had been overthrown, the stream of mental power had been transferred to Greece, whose arts and knowledge, partly indigenous and partly derived from Egypt and Assyria, so infinitely excelled all which had preceded them, that we are apt, and with reason, to view them as the only genuine art and civilisation of the ancient world.

Rome, succeeding Greece in external power, borrowed both her arts and literature, but, throughout her whole career, was as subordinate to her in these as she was predominant in power; and when that great catastrophe occurred which crushed to dust the mighty fabric of Roman domination, it was again in Greece that civilisation and art flowed on, and it was thence that those friendly streams proceeded which enabled the Gothic conquerors of Rome to reconstruct what they had destroyed, and among the débris of ancient art and knowledge to sow the seeds and to foster the growth of that richer and mightier civilisation which distinguishes the modern from the ancient world.

In all its earlier stages, the growth of civilisation in the modern, as in the ancient world, was marked by corresponding changes in its architecture. Each age had its architectural style distinctly and strongly marked; a style which, though connecting itself unmistakeably with the long chain of ancient art that, though rudely broken in the West, had been continuous in the Eastern empire, was nevertheless so distinct from any former link in that chain as clearly to mark a new dynasty in human affairs, and to show that the stream which had passed successively through Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, was now making wide and deep its channel among those Gothic nations whose progenitors had been viewed as the enemies of art and knowledge, and that the seat of art was henceforth to be established among those vigorous races which had destroyed that of the ancient world.

My object in going over this well-beaten path is to draw your attention to three very marked primâ facie claims which Gothic architecture has upon our study. Firstly, that, though we are in the habit of considering it antiquated, it is in fact the architecture of the modern as distinguished from the ancient world—that, just as the architecture of the earlier half of the world’s history culminated in that of Greece, which must ever be viewed as its most perfect and most glorious representative, so did the indigenous architecture of the newer world reach its culminating point in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries among the nations of Western Europe—the depositaries of a new civilisation. Secondly, that it is the architecture of the Germanic nations, through whose land the main stream of civilisation now runs, as of old it did through Greece, Egypt, and Rome. And, thirdly, that it is the latest original style of architecture which the civilised world has produced; that the chain of architectural styles, commencing in Egypt, and passing on in continuous course through Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, and thence taken up by the infant nations of modern Europe, and by them prolonged through successive ages of continuous progress, terminated in the style which we are treating of, and has never since produced another link of its own.

As, then, the architecture of Egypt claims our respect as the earliest link in the history of architecture, so are our own Mediæval styles especially marked out from all others as being its latest creation. That continuous stream of indigenous art which from the earliest ages of the world had unceasingly flowed onwards—now through this country, and now through that; now smoothly flowing on through a deep and copious channel, and now choked up with rocks, or spreading itself sluggishly and unhealthily through marshes and morasses, but ever progressing—seemed at the end of the period we are speaking of to turn back upon its course, and, instead of creating as heretofore ever new beauties of its own, to content itself with reproducing those of bygone periods: instead of illustrating, as it were, the collateral stream of civilisation which flowed on so mightily by its side, it accompanied it by images of that of an older world—of another family of nations—of another religion; and since then, though civilisation has rolled on in a continuous course, it has failed to produce any style of architecture of its own.

Mediæval architecture, then, is distinguished from all other styles as being the last link of the mighty chain which had stretched unbroken through nearly 4000 years—the glorious termination of the history of original and genuine architecture.

The next claim to which I will direct your attention is, that our style is, par excellence, Christian architecture.

This is a claim which it is so much the fashion of the day to dispute, and even to deride, that it demands somewhat careful investigation. Many who have no hesitation in using the terms Mahometan, Hindoo, or Buddhist architecture, and who do not in the least deny the influence of the various religions of the ancients upon their modes of building, see nothing but fanaticism in attributing any such influence to Christianity; or if they do not deny this influence, they view Pointed architecture as the special property of the Roman Church (though Rome herself boasts of having scarcely admitted it within her walls), and find no style to symbolise their Protestantism but that derived from the heathenism of the ancient world, and whose more recent type is to be found in the great metropolitan church of modern Rome.

Other more reasoning persons object that, as Christianity, in its purest ages, adopted a modified form of the ancient Roman style, and bent it to its uses, the Roman style became by that process a bona fide Christian architecture; and further argue that Pointed architecture, having derived some of its forms from the Saracenic, has thereby lost its title to being considered a purely Christian style.

To meet these objections, it is necessary to explain what we mean by Christian architecture.

There can be no doubt that nearly all forms of architecture have taken their rise in the temple, whose form and character have been regulated by the religion for which it was erected. From the temple it has diffused itself throughout all classes of buildings, carrying with it, in a certain degree, the feeling it had already acquired. No one will deny this of the Egyptian, the Greek, or the Saracenic; and so inconsistent are people on such questions, that the very persons who would laugh at the term “Christian architecture” will almost in the same breath object to the use of our style for secular buildings, on the ground that it will make them look like churches!

Now, what we claim for Pointed architecture is, not that it is the only Christian style which has arisen or is likely to arise, but that it has been more entirely developed under the influence of the Christian religion, and more thoroughly carries out its tone and sentiment than any other style. It is not exclusively, but par eminence, Christian. The early Christians naturally adopted the style which was ready made to their hands. That this style, as they found it, was essentially Pagan, it would be absurd to deny; but it was the only one they knew; and, carefully avoiding the types of Pagan temples, they adopted one of its secular forms, and wholly adapted it to their uses. The buildings thus produced were unmistakeably Christian, but it would be absurd to say so of their style. This being nearly identical with that of their Heathen predecessors, it needed a long course of remoulding before it could justly be predicated of it that it was a Christian style—a style generated under the influence of Christian customs, to fulfil Christian requirements, and to harmonise fully with the sentiments of the religion of those who made use of it.

The earliest style which may fairly be called Christian was the Byzantine. In the East no sudden revolution had affected art or civilisation, but the Greek empire, founded at the moment when Christianity became the established religion, went on quietly adapting its arts and institutions to its new religion. Art having already degenerated under the later Pagan emperors, and difficulties both from without and from within gradually weakening and undermining the power of the State, it was natural that the changing style should not have that full scope which would have been afforded it had the purifying influences of Christianity acquired full sway during the Augustan age. Painting, sculpture, and architectural carving had lamentably fallen off before they were transferred from the Heathen temple to the Christian church, and even the more mechanical features of Roman architecture had departed widely from their original purity of form. The task prescribed to the new religion was not to take the highest form of Pagan art as it had existed under Pericles or Augustus, and to mould it to its own uses and its own purer and holier sentiments: what she had to deal with was a mere wreck of its former self: all its early simplicity destroyed, its vigour enervated, its magic instinct for beauty gone, its artists fast falling back into barbarism; and that not the savageness of early but untutored art, but the effete and nerveless heartlessness of a race whose glory had departed. It was this lifeless body which Christianity had to awaken to new energy—this dull and spiritless lump out of which she had to mould her future arts, and that at a time when the western half of the empire was about to be crushed to powder by the mighty storm of Northern barbarism, and the eastern portion itself weakened by gradual decay and by the incursions of the Goths, Huns, Persians, etc., and eventually by the tremendous inundation of the followers of Mahomet. That such a glorious result as Byzantine architecture should have been produced out of materials so lifeless, and through the agency of a decaying nation, speaks volumes for the power of religion over art.

Let us turn, however, to the Western empire. There the case is still stronger. With the same decayed and lifeless art as their nucleus, the people of Christian Rome had the additional disadvantage caused by the removal of the seat of government, and with it of the seat of art, to Constantinople; nevertheless, their first efforts were so successful, that though, in the words of Thomas Hope, “The architecture of the Heathen Romans, in its deterioration, followed so regular a course, that that which most nearly preceded the conversion of its rulers to Christianity is also the worst,”—the same author tells us that “the early Christian buildings, from their simplicity, the distinctness, the magnificence, the harmony of their component parts, had a grandeur which we seek in vain in the complicated architecture of modern churches.”

What course art would have taken had the Roman empire continued it is impossible to judge. It was destined to share the fate of the empire itself, and to be utterly overwhelmed by that mighty deluge which severs the ancient from the modern world; so that its Christianisation, instead of being gradual and progressive, as in the East, became a complete reconstruction by the successors of those who had destroyed it, though aided in their work by the friendly hands of those who, in the Eastern empire, had kept alight the lamp of civilisation.[1] The architecture of the West, therefore, instead of being a mere translation of the old style from Pagan to Christian uses and expression, was a new creation, formed, it is true, out of the ancient débris, but nevertheless originated, carried on, and perfected by Christian nations and for Christian uses, and may, consequently, be said, even in a stronger sense than that of Byzantium, to be a distinct Christian style; and I suppose none would doubt that its culminating point, and that to which all its progress tended, was the Pointed architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

An argument against its claim to the title has been founded on the theory that the Pointed arch, which is, in some respects, the culminating feature of the style, was not developed spontaneously by our Christian forefathers, but learned by them from the Saracens. As well might it be attempted to sever Grecian architecture from the mythology and traditions of the Greeks, merely because some of its details may find their prototypes in Egypt or Assyria, or to disconnect the native architecture of India from their religion, because its first inspiration seems traceable to the Fire-worshippers of ancient Persia! Even Saracenic architecture itself was an emanation from that of Christian Greece; so that if we are indebted to it for the Pointed arch (a question which I will not now attempt to investigate), she only paid back to the religion from which she had borrowed. No one, however, can study the tendencies of the late Romanesque without seeing that the Pointed arch was becoming every day more necessary to the development of the germ which the rising style contained. The gradually increasing predominance of the vertical over the horizontal, the increase in the height of pillars and jambs demanding a proportionate addition to the arch; the necessities of groined vaulting over oblong spaces, and a hundred other evidences, proved the Pointed arch to be the inevitable result of the already attained developments; and often had it, almost unconsciously, appeared in intersecting arcades. If its systematic adoption can with certainty be traced to the suggestive architecture of the East, surely this does not unchristianise the already Christian architecture of the soldiers of the Cross, who brought the idea home among the spoils won from their unbelieving foes! Is it not rather in the spirit of our religion to receive tribute and homage from all the nations of the earth? And if it may be said of the Christian Church that

it is equally reasonable to expect of her material temples that

The character of a style of art does not depend upon the mere material from which it has been fabricated, but upon the sentiments under which it has been developed. Were not this the case, all styles, excepting, perhaps, those in China and Central America, with a few others still more obscure, would be more or less connected with the religion of Egypt or of Nineveh; whereas, in fact, every race up to the sixteenth century, had so moulded the original materials upon which its arts had been founded as to render them expressive, in a great degree, of their own sentiments, and especially of their own religion; and more strongly than in any other case was it so with our own forefathers, when developing the latest of all styles of genuine architecture, and moulding it to harmonise with the sentiment of our holy religion.

The last of the historical claims of Pointed architecture to which I will call your attention is, that it is the native architecture of our own country, and that of our own forefathers. Here, again, I must define my meaning for the sake of meeting a class of objectors who delight to attach a false and exaggerated meaning to an expression.

I do not, then, mean that Pointed architecture belongs to us in any different sense from that in which it belongs to France or Germany: I do not mean to revive the claims of our country to its origination, nor to assert in its behalf any pre-eminent share in its development. All I mean to urge is the simple fact that, by whatever members of our family of nations it was shared, it was, nevertheless, the architecture of our own country—just as much English as we are ourselves—as indigenous to our country as are our wild flowers, our family names, our customs, or our political constitution.

In England, as in France and Germany, the same Romanesque architecture had (with local varieties) grown up with the new civilisation; as it perfected itself it showed in each the same tendencies and the same yearnings, which Pointed architecture could alone satisfy. If it were so that these were at length met by suggestions from the East, it was our forefathers who fought there side by side with those of our neighbours, and the lessons learned and the trophies won were common property. It is possible that France was more rapid in making use of them, and it is certain that Germany was the most tardy in doing so; but in each the result had long been aimed at; in each it was the natural consequence of what had already been attained; and was therefore not the property of one, but the common inheritance of all; and each having attained it, carried it on and developed it in her own way, thus making it in every sense her own.

I am, however, only urging this as a claim which our old architecture has upon our own study. If we investigate the architecture of Egypt, of Assyria, or of Persia, we find that it tells of races with whom we have no national or personal sympathy. If we go to the classic shores of Greece, though there we should be viewing the work of a race whose arts and literature are, more than those of any other people, the property of the world, we nevertheless fail to find anything to connect them in any special sense with ourselves. If we transfer our researches from Greece to Rome—though we now view the vestiges of that mighty empire whose world-wide sway stretched its iron sceptre over our own land, and though we find among them the germ of the arcuated architecture which forms the nucleus of our own styles—they are still severed from us by so wide a gulf that, were it not for the modern revival of their style, they would appear perfectly alien to our race and climate. All these studies must be followed up in distant lands, excepting only those few fragments of Roman work scattered here and there in our own and neighbouring countries—the evidences of universal empire, the footsteps and symbols of ancient servitude. How different is the study of Gothic architecture! Its original exemplars are at our own doors; the very churches, perhaps, in which from our infancy we have worshipped; the monuments of our own forefathers; the works of men bearing our own names, whose armorial badges we are still proud to use; who spoke, in its pristine form, our own language; who sat in our own Parliaments, were lords of still-existing manors, founders of still-surviving charities, men who fought the battles of which we are still proud, and laid the foundations of our liberties and of all those institutions which render the name of England illustrious among the nations of the earth. Surely the architecture which grew up among men so nearly allied to us has a pre-eminent claim upon our attention!

I have thus traced out what appear to me to be the leading historical claims of the style we are treating of, and which I will recapitulate as being—

Istly. That it is the architecture of the modern, as distinguished from the ancient world.

2dly. That it is the architecture of the nations wholly or partially of Germanic origin, in whose hands the civilisation of the modern world has been vested.

3dly. That it is the latest link in the chain of genuine and original styles of architecture, a chain commencing with the first settlement of the human race, and terminating in Gothic architecture.

4thly. That it is, in a stronger sense than can be predicated of any other style, Christian architecture.

5thly, and lastly. That it is pre-eminently the architecture of our own forefathers and of our own land.

I will now proceed to direct your attention to some of the more prominent among its intrinsic claims.

Commencing, then, with its abstract beauty, I will not treat this as a comparative, but as a positive, quality. Differences of taste and education lead us to form varied estimates of the relative merits of the several styles of art, but the most devoted follower of classic antiquity could scarcely question the absolute and intrinsic beauty of a Gothic cathedral. Every style of architecture has had its own glories. The mighty Hall at Karnac; the Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis; that model of symmetry, the Parthenon; the Coliseum at Rome; and that gorgeous congeries of domes which canopied the shrine of Holy Wisdom at Constantinople, all rank among the most noble of the works of man; but who is there so prejudiced as to deny the worthiness of those glorious temples which preside in august serenity over the cities of Northern Europe to an equal place in our admiration? Surely, if abstract beauty and intrinsic grandeur alone are considered, the cathedrals of Amiens, of Rheims, of Chartres, of Bourges, of Strasburg, of Cologne, of Lincoln, Salisbury, or York, with a hundred others, will not suffer by comparison with the works of any previous age? Nay, I am convinced that an unprejudiced umpire would go much further, and pronounce them in most respects far superior to the works of earlier ages; but my argument only requires that they should be admitted as their equals.

The next claim I will state is this—that as trabeated architecture was brought to its highest perfection by the Greeks, so the other great type of construction, arcuated architecture, was perfected by the Mediæval builders; the round-arch variety in the twelfth, and the pointed-arch in the two succeeding centuries. No one who gives the subject a moment’s consideration will doubt the enormous advantages of the arcuated over the trabeated system: indeed, with the materials we have at command in this country, the former style in its purity is in most cases impracticable, as is shown by half our modern attempts at it being in reality arcuation plastered over to look like trabeation.

The peculiar advantages of the pointed arch (though I do not urge them to the exclusion of other forms) are its greater power of carrying weight; its lessened thrust; the facility with which it proportions its height to that of its supporting jambs, and the general feeling of the building in which it is used, whether more or less vertical in its tendency; and its great advantages in groined vaulting.

The next quality I will mention is the extraordinary facility of our style in decorating construction, and in converting structural and useful features into elements of beauty. The arch, its normal feature, supplies to it an endless store of beauty. The vault supplies another inexhaustible fund, and assumes forms unrivalled in any other style. The window, comparatively neglected by the ancient architects, and even hated by the Greeks, was, in the hands of the Gothic builders, a perfect treasury of architectural loveliness; and the introduction of window-glass, an invention nearly unknown to the ancients, became the source of an entirely new and most enchanting art, and one which exercised the most surprising influence upon architecture. The buttress, the natural but unpromising accompaniment of an arcuated style, became in their magic hands, a source of stateliness and varied beauty. The roof, unwillingly shown by the Classic builders, adds solemn dignity to the works of their Northern successors; while, if need be, its timbers are made to contribute liberally to the effect of the interior. The campanile, a structure resulting wholly from practical necessity, became the greatest ornament of Christian cities, and supplied an endless variety of majestic forms, which had no parallels in ancient architecture; and generally, whatever feature, whether homely or otherwise, construction or utility demanded, was at once enlisted, and that with right goodwill and heartiness, among the essential elements of the design.

Carrying out the same spirit, no material was either too rich or too rustic to find an honourable place in the works of these truly Catholic builders. The varied marbles of the Appenines, the polished amethysts of Bohemia, the glass mosaics of the Byzantines, with gold and silver, enamel, brass, and iron, were all brought under tribute to make their richer works glorious; yet they were equally at home in the use of brick, or flint, or rubble, and did not despise even a homely coating of plaster, if only it were honestly and truthfully used. And, what is more remarkable, they excelled in the use of nearly every one of these materials, and varied their design with instinctive precision to meet every one of their individual conditions.

Carrying on the same spirit a step further, Gothic architecture shapes itself instinctively to varied climate and local tradition, and that without sacrificing its leading principles. It is true that its great normal types are found in Northern Europe, and that the north of France may, perhaps, be considered as its central province; yet how admirably does it shape itself to the varied conditions of Italy or Spain, to the valleys of Switzerland or the inhospitable shores of Scandinavia! while in every country where it prevailed it assumes a national type, and in every province a local variety.

In the same way, again, it suits itself to every grade and every class of building to which it is applied. It is equally at home in the humble chapel of the rustic hamlet as in the metropolitan cathedral. The traveller through Lincolnshire is no less charmed by the village churches which rise in such profusion from its level surface than with the majestic minster, which, from its lofty site, surveys the whole county; nor are we, after wondering at the stupendous grandeur of York, the less disposed to be delighted with the little village chapel at Skelton; and even the rudest structures of the most obscure district possess a truthfulness and a sentiment which does more than compensate for their rusticity. To pass again to different classes of building, the Mediæval castles, though belonging to a class which the altered modes of warfare have rendered obsolete, are in their degree as noble and as thoroughly suited to their purpose as the sacred structures. The manor-house, the farm, and the cottage, show equal appropriateness of treatment. The timber street-fronts of Coventry or Brunswick; the brick houses of Lubeck or of the Lombard cities, or those of stone at Nuremberg—all evince the same power of meeting the conditions of purpose or material; while the vast warehouses of the commercial cities of Germany, the town halls of Flanders, and the tithe barns of an English village are, in their way, as admirable and as appropriate as the minster at Rheims or the castle at Carnarvon.

Again, Gothic architecture unites all arts in one, more, perhaps, than has been effected by any other style, or, to say the least, fully as much so.

In its normal form a stone architecture, it does not make all other materials conform to this condition, but treats them each according to its own demands. It is almost equally successful in its timber roofs as in its stone construction, and equally perfect in wood as in stone carving; it treats iron and brass in a manner perfectly suited to the varying conditions; it brings in painted decorations of the richest or the simplest character, as best suits the building; it has introduced one all-pervading art entirely of its own—I mean painted glass; and no art perhaps ever contributed in so large a degree to the increase of architectural effect: its jewellery, enamels, ivory carving, embroidery, tapestry, and all other arts are in perfect harmony; and though it fell short of the Classic styles in the perfection of its figure sculpture, it possessed even here a solemn and severe dignity, hardly equalled at any period, and its draperies often exceeded in beauty those of the Classic sculptors.

In describing the sculptures at Wells Cathedral, our revered professor, who possesses, in a greater degree than any one whom it is my privilege to know, the happiness of being susceptible of enthusiastic emotion from the beauties of a rival school of art to that to which he has especially devoted himself, makes the following remarks:—

“Regarded in the right spirit, we shall wonder at the inexhaustible resources of the artist in delineating the various and opposite characters of his multifarious composition—in which no two are to be found alike, and in each of which we find the appropriate idea—and the fulness of embodiment which sustains the dramatis personæ throughout, with an untiring energy of impersonation in costume, symbol, and action, which excites our warmest admiration.

“We have the sanctity of the Monk, the meekness and abstraction of the supreme Pontiff; the Archbishop; the pious energy of the Bishop in the act of benediction; the prudent Abbot; the devoted Anchorite; the haughty and imposing King; the stark conqueror fiercely justifying his usurpation; the placid and impassible Confessor administering his good old laws ...; the inspired Evangelist or the malignant sprite;—each and all discovering a racy energy of conception which the informed artist may envy.”

Again: “The Mediæval artist appealed sometimes to the imagination, and sometimes to the conscience; and thus gave a degree of sentiment to his works, which the moderns can scarcely attempt,—much less attain....

“But it is the moral understanding of the artist which is most affected by the contemplation of so vast an assemblage of Christian art, as contrasted with the Classical, contained in our museums or in ancient monuments. Habituated to the Grecian model, in which the pride of life, the sensuality of beauty, a superhuman energy, or an unreal Elysium are assumed, deluding with a beau-ideal, and disappointing to all human experience, he is brought here to the full admission of the realities and true conditions of human existence—probation by the sweat of the brow, and the grand achievement of eternal life. Art is here employed to impress the great lessons of Truth, the warfare of the world, the subjugation of the natural to the spiritual man, the honest employment of the intellect in the great cause of religion.... No characters enter into this picture which have not been signalised by some great good to society, or some great triumph over all-absorbing self. Wisdom in its true sense, and varying energies of personal or intellectual strength, in a great cause, are the only passports to admission in these records.”

I need not apologise for quoting at so much length from him who has so often and so eloquently addressed you from this place, and cannot refrain from adding the following admirable reflections to which the work he was describing gave rise:—

“The poetic faculty, the fine sense of beauty, grace, and humour, are the gifts of nature: technical and mechanical skill may be acquired by academy and happy circumstances. The union of these qualifications, which is requisite to perfection in a work of art, is indeed a rare felicity: their separate existence is a melancholy fact, exhibited by the history of schools; in which, for the most part mechanism and technicality usurp the higher attainment, and the wide distinction between the professional practitioner and the inborn artist is made apparent to us. But the end of all sound criticism should be to recognise these distinctions; to seize the poetical conception, however encumbered with a faulty execution; and to appreciate in their true merit the more exalted and the rarer qualities; else the poet descends to the grammarian, and the intellectual artist to the handicraftsman.”

In foliated sculpture the Mediæval artists exceeded those of, perhaps, any other period. In their works you find the finest specimens of conventional or imaginary foliage,—founded on natural principles, yet not imitated from nature,—the best instances of the introduction of natural foliage, either wholly or united with the conventional,—and the most admirable examples of conventionalising nature, or, as Mr. Ruskin defines it, “bringing it into service,” so as to suit it to the material and to the forms, conditions, and purposes of architectural decoration, whether in relief or in painting. And not the least valuable of the lessons we learn from them is the acknowledgment of the mind and imagination of the art workman, who was not, as in classic architecture, employed to make for his capitals, or other features, an indefinite number of facsimiles of a single model, much less, as in most modern works, to copy in a hundred buildings a model which its author never meant to be used but in one; but after having acquired a due amount of skill in the arrangement and execution of his foliage, and a due knowledge of the general tone and feeling which the architect desired to express, was then left, under only general guidance, to the indulgence of his own inventive and artistic faculties, and thus rendered every capital, every boss, and every cusp a distinct and separate work of art, though all in harmony with the ideal of the whole design.

In variety of expression Gothic architecture is excelled by none, being equally capable of the sternest and most majestic severity, and the most exquisite and refined elegance, as well as of all the intermediate varieties.

In beauty of external outline no other style of architecture approaches it; and in the variety, depth, and refined delicacy of the profiles of its mouldings it stands unrivalled. Time would fail me to tell of the wonderful manner in which our style shapes itself to every accidental requirement; grapples with every difficulty, and converts it into a source of beauty; disdains, on the one hand, all artificially effected symmetry, nor, on the other, fears to submit to the most rigid uniformity, should the conditions of the case require it, being equally noble in the castle, where no two parts are alike or, as in the Hall at Ypres, where scarcely any two are different; how it meets every emergency with the utmost frankness and honesty; how it disdains all deception; thus contrasting itself, not with other genuine styles, for none really systematically admit of shams, but with the despicable trickiness which our modern architects have learned from their own plasterers and house-painters. Nor have I time to treat of the boldness, freedom, and originality of its conceptions. But, above all, its great glory is the solemnity of religious character which pervades the interior of its temples. To this all its other attributes must bend, as it is this which renders it so pre-eminently suited to the highest uses of the Christian Church. It was this probably which led Romney to exclaim, that if Grecian architecture was the work of glorious men, Gothic was the invention of gods.

Having—I fear at too great length—sketched out the claims of Mediæval architecture upon your study, I will conclude with a few remarks as to the spirit with which that study should be undertaken, the manner in which it should be pursued, and the practical objects for which it should be followed up.

In the first place, I will premise that your studies should not be undertaken in a spirit of mere antiquarianism. We owe very much to antiquaries, and far be it from me to depreciate the value of their researches; on the contrary, I think that the enlightened system on which they are followed up is one of the things of which our age has to be proud, and one for which, as lovers of art, we have great cause for gratitude; nor do I wish to discourage the pursuit of such investigations by architects. It is, in some degree, a necessary accompaniment to their studies, and will always add interest to them. What I wish to suggest is that our own proper subject is art rather than antiquity. The fact that the types from which we have to study have grown old is accidental: their merits and their value are perfectly irrespective of their age, and would have been as great had they been erected in our own day; nay, more so, for then we should be following up, as in former days, the works of our own immediate predecessors, and should not be suffering, as now, from a great and unnatural hiatus in the history of our art. In the second place, our studies should not be undertaken in a spirit of mere philosophical investigation: that, too, is very useful in its place, and is an important element in the study of art, though somewhat too cold to suit the feelings which belong to the true artist.

I would suggest two classes of sentiments as especially suited to our own studies, somewhat opposite in their character, and each calculated to temper and correct any tendency to undue excess in the other. On the one hand, I would urge that your studies should be the earnest following up of the genuine impulses of the heart;—that their primary characteristics should be warmth, enthusiasm, veneration, and love. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Never repress in yourselves, nor ridicule in others, the generous impulses of enthusiasm. They are the very soul of art; they are the fresh spring flowers of the youthful mind, the life-spring of every noble thought and action: without them art would cease to exist, and we should sink under the bondage of an iron age. Above all, cultivate these feelings now that you are young: guard and cherish them as you would the choicest and tenderest of flowers; for, depend upon it, the chilling blasts of advancing years, and the deadening contact of a hard and unsentimental world, will have sufficient tendency to nip the precious bud almost before it has time to burst into bloom. On the other hand, it is necessary that the exercise of this zeal, heartiness, and veneration, should be regulated by sound and discriminating judgment,—a perfect and unfettered freedom of thought, and an eye to real beauty of form and reasonableness of construction and design; so that our generous enthusiasm may not betray us into forming erroneous judgments.

However perfect a style of art may be, its productions are not all perfect nor all of equal merit; while every human art has had its period of rise, culmination, and decline; and, enthusiastic and heart-stirring as must be our feelings towards any art in which we hope to excel, and intense as may be our veneration for the skill and noble sentiment of its original masters, these feelings should in no degree be permitted to blunt the sensitiveness of our own instinctive perception of beauty, whether positive or relative, nor to bias the freedom of our judgment as in the comparative truthfulness, propriety, or genuineness of the works of different periods or of different hands. We must keep a constant balance between our zeal and our judgment—not repressing the exercise of either, but giving each its full play, and exercising each in its highest and noblest degree.

I now come to the manner in which Mediæval architecture should be studied.

In the first place, though books and prints are very useful in their degree, let me impress upon you, in the strongest manner, that all real study should be at the fountain head. You may derive information as to the history of art from books, but knowledge of art itself must be derived from works of art. The knowledge derived from books and prints comes to you at second hand—you are seeing through other men’s eyes; the really useful information is that which you obtain at the first hand, and through your own eyes. If you learn a fact from a book, be never satisfied till you have proved it by your own observation; if you are impressed with the beauty of a building from a drawing or a print, make sure of its being really beautiful by examining it for yourselves. Investigate every theory, however rudimental, by actual examination of the data on which it is founded, so that none of your knowledge shall be merely taken upon trust from others.

During a genuine and natural state of art, every one learned it from, and developed it upon, the works of his immediate predecessors. This natural course having been broken up, the most reasonable substitute for it is to study the actual works which surround us, and which were produced while art was still genuine and unbroken. We have not to visit distant shores, and to investigate obscure fragments,—the works of races which have vanished from the face of the earth: we are surrounded on every side by original examples of the arts which we would study; they are the productions of our own country and our own race. The temples from which our authorities are derived are not those of an ancient and bygone nation, but those in which we ourselves worship, and within and around whose hallowed walls sleep the remains of our own forefathers. We study no outlandish or exotic architecture, but that of buildings which from our infancy we have been taught to venerate. We have, then, no excuse if we neglect to obtain our knowledge from the fountain head.

The choice and order of the particular buildings which we select for our studies must depend much upon accidental circumstances; but, as a general rule, I would advise each student to begin with those which are readiest to his hand. If your home is in the country, visit, study, and sketch from your own parish church, and from those immediately surrounding you, widening your circle as you proceed; generally studying the simpler specimens before you venture upon the more magnificent. If you live in London the case is different. The humbler specimens have mostly perished, but the earnest student will still find out many of which the public are ignorant. Here, however, you must for the most part attend to the more magnificent works, and reserve the humbler for your rural excursions; and, above all, you must diligently study the glorious abbey church of Westminster—internally, perhaps, the finest in England, but which, from its proximity, is made nothing like so much use of as it ought to be. Though the village churches round London have suffered more than almost any others, you would still do well to make pedestrian excursions among them, and carefully sketch what remains of them; and by extending your excursions to Waltham and St. Alban’s, to Eltham and Hampton Court, you will find objects of study of the highest merit and the most thrilling interest. I would, however, recommend, as the most profitable mode of following up the subject, more lengthened excursions; as, for instance, pedestrian tours through particular counties or districts, walking from village to village, and carefully sketching everything worthy of note to be found in it, whether ecclesiastical or domestic. This should be repeated over and over again in different districts. If you wish to direct your attention to the nobler productions of architecture, you must seat yourselves down in some cathedral town, and follow it up patiently from day to day, till your time is exhausted. A hasty view to these noblest of structures is of but little use.

Especially would I entreat your attention to those beauteous but melancholy ruins which still mark the sites of ancient monastic institutions. You may find in them the finest and best studied examples of your art—works designed and carried out, not in the bustle and busy hum of cities, but under the quieting influence of learned retirement: they are the works of the most thoughtful spirits of their age, and have received their utmost study and consideration. Not only are they intrinsically among the most beautiful specimens you can visit, but their present condition is calculated to impress them the most deeply upon the imagination and memory.

It is well to visit these remains alone; to stay long at them; to study them thoroughly, and not to repress the emotions to which they are calculated to give rise. I would also plead for them on another ground. There are many of them fast mouldering away or tottering to their fall. A few years more, and many of them will have perished. Lend, then, a friendly hand while they still exist, and rescue from oblivion their noble details by making careful and measured drawings of every part; so that, when the reality is no more, the truthful representation at least will be preserved.

I need hardly say that no works of art can be really profitably studied without drawing from them. The memory will not retain its impressions by mere abstract study and observation. I would not advise hasty and careless sketching, unless your time is so short as to render more impossible, but would urge upon you the necessity of carefully and assiduously drawing whatever strikes you as worthy of it, making measured drawings whenever you can, and noting down your impressions as to the merits or the defects of the work. So study what you see as thoroughly to learn it,—as if no one had ever made drawings of it before. Never buy prints or photographs of it as substitutes for your own work; though they are most useful when you have done all you can for yourself. In this way you will in a few years obtain a good knowledge of the architecture of your own country, and this is the best preparation for studying the contemporary works of other lands.

I would never encourage a student to go too early abroad. Study well our own examples first, and follow up foreign ones later.

When you go abroad, begin with France. It is the great centre of Mediæval art. Perhaps the best course is to take Normandy first, as being most allied to our own country; but still more important is the district round Paris—the old royal domain—which seems to be the heart from which Gothic architecture diffused itself throughout Europe. The architecture of this central district, particularly in works of the thirteenth century, demands the closest and the most diligent study; it is the great standard and type of the style, and, without a good knowledge of it, your studies would be not only incomplete, but defective at the most vital part.

After France, I would recommend Germany. Pointed architecture in Germany is a direct emanation from France, far more so than is the case with that of our own country. Yet it has a character of its own which it is well to study, and the later Romanesque of Germany, which is contemporary with the early Pointed architecture of France and England, is replete with beauty and suggestiveness.

Italy should come after France and Germany; and the study of its Mediæval works is, in my opinion, necessary to the completeness of the course I am suggesting. It should, however, be undertaken with much caution, without which it is apt to lead astray. I have above recommended you never to repress the generous impulses of enthusiasm; I fear, however, I must here make an exception to my rule. On first visiting Italy, the scenes are so new and so exciting, and the effects of the climate and the beauty of the atmosphere so intoxicating to the feelings, that we are apt to view everything through an exaggerating medium. Without repressing noble and generous emotions, I would still suggest that a rigorous watch should be kept over the undue effect of merely external influences. “Put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.” With proper safeguards, however, on this head, southern Gothic is one of the most useful and delightful branches of the studies which lie before you, and supplies many a hiatus which would otherwise exist.

I hope, however, on some future occasion, to say more on this subject. For the present, I will close my remarks on the manner in which Gothic architecture should be studied, by saying that it is not mere architecture which you will have to attend to: painted decoration, whether in its nobler or humbler branches, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, metal-work, jewellery, enamelling, seals, carved ivories, embroidery, and a hundred other subsidiary branches, possess an almost equal claim upon your attention; and many of these must be followed up in museums and public libraries, in collections of archives, and in the sacristies and treasuries of monasteries and cathedrals, where, for the most part, they lie hidden and unknown to the busy world around. Nor would I leave you to suppose that the objects of your study should be either exclusively, or even, perhaps, mainly, ecclesiastical. You must search out with the utmost diligence the remnants of civil, secular, and domestic buildings of the same ages: without this your studies would be imperfect indeed! The caprice of individuals and the love of living in new houses, have rendered these remains most imperfect and fragmentary; yet the fragments are strewn on all sides of us, and demand to be carefully collected, and not a village you pass will fail to supply you with some contribution.

Finally. What are the special objects for which this course of study should be undertaken? They are, I think, threefold.

First. For the mere sake of acquainting ourselves with one of the most remarkable phases in the whole history of art, and that which belonged to our own race, country, and religion. It is one of the most striking characteristics of our day that in it alone, of all periods of the world’s history, the arts of all preceding times are studied and their history understood; and strange would it be if, while traversing every land to glean vestiges of its bygone arts, we should neglect to acquaint ourselves with that noble style which prevailed among our own forefathers, and whose glorious monuments surround us on every side.

The second object is one of a more practical nature. These noble monuments, the pride and glory of our land, have, through the lapse of time and the barbarous hand of modern Vandalism, become in many cases so decayed and mutilated as to demand at our hands the most careful and judicious reparations. This cannot safely be undertaken by any but those who have as perfect knowledge as is possible of their architecture, and who are able to trace out with precision the history and changes they have undergone, and whose feelings are such as to lead them to deal tenderly and lovingly with them. This alone is a sufficient object to induce a careful study of our Mediæval architecture.

There remains, however, a third object to lead us to this study, but it is one on which so much difference of opinion exists, that I must avoid on the present occasion doing more than naming it. I refer, of course, to the revival of Pointed architecture now going on. The promoters of this great movement do not desire to revive a departed art, however glorious, exactly as they find it in its original remains. Such may naturally be the character of their first essays, but it is not their ultimate wish. Their view is rather this: that, feeling deeply the fact that we have long since ceased to possess an architecture which can be said to belong to our race or our age, and fully agreeing with those who desire to see a new development of our art to meet these demands, they feel that the most probable foundation for such a development is the native architecture of our own race and country, and that the thorough study of its principles may tend in time to promote the formation of an architecture of the future, which will be more thoroughly our own than that, however meritorious, which has been founded upon traditions of the ancient world.

LECTURE II.

Sketch of the Rise of Mediæval Architecture.