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CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
PLATE JX.— (Frontispiece— Yol. V.) 
 Tracery from thk Campanile of Giotto at Florence; 
 
Illustrated Cabinet edition 
 
 'Che Seven Lamps of Hrcbitecture 
 ^ Lectures on Hrcbitecture and 
 painting ^ ^ Zbc Study of 
 Hrcbitecture ^ by j(obn Ruskin 
 
 JMcrriU and Baker 
 
 Publishers /? /^^ New 
 torh ^ /? ^ ^ ^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ........ 5 
 
 Introduction ....... 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Lamp of Sacrifice ... . . 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Lamp of Truth ...... 74 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Lamp of Power . ..... 6g 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Lamp of Beauty ...... 100 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Lamp of Life . . . . . . .142 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 The Lamp of Memory ..... 167 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Lamp of Obedience ...... 188 
 
 Notes ....,,,. 203 
 
LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING 
 
 Preface ........ 213 
 
 Lecture I. ..... . . . 217 
 
 Lecture IL ...... . 248 
 
 Addenda to Lectures I. and II. ..... 270 
 
 Lecture III. Turner and his Works . . . 287 
 
 Lecture IV. Pre-Raphaelitism . . . . .311 
 
 Addenda to Lecture IV. ..... 334 
 
 THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 An Inquiry into the Study of Architecture . . 335 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE 
 
 PAGH 
 
 90 
 
 93 
 
 I. Ornaments from Rouen, St. Lo.and Venice . 33 
 
 II. Part of the Cathedral of St. Lo, Normandy . 55 
 
 I I I. Traceries from Caen, Bayehx, Rouen and Beavais 60 
 
 IV. Intersectional Mouldings 66 
 
 V. Capital from the Lower Arcade of the Doge's 
 
 Palace, Venice 88 
 
 VI. Arch from the Facade of the Church of San 
 
 Michelk at Lucca 
 
 VII. Pierced Ornaments from Lisieux, B.ayeux, Verona, 
 
 AND Padua 
 
 VIII. Window from THE Ca' FoscARi, Venice . . 95 
 
 IX. Tracery from the Campanile of Giotto, at Flor- 
 ence. Frontispiece, 
 X. Traceries AND Mouldings from Rouen AND Salisbury 122 
 XI. Balcony IN THE Campo, St. Benedetto, Venice . 131 
 XII. Fragments from Abbeville, Lucca, Venice and Pisa 149 
 
 XIII. Portions of an Arcade on the South Side of the 
 
 Cathedral of Ferrara 161 
 
 XIV. Sculptures from the Cathedral of Rouen . . 165 
 
 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING 
 
 Plate I. Figs, i, 3 and 5. Illustrative Diagrams . 219 
 
 " II. " 2. Window in Oakham Castle . . .221 
 " III. " 4 and 6. Spray of ash-tree, and improvement 
 
 of the same on Greek Principles . 226 
 
PAGE 
 
 Tlate IV. Fig. 7. Window in Dumblane Cathedral . 231 
 
 " V. " 8. Medieval Turret 235 
 
 VI. " 9 and 10. LOMBARDIC ToWERS . . . 238 
 
 " VII. " II and 12. Spires AT CoNTANCES AND Rouen 240 
 
 " VIII. " 13 and 14. Illustrative Diagrams . . 253 
 
 " IX. " 15, Sculpture AT Lyons .... 254 
 
 " X. " 16. Niche at Amiens 255 
 
 " XI. " 17 AND 18. Tiger's Head, and improvement 
 
 OF THE SAME ON GREEK PRINCIPLES . 258 
 
 " XII. " 19. Garret Window in Hotel de Bourgthe- 
 
 RouDE 265 
 
 " XIII. " 20 AND 21. Trees, as drawn in the thir- 
 teenth century .... 294 
 
 " XIV. " 22. Rocks, as drawn by the school of Leon- 
 ardo da Vinci 296 
 
 " XV. " 23. Boughs of Trees, after Titian . . 298 
 
THE 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS 
 
 OF 
 
 ARCHITECTURE 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 The memoranda which form the basis of the following 
 Essay have been thrown together dm-ing the preparation of 
 one of the sections of the third Tolimie of " Modern Paint- 
 ers." * I once thought of giving them a more expanded form ; 
 but their utility, such as it may be, would probably be dimin- 
 ished by farther delay in their pubUcation, more than it would 
 be increased by greater care in their arrangement. Obtained 
 in every case by personal observation, there may be among 
 them some details valuable even to the experienced architect ; 
 but with respect to the opinions founded upon them I must 
 be prepared to bear the charge of impertinence which can 
 hardly but attach to the writer who assumes a dogmatical tone 
 in speaking of an art he has never practised. There are, how- 
 ever, cases in which men feel too keenly to be silent, and per- 
 haps too strongly to be wrong ; I have been forced into this 
 impertinence ; and have suffered too much from the destruc- 
 tion or neglect of the architecture I best loved, and from the 
 erection of that which I cannot love, to reason cautiously re- 
 
 * The inordinate delay in the appearance of that supplementary vol- 
 ume has, indeed, been chiefly owing to the necessity under which the 
 writer felt himself, of, obtaining as many memoranda as possible of 
 medisBval buildings in Italy and Normandy, now in process of destruction, 
 before that destruction should be consummated by the Restorer or Rev- 
 olutionist. His whole time has been lately occupied in taking drawings 
 from one side of buildings, of which masons were knocking down the 
 other ; nor can he yet pledge himself to any time for the publication of 
 the conclusion of "Modern Painters;" he can only promise that its 
 delay shall not be owing to any indolence on his part. 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 specting tlie modesty of my opposition to the principles which 
 have induced the scorn of the one, or directed the design of 
 the other. And I have been the less careful to modify the 
 confidence of my statements of principles, because in the midst 
 of the opposition and uncertainty of our architectiu"al systems, 
 it seems to me that there is something grateful in any positive 
 opinion, though in many points wrong, as even weeds are use- 
 ful that grow on a bank of sand. 
 
 Every apology is, however, due to the reader, for the hasty 
 and imperfect execution of the plates. Having much more 
 serious work in hand, and desiring merely to render them 
 illustrative of my meaniag, I have sometimes very completely 
 failed even of that humble aim ; and the text, being generally 
 written before the illustration was completed, sometimes 
 naively describes as sublime or beautiful, features which the 
 plate represents by a blot. I shall be grateful if the reader 
 wOl in such cases refer the expressions of praise to the Archi- 
 tecture, and not to the illustration. 
 
 So far, however, as their coarseness and rudeness admit, 
 the plates are valuable ; being either copies of memoranda 
 made upon the spot, or (Plates IX. and XI.) enlarged and 
 adapted from Daguerreotypes, taken under my ovpn superin- 
 tendence. Unfortunately, the great distance from the ground 
 of the window which is the subject of Plate IS. renders even 
 the Daguerreotype indistinct ; and I cannot answer for the 
 accuracy of any of tlie mosaic details, more especially of those 
 which suiToimd the window, and which I rather imagine, in 
 the original, to be sculptured in relief. The general propor- 
 tions are, however, studiously preserved ; the spirals of the 
 shafts are counted, and the effect of the whole is as near that 
 of the thing itself, as is necessary for the purposes of illustra- 
 tion for which the plate is given. For the accuracy of the 
 rest I can answer, even to the cracks in the stones, and the 
 number of them ; and though the looseness of the drawing, 
 and the picturesque character which is necessarily given by an 
 endeavor to draw old buildings as they actually appear, may 
 perhaps diminish their credit for architectm-al veracity, they 
 will do so unjustly. 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 The system of lettering adopted in the few instances in 
 ■which sections have been given, appears somewhat obscure in 
 the references, but it is convenient upon the whole. The line 
 which marks the direction of any section is noted, if the sec- 
 tion be symmetrical, by a single letter ; and the section itself 
 by the same letter with a line over it, a. — a. But if the sec- 
 tion be unsymmetrical, its direction is noted by two letters, 
 a. a. flSj at its exti'emities ; and the actual section by the same 
 letters with lines over them, a. a. a^ , at the corresponding ex- 
 tremities. 
 
 The reader will perhaps be sm-prised by the small number 
 of buildings to which reference has been made. But it is to 
 be remembered that the following chapters pretend only to 
 be a statement of principles, illustrated each by one or two 
 examples, not an essay on European architecture ; and those 
 examples I have generally takeu either from the buildings 
 which I love best, or from the schools of architecture which, it 
 appeared to me, have been less carefully described than they 
 deserved. I could as fully, though not with the accuracy and 
 certainty derived from personal observation, have illustrated 
 the principles subsequently advanced, from the architectiu-e 
 of Egypt, India, or Spain, as from that to which the reader wUl 
 find his attention chiefly du-ected, the ItaHan Komanesque 
 and Gothic. But my affections, as well as my experience, led 
 me to that Hne of richly varied and magnificently intellec- 
 tual schools, which reaches, Kke a high watershed of Christian 
 architecture, from the Adriatic to the Northumbrian seas, 
 bordered by the impure schools of Spain on the one hand, 
 and of Germany on the other : and as culminating points and 
 centres of this chain, I have considered, first, the cities of the 
 Val d'Arno, as representing the Italian Komanesque and pure 
 Italian Gothic ; Venice and Verona as representing the Italian 
 Gothic colored by Byzantine elements ; and Kouen, with the 
 associated Norman cities, Caen, Bayeux, and Coutances, as rep- 
 resenting the entire range of Northern architecture from the 
 Komanesque to Flamboyant. 
 
 I could have wished to have given more examples from our 
 early English Gothic ; but I have always found it impossible 
 
8 PttEfAOB. 
 
 to work in the cold interiors of our cathedrals, while the dailj 
 services, lamps, and fumigation of those upon the Continent, 
 render them perfectly safe. In the course of last summer I 
 undertook a pilgrimage to the English Shrines, and began with 
 Salisbury, where the consequence of a few days' work was a 
 state of weakened health, which I may be permitted to name 
 among the causes of the slightness and imperfection of the 
 present Essay. 
 
mTEODUOTOEY. 
 
 Some years ago, in conversation with an artist whose works, 
 perhaps, alone, in the present day, unite perfection of drawing 
 with resplendence of color, the writer made some inquiry re- 
 specting the general means by which this latter quality was 
 most easUy to be attained. The reply was as concise as it 
 was comprehensive — " Know what you have to do, and do it " 
 — comprehensive, not only as regarded the branch of art to 
 which it temporarily applied, but as expressing the great 
 principle of success in every direction of human effort ; for I 
 believe that failure is less frequently attributable to either in- 
 sufficiency of means or impatience of labor, than to a confused 
 understanding of the thing actually to be done ; and therefore, 
 while it is properly a subject of ridicule, and sometimes of 
 blame, that men propose to themselves a perfection of any 
 kind, which reason, temperately consulted, might have shown 
 to be impossible with the means at their command, it is a 
 more dangerous error to permit the consideration of means to 
 interfere with our conception, or, as is not impossible, even 
 hinder our acknowledgment of goodness and perfection in 
 themselves. And this is the more cautiously to be remem- 
 bered ; because, while a man's sense and conscience, aided by 
 Revelation, are always enough, if earnestly directed, to enable 
 him to discover what is right, neither his sense, nor conscience, 
 nor feeling, are ever enough, because they are not intended, 
 to determine for him what is possible. He knows neither his 
 own strength nor that of his fellows, neither the exact depend- 
 ence to be placed on his aUies nor resistance to be expected 
 from his opponents. These are questions respecting which 
 passion may warp his conclusions, and ignorance must limit 
 
10 INTRODUCrOBT. 
 
 them ; but it is his own fault if either interfere mth the ap 
 prehension of duty, or the acknowledgment of right. And, as 
 far as I have taken cognizance of the causes of the many fail- 
 ures to which the efforts of intelligent men are liable, more 
 especially in matters political, they seem to me more largely 
 to spring from this single error than from all others, that the 
 inquiry into the doubtful, and in some sort inexplicable, re- 
 lations of capability, chance, resistance, and inconvenience, in- 
 variably precedes, even if it do not altogether supersede, the 
 determination of what is absolutely desirable and just. Nor 
 is it any wonder that sometimes the too cold calculation of 
 our powers should reconcile us too easily to our shortcomings, 
 and even lead us into the fatal error of supposing that our 
 conjectural utmost is in itself well, or, in other words, that 
 the necessity of offences renders them inoffensive. 
 
 What is true of human polity seems to me not less so of the 
 distinctively political art of Ai-chitecture. I have long felt con- 
 vinced of the necessity, in order to its progress, of some de- 
 termined effort to extricate from the confused mass of partial 
 traditions and dogmata with which it has become encumbered 
 during imperfect or restricted practice, those large principles 
 of right which are applicable to every stage and style of it. 
 Uniting the technical and imaginative elements as essentially 
 as humanity does soul and body, it shows the same infir mly 
 balanced liability to the prevalence of the lower part over the 
 higher, to the interference of the constructive, vnth the purity 
 and simplicity of the reflective, element. This tendency, hke 
 every other form of materiahsm, is increasing with the advance 
 of the age ; and the only laws which resist it, based upon 
 j)artial precedents, and already regarded vidth disrespect as 
 decrepit, if not with defiance as tyrannical, are evidently in- 
 appHcable to the new forms and functions of the art, which 
 the necessities of the day demand. How many these necessities 
 may become, cannot be conjectured ; they rise, strange and 
 impatient, out of every modern shadow of change. How far 
 it may be possible to meet them without a sacrifice of the es- 
 sential characters of architectural art, cannot be determined 
 by specific calculation or observance. There is no law, no 
 
INTRODVOTOBT. H 
 
 principle, based on past practice, which may not be overthrown 
 in a moment, by the arising of a new condition, or the inven- 
 tion of a new material ; and the most rational, if not the only, 
 mode of averting the danger of an utter dissolution of all that 
 is systematic and consistent in our practice, or of ancient au- 
 thority ia our judgment, is to cease for a little while, our en- 
 deavors to deal with the multiplying host of particular abuses, 
 restraints, or requirements ; and endeavor to determine, as 
 the guides of every effort, some constant, general, and irre- 
 fragable laws of right — laws, which based upon man's nature, 
 not upon his knowledge, may possess so far the unchangeable- 
 ness of the one, as that neither the increase nor imperfection 
 of the other may be able to assault or invalidate them. 
 
 There are, perhaps, no such laws peculiar to any one art. 
 Their range necessarily includes the entire horizon of man's 
 action. But they have modified forms and operations belong- 
 ing to each of his pursuits, and the extent of their authority 
 cannot surely be considered as a diminution of its weight. 
 Those peculiar aspects of them which belong to the first of the 
 arts, I have endeavored to trace in the following pages ; and 
 since, if truly stated, they must necessarily be, not only safe- 
 guards against every form of error, but sources of every meas- 
 ure of success, I do not think that I claim too much for them 
 in calling them the Lamps of Architecture, nor that it is indo- 
 lence, in endeavoring to ascertain the true nature and nobility 
 of their fire, to refuse to enter into any curious or special ques- 
 tioning of the innumerable hindrances by which their Hght 
 has been too often distorted or overpowered. 
 
 Had this farther examination been attempted, the work 
 would have become ceriainly more inridious, and perhaps less 
 useful, as liable to errors which are avoided by the present 
 simplicity of its plan. Simple though it be, its extent is too 
 great to admit of any adequate accomphshment, unless by a 
 devotion of time which -the writer did not feel justified in with- 
 drawing from branches of inquiry in which the prosecution of 
 works already undertaken has engaged him. Both arrange- 
 ments and nomenclature are those of convenience rather than 
 of system ; the one is arbitrary and the other illogical : nor ia 
 
12 INTROBUOTORT. 
 
 it pretended that all, or even the greater number of, the prut 
 ciples necessary to the well-being of the art, are included in 
 the inquiry. Many, however, of considerable importance vrill 
 be found to develope themselves incidentally from those more 
 specially brought forward. 
 
 Graver apology is necessary for an apparently graver fault. 
 It has been just said, that there is no branch of human work 
 whose constant laws have not close analogy with those which 
 govern every other mode of man's exertion. But, more than 
 this, exactly as we reduce to greater simplicity and surety any 
 one group of these practical laws, we shall find them passing 
 the mere condition of connection or analogy, and becoming 
 the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fibre of the 
 mighty laws which govern the moral world. However mean 
 or inconsiderable the act, there is something in the well doing 
 of it, which has fellowship with the noblest forms of manly 
 virtue ; and the truth, decision, and temperance, which we 
 reverently regard as honorable conditions of the spiritual 
 being, have a representative or derivative influence over the 
 works of the hand, the movements of the frame, and the action 
 of the intellect. 
 
 And as thus every action, down even to the drawing of a 
 line or utterance of a syllable, is capable of a peculiar dignity 
 in the manner of it, which we sometimes express by saying it 
 is truly done (as a line or tone is true), so also it is capable of 
 dignity stiE higher in the motive of ii For there is no action 
 so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose, 
 and ennobled therefore ; nor is any purpose, so great but that 
 slight actions may help it, and may be so done as to help it 
 much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing 
 of God. Hence George Herbert — 
 
 "A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 Therefore, in the pressing or recommending of any act or 
 manner of acting, we have choice of two separate lines of ai-. 
 
JNTRODUOTOBT. 13 
 
 gument : one based on representation of the expediency or 
 inherent value of the work, which is often small, and always 
 diaputable ; the other based on proofs of its relations to the 
 higher orders of human virtue, and of its acceptableness, so 
 far as it goes, to Him who is the origin of virtue. The former 
 ia commonly the more persuasive method, the latter assuredly 
 the more conclusive ; only it is liable to give offence, as if 
 there were irreverence in adducing considerations so weighty 
 in treating subjects of small temporal importance. I believe, 
 however, that no error is more thoughtless than this. We 
 treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our 
 thoughts, not by referring to His will on slight occasions. 
 His is not the finite authority or intelligence which cannot be 
 troubled with small things. There is nothing so small but 
 that we may honor God by asking His guidance of it, or in- 
 sult Him by taking it into our own hands ; and what is true 
 of the Deity is equally true of His Kevelation, We use it 
 most reverently when most habitually : our insolence is in 
 ever acting without reference to it, our true honoring of it is 
 in its universal application. I have been blamed for the 
 familiar introduction of its sacred words. I am grieved to 
 have given pain by so doing ; but my excuse must be my wish 
 that those words were made the ground of every argument 
 and the test of every action. We have them not often enough 
 on our Hps, nor deeply ehough in our memories, nor loyally 
 enough in our lives. The snow, the vapor, and the stormy 
 wind fulfil His word. Ai-e our acts and thoughts lighter and 
 wilder than these — that we should forget it ? 
 
 I have therefore ventured, at the risk of giving to some 
 passages the appearance of irreverence, to take the higher 
 line of argument wherever it appeared clearly traceable : and 
 this, I would ask the reader especially to observe, not merely 
 because I think it the best mode of reaching ultimate truth, 
 stUl less because I think the subject of. more importance than 
 many others ; but because every subject should surely, at a 
 period like the present, be taken up in this spirit, or not at 
 all. The aspect of the years that approach us is as solemn as 
 it is full of mystery ; and the weight of evil against which wa 
 
14 INTRO D UCTOB T. 
 
 have to contend, is increasing like the letting out of water. 
 It is no time for the idleness of metaphysics, or the entertain- 
 ment of the arts. The blasphemies of the earth are sounding 
 louder, and its miseries heaped heavier every day ; and if, in 
 the midst of the exertion vyhich every good man is called upon 
 to put forth for their repression or reUef, it is lawful to ask 
 for a thought, for a moment, for a lifting of the finger, in any 
 direction but that of the immediate and overwhelming need, 
 it is at least incumbent upon us to approach the questions in 
 which we would engage him, in the spirit which has become 
 the habit of his mind, and in the hope that neither his zeal 
 nor his usefulness may be checked by the withdrawal of an 
 hour which has shown him how even those things which 
 seemed mechanical, indifferent, or contemptible, depend for 
 their perfection upon the acknowledgment of the sacred prin- 
 ciples of faith, truth, and obedience, for which it has become 
 the occupation of his life to contend. 
 
THE 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE LAMP OF SACBIPICE. 
 
 L Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns tl^e 
 edifices raised by man for whatsoever uses, that the sight or 
 them contributes to his mental health, power and pleasure. 
 
 It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry, to distin- 
 guish carefully between Architecture and Building. 
 
 To bi.iild,_Ute£aUyjto jonfijcia,JlaJxy~jCQiftBaan. 
 to puittogether and adj ust the several pieces of any edifice or 
 receptacle of a considerable size. Thus we have church buUd- 
 ing, house building, ship building, and coach building. That 
 one edifice stands, another floats, and another is suspended 
 on iron springs, makes no difference in the nature of the art, 
 if so it may be called, of building or edification. The iDersons 
 who profess that art, are severally builders, ecclesiastical, 
 naval, or of whatever other name their work may justify ; but 
 building does not become aixhitectui-e merely by the stabiUty 
 of what it erects ; and it is no more architecture which raises 
 a church, or which fits it to receive and contain with comfort 
 a required number of persons occupied in certain religious 
 offices, than it is architecture which makes a carriage com- 
 modious or a ship swift. I do not, of course, mean that the 
 word is not often, or even may not be legitimately, appHed in 
 such a sense (as we speak of naval architecture) ; but in that 
 sense architectui-e ceases to be one of the fine arts, and it is 
 therefore better not to run the risk, by loose nomenclature, of 
 the confusion which would arise, and has often arisen, from 
 
16 TEE LAMP OF SACRIFIOE. 
 
 extending principles which belong altogether to building, into 
 the sphere of architecture proper. 
 
 Let us, therefore, at once confine the name to that art 
 •which, taking up and admitting, as conditions of its working, 
 the necessities and common uses of the building, impresses on 
 its form certain characters venerable or beautiful, but other- 
 wise unnecessary. Thus, I suppose, no one would call the 
 laws architectural which determine the height of a breastwork 
 or the position of a bastion. But if to the stone facing of that 
 bastion be added an unnecessary feature, as a cable moulding, 
 that is Architecture. It would be similarly unreasonable to 
 call battlements or machicolations architectural features, so 
 long as they consist only of an advanced gallery supported on 
 projecting masses, with open intervals beneath for offence. 
 But if these projecting masses be carved beneath into rounded 
 courses, which are useless, and if the headings of the intervals 
 be arched and trefoiled, which is useless, that is Architecture. 
 It may not be always easy to draw the line so sharply and 
 simply, because there are few buildings which have not some 
 pretence or color of being architectural ; neither can there be 
 any architecture which is not based on buUding, nor any 
 good architecture which is not based on good building ; but 
 it is perfectly easy and very necessary to keep the ideas dis- 
 tinct, and to understand fully that Architecture concerns itself 
 only with those characters of an edifice which are above and 
 beyond its common use. I say common ; because a building 
 raised to the honor of God, or in memory of men, has surely a 
 use to which its architectural adornment fits it ; but not a use 
 which limits, by any inevitable necessities, its plan or details. 
 
 n. Architecture proper, then, naturally arranges itself un- 
 der five heads : — 
 
 Devotional ; including all buildings raised for God's ser- 
 vice or honor. 
 
 Memorial ; including both monuments and tombs. 
 
 Civil ; including every edifice raised by nations or societies, 
 for purposes of common business or pleasure. 
 
 Military ; including all private and public architecture of 
 defence. 
 
THE LAMP OF SACBIFIO& 17 
 
 Domestic ; including every rank and kind of dwelling-place. 
 
 Now, of the principles which I would endeavor to develope, 
 while all must be, as I have said, applicable to every stage and 
 style of the art, some, and especially those which are exciting 
 rather than directing, have necessarily fuller reference to one 
 kind of building than another ; and among these I would place 
 first that spirit which, having influence in all, has nevertheless 
 such especial reference to devotional and memorial architec- 
 ture — the spirit which offers for such work precious things sim- 
 ply because they are precious ; not as being necessary to the 
 building, but as an offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of 
 what is to ourselves desirable. It seems to me, not only that 
 this feeling is in most cases wholly wanting in those who for- 
 ward the devotional buildings of the present day ; but that it 
 would even be regarded as an ignorant, dangerous, or perhaps 
 criminal principle by many among us. I have not space to 
 enter into dispute of all the various objections which may be 
 urged against it — they are many and spacious ; but I may, 
 perhaps, ask the reader's patience while I set down those sim- 
 ple reasons which cause me to beheve it a good and just feel- 
 ing, and as well-pleasing to God and honorable in men, as it 
 is beyond all dispute necessary to the production of any great 
 work in the kind with which we are at present concerned, 
 
 UL Now, first, to define this Lamp, or Spirit of Sacrifice, 
 clearly. I have said that it prompts us to the offering of 
 precious things merely because they are precious, not because 
 they are useful or necessary. It is a spirit, for instance, which 
 of two marbles, equally beautiful, appHcable and durable, 
 would choose the more costly because it was so, and of two 
 kinds of decoration, equally effective, would choose the more 
 elaborate because it was so, in order that it might in the same 
 compass present more cost and more thought. It is therefore 
 most unreasoning and enthusiastic, and perhaps best nega- 
 tively defined, as the opposite of the prevalent feeling of 
 modern times, which desires to produce the largest results at 
 the least cost. 
 
 Of this feeUng, then, there are two distinct forms : the first, 
 the wish to exercise self-denial for the sake of self-disciplin9 
 
18 THS: LAMP OF SAGBIFIOE. 
 
 merely, a •vvisli acted upon in the abandonment of things 
 loved or desired, there being no direct call or purpose to be 
 answered by so doing ; and the second, the desire to honor or 
 please some one else by the costliness of the sacrifice. The 
 practice is, in the first case, either private or public ; but most 
 frequently, and perhaps most properly, private ; while, in the 
 lattet case, the act is commonly, and with greatest advantage, 
 publie. Now, it cannot but at first appear futile to assert the 
 expediency of self-denial for its own sake, when, for so many 
 sakes, it is every day necessary to a far greater degree than 
 any of us practise it. But I believe it is just because we do 
 not enough acknowledge or contemplate it as a good in itself, 
 that we are apt to fail in its duties when they become impera- 
 tive, and to calculate, with some partiality, whether the good 
 propoised to others measures or warrants the amount of griev- 
 ance to ourselves, instead of accepting vrith gladness the op- 
 portunity of sacrifice as a personal advantage. Be this as it 
 may, it is not necessalT' to insist upon the matter here ; since 
 there are always higher aaid more useful channels of self- 
 sacrifice, for those who choose to practise it, than any con- 
 nected with the arts. 
 
 While in its second branch, that which is especially con- 
 cerned vsdth the arts, the justice of the feeling is still more 
 doubtful ! it depends on our answer to the broad question. 
 Can the Deity be indefed honored by the presentation to Him 
 of any material objects of value, or by any direction of zeal 
 or wisdom which is not immediately beneficial to men ? 
 
 For, observe, it is not now the question whether the fair- 
 ness and majesty of a building may or may not answer any 
 moral purpose ; it is not the result of labor in any sort of 
 which we are speaking, but the bare and mere costliness — the 
 substance and labor and time themselves : are these, we ask, 
 independently of their result, acceptable oiferings to God, and 
 considered by Him as doing Him honor ? So long as we re- 
 fer this question to the decision of feeling, or of conscience, 
 or of reason merely, it will be contradictorily or imperfectly 
 answered ; it admits of entire answer only when we have met 
 ftiiother »bd a fax different question, whether the Bible be 
 
TEE LAMP OF 8A0BIFI0E. 19 
 
 indeed one book or two, and whether the character of God 
 revealed in the Old Testament be other than His character 
 revealed in the New. 
 
 IV. Now, it is a most secure truth, that, although the par- 
 ticular ordinances divinely appointed for special purposes at 
 any given period of man's history, may be by the same divine 
 authority abrogated at another, it is impossible that any char- 
 acter of God, appealed to or described in any ordinance past 
 or present, can ever be changed, or understood as changed, 
 by the abrogation of that ordinance. God is one and the 
 same, and is pleased or displeased by the same things for ever, 
 although one part of His pleasure may be expressed at one 
 time rather than another, and although the mode in which 
 His pleasure is to be consulted may be by Him graciously 
 modified to the circumstances of men. Thus, for instance, it 
 was necessary that, in order to the understanding by man of 
 the scheme of Redemption, that scheme should be foreshown 
 from the beginning by the type of bloody sacrifice. But God 
 had no more pleasure in such sacrifice in the time of Mosea 
 than He has now ; He never accepted as a propitiation for sin 
 any sacrifice but the single one in prospective ; and that we 
 may not entertain any shadow of doubt on this subject, the 
 worthlessness of all other sacrifice than this is proclaimed at 
 the very time when typical sacrifice was most imperatively de- 
 manded. God was a spirit, and could be worshipped only in 
 spirit and in truth, as singly and exclusively when every day 
 brought its claim of typical and material service or ofiferingj 
 as now when He asks for none but that of the heart. 
 
 So, therefore, it is a most safe and sure principle that, if in 
 the manner of performing any rite at any time, circumstances 
 can be traced which we are either told, or may legitimately 
 conclude, pleased God at that time, those same circumstances 
 will please Him at all times, in the performance of all rites or 
 oflSces to which they may be attached in like manner ; imless 
 it has been afterwards revealed that, for some special purpose, 
 it is now His will that such circumstances should be with- 
 drawn. And this argument wUl have all the more force if it 
 oan be shown that such conditions were not essential to ths 
 
20 TEE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 completeness of the rite in its human uses and bearings, and 
 only were added to it as being in themselves pleasing to God. 
 
 V. Now, was it necessary to the completeness, as a type, of 
 the Levitical sacrifice, or to its utility as an explanation of 
 divine purposes, that it should cost anything to the person in 
 whose behalf it was offered ? On the contrary, the sacrifice 
 which it foreshowed was to be God's free gift ; and the cost 
 of, or difi&culty of obtaining, the sacrificial type, could only 
 render that type in a measure obscure, and less expressive of 
 the offering which God would in the end provide for all men. 
 Yet this costliness was generally a condition of the accept- 
 ableness of the sacrifice. " Neither will I offer unto the Lord 
 my God of that which doth cost me nothing." * That costli- 
 ness, therefore, must be an acceptable condition in all human 
 offerings at all times ; for if it was pleasing to God once, it 
 must please Him always, imless directly forbidden by Him 
 afterwards, which it has never been. 
 
 Again, was it necessary to the typical perfection of the 
 Levitical offering, that it should be the best of the flock? 
 Doubtless the spotlessness of the sacrifice renders it more ex- 
 pressive to the Christian mind ; but was it because so expres- 
 sive that it was actually, and in so many words, demanded by 
 God ? Not at all. It was demanded by Him expressly on the 
 same grounds on which an earthly governor would demand it, 
 as a testimony of respect. " Offer it now unto thy governor." | 
 And the less valuable offering was rejected, not because it did 
 not image Christ, nor fulfil the purposes of sacrifice, but be- 
 cause it indicated a feeling that would grudge the best of its 
 possessions to Him who gave them ; and because it was a bold 
 dishonoring of God in the sight of man. Whence it may be 
 infaUibly concluded, that in whatever offerings we may now 
 see reason to present unto God (I say not what these may 
 be), a condition of their acceptableness will be now, as it was 
 then, that they should be the best of their kind. 
 
 VI. But farther, was it necessary to the carrying out of the 
 Mosaical system, that there should be either art or splendor 
 in the form or services of the tabernacle or temple ? Was it 
 
 * 2 Sam. xxiv. 34. Deut. xvi. 16, 17. f Mai. i. 8. 
 
THE LAMP OF SAOBIFIOB. 31 
 
 necessary to the perfection of any one of their typical offices, 
 that there should be that hanging of blue, and purple, and 
 scarlet? those taches of brass and sockets of silver? that 
 ■working in cedar and overlaying with gold? One thing at 
 least is evident : there was a deep and awful danger in it ; a 
 danger that the God whom they so worshipped, might be as- 
 sociated in the minds of the serfs of Egypt with the gods to 
 whom they had seen similar gifts offered and similar honors 
 paid. The probability, in our times, of fellowship with the 
 feelings of the idolatrous Romanist is absolutely as nothing 
 compared with the danger to the IsraeUte of a sympathy with 
 the idolatrous Egj'ptian ; ' no speculative, no unproved dan- 
 ger ; but proved fatally by their fall during a month's aban- 
 donment to their own will ; a fall into the most servile idol- 
 atry ; yet marked by such offerings to their idol as their 
 leader was, in the close sequel, instructed to bid them offer to 
 God. This danger was imminent, perpetual, and of the most 
 awful kind : it was the one against which God made provision, 
 not only by commandments, by threatenings, by promises, 
 the most urgent, repeated, and impressive ; but by temporary 
 ordinances of a severity so terrible as almost to dim for a 
 time, in the eyes of His people. His attribute of mercy. The 
 principal object of every instituted law of that Theocracy, of 
 every judgment sent forth in its vindication, was to mark to 
 the people His hatred of idolatry ; a hatred written under 
 their advancing steps, in the blood of the Canaanite, and 
 more sternly still in the darkness of their own desolation, 
 •when the children and the sucklings swooned in the streets 
 of Jerusalem, and the lion tracked his prey in the dust of 
 Samaria.* Yet against this mortal danger provision was not 
 made in one way (to man's thoughts the simplest, the most 
 natural, the most effective), by withdrawing from the worship 
 of the Divine Being whatever could delight the sense, or 
 shape the imagination, or limit the idea of Deity to place. 
 This one way God refused, demanding for Himself such 
 honors, and accepting for Himself such local dwelling, as had 
 been paid and dedicated to idol gods by heathen worshippers; 
 * Lam. ii. 11. 2 Kings zrii. 25. 
 
25t TEB LAMP OF 8A0RIFT0B. 
 
 and for what reason ? Was the glory of the tabernacle neo 
 essary to set forth or image His divine glory to the minds oJ 
 His people ? What ! purple or scarlet necessary to the peo- 
 ple who had seen the great river of Egypt run scarlet to the 
 sea, under His condemnation ? What ! golden lamp and 
 cherub necessary for those who had seen the fires of heaven 
 falling like a mantle on Mount Sinai, and its golden courts 
 opened to receive their mortal lawgiver ? What ! silver clasp 
 and fillet necessary when they had seen the silver waves of the 
 Red Sea clasp in their arched hollows the corpses of the 
 horse and his rider ? Nay — not so. There was but one rea^ 
 son, and that an eternal one ; that as the covenant that He 
 made with men was accompanied with some external sign of 
 its continuance, and of His remembrance of it, so the accept- 
 ance of that covenant might be marked and signified by use, 
 in some external sign of their love and obedience, and sun-en- 
 der of themselves and theirs to His will ; and that their grat' 
 itude to Him, and continual remembrance of Him, might 
 have at once their expression and their enduring testimony in 
 the presentation to Him, not only of the fixsthngs of the herd 
 and fold, not only of the fruits of the earth and the tithe of 
 time, but of all treasures of wisdom and beauty ; of the 
 thought that invents, and the hand that labors ; of wealth of 
 wood, and weight of stone ; of the strengih of iron, and of the 
 light of gold. 
 
 And let us not now lose sight of this broad and unabrogated 
 principle — I might say, incapable of being abrogated, so long 
 as men shall receive earthly gifts from God. Of all that they 
 have His tithe must be rendered to Him, or in so far and in 
 BO much He is forgotten : of the skill and of the treasure, of 
 the strength and of the mind, of the time and of the toU, of- 
 fering must be made reverently ; and if there be any differ- 
 ence between the Levitical and the Christian offering, it is 
 that the latter may be just so much the wider in its range as 
 it is less typical in its meaning, as it is thankful instead of 
 sacrificial There can be no excuse accepted because the 
 Deity does not now visibly dwell in His temple ; if He is in- 
 visible it is only through our failing faith : nor any excuse 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 23 
 
 because other calls are more immediate or more sacred ; this 
 ought to be done, and not the other left undone. Yet this 
 objection, as frequent as feeble, must be more specifically an- 
 swered. 
 
 Vn. It has been said — it ought always to be said, for it is 
 true — that a better and more honoi-able offering is made to 
 our Master in ministry to the poor, in extending the knowledge 
 of His name, in the practice of the virtues by which that name 
 is hallowed, than in material presents to His temple. Assur- 
 edly it is so : woe to all who think that any other kind or man- 
 ner of offering may in any wise take the place of these ! Do 
 the people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word ? 
 Then it is no time for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits ; 
 let us have enough first of walls and roofs. Do the people 
 need teaching from house to house, and bread from day to 
 day? Then they are deacons and ministers we want, not 
 architects. I insist on this, I plead for this ; but let us ex- 
 amine ourselves, and see if this be indeed the reason for our 
 backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not between 
 God's house and His poor : it is not between God's house and 
 His Gospel. It is between God's house and ours. Have we 
 no tesselated colors on our floors ? no frescoed fancies on our 
 roofs ? no niched statuary in our corridors ? no gilded f urnir 
 tui'e in our chambers ? no costly stones in our cabinets ? Has 
 even the tithe of these been offered ? They are, or they ought 
 to be, the signs that enough has been devoted to the great 
 purposes of human stewardship, and that there remains to us 
 what we can spend in luxiu-y ; but there is a greater and 
 prouder luxuiy than this selfish one — that of bringing a por- 
 tion of such things as these into sacred service, and present- 
 ing them for a memorial * that our pleasure as weU. as our toil 
 has been hallowed by the remembrance of Him who gave both 
 the strength and the reward. And until this has been done, 
 I do not see how such possessions can be retained in happiness. 
 I do not understand the feeling which would arch our own 
 gates and pave our own thresholds, and leave the church with 
 its nan-ow door and foot-worn sill ; the feeling which enriches 
 * Num. xxxi. 54. Esa. Ixxvt 11. 
 
24 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 our own chambers with all manner of costliness, and endures 
 the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. There is sel- 
 dom even so severe a choice to be made, seldom so much self- 
 denial to be exercised. There are isolated cases, in which 
 men's happiness and mental activity depend upon a certain 
 degree of luxury in their houses ; but then this is true luxury, 
 felt and tasted, and profited by. In the plurality of instancet 
 nothing of the kind is attempted, nor can be enjoyed ; men's 
 average resources cannot reach it ; and that which they can 
 reach, gives them no pleasure, and might be spared. It will 
 be seen, in the course of the following chapters, that I am no 
 advocate for meanness of private habitation. I would fain in- 
 troduce into it all magnificence, care, and beauty, where they 
 are possible ; but I would not have that useless expense in un- 
 noticed fineries or formalities ; cornicings of ceilings and grain- 
 ing of doors, and fringing of curtains, and thousands such ; 
 things which have become foolishly and apathetically habitual 
 — things on whose common appliance hang whole trades, to 
 which there never yet belonged the blessing of giving one ray 
 of real pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most con- 
 temptible use — things which cause half the expense of life, and 
 destroy more than half its comfort, manliness, respectability, 
 freshness, and facility. I speak from experience : I know 
 what it is to live in a cottage vrith a deal floor and roof, and 
 a hearth of mica slate ; and I know it to be in many respects 
 healthier and happier than living between a Turkey carpet 
 and gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fender. 
 I do not say that such things have not their place and pro- 
 priety ; but I say this, emphatically, that the tenth part of 
 the expense which is sacrificed in domestic vanities, if not 
 absolutely and meaninglessly lost in domestic discomforts, and 
 incumbrances, would, if collectively offered and wisely em- 
 ployed, build a marble church for every town in England ; 
 such a church as it should be a joy and a blessing even to 
 pass near in our daily ways and walks, and as it would bring 
 the light into the eyes to see from afar, lifting its fair height 
 above the purple crowd of humble roofs. 
 
 Vm I have said for every town : I do not want a marble 
 
THE LAMP OF SAOSIFIGE. 2i 
 
 church for every village ; nay, I do not want marble churches 
 at all for their own sake, but for the sake of the spirit that 
 would build them. The church has no need of any visible 
 splendors ; her power is independent of them, her purity is in 
 some degree opposed to them. The simplicity of a pastoral 
 sanctuary is loveUer than the majesty of an urban temple ; 
 and it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, 
 such majesty has ever been the source of any increase of effec- 
 tive piety ; but to the builders it has been, and must ever be. 
 It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice ; not the emo- 
 tion of admiration, but the act of adoration : not the gift, but 
 the giving.^ And see how much more charity the full un- 
 derstanding of this might admit, among classes of men of 
 naturally opposite feelings ; and how much more nobleness in 
 the work. There is no need to offend by importunate, self- 
 proclaiming splendor. Your gift may be given in an unpre- 
 suming way. Cut one or two shafts out of a poi-phyry whose 
 preciousness those only would know who would desire it to be 
 so used ; add another month's labor to the undercutting of a 
 few capitals, whose delicacy will not be seen nor loved by one 
 beholder of ten thousand ; see that the simplest masonry of 
 the edifice be perfect and substantial ; and to those who re- 
 gard such things, theii- witness will be clear and impressive ; 
 to those who regard them not, all wiU at least be inoffensive. 
 But do not think the feeling itself a foUy, or the act itself use- 
 less. Of what use was that dearly- bought water of the well 
 of Bethlehem with which the King of Israel slaked the dust 
 of AduUam ? — yet was not thus better than if he had drunk 
 it ? Of what use was that passionate act of Christian sacrifice, 
 against which, first uttered by the false tongue, the very ob- 
 jection we would now conquer took a sullen tone for ever ? * 
 So also let us not ask of what use our offering is to the church : 
 it is at least better for us than if it had been retained for our- 
 selves. It may be better for others also : there is, at any rate, 
 a chance of this ; though we must always fearfully and widely 
 shun the thought that the magnificence of the temple can 
 materially add to the efficiency of the worship or to the powei 
 * Jotm zii. 6. 
 
§6 TEE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 of the ministrj-. WTiatever we do, or whatever we offer, let it 
 not interfere with the simpUcity of the one, or abate, as if /e- 
 placing, the zeal of the other. That is the abuse and fallacy 
 of Eomanism, by which the true spirit of Christian offering is 
 directly contradicted. The treatment of the Papists' temple ia 
 eminently exhibifeory ; it is surface work throughout ; and the 
 danger and evil of their church decoration lie, not in its reality 
 — not in the true wealth and art of it, of which the lower peo- 
 ple are never cognizant — but in its tinsel and ghtter, in the 
 gilding of the shrine and painting of the image, in embroidery 
 of dingy robes and crowding of imitated gems ; all this being 
 frequently thrust forward to the concealment of what is really 
 good or great in their buildings.' Of an offering of gratitude 
 which is neither to be exhibited nor rewarded, which is neither 
 to win praise nor purchase salvation, the Eomanist (as such) 
 has no conception. 
 
 IX. While, however, I would especially deprecate the im- 
 putation of any other acceptableness or usefulness to the gift 
 itself than that which it receives from the spirit of its presen- 
 tation, it may be well to observe, that there is a lower advan- 
 tage which never fails to accompany a dutiful observance of 
 any right abstract principle. While the first fruits of his pos- 
 sessions were required from the Israelite as a testimony of 
 fidelity, the payment of those first fruits was nevertheless re- 
 warded, and that connectedly and specifically, by the increase 
 of those possessions. Wealth, and length of days, and peace, 
 were the promised and experienced rewards of his offering, 
 though they were not to be the objects of it. The tithe paid 
 into the storehouse was the expressed condition of the bless- 
 ing which there should not be room enough to receive. And 
 it will be thus always : God never forgets any work or labor 
 of love ; and whatever it may be of which the first and best 
 proportions or powers have been presented to Him, he will 
 multiply and increase sevenfold. Therefore, though it may 
 not be necessarily the interest of religion to admit the service 
 of the arts, the arts will never flourish until they have been 
 primarily devoted to that service — devoted, both by architect 
 and employer ; by the one in scrupulous, earnest, affectionate 
 
TEE LAMP OF SAOBIFIGE. 27 
 
 design ; by the other in expenditure at least more frank, at 
 least less calculating, than that which he would admit in the 
 indulgence of his own private feelings. Let this principle be 
 but once fairly acknowledged among us ; and however it may 
 be chiUed and repressed in practice, however feeble may be 
 its real influence, however the sacredness of it may be dimin- 
 ished by counter-workings of vanity and self-interest, yet its 
 mere acknowledgment would bring a reward ; and with our 
 present accumulation of means and of intellect, there would 
 be such an impulse and vitality given to art as it has not felt 
 since the thirteenth century. And I do not assert this as 
 other than a national consequence : I should, indeed, expect 
 a larger measure of every great and spiritual faculty to be 
 always given where those faculties had been wisely and relig- 
 iously employed ; but the impulse to which I refer, would 
 be, humanly speaking, certain ; and woiild naturally result 
 from obedience to the two great conditions enforced by the 
 Spirit of Sacrifice, first, that we should in everything do our 
 best ; and, secondly, that we should consider increase of ap- 
 parent labor as an increase of beauty in the building. A few 
 practical deductions from these two conditions, and I have 
 done. 
 
 X. For the first : it is alone enough to secure success, and 
 it is for want of observing it that we continually faU. We 
 are nohe of us so good architects as to be able to work habitu- 
 ally beneath our strength ; and yet there is not a buUdiag 
 that I know of, lately raised, wherein it is not sufficiently 
 evident that neither architect nor builder has done his best. 
 It is the especial characteristic of modem work. AH old 
 work nearly lias been hard work. It may be the hard work 
 of children, of bai'barians, of rustics ; but it is always their 
 utmost. Ours has as constantly the look of money's worth, 
 of a stopping short wherever and whenever we can, of a lazy 
 compliance with low conditions ; never of a fair putting forth 
 of our sti^engtb. Let us have done with this kind of work at 
 once : cast oflf every temptation to it : do not let us degrade 
 ourselves voluntarily, and then mutter and mourn over our 
 stort comings ; let us confess our poverty or our parsimony, 
 
28 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 but not belie our human intellect. It is not even a question 
 of how much we are to do, but of how it is to be done ; it is 
 not a question of doing more, but of doing better. Do not 
 let us boss our roofs with wretched, half-worked, blunt-edged 
 rosettes ; do not let us, flank our gates with rigid imitations 
 of mediaeval statuary. Such things are mere insults to 
 common sense, and only unfit us for feeling the nobUity of 
 their prototypes. We have so much, suppose, to be spent in 
 decoration ; let us go to the Plaxman of his time, whoever 
 he may be, and bid him carve for us a single statue, frieze or 
 capital, or as many as we can afford, compeUing upon him the 
 one condition, that they shall be the best be can do ; place 
 them where they wiU be of the most value, and be content 
 Our other capitals may be mere blocks, and our other niches 
 empty. No matter : better our work unfinished than aU bad. 
 It may be that we do not desire ornament of so high an 
 order ; choose, then, a less developed style, also, if you will, 
 rougher material ; the law which we are enforcing requires 
 only that what we pretend to do and to give, shall both be 
 the best of their kind ; choose, therefore, the Norman hatchet 
 work, instead of the Flaxman frieze and statue, but let it be 
 the best hatchet work ; and if you cannot afford marble, use 
 Caen stone, but from the best bed ; and if not stone, brick, 
 but the best brick ; preferring always what is good of a lower 
 order of work or material, to what is bad of a higher ; for this 
 is not only the way to improve every kind of work, and to put 
 every kind of material to better use ; but it is more honest 
 and unpretending, and is in harmony with other just, upright, 
 and manly principles, whose range we shall have presently to 
 take into consideration. 
 
 XI. The other condition which we had to notice, was the 
 value of the appearance of labor upon architecture. I have 
 spoken of this before ; * and it is, indeed, one of the most 
 frequent sources of pleasure which belong to the art, always, 
 however, within certain somewhat remarkable limits. For it 
 does not at first appear easily to be explained why labor, as 
 represented by materials of value, should, without sense of 
 ♦ Mod. Painters, Part I. Sec 1, Chap. 3. 
 
THE LAMP OF 3A0EIF1CE. 39 
 
 wrong or error, bear being wasted ; while the waste of actual 
 workmanship is always painful, so soon as it is apparent. 
 But so it is, that, while precious materials may, with a certain 
 profusion and negligence, be employed for the magnificence 
 of what is seldom seen, the work of man cannot be carelessly 
 and idly bestowed, without an immediate sense of wrong ; as 
 if the strength of the Uving creature were never intended by 
 its Maker to be sacrificed in vain, though it is well for us 
 sometimes to part with what we esteem precious of sub- 
 stance, an showing that in such a service it becomes but dross 
 and dust. And in the nice balance between the straitening 
 of effort or enthusiasm on the one hand, and vainly casting it 
 away upon the other, there are more questions than can be 
 met by any but very just and watchful feeHng. In general it 
 is less the mere loss of labor that offends us, than the lack 
 of judgment implied by such loss ; so that if men confessedly 
 work for work's sake, and it does not appear that they are ig- 
 norant where or how to make their labor tell, we shall not be 
 grossly offended. On the contrary, we shall be pleased if the 
 work be lost in carrying out a principle, or in avoiding a de- 
 ception. It, indeed, is a law properly belonging to another 
 part of our subject, but it may be allowably stated here, that, 
 whenever, by the construction of a building, some parts of it 
 are hidden from the eye which are the continuation of others 
 bearing some consistent ornament, it is not well that the or- 
 nament should cease in the parts concealed ; credit is given 
 for it, and it should not be deceptively withdrawn : as, for in- 
 stance, in the sculpture of the backs of the statues of a temple 
 pediment ; never, perhaps, to be seen, but yet not lawfully to 
 be left unfinished. And so in the working out of ornaments 
 in dark concealed places, in which it is best to err on the side 
 of completion ; and in the carrying round of string courses, 
 and other such continuous work ; not but that they may stop 
 sometimes, on the point of going into some palpably impene- 
 trable recess, but then let them stop boldly and markedly, on 
 some distinct terminal ornament, and never be supposed to 
 exist where they do not. The arches of the towers which 
 flank the transepts of Eouen Oathedi'al have rpgette ornsr- 
 
30 TEE LAMP OF SACIilFIOJU. 
 
 ments on tlieir spandrils, on the three visible sides ; none on 
 the side towards the roof. The right of this is rather a nice 
 point for question. 
 
 Xn. Visibility, however, we must remember, depends, not 
 only on situation, but on distance ; and there is no way in 
 vhich work is more painfully and unwisely lost than in its 
 over delicacy on parts distant from the eye. Here, again, the 
 principle of honesty must govern our treatment : we must 
 iiot work any kind of ornament which is, perhaps, to cover 
 the whole building (or at least to occur on all parts of it) deli- 
 cately where it is near the eye, and rudely where it is removed 
 from it. That is trickery and dishonesty. Consider, firet, 
 what kinds of ornaments wiU tell in the distance and what 
 near, and so distribute, them, keeping such as by their nature 
 are delicate, down near the eye, and throwing the bold and 
 rough kinds of work to the top ; and if there be any kind 
 which is to be both near and far off, take care that it be as 
 boldly and rudely wrought where it is well seen as where it 
 is distant, so that the spectator may know exactly what it is, 
 and what it is worth. Thus chequered patterns, and in gen- 
 eral such ornaments as common workmen can execute, may 
 extend over the whole building ; but bas-rehefs, and fine 
 niches and capitals, should be kept down, and the common 
 sense of this mil always give a building dignity, even though 
 there be some abruptness or awkwardness, in the resulting 
 an-angements. Thus at San Zeno at Verona, the bas-reliefs, 
 fuU of incident and interest are confined to a parallelogram 
 of the front, reaching to the height of the capitals of the col- 
 umns of the porch. Above these, we find a simple though 
 most lovely, little arcade ; and above that, only blank wall, 
 with square face shafts. The whole effect is tenfold grander 
 and better than if the entire fagade had been covered with bad 
 work, and may serve for an example of the way to place little 
 where we cannot afford much. So, again, the transept gates 
 of Eouen * are covered with dehcate bas-reliefs (of which I 
 
 * Henceforward, for the sake of convenience, when I name any oa- 
 Shedral town in this manner, let me he understood to speak of its o»th& 
 iral ehurcb. 
 
TBM LAMP OF 8A0BIFIGE. 31 
 
 shall speak at greater length presently) up to about ouce 
 and a half a man's height ; and above that come the usual 
 aud more visible statues and niches. So in the campanile at 
 Florence, the circuit of bas-reliefs is on its lowest story ; 
 above that come its statues ; and above them all its pattern 
 mosaic, and twisted columns, exquisitely finished, like all 
 Italian work of the time, but still, in the eye of the Floren- 
 tine, rough and commonplace by comparison with the bas- 
 reliefs. So generally the most delicate niche work and best 
 mouldings of the French Gothic are in gates and low win- 
 dows well within sight ; although, it being the very spiiit of 
 that style to trust to its exuberance for effect, there is occa- 
 sionally a burst upwards and blossoming unrestrainably to 
 the sky, as in the pediment of the west front of Bouen, and 
 in the recess of the rose window behind it, where there are 
 some most elaborate flower-mouldings, all but invisible from 
 below, and only adding a general enrichment to the deep 
 shadows that relieve the shafts of the advanced pediment. It 
 is observable, however, that this very work is bad flamboyant, 
 and has corrupt renaissance characters in its detail as well as 
 ase ; while in the earlier and grander north and south gates, 
 there is a very noble proportioning of the work to the dis- 
 tance, the niches and statues which crown the noi-them one, 
 at a height of about one hundred feet from the ground, being 
 alike colossal and simple ; visibly so from below, so as to in- 
 duce no deception, and yet honestly and well-finished above, 
 and all that they are expected to be ; the features very beau- 
 tiful, full of expression, and as delicately wrought as any 
 work of the period. 
 
 XTTT. It is to be remembered, however, that while the orna- 
 ments in every fine ancient building, without exception so far 
 as I am aware, are most delicate at the base, they are often 
 in greater effective quantity on the upper parts. In high 
 towers this is perfectly natural and right, the solidity of the 
 foundation being as necessary as the division and penetration 
 of the superstructure ; hence the hghter work and richly 
 pierced crowns of late Gothic towers. The campanile of 
 Giotto at Florence, already alluded to, is an exquisite instance 
 
82 THE LAMP OF UACSIFIGE. 
 
 of the union of the two principles, delicate bas-reliefs adorn- 
 ing its massy foundation, while the open tracery of the upper 
 windows attracts the eye by its slender intricacy, and a rich 
 cornice crowns the whole. In such truly fine cases of this 
 disposition the upper work is effective by its quantity and in- 
 tricacy only, as the lower portions by delicacy ; so also in the 
 Tour de Beurre at Rouen, where, however, the detail is massy 
 throughout, subdividing into rich meshes as it ascends. In 
 the bodies of buildings the prir.ciple is less safe, but its dis- 
 cussion is not connected with our present subject. 
 
 XIV. Finally, work may be wasted by being too good for 
 its material, or too fine to bear exposure ; and this, generally a 
 characteristic of late, especially of renaissance, work, is^er- 
 haps the worst fault of all. I do not know anything more 
 painful or pitiful than the kind of ivory carving with which 
 the Certosa of Pavia, and part of the CoUeone sepulchral 
 chapel at Bergamo, and other such buildings, are incrusted, 
 of which it is not possible so much as to think without ex- 
 haustion ; and a heavy sense of the misery it would be, to be 
 forced to look at it at all. And this is not from the quantity 
 of it, nor because it is bad work — much of it is inventive and 
 able ; but because it looks as if it were only fit to be put in 
 inlaid cabinets and velveted caskets, and as if it could not 
 bear one drifting shower or gnawing frost. We are afraid for 
 it, anxious about it, and tormented by it ; and we feel that a 
 massy shaft and a bold shadow would be worth it alL Never- 
 theless, even in cases like these, much depends on the accom- 
 plishment of the great ends of decoration. If the ornament 
 does its duty — if it is ornament, and its points of shade and 
 light tell in the general effect, we shall not be offended by 
 finding that the sculptor in his fulness of fancy has chosen to 
 give much more than these mere points of light, and has 
 composed them of groups of figures. But if the ornament 
 does not answer its purpose, if it have no distant, no truly 
 decorative power ; if generally seen it be a mere inci-ustation 
 and meaningless roughness, we shall only be chagrined by 
 finding when we look close, that the incrustation has cost 
 years of labor, and has milliong of figures find histories in it 
 
« 
 
 PLATE I.— (Page 33 -Vol. V) 
 Ornajients from Rouen, St, Lo, and Venice. 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 33 
 
 and would be the better of being seen through a Stanhope 
 lens. Hence the greatness of the northern Gothic as con- 
 trasted with the latest ItaHan. It reaches nearly the same 
 extreme of detail ; but it never loses sight of its architectural 
 purpose, never fails in its decorative power ; not a leaflet in it 
 but speaks, and speaks far off, too ; and so long as this be 
 the case, there is no limit to the luxuriance in which such 
 work may legitimately and nobly be bestowed. 
 
 XV. No Umit : it is one of the affectations of architects to 
 speak of overcharged ornament. Ornament cannot be over- 
 charged if it be good, and is always overcharged when it is 
 bad. I haxe given, on the opposite page (fig. 1), one of the 
 smallest niches of the central gate of Eouen. That gate I 
 suppose to be the most exquisite piece of pure flamboyant 
 work existing ; for though I have spoken of the upper por- 
 tions, especially the receding window, as degenerate, the gate 
 itself is of a purer period, and has hardly any renaissance 
 taint. There are four strings of these niches (each with two 
 figures beneath it) round the porch, from the ground to the 
 top of the arch, with three intermediate rows of larger niches, 
 far more elaborate ; besides the six principal canopies of each 
 outer pier. The total number of the subordinate niches alone, 
 each worked like that in the plate, and each with a different 
 pattern of traceries in each compartment, is one hundred and 
 seventy-sis.* Yet in aU this ornament there is not one cusp, 
 one finial that is useless — not a stroke of the chisel is in vain ; 
 the grace and luxuriance of it all are visible — sensible rather 
 — even to the uninquiring eye ; and all its minuteness does 
 not diminish the majesty, while it increases the mystery, of 
 the noble and unbroken vault. It is not less the boast of 
 some styles that they can bear ornament, than of others that 
 they can do without it ; but we do not often enough reflect 
 that those very styles, of so haughty simplicity, owe part of 
 their pleasurableness to contrast, and would be wearisome if 
 universal. They are but the rests and monotones of the art ; 
 it is to its far happier, far higher, exaltation that we owe 
 those fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fan- 
 cies and dark hosts of imagery, ihicker and quainter than 
 
34 TEB LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 ever fiUficT the depth of midsummer dream ; those vaulted 
 gates, trellised with close leaves ; those ■window-labyrinths of 
 twisted tracery and starry light ; those misty masses of mul- 
 titudinous pinnacle and diademed tower ; the only witnesses, 
 perhaps that remain to us of the faith and fear of nations. 
 All else for which the builders sacrificed, has passed away — 
 all their living interests, and aims, and achievements. We 
 know not for what they labored, and we see no evidence of 
 their reward. Victory, wealth, authority, happiness — all have 
 departed, though bought by many a bitter sacrifice. But of 
 them, and their Hfe, and their toil upon the earth, one re- 
 ward, one evidence, is left to us in those gray heaps of deep- 
 wi-ought stone. They have taken vidth them to the grave 
 their powers, their honors, and their errors ; but they have 
 left us their adoration. 
 
 CHAPTEEIL 
 
 THE LAMP or TEDTH. 
 
 L There is a marked likeness between the virtues of man 
 and the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits — the same 
 diminishing gradation in vigor up to the limits of their do- 
 mains, the same essential separation from their contraries — 
 the same twilight at the meeting of the two : a something 
 wider belt than the line where the world rolls into night, that 
 strange twilight of the virtues ; that dusky debateable land, 
 wherein zeal becomes impatience, and temperance becomes 
 severity, and justice becomes cruelty, and faith superstition, 
 and each and all vanish into gloom. 
 
 Nevertheless, with the greater number of them, though 
 their dimness increases gradually, we may mark the moment 
 of their sunset ; and, happily, may turn the shadow back by 
 the way by which it had gone down : but for one, the line of 
 the horizon is irregular and undefined ; and this, too, the very 
 equator and girdle of them all — Truth ; that only one ol 
 which there are no degrees, but breaks and rents continually •, 
 that pillar of the earth, yet a cloudy pillai- ; that golden and 
 aarrow line, which the very powers and virtues that lean upon 
 
TEE LAMP OF TBUTE. 35 
 
 it bend, which policy and prudence conceal, which kindness 
 and courtesy modify, which courage overshadows with his 
 shield, imagination covers with her wings, and charity dims 
 with her tears. How difficult must the maintenance of that 
 authority be, which, while it has to restrain the hostility of 
 all the worst principles of man, has also to restrain the dis- 
 orders of his best — which is continually assaulted by the one 
 and betrayed by the other, and which regards with the same 
 severity the lightest and the boldest violations of its law! 
 There are some faults slight iu the sight of love, some errors 
 sHght iQ the estimate of wisdom ; but truth forgives no 
 insult, and endures no stain. 
 
 We do not enough consider this ; nor enough dread the 
 slight and continual occasions of offence against her. We 
 are too much in the habit of looking at falsehood in its dark- 
 est associations, and through the color of its worst purposes. 
 That indignation which we profess to feel at deceit absolute, 
 is indeed only at deceit mahcious. We resent calumny, hj'- 
 pocrisy and treachery, because they harm us, not because they 
 are untrue. Take the detraction and the mischief from the 
 untruth, and we are little offended by it ; turn it into praise, 
 and we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny 
 nor treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the 
 world ; they are continually crushed, and are felt only in 
 being conquered. But it is the gHstening and softly spoken 
 lie ; the amiable fallacy ; the patriotic He of the historian, the 
 provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partizan, 
 the merciful he of the friend, and the careless lie of each man 
 to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, 
 through which any man who pierces, we thank as we would 
 thank one who dug a well in a desert ; happy in that the 
 thirst for truth still remains with us, even when we have wil- 
 fully left the fountains of it. 
 
 It would be well if moralists less frequently confused the 
 greatness of a sin with its unpardonableness. The two charac- 
 ters are altogether distinct. The greatness of a fault depends 
 partly on the nature of the person against whom it ia com- 
 mitted, partly upon the extent of its consequences. Its par- 
 
36 TEB LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 donableness depends, humanly speaking, on the degree ot 
 temptation to it. One class of circumstances determines the 
 weight of the attaching punishment ; the other, the claim to 
 remission of punishment : and since it is not easy for men to 
 estimate the relative weight, nor possible for them to know 
 the relative consequences, of crime, it is usually wise in them 
 to quit the care of such nice measurements, and to look to 
 the other and clearer condition of culpability ; esteeming 
 those faults worst which are committed under least tempta- 
 tion. I do not mean to diminish the blame of the injurious 
 and malicious sin, of the selfish and dehberate falsity ; yet it 
 seems to me, that the shortest way to check the darker forms 
 of deceit is to set watch more scrupulous against those which 
 have mingled, unregarded and unchastised, with the current 
 of our life. Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of one 
 falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as un- 
 intended. Cast them all aside : they may be light and acci- 
 dental ; but they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, 
 for all that ; and it is better that our hearts should be swept 
 clean of them, without over care as to which is largest or 
 blackest. Speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only 
 by practice ; it is less a matter of will than of habit, and 1 
 doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the practice 
 and formation of such a habit. To speak and act truth with 
 constancy and pr<«cision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as 
 meritorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty ; 
 and it is a strange thought how many men there are, as I 
 trust, who would hold to it at the cost of fortune or life, for 
 one who would hold to it at the cost of a little daily trouble. 
 And seeing that of aU sin there is, perhaps, no one more flatly 
 opposite to the Almighty, no one more ' ' wanting the good of 
 virtue and of being," than this of lying, it is surely a strange 
 insolence to fall into the foulness of it on hght or on no temp- 
 tation, and surely becoming an honorable man to resolve that, 
 whatever semblances or fallacies the necessary course of liis 
 life may compel him to bear or to beheve, none shall distu»'j 
 the serenity of his voluntary actions, nor diminish the reality 
 oi his chosen deUghts. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTM. 37 
 
 n. If tliis be just and wise for truth's sake, much more is 
 it necessary for the sake of the dehghts over which she has in- 
 fluence. For, as I advocated the expression of the Spirit of 
 Sacrifice in the acts and pleasm-es of men, not as if thereby 
 those acts could further the cause of reUgion, but because 
 most assuredly they might therein be infinitely ennobled them- 
 selves, so I would have the Spirit or Lamp of Truth clear in 
 the hearts of our artists and handicraftsmen, not as if the 
 truthful practice of handicrafts could far advance the cause of 
 truth, but because I woidd fain see the handicrafts themselves 
 urged by the spiurs of chivalry : and it is, indeed, marvellous 
 to see what power and universality there is in this single prin- 
 ciple, and how in the consulting or forgetting of it lies half 
 the dignity or decline of every art and act of man. I have be- 
 fore endeavored to show its range and power in painting ; and 
 I believe a volume, instead of a chapter, might be written on 
 its authority over all that is great in architecture. But I must 
 be content with the force of instances few and famihar, beUev* 
 ing that the occasions of its manifestation may be more easily 
 discovered by a desire to be true, than embraced by an analy- 
 sis of truth. 
 
 Only it is very necessary in the outset to mark clearly 
 wherein consists the essence of fallacy as distinguished from 
 supposition. 
 
 TTT For it might be at first thought that the whole king- 
 dom of imagination was one of deception also. Not so : the 
 action of the imagination is a voluntary summoning of the 
 conceptions of things absent or impossible ; and the pleasure 
 and nobility of the imagination partly consist in its knowledge 
 and contemplation of them as such, i.e. in the knowledge of 
 their actual absence or impossibility at the moment of their 
 apparent presence or reality. When the imagination deceives 
 it becomes madness. It is a noble faculty so long as it con- 
 fesses its ovm ideality ; when it ceases to confess this, it is 
 insanity. All the difference Ues in the fact of the confession, 
 in there being no deception. It is necessary to our rank as 
 spiritual creatures, that we should be able to invent and to 
 J-^hold what is not ; and to our rank as moral creaturea 
 
38 THE LAMP OF TKUTB. 
 
 that we should know and confess at the same time that it is 
 not. 
 
 IV. Again, it might be thought, and has been thought, that 
 the whole art of painting is nothing else than an endeavor to 
 deceive. Not so : it is, on the contrary, a statement of certain 
 facts, in the clearest possible way. For instance : I desire to 
 give an account of a mountain or of a rock ; I begin by telling 
 its shape. But words will not do this distinctly, and I draw 
 its shape, and say, " This was its shape.'' Next : I would fain 
 represent its color ; but words will not do this either, and I 
 dye the paper, and say, " This was its color.'' Such a process 
 may be carried on until the scene appears to exist, and a high 
 pleasure may be taken in its apparent existence. This is a 
 communicated act of imagination, but no lie. The lie can 
 consist only in an assertion of its existence (which is never for 
 one instant made, implied, or believed), or else in false state- 
 ments of forms and colors (which are, indeed, made and be- 
 lieved to our great loss, continually). And observe, also, that 
 so degrading a thing is deception in even the approach and 
 appearance of it, that all painting which even reaches the 
 mark of apparent realization, is degraded in so doing. I have 
 enough insisted on this point in another place. 
 
 V. The violations of truth, which dishonor poetry and 
 painting, are thus for the most part confined to the treatment 
 of their subjects. But in architecture another and a less sub- 
 tle, more contemptible, violation of truth is possible ; a direct 
 falsity of assertion respecting the nature of material, or the 
 quantity of labor. And this is, in the full sense of the word, 
 wrong ; it is as truly deserving of reprobation as any other 
 moral delinquency ; it is unworthy alike of architects and of 
 nations ; and it has been a sign, wherever it has widely and 
 with toleration existed, of a singular debasement of the arts ; 
 that it is not a sign of worse than this, of a general want of 
 severe probity, can be accounted for only by our knowledge 
 of the strange separation which has for some centuries existed 
 between the arts and all other subjeicts of human intellect, as 
 matters of conscience. This withdrawal of conscientiousness 
 from among the faculties concerned with ai-t, while it hat 
 
THB LAMP OF TRUTH. 39 
 
 destroyed the arts themselves, has also rendered in a measure 
 nugatory the evidence which otherwise they might have pre- 
 sented respecting the character of the respective nations among 
 whom they have been cultivated ; otherwise, it might appear 
 more than strange that a nation so distinguished for its gen- 
 eral uprightness and faith as the English, should admit in 
 their architecture more of pretence, concealment, and deceit, 
 than any other of this or of past time. 
 
 They are admitted in thoughtlessness, but with fatal effect 
 upon the art in which they are practised. If there were no 
 other causes for the failures which of late have marked every 
 great occasion for architectui-al exertion, these petty dishon- 
 esties would be enough to account for all. It is the first step 
 and not the least, towards greatness to do away with these ; 
 the first, because so evidently and easily in our power. We 
 may not be able to command good, or beautiful, or inventive 
 architecture ; but we can command an honest architecture : 
 the meagreness of poverty may be pardoned, the sternness 
 of utility respected ; but what is there but scorn for the mean- 
 ness of deception ? 
 
 VL Ai'chitectural Deceits are broadly to be considered im- 
 der three heads : — 
 
 1st. The suggestion of a mode of structure or support, 
 other than the true one ; as in pendants of late Gothic roofs. 
 
 2d. The painting of surfaces to represent some other ma- 
 terial than that of which they actually consist (as in the mar- 
 bling of wood), or the deceptive representation of sculptured 
 ornament upon them. 
 
 3d. The use of cast or machine-made ornaments of any kind. 
 
 Now, it may be broadly stated, that ai-chiteoture will be 
 noble exactly in the degree in which all these false expedients 
 are avoided. Nevertheless, there are certain degrees of them, 
 which, owing to their frequent usage, or to other causes, have 
 so far lost the natui-e of deceit as to be admissible ; as, for 
 instance, gilding, which is in architecture no deceit, because 
 it is therein not understood for gold ; while in jewellery it is 
 a deceit, because it is so understood, and therefore altogether 
 to be reprehended. So that there arise, in the application of 
 
 <- 
 
40 THE LAMP OF TRUTB. 
 
 the strict rules of right, many exceptions and niceties of coiv 
 science ; which let us as briefly as possible examine. 
 
 Vn. 1st. Structural Deceits. I have limited these to the 
 determined and pui-posed suggestion of a mode of support 
 other than the true one. The architect is not hound to ex- 
 hibit structure ; nor are we to complain of him for concealing 
 it, any more than we should regret that the outer surfaces of 
 the human frame conceal much of its anatomy ; nevertheless, 
 that building will generally be the noblest, which to an in- 
 telligent eye discovers the great secrets of its structure, as an 
 animal fonn does, although from a careless observer they 
 may be concealed. In the vaulting of a Gothic roof it is no 
 deceit to throw the strength into the ribs of it, and make the 
 intermediate vault a mere shell. Such a structure would be 
 presumed by an intelligent observer, the first time he saw 
 such a i-oof ; and the beauty of its traceries would be enhanced 
 to him it they confessed and followed the lines of its main 
 strength. If, however, the intermediate shell were made of 
 wood instead of stone, and whitewashed to look like the rest, 
 — this would, of course, be direct deceit, and altogether un- 
 pardonable. 
 
 There is, however, a certain deception necessarily occur- 
 ring in Gothic architecture, which relates, not to the points, 
 but to the manner, of support. The resemblance in its shafts 
 and ribs to the external relations of stems and branches, 
 which has been the ground of so much foolish speculation, 
 necessarily induces in the mind of the spectator a sense or 
 belief of a correspondent internal structure ; that is to say, 
 of a fibrous and continuous strength from the root into tlie 
 limbs, and an elasticity communicated upwards, sufficient for 
 the support of the ramified portions. The idea of the real 
 conditions, of a great weight of ceiHng thrown upon certain 
 narrow, jointed lines, which have a tendency partly to be 
 crushed, and partly to separate and be pushed outwards, is 
 with difficulty received ; and the more so when the pillars 
 would be, if unassisted, too slight for the weight, and are sup- 
 ported by external flying buttresses, as in the apse of Beau- 
 yais, and other such achievements of the bolder Gothic. Now, 
 
TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 41 
 
 there is a nice question of conscience in this, which we shall 
 hardly settle but by considering that, when the mind is in- 
 formed beyond the possibihty of mistake as to the true nature 
 of things, the affecting it with a contrary impression, however 
 distinct, is no dishonesty, but on the cogtwiry, a legitimate 
 appeal to the imagination. For instance, the greater part of 
 the happiness which we have in contemplating clouds, results 
 from the impression of their having massive, luminous, warm, 
 and mountain-like surfaces ; and our dehght in the sky fre- 
 quently depends upon our considering it as a blue vault 
 But we know the contrary, in both instances ; we know the 
 cloud to be a damp fog, or a drift of snow flakes ; and 
 the sky to be a lightless abyss. There is, therefore, no 
 dishonesty, whQe there is much deUght, in the irresistibly 
 contrary impression. In the same way, so long as we see the 
 stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the poiats of 
 support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise 
 than regret the dextrous artifices which compel us to feel as 
 if there were fibre iu its shafts and hfe in its branches. Nor 
 is even the concealment of the support of the external but- 
 tress reprehensible, so long as the pillars are not sensibly in- 
 adequate to their duty. For the weight of a roof is a circum- 
 stance of which the spectator generally has no idea, and the 
 provisions for it, consequently, circumstances whose neces- 
 sity or adaptation he could not understand. It is no deceit, 
 therefore, when the weight to be borne is necessarily un- 
 known, to conceal also the means of bearing it, leaving only 
 to be perceived so much of the support as is indeed adequate 
 to the weight supposed. For the shafts do, indeed, bear as 
 much as they are ever imagined to bear, and the system of 
 added support is no more, as a matter of conscience, to be 
 exhibited, than, in the human or any other form, mechanical 
 provisions for those functions which are themselves unper- 
 ceived. 
 
 But the moment that the conditions of weight are compre- 
 hended, both truth and feeling require that the conditions 
 of support should be also comprehended. Nothing can be 
 worse, either as judged by the taste or the conscience, than 
 
*2 THE LAMP OF TRUTR. 
 
 affectedly inadequate supports — suspensions in air, and othet 
 such tricks and vanities. Mr. Hope wisely reprehends, for 
 this reason, the arrangement of the main piers of St. Sophia 
 at Constantinople. King's College Chapel, Cambridge, is a 
 piece of architectural juggling, if possible still more to be 
 condemned, because less sublime. 
 
 VUL With deceptive concealments of structure are to be 
 classed, though still more blameable, deceptive assumptions of 
 it — the introduction of members which should have, or profess 
 to have, a duty, and have none. One of the most general in- 
 stances of this will be found in the form of the flying buttress 
 in late Gothic. The use of that member is, of course, to con- 
 vey support from one pier to another when the plan of the 
 building renders it necessary or desirable that the supporting 
 masses should be divided into groups, the most frequent neces- 
 sity of this kind arising from the intermediate range of chapels 
 or aisles between the nave or choir walls and their supporting 
 piers. The natural, healthy, and beautiful arrangement is that 
 of a steeply sloping bar, of stone, sustained by an arch with its 
 spandril carried farthest down on the lowest side, and dying 
 into the vertical of the outer pier ; that pier being, of course, 
 not square, but rather a piece of wall set at right angles to the 
 supported walls, and, if need be, crowned by a pinnacle to give 
 it greater weight. The whole arrangement is exquisitely car- 
 ried out in the choii- of Beauvais. In later Gothic the pinnacle 
 became gradually a decorative member, and was used in all 
 places merely for the sake of its beauty. There is no objection 
 to this ; it ia just as lawful to bmld a pinnacle for its beauty as 
 a tower ; but also the buttress became a decorative member ; 
 and was used, first, where it was not wanted, and, secondly, in 
 forms in which it could be of no use, becoming a mere tie, not 
 between the pier and wall, but between the wall and the top 
 of the decorative pinnacle, thus attaching itself to the very 
 point where its thrust, if it made any, could not be resisted. 
 The most flagrant instance of this barbarism that 1 remember 
 (though it prevails partially in all the spires of the Nether- 
 lands), is the lantern of St. Ouen at Eouen, where the pierced 
 buttress, having an ogee curve, looks about as much calculated 
 
TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 43 
 
 to bear a thrust as a switch of willow ; and the pinnacles, huge 
 and richly decorated, have evidently no work to do whatsoever, 
 but stand round the central tower, like four idle servants, aa 
 they are — heraldic supporters, that central tower being merely 
 a hollow crown, which needs no more buttressing than a 
 basket does. In fact, I do not know anything more strange or 
 unwise than the praise lavished upon this lantern ; it is one of 
 the basest pieces of Gothic in Europe ; its flamboyant traceries 
 of the last and most degraded forms ; * and its entire plan and 
 decoration resembling, and deserving little more credit than, 
 the burnt sugar ornaments of elaborate confectionery. There 
 are hardly any of the magnificent and serene constructions of 
 the early Gothic which have not, in the course of time, been 
 gradually thinned and pared away into these skeletons, which 
 sometimes indeed, when their lines truly foUow the structure 
 of the original masses, have an interest like that of the fibrous 
 framework of leaves from which the substance has been dis- 
 solved, but which are usually distorted as weU as emaciated, and 
 remain but the sickly phantoms and mockeries of things that 
 were ; they are to true architecture what the Greek ghost was 
 to the armed and Uving frame ; and the very winds that whis- 
 tle through the threads of them, are to the diapasoned echoes 
 of the ancient walls, as to the voice of the man was the pining 
 of the spectre.' 
 
 IX. Perhaps the most fruitful source of these kinds of cor- 
 ruption which we have to guard against in recent times, is one 
 which, nevertheless, comes in a " questionable shape," and of 
 which it is not easy to determine the proper laws and Hmits ; 
 I mean the use of iron. The definition of the art of architect- 
 ure, given in the first chapter, is independent of its materials : 
 nevertheless, that art having been, up to the beginning of the 
 present century, practised for the most part in clay, stone, or 
 wood, it has resulted that the sense of proportion and the laws 
 of structui-e have been based, the one altogether, the other in 
 great part, on the necessities consequent on the employment 
 of those materials ; and that the entii'e or principal employ- 
 ment of metallic framework would, therefore, be generally felt 
 aa a departure from the first principles of the art. Abstract- 
 
•44 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 edly there appears no reason why iron should not be used as 
 well as wood ; and the time is probably near when a new sys- 
 tem of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely 
 to metallic construction. But I beheve that the tendency of 
 all present sympathy and association is to hmit the idea of 
 architecture to non-metaUic work ; and that not without reason. 
 For architecture being in its perfection the earliest, as in ita 
 elements it is necessarily the first, of arts, will always precede, 
 in any barbarous nation, the possession of the science necessary 
 either for the obtaining or the management of iron. Its first 
 existence and its earliest laws must, therefore, depend upon the 
 use of materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface of 
 the earth ; that is to say, clay, wood, or stone : and as I think 
 it cannot but be generally felt that one of the chief dignities of 
 architecture is its historical use ; and since the latter is partly 
 dependent on consistency of style, it will be felt right to retain 
 as far as may be, even in periods of more advanced science, 
 the materials and principles of earher ages. 
 
 X. But whether this be granted me or not, the fact is, that 
 every idea respecting size, proportion, decoration, or construc- 
 tion, on which we are at present in the habit of acting or judg- 
 ing, depends on presupposition of such materials : and as I 
 both feel myself unable to escape the influence of these preju- 
 dices, and believe that my readers vnU be equally so, it may 
 be perhaps permitted to me to assume that true architecture 
 does not admit iron as a constructive material,' and that such 
 works as the cast-iron central spire of Bouen Cathedral, or the 
 iron roofs and pillars of our railway stations, and of some of 
 our churches, are not architecture at all. Yet it is evident 
 that metals may, and sometimes must, enter into the construc- 
 tion to a certain extent, as nails in wooden architecture, and 
 therefore as legitimately rivets and solderings in stone ; neither 
 can we well deny to the Gothic architect the power of support- 
 ing statues, pinnacles, or traceries by iron bars ; and if we 
 grant this I do not see how we can help allowing Brunelleschi 
 his iron chain around the dome of Florence, or the builders 
 of Salisbury their elaborate iron binding of the central tower. ' 
 If, however, we would not fall into the old sophistry of the 
 
TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 43 
 
 gTains of com and the heap, we must find a rule which may 
 enable us to stop somewhere. This rule is, I think, that 
 metals may be used as a cement but not as a cupport. For aa 
 cements of other kinds are often so strong that the stones may 
 easier be broken than separated, and the wall becomes a soUd 
 mass without for that reason losing the character of architect- 
 iu"e, there is no reason why, when a nation has obtained the 
 knowledge and practice of iron work, metal rods or rivets 
 should not be used in the place of cement, and establish the 
 same or a greater strength and adherence, without in any wise 
 inducing departure from the types and system of architecture 
 before established ; nor does it make any difference except aa 
 to sightHness, whether the metal bands or rods so employed, 
 be in the body of the wall or on its exterior, or set as stays 
 and cross-bands ; so only that the use of them be always and 
 distinctly one which might be superseded by mere strength 
 of cement ; as for instance if a pinnacle or mullion be propped 
 or tied by an iron band, it is evident that the iron only pre- 
 vents the separation of the stones by lateral force, which the 
 cement would have done, had it been strong enough. But the 
 moment that the iron in the least degree takes the place of 
 the stone, and acts by its resistance to crushing, and bears 
 superincumbent weight, or if it acts by its own weight as a 
 counterpoise, and so supersedes the use of pinnacles or but- 
 tresses in resisting a lateral thrust, or if, in the form of a rod 
 or gu-der, it is used to do what wooden beams would have 
 done as well, that instant the buUding ceases, so far as such 
 apphcations of metal extend, to be true architecture. 
 
 XI. The limit, however, thus determined, is an ultimate 
 one, and it is well in all things to be cautious how we approach 
 the utmost limit of lawfulness ; so that, although the employ- 
 ment of metal within this limit cannot be considered as de- 
 stroying the very being and nature of architecture, it wiU, if, 
 extravagant and fi'equent, derogate from the dignity of the 
 work, as well as (which is especially to our present point) from 
 its honesty. For although the spectator is not informed as to 
 the quantity or strength of the cement employed, he will gen- 
 erally conceive the stones of the building tQ be geparable; 
 
A6 THE LAMP OF TRUTR 
 
 and his estimate of the skill of the architect will be based in a 
 great measure on his supposition of this condition, and of the dif- 
 ficulties attendant upon it : so that it is always more honorable, 
 and it has a tendency to render the style of architecture both 
 more mascuHne and more scientific, to employ stone and mortaj 
 Bimply as such, and to do as much as possible with the weight 
 of the one and the strength of the other, and rather sometimes 
 to forego a grace, or to confess a weakness, than attain the one, 
 or conceal the other, by means verging upon dishonesty. 
 
 Nevertheless, where the design is of such delicacy and 
 shghtness as, in some parts of very fair and finished edifices, 
 it is desirable that it should be ; and where both its com- 
 pletion and security are in a measure dependent on the use 
 of metal, let not such use be reprehended ; so only that as 
 much is done as may be, by good mortar and good masonry ; 
 and no slovenly workmanship admitted through confidence 
 in the iron helps ; for it is in. this license as in that of wine, 
 a man may use it for his infirmities, but not for his nourish- 
 ment. 
 
 Xn. And, in order to avoid an over use of this Hberty, it 
 would be well to consider what apphcation may be conven- 
 iently made of the dovetailing and various adjusting of stones ; 
 for when any artifice is necessary to help the mortar, certainly 
 this ought to come before the use of metal, for it is both 
 safer and more honest. I cannot see that any objection can 
 be made to the fitting of the stones in any shapes the archi- 
 tect pleases : for although it would not be desirable to see 
 buildings put together like Chinese puzzles, there must al- 
 ways be a check upon such an abuse of the practice in its 
 difficulty ; nor is it necessary that it should be always ex- 
 hibited, so that it be understood by the spectator as an ad- 
 mitted help, and that no priecipal stones are introduced in 
 positions apparently impossible for them to retain, although 
 a riddle here and there, in unimportant features, may some- 
 times serve to draw the eye to the masonry, and make it in- 
 teresting, as well as to give a delightful sense of a kind of 
 necromantic power in the architect. There is a pretty one 
 in the lintel of the latersi dpor of the cathedral of Prato 
 
TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 47 
 
 (Plate IV. fig. 4.) ; where the maintenance of the visibljf 
 separate stones, alternate marble and serpentine, cannot be 
 understood until their cross-cutting is seen below. Each 
 block is, of course, of the form given in fig. 5. 
 
 "XTTT. Lastly, before leaving the subject of structural de- 
 ceits, I would remind the architect who thinks that I am im- 
 necessarily and naiTowly limiting his resources or his art, 
 that the highest greatness and the highest wisdom are shown, 
 the first by a noble submission to, the second by a thoughtful 
 providence for, certain voluntarily admitted restraints. Noth- 
 ing is more evident than this, in that supreme government 
 which is the example, as it is the centre, of all others. The 
 Divine Wisdom is, and can be, shown to us only in its meeting 
 and contending with the difficulties which are voluntarily, and 
 for the sake of that contest, admitted by the Divine Omnipo- 
 tence : and these difficulties, observe, occur in the form of 
 natural laws or ordinances, which might, at many times and 
 in countless ways, be infringed with apparent advantage, but 
 which are never infringed, whatever costly arrangements or 
 adaptations their observance may necessitate for the accom- 
 plishment of given purposes. The example most apposite to 
 our present subject is the structure of the bones of animals. 
 No reason can be given, I believe, why the system of the 
 higher animals should not have been made capable, as that of 
 the Infusoria is, of secreting flint, instead of phosphate of 
 lime, or more naturally still, carbon ; so framing the bones of 
 adamant at once. The elephant or rhinoceros, had the earthy 
 part of their bones been made of diamond, might have been 
 as agile and light as grasshoppers, and other animals might 
 have been framed far more magnificently colossal than any 
 that walk the earth. In other worlds we may, perhaps, see 
 such creations ; a creation for every element, and elements in- 
 finite. But the architecture of animals here, is appointed by 
 God to be a marble architecture, not a flint nor adamant 
 architecture ; and all manner of expedients axe adopted to at- 
 tain the utmost degree of strength and size possible under 
 that great Hmitation. The jaw of the ichthyosaurus is pieced 
 qnd riveted, the leg of the megatherium is a foot thick, and 
 
48 TEE LAMP OF TRXJTB. 
 
 the head of the myodon has a double skull ; we, in our ■wis- 
 dom, should, doubtless, have given the lizard a steel jaw, and 
 the myodon a cast-iron headpiece, and forgotten the great 
 principle to which all creation bears witness, that order and 
 system are nobler things than power. But God shows us in 
 Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative per- 
 fection, but even the perfection of Obedience — an obedience 
 to His own laws : and in the cumbrous movement of those 
 unwieldiest of His creatures we are reminded, even ia His 
 divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the hu- 
 man creature " that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth 
 not." 
 
 XIV. 2d. Surface Deceits. These may be generally defined 
 as the inducing the supposition of some form or material 
 which does not actually exist ; as commonly in the painting 
 of wood to represent marble, or in the painting of ornaments 
 in deceptive relief, &c. But we must be carefiil to observe, 
 that the evil of them consists always in definitely attempted 
 deception, and that it is a matter of some nicety to mark the 
 point where deception begins or ends. 
 
 Thus, for instance, the roof of Milan Cathedral is seemingly 
 covered with elaborate fan tracery, forcibly enough painted to 
 enable it, in its dark and removed position, to deceive a care- 
 less observer. This is, of course, gross degradation ; it de- 
 stroys much of the dignity even of the rest of the buUding, 
 and is in the very strongest terms to be reprehended. 
 
 The roof of the Sistine Chapel has much architectural de- 
 sign in grissaille mingled with the figures of its frescoes ; and 
 the effect is increase of dignity. 
 
 In what Hes the distinctive character ? 
 
 In two points, principally : — First. That the architecture 
 is so closely associated with the figures, and has so grand fel- 
 lowship with them in its forms and cast shadows, that both 
 are at once felt to be of a piece ; and as the figures must neces- 
 sarilv be painted, the architecture is known to be so too 
 There is thus no deception. 
 
 Second. That so great a painter as Michael Angelo would 
 always stop short in such minor parts of bis design, of the de« 
 
tmjj: lamp of TBUTE. 49 
 
 gree of vulgar force which would be necessary to induce the 
 supposition of their reality ; and, strangely as it may souii(^ 
 would never paint badly enough to deceive. 
 
 But though right and wrong are thus found broadly opposed 
 in works severally so mean and so mighty as the roof of Milan 
 and that of the Sistine, there are works neither so great nor so 
 mean, in which the hmits of right are vaguely defined, and 
 will need some care to determine ; care only, however, to ap" 
 ply accurately the broad principle with which we set out, that 
 no form nor material is to be deceptively represented. 
 
 XV. Evidently, then, painting, confessedly such, is no de- 
 ception : it does not assert any material whatever. Whether 
 it be on wood or on stone, or, as will natui-aUy be supposed, 
 on plaster, does not matter. Whatever the material, good 
 painting makes it more precious ; nor can it ever be said to 
 deceive respecting the ground of which it gives us no informa- 
 tion. To cover brick with plaster, and this plaster with fresco, 
 is, therefore, perfectly legitimate ; and as desirable a mode of 
 decoration as it is constant in the great periods. Verona and 
 Venice are now seen deprived of more than half their former 
 splendor ; it depended far more on their frescoes than their 
 marbles. The plaster, in this case, is to be considered as the 
 gesso ground on panel or canvas. But to cover brick with 
 cement, and to divide this cement with joints that it may look 
 like stone, is to tell a falsehood ; and is just as contemptible a 
 procedure as the other is noble. 
 
 It being lawful to paint then, is it lawful to paint every- 
 thing ? So long as the painting is confessed — yes ; but if, 
 even in the sUghtest degree, the sense of it be lost, and the 
 thing painted be supposed real — no. Let us take a few in- 
 stances. In the Campo Santo at Pisa, each fresco is sur- 
 rounded with a border composed of flat colored patterns of 
 great elegance — no part of it in attempted reUef. The cer- 
 tainty of flat surface being thus secured, the figures, though 
 the size of Ufe, do not deceive, and the artist thenceforward is 
 at Uberty to put forth his whole power, and to lead us through 
 fields and groves, and depths of pleasant landscape, and to 
 soothe us with tiie sweet clearness pf far off sky, and yet 
 4 
 
50 TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 never lose the severity of his primal purpose of architectural 
 decoration. 
 
 In the Camera di Correggio of San Lodovico at Parma, the 
 trellises of vine shadow the walls, as if with an actual arbor ; 
 and the troops of children, peeping through the oval open- 
 ings, luscious in color and faint in light, may weU be ex- 
 pected every instant to break through, or hide behind the 
 covert. The grace of their attitudes, and the evident great- 
 ness of the whole work, mark that it is painting, and barely 
 redeem it from the charge of falsehood ; but even so saved, 
 it is utterly unworthy to take a place among noble or legiti- 
 mate architectural decoration. 
 
 In the cupola of the duomo of Parma the same painter has 
 represented the Assumption with so much deceptive power, 
 that he has made a dome of some thirty feet diameter look 
 like a cloud-wrapt opening in the seventh heaven, crowded 
 with a rushing sea of angels. Is this wrong? Not so : for 
 the subject at once precludes the possibility of deception. 
 We might have taken the vines for a veritable pergoda, and 
 the children for its haunting ragazzi ; but we know the stayed 
 clouds and moveless angels must be man's work ; let him put 
 his utmost strength to it and welcome, he can enchant us, 
 but cannot betray. 
 
 We may thus apply the rule to the highest, as well as the 
 art of daily occurrence, always remembering that more ia to 
 be forgiven to the great painter than to the mere decorative 
 workman ; and this especially, because the former, even in 
 deceptive portions, will not trick us so grossly ; as we have 
 just seen in Correggio, where a worse painter would have 
 made the thing look like life at once. There is, however, in 
 room, villa, or garden decoration, some fitting admission of 
 trickeries of this kind, as of pictured landscapes at the ex- 
 tremities of alleys and arcades, and ceihngs like skies, or 
 painted with prolongations upwards of the architecture of tiie 
 walls, which things have sometimes a certain luxury and 
 pleasureableness in places meant for idleness, and are in- 
 nocent enough as long as they are regarded as mere toys. 
 
 XVI Touching the false representation of material, the 
 
TEE LAMP OF TBUTK 51 
 
 question is infinitely more simple, and the law more sweep, 
 ing ; all such imitations are utterly base and inadmissibla 
 It is melancholy to think of the time and expense lost in 
 marbling the shop fronts of London alone, and of the waste 
 of our resources in absolute vanities, in things about which 
 no moi-tal cares, by which no eye is ever arrested, unless 
 painfully, and which do not add one whit to comfort or clean- 
 liness, or even to that great object of commercial art — con- 
 spicuousness. But in architecture of a higher rank, how 
 much more is it to be condemned ? I have made it a rule in 
 the present work not to blame specifically ; but I may, per- 
 haps, be permitted, while I express my sincere admiration of 
 the very noble entrance and general architecture of the 
 British Museum, to express also my regret that the noble 
 granite foundation of the staircase should be mocked at its 
 landing by an imitation, the more blameable because tolerably 
 successful. The only effect of it is to cast a suspicion upon 
 the true stones below, and upon every bit of granite after- 
 wards encountered. One feels a doubt, after it, of the honesty 
 of Memnon himself. But even this, however derogatory to 
 the noble architecture aroimd it, is less painful than the 
 want of feeling -with which, in our cheap modern churches, 
 ■we suffer the wall decorator to erect about the altar frame- 
 works and pediments daubed with mottled color, and to dye 
 in the same fashions such skeletons or caricatures of columns 
 as may emerge above the pews ; this is not merely bad taste ; 
 it is no unimportant or excusable error which brings even 
 these shadows of vanity and falsehood into the house of 
 prayer. The first condition which just feeling reqiiires in 
 church furniture is, that it should be simple and unaffected, 
 aot fictitious nor tawdry. It may be in our power to make it 
 beautiful, but let it at least be pure ; and if we cannot permit 
 much to the architect, do not let us permit anything to the 
 upholsterer ; if we keep to solid stone and sohd wood, white- 
 washed, if we like, for cleanliness' sake (for whitewash has so 
 often been used as the dress of noble things that it has thence 
 received a kind of nobility itself), it must be a bad design in- 
 deed which is grossly offensive. I recollect no instance of a 
 
52 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 want of sacred character, or of any marked and painful ugliness, 
 in the simplest or the most awkwardly built village church, 
 where stone and wood were roughly and nakedly used, and tha 
 wiodows latticed with white glass. But the smoothly stuc- 
 coed walls, the flat roofs with ventilator ornaments, the 
 barred windows with jaundiced borders and dead ground 
 square panes, the gilded or bronzed wood, the painted iron, 
 the wretched upholstery of curtains and cushions, and pew 
 heads and altar railings, and Birmingham metal candlesticks, 
 and, above all, the green and yellow sickness of the false 
 marble — disguises all, observe ; falsehoods all — ^who are they 
 who like these things ? who defend them ? who do them ? I 
 have never spoken to any one who did like them, though to 
 many who thought them matters of no consequence. Per- 
 haps not to religion (though I cannot but believe that there 
 are many to whom, as to myself, such things are serious ob- 
 stacles to the repose of mind and temper which should pre- 
 cede devotional exercises) ; but to the general tone of our 
 judgment and feeling — yes ; for assuredly we shall regard, 
 with tolerance, if not with affection, whatever forms of ma- 
 terial things we have been in the habit of associating with our 
 worship, and be little prepared to detect or blame hypocrisy, 
 meanness, and disguise in other kinds of decoration when we 
 suffer objects belonging to the most solemn of all services to 
 be tricked out in a fashion so fictitious and unseemly. 
 
 XVn. Painting, however, is not the only mode in which 
 material may be concealed, or rather simulated ; for merely 
 to conceal is, as we have seen, no wrong. Whitewash, for in- 
 stance, though often (by no means always) to be regretted as 
 a concealment, is not to be blamed as a falsity. It shows it- 
 self for what it is, and asserts nothing of what is beneath it. 
 Gilding has become, from its frequent use, equally innocent. 
 It is understood for what it is, a fihn merely, and is, therefore, 
 allowable to any extent. I do not say expedient : it is one of 
 the most abused means of magnificence we possess, and I 
 much doubt whether any use we ever make of it, balances 
 that loss of pleasure, which, from the frequent sight and per- 
 petual suspicion of it, we suffer in the contemplation of anV' 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTB. 63 
 
 thing that is verily of gold. I think gold was meant to be sel- 
 dom seen and to be admired as a precious thing ; and I some- 
 times wish that truth should so far literally prevail as that all 
 should be gold that glittered, or rather that nothing should 
 ghtter that was not gold. Nevertheless, nature herself does 
 not dispense with such semblance, but uses light for it ; and 
 I have too great a love for old and saintly art to part vrith its 
 burnished field, or radiant nimbus ; only it should be used 
 with respect, and to express magnificence, or sacredness, and 
 not in lavish vanity, or in sign painting. Of its expedience, 
 however, any more than of that of color, it is not here the place 
 to speak ; we are endeavoring to determine what is lawful, not 
 what is desirable. Of other and less common modes of dis- 
 guising surface, as of powder of lapis lazuli, or mosaic imita- 
 tions of colored stones, I need hardly speak. The rule will 
 apply to all alike, that whatever is pretended, is wrong ; com- 
 monly enforced also by the exceeding ugliness and insufficient 
 appeai'ance of such methods, as lately in the style of renova- 
 tion by which half the houses in Venice have been defaced, 
 the brick covered first with stucco, and this painted with 
 zigzag veins in imitation of alabaster. But there is one more 
 form of architectural fiction, which is so constant in the great 
 periods that it needs respectful judgment. I mean the facing 
 of brick with precious stone. 
 
 Xyiii. It is well known, that what is meant by a church's 
 being bmlt of marble is, in nearly all cases, only that a veneer- 
 ing of marble has been fastened on the rough brick wall, built 
 with certain projections to receive it ; and that what appear 
 to be massy stones, are nothing more than external slabs. 
 
 Now, it is evident, that, in this case, the question of right 
 is on the same ground as in that of gUding. If it be clearly 
 understood that a mai'ble facing does not pretend or imply a 
 marble wall, there is no harm in it ; and as it is also evident 
 that, when very precious stones are used, as jaspers and ser- 
 pentines, it must become, not only an extravagant and vain 
 increase of expense, but sometimes an actual impossibility, to 
 obtain mass of them enough to build with, there is no resource 
 but this of veneering ; nor is there anything to be alleged 
 
54: THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 against it on the head of durability, such work having beea 
 by experience found to last as long, and in as perfect condi- 
 tion, as any kind of masonry. It is, therefore, to be considered 
 as simply an art of mosaic on a large scale, the ground being 
 of brick, or any other material ; and when lovely stones are to 
 be obtained, it is a manner which should be thoroughly under- 
 stood, and often practised. Nevertheless, as we esteem the 
 shaft of a column more highly for its being of a single block, 
 and as we do not regret the loss of substance and value which 
 there is in things of solid gold, silver, agate, or ivory ; so I 
 think the walls themselves may be regarded with a more just 
 complacency if they are known to be all of noble substance ; 
 and that rightly weighing the demands of the two principles 
 of which we have hitherto spoken — Sacrifice and Truth, we 
 should sometimes rather spare external ornament than dimin- 
 ish the unseen value and consistency of what we do ; and I 
 beheve that a better manner of design, and a more careful and 
 studious, if less abundant decoration would follow, upon the 
 consciousness of thoroughness in the substance. And, indeed, 
 this is to be remembered, with respect to all the points we 
 have examined ; that while we have traced the limits of license, 
 we have not fixed those of that high rectitude which refuses 
 license. It is thus true that there is no falsity, and much 
 beauty in the use of external color, and that it is lawful to paint 
 either pictures or patterns on whatever surfaces may seem to 
 need enrichment. But it is not less tme, that such practices 
 are essentially unarchitectural ; and while we cannot say that 
 there is actual danger in an over use of them, seeing that they 
 have been always used most lavishly in the times of most noble 
 art, yet they divide the work into two parts and kinds, one of 
 less durability than the other, which dies away from it in pro- 
 cess of ages, and leaves it, unless it have noble quaHties of its 
 own, naked and bare. That enduring noblesse I should, there- 
 fore, call truly architectural ; and it is not until this has been 
 secured that the accessory power of painting may be called in, 
 for the delight of the immediate time ; nor this, as I think, 
 until every resource of a more stable kind has been exhausted. 
 The true colors of architecture are those of natural stone, and 
 
PLATE n.— ;Page 65 -Vol. V.) 
 Pakt of tqe Cathedtial of St. Lo, Nokmandt. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 55 
 
 I would fain see these taken advantage of to the fulL Every 
 variety of hue, from pale yeUow to purple, passing through 
 orange, red, and brown, is entirely at our command ; nearly 
 every kind of green and gray is also attainable : and with 
 these, and pure white, what harmonies might we not achieve ? 
 Of stained and variegated stone, the quantity is unlimited, the 
 kinds innumerable ; where brighter colors are required, let 
 glass, and gold protected by glass, be used in mosaic — a kind 
 of work as durable as the sohd stone, and incapable of losing 
 its lustre by time — and let the painter's work be reserved for 
 the shadowed loggia and inner chamber. This is the true and 
 faithfiil way of building ; where this cannot be, the device of 
 external coloring may, indeed, be employed without dishonor ; 
 but it must be with the warning reflection, that a time will 
 come when such aids must pass away, and when the building 
 win be judged in its Ufelessness, dying the death of the dol- 
 phin. Better the less bright, more enduring fabric. The 
 transparent alabasters of San IVIiniato, and the mosaics of St. 
 Mark's, are more warmly filled, and more brightly touched, by 
 every return of morning and evening rays ; while the hues of 
 our cathedrals have died like the iris out of the cloud ; and 
 the temples whose azure and purple once flamed above the 
 Grecian promontories, stand in their faded whiteness, like 
 snows which the sunset has left cold. 
 
 XIX. The last form of fallacy which it will be remembered 
 we had to deprecate, was the substitution of cast or machine 
 work for that of the hand, generally expressible as Operative 
 Deceit. 
 
 There are two reasons, both weighty, against this practice ; 
 one, that all cast and machine work is bad, as work ; the 
 other, that it is dishonest. Of its badness, I shall speak in 
 another place, that being evidently no efficient reason against 
 its use when other cannot be had. Its dishonesty, however, 
 which, to my mind, is of the grossest kind, is, I think, a suffi- 
 cient reason to determine absolute and imconditional rejec- 
 tion of it. 
 
 Ornament, as I have often before observed, has two en- 
 tirely distinct sources of agreeableness : one, that of the ab* 
 
56 TEE LAMP OF TRUTK 
 
 stract beauty of its forms, which, for the present, we will 
 suppose to be the same whether they come from the hand or 
 the machine ; the other, the sense of human labor and care 
 spent upon it. How grea^ this latter influence we may per- 
 haps judge, by considering that there is not a cluster of weeds 
 growing in any cranny of ruin which has not a beauty in aU 
 respects nearly equal, and, in some, immeasurably superior, to 
 that of the most elaborate sculpture of its stones : and that 
 all our interest in the carved work, our sense of its richness, 
 though it is tenfold less rich than the knots of grass beside 
 it ; of its delicacy, though it is a thousand fold less dehcate ; 
 of its admirableness, though a millionfold less admirable ; re- 
 sults from our consciousness of its being the work of poor, 
 clumsy, toilsome man. Its true delightfulness depends on 
 our discovering in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and 
 trials, and heart-breakings — of recoveries and joyfulnesses of 
 success : aU this can be traced by a practised eye ; but, grant- 
 ing it even obscure, it is presumed or understood ; and in 
 that is the worth of the thing, just as much as the worth of 
 anything else we call precious. The worth of a diamond is 
 simply the understanding of the time it must take to look for 
 it before it can be cut. It has an intrinsic value besides, 
 which the diamond has not (for a diamond has no more real 
 beauty than a piece of glass) ; but I do not speak of that at 
 present ; I place the two on the same ground ; and I suppose 
 that hand- wrought ornament can no more be generally kaiown 
 from machine work, than a diamond can be known from 
 paste ; nay, that the latter may deceive, for a moment, the 
 mason's, as the other the jeweller's eye ; and that it can be 
 detected only by the closest examination. Yet exactly as a 
 woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so would a 
 builder of honor disdain false ornaments. The using of them 
 is just as dovmright and inexcusable a Ue. You use that 
 which pretends to a worth which it has not ; which pretends 
 to have cost, and to be, what it did not, and is not ; it is an 
 imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin. Down 
 with it to the ground, grind it to powder, leave its ragged 
 place upon the wall, rather ; you have not paid for 11^ you 
 
TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 57 
 
 have no business with it, you do not want it. Nobody wants 
 ornaments in this world, but everybody wants integrity. All 
 the fair devices that ever were fancied, are not worth a lie. 
 Leave your walls as bare as a planed board, or build them oi 
 baked mud and chopped straw, if need be ; but do not 
 rough-cast them with falsehood. 
 
 This, then, being our general law, and I hold it for a more 
 imperative one than any other I have asserted ; and this kind 
 of dishonesty the meanest, as the least necessary ; for orna- 
 ment is an extravagant and inessential thing ; and, therefore, 
 if fallacious, utterly base — this, I say, being our general law, 
 there are, nevertheless, certain exceptions respecting particu- 
 lar substances and Uieir uses. 
 
 XX. Thus in the use of brick ; since that is known to be 
 originally moulded, there is no reason why it should not be 
 moulded into diverse forms. It will never be supposed to 
 have been cut, and therefore, will cause no deception ; it will 
 have only the credit it deserves. In flat countries, far from 
 any quarry of stone, cast brick may be legitimately, and most 
 sucaessfully, used in decoration, and that elaborate, and even 
 refined. The brick mouldings of the Palazzo Pepoli at 
 Bologna, and those which run round the market-place of Ver- 
 celli, are among the richest in Italy. So also, tile and por- 
 celain work, of which the former is gTotesquely, but success- 
 fully, employed in the domestic architecture of France, col- 
 ored tiles being inserted in the diamond spaces between the 
 crossing timbers ; and the latter admirably in Tuscany, in 
 external bas-reUefs, by the Kobbia family, in which works, 
 while we cannot but sometimes regret the useless and ill-ar- 
 ranged colors, we would by no means blame the employment 
 of a material which, whatever its defects, excels every other 
 in permanence, and, perhaps, requires even greater skill in its 
 management than marble. For it is not the material, but 
 the absence of the human labor, which makes the thing 
 worthless ; and a piece of terra cotta, or of plaster of Paris, 
 which has been wrought by human hand, is worth all the 
 stone ia Carrara, cut by machinery. It is, indeed, possible, 
 said even usual, for men to sink into machines themselves, sg 
 
88 TEB LAMP OH' TRUTH. 
 
 that even hand-work has all the characters of mechanism ; ol 
 the difference between living and dead hand-work I shall 
 speak presently ; aU that I ask at present is, what it is always 
 in our power to secure — the confession of what we have done, 
 and what we have given ; so that when we use stone at all, 
 since all stone is naturally supposed to be carved by hand, 
 we must not carve it by machinery ; neither must we use any 
 artificial stone cast into shape, nor any stucco ornaments of 
 the color of stone, or which might in anywise be mistaken for 
 it, as the stucco mouldings in the cortile of the Palazzo Vec- 
 chio at Florence, which cast a shame and suspicion over every 
 part of the building. But for ductile and fusible materials, 
 as clay, iron, and bronze, since these will usually be supposed 
 to have been cast or stamped, it is at our pleasure to employ 
 them as we will ; remembering that they become precious, or 
 othenvise, just in proportion to the hand-work upon them, or 
 to the clearness of their reception of the hand-work of their 
 mould. 
 
 But I beheve no cause to have been more active in the 
 degradation of our natural feeling for beauty, than the con- 
 stant use of cast iron ornaments. The common iron work of 
 the middle ages was as simple as it was effective, composed of 
 leafage cut flat out of sheet iron, and twisted at the work- 
 man's will. No ornaments, on the contrary, are so cold, 
 clumsy, and vulgar, so essentially incapable of a fine line, or 
 shadow, as those of cast iron ; and while, on the score of truth, 
 we can hardly allege anything against them, since they are 
 always distinguishable, at a glance, from wrought and ham- 
 mered work, and stand only for what they are, yet I feel very 
 strongly that there is no hope of the progress of the arts of 
 any nation which indulges in these vulgar and cheap substi- 
 tutes for real decoration. Their inefficiency and paltriness I 
 shall endeavor to show more conclusively in another place, 
 enforcing only, at present, the general conclusion that, if even 
 honest or allowable, they are things in which we can never 
 take just pride or pleasure, and must never be employed in 
 any place wherein they might either themselves obtain the 
 ci-edit of being other and better than they are, or be assc 
 
THE LAMP OF TRVTE. 59 
 
 ciated with the downright work to which it would be a dis- 
 grace to be found in their company. 
 
 Such are, I behave, the three principal kinds of fallacy by 
 which architecture is liable to be corrupted ; there are, how- 
 ever, other and more subtle forms of it, against which it is less 
 easy to guard by definite law, than by the watchfulness of a 
 manly and unaffected spirit. For, as it has been above no- 
 ticed, there are certain kinds of deception which extend to 
 impressions and ideas only ; of which some are, indeed, of a 
 noble use, as that above referred to, the arborescent look of 
 lofty Gothic aisles ; but of which the most part have so much 
 of legerdemain and trickei:y about them, that they will lower 
 any style in which they considerably prevail ; and they are 
 likely to prevail when once they are admitted, being apt to 
 catch the fancy ahke of uninventive architects and f eelinglesa 
 spectators ; just as mean and shallow minds are, in other 
 matters, delighted with the sense of over-reaching, or tickled 
 with the conceit of detecting the intention to over-reach ; and 
 when subtleties of this kind are accompanied by the display 
 of such dextrous stone-cutting, or architectural sleight of 
 hand, as may become, even by itself, a subject of admiration, 
 it is a great chance if the pursuit of them do not gradually 
 draw us away from all regard and care for the nobler char- 
 acter of the art, and end in its total paralysis or extinction. 
 And against this there is no guarding, but by stern disdain 
 of all display of dexterity and ingenious device, and by put- 
 ting the whole force of our fancy into the arrangement of 
 masses and forms, caring no more how these masses and 
 forms are wrought out, than a great painter cares which 
 way his pencil strikes. It would be easy to give many in- 
 stances of the danger of these tricks and vanities ; but I 
 shall confine myself to the examination of one which has, as 
 I think, been the cause of the fall of Gothic architecture 
 throughout Europe. I mean the system of intersectional 
 mouldings, which, on account of its great importance, and 
 for the sake of the general reader, I may, perhaps, be par- 
 doned for explaining elementarily. 
 
 XXL I must, in the first place, however, refer to Professor 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 61 
 
 window is in the outline of its light ; and I have drawn all 
 thoee traceries as seen from within, in order to show the effect 
 of the light thus treated, at first in far off and separate stai-s, 
 and then gradually enlarging, approaching, until they como 
 and stand over us, as it were, filling the whole space wilfti their 
 effulgence. And it is in this pause of the star, that we have 
 the great, pure, and perfect form of French Gothic ; it was 
 at the instant when the rudeness of the iatermediate space 
 Lad been finally conquered, when the light had expanded to 
 its fullest, and yet had not lost its radiant unity, principality, 
 and visible first causing of the whole, that we have the most 
 exquisite feeling and most faultless judgments in the manage- 
 ment alike of the tracery and decorations. I have given, in 
 Plate X, an exquisite example of it, from a panel decoration 
 of the buttresses of the north door of Eouen ; and in order 
 that the reader may understand what truly fine Gothic work 
 is, and how nobly it unites fantasy and law, as well as for our 
 immediate purpose, it wiU be well that he should examine its 
 sections and mouldings in detail (they are described in the 
 fourth Chapter, § xxvii.), and that the more carefully, because 
 this design belongs to a period in which the most important 
 change took place in the spirit of Gothic architecture, which, 
 perhaps, ever resulted from the natural progress of any art. 
 That tracery marks a pause between the laying aside of one 
 great ruling principle, and the taking up of another ; a pause 
 as marked, as clear, as conspicuous to the distant view of 
 after times, as to the distant glance of the traveller is the 
 culminating ridge of the moimtain chain over which he has 
 passed. It was the great watershed of Gothic art. Before it, 
 all had been ascent ; after it, all was decline ; both, indeed, 
 by winding paths and varied slopes ; both interrupted, liko 
 the gradual rise and faU of the passes of the Alps, by great 
 mountain outliers, isolated or branching from the central 
 chain, and by retrograde or parallel directions of the valleys 
 of access. But the track of the human mind is traceable up 
 to that glorious ridge, in a continuous line, and thence down ■ 
 wards, lake » silver «one-^ 
 
62 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 " Flung about carelessly, It shines afar, 
 Catching the eye in many a broken link, 
 In many a turn and traverse, as it glides. 
 And oft above, and oft below, appears — 
 * • * * to him who journeys up 
 As though it were another." 
 
 And at that point, and that instant, reaching the place that 
 was nearest heaven, the builders looked back, for the last 
 time, to the way by which they had come, and the scenes 
 through which their early course had passed. They turned 
 away from them and their morning Ught, and descended to- 
 wards a new horizon, for a time in the warmth of western sun, 
 but plunging with every forward step into more cold and 
 melancholy shade. 
 
 XXm. The change of which I speak, is inexpressible in 
 few words, but one more important, more radically influential, 
 could not be. It was the substitution of the line for the mass, 
 as the element of decoration. 
 
 We have seen the mode in which the openings or penetra- 
 tion of the window expanded, until what were, at first, awk- 
 ward forms of intermediate stone, became delicate lines of 
 tracery : and I have been careful in pointing out the peculiar 
 attention bestowed on the proportion and decoration of the 
 mouldings of the window at Eouen, in Plate X., as compared 
 with earher mouldings, because that beauty and care are sin- 
 gularly significant. They mark that the traceries had caught 
 the eye of the architect. Up to that time, up to the very last 
 instant Ln which the reduction and thinning of the intervening 
 stone was consummated, his ere had been on the openings only, 
 on the stars of Hght. He did not care about the stone, a rude 
 border of moulding was all he needed, it was the penetrating 
 shape which he was watching. But when that shape had re- 
 ceived its last possible expansion, and when the stone-work 
 became an arrangement of graceful and parallel lines, that 
 arrangement, like some form in a picture, unseen and acciden- 
 tally developed, struck suddenly, inevitably, on the sight. It 
 nad Uterally not been seen before. It flashed out in an in- 
 stant as an independent form. It became a feature of the 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 63 
 
 work. The architect took it under his care, thought over it, 
 and distributed its members as we see. 
 
 Now, the great pause was at the moment when the space 
 and the dividiag stone-work were both equally considered. 
 It did not last fifty years. The forms of the tracery were 
 seized with a childish dehght in the novel source of beauty ; 
 and the intervening space was cast aside, as an element of 
 decoration, for ever. I have confined myself, in foUovsing this 
 change, to the window, as the feature in which it is clearest. 
 But the transition is the same La every member of architect- 
 ure ; and its importance can hardly be understood, unless we 
 take the pains to trace it in the universality, of which illustra- 
 tions, irrelevant to our present purpose, will be found in the 
 third Chapter. I pursue here the question of truth, relating 
 to the treatment of the mouldings. 
 
 XXIV. The reader will observe that, up to the last expan- 
 sion of the penetrations, the stone- work was necessarily consid- 
 ered, as it actually is, stiff, and unyielding. It was so, also, 
 during the pause of which I have spoken, when the forms of 
 the tracery were stiU severe and pture ; deUcate indeed, but 
 perfectly firm. 
 
 At the close of the period of pause, the first sign of serious 
 change was like a low breeze, passing through the emaciated 
 tracery, and making it tremble. It began to undulate like the 
 threads of a cobweb Ufted by the wind. It lost its essence as 
 a structure of stone. Eeduced to the slenderness of threads, 
 it began to be considered as possessing also their flexibiUty. 
 The architect was pleased with this his new fancy, and set him- 
 self to carry it out ; and in a little time, the bars of tracery 
 were caused to appear to the eye as if they had been woven 
 together hke a net. This was a change which sacrificed a 
 great principle of truth ; it sacrificed the expression of the 
 qualities of the material ; and, however delightful its results 
 in their first developments, it was ultimately ruinous. 
 
 For, observe the difference between the supposition of duc- 
 tUity, and that of elastic structure noticed above in the resem- 
 blance to tree form. That resemblance was not sought, but 
 necessary ; it resulted from the natural conditions of strength 
 
64 rnE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 in the pier or trunk, and slendemess in the ribs or branches, 
 while many of the other suggested conditions of resemblance 
 were perfectly true. A tree branch, though in a certain sense 
 flexible, is not ductile ; it is as firm in its own form as the rib 
 of stone ; both of them wLU yield up to certain Hmits, both of 
 them breaking when those limits are exceeded ; while the tree 
 trunk will bend no more than the stone pillai-. But when the 
 tracei"y is assumed to be as yielding as a silken cord ; when 
 the whole fragility, elasticity, and weight of the material are 
 to the eye, if not in terms, denied ; when all the art of the 
 architect is applied to disprove the first conditions of his work- 
 ing, and the first attributes of his materials ; this is a deliber- 
 ate treachery, ouly redeemed from the charge of direct false- 
 hood by the visibility of the stone surface, and degrading all 
 the traceries it affects exactly in the degree of its presence. 
 
 XXV. But the declining and morbid taste of the later ar- 
 chitects, was not satisfied with thus much deception. They 
 were delighted with the subtle charm they had created, and 
 thought only of increasing its power. The next step was to 
 consider and represent the tracery, as not only ductile, but 
 penetrable ; and when two mouldings met each other, to 
 manage their intersection, so that one should appear to pass 
 through the other, retaining its independence ; or when two 
 ran parallel to each other, to represent the one as partly con- 
 tained within the other, and partly apparent above it. This 
 form of falsity was that which crushed the art. The flexible 
 traceries were often beautiful, though they were ignoble ; but 
 the penetrated traceries, rendered, as they finally were, merely 
 the means of exhibiting the dexterity of the stone-cutter, an- 
 nihilated both the beauty and dignity of the Gothic types. 
 A system so momentous in its consequences deserves some 
 detailed examination. 
 
 XXVI. In the drawing of the shafts of the door at Lisieux, 
 under the spandril, in Plate VII., the reader will see the mode 
 of managing the intersection of similar mouldings, which was 
 universal in the great periods. They melted into each other, 
 and became one at the point of crossing, or of contact ; and 
 even the suggestion of so sharp intersection as this of Lisieux 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 65 
 
 is usually avoided (this design being, of course, only a pointed 
 form of the earlier Norman arcade, in which the arches are 
 interlaced, and lie each over the preceding, and under the fol- 
 lowing, one, as in Anselm's tovcer at Canterbury), since, in the 
 plurahty of designs, vrhen mouldings meet each other, they 
 coincide through some considerable portion of their curves, 
 meeting by contact, rather than by intersection ; and at the 
 point of coincidence the section of each separate moulding 
 becomes common to the two thus melted into each other. 
 Thus, in the junction of the circles of the window of the Pa- 
 lazzo Foscari, Plate YEEL, given accurately in fig, 8, Plate IV., 
 the section across the line s, is exactly the same as that across 
 any break of the separated moulding above, as «. It some- 
 times, however, happens, that two different mouldings meet 
 each other. This was seldom permitted in the great periods, 
 and, when it took place, was most awkwardly managed. Fig. 
 1, Plate IV. gives the junction of the mouldings of the gable 
 and vertical, in the window of the spire of Salisbury. That 
 of the gable is composed of a single, and that of the vertical 
 of a double cavetto, decorated with ball-flowers ; and the 
 larger single moulding swallows up one of the double ones, 
 and pushes forward among the smaller balls with the most 
 blundering and clumsy simplicity. In comparing the sections 
 it is to be observed that, in the upper one, the line a b repre- 
 sents an actual vertical in the plane of the window ; while, in 
 the lower one, the line e d represents the horizontal, in the 
 plane of the window, indicated by the perspective line d e. 
 
 XXVn. The very awkwardness with which such occur- 
 rences of difficulty are met by the eai-lier builder, marks hia 
 dislike of the system, and unwillingness to attract the eye to 
 such arrangements. There is another very clumsy one, in the 
 junction of the upper and sub-arches of the triforium of 
 Salisbury ; but it is kept in the shade, and all the prominent 
 junctions are of mouldings like each other, and managed vsith 
 perfect simplicity. But so soon as the attention of the builders 
 became, as we have just seen, fixed upon the lines of mouldings 
 instead of the enclosed spaces, those lines began to preserve an 
 independent existence wherever they met ; and different mould- 
 6 
 
66 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 ings were studiously associated, in order to obtaia variety of 
 intersectional line. We must, however, do the late builders 
 the justice to note that, in one case, the habit grew out of a 
 feeling of proportion, more refined than that of earlier work- 
 men. It shows itself first in the bases of divided piUars, or 
 arch mouldings, whose smaller shafts had originally bases 
 formed by the continued base of the central, or other larger, 
 columns with which they were grouped ; but it being felt, when 
 the eye of the architect became fastidious, that the dimension 
 of moulding which was right for the base of a large shaft, was 
 wrong for that of a small one, each shaft had an independent 
 base ; at first, those of the smaller died simply down on that 
 of the larger ; but when the vertical sections of both became 
 complicated, the bases of the smaller shafts were considered to 
 exist within those of the larger, and the places of their emer- 
 gence, on this supposition, were calculated with the utmost 
 nicety, and cut with singular precision ; so that an elaborate 
 late base of a divided column, as, for instance, of those in the 
 nave of Abbeville, looks exactly as if its smaller shafts had all 
 been finished to the ground first, each with its complete and 
 intricate base, and then the comprehending base of the central 
 pier had been moulded over them in clay, leaving their points 
 and angles sticking out here and there, like the edges of sharp 
 crystals out of a nodule of earth! The exhibition of technical 
 dexterity in work of this kind is often marvellous, the strangest 
 possible shapes of sections being calculated to a hair's-breadth, 
 and the occiu-rence of the under and emergent forms being 
 rendered, even in places where they are so slight that they can 
 hardly be detected but by the touch. It is impossible to ren- 
 der a very elaborate example of this kind intelligible, without 
 some fifty measured sections ; but fig. 6, Plate IV. is a very in- 
 teresting and simple one, from the west gate of Rouen. It is 
 part of the base of one of the narrow piers between its princi- 
 pal niches. The square column k, having a base with the pro- 
 file p r, is supposed to contain within itself another similar 
 one, set diagonally, and bfted so far above the inclosing one, 
 as that the recessed part of its profile p r shall fall behind the 
 projecting part of the outer one. The angle of its upper per- 
 

 PL/VTB rV.— (Page 66-Vol. V.) 
 INTERSECTIONAI, MoULDINGS. 
 
TEE LAMP OF TRUTH. 67 
 
 tion exactly meets the plane of the side of the upper inclosing 
 shaft 4, and would, therefore, not be seen, unless two vertical 
 cuts were made to exhibit it, which form two dark lines the 
 whole way up the shaft. Two smaU pilasters are run, like 
 fastening stitches, through the junction on the front of the 
 shafts. The sections & n taken respectively at the levels k, n, 
 will explain the hypothetical construction of the whole. Fig. 
 7 is a base, or joint rather (for passages of this form occur 
 again and again, on the shafts of flamboyant work), of one of 
 the smallest piers of the pedestals which support the lost stat- 
 ues of the porch ; its section below would be the same as 7i, 
 and its construction, after what has been said of the other 
 base, will be at once perceived. 
 
 XXVUL There -was, however, in this kind of involution, 
 much to be admired as well as reprehended, the proportions 
 of quantities were always as beautiful as they were intricate ; 
 and, though the lines of intersection were harsh, they were 
 exquisitely opposed to the flower-work of the interposing 
 mouldings. But the fancy did not stop here ; it rose from 
 the bases into the arches ; and there, not finding room enough 
 for its exhibition, it withdrew the capitals from the heads 
 even of cylindrical shafts, (we cannot but admire, while we 
 regret, the boldness of the men who could defy the authority 
 and custom of all the nations of the earth for a space of some 
 three thousand years,) in order that the arch mouldings might 
 appear to emerge from the pillar, as at its base they had been 
 lost in it, and not to terminate on the abacus of the capital ; 
 then they ran the mouldings across and through each other, 
 at the point of the arch ; and finally, not finding their natural 
 directions enough to furnish as many occasions of intersection 
 as they wished, bent them hither and thither, and cut off their 
 ends short, when they had passed the point of intersection. 
 Pig. 2, Plate IV. is part of a flying buttress from the apse of 
 St. Gervais at Falaise, in which the moulding whose section 
 is rudely given above at/, (taken vertically through the point 
 /;) is carried thrice through itself, in the cross-bar and two 
 arches ; and the flat fillet is cut off sharp at the end of the 
 cross-bar, for the mere pleasure of the truncation. Fig. 3 id 
 
68 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 half of the head of a door in the Stadthaua of Sursee, in which 
 the shaded part of the section of the joint g g, is that of the 
 arch-moulding, which is three times redupHcated, and six 
 times intersected by itself, the ends being cut off when they 
 become unmanageable. This style is, indeed, earlier exag- 
 gerated in Switzerland and Germany, owing to the imitation 
 in stone of the dovetailing of wood, particularly of the inter- 
 secting of beams at the angles of chalets ; but it only furnishes 
 the more plain instance of the danger of the fallacious system 
 which, from the beginning, repressed the German, and, in 
 the end, ruined the French Gothic. It would be too painful 
 a task to follow further the caricatures of form, and eccen- 
 tricities of treatment, which grow out of this singular abuse 
 — the flattened arch, the shrunken pillar, the Hfeless orna- 
 ment, the liny moulding, the distorted and extravagant folia- 
 tion, until the time came when, over these wrecks and rem- 
 nants, deprived of all unity and principle, rose the foul torrent 
 of the renaissance, and swept them aU away. So fell the great 
 dynasty of mediaeval architecture. It was because it had lost 
 its own strength, and disobeyed its own laws — ^because its order, 
 and consistency, and organization, had been broken through 
 — that it could oppose no resistance to the rush of overwhelm- 
 ing innovation. And this, observe, all because it had sacri- 
 ficed a single truth. From that one surrender of its integrity, 
 from that one endeavor to assume the semblance of what it 
 was not, arose the multitudinous forms of disease and decrep- 
 itude, which rotted away, the pillars of its supremacy. It was 
 not because its time was come ; it was not because it was 
 scorned by the classical Romanist, or dreaded by the faithful 
 Protestant. That scorn and that fear it might have survived, 
 and lived ; it would have stood forth in stem comparison with 
 the enervated sensuality of the renaissance ; it would have 
 risen in renewed and purified honor, and with a new soul, 
 from the ashes into which it sank, giving up its glory, as it 
 had received it, for the honor of God — but its own truth was 
 gone, and it sank forever. There was no wisdom nor strength 
 left in it, to raise it from the dust ; and the error of zeal, and 
 the softness of luxury smote it down and dissolved it away 
 
TEE LAMP OF POWER. 69 
 
 It is good for us to remember tMs, as we tread upon the 
 bare ground of its foundations, and stumble over its scattered 
 stones. Those rent skeletons of pierced wall, through which 
 our sea-winds moan and murmur, strewing them joint by 
 joint, and bone by bone, along the bleak promontories on 
 which the Pharos lights came once from houses of prayer — 
 those grey arches and quiet isles luider which the sheep of 
 our valleys feed and rest on the turf that has buried their 
 altars — those shapeless heaps, that are not of the Earth, which 
 lift our fields into strange and sudden banks of flowers, and 
 stay our mountain streams with stones that are not their own, 
 have other thoughts to ask from us than those of mourning 
 for the rage that despoiled, or the fear that lorsook them. It 
 was not the robber, not the fanatic, not the Islasphemer, who 
 sealed the destruction that they had wrought ; the war, the 
 wrath, the terror, might have worked their worst, and the 
 strong walls would have risen, and the sHght pillars would 
 have started again, from under the hand of the destroyer. 
 But they could not rise out of the ruins of their own violated 
 truth. 
 
 CHAPTER lEL 
 
 THE LAMP OP POWEB. 
 
 I. In recalling the impressions we have received from the 
 works of man, after a lapse of time long enough to involve in 
 obscurity aU but the most vivid, it often happens that we find 
 a strange pre-eminence and durabiUty in many upon whose 
 strength we had httle calculated, and that points of character 
 which had escaped the detection of the judgment, become de- 
 veloped under the waste of memory ; as veins of harder rock, 
 whose places could not at first have been discovered by the 
 eye, are left salient under the action of frosts and streams. 
 The traveller who desires to correct the errors of his judg- 
 ment, necessitated by inequaUties of temper, infelicities of 
 circumstance, and accidents of association, has no other re- 
 source than to wait for the calm verdict of interposing years ; 
 and to watch for the new arrangements of eminence and shapa 
 
70 THE LAMP Of POWER. 
 
 in the images whicli remain latest in his memory ; as in tho 
 ebbing of a mountain lake, he would watch the varying out- 
 lines of its successive shore, and trace, in the form of its de- 
 parting waters, the true direction of the forces which had 
 cleft, or the currents which had excavated, the deepest re- 
 cesses of its primal bed. 
 
 In thus reverting to the memories of those works of archi- 
 tecture by which we have been most pleasurably impressed, it 
 wiU generally happen that they faU into two broad classes : 
 the one characterized by an exceeding preciousness and deli- 
 cacy, to which we recur with a sense of affectionate admira- 
 tion ; and the other by a severe, and, in many cases, myste- 
 rious, majesty, which we remember with an undiminished 
 awe, Hke that felt at the presence and operation of some great 
 Spiritual Power. From about these two groups, more or less 
 harmonised by intermediate examples, but always distinc- 
 tively marked by features of beauty or of power, there wiU be 
 swept away, in multitudes, the memories of buildings, per- 
 haps, in their first address to our minds, of no inferior pre- 
 tension, but owing their impressiveness to characters of less 
 enduring nobility — to value of material, accumulation of or- 
 nament, or ingenuity of mechanical construction. Especial 
 interest may, indeed, have been awakened by such circum- 
 stances, and the memory may have been, consequently, ren- 
 dered tenacious of particular parts or effects of the structure ; 
 but it will recall even these only by an active effort, and then 
 without emotion ; while in passive moments, and with thrill- 
 ing influence, the image of purer beauty, and of more spirit- 
 ual power, wlU return in a fair and solemn company ; and 
 whUe the pride of many a stately palace, and the wealth of 
 many a jewelled shrine, perish from our thoughts in a dust of 
 gold, there will rise, through their dimness, the white image 
 of some secluded marble chapel, by river or forest side, with 
 the fretted flower-work shrinking vmder its arches, as if under 
 vaults of late-faUen snow ; or the vast weariness of some shad- 
 owy wall whose separate stones are like mountain foundations, 
 and yet numberless. 
 } IL Now, the difference between these two orders of build- 
 
THE LAMP OF POWEB. 11 
 
 ing is not merely that which there is in nature between things 
 beautiful and sublime. It is, also, the difference between 
 what is derivative and original in man's work ; for whatever 
 is in architecture fair or beautiful, is imitated from natiu:al 
 forms ; and what is not so derived, but depends for its dig- 
 nity upon arrangement and government received from human 
 mind, becomes the expression of the power of that mind, and 
 receives a subhmity high in proportion to the power ex- 
 pressed. All building, therefore, shows man either as gather- 
 ing or governing : and the secrets of his success are his 
 knowing what to gather, and how to rule. These are the two 
 great intellectual Lamps of Architecture ; the one consisting 
 in a just and humble veneration for the works of God upon 
 the earth, and the other in an understanding of the dominion 
 over those works which has been vested in man. 
 
 TTT. Besides this expression of Uving authority and power, 
 there is, however, a sympathy in the forms of noble building, 
 with what is most sublime in natural things ; and it is the 
 governing Power directed by this sympathy, whose operation 
 I shall at present endeavor to trace, abandoning all inquiry 
 into the more abstract fields of invention : for this latter 
 faculty, and the questions of proportion and arrangement 
 connected with its discussion, can only be rightly examined 
 in a general view of all arts ; but its sympathy, in architecture, 
 with the vast controlling powers of Nature herself, is special, 
 and may shortly be considered ; and that with the more ad- 
 vantage, that it has, of late, been httle felt or regarded by 
 architects. I have seen, in recent efforts, much contest between 
 two schools, one affecting originality, and the other legality — 
 many attempts at beauty of design — many ingenious adapta- 
 tions of construction ; but I have never seen any aim at the 
 expression of abstract power ; never any appearance of a con- 
 sciousness that, in this primal art of man, there is room for 
 the marking of his relations with the mightiest, as well as the 
 fairest, works of God ; and that those works themselves have 
 been permitted, by their Master and his, to receive an added 
 glory from their association with earnest efforts of human 
 thought. In the edifices of Man there should be found rever- 
 
72 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 ent worship and following, not only of the spirit which rounds 
 the pillars of the forest, and arches the vault of the avenue — 
 which gives veining to the leaf, and polish to the shell, and 
 grace to every pulse that agitates animal organization, — but 
 of that also which reproves the pillars of the earth, and builds 
 up her barren precipices into the coldness of the clouds, and 
 lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale arch 
 of the sky ; for these, and other glories more than these, re- 
 fuse not to connect themselves, in his thoughts, vsith the work 
 of his own hand ; the grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it 
 reminds us of some Cyclopean waste of mural stone ; the pin- 
 nacles of the rocky promontory arrange themselves, unde- 
 graded, into fantastic semblances of fortress towers ; and even 
 the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy mixed 
 with that of its own solitude, which is cast from the images of 
 nameless tumuli on white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy 
 clay, into which chambered cities melt in their mortality. 
 
 IV. Let us, then, see what is this power and majesty, which 
 Nature herself does not disdain to accept from the works of 
 man ; and what that eubUmity in the masses built up by his 
 coralline-like energy, which is honorable, even when trans- 
 ferred by association to the dateless hiUs, which it needed 
 earthquakes to lift, and deluges to mould. 
 
 And, first of mere size : It might not be thought possible 
 to emulate the sublimity of natural objects in this respect ; nor 
 would it be, if the architect contended with them in pitched 
 battle. It would not be well to build pyramids in the valley 
 of Chamouni ; and St. Peter's, among its many other en-ors, 
 counts for not the least injurious its position on the slope of 
 an inconsiderable hill. But imagine it placed on the plain of 
 Marengo, or, like the Superga of Turin, or like La Salute at 
 Venice ! The fact is, that the apprehension of the size of na- 
 tural objects, as well as of architecture, depends more on for- 
 tunate excitement of the imagination than on measurements 
 by the eye ; and the architect has a peculiar advantage in being 
 able to press close upon the sight, such magnitude as he can 
 command. There are few rocks, even among the Alps, that 
 have a clear vertical fall as high as the choir of Beauvais ; and 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. <■> 
 
 \ 
 if we secure a good precipice of wall, or a sheer and unbrolcen 
 
 flank of tower, and place them where there are no enormouH 
 natural features to oppose them, we shall feel in them no want 
 of sublimity of size. And it may be matter of encouragement 
 in this respect, though one also of regret, to observe how much 
 oftener man destroys natural subUmity, than nature crushes 
 human power. It does not need much to humiliate a moun- 
 tain. A hut will sometimes do it ; I never look up to the Col 
 de Balme from Chamouni, without a violent feeling of provo- 
 cation against its hospitable little cabin, whose bright white 
 walls form a visibly four-square spot on the green ridge, and 
 entirely destroy all idea of its elevation. A single viUa wiU 
 often mar a whole landscape, and dethi-one a dynasty of hills, 
 and the Acropohs of Athens, Parthenon and all, has, I beheve, 
 been dwarfed into a model by the palace lately built beneath 
 it The fact is, that hills are not so high as we fancy them, 
 and, when to the actual impression of no mean comparative 
 size, is added the sense of the toil of manly hand and thought, 
 a sublimity is reached, which nothing but gross error in ar- 
 rangement of its parts can destroy. 
 
 V. While, therefore, it is not to be supposed that mere size 
 will ennoble a mean design, yet every increase of magnitude 
 will bestow upon it a certain degree of nobleness : so that it 
 is well to determine at first, whether the building is to be 
 markedly beautiful or markedly sublime ; and if the latter, 
 not to be withheld by respect to smaller parts from reaching 
 largeness of scale ; provided only, that it be evidently in the 
 architect's power to reach at least that degree of magnitude 
 which is the lowest at which sublimity begins, rudely definable 
 as that which wUl make a living figure look less than life be- 
 side it. It is the misfortune of most of our modern buildings 
 that we would fain have an universal excellence in them ; and 
 so part of the funds must go in painting, part in gilding, part 
 in fitting up, part in painted windows, part in small steeples, 
 part in ornaments here and there ; and neither the windows, 
 nor the steeple, nor the ornaments, are worth their materials. 
 For there is a crust about the impressible part of men's minds, 
 which must be pierced through before they can be touched 
 
74 THE LAMP OF POWER 
 
 to the quick ; and though we may prick at it and scratch it 
 in a thousand separate places, we might as well have let it 
 alone if we do not come through somewhere with a deep 
 thrust : and if we can give such a thrust anywhere, there is 
 no need of another ; it need not be even so " wide as a church 
 door," so that it be enough. And mere weight wiU do this ; 
 it is a clumsy way of doing it, but an effectual one, too ; and 
 the apathy which cannot be pierced through by a small steeple, 
 nor shone through by a small window, can be broken through 
 in a moment by the mere weight of a great wall. Let, there- 
 fore, the architect who has not large resources, choose his 
 point of attack first, and, if he choose size, let him abandon 
 decoration ; for, unless they are concentrated, and numerous 
 enough to make their concentration conspicuous, all his orna- 
 ments together would not be worth one huge stone. And the 
 choice must be a decided one, without compromise. It must 
 be no question whether his capitals would not look better with 
 a little carving — let him leave them huge as blocks ; or whether 
 his arches should not have richer architraves — let him throw 
 them a foot higher, if he can ; a yard more across the nave 
 wUl be worth more to him than a tesselated pavement ; and 
 another fathom of outer wall, than an army of pinnacles. The 
 limitation of size must be only in the uses of the buUding, or 
 in the ground at his disposal. 
 
 VI That limitation, however, being by such circumstances 
 determined, by what means, it is to be next asked, may the 
 actual magnitude be best displayed ; since it is seldom, per- 
 haps never, that a building of any pretension to size looks so 
 large as it is. The appearance of a figure in any distant, more 
 especially in any upper, parts of it will almost always prove 
 that we have under-estimated the magnitude of those parts. 
 
 It has often been observed that a building, in order to show 
 ite magnitude, must be seen all at once. It would, perhaps, 
 be better to say, must be bounded as much as possible by 
 continuous lines, and that its extreme points should be seen 
 all at once ; or we may state, in simpler terms stiU, that it 
 must have one visible bounding line from top to bottom, and 
 from end to end. This bounding line from top to bottom may 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER 73 
 
 either be inclined inwards, and the mass, therefore, pyrami- 
 dical ; or vertical, and the mass form one grand chff ; or in- 
 chned outwards, as in the advancing fronts of old houses, and, 
 in a sort, in the Greek temple, and in all buildings with heavy 
 cornices or heads. Now, in pj^ these cases, if the bounding 
 line be violently broken ; if the cornice project, or the uppei 
 portion of the pyramid recede, too violently, majesty will be 
 lost ; not because the building cannot be seen aU at once, — 
 for in the case of a heavy cornice no part of it is necessarily 
 concealed — but because the continuity of its terminal line is 
 broken, and the length of that line, therefore, cannot be esti- 
 mated. But the error is, of course, more fatal when much of 
 the building is also concealed ; as in the well-known case of 
 the recession of the dome of St. Peter's, and, from the greater 
 number of points of view, in churches whose highest portions, 
 whether dome or tower, are over their cross. Thus there is 
 only one point from which the size of the Cathedral of Florence 
 is felt ; and that is from the corner of the Via de' Balestrieri, 
 opposite the south-east angle, where it happens that the dome 
 is seen rising instantly above the apse and transepts. In all 
 cases in which the tower is over the cross, the grandeur and 
 height of the tower itself are lost, because there is but one line 
 down which the eye can trace the whole height, and that is in 
 the inner angle of the cross, not easily discerned. Hence, 
 while, in symmetry and feeling, such designs may often have 
 pre-eminence, yet, where the height of the tower itself is to 
 be made apparent, it must be at the west end, or better stUl, 
 detached as a campanile. Imagine the loss to the Lombard 
 churches if their campaniles were carried only to their present 
 height over their crosses ; or to the Cathedral of Rouen, if the 
 Tour de Beurre were made central, in the place of its present 
 debased spire I 
 
 Vn. Whether, therefore, we have to do with tower or wall, 
 there must be one bounding Une from base to coping ; and I 
 am much iacUned, myself, to love the true vertical, or the 
 vertical, with a solemn frown of projection (not a scowl), as 
 in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. This character is alwaya 
 given to rocks by the poets ; with sHght foundation indeed 
 
76 TEE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 real rocks being little given to overhanging — but -with excel, 
 lent judgment ; for the sense of threatening conveyed by thia 
 form is a nobler character than that of mere size. And, in 
 buildings, this threatening shoidd be somewhat carried dovm 
 into their mass. A mere projecting shelf is not enough, the 
 whole wall must, Jupiter like, nod as well as frown. Hence, 
 I think the propped machicolations of the Palazzo Vecchio 
 and Duomo of Florence far grander headings than any form 
 of Greek cornice. Sometimes the projection may be thrown 
 lower, as in the Doge's palace of Venice, where the chief ap- 
 pearance of it is above the second arcade ; or it may become 
 a grand swell from the ground, as the head of a ship of the 
 line rises from the sea. This is very nobly attained by the 
 projection of the niches in the third story of the Tour da 
 Beurre at Eouen. 
 
 Vlii. What is needful in the setting forth of magnitude in 
 height, is right also in the marking it in area — let it be gath- 
 ered well together. It is especially to be noted with respect 
 to the Palazzo Vecchio and other mighty buildings of its 
 order, how mistakenly it has been stated that dimension, in 
 order to become impressive, should be expanded either in 
 height or length, but not equally : whereas, rather it will be 
 found that those buildings seem on the whole the vastest 
 which have been gathered up into a mighty square, and which 
 look as if they had been measured by the angel's rod, " the 
 length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal," and 
 herein something is to be taken notice of, which I believe 
 not to be sufficiently, if at all, considered among our archi- 
 tects. 
 
 Of the many broad divisions under which architecture may 
 be considered, none appear to me more significant than that 
 into buildings whose interest is in their walls, and those 
 •whose interest is in the lines dividing their walls. In the 
 Greek temple the wall is as nothing ; the entire interest is in 
 the detached columns and the frieze they bear ; in French 
 Flamboyant, and in our detestable Perpendicular, the object 
 is to get rid of the wall surface, and keep the eye altogethei 
 on tracery of line ; in Romanesque work and Egyptian, the 
 
THE LAMP OF PO WER. 77 
 
 wall is a •onfessed and honored member, and the light ia 
 often allowed to fall on large areas of it, variously decorated. 
 Now, both these principles are admitted by Nature, the one 
 in her woods and thickets, the other in her plains, and cUffs, 
 and waters ; but the latter is pre-eminently the principle of 
 power, and, in some sense, of beauty also. For, whatever in- 
 finity of fair form there may be in the maze of the forest, 
 there is a fairer, as I think, in the surface of the quiet lake ; 
 and I hardly know that association of shaft or tracery, for 
 which I would exchange the warm sleep of sunshine on some 
 smooth, broad, human-Hke front of marble. Nevertheless, if 
 breadth is to be beautiful, its substance must in some sort be 
 beautiful; and we must not hastUy condemn the exclusive 
 resting of the northern architects in divided lines, untU at 
 least we have remembered the difference between a blank 
 surface of Caen stone, and one mixed from Genoa and Car- 
 rara, of serpentine with snow : but as regards abstract power 
 and awfulness, there is no question ; without breadth of sur- 
 face it is ia vain to seek them, and it matters little, so that the 
 surface be wide, bold and unbroken, whether it be of brick or 
 of jasper ; the light of heaven upon it, and the weight of earth 
 in it, are all we need : for it is singular how forgetful the mind 
 may become both of material and workmanship, if only it have 
 space enough over which to range, and to remind it, however 
 feebly, of the joy that it has in contemplating the flatness 
 and sweep of great plains and broad seas. And it is a noble 
 thing for men to do this with their cut stone or moulded 
 clay, and to make the face of a waU look infinite, and its edge 
 against the sky like an horizon : or even if less than this be 
 reached, it is still dehghtf ul to mark the play of passing hght 
 on its broad surface, and to see by how many artifices and 
 gradations of tinting and shadow, time and storm will set 
 their vrild signatures upon it ; and how in the rising or de- 
 clining of the day the unbroken twilight rests long and lu- 
 ridly on its high lineless forehead, and fades away untraceably 
 down its tiers of confused and countless stone. 
 
 IX. This, then, being, as I think, one of the peculiar ele- 
 ments of sublime architoctui-e, it may be easily seen how neces' 
 
78 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 Barily consequent upon the love of it ■will be the choice of a 
 form approaching to the square for the main outUne. 
 
 For, in whateyer direction the building is contracted, in 
 that direction the eye will be drawn to its terminal lines ; and 
 the sense of surface wiU only be at its fullest when those lines 
 are removed, in every direction, as far as possible. Thus the 
 square and circle are pre-eminently the areas of power among 
 those bounded by purely straight or curved Hnes ; and these, 
 with their relative solids, the cube and sphere, and relative 
 solids of progression (as in the investigation of the laws of 
 proportion I shall caU those masses which are generated by 
 the progression of an area of given form along a line in a 
 given direction), the square and cylindrical column, are the 
 elements of utmost power in all architectural arrangements. 
 On the other hand, grace and perfect proportion require an 
 elongation in some one direction : and a sense of power may 
 be communicated to this form of magnitude by a continuous 
 series of any marked features, such as the eye may be unable 
 to number ; while yet we feel, from their boldness, decision, 
 and simplicity, that it is indeed their multitude which has 
 embarrassed us, not any confusion or indistinctness of form. 
 This expedient of continued series forms the sublimity of 
 arcades and aisles, of all ranges of columns, and, on a smaller 
 scale, of those Greek mouldings, of which, repeated as they 
 now are in all the meanest and most familiar forms of our fur- 
 niture, it is impossible altogether to weary. Now, it is evi- 
 dent that the architect has choice of two types of form, each 
 properly associated with its own kind of interest or decora- 
 tion : the square, or greatest area, to be chosen especially 
 when the surface is to be the subject of thought ; and the 
 elongated area, when the divisions of the surface are to be the 
 subjects of thought. Both these orders of form, as I think 
 nearly every other source of power and beauty, are marvel- 
 lously united in that buildiag which I fear to weary the reader 
 by bringing forward too frequently, as a model of all perfec- 
 tion — the Doge's palace at Venice : its general arrangement, 
 a hollow square ; its principal facade, an oblong, elongated to 
 the eye by a range of thirty-four small arches, and thirty-five 
 
TEE LAMP OF POWER. 79 
 
 columns, while it is separated by a richly-canopied window in 
 the centre, into two massive divisions, whose height and length 
 are nearly as four to five ; the arcades which give it length 
 being confined to the lower stories, and the upper, between 
 its broad windows, left a mighty surface of smooth marble, 
 chequered with blocks of alternate rose color and white. It 
 would be impossible, I believe, to invent a more magnificent 
 arrangement of aU that is in bxiilding most dignified and most 
 fair. 
 
 X. Li the Lombard Eomauesque, the two principles are 
 more fused into each other, as most characteristically in the 
 Cathedral of Pisa : length of proportion, exhibited by an ar- 
 cade of twenty-one arches above, and fifteen below, at the side 
 of the nave ; bold square proportion in the front ; that front 
 divided into arcades, placed one above the other, the lowest 
 with its piUars engaged, of seven arches, the four uppermocit 
 thrown out boldly from the receding wall, and casting deep 
 shadows ; the first, above the basement, of nineteen arches ; 
 the second of twenty-one ; the third and fourth of eight each ; 
 sixty-three arches in all ; all circular headed, all with cylin- 
 drical shafts, and the lowest with aquare panellings, set diag- 
 onally under their semicircles, an universal ornament ia this 
 style ('Plate XII., fig. 7) ; the apse, a semicircle, with a semi- 
 dome for its roof, and three ranges of ckcular arches for its 
 exterior ornament ; in the interior of the nave, a range of 
 circular arches below a circtdai--arched triforium, and a vast 
 flat surface, observe, of wall decorated with striped marble 
 above ; the whole arrangement (not a pecidiar one, but char- 
 acteristic of every church of the period ; and, to my feeling, 
 the most majestic ; not perhaps the fairest, but the mightiest 
 type of form which the mind of man has ever conceived) 
 based exclusively on associations of the circle and the square. 
 
 I am now, however, trenching upon ground which I desire 
 to reserve for more careful examination, in connection with 
 other aesthetic questions : but I beUeve the examples I have 
 given wiU justify my vindication of the square form from the 
 reprobation which has been hghtly thrown upon it ; nor might 
 this be done for it only aa a ruling outline, but as occurring 
 
80 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 constantly in the best mosaics, and in a thousand forms ol 
 minor decoration, which I cannot now examine ; my chief 
 assertion of its majesty being always as it is an exponent ol 
 space and surface, and therefore to be chosen, either to rule in 
 their outUnes, or to adorn by masses of light and shade those 
 portions of buildings in which surface is to be rendered pre- 
 cious or honorable. 
 
 XI. Thus far, then, of general forms, and of the modes in 
 which the scale of architecture is best to be exhibited. Let 
 us next consider the manifestations of power which belong to 
 its details and lesser divisions. 
 
 The first division we ■ have to regard, is the inevitable one 
 of masonry. It is true that this division may, by great art, be 
 concealed ; but I think^ it imwise (as well as dishonest) to do 
 so ; for this reason, that there is a very noble character always 
 to be obtained by the opposition of large stones to divided 
 masonry, as by shafts and columns of one piece, or massy 
 lintels and architraves, to wall work of bricks or smaller stones ; 
 and there is a certain organization in the management of such 
 parts, like that of the continuous bones of the skeleton, op- 
 posed to the vertebrae, which it is not well to surrender. I 
 hold, therefore, that, for this and other reasons, the masonry 
 of a building is to be shown : and also that, with certain rare 
 exceptions (as in the cases of chapels and shrines of most fin- 
 ished workmanship), the smaller the building, the more neces- 
 sary it is that its masonry should be bold, and vice versd. 
 For if a building be under the mark of average magnitude, it 
 is not in our power to increase its apparent size (too easily 
 measurable) by any proportionate diminution in the scale of 
 its masonry. But it may be often in our power to give it a 
 certain nobility by building it of massy stones, or, at aU events, 
 introducing such into its make. Thus it is impossible that 
 there should ever be majesty in a cottage built of brick ; but 
 there is a marked element of sublimity in the rude and irre- 
 gular piling of the rocky walls of the mountain cottages of 
 Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland. Their size is not one whit 
 diminished, though four or five stones reach at their angles 
 from the ground to the eaves, or though a native rock happen 
 
TEE LAMP OF POWER. 81 
 
 to project conveniently, and to be built into the framework of 
 the wall. On the other hand, after a building has once reached 
 the mark of majestic size, it matters, indeed, comparativelj 
 little whether its masonry be large or small, but if it be al- 
 together large, it will sometimes diminish the magnitude for 
 want of a measure ; if altogether small, it wiU suggest ideas 
 of poverty in material, or deficiency in mechanical resourcCf 
 besides interf erhig in many cases with the hnes of the design, 
 and dehcacy of the workmanship. A very unhappy instance 
 of such interference exists in the fagade of the church of St. 
 Madeleine at Paris, where the columns, being built of very 
 small stones of nearly equal size, with visible joints, look as if 
 they were covered with a close treUis. So, then, that masonry 
 will be generally the most magnificent which, without the use 
 of materials systematically small or large, accommodates itself, 
 naturally and frankly, to the conditions and structure of its 
 work, and displays alike its power of dealing with the vastest 
 masses, and of accompUshing its purpose with the smallest, 
 sometimes heaping rock upon rock with Titanic commandment, 
 and anon binding the dusty remnants and edgy splinters iato 
 springing vaults and swelling domes. And if the nobility of this 
 confessed and natural masonry were more commonly felt, we 
 should not lose the dignity of it by smoothing surfaces and 
 fittiug joints. The sums which we waste in chiselling and 
 polishing stones which would have been better left as they 
 came from the quarry would often raise a building a story 
 higher. Only in this there is to be a certain respect for 
 material also : for if we build in marble, or in any hmestone, 
 the known ease of the workmanship wiU make its absence 
 seem slovenly ; it will be weU to take advantage of the stone's 
 softness, and to make the design delicate and dependent upon 
 smoothness of chiselled surfaces : but if we build in granite 
 or lava, it is a folly, in most cases, to cast away the labor 
 necessary to smooth it ; it is wiser to make the design granitic 
 itself, and to leave the blocks rudely sqTiared. I do not deny 
 a certain splendor and sense of power in the smoothing of 
 granite, and in the entire subduing of its iron resistance to 
 the human supremacy. But, in most cases, IbeHeve, the labor 
 6 
 
82 TEE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 and time necessary to do this would be better spent in anothei 
 way ; and that to raise a bttilding to a height of a hundred 
 feet with rough blocks, is better than to raise it to seventy 
 with smooth ones. There is also a magniiicence in the natural 
 cleavage of the stone to which the art must indeed be great 
 that pretends to be equivalent ; and a stern expression of 
 brotherhood with the mountain heart from which it has been 
 rent, ill-exchanged for a glistering obedience to the rule and 
 measure of men. His eye must be delicate indeed, who would 
 desire to see the Pitti palace polished. 
 
 XH Next to those of the masonry, we have to consider 
 the divisions of the design itself. Those divisions are, neces- 
 sarily, either into masses of hght and shade, or else by traced 
 lines ; which latter must be, indeed, themselves produced by 
 incisions Or projections which, in some lights, cast a certain 
 breadth of shade, but which may, nevertheless, if finely enough 
 cut, be always true lines, in distant effect. I call, for instance, 
 such panelling as that of Henry the Seventh's chapel, pure 
 linear division. 
 
 Now, it does not seem to me sufficiently recollected, that a 
 wall surface is to an architect simply what a white canvas is to 
 a painter, with this only difference, that the wall has already a 
 Bubhmity in its height, substance, and other characters already 
 considered, on which it- is more dangerous to break than to 
 touch with shade the canvas surface. And, for my own part, 
 I think a smooth, broad, freshly laid surface of gesso a fairer 
 thing than most pictures I see painted on it ; much more, a 
 noble surface of stone than most architectural features which 
 it is caused to assume. But however this may be, the canvas 
 and wall are supposed to be given, and it is our craft to divide 
 them. 
 
 And the principles on which this division is to be made, are 
 as regards relation of quantities, the same in architecture as 
 in painting, or indeed, in any other art whatsoever, only the 
 painter is by his varied subject partly permitted, partly com- 
 pelled, to dispense with the symmetry of architectural light 
 and shade, and to adopt arrangements apparently free and 
 accidental. So that in modes of grouping there is much dif 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER 83 
 
 ference (though no opposition) between the two arts ; but in 
 rules of quantity, both ai-e alike, so far forth as their com- 
 mands of means are alike. For the architect, not being able 
 to secure always the same depth or decision of shadow, nor 
 to add to its sadness by color (because even when color is 
 employed, it cannot follow the moving shade), is compelled 
 to make many allowances, and avail himself of many con- 
 trivances, which the painter needs neither consider nor 
 employ. 
 
 XTTT. Of these limitations the first consequence is, that 
 positive shade is a more necessary and more subHme thing ia 
 an architect's hands than in a painter's. For the latter being 
 able to temper his light with an under-tone throughout, and 
 to make it deUghtful with sweet color, or awful with lurid 
 color, and to represent distance, and air, and sun, by the 
 depth of it, and fill its whole space vsdth expression, can deal 
 with an enormous, nay, almost with an universal extent of it, 
 and the best painters most deHght in such extent ; but aa 
 light, with the architect, is nearly always liable to become full 
 and untempered sunshine seen upon soHd surface, his only 
 rests, and his chief means of sublimity, are definite shades. 
 So that, after size and weight, the Power of architecture may 
 be said to depend on the quantity (whether measured in space 
 or intenseness) of its shadow ; and it seems to me, that the 
 reality of its works, and the use and influence they have in the 
 daily life of men (as opposed to those works of art with which 
 we have nothing to do but in times of rest or of pleasure) 
 require of it that it should express a kind of human sympathy, 
 by a measure of darkness as great as there is in human life : 
 and that as the great poem and great fiction generally affect 
 us most by the majesty of their masses of shade, and cannot 
 take hold upon us if they affect a continuance of lyric spright- 
 liness, but must be serious often, and sometimes melancholj, 
 else they do not express the truth of this wild world of ours ; 
 so there must be, in this magnificently human art of architec- 
 ture, some equivalent expression for the trouble and wrath 
 of life, for its sorrow and its mystery : and this it can only 
 give by depth or diffusion of gloom, by the frown upon its 
 
84 TEB LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 front, and the shadow of its recess. So that Eembrandtism 
 is a noble manner in architecture, though a false one in paint- 
 ing ; and I do not believe that ever any building was truly 
 great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of 
 shadow mingled with its surface. And among the first habits 
 that a young architect should learn, is that of thinking in 
 shadow, not looking at a design in its miserable liny skeleton ; 
 but conceiving it as it wiU be when the dawn lights it, and 
 the dusk leaves it ; when its stones will be hot and its cran- 
 nies cool ; when the lizards will bask on the one, and the 
 birds build in the other. Let him design with the sense of 
 cold and heat upon him ; let him cut out the shadows, as men 
 dig wells in unwatered plains ; and lead along the lights, as a 
 founder does his hot metal ; let him keep the full command of 
 both, and see that he knows how they fall, and where they fade. 
 His paper liaes and proportions are of no value : all that he 
 has to do must be done by spaces of light and darkness ; and 
 his business is to see that the one is broad and bold enough 
 not to be swallowed up by twilight, and the other deep enough 
 not to be dried like a shallow pool by a noon-day sun. 
 
 And that this may be, the first necessity is that the quanti- 
 ties of shade or light, whatever they may be, shall be thrown 
 into masses, either of something Uke equal weight, or else 
 large masses of the one relieved with small of the other ; but 
 masses of one or other kind there must be. No design that 
 is divided at all, and is not divided into masses, can ever be 
 of the smallest value : this great law respecting breadth, pre- 
 cisely the same in architecture and painting, is so important, 
 that the examination of its two principal appUcations vsdll 
 include most of the conditions of majestic design on which I 
 would at present insist. 
 
 XIV. Painters are in the habit of speaking loosely of masses 
 of light and shade, meaning thereby any large spaces ol 
 either. Nevertheless, it is convenient sometimes to restrict 
 the term " mass " to the portions to which proper form be- 
 longs, and to call the field on which such forms are traced, 
 interval. Thus, in foliage with projecting boughs or stems, 
 ^e have masses of light, with intervals of shade ; and, in 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER 85 
 
 light skies with dark clouds upon them, masses of shade with 
 intervals of light. 
 
 This distinction is, in architecture, still more necessary ; 
 for there are two marked styles dependent upon it : one in 
 which the forms are drawn with light upon darkness, as in 
 Greek sculpture and pillars ; the other in which they are 
 drawn with darkness upon Hght, as in early Gothic foliation. 
 Now, it is not in the designer's power determiaately to vary 
 degrees and places of darkness, but it is altogether in his 
 power to vary in determined directions his degrees of light. 
 Hence, the use of the dark mass characterises, generally, a 
 trenchant style of design, in which the darks and lights are 
 both flat, and terminated by sharp edges ; while the use of 
 the light mass is ui the same way associated with a softened 
 and full manner of design, in which the darks are much 
 warmed by reflected lights, and the lights are rounded and 
 melt into them. The term applied by Milton to Doric bas- 
 reUef — " bossy," is, as is generally the case with MUtou's 
 epithets, the most comprehensive and expressive of this man- 
 ner, which the English language contains ; while the term 
 which specifically describes the chief member of early Gothic 
 decoration, feuiUe, foil or leaf, is equally signiflcative of a 
 flat space of shade. 
 
 XV. We shall shortly consider the actual modes in which 
 these two kinds of mass have been treated. And, first, of the 
 light, or roimded, mass. The modes in which relief was se- 
 cured for the more projecting forms of bas-relief, by the 
 Greeks, have been too well described by Mi-. Eastlake * to need 
 recapitulation ; the conclusion which forces itself upon us from 
 the facts he has remarked, being one on which I shall have occa- 
 sion farther to insist presently, that the Greek workman cared 
 for shadow only as a dark field wherefrom his light figure or de- 
 sign might be intelligibly detached : his attention was concen- 
 trated on the one aim at readableness, and clearness of accent ; 
 and all composition, all harmony, nay, the very.vitaUty and 
 energy of separate groups were, when necessary, sacrificed to 
 plain speaking. Nor was there any predilection for one kind 
 • Literature of the Fine Arts. — Essay on Bw-reliet 
 
86 TEE LAMP OF PO WER 
 
 of form rather than another. Rounded forms were, in the 
 columns and principal decorative members, adopted, not for 
 their own sake, but as characteristic of the things represented. 
 They were beautifully rounded, because the Greek habitually 
 did well what he had to do, not because he loved roundness 
 more than squareness ; severely rectilinear forms were asso- 
 ciated with the curved ones in the cornice and triglyph, and the 
 mass of the pillar was divided by a fluting, which, in distant 
 effect, destroyed much of its breadth. What power of Hght 
 these primal arrangements left, was diminished in successive 
 refinements and additions of ornament ; and continued to di- 
 minish through Eoman work, until the confirmation of the 
 circular arch as a decorative feature. Its lovely and simple 
 line taught the eye to ask for a similar boundary of solid form ; 
 the dome followed, and necessarily the decorative masses were 
 thenceforward managed with reference to, and in sympathy 
 with, the chief feature of the building. Hence arose, among 
 the Byzantine architects, a system of ornament, entirely re- 
 strained within the superfices of curvilinear masses, on which 
 the light fell with as unbroken gradation as on a dome or col- 
 umn, while the illumined surface was nevertheless cut into 
 details of singular and most ingenious intricacy. Something 
 is, of course, to be allowed for the less dexterity of the work- 
 men ; it being easier to cut down into a solid block, than to 
 arrange the projecting portions of leaf on the Greek capital : 
 such leafy capitals are nevertheless executed by the Byzantines 
 vrith skUl enough to show that their preference of the massive 
 form was by no means compulsory, nor can I think it unwise. 
 On the contrary, while the arrangements of line are far more 
 artful in the Greek capital, the Byzantine hght and shade are 
 as incontestably more grand and mascuhne, based on that 
 quality of pure gradation, which nearly all natural objects 
 possess, and the attainment of which is, in fact, the first and 
 most palpable purpose in natural arrangements of grand form. 
 The rolling heap of the thunder-cloud, divided by rents, and 
 multiplied by wreaths, yet gathering them aU into its broad, 
 torrid, and towering zone, and its midnight darkness oppo- 
 site ; the scarcely less majestic heave of the mountain side, all 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER 87 
 
 torn and traversed by depth of defile and ridge of rock, yet 
 never losing the unity of its illumined swell and shadowy de- 
 cline ; and the head of every mighty tree, rich with tracery of 
 leaf and bough, yet terminated against the sky by a true line, 
 and rounded by a green horizon, which, multiplied in the dis- 
 tant forest, makes it look bossy from above ; all these mark, 
 for a great and honored law, that diffusion of light for which 
 the Byzantine ornaments were designed ; and show us that 
 those builders had truer sympathy with what God made majes- 
 tic, than the self -contemplating and seK-coutented Greek. I 
 know that they are barbaric in comparison ; but there is a 
 power in their barbarism of sterner tone, a power not sophistic 
 nor penetrative, but embracing and mysterious ; a power faith- 
 ful more than thoughtful, which conceived and felt more than 
 it created ; a power that neither comprehended nor ruled it- 
 self, but worked and wandered as it listed, like mountain 
 streams and winds ; and which could not rest in the expression 
 or seizure of finite form. It could not bm-y itself in acanthus 
 leaves. Its imagery was taken from the shadows of the storms 
 and hills, and had fellowship with the night and day of the 
 earth itself. 
 
 XVI I have endeavored to give some idea of one of the 
 hollow balls of stone which, surrounded by flowing leafage, 
 occur in varied succession on the architrave of the central 
 gate of St. Mark's at Venice, La Plate I. fig. 2. It seems to 
 me singularly beautiful in its unity of lightness, and delicacy 
 of detail, with breadth of Hght. It looks as if its leaves had 
 been sensitive, and had risen and shut themselves into a bud 
 at some sudden touch, and would presently fall back again 
 into their wild flow. The cornices of San Michele of Lucca, 
 seen above and below the arch, in Plate VI., show the effect 
 of heavy leafage and thick stems arranged on a surface whose 
 curve is a simple quadrant, the light dying fi'om off them as 
 it turns. It would be difficult, as I think, to invent anything 
 more noble ; and I insist on the broad character of their ar- 
 rangement the more earnestly, because, afterwards modified 
 by greater skill in its management, it became characteristic of 
 the richest pieces of Gothic design. The capital, given in 
 
88 THE LAMP OF POWBB. 
 
 Plate v., is of the noblest period of the Venetian Gothic ; and 
 it is interesting to see the play of leafage so luxuriant, abso- 
 lutely subordinated to the breadth of two masses of light and 
 shade. What is done by the Venetian architect, with a power 
 as irresistible as that of the waves of his surrounding sea, is 
 done by the masters of the Cis-Aljjine Gothic, more timidly, 
 and with a manner somewhat cramped and cold, but not less 
 expressing their assent to the same great law. The ice spic- 
 ulse of the North, and its broken sunshine, seem to have 
 image in, and influence on the work ; and the leaves which, 
 under the Italian's hand, roll, and flow, and' bow down over 
 their black shadows, as in the weariness of noon-day heat, are, 
 in the North, crisped and frost-bitten, wrinkled on the edges, 
 and sparkling as if with dew. But the rounding of the ruling 
 form is not less sought and felt. In the lower part of Plate L 
 is the finial of the pediment given in Plate II., from the cathe- 
 dral of St. Lo. It is exactly similar in feeling to the Byzan- 
 tine capital, being rounded under the abacus by four branches 
 of thistle leaves, whose stems, springing from the angles, bend 
 outwards and fall back to the head, throwing their jaggy 
 spines down upon the full light, forming two sharp quatre- 
 foils. I could not get near enough to this finial to see with 
 what degree of delicacy the spines were cut ; but I have 
 sketched a natural group of thistle-leaves beside it, that the 
 reader may compare the types, and see with what mastery 
 they are subjected to the broad form of the whole. The small 
 capital from Coutances, Plate XIH. fig. 4, which is of earlier 
 date, is of simpler elements, and exhibits the principle stiU 
 more clearly ; but the St. Lo finial is only one of a thousand 
 instances which might be gathered even from the fully de- 
 veloped flamboyant, the feeling of breadth being retained in 
 minor ornaments long after it had been lost in the main de- 
 sign, and sometimes capriciously renewing itself throughout, 
 as in the cylindrical niches nnd pedestals which enrich the 
 porches of Caudebec and Rouen. Fig. 1, Plate I. is the sim- 
 plest of those of Kouen ; in the more elaborate there are four 
 projecting sides, divided by buttresses into eight rounded 
 compartments of tracery ; even the whole bulk of the outer 
 
PLATE V.-(Page S8— Vol. V.) 
 
TEE LAMP OF POWER 89 
 
 pier is treated with the same feehng ; and though composed 
 pai-tly of concave recesses, party of square shafts, partly oi 
 statues and tabernacle work, arranges itself as a whole into 
 one richly rounded tower. 
 
 XVn. I cannot here enter into the curious questions con- 
 nected with the management of larger curved surfaces ; into 
 the causes of the difference in proportion necessary to be 
 observed between round and square towers ; nor into the 
 reasons why a column or ball may be richly ornamented, 
 while siurface decorations would be inexpedient on masses 
 like the Castle of St. Angelo, the tomb of CecUia MeteUa, or 
 the dome of St. Peter's. But what has been above said of the 
 desireableness of serenity in plane surfaces, applies still more 
 forcibly to those which are curved ; and it is to be remem- 
 bered that we are, at present, considering how this serenity 
 and power may be carried into minor divisions, not how the 
 ornamental character of the lower form may, upon occasion, 
 be permitted to fret the calmness of the higher. Nor, though 
 the instances we have examined are of globular or cylindrical 
 masses chiefly, is it to be thought that breadth can only be 
 secured by such alone : many of the noblest forms are of sub- 
 dued curvature, sometimes hardly visible ; but curvature of 
 some degree there must be, in order to secure any measure 
 of grandeur in a small mass of light. One of the most 
 marked distinctions between one artist and another, in the 
 point of skill, will be found in their relative delicacy of per- 
 ception of rounded surface ; the full power of expressing the 
 perspective, foreshortening and various undulation of such 
 surface is, perhaps, the last and most difficult attainment of 
 the hand and eye. For instance : there is, perhaps, no tree 
 which has baffled the landscape painter more than the com- 
 mon black spruce fir. It is rare that we see any representa- 
 tion of it other than caricature. It is conceived as if it grew 
 in one plane, or as a section of a tree, with a set of boughs 
 Bymmetiically dependent on opposite sides. It is thought 
 formal, unmanageable, and ugly. It would be so, if it grew 
 as it is drawn. But the power of the tree is not in that chan- 
 delier-like section. It is in the dark, flat, soHd tables ol 
 
90 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 leafage, -whicli it holds out on its strong arms, cui-ved slightlj 
 over them like shields, and spreading towards the extremity 
 like a hand. It is vain to endeavor to paint the sharp, grassy, 
 intricate leafage, untU this ruling form has been secured ; 
 and ia the boughs that approach the spectator, the foreshort- 
 ening of it is like that of a wide lull country, ridge just rising 
 over ridge in successive distances ; and the finger-like ex- 
 tremities, foreshortened to absolute bluntness, require a deli- 
 cacy in the rendering of them like that of the drawing of the 
 ha!nd of the Magdalene upon the vase in Mr. Eogers's Titian. 
 Get but the back of that foliage, and you have the ti-ee ; but 
 I cannot name the artist who has thoroughly felt it. So, in 
 all drawing and sculpture, it is the power of rounding, softly 
 and perfectly, every inferior mass which preserves the seren- 
 ity, as it follows the truth, of Nature, and which demands the 
 highest knowledge and skUl from the workman. A noble de- 
 sign may always be told by the back of a single leaf, and it 
 was the sacrifice of this breadth and refinement of surface for 
 sharp edges and extravagant undercutting, which destroyed 
 the Gothic mouldings, as the substitution of the line for the 
 light destroyed the Gothic tracery. This change, however, 
 we shall better comprehend after we have glanced at the chief 
 conditions of arrangement of the second kind of mass ; that 
 which is flat, and of shadow only. 
 
 XVin. We have noted above how the wall surface, com- 
 j)Osed of rich materials, and covered with costly work, in 
 modes which we shall examine in the next Chapter, became a 
 subject of pecuUar interest to the Christian architects. Its 
 broad flat Ughts could only be made valuable by points or 
 masses of energetic shadow, which were obtained by the Eo- 
 manesque architect by means of ranges of recessed arcade, in 
 the management of which, however, though all the eiFect de- 
 pends upon the shadow so obtained, the eye is still, as in 
 classical architecture, caused to dwell upon the projecting col- 
 umns, capitals, and wall, as in Plate VI. But with the enlarge- 
 ment of the window, which, in the Lombard and Romanesque 
 churches, is usually little more than an arched slit, came the 
 conception of the simpler mode of decoration, by penetrations 
 
PLATE Vl.-iPase 90-Vol. V.) 
 Ai:( II i-i;c.M Tiiio Facade of the CiirKCii of San MicnELK- xv LrccA. 
 
TEE LAMP OF POWER. 91 
 
 which, seen from ^-ithin, are forms of light, and, from without, 
 are forms of shade. In Italian traceries the eye is exclusively 
 fixed upon the dark forms of the penetrations, and the whole 
 proportion and power of the design are caused to depend 
 upon them. The intermediate spaces are, indeed, in the most 
 perfect early examples, fiUed with elaborate ornament ; but 
 this ornament was so subdued as never to disturb the simplic- 
 ity and force of the dark masses ; and in many instances is en- 
 tirely wanting. The composition of the whole depends on the 
 proportioniag and shaping of the darks ; and it is impossible 
 that anything can be more exquisite than their placing in the 
 head window of the Giotto campanile, Plate IX., or the church 
 of Or San Michele. So entirely does the effect depend upon 
 them, that it is quite useless to draw Italian traceiy in out- 
 line ; if with any intention of rendering its effect, it is better 
 to mark the black spots, and let the rest alone. Of course, 
 when it is desired to obtain an accurate rendering of the de- 
 sign, its lines and mouldiags are enough ; but it often hap- 
 pens that works on architecture are of little use, because they 
 afford the reader no means of judging of the e£fective inten- 
 tion of the arrangements which they state. No person, look- 
 ing at an architectxiral drawing of the richly fohaged cusps 
 and iutervals of Or San Michele, would understand that all 
 this sculpture was extraneous, was a' mere added grace, and 
 had nothing to do with the real anatomy of the work, and 
 that by a few bold cuttings through a slab of stone he might 
 reach the main effect of it all at once. I have, therefore, in 
 the plate of the design of Giotto, endeavored especially to 
 mark these points of purpose ; there, as in every other in- 
 stance, black shadows of a graceful form lying on the white 
 surface of the stone, like dark leaves laid upon snow. Hence, 
 as before observed, the universal name of foil applied to sucli 
 ornaments. 
 
 XIX. In order to the obtaining their full effect, it is evident 
 that much caution is necessary iu the management of the 
 glass. In the finest instances, the traceries are open lights, 
 either in towers, as in this design of Giotto's or in external 
 arcades like that of the Oampo Santo at Pisa or the Doge'a 
 
92 THE LAMP OF POWBB. 
 
 palace at Venice ; and it is thus only that their full beauty l8 
 shown. In domestic buildings, or in windows of churches 
 necessarily glazed, the glass was usually withdrawn entirely 
 behind the traceries. Those of the Cathedral of Florence 
 stand quite clear of it, casting their shadows in well detached 
 lines, so as in most lights to give the appearance of a double 
 tracery. In those few instances in which the glass was set in 
 the tracery itself, as in Or San Michele, the effect of the latter 
 is half destroyed : perhaps the especial attention paid by 
 Orgagna to his surface ornament, was connected with the in- 
 tention of so glazing them. It is singular to see, in late archi- 
 tecture, the glass, which tormented the older architects, con- 
 sidered as a valuable means of making the Hues of tracery more 
 slender ; as in the smallest intervals of the windows of Merton 
 College, Oxford, where the glass is advanced about two inches 
 from the centre of the tracery bar (that in the larger spaces 
 being in the middle, as usual), in order to prevent the depth 
 of shadow from farther diminishing the apparent interval. 
 Much of the lightness of the effect of the traceries is owing 
 to this seemingly imimportant arrangement. But, generally 
 speaking, glass spoils all traceries ; and it is much to be 
 •wished that it should be kept well within them, when it can- 
 not be dispensed with, and that the most careful and beauti- 
 ful designs should be reserved for situations where no glass 
 would be needed. 
 
 XX. The method of decoration by shadow was, as far as 
 we have hitherto traced it, common to the northern and south- 
 ern Gothic. But in the carrying out of the system they in- 
 stantly diverged. Having marble at his command, and classi- 
 cal decoration in his sight, the southern architect was able to 
 carve the intermediate spaces veith exquisite leafage, or to vary 
 his wall surface with inlaid stones. The northern architect 
 neither knew the ancient work, nor possessed the delicate 
 material ; and he had no resource but to cover his walls with 
 holes, cut into foiled shapes Uke those of the windows. This 
 he did, often with great clumsiness, but always vdth a vigor. 
 ouB sense of composition, and always, observe, depending on 
 the shadows for effect. Where the wall was thick and could 
 
PLATE ■\T:i.-(Page 93— Vol. V.i 
 PrEiu'ED Oknamexts Fiiojr LrsiETx, Bayeux, VEnciNA, and Paota. 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 93 
 
 not be cut through, and the f oilings were large, those shado-wa 
 did not fill the entire space ; but the ^ form was, nevertheless, 
 drawn on the eye by means of them, and when it was possible, 
 they were cut clear through, as in raised screens of pediment, 
 like those on the west front of Bayeux ; cut so deep in every 
 case, as to secure, in all but a direct low front light, great 
 breadth of shadow. 
 
 The spandril, given at the top of Plate Yll., is from the 
 southwestern entrance of the Cathedral of Lisieux ; one of 
 the most quaint and interesting doors in Normandy, probably 
 soon to be lost forever, by the continuance of the masonic 
 operations which have akeady destroyed the northern tower. 
 Its work is altogether rude, but full of spirit ; the opposite 
 spandnls have diflferent, though balanced, ornaments very in- 
 accurately adjusted, each rosette or star (as the five-rayed fig- 
 ui-e, now quite defaced, in the upper portion appears to have 
 been) cut on its own block of stone and fitted in with small 
 nicety, especially illustrating the point I have above insisted 
 upon — the architect's utter neglect of the forms of interme- 
 diate stone, at this early period. 
 
 The arcade, of which a single arch and shaft are given on 
 the left, forms the flank of the door ; three outer shafts bear- 
 ing three orders within the spandril which I have drawn, and 
 each of these shafts carried over an inner arcade, decorated 
 above with quatre-foils, cut concave and filled with leaves, the 
 whole disposition exquisitely picturesque and full of strange 
 play of Ught and shade. 
 
 For some time the penetrative ornaments, if so they may 
 be for convenience called, maintained their bold and inde- 
 pendent character. Then they multiplied and enlarged, be> 
 coming shallower as they did so ; then they began to run to- 
 gether, one swallowing up, or hanging on to, another, Hke 
 bubbles in expiring foam — fig. 4, from a spandi-il at Bayeux, 
 looks as if it had been blown from a pipe ; finally, they lost 
 their individual character altogether, and the eye was made 
 to rest on the separating Hnes of tracery, as we saw before in 
 the window ; and then came the great change and the fall o^ 
 the Gothic power. 
 
94 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 XXI Pigs. 2 and 3, the one a quadrant of tlie star windo'w 
 of the little chapel close to St. Anastasia at Verona, and the 
 other a very singular example from the chiurch of the Eremi- 
 tani at Padua, compared with fig. 5, one of the ornaments oi 
 the transept towers of Rouen, show the closely correspond- 
 ent conditions of the early Noi-thern and Southern Gothic.'" 
 But, as we have said, the Italian architects, not being embar- 
 rassed for decoration of wall surface, and not being obliged, 
 like the Northmen, to multiply their penetrations, held to the 
 system for some time longer ; and while they increased the 
 refinement of the ornament, kept the purity of the plan. 
 That refinement of ornament was their weak point, however, 
 and opened the way for the renaissance attack. They fell, 
 like the old Eomans, by theu- luxury, except in the separate 
 instance of the magnificent school of Venice. That architect- 
 lu'e began with the luxuriance in which all others expired : 
 it founded itself on the Byzantine mosaic and fretwork ; and 
 laying aside its ornaments, one by one, while it fixed its forms 
 by laws more and more severe, stood forth, at last, a model 
 of domestic Gothic, so grand, so complete, so nobly systema- 
 tised, that, to my mind, there never existed an architecture 
 with so stern a claim to our reverence. I do not except even 
 the Greek Doric ; the Doric had cast nothing away ; the four- 
 teenth century Venetian had cast away, one by one, for a suc- 
 cession of centuries, every splendor that art and wealth could 
 give it. It had laid down its crown and its jewels, its gold 
 and its color, like a king disrobing ; it had resigned its exer- 
 tion, like an athlete reposing ; once capricious and fantastic, 
 it had bound itself by laws inviolable and serene as those of 
 nature herself. It retained nothing but its beauty and its 
 power; both the highest, but both restrained. The Doric 
 flutings were of irregular number — the Venetian mouldings 
 were unchangeable. The Doric manner of ornament admit- 
 ted no temptation, it was the fasting of an anchorite — the 
 Venetian ornament embraced, while it governed, all vegetable 
 and animal forms ; it was the temperance of a man, the com- 
 mand of Adam over creation. I do not know so magnificent 
 a marking of human authority as the iron grasp of the Vene- 
 
PLATE Vin.-(Page 96-Vol. V.) 
 WrNDow rnoM the Ca' Foscari, Venice. 
 
TEE LAMP OF POWER. WS 
 
 tian over his own exuberance of imagination ; tte calm and 
 solemn restraint with which, his miad filled with thoughts of 
 flowing leafage and fiery life, he gives those thoughts expres- 
 sion for an instant, and then withdraws within those massy 
 bars and level cusps of stone." 
 
 And hia power to do this depended altogether on his re- 
 taining the forms of the shadows in his sight. Far from car« 
 rying the eye to the ornaments, upon the stone, he abandoned 
 these latter one by one ; and while his mouldings received 
 the. most shapely order and symmetry, closely correspondent 
 with that of the Eouen tracery, compare Plates III. and VHX, 
 he kept the cusps within them perfectly flat, decorated, if at 
 aU, with a trefoil (Palazzo Foscari), or fillet (Doge's Palace) 
 just traceable and no more, so that the quatrefoU, cut as 
 sharply through them as if it had been struck out by a stamp, 
 told upon the eye, with all its four black leaves, miles away. 
 No knots of flowerwork, no ornaments of any kind, were suf- 
 fered to interfere with the purity of its form : the cusp is 
 usually quite sharp ; but sHghtly truncated in the Palazzo 
 Foscari, and charged with a simple ball in that of the Doge ; 
 and the glass of the window, where there was any, was, as 
 we have seen, thrown back behind the stone-work, that no 
 flashes of Ught might interfere with its depth. Corrupted 
 forms, like those of the Casa d'Oro and Palazzo Pisani, and 
 several others, only serve to show the majesty of the common 
 design. 
 
 XXn. Such are the principal circumstances traceable in the 
 treatment of the two kinds of masses of Ught and darkness, 
 in the hands of the earUer architects ; gradation in the one, 
 flatness in the other, and breadth in both, being the qualities 
 sought and exhibited by every possible expedient, up to the 
 period when, as we have before stated, the line was substituted 
 for the mass, as the means of division of surface. Enough 
 has been said to illustrate this, as regards tracery ; but a word 
 or two is stiU necessary respecting the mouldings. 
 
 Those of the earlier times were, in the plurality of instances, 
 composed of alternate square and cylindrical shafts, variously 
 associated and proportioned. Where concave cuttings occur, 
 
96 TEE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 as in the beautiful west doors of Bayeux, they are betweet 
 cyliadrical shafts, which they throw out into broad light. The 
 eye in all cases dwells on broad surfaces, and commonly upon 
 few. In course of time, a low ridgy process is seen emerging 
 along the outer edge of the cylindrical shaft, forming a line of 
 light upon it and destroying its gradation. Hardly traceable 
 at first (as on the alternate rolls of the north door of Rouen), 
 it grows and pushes out as gradually as a stag's horns : sharp 
 at first on the edge ; but, becoming prominent, it receives a 
 truncation, and becomes a definite fiUet on the face of the roll 
 Not yet to be checked, it pushes forward until the roU itself be- 
 comes subordinate to it, and is finally lost in a slight swell upon 
 its sides, while the concavities have all the time been deepen- 
 ing and enlarging behind it, until, from a succession of square 
 or cylindrical masses, the whole moulding has become a series 
 of concavities edged by delicate fillets, upon which (sharp lines 
 of Hght, observe) the eye exclusively rests. "WbUe this has 
 been taking place, a similar, though less total, change has 
 afifected the flowerwork itself. In Plate L fig. 2 (a), I have 
 given two from the transepts of Eouen. It will be observed 
 how absolutely the eye rests on the forms of the leaves, and 
 on the three berries in the angle, being in light exactly what 
 the trefoil is in darkness. These mouldings nearly adhere to 
 the stone ; and are very sHghtly, though sharply, undercut. 
 In process of time, the attention of the architect, instead of 
 resting on the leaves, went to the stalks. These latter were 
 elongated (&, from the south door of St. Lo) ; and to exhibit 
 them better, the deep concavity was cut behind, so as to throw 
 them out in lines of Hght. The system was carried out into 
 continually increasing intricacy, until, in the transepts of 
 Beauvais, we have brackets and flamboyant traceries, com- 
 posed of twigs without any leaves at aU. This, however, is a 
 partial, though a sufiiciently characteristic, caprice, the leaf 
 being never generally banished, and in the mouldings round 
 those same doors, beautifully managed, but itself rendered 
 liny by bold marking of its ribs and veins, and by turning up, 
 and crisping its edges, large intermediate spaces being always 
 left to be occupied by intertwining stems (c, from Caudebec). 
 
THE LAMP OF POWBB. 97 
 
 The trefoil of light formed by berries or acorns, though di- 
 minished in value, was never lost up to the last period of living 
 Gothic. 
 
 XXHI. It is interesting to follow into its many ramifica- 
 tions, the influence of the con-upting principle ; but we have 
 seen enough of it to enable us to draw our practical conclusion 
 — a conclusion a thousand times felt and reiterated in the ex- 
 perience and advice of every practised artist, but never often 
 enough repeated, never profoundly enough felt. Of composi- 
 tion and invention much has been written, it seems to me 
 vainly, for men cannot be taught to compose or to invent ; of 
 these, the highest elements of Power in architecture, I do not, 
 therefore, speak ; nor, here, of that peculiar restraint in the 
 imitation of natural forms, which constitutes the dignity of 
 even the most luxuriant work of the great periods. Of this 
 restraint I shall say a word or two in the next Chapter ; press- 
 ing now only the conclusion, as practically useful as it is cer- 
 tain, that the relative majesty of buildings depends more on 
 the weight and vigor of their masses than on any other attri- 
 bute of their design : mass of everything, of bulk, of light, of 
 dai'kness, of color, not mere sum of any of these, but breadth 
 of them ; not broken Ught, nor scattered darkness, nor divided 
 weight, but soUd stone, broad simshine, starless shade. Time 
 would fail me altogether, if I attempted to foUow out the range 
 of the principle ; there is not a feature, however apparently 
 trifling, to which it cannot give power. The wooden filUngs 
 of belfry lights, necessary to protect their interiors from rain, 
 are in England usually divided into a number of neatly exe- 
 cuted cross-bars, Uke those of Venetian blinds, which, of 
 course, become as conspicuous in their sharpness as they are 
 uninteresting in their precise carpentry, multiplying, more- 
 over, the horizontal lines which directly contradict those of 
 the architecture. Abroad, such necessities are met by three 
 or four downright penthouse roofs, reaching each from within 
 the window to the outside shafts of its mouldings ; instead of 
 the horrible row of ruled hues, the space is thus divided into 
 four or five grand masses of shadow, with grey slopes of roof 
 above, bent or yielding into all kinds of delicious swells and 
 7 
 
98 TEB LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 curves, and covered vyith warm tones of moss and lichen. Very 
 often the thing is more delightful than the stone-work itself, 
 and all because it is broad, dark, and simple. It matters not 
 how clumsy, how common, the means are, that get weight and 
 shadow — sloping roof, jutting porch, projecting balcony, hol- 
 low niche, massy gargoyle, frowning parapet ; get but gloom 
 and simplicity, and all good things vidU foUow in their place 
 and time ; do but design with the owl's eyes first, and you will 
 gain the falcon's afterwards. 
 
 XXTV. I am grieved to have to insist upon what seems so 
 simple ; it looks trite and commonplace when it is written, 
 but pardon me this : for it is anything but an accepted or un- 
 derstood principle in practice, and the less excusably forgot- 
 ten, because it is, of all the great and true laws of art, the 
 easiest to obey. The executive facihty of complying with its 
 demands cannot be too earnestly, too frankly asserted. There 
 are not five men in the kingdom who could compose, not 
 twenty who could cut, the fohage with which the windows of 
 Or San Michele are adorned ; but there is many a village 
 clergyman who could invent and dispose its black openings, 
 and not a village mason who could not cut them. Lay a few 
 clover or wood-roof leaves on white paper, and a little altera- 
 tion in their positions wiU suggest figures which, cut boldly 
 through a slab of marble, would be worth more window tra- 
 ceries than an architect could draw in a summer's day. There 
 are few men in the world who could design a Greek capital ; 
 there are few who could not produce some vigor of efifect with 
 leaf designs on Byzantine block : few who could design a Pal- 
 ladian front, or a flamboyant pediment ; many who could 
 build a square mass hke the Strozzi palace. But I know not 
 how it is, unless that our English hearts have more oak than 
 stone in them, and have more filial sympathy with acorns than 
 Alps ; but all that we do is small and mean, if not worse — 
 thin, and wasted, and unsubstantial. It is not modern work 
 only ; we have built like frogs and mice since the thirteenth 
 century (except only in our castles). What a contrast be- 
 tween the pitiful httle pigeon-holes which stand for doors in 
 the east front of Salisbury, looking like the entrances to a bee- 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 99 
 
 hive or a wasp's nest, and the soaring arches and kingly 
 crowning of the gates of Abbeville, Eouen, and Bheims, or the 
 rock-hewn piers of Chartres, or the dark and vaulted porches 
 and writhed piUars of Verona ! Of domestic architecture 
 what need is there to speak ? How small, how cramped, how 
 poor, how miserable in its petty neatness is our best ! how 
 beneath the mark of attack, and the level of contempt, that 
 which is common with us ! What a strange sense of for- 
 malised deformity, of shrivelled precision, of starved accu- 
 racy, of minute misanthropy have we, as we leave even the 
 rude streets of Picardy for the market towns of Kent ! Until 
 that street architecture of ours is bettered, until we give it 
 some size and boldness, until we give our windows recess, 
 and our walls thickness, I know not how we can blame our 
 architects for their feebleness in more important work ; their 
 eyes are inured to narrowness and sHghtness : can we expect 
 them at a word to conceive and deal with breadth and solidity ? 
 They ought not to live in our cities ; there is that in their 
 miserable waUs which bricks up to death men's imaginations, 
 as surely as ever perished forsworn mm. An architect should 
 live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and 
 let him study there what nature imderstands by a buttress, 
 and what by a dome. There was something in the old power 
 of architecture, which it had from the recluse more than from 
 the citizen. The buildings of which I have spoken with chief 
 praise, rose, indeed, out of the war of the piazza, and above 
 the fury of the populace : and Heaven forbid that for such 
 cause we should ever have to lay a larger stone, or rivet a 
 firmer bar, in our England ! But we have other sources of 
 power, in the imagery of our iron coasts and azure hiUs ; of 
 power more pure, nor less serene, than that of the hermit 
 spirit which once lighted with white lines of cloisters the 
 glades of the Alpine pine, and raised into ordered spires the 
 wild rocks of the Norman sea ; which gave to the temple gate 
 the depth and darkness of EUjah's Horeb cave ; and lifted, 
 out of the populous city, grey cHffs of lonely stone, into the 
 midst of sailing birds and silent air. 
 
100 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 I. It was stated, in the outset of the preceding chapter 
 that the value of architecture depended on two distinct char- 
 acters : the one, the impression it receives from human power ; 
 the other, the image it bears of the natural creation. I have 
 endeavored to show in what manner its majesty was attribu- 
 table to a sympathy with the effort and trouble of human hfe 
 (a sympathy as distinctly perceived ia the gloom and mystery 
 of form, as it is in the melsmcholy tones of sounds). I desire 
 now to trace that happier element of its excellence, consisting 
 in a noble rendering of images of Beauty, derived chiefly from 
 the external appearances of organic nature. 
 
 It is irrelevant to our present purpose to enter into any in- 
 quiry respecting the essential causes of impressions of beauty. 
 I have partly expressed my thoughts on this matter in a pre_ 
 vious work, and I hope to develope them hereafter. But since 
 aU such inquiries can only be founded on the ordinary under- 
 standing of what is meant by the term Beauty, and since they 
 presume that the feehng of mankind on this subject is univer- 
 sal and instinctive, I shall base my present investigation on 
 this assumption ; and only asserting that to be beautiful which 
 I believe vrill be granted me to be so without dispute, I would 
 endeavor shortly to trace the manner in which this element of 
 dehght is to be best engrafted upon architectural design, what 
 are the purest sources from which it is to be derived, and what 
 the errors to be avoided in, its pursuit. 
 
 n. It will be thought that I have somewhat rashly limited 
 the elements of architectural beauty to imitative forms. I do 
 not mean to assert that every arrangement of line is directly 
 suggested by a natural object ; but that all beautiful lines are 
 adaptations of those which are commonest in the external cre- 
 ation ; that in proportion to the richness of their association, 
 the resemblance to natural work, as a type and help, must be 
 more closely attempted, and more clearly seen ; and that be- 
 
TRE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 101 
 
 yond a certain point, and that a very low one, man cannot ad- 
 vance in the invention of beauty, without directly imitating 
 natural form. Thus, in the Doric temple, the triglyph and 
 cornice are unimitative ; or imitative only of artificial cuttings 
 of wood. No one would call these members beautiful Their 
 influence over us is in their severity and simplicity. The 
 fluting of the column, which I doubt not was the Greek sym- 
 bol of the bark of the tree, was imitative in its origin, and 
 feebly resembled many caniculated organic structures. Beauty 
 is instantly felt in it, but of a low order. The decoration 
 proper was sought in the true forms of organic Ufe, and those 
 chiefly human. Again : the Doric capital was unimitative ; 
 but all the beauty it had was dependent on the precision of 
 its ovolo, a natural curve of the most frequent occurrence. 
 The Ionic capital (to my mind, as an architectural invention, 
 exceedingly base) nevertheless depended for all the beauty 
 that it had on its adoption of a spiral hne, perhaps the com- 
 monest of all that characterise the inferior orders of animal 
 organism and habitation. Farther progress could not be 
 jnade without a direct imitation of the acanthus leaf. 
 
 Again : the Eomanesque arch is beautiful as an abstract 
 line. Its type is always before us "in that of the apparent 
 vault of heaven, and horizon of the \ earth. The cylindrical 
 pUlar is always beautiful, for God has so moulded the stem of 
 every tree that it is pleasant to the eyes. The pointed arch 
 is beautiful ; it is the termination of every leaf that shakes ia 
 summer wind, and its most fortunate associations are directly 
 borrowed from the trefoiled grass of the field, or from the 
 stars of its flowers. Further than this, man's invention could 
 not reach without frank imitation. His next step was to 
 gather the flowers themselves, and wreathe them in his capi- 
 tals. 
 
 HL Now, I would insist especially on the fact, of which I 
 doubt not that further illustrations wiU occur to the mind of 
 every reader, that all most lovely forms and thoughts are di- 
 rectly taken from natural objects ; because I would fain be 
 allowed to assume also the converse of this, namely, that 
 forms which are not taken from natural objects must be ugly. 
 
102 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTT. 
 
 I know this is a bold assumption ; but as I have not space ta 
 reason out the points wherein essential beauty of form con- 
 sists, that being far too serious a work to be undertaken in a 
 bye way, I have no other resource than to use this accidental 
 mark or test of beauty, of whose truth the considerations 
 which I hope hereafter to lay before the reader may assure 
 him. I say an accidental mark, since forms are not beautiful 
 because they are copied from nature ; only it is out of the 
 power of man to conceive beauty without her aid. I believe 
 the reader will grant me this, even from the examples above 
 advanced ; the degree of confidence with which it is granted 
 must attach also to his acceptance of the conclusions which 
 will follow from it ; but if it be granted frankly, it wiU enable 
 me to determine a matter of very essential importance, name- 
 ly, what is or is not ornament. For there are many forms of 
 so-called decoration in architecture, habitual, and received, 
 therefore, with approval, or at all events without any venture 
 at expression or dislike, which I have no hesitation in assert- 
 ing to be not ornament at all, but to be ugly things, the ex- 
 pense of which ought in truth to be set down in the arcTii- 
 tect's contract, as "For Monstrification." I beUeve that we 
 regard these customary deformities with a savage compla- 
 cency, as an Indian does his flesh patterns and paint (all na- 
 tions being in certain degrees and senses savage). I believe 
 that I can prove them to be monstrous, and I hope hereafter 
 to do so conclusively ; but, meantime, I can allege in defence 
 of my persuasion nothing but this fact of their being unnat- 
 ural, to which the reader must attach such weight as he 
 thinks it desei-ves. There is, however, a pecuhar difficulty in 
 using this proof ; it requires the writer to assume, very im- 
 pertinently, that nothing is natural but what he has seen or 
 supposes to exist. I would not do this ; for I suppose there 
 is no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part 
 of the universe an example of it may be found. But I think I 
 am justified in considering those fonns to be most natural 
 which are most frequent ; or, rather, that on the shapes which 
 in the every-day world are familiar to the eyes of men, God 
 has stamped those characters of beauty which He has mada 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTT. 103 
 
 it man's nature to love ; while in certain exceptional forms 
 He has shown that the adoption of the others was not a 
 matter of necessity, but part of the adjusted harmony of crea- 
 tion. I believe that thus we may reason from Frequency to 
 Beauty, and vice versd ; that knowing a thing to be frequent, 
 we may assume it to be beautiful ; and assume that which is 
 most frequent to be most beautiful : I mean, of course, visibly 
 frequent ; for the forms of things which are hidden in caverns 
 of the earth, or in the anatomy of animal frames, are evidently 
 not intended by their Maker to bear the habitual gaze of man. 
 And, again, by frequency I mean that Umited and isolated 
 frequency which is characteristic of all perfection ; not mere 
 multitude : as a rose is a common fldwer, but yet there are 
 not so many roses on the tree as there are leaves. In this re- 
 spect Nature is sparing of her highest, and lavish of her less, 
 beauty ; but I call the flower as frequent as the leaf, because, 
 each in its allotted quantity, where the one is, there will ordi- 
 narily be the other. 
 
 rV. The first so-called ornament, then, which I would at- 
 tack is that Greek fret, now, I believe, usually known by the 
 Italian name Guilloche, which is exactly a case in point. It 
 so happens that in crystals of bismuth formed by the unagi- 
 tated cooling of the melted metal, there occurs a natural re- 
 semblance of it almost perfect. But crystals of bismuth not 
 only are of imusual occurrence in every-day Ufe, but their 
 form is, as far as I know, unique among minerals ; and not 
 only unique, but only attainable by an artificial process, the 
 metal itself never being foimd pure. I do not remember any 
 other substance or arrangement which presents a resemblance 
 to this Greek ornament ; and I think that I may trust my re- 
 membrance as iucluding most of the arrangements which 
 occur in the outward forms of common and famiUar things. 
 On this gTOund, then, I allege that ornament to be ugly ; or, 
 in the literal sense of the word, monstrous ; different from 
 anything which it is the nature of man to admire : and I 
 think an uncarved fillet or phnth infinitely preferable to one 
 covered with this vile concatenation of straight Unes : unless 
 indeed it be employed as a foil to a ti-ue ornament, which it 
 
104 TBE LAMP OV BEAUT T. 
 
 may, perhaps, sometimes witli advantage ; or excessively sm.all, 
 as it occurs on coins, the harshness of its arrangement being 
 less perceived. 
 
 V. Often in association with this horrible design we find, 
 in Greek works, one which is as beautiful as this is painfiil — 
 that egg and dart moulding, whose perfection in its place and 
 way, has never been surpassed. And why is this ? Simply 
 because the form of which it is chiefly composed is one not 
 only familiar to us in the soft housing of the bird's nest, but 
 happens to be that of nearly every pebble that roUs and mur- 
 murs under the surf of the sea, on all its endless shore. And 
 with that a peculiar accuracy ; for the mass which bears the 
 light in this moulding is not in good Greek work, as in the 
 frieze of the Erechtheum, merely of the shape of an &%q,. It 
 is flatteiied on the upper surface, with a dehcacy and keen 
 sense of variety in the curve which it is impossible too highly 
 to praise, attaining exactly that flattened, imperfect oval, 
 which, in nine cases out of ten, wiU be the form of the pebble 
 lifted at random from the roUed beach. Leave out this flat- 
 ness, and the moulding is vulgar instantly. It is singular 
 also that the insertion of this rounded form ia the hollow 
 recess has a painted type in the plumage of the Argus pheas- 
 ant, the eyes of whose feathers are so shaded as exactly to 
 represent an oval form placed in a hoUow. 
 
 VI. It win evidently foUow, upon our application of this 
 test of natural resemblance, that we shall at once conclude 
 that all perfectly beautiful forms must be composed of curves ; 
 since there is hardly any common natural form in which it is 
 possible to discover a straight Une. Nevertheless, Architect- 
 ure, having necessarily to deal with straight lines essential 
 to its purposes in many instances and to the expression of its 
 power in others, must frequently be content with that meas- 
 ure of beauty which is consistent with such primal forms ; 
 and we may presume that utmost measure of beauty to have 
 been attained when the arrangements of such hnes are con- 
 sistent with the most frequent natural groupings of them we 
 cim discover, although, to find right lines in nature at all, we 
 may be compelled to do violence to her fiuished work, break 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 105 
 
 through the sculptured and colored surfaces of her crags, and 
 examine the processes of their crystallisation. 
 
 "Vn. I have just con-victed the Greek fret of ugliness, be- 
 cause it has no precedent to allege for its arrangement except 
 an artificial form of a rare metaL liet us bring into court an 
 ornament of Lombard architects, Plate XTT., fig. 7, as exclu- 
 sively composed of right lines as the other, only, observe, with 
 the noble element of shadow added. This ornament, taken 
 from the front of the Cathedral of Pisa, is universal through- 
 out the Lombard churches of Pisa, Lucca, Pistoja, and Flo- 
 rence ; and it wiU be a grave stain upon them if it cannot 
 be defended. Its first apology for itself, made in a hiu:ry, 
 sounds marvellously like the Greek one, and highly dubious. 
 It says that its terminal contour is the very image of a care- 
 fully prepared artificial crystal of common salt. Salt being, 
 however, a substance considerably more familiar to us than 
 bismuth, the chances are somewhat in favor of the accused 
 Lombard ornament already. But it has more to say for itself, 
 and more to the purpose ; namely, that its main outline is one 
 not only of natural crystallisation, but among the vei-y first and 
 commonest of ciystaUine forms, being the primal condition of 
 the occurrence of the oxides of iron, copper, and tin, of tht 
 sulphiirets of ii'on and lead, of fluor spar, &c. ; and that those 
 projecting forms in its surface represent the conditions of 
 structure which effect the change into another relative and 
 equally common crystalline form, the cube. This is quite 
 enough. We may rest assured it is as good a combination of 
 such simple right Hnes as can be put together, and gracefully 
 fitted for every place in which such lines are necessary. 
 
 Vin. The next ornament whose cause I would try is that 
 of our Tudor work, the portcuUis. Eeticulation is common 
 enough in nattiral form, and very beautiful ; but it is either of 
 the most delicate and gauzy texture, or of variously sized 
 meshes and undulating lines. There is no family relation be- 
 tween portcullis and cobwebs or beetles' wings ; something 
 hke it, perhaps, may be found in some kinds of crocodile ar- 
 mor and on the backs of the Northern divers, but always 
 beautifully varied in size of mesL There is a dignity in the 
 
106 TEE LAMP OF BBAUTT. 
 
 tiling itself, if its size were exhibited, and the shade given 
 through its bars ; but even these merits are taken away in the 
 Tudor diminution of it, set on a solid surface. It has not a 
 single syllable, I believe, to say in its defence. It is another 
 monster, absolutely and unmitigatedly frightful. All that 
 carving on Henry the Seventh's Chapel simply deforms the 
 stones of it. 
 
 In the same clause with the portcullis, we may condemn aD 
 heraldic decoration, so far as beauty is its object Its pride 
 and significance have their proper place, fitly occurring in 
 prominent parts of the building, as over its gates ; and allow- 
 ably in places where its legendary may be plainly read, as in 
 painted windows, bosses of ceilings, &c. And sometimes, of 
 course, the forms which it presents may be beautiful, as of 
 animals, or simple symbols like the fleur-de-lis ; but, for the 
 most part, heraldic similitudes and arrangements are so pro- 
 fessedly and pointedly unnatural, that it would be difficvdt to 
 invent anything uglier ; and the use of them as a repeated 
 decoration will utterly destroy both the power and beauty of 
 any building. Common sense and courtesy also forbid their 
 repetition. It is right to teU those who enter your doors that 
 you are such a one, and of such a rank ; but to teU it to them 
 again and again, wherever they turn, becomes soon imperti- 
 nence, and at last foUy. Let, therefore, the entire bearings 
 occur in few places, and these not considered as an ornament, 
 but as an inscription ; and for frequent appliance, let any sin- 
 gle and fair symbol be chosen out of them. Thus we may 
 multiply as much as we choose the French fleur-de-lis, or the 
 Florentine giglio bianco, or the English rose ; but we must 
 not multiply a King's arms. 
 
 IX. It will also foUow, from these considerations, that if 
 any one part of heraldic decoration be worse than another, it 
 is the motto ; since, of all things unlike nature, the forms of 
 letters are, perhaps, the most so. Even graphic tellurium and 
 felspar look, at their clearest, anything but legible. All let- 
 ters are, therefore, to be considered as frightful things, and 
 to be endured only upon occasion ; that is to say, in places 
 where the sense of the inscription is of more importance than 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 107 
 
 external ornament. Inscriptions in churches, in rooms, and 
 on pictures, are often desirable, but they are not to be con- 
 sidered as architectural or pictorial ornaments : they are, on 
 the contrary, obstinate offences to the eye, not to be suffered 
 except when their intellectual office introduces them. Place 
 them, therefore, where they wUl be read, and there only ; and 
 let them be plainly written, and not turned upside down, noi 
 wrong end first. It is an Ul sacrifice to beauty to make that 
 illegible whose only merit is in its sense. Write it as you 
 would speak it, simply ; and do not draw the eye to it when 
 it would fain rest elsewhere, nor recommend your sentence 
 by anything but a little openness of place and architectural 
 silence about it. "Write the Commandments on the Church 
 walls where they may be plainly seen, but do not put a dash 
 and a tail to every letter ; and remember that you are an ar- 
 chitect, not a writing master. 
 
 X. Inscriptions appear sometimes to be introduced for the 
 sake of the scroU on which they are written ; ,and in late and 
 modem painted glass, as well as ia architecture, these scrolls 
 are flourished and turned hither and thither as if they were 
 ornamental. Ribands occur frequently in arabesques, — in 
 some of a high order, too, — tying up flowers, or flitting in and 
 out among the fixed forms. Is there anything like ribands 
 in nature ? It might be thought that grass and sea- weed 
 afforded apologetic types. They do not. There is a wide 
 difference between their structiu-e and that of a riband. They 
 have a skeleton, an anatomy, a central rib, or fibre, or frame- 
 work of some kind or another, which has a begiuning and an 
 end, a root and head, and whose make and strength effects 
 every direction of their motion, and every Une of their form. 
 The loosest weed that drifts and waves under the heaving of 
 the sea, or hangs heavily on the brown and sUppery shore, 
 has a marked strength, structure, elasticity, gradation of sub- 
 stance ; its extremities are more finely fibred than its centre, 
 its centre than its root ; every fork of its ramification is meas- 
 lured and proportioned ; every wave of its languid lines is love. 
 It has its allotted size, and place, and function ; it is a spe- 
 cific creature. What is there like this ia a riband ? It has 
 
108 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 no structure : it is a succession of cut threads all alike ; il 
 has no skeleton, no make, no form, no size, no wiU of its own. 
 You cut it and crush it into what you will. It has no strength, 
 no languor. It cannot fall into a single graceful form. It 
 cannot wave, in. the true sense, but only flutter : it cannot 
 bend, in the true sense, but only turn and be wrinkled. It 
 is a vQe thing ; it spoils all that is near its wretched film of 
 an existence. Never use it. Let the flowers come loose if 
 they cannot keep together without being tied ; leave the sen- 
 tence unwritten if you cannot write it on a tablet or book, 
 or plain roll of paper. I know what authority there is against 
 me. I remember the scroUa of Perugino's angels, and the 
 ribands of Raphael's arabesques, and of Ghiberti's glorious 
 bronze flowers : no matter ; they are every one of them vices 
 and uglinesses. Raphael usually felt this, and used an honest 
 and rational tablet, as in the Madonna di Puligno. I do not 
 say there is any type of such tablets in nature, but all the 
 difference lies in the fact that the tablet is not considered as 
 an ornament, and the riband, or flying scroll, is. The tablet, 
 as in Albert Durer's Adam and Eve, is introduced for the sake 
 of the writing, understood and allowed as an ugly but neces- 
 sary interruption. The scroll is extended as an ornamental 
 form, which it is not, nor ever can be. 
 
 XI. But it wiU be said that all this want of organisation 
 and form might be affirmed of drapery also, and that this 
 latter is a noble subject of sculpture. By no means. When 
 was drapery a subject of sculpture by itself, except in the 
 form of a handkerchief on urns in the seventeenth century and 
 in some of the baser scenic Italian decorations ? Drapery, as 
 such, is always ignoble ; it becomes a subject of interest only 
 by the colors it bears, and the impressions which it receives 
 from some foreign form or force. AU noble draperies, either 
 in painting or sculpture (color and texture being at present 
 out of our consideration), have, so far as they are anything 
 more than necessities, one of two great functions ; they are 
 the exponents of motion and of gravitation. They are the 
 most valuable means of expressing past as well as present 
 motion in the figure, and they are almost the only means of 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 109 
 
 indicating to the eye the force of gravity which resists such 
 motion. The Greeks used drapery in sculpture for the most 
 part as an ugly necessity, but availed themselves of it gladly 
 in all representation of action, exaggerating the arrangements 
 of it which express lightness in the material, and follow gest- 
 ure in the person. The Christian sculptors, caring little for 
 the body, or disliking it, and depending exclusively on the 
 countenance, received drapery at first contentedly as a veil, 
 but soon perceived a capacity of expression in it which the 
 Greek had not seen or had despised. The principal element 
 of this expression was the entire removal of agitation from 
 what was so pre-eminently capable of being agitated. It fell 
 from their human forms plumb down, sweeping the ground 
 heavily, and concealing the feet ; while the Greek drapery 
 was often blown away from the thigh. The thick and coarse 
 stuffs of the monkish dresses, so absolutely opposed to the 
 thin and gauzy web of antique material, suggested simpUcity 
 of division as well as weight of fall. There was no crushing 
 nor subdividing them. And thus the drapery gradually came 
 to represent the spirit of repose as it before had of motion, 
 repose saintly and severe. The wind had no power upon the 
 garment, as the passion none upon the soul ; and the motion 
 of the figure only bent into a softer line the stillness of the 
 faUing veil, followed by it like a slow cloud by drooping rain : 
 only in links of lighter undulation it followed the dances of 
 the angels. 
 
 Thus treated, drapery is indeed noble ; but it is as an ex- 
 ponent of other and higher things. As that of gravitation, it 
 has especial majesty, being literally the only means we have 
 of fully representing this mysterious natural force of earth (for 
 falling water is less passive and less defined in its lines). So, 
 again, in sails it is beautiful because it receives the forms of 
 8ohd curved sui-face, and expresses the force of another in- 
 visible element. But drapery trusted to its own merits, and 
 given for its own sake, — drapery like that of Carlo Dolci and 
 the Caraccis, — is always base. 
 
 Xn. Closely connected with the abuse of scrolls and bands, 
 is that of garlands and festoons of flowers as an architectural 
 
110 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 decoration, for unnatural arrangements are just as ugly as un» 
 natural forms ; and architecture, in borrowing the objects of 
 nature, is bound to place them, as far as may be in her power, 
 in such associations as may befit and express their origin. She 
 is not to imitate directly the natural arrangement ; she is not 
 to carve irregular stems of ivy up her columns to account for 
 the leaves at the top, but she is nevertheless to place her most 
 exuberant vegetable ornament just where Nature would have 
 placed it, and to give some indication of that radical and con- 
 nected structure which Nature would have given it. Thus 
 the Corinthian capital is beautiful, because it expands imder 
 the abacus just as Nature would have expanded it ; and be- 
 cause it looks as if the leaves had one root, though that root 
 is unseen. And the flamboyant leaf mouldings are beautiful, 
 because they nestle and run up the hollows, and fill the angles, 
 and clasp the shafts which natural leaves would have deUghted 
 to fill and to clasp. They are no mere cast of natural leaves ; 
 they are counted, orderly, and architectural : but they are 
 naturally, and therefore beautifully, placed. 
 
 "XTTT. Now I do not mean to say that Nature never uses 
 festoons : she loves them, and uses them lavishly ; and though 
 she does so only ia those places of excessive luxuriance wherein 
 it seems to me that architectural types should seldom be sought, 
 yet a falling tendril or pendent bough might, if managed with 
 freedom and grace, be well introduced into luxuriant dec- 
 oration (or if not, it is not their want of beauty, but of archi- 
 tectural fitness, which incapacitates them for such uses). But 
 what resemblance to such example can we trace in a mass of 
 all manner of fruit and flowers, tied heavily iuto a long bunch, 
 thickest in the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a 
 dead wall ? For it is strange that the wildest and most fanci- 
 ful of the builders of truly luxuriant architecture never ven- 
 tured, so far as I know, even a pendent tendril ; while the 
 severest masters of the revived Greek permitted this extraor- 
 dinary piece of luscious ugliness to be fastened in the middle 
 of their blank surfaces. So surely as this arrangement is 
 adopted, the whole value of the flower work is lost. Who 
 among the crowds that gaze upon the building ever pause to 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. HI 
 
 admire the flower work of St. Paul's ? It is as careful and as 
 rich, as it can be, yet it adds no dsHghtfuluess to the edifice. 
 It m no part of it. It is an ugly excrescence. We always con- 
 ceive the building without it, and should be happier if our 
 conception were not disturbed by its presence. It makes the 
 rest of the architecture look poverty-stricken, instead of sub- 
 lime ; and yet it is never enjoyed itself. Had it been put, 
 where it ought, into the capitals, it would have been beheld 
 with never-ceasing dehght. I do not mean that it could have 
 been so in the present building, for such kind of architecture 
 has no business with rich ornament in any place ; but that if 
 those groups of flowers had been put into natural places in an 
 edifice of another style, theu'value would have been felt as viv- 
 idly as now their uselesaness. What applies to festoons is still 
 more sternly true of garlands. A garland is meant to be seen 
 upon a head. There it is beautiful, because we suppose it 
 newly gathered and joyfully worn. But it is not meant to be 
 hung upon a walL If you want a circular ornament, put a 
 flat circle of colored marble, as in the Casa Doria and other 
 such palaces at Venice ; or put a star, or a medallion, or if 
 you want a ring, put a solid one, but do not carve the images 
 of garlands, looking as if they had been used in the last pro- 
 cession, and been hung up to dry, and serve next time with- 
 ered. Why not also carve pegs, and hats upon them ? 
 
 XIV. One of the worst enemies of modem Gothic architect- 
 ure, though seemingly an unimportant feature, is an excres- 
 cence, as offensive by its poverty as the garland by its profu- 
 sion, the drii^stone in the shape of the handle of a chest of 
 drawers, which is used over the square-headed windows of 
 what we call Elizabethan buildings. In the last Chapter, 
 it will be remembered that the square form was shown to be 
 that of pre-eminent Power, and to be properly adapted and 
 limited to the exhibition of space or surface. Hence, when 
 the window is to be an exponent of power, as for instance in 
 those by M. Angelo in the lower story of the Palazzo Eicardi 
 at Florence, the square head is the most noble form they can 
 assume ; but then either their space must be unbroken, and 
 their associated mouldings the most severe, or else the square 
 
112 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 must be used as a finial outline, and is chiefly to be associated 
 ■with forms of tracery, in which the relative form of power, the 
 circle, is predominant, as in Venetian, and Florentine, and 
 Pisan Gothic. But if you break upon your terminal square, 
 or if you cut its lines off at the top and turn them outward.?, 
 you have lost its unity and space. It is an including form no 
 longer, but an added, isolated line, and the ugliest possible. 
 Look abroad into the landscape and see if you can discover 
 any one so bent and fragmentary as that of this strange winu- 
 lass-looking dripstone. You cannot. It is a monster. It 
 unites every element of ugliness, its line is harshly broken in 
 itself, and unconnected with every other ; it has no harmofiy 
 either withstructure or decoration, it has no architectural sup- 
 port, it looks glued to the wall, and the only pleasant property 
 it has, is the appearance of some likelihood of its dropping off. 
 
 I might proceed, but the task is a weary one, and I think I 
 have named those false forms of decoration which are most 
 dangerous in our modern architecture as being legal and ac- 
 cepted. The barbarisms of individual fancy are as countless 
 as they are contemptible ; they neither admit attack nor are 
 worth ib ; but these above named are countenanced, some by 
 the practice of antiquity, all by high authority : they have de- 
 pressed the proudest, and contaminated the purest schools, 
 and are so established in recent practice that I write rather 
 for the barren satisfaction of bearing witness against them, 
 than with hope of inducing any serious convictions to their 
 prejudice. 
 
 XV. Thus far of what is not ornament. "What ornament is, 
 will without difficulty be determined by the application of the 
 same test. It must consist of such studious arrangements of 
 form as are imitative or suggestive of those which are com- 
 monest among natural existences, that being of course the 
 noblest ornament which represents the highest orders of ex- 
 istence. Imitated flowers are nobler than imitated stones, 
 imitated animals, than flowers ; imitated human form of all 
 animal forms the noblest. But aU are combined in the 
 richest ornamental work ; and the rock, the fountain, the 
 flowing river with its pebbled bed, the sea, the clouds of 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 113 
 
 Heaven, the herb of the field, the fruit-tree bearing fruit, the 
 creepiag thing, the bird, the beast, the man, and the angel, 
 mingle theii' fair forms on the bronze of Ghiberti. 
 
 Every thing being then ornamental that is imitative, I 
 would ask the reader's attention to a few general considera- 
 tions, all that can here be offered relating to so vast a subject \ 
 which, for convenience sake, may be classed under the three 
 heads of inquu-y : — What is the right place for architectural 
 ornament ? What is the peculiar treatment of ornament 
 which renders it architectural ? and what is the right use of 
 color as associated with architectural imitative form ? 
 
 XYX What is the place of ornament ? Consider first that 
 the characters of natural objects which the architect can 
 represent are few and abstract. The greater part of those 
 dehghts by which Nature recommends herself to man at all 
 times, cannot be conveyed by him into his imitative work. 
 He cannot make his grass green and cool and good to rest 
 upon, which in nature is its chief use to man ; nor can he 
 make his flowers tender and full of color and of scent, which 
 in natm-e are their chief powers of giving joy. Those quah- 
 ties which alone he can secure are certain severe characters 
 of form, such as men only see in nature on dehberate exami- 
 nation, and by the full and set appliance of sight and 
 thought : a man must he down on the bank of grass on his 
 breast and set himself to watch and penetrate the intertwin- 
 ing of it, before he finds that which is good to be gathered by 
 the architect. So then while Nature is at all times pleasant to 
 us, and while the sight and sense of her work may mingle 
 happily with all our thoughts, and labors, and times of esist- 
 ence, that image of her which the architect carries away 
 represents what we can only perceive in her by direct in- 
 tellectual exertion, and demands from us, wherever it appears, 
 an intellectual exertion of a similar Mnd in order to under- 
 stand it and feel it. It is the written or sealed impression of 
 a thing sought out, it is the shaped result of inquiry and 
 bodily expression of thought. 
 
 XVn. Now let us consider for an instant what would be 
 the effect of continually repeating an expression of a beautiful 
 
11-4 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 thought to any other of the senses at times when the mind 
 could not address that ^ sense to the understanding of it. 
 Suppose that in time of serious occupation, of stern business, 
 a companion should repeat in our ears continually some 
 favorite passage of poetrj', over and over again aU day long. 
 "We should not only soon be utterly sick and weary of the 
 sound of it, but that sound would at the end of the day have 
 so sunk into the habit of the ear that the entire meaning of 
 the passage would be dead to us, and it would ever thence- 
 forward require some effort to fix and recover it. The music 
 of it would not meanwhile have aided the business in hand, 
 while its own delightfulness would thenceforward be in a 
 measure destroyed. It is the same with every other form of 
 definite thought. If you violently present its expression to 
 the senses, at times when the mind is otherwise engaged, that 
 expression ■will be ineffective at the time, and will have its 
 sharpness and clearness destroyed forever. Much more if 
 you present it to the mind at times when it is painfully 
 affected or disturbed, or if you associate the expression of 
 pleasant thought with incongruous circumstances, you will 
 affect that expression thenceforward with a painful color for 
 ever. 
 
 XVm. Apply this to expressions of thought received by 
 the eye. Eemember that the eye is at your mercy more than 
 the ear. "The eye it cannot choose but see." Its nerve is 
 not so easily numbed as that of the eai-, and it is often busied 
 in tracing and watching forms when the ear is at rest Now 
 if you present lovely forms to it when it cannot caU the mind 
 to help it in its work, and among objects of vulgar use and 
 unhappy position, you will neither please the eye nor elevate 
 the vulgar object But you wUl fill and weary the eye with 
 the beautiful form, and you will infect that form itself with 
 the vulgarity of the thing to which you have violently attached 
 it It will never be of much use to you any more ; you have 
 killed or defiled it ; its freshness and purity are gone. You 
 will have to pass it through the fire of much thought before 
 you will cleanse it, and warm it with much love before it wiU 
 revive, 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 115 
 
 XIX. Hence then a general law, of singular importsince in 
 the present day, a law of simple common sense, — not to deco-i 
 rate things belonging to purposes of active and occupied 
 life. Wherever you can rest, there decorate ; where rest is 
 forbidden, so is beauty. You must not mix ornament with 
 business, any more than you may mix play. Work first, and 
 then restu Work first and then gaze, but do not use golden 
 ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enameL Do not thrash 
 with sculptured flails : nor put bas-rehefs on millstones. 
 What ! it will be asked, are we in the habit of doing so ? 
 Even so ; always and everywhere. The most famihar posi- 
 tion of Greek mouldings is in these days on shop fronts. 
 There is not a tradesman's sign nor shelf nor counter in all 
 the streets of all our cities, which has not upon it ornaments 
 which were invented to adorn temples and beautify kings' 
 palaces. There is not the smallest advantage in them where 
 they are. Absolutely valueless — utterly without the power 
 of giving pleasure, they only satiate the eye, and vulgarise 
 their own forms. Many of these are in themselves thor- 
 oughly good copies of fine things, which things themselves 
 we shall never, in consequence, enjoy any more. Many a 
 pretty beading and graceful bracket there is in wood or 
 stucco above our grocers' and cheese-mongers' and hosiers' 
 shops : how it is that the tradesmen , cannot understand that 
 custom is to be had only by selling good tea and cheese and 
 cloth, and that people come to them for their honesty, and 
 their readiness, and their right wares, and not because they 
 have Greek cornices over their windows, or their names in 
 large gilt letters on their house fronts ? how pleasurable it 
 would be to have the power of going through the streets of 
 London, pulling down those brackets and friezes and large 
 names, restoring to the tradesmen the capital they had spent 
 in architecture, and putting them on honest and equal terms, 
 each with his name in black letters over his door, not shouted 
 down the street from the upper stories, and each with a plain 
 wooden shop casement, with small panes in it that peo- 
 ple would not think of breaking in order to be sent to 
 prison ! How much better for them would it be — how mueS, 
 
116 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 happier, how much wiser, to put their trust upon their own 
 truth and industry, and not on the idiocy of their customera. 
 It is curious, and it says little for our national probity on 
 the one hand, or prudence on the other, to see the whole sys- 
 tem of our street decoration based on the idea that people 
 must be baited to a shop as moths are to a candle. 
 
 XX. But it will be said that much of the best wooden deco- 
 ration of the middle ages was in shop fronts. No ; it was in 
 house fronts, of which the shop was a part, and received its 
 natural and consistent portion of the ornament. In those 
 days men Uved, and intended to live hy their shops, and over 
 them, all their days. They were contented with them and 
 happy in them : they were their palaces and castles. They 
 gave them therefore such decoration as made themselves 
 happy in their own habitation, and they gave it for their ovm 
 sake. The upper stories were always the richest, and the 
 shop was decorated chiefly about the door, which belonged to 
 the house more than to it. And when our tradesmen settle 
 to their shops in the same way, and form no plans respecting 
 future villa architecture, let their whole houses be decorated, 
 and their shops too, but with a national and domestic decora- 
 tion (I shall speak more of this point in the sixth chapter). 
 However, our cities are for the most part too large to admit 
 of contented dwelling in them throughout life ; and I do not 
 say there is harm in our present system of separating the 
 shop from the dwelling-house ; only where they are so sep- 
 arated, let us remember that the only reason for shop deco- 
 ration is removed, and see that the decoration be removed 
 also. 
 
 XXI. Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the 
 present day is to the decoration of the railroad station. Now, 
 if there be any place in the world in which people are de- 
 prived of that portion of temper nnd discretion which are 
 necessary to the contemplation of beauty, it is there. It is 
 the very temple of discomfort, and the only charity that the 
 builder can extend to us is to show us, plainly as may be, how 
 soonest to escape from it. The whole system of railroad trav- 
 elling is addressed to people who, being in a hurry, are there- 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 117 
 
 fore, for the time being, miserable. No one would travel in 
 that manner who could help it — who had time to go leisurely 
 over hUls and between hedges, instead of through tunnels and 
 between banks : at least those who would, have no sense c* 
 beauty so acute as that we need consult it at the station. The 
 railroad is in all its relations a matter of earnest busLaess, to 
 be got through as soon as possible. It transmutes a man 
 from a traveUer iuto a living parcel. For the time he has 
 parted with the nobler characteristics of his humanity for the 
 sake of a planetary power of locomotion. Do not ask him to 
 admu-e anything. You might as well ask the wind. Carry 
 him safely, dismiss him soon : he will thank you for nothing 
 else. AU attempts to please him in any other way are mere 
 mockery, and insults to the things by which you endeavor to 
 do so. There never was more flagrant nor impertinent folly 
 than the smallest portion of ornament in anything concerned 
 with raOroads or near them. Keep them out of the way, take 
 them through the ughest country you can find, confess them 
 the miserable things they are, and spend nothing upon them 
 but for safety and speed. Give large salaries to efficient ser- 
 vants, large prices to good manufacturers, large wages to able 
 workmen ; let the iron be tough, and the brickwork solid, 
 and the carriages strong. The time is perhaps not distant 
 when these first necessities may not be easUy met : and to in- 
 crease expense in any other direction is madness. Better 
 bury gold in the embankments, than put it in ornaments on 
 the stations. Will a single traveller be willing to pay an in- 
 creased fare on the South Western, because the columns of 
 the terminus are covered with patterns from Nineveh ? He 
 wiU only care less for the Ninevite ivories in the British Mu- 
 seum : or on the North Western, because there are old Eng- 
 lish-looking spandrils to the roof of the station at Crewe ? He 
 wiU only have less pleasure in their prototypes at Crewe 
 House. EaUroad architecture has or would have a dignity 
 of its own if it were only left to its work. You would not 
 put rings on the fingers of a smith at his anvil. 
 
 XXH. It is not however only in these marked situations 
 that the abuse of which I speak takes place. There is hardly, 
 
118 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 at present, an application of ornamental wort, which is not 
 in some sort liable to blame of the same kind. We have a 
 bad habit of tiying to disguise disagreeable necessities by 
 some form of sudden decoration, which is, in all other places, 
 associated with such necessities. I will name only one in- 
 stance, that to which I have alluded before — the roses which 
 conceal the Yentilators in the flat roofs of our chapels. Many 
 of those roses are of very beautiful design, borrowed from 
 fine works : all their grace and finish are invisible when they 
 are so placed, but their general form is afterwards associated 
 with the ugly buildings' in which they constantly occur ; and 
 aU the beautiful roses of the early French and English Gothic, 
 especially such elaborate ones as those of the triforium of 
 Coutances, are in consequence deprived of their pleasurable 
 influence : and this without our having accompUshed the 
 smallest good by the use we have made of the dishonored form. 
 Not a single person in the congregation ever receives one ray 
 of pleasure from those roof roses ; they are regarded with 
 mere indifference, or lost in the general impression of harsh 
 emptiness. 
 
 XXTTT. Must not beauty, then, it will be asked, be sought for 
 in the forms which we associate with our every-day life ? Yes, 
 if you do it consistently, and in places where it can be calmly 
 seen ; but not if you use the beautiful form only as a mask 
 and covering of the proper conditions and uses of things, 
 nor if you thrust it into the places set apart for toU. Put it in 
 the drawing-room, not into the workshop ; put it upon do- 
 mestic furniture, not upon tools of handicraft. All men have 
 sense of what is right in this manner, if they would only use 
 and apply that sense ; every man knows where and how 
 beauty gives him pleasure, if he would only ask for it when it 
 does so, and not allow it to be forced upon him when he does 
 not want it. Ask any one of the passengers over London 
 Bridge at this instant whether he cares about the forms of the 
 bronze leaves on its lamps, and he will tell you, No. Modify 
 these forms of leaves to a less scale, and put them on his milk- 
 jug at breakfast, and ask him whether he likes them, and he 
 ■ffiU teU you, Yes. People have no need of teaching if they 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 119 
 
 could only think and speak truth, and ask for what they like 
 and want, and for nothing else : nor can a right disposition 
 of beauty be ever ai'rived at except by this common sense, 
 and allowance for the circumstances of the time and place. 
 It does not follow, because bronze leafage is in bad taste on 
 the lamps of London Bridge, that it would be so on those of 
 the Ponte della Trinita ; nor, because it would be a folly to 
 decorate the house fronts of Gracechurch Street, that it would 
 be equally so to adorn those of some quiet proviucial town. 
 The question of greatest external or internal decoration de- 
 pends entirely on the conditions of probable repose. It was 
 a wise feeling which made the streets of Venice so rich in ex- 
 ternal ornament, for there is no couch of rest hke the gondola. 
 So, again, there is no subject of street ornament so wisely 
 chosen as the fountain, where it is a fountain of use ; for it is 
 just there that perhaps the happiest pause takes place in the 
 labor of the day, when the pitcher is rested on the edge of it, 
 and the breath of the bearer is drawn deeply, and the hair 
 swept from the forehead, and the uprightness of the form 
 dechned against the marble ledge, and the sound of the kind 
 word or light laugh mixes with the trickle of the falling water, 
 heard shriller and shriller as the pitcher fills. What pause is 
 so sweet as that — so full of the depth of ancient days, so soft- 
 ened with the calm of pastoral sohtude ? 
 
 XXIV. n. Thus far, then, of the place for beauty. We 
 were next to inquire into the characters which fitted it pecu- 
 liarly for architectural appliance, and into the principles of 
 choice and of arrangement which best regulate the imitation 
 of natural forms in which it consists. The full answering of 
 these questions would be a treatise on the art of design : I in- 
 tend only to say a few words respecting the two conditions of 
 that art which are essentially architectural, — Proportion and 
 Abstraction. Neither of these quaUties is necessary, to the 
 same extent, in other fields of design. The sense of proportion 
 is, by the landscape painter, frequently sacrificed to character 
 and accident ; the power of abstraction to that of complete 
 realisation. The flowers of his foregroimd must often be un- 
 measured in their quantity, loose in their arrangement : what 
 
120 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 is calculated, either in quantity or disposition, must be £irt 
 fully concealed. That calculation is by the architect to be 
 prominently exhibited. So the abstraction of few character- 
 istics out of many is shown only in the painter's sketch ; in 
 his finished work it is concealed or lost in completion. Archi- 
 tecture, on the contrary, delights in Abstraction and fears to 
 complete her forms. Proportion and Abstraction, then, are 
 the two especial marks of architectural design as distinguished 
 from all other. Sculpture must have them in inferior degrees ; 
 leaning, on the one hand, to an architectural manner, when it 
 is usually greatest (becoming, indeed, a part of Architecture), 
 and, on the other, to a pictorial manner, when it is apt to lose 
 its dignity, and sink into mere ingenious carving. 
 
 XXV. Now, of Proportion so much has been written, that 
 I beheve the only facts which are of practical use have been 
 overwhelmed and kept out of sight by vain accumulations of 
 particular instances and estimates. Proportions are as infinite 
 (and that in aU kinds of things, as severally in colors, lines, 
 shades, lights, and forms) as possible airs in music : and it is 
 just as rational an attempt to teach a young architect how to 
 proportion truly and well by calculating for him the propor- 
 tions of fine works, as it would be to teach kim to compose 
 melodies by calculating the mathematical relations of the notes 
 in Beethoven's Adelaide or Mozart's Requiem. The man who 
 has eye and intellect vrill invent beautiful proportions, and 
 cannot help it ; but he can no more tell us how to do it than 
 Wordsworth could tell us how to write a sonnet, or than Scott 
 could have told us how to plan a romance. But there are one 
 or two general laws which can be told : they are of no use, 
 indeed, except as preventives of gross mistake, but they are so 
 far worth teUing and remembering ; and the more so because, 
 in the discussion of the subtle laws of proportion (which wiU 
 never be either numbered or known), architects are perpet- 
 ually forgetting and transgressing the very simplest of its 
 necessities. 
 
 XXVL Of which the first is, that wherever Proportion exists 
 at all, one member of the composition must be either larger 
 than, or in some way supreme over, the rest. There is no 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 121 
 
 pj'oportion between equal things. They can have symmetry 
 only, and symmetry without proportion is not composition. It 
 is necessary to perfect beauty, but it is the least necessary of 
 its elements, nor of course is there any difficulty in obtainiag 
 it Any succession of equal things is agreeable ; but to com- 
 pose is to arrange unequal things, and the first thing to be 
 done in beginning a composition is to determine which is to 
 be the principal thing. I believe that all that has been 
 ■written and taught about proportion, put together, is not to 
 the architect worth the single rule, well enforced, "Have one 
 large thing and several smaller things, or one principal thing 
 and several inferior things, and bind them well together." 
 Sometimes there may be a regular gradation, as between the 
 heights of stories in good designs for houses ; sometimes a 
 monarch with a lowly train, as in the spu'e with its pinnacles : 
 the varieties of arrangement are infinite, but the law is uni- 
 versal — have one thing above the rest, either by size, or office, 
 or interest. Don't put the pinnacles without the spire. What 
 a host of ugly church towers have we in England, with pinna- 
 cles at the comers, and none in the middle ! How many 
 buildings Hke King's College Chapel at Cambridge, looking 
 like tables upside down, with their four legs in the air ! "What I 
 it win be said, have not beasts four legs ? Yes, but legs of 
 different shapes, and with a head between them. So they 
 have a pair of ears : and perhaps a pair of horns : but not at 
 both ends. Knock down a couple of pinnacles at either end 
 in King's College Chapel, and you will have a kind of propor- 
 tion instantly. So in a cathedral you may have one tower in 
 the centre, and two at the west end ; or two at the west end 
 only, though a worse arrangement : but you must not have 
 two at the west and two at the east end, unless you have some 
 central member to connect them ; and even then, buildings 
 are generally bad which have large balancing features at the 
 extremities, and small connecting ones in the centre, because 
 it is not easy then to make the centre dominant. The bird or 
 moth may indeed have wide wings, because the size of the wing 
 does not give supremacy to the wing. The head and life are 
 the mighty things, and the plumes, however wide, are sub- 
 
122 THE LAMP OF BBAUTT. 
 
 ordiuate. In fine west fronts witli a pediment and two towers, 
 the centre is always the principal mass, both in bulk and in- 
 terest (as having the main gateway), and the towers are sub- 
 ordinated to it, as an animal's horns are to its head. The 
 moment the towers rise so high as to overpower the body and 
 centre, and become themselves the principal masses, they will 
 destroy the proportion, unless they are made unequal, and 
 one of them the leading feature of the cathedral, as at Ant- 
 werp and Strasburg. But the purer method is to keep them 
 down in due relation to the centre, and to throw up the pedi- 
 ment into a steep connecting mass, drawing the eye to it by 
 rich tracery. This is nobly done in St. Wulfran of Abbeville, 
 and attempted partly at Eouen, though that west front is made 
 up of so many unfinished and supervening designs that it is 
 impossible to guess the real intention of any one of its builders. 
 XXVn This iTile of supremacy applies to the smallest as 
 well as to the leading features : it is interestingly seen in the 
 arrangement of aU good mouldings. I have given one, on the 
 opposite page, from Rouen cathedral ; that of the tracery be- 
 fore distinguished as a type of the noblest manner of Northern 
 Gothic (Chap. IL § XXII.). It is a tracery of three orders, of 
 which the first is divided into a leaf moulding, fig. 4, and 6 in 
 the section, and a plain roU, also seen in fig. 4, c in the sec- 
 tion ; these two divisions surround the entire window or pan- 
 elling, and are carried by two-face shafts of corresponding sec- 
 tions. The second and third orders are plain roUs following 
 the line of the tracery ; four divisions of moulding in all : of 
 these foiu", the leaf moulding is, as seen in the sections, much 
 the largest ; next to it the outer roll ; then, by an exquisite 
 alternation, the innermost roll (e), in order that it may not be 
 lost in the recess and the intermediate {d), the smallest Each 
 roll has its own shaft and capital ; and the two smaller, which 
 in effect upon the eye, owing to the retirement of the inner- 
 most, are nearly equal, have smaller capitals than the two 
 larger, lifted a little to bring them to the same level. The 
 wall in the trefoUed hghts is curved, as from e to/" in the sec- 
 tion ; but in the quatrefoil it is flat, only throvm back to the 
 fuU depth of the recess below so as to get a sharp shadow in- 
 
PLATE X.— (Page 132-Vol, V. 1 
 
 TliACRlMES AND MoUI.nlNGS FUOHI RoUEN AND SaLISBUTIY. 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 123 
 
 stead of a soft one, the mouldiags falling back to it in nearly 
 a vertical curve behind the roll e. This could not, however, 
 be managed with the simpler mouldings of the smaller qua- 
 trefoil above, whose half section is given from g to g,; but 
 the architect was evidently fretted by the heavy look of its 
 circular foils as opposed to the Hght spring of the arches be- 
 low : so he threw its cusps obliquely clear from the wall, as 
 seen in fig. 2, attached to it where they meet the circle, but 
 with their finials pushed out from the natural level {h, in the 
 section) to that of the fii-st order (g^) and supported by stone 
 props behind, as seen La the profile fig. 2, which I got from 
 the correspondent panel on the buttress face (fig. 1 being on 
 its side), and of which the lower cusps, being broken away, 
 show the remnant of one of their props projecting from the 
 waU. The oblique curve thus obtained in the profile is of 
 singular grace. Take it all in all, I have never met with a 
 more exquisite piece of varied, yet severe, proportioned and 
 general arrangement (though all the windows of the period 
 are fine, and especially delightful in the subordinate propor- 
 tioning of the smaller capitals to the smaller shafts). The 
 only fault it has is the inevitable misarrangement of the cen- 
 +iral shafts ; for the enlargement of the inner roU, though 
 beautiful in the group of four divisions at the side, causes, 
 in the triple central shaft, the very awkwardness of heavy 
 lateral members which has just been iu most instances con- 
 demned. In the windows of the choir, and in most of the 
 period, this difficulty is avoided by making the fourth order a 
 fillet which only follows the foliation, while the three outer- 
 most are nearly in arithmetical progression of size, and the cen- 
 tral triple shaft has of com-se the largest roU in froni The 
 moulding of the Palazzo Foscari (Plate YUL, and Plate TV. 
 fig. 8) is, for so simple a group, the grandest in effect I have 
 even seen : it is composed of a large roll with two subordi- 
 nates. 
 
 XXYHL It is of course impossible to enter into details of 
 instances belonging to so intricate division of our subject, in 
 the compass of a general essay. I can but rapidly name the 
 chief conditiona of right. Another of these is the connectiou 
 
124 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 of Symmetry -with horizontal, and of Proportion with vertical, 
 division. Evidently there is in symmetry a sense not merely 
 of equality, but of balance : now a thing cannot be balanced 
 by another on the top of it, though it may by one at the side 
 of it. Hence, while it is not only allowable, but often neces- 
 sary, to divide buildings, or parts of them, horizontally into 
 halves, thirds, or other equal parts, all vertical divisions of 
 this kind are utterly wrong ; worst into half, next worst in 
 the regular numbers which more betray the equality. I should 
 Lave thought this almost the first principle of proportion 
 which a young architect was taught : and yet I remember an 
 important building, recently erected in England, in which 
 the columns are cut in half by the projecting architraves of 
 the central windows ; and it is quite usual to see the spii'ca 
 of modern Gothic churches divided by a band of ornament 
 half way up. In all fine spires there are two bands and three 
 parts, as at Salisbury. The ornamented portion of the tower 
 is there cut in half, and allowably, because the spire forms the 
 third mass to which the other two are subordinate : two sto- 
 ries are also equal in Giotto's campanile, but dominant over 
 smaller divisions below, and subordinated to the noble third 
 above. Even this arrangement is difficult to treat ; and it is 
 usually safer to increase or diminish the height of the divis- 
 ions regularly as they rise, as in the Doge's Palace, whose 
 three divisions are in a bold geometrical progression : or, in 
 towers, to get an alternate proportion between the body, the 
 belfry, and the crown, as in the campanile of St. Mark's. 
 But, at all events, get rid of equality ; leave that to children 
 and their card houses : the laws of nature and the reason of 
 man are alike against it, in arts, as in politics. There is but 
 one thoroughly ugly tower in Italy that I know of, and that 
 is so because it is divided into vertical equal parts : the tower 
 of Pisa.'" 
 
 XXIX. One more principle of Proportion I have to name, 
 equally simple, equally neglected. Proportion is between 
 three terms at least. Hence, as the pinnacles are not enough 
 without the spire, so neither the spire without the pinnacles. AH 
 men feel this and usually express their feeling by saying that 
 
TBE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 125 
 
 the pinnacles conceal the junction of the spire and tower. 
 This is one reason ; but a more influential one is, that the 
 pinnacles furnish the thu'd term to the spire and tower. So 
 that it is not enough, in order to secure proportion, to divide 
 a building unequally ; it must be divided into at least three 
 parts ; it may be into more (and in details with advantage), 
 but on a large scale I find three is about the best number of 
 parts in elevation, and five in horizontal extent, with freedom 
 of increase to five in the one case and seven in the other ; but 
 not to more without confusion (in architecture, that is to say ; 
 for in organic structure the numbers cannot be limited). I 
 purpose, in the course of worts which are in preparation, to 
 give copious illustrations of this subject, but I will take at 
 present only one instance of vertical proportion, from the 
 flower stem of the common water plantain, Alisma Plantago. 
 Fig. 5, Plate XII. is a reduced profile of one side of a plant 
 gathered at random ; it is seen to have five masts, of which, 
 however, the uppermost is a mere shoot, and we can consider 
 only their relations up to the fourth. Their lengths are 
 measured on the hne A B, which is the actual length of the 
 lowest mass a b, A C—b c, A D— c d, and A 'E=d e. If the 
 reader wiU take the trouble to measure these lengths and 
 compare them, he will find that, within half a line, the upper- 
 most A E=4 of A D, A D=|- of A C, and A 0=^ of A B ; a 
 most subtle diminishing proportion. From each of the joints 
 spring three major and three minor branches, each between 
 each ; but the major branches, at any joint, are placed over 
 the minor branches at the joint below, by the curious arrange- 
 ment of the joint itself — the stem is bluntly triangular ; fig. 
 6 shows the section of any joint. The outer darkened tri- 
 angle is the section of the lower stem ; the inner, left light, 
 of the upper stem ; and the three main branches spring from 
 the ledges left by the recession. Thus the stems di mi n i sh in 
 diameter just as they diminish in height. The main branches 
 (falsely placed in the profile over each other to show their 
 relations) have respectively seven, six, five, four, and three 
 arm-Dones, Uke the masts of the stem ; these divisions being 
 proportioned in the same subtle manner. From the joints of 
 
126 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 these, it seems to be the plan of the plant that three majoi 
 and three minor branches should again spring, bearing the 
 flowers : but, in these infinitely complicated members, vege- 
 tatiTe nature admits much variety ; in the plant from which 
 these measures were taken the fuU complement appeared only 
 at one of the secondary joints. 
 
 The leaf of this plant has five ribs on each side, as its flower 
 generally five masts, arranged with the most exquisite grace 
 of curve ; but of lateral proportion I shall rather take illustra- 
 tions from architecture : the reader wLU find several in the ac- 
 counts of the Duomo at Pisa and St. Mark's at Venice, in 
 Chap. V. §§ XIV.— XYX I give these arrangements merely as 
 illustrations, not as precedents : aU beautiful proportions are 
 unique, they are not general formulae. 
 
 XXX. The other condition of architectural treatment which 
 we proposed to notice was the abstraction of imitated form. 
 But there is a peculiar difficulty in touching within these nar- 
 row limits on such a subject as this, because the abstraction 
 of which we find examples in existing art, is partly involun- 
 tary ; and it is a matter of much nicety to determine where it 
 begins to be purposed. In the progress of national as well 
 as of individual mind, the first attempts at imitation are al- 
 ways abstract and incomplete. Greater completion marks 
 the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline ; 
 whence absolute completion of imitative form is often sup- 
 posed to be in itself wrong. But it is not vwong always, only 
 dangerous. Let us endeavor briefiy to ascertain wherein its 
 danger consists, and wherein its dignity. 
 
 XXXI. I have said that all art is abstract in its beginnings ; 
 that is to say, it expresses only a small number of the qualities 
 of the thing represented. Ciu-ved and complex lines are repre- 
 sented by straight and simple ones ; interior markings of forms 
 are few, and much is symbolical and conventional There is a 
 resembance between the work of a great nation, in this phase, 
 and the work of childhood and ignorance, which, in the mind 
 of a careless observer, might attach something Kke ridicule to it. 
 The form of a tree on the Ninevite sculptures is much like that 
 which, some twenty years ago, was familiar upon samplers ; and 
 
THS LAMP OF BEAUTT. 127 
 
 the types of the face aad figure in early Italian art are suscepti 
 ble of easy caricature. On the signs which separate the infancy 
 of magnificent manhood from every other, I do not pause to 
 insist (they consist entirely in the choice of the symbol and of 
 the features abstracted) ; but I pass to the next stage of art, a 
 condition of strength in which the abstraction which was begun 
 in incapability is continued in free will. This is the case, how- 
 ever, in pure sculpture and painting, as well as in architecture ; 
 and we have nothing to do but with that greater severity of 
 manner which fits either to be associated with the more reahst 
 art. I believe it properly consists only in a due expression of 
 their subordination, an expression varying according to their 
 place and office. The question is first to be clearly determined 
 whether the architecture is a frame for the sculpture, or the 
 sculpture an ornament of the architecture. If the latter, then 
 the first office of that sculptvure is not to represent the things it 
 imitates, but to gather out of them those arrangements of 
 form which shall be pleasing to the eye iu their intended places. 
 So soon as agreeable Hues and points of shade have been added 
 to the mouldings which were meagre, or to the lights which 
 were unrelieved, the architectural work of the imitation is ac- 
 complished ; and how far it shall be vreought towards complete- 
 ness or not, win depend upon its place, and upon other various 
 circumstances. If, in its particular use or position, it is sym- 
 metrically arranged, there is, of course, an instant indication of 
 architectural subjection. But symmetry is not abstraction. 
 Leaves may be carved in the most regular order, and yet be 
 meanly imitative ; or, on the other hand, they may be thrown 
 wild and loose, and yet be highly architectural iu their separate 
 treatment. Nothing can be less symmetrical than the group of 
 leaves which join the two columns in Plate XIII. ; yet, since 
 nothing of the leaf character is given but what is necessary 
 for the bare suggestion of its image and the attainment of the 
 lines desired, their treatment is highly abstract It shows that 
 the workman only wanted so much of the leaf as he supposed 
 good for his architecture, and would allow no more ; and how 
 much is to be supposed good, depends, as I have said, much 
 more on place and circumstance than on general laws. I know 
 
128 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 that this is not usually thought, and that many good architecta 
 would insist on abstraction in all cases : the question is so wide 
 and so difiicult that I express my opinion upon it most diffi- 
 dently ; but my own feeUng is, that a purely abstract manner, 
 like that of our earliest English work, does not afford room for 
 the perfection of beautiful form, and that its severity is weari- 
 some after the eye has been long accustomed to it. I have not 
 done justice to the Salisbury dog-tooth moulding, of which the 
 effect is sketched in fig. 5, Plate X., but I have done more jus- 
 tice to it nevertheless than to the beautiful French one above 
 it ; and I do not think that any candid reader would deny that, 
 piquant and spirited as is that from Salisbury, the Eouen motild- 
 ing is, in every respect, nobler. It will be observed that its 
 symmetry is more complioated, the leafage being divided into 
 double groups of two lobes each, each lobe of different struct- 
 ure. With exquisite feeling, one of these double groups is 
 alternately omitted on the other side of the moulding (not seeu 
 in the Plate, but occupying the cavetto of tlie section), thus 
 giving a playful lightness to the whole ; and it the reader will 
 allow for a beauty in the flow of the curved outlines (especially 
 on the angle), of which he cannot in the least judge from my 
 rude drawing, he wiU not, I think, expect easily to find a nobler 
 instance of decoration adapted to the severest mouldings. 
 
 Now it win be observed, that there is in its treatment a 
 high degree of abstraction, though not so conventional as that 
 of Sahsbury : that is to say, the leaves have little more than 
 their fiow and outline represented ; they are hardly undercut, 
 but their edges are connected by a gentle and most studied 
 curve with the stone behind ; they have no serrations, no 
 veinings, no rib or stalk on the angle, only an incision grace- 
 fully made towards their extremities, indicative of the central 
 rib and depression. The whole style of the abstraction shows 
 that the architect could, if he had chosen, have carried the 
 imitation much farther, btit stayed at this point of his own 
 free wiU ; and what he has done is also so perfect in its Mnd, 
 that I feel disposed to accept his authority without question, 
 so far as I can gather it from Ijiis works, on the whole subject 
 of abstractioiL 
 
TSE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 129 
 
 XXXII. Happily his opinion is franHy expressed. TMa 
 moulding is on the lateral buttress, and on a level with the top 
 of the north gate ; it cannot therefore be closely seen except 
 from the wooden stairs of the belfry ; it is not intended to be 
 so seen, but calculated for a distance of, at least, forty to fifty 
 feet from the eye. In the vault of the gate itself, half as near 
 again, there are three rows of mouldings, as I think, by the 
 same designer, at all events part of the same plan. One of 
 them is given iu Plate L fig. 2 a. It will be seen that the ab- 
 straction is here infinitely less ; the ivy leaves have stalks and 
 associated fruit, and a rib for each lobe, and are so far imder- 
 cut as to detach their forms from the stone ; while in the vine- 
 leaf moulding above, of the same period, from the south gate, 
 seiTation appears added to other purely imitative characters. 
 Finally, in the animals which form the ornaments of the por- 
 tion of the gate which ia close to the eye, abstraction nearly 
 vanishes into perfect sculpture. 
 
 XXXHL Nearness to the eye, however, is not the only cir- 
 cumstance which influences architectural abstraction. These 
 very animals are not merely better cut because close to the 
 eye ; they are put close to the eye that they may, without in- 
 discretion, be better cut, on the noble principle, first I think, 
 clearly enunciated by Mr. Eastlate, that the closest imitation 
 shall be of the noblest object. Farther, since the wildness 
 and manner of growth of vegetation render a bona fide imita- 
 tion of it impossible in sculpture — since its members must be 
 reduced in number, ordered in direction, and cut away from 
 their roots, even under the most earnestly imitative treatment, 
 — it becomes a point, as I think, of good judgment, to pro- 
 portion the completeness of execution of parts to the formality 
 of the whole ; and since five or six leaves must stand for a 
 tree, to let also five or six touches stand for a leaf. But since 
 the animal generally admits of perfect outline — since its form 
 is detached, and may be fully represented, its sculpture may 
 be more complete and faithful in all its parts. And this prin 
 ciple will be actually found, I believe, to guide the old work 
 men. If the animal form be in a gargoyle, incomplete, and 
 coming out of a block of stone, or if a head only, as for a boss 
 9 
 
130 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 or other such partial use, its sculpture -will be highly abstract 
 But if it be an entii-e animal, as a Hzard, or a bird, or a 
 squirrel, peeping among leafage, its sculpture will be much 
 farther carried, and I think, if small, near the eye, and worked 
 in a fine material, may rightly be carried to the utmost possi- 
 ble completion. Surely we cannot wish a less finish bestowed 
 on those which animate the mouldings of the south door of 
 the cathedral of Florence ; nor desire that the birds in the 
 capitals of the Doge's palace should be stripped of a single 
 plume. 
 
 XXXIV. Under these limitations, then, I think that per- 
 fect sculpture may be made a part of the severest architecture ; 
 but this perfection was said in the outset to be dangerous. It 
 is so in the highest degree ; for the moment the architect 
 allows himself to dwell on the imitated portions, there is a 
 chance of his losing sight of the duty of his ornament, of its 
 business as a part of the composition, and sacrificing its points 
 of shade and effect to the dehght of delicate carving. And 
 then he is lost. His architecture has become a mere frame- 
 work for the setting of delicate sculpture, Avhich had better 
 be an taken down and put into cabinets. It is well, there- 
 fore, that the young architect should be taught to thinlr of 
 imitative ornament as of the extreme of grace in language ; not 
 to be regarded at first, not to be obtained at the cost of pur- 
 pose, meaning, force, or. conciseness, yet, indeed, a perfection 
 — the least of all perfections, and yet the crowning one of all 
 — one which by itself, and regarded in itself, is an architectu- 
 ral coxcombry, but is yet the sign of the most highly-trained 
 mind and power when it is associated with others. It is a 
 safe manner, as I think, to design all things at first in severe 
 abstraction, and to be prepared, if need were, to carry them 
 out in that form ; then to mark the parts where high finish 
 would be admissible, to complete these always with stem ref- 
 erence to their general effect, and then connect them by a 
 graduated scale of abstraction with the rest. And there is 
 one safeguard against danger in this process on which J 
 would finally insist. Never imitate anything but natural 
 forms, and those the noblest, in the completed parts. The 
 
PLATE XI. -{Page 131— Yol. V.) 
 Baia'Oisv in the Campo, St Benedetto, Venice. 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 131 
 
 degradation of the cinque cento manner of decoration was not 
 owing to its naturalism, to its faithfulness of imitation, but tc 
 its imitation of ugly, i.e. unnatural things. So long as it re- 
 strained itself to sculpture of animals and flowers, it remained 
 noble. The balcony, on the opposite page, from a house in 
 the Campo St. Benedetto at Venice, shows one of the earliest 
 occurrences of the cinque cento arabesque, and a fragment of 
 the pattern is given in. Plate XH. fig. 8. It is but the arrest- 
 ing upon the stone work of a stem or two of the living flowers, 
 which are rarely wanting in the window above (and which, by 
 the by, the French and Italian peasantry often trellis with ex- 
 quisite taste about their casements). This arabesque, reheved 
 as it is in darkness from the white stone by the staia of time, 
 is surely both beautiful and pure ; and as long as the renais- 
 sance ornament remained in such forms it may be beheld with 
 undeserved admiration. But the moment that unnatural ob- 
 jects were associated with these, and armor, and musical in- 
 struments, and wild meaningless scrolls and curled shields, and 
 other such fancies, became principal in its subjects, its doom 
 was sealed, and with it that of the architecture of the world. 
 
 XXXV. UL Our final inquiry was to be iato the use of 
 color as associated with architectural ornament. 
 
 I do not feel able to speak with any confidence respecting 
 the touching of sculpture with color. I would only note one 
 point, that sculpture is the representation of an idea, while 
 architecture is itself a real thing. The idea may, as I think, 
 be left colorless, and colored by the beholder's mind : but a 
 reaHty ought to have reality in all its attributes : its color 
 should be as fixed as its form. I cannot, therefore, consider 
 architecture as in any wise perfect without color. Farther, as 
 I have above noticed, I think the colors of architecture should 
 be those of natural stones ; partly because more durable, but 
 also because more perfect and graceful. For to conquer the 
 harshness and deadness of tones laid upon stone or on gesso, 
 needs the management and discretion of a true painter ; and 
 on this co-operation we must not calculate in laying down rules 
 for general practice. If Tintoret or Giorgione are at hand, 
 and ask us for a wall to paint, we will alter our whole design 
 
133 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 for their sake, and become their servants ; but we must, as 
 architects, expect the aid of the common workman only ; and 
 the laying of color by a mechanical hand, and its toning under 
 a vulgar eye, are far more offensive than rudeness in cutting the 
 stone. The latter is imperfection only ; the former deadness 
 or discordance. At the best, such color is so inferior to the 
 lovely and mellow hues of the natural stone, that it is veise to 
 sacrifice some of the intricacy of design, if by so doing we 
 may employ the nobler material. And if, as we looked to 
 Nature for instruction respecting form, we look to her also to 
 learn the management of color, we shall, perhaps, find that this 
 sacrifice of intricacy is for other causes expedient. 
 
 XXXVI. First, then, I think that in making this reference 
 we are to consider our building as a kind of organized creat- 
 lu-e ; ia coloring which we must look to the single and sep- 
 arately organized creatures of Nature, not to her landscape 
 combinations. Oiu: building, if it is well composed, is one 
 thiag, and is to be colored as Nature would color one thing — 
 a shell, a flower, or an animal ; not as she colors groups of 
 things. 
 
 And the first broad conclusion we shall deduce from observ- 
 ance of natural color in such cases will be, that it never fol- 
 lows form, but is arranged on an entirely separate system. 
 What mysterious connection there may be between the shape 
 of the spots on an animal's sldn and its anatomical system, I 
 do not know, nor even if such a connection has in any wise 
 been traced: but to the eye the systems are entirely separate, 
 and in many cases that of color is accidentally variable. The 
 stripes of a zebra do not foUow the lines of its body or limbs, 
 still less the spots of a leopard. In the plumage of birds, 
 each feather bears a part of the pattern which is arbitrarily 
 carried over the body, having indeed certain graceful harmo- 
 nies with the form, diminishing or enlarging in directions 
 which sometimes foUow, but also not unfrequently oppose, the 
 directions of its muscular hues. Whatever harmonies there 
 may be, are distinctly like those of two separate musical parts, 
 coinciding here and there only — never discordant, but essen- 
 tially different. I hold this, then, for the first great principle 
 
TEB LAMP OF BEAUTY. 133 
 
 of architectural color. Let it be visibly independent of form. 
 Never paint a column with vertical liaes, but always cross it." 
 Nevei give separate mouldings separate colors (I know this is 
 heresy, but I never shrink from any conclusions, however con- 
 traay to human authority, to which I am led by observance of 
 natural principles) ; and in sculptured ornaments I do not 
 paint the leaves or figures (I cannot help the Elgin frieze) of 
 one color and their ground of another, but vary both the 
 gi'ound and the figures with the same harmony. Notice how 
 Nature does it in a variegated flower ; not one leaf red and 
 another white, but a point of red and a zone of white, or what- 
 ever it may be, to each. In certain places you may run your 
 two systems closer, and here and there let them be parallel for 
 a note or two, but see that the colors and the forms coincide 
 only as two orders of mouldings do ; the same for an instant, 
 but each holding its own course. So single members may 
 sometimes have single colors : as a bird's head is sometimes 
 of one color and its shoulders another, you may make your 
 capital of one color and your shaft another ; but in general 
 the best place for color is on broad surfaces, not on the points 
 of interest in form. An animal is mottled on its breast and 
 back, rarely on its paws or about its eyes ; so put your varie- 
 gation boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft, but be shy of 
 it in the capital and moulding ; in all cases it is a safe rule to 
 simphfy color when form is rich, and vice versa ; and I tliinlc 
 it would be well in general to carve all capitals and graceful 
 ornaments in white marble, and so leave them. 
 
 XXXVn. Independence then being first secured, what kind 
 of limiting outlines shall we adopt for the system of color 
 itseH? 
 
 I am quite sure that any person familiar with natural ob- 
 jects will never be surprised at any appearance of care or finish 
 in them. That is the condition of the universe. But there is 
 cause both for surprise and inquiry whenever we see anything 
 like carelessness or incompletion : that is not a common condi- 
 tion ; it must be one appointed for some singular purpose. I 
 believe that such surprise ^vill be forcibly felt by any one who, 
 after studying carefully the Hnes of some variegated organic 
 
134 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 form, will set himself to copy with similar diligence those ol 
 its colors. The boundaries of the forms he will assuredly, 
 whatever the object, have found drawn with a delicacy and 
 precision which no human hand can follow. Those of its 
 colors he will find in many cases, though governed always by 
 a certain rude symmetry, yet irregular, blotched, imperfect, 
 liable to all kinds of accidents and awkwardnesses. Look at 
 the tracery of the lines on a camp shell, and see how oddly and 
 awkwardly its tents are pitched. It is not indeed always so : 
 there is occasionally, as in the eye of the peacock's plume, an 
 apparent precision, but BtUl a precision far inferior to that of 
 the drawing of the filaments which bear that lovely stain ; and 
 in the pluraUty of cases a degree of looseness and variation, 
 and, still more singularly, of harshness and violence in arrange- 
 ment, is admitted in color which would be monstrous in form. 
 Observe the difference in the precision of a fish's scales and of 
 the spots on them. 
 
 XXXYnX Now, why it should be that .color is best seen 
 under these circiunstances I will not here endeavor to deter- 
 mine ; nor whether the lesson we are to learn from it be that 
 it is God's will that all manner of delights should never be 
 combined in one thing. But the fact is certain, that color is 
 always by Him arranged in these simple or rude forms, and as 
 certain that, therefore, it must be best seen in them, and that 
 we shall never mend by refining its arrangements. Experience 
 teaches us the same thing. Infinite nonsense has been written 
 about the union of perfect color with perfect form. They never 
 will, never can be united. Color, to be perfect, must have a 
 soft outUne or a simple one : it cannot have a refined one ; 
 and you will never produce a good painted window with good 
 figure-drawing in it. You will lose perfection of color as you 
 give perfection of line. Try to put in order and form the 
 colors of a piece of opal. 
 
 XXXIX. I conclude, then, that all arrangements of color, 
 for its own sake, in graceful forms, are barbarous ; and that, 
 to paint a color pattern with the lovely lines of a Greek leaf 
 moulding, is an utterly savage procedure. I cannot find any- 
 thing in natural color like this : it is not in the bond. I find 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTT. 135 
 
 it in all natural form — never in natural color. If, then, our 
 architectural color is to be beautiful as its form was, by being 
 imitative, we are limited to these conditions — to simple 
 masses of it, to zones, as in the rainbow and the zebra ; 
 cloudings and flamings, as in marble shells and plumage, or 
 spots of various shapes and dimensions. All these conditions 
 are susceptible of various degrees of sharpness and dehcacy, 
 and of complication in arrangement. The zone may become 
 a delicate line, and arrange itself in chequers and zig-zags. 
 The flaming may be more or less defined, as on a tuhp leaf, 
 and may at last be represented by a triangle of color, and 
 arrange itself in stars or other shapes ; the spot may be also 
 graduated into a staia, or defined into a square or circle. The 
 most exquisite harmonies may be composed of these simple 
 elements : some soft and full of flushed and melting spaces 
 of color ; others piquant and sparkling, or deep and rich, 
 formed of close groups of the fiery fragments : perfect and 
 lovely proportion may be exhibited in the relation of their 
 quantities, infinite invention in their disposition : but, in all 
 cases, their shape vrLD. be effective only as it determines their 
 quantity, and regulates their operation on each other ; points 
 or edges of one being introduced between breadths of others, 
 and so on. Triangular and barred forms are therefore con- 
 venient, or others the simplest possible ; leaving the pleasure 
 of the spectator to be taken in the color, and in that only. 
 Curved outlines, especially if refined, deaden the color, and 
 confuse the mind. Even in figui-e painting the greatest 
 colorists have either melted their outline away, as often 
 Correggio and Rubens ; or purposely made their masses of im- 
 gainly shape, as Titian ; or placed their brightest hues in cos- 
 tume, where they could get quaint. patterns, as Veronese, and 
 especially Angelico, with whom, however, the absolute virtue 
 of color is secondary to grace of Une. Hence, he never uses 
 the blended hues of Correggio, Uke those on the wing of the 
 bttle Cupid, in the "Venus and Mercury," but always the 
 severest type — the peacock plimie. Any of these men would 
 have looked with infinite disgust upon the leafage and scroll- 
 work which form the ground of color in our modern painted 
 
186 THE LAMP OV BSAUTT. 
 
 windows, and yet all whom I have named were much infected 
 with the love of renaissance designs. We must also aUow for 
 the freedom of the painter's subject, and looseness of his 
 associated lines ; a pattern being severe in a picture, which is 
 over luxurious upon a building. I believe, therefore, that it 
 is impossible to be over. quaint or angular in architectural 
 coloring ; and thus many dispositions which I have had oc- 
 casion to reprobate in form, are, in color, the best that can be 
 invented. I have always, for instance, spoken with contempt 
 of the Tudor style, for this reason, that, having surrendered 
 aU pretence to spaciousness and breadth, — having divided its 
 surfaces by an infinite number of lines, it yet sacrifices the 
 only characters which can make lines beautiful ; sacrifices all 
 the variety and grace which long atoned for the caprice of 
 the Flamboyant, and adopts, for its leading feature, an en- 
 tanglement of cross bars and verticals, showing about as much 
 invention or skill of design as the reticulation of the brick- 
 layer's sieve. Yet this very reticulation would in color be 
 highly beautiful ; and all the heraldry, and other features 
 which, in form, are monstrous, may be delightful as themes 
 of color (so long as there are no fluttering or over-twisted 
 Unes in them) ; and this observe, because, when colored, they 
 take the place of a mere pattern, and the resemblance to 
 nature, which could not be found in their sculptured forms, 
 is found in their piquant variegation of other surfaces. There 
 is a beautiful and bright bit of wall painting behind the 
 Duomo of Verona, composed of coats of arms, whose bear- 
 ings are balls of gold set in bars of green (altered blue ?) and 
 white, with cardinal's hats in alternate squares. This is of 
 course, however, fit only for domestic work. The front of 
 the Doge's palace at Venice is the purest and most chaste 
 model that I can name (but one) of the fit apphcation of color 
 to public buildings. The sculpture and mouldings are all 
 white ; but the waU surface is chequered with marlble blocks 
 of pale rose, the chequers being in no wise harmonized, or 
 fitted to the forms of the windows ; but looking as if the sur- 
 face had been completed first, and the windows cut out of it. 
 In Plate XH fig. 2 the reader will see two of the patterns 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 137 
 
 used in green and white, on the coliunns of San Michele of 
 Lucca, every column having a different design. Both are 
 beautiful, but the upper one certainly the best. Yet in sculpt- 
 ure its lines would have been perfectly barbarous, and those 
 even of the lower not enough refined. 
 
 XL. Kestraining ourselves, therefore, to the use of such 
 simple patterns, so far forth as our color is subordinate either 
 to architectural structure, or scidptural form, we have yet one 
 more manner of ornamentation to add to our general means 
 of effect, monochrome design, the intermediate condition be- 
 tween coloring and carving. The relations of the entire sys- 
 tem of architectural decoration may then be thus expressed. 
 
 1. Organic form dominant. True, independent sculpture, and 
 
 alto-relievo ; rich capitals, and mouldings ; to be elaborate 
 in completion of form, not abstract, and either to be left 
 in pure white marble, or most cautiously touched vnth 
 color in points and borders only, ia a system iiot concur- 
 rent with their forms. 
 
 2. Organic form sub-dominant. Basso-rehevo or intagUo. To 
 
 be more abstract in proportion to. the reduction of depth ; 
 to be also more rigid and simple in contour ; to be 
 touched with color more boldly and in an increased de- 
 gree, exactly in proportion to the reduced depth and ful- 
 ness of form, but still in a system non-concurrent with 
 their forms. 
 
 3. Organic form abstracted to outline. Monochrome design, 
 
 still farther reduced to simplicity of contour, and there- 
 fore admitting for the first time the color to be concur- 
 rent with its outlines ; that is to say, as its name imports, 
 the entire figure to be detached in one color from a 
 ground of another. 
 4 Organic forms entirely lost. Geometrical patterns or vari- 
 able cloudings in the most vivid color. 
 
 On the opposite side of this scale, ascending from the color 
 pattern, I would place the various forms of painting which 
 may be associated with architecture : primarily, and as most 
 
138 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 fit for such pm-pose, the mosaic, highly abstract in treatment, 
 and introducing brilliant color in masses ; the Madonna ol 
 Torcello being, as I think, the noblest type of the manner, and 
 the Baptistery of Parma the richest : next, the purely decora- 
 tive fresco, like that of the Arena Chapel ; finally, the fresco 
 becoming principal, as in the Vatican and Sistine. But I can- 
 not, mth any safety, foUow the principles of abstraction in 
 this pictorial ornament ; since the noblest examples of it 
 appear to me to owe their architectural applicability to their 
 archaic manner ; and I think that the abstraction and admira- 
 ble simphcity which render them fit media of the most splen- 
 did coloring, cannot be recovered by a voluntary condescen- 
 sion. The Byzantiaes themselves would not, I think, if they 
 could have drawn the figure better, have used it for a color 
 decoration ; and that use, as peculiar to a condition of child- 
 hood, however noble and full of promise, cannot be included 
 among those modes of adornment which are now legitimate or 
 even possible. There is a difficulty in the management of the 
 painted window for the same reason, which has not yet been 
 met, and we must conquer that first, before we can venture to 
 consider the wall as a painted window on a large scale. Pic- 
 torial subject, without such abstraction, becomes necessarily 
 principal, or, at all events, cesses to be the architect's concern ; 
 its plan must be left to the painter after the completion of the 
 building, as in the works of Veronese and Giorgione on the 
 palaces of Venice. 
 
 XLI. Pure architectural decoration, then, may be consid- 
 ered as limited to the four kinds above specified ; of which 
 each glides almost imperceptibly into the other. Thus, the 
 Elgin frieze is a monochrome in a state of transition to sculpt- 
 ure, retaining, as I think, the half-cast skiu too long. Of 
 pure monochrome, I have given an example in Plate VI., from 
 the noble front of St. Michele of Lucca. It contains forty 
 such arches, all covered with equally elaborate ornaments, en- 
 tirely drawn by cutting out their ground to about the depth 
 of an inch in the flat white marble, and fillin g the spaces with 
 pieces of green serpentine ; a most elaborate mode of sculpt- 
 ure, requiring excessive cai-e and precision in the fitting of 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 139 
 
 the edges, and of course double work, the same line needing 
 to be out both in the marble and serpentine. The excessive sim- 
 plicity of the forms will be at once perceived ; the eyes of the 
 figures of animals, for instance, beiag indicated only by a 
 round dot, formed by a Httle inlet circle of serpentine, about 
 half an inch over : but, though simple, they admit often much 
 grace of curvature, as in the neck of the bkd seen above the 
 right hand pillar.'* The pieces of serpentine have fallen out 
 in many places, giving the black shadows, as seen under the 
 horseman's arm and bird's neck, and in the semi-circidar line 
 round the arch, once filled with some pattern. It would have 
 illustrated my point better to have restored the lost portions, 
 but I always draw a thing exactly as it is, hatiag restoration 
 of any kind ; and I would especially direct the reader's atten- 
 tion to the completion of the forms in the sculptured orna- 
 ment of the marble cornices, as opposed to the abstraction of 
 the monochrome figures, of the ball and cross patterns between 
 the arches, and of the triangular ornament round the arch on 
 the left 
 
 XTJT. I have an intense love for these monochrome figures, 
 owing to their wonderful Hfe and spirit in all the works on 
 which I found them ; nevertheless, I beUeve that the exces- 
 sive degree of abstraction which they imply necessitates our 
 placing them in the rank of a progressive or imperfect art, 
 and that a perfect building shoidd rather be composed of the 
 highest sculpture (organic form domiuant and sub-dominant), 
 associated with pattern colors on the flat or broad surfaces. 
 And we find, in fact, that the cathedral of Pisa, which is a 
 higher type than that of Lucca, exactly follows this condition, 
 the color being put in geometrical patterns on its surfaces, 
 and animal-forms and lovely leafage used in the sculptured 
 cornices and pillara And I think that the grace of the carved 
 forms is best seen when it is thus boldly opposed to severe 
 traceries of color, while the color itself is, as we have seen, 
 always most piquant when it is put into sharp angular ar- 
 rangements. Thus the sculpture is approved and set off by the 
 color, and the color seen to the best advantage in its opposition 
 both to the whiteness and the grace of the carved marble. 
 
140 TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 XLTTT. In the course of thia and the preceding chapters, 1 
 have now separately enumerated most of the conditions of 
 Power and Beaufy, which in the outset I stated to be the 
 grounds of the deepest impressions with which architecture 
 could affect the human mind ; but I would ask permission to 
 recapitulate them in order to see if there be any buUding 
 which I may offer as an example of the unison, in such man- 
 ner as is possible, of them all. Glancing back, then, to the 
 beginning of the third chapter, and introducing in their place 
 the conditions incidentally determined in the two previous 
 sections, we shall have the following list of noble characters : 
 
 Considerable size, exhibited by simple terminal lines (Chap. 
 in. § 6). Projection towards the top (§ 7). Breadth of flat 
 surface (§ 8). Square compartments of that surface (§ 9). 
 Varied and visible masonry (§ 11). Vigorous depth of shadow 
 (§ 13), exhibited especially by pierced traceries (§ 18). Varied 
 proportion in ascent (Chap. IV. § 28) . Lateral symmetry (§ 28). 
 Sculpture most delicate at the base (Chap. L § 12). Enriched 
 quantity of ornament at the top (§ 13). Sculpture abstract in 
 inferior ornaments and mouldings (Chap. IV. § 31), complete 
 in animal forms (§ 33). Both to be executed in white marble 
 (§ 40). Vivid color introduced in flat geometrical patterns 
 (§ 39), and obtained by the use of naturally colored stone (§ 35). 
 
 These characteristics occur more or less in different build- 
 ings, some in one and some in another. But all together, and 
 all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far 
 as I know, only in one building in the world, the Campanile 
 of Giotto at Florence. The drawing of the tracery of its 
 upper story, which heads this chapter, rude as it is, wiU never- 
 theless give the reader some better conception of that tower's 
 magnificence than the thin outlines in which it is usually 
 portrayed. In its first appeal to the stranger's eye there is 
 something unpleasing ; a mingling, as it seems to him, of over 
 severity with over minuteness. But let him give it time, as he 
 should to aU other consummate art. I remember well how, when 
 a boy, I used to despise that Campanile, and think it meanly 
 smooth and finished. But I have since lived beside it many a 
 day, and looked out upon it from my windows by sunlight ana 
 
TEE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 141 
 
 moonlight, and I shall not Boon forget how profound and 
 gloomy appeared to me the savageness of the Northern Gothic, 
 when I aftenvards stood, for the first time, beneath the front 
 of Salisbury. The contrast is indeed strange, if it could be 
 quietly felt, between the rising of those grey walls out of their 
 quiet swarded space, like dark and barren rocks out of a green 
 lake, with their mde, mouldering, rough-grained shafts, and 
 triple lights, wii^out tracery or other ornament than the mar- 
 tins' nests ia the height of them, and that bright, smooth, 
 sunny surface of glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and faity 
 traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their sHght shapes 
 are hardly traced in darkness on the paUor of the Eastern sky, 
 that serene height of mountain alabaster, colored like a morn- 
 ing cloud, and chased like a sea shell. And if this be, as I be- 
 lieve it, the model and mirror of perfect architecture, is there 
 not something to be learned by looking back to the early Hfe 
 of In'm who raised it ? I said that the Power of human mind 
 had its growth in the Wilderness ; much more must the love 
 and the conception of that beauty, whose eveiy line and hue 
 we have seen to be, at the best, a faded image of God's daily 
 work, and an arrested ray of some star of creation, be given 
 chiefly in the places which He has gladdened by planting there 
 the fir tree and the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, 
 but among the far away fields of her lUies, was the child trained 
 who was to raise that headstone of Beauty above the towers 
 of watch and war. Bemember all that he became ; count the 
 sacred thoughts with which he fiUed the heart of Italy ; ask 
 those who followed him what they learned at his feet ; and when 
 you have numbered his labors, and received their testimony, if 
 it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon this His 
 servant no common nor restrained portion of His Spirit, and 
 that he was indeed a king among the children of men, remem- 
 ber also that the legend upon his crovm was that of David's : — 
 ■•' I took thee from the sheepcote, and from follovying the sheep." 
 
142 THE LAMP OF LIFS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE liAMP or UPB. 
 
 I Among the countless analogies by which the nature and 
 relations of the human soul are illustrated in the material 
 creation, none are more striking than the impressions insep- 
 arably connected -with the active and dormajit states of matter. 
 I have elsewhere endeavored to show, that no inconsiderable 
 part of the essential characters of Beauty depended on the 
 expression of vital energy in organic things, or on the subjec- 
 tion to such energy, of things naturally passive and powerless. 
 I need not here repeat, of what was then advanced, more than 
 the statement which I believe wiU meet with general accept- 
 ance, that things in other respects alike, as in their substance, 
 or uses, or outward forms, are noble or ignoble in proportion 
 to the fulness of the life which either they themselves enjoy, 
 or of whose action they bear the evidence, as sea sands are 
 made beautiful by their bearing the seal of the motion of the 
 waters. And this is especially true of all objects which bear 
 upon them the impress of the highest order of creative life, 
 that is to say, of the mind of man : they become noble or ig- 
 noble in proportion to the amount of the energy of that mind 
 which has visibly been employed upon them. But most pe- 
 culiarly and imperatively does the rule hold with respect to 
 the creations of Architecture, which being properly capable 
 of ho other life than this, and being not essentially composed 
 of things pleasant in themselves, — as music of sweet sounds, 
 or painting of fair colors, but of inert substance, — depend, 
 for their dignity and pleasurableness in the utmost degree, 
 upon the vivid expression of the intellectual life which has 
 been concerned in their production. 
 
 n. Now in aU other kind of energies except that of man's 
 mind, there is no question as to what is hfe, and what is not 
 Vital sensibility, whether vegetable or animal, may, indeed, be 
 reduced to so great feebleness, as to render its existence a 
 matter of question, but -wheri it is evident at aU, it is evident 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 143 
 
 as such : there is no mistaldng any imitation or pretence of it 
 for the life itself ; no mechanism nor galvanism can take its 
 place ; nor is any resemblance of it so striking as to involve 
 even hesitation ia the judgment ; although many occur which 
 the human imagination takes pleasure in exalting, vyithout for 
 an instant losing sight of the real nature of thy dead things it 
 animates ; but rejoicing rather in its ovm excessive hfe, which 
 puts gesture into clouds, and joy into waves, and voices into 
 rocks. 
 
 UL But when we begin to be concerned with the energies 
 of man, we find ourselves instantly dealing with a double creat- 
 vtre. Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious coun- 
 terpart, which it is at his peril if he do not cast off and deny. 
 Thus he has a ti-ue and false (otherwise called a liviag and 
 dead, or a feigned or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a 
 false hope, a true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a 
 false life. His true hfe is like that of lower organic beings, 
 the independent force by which he moulds and governs exter- 
 nal things ; it is a force of assimilation which converts every- 
 thing around him into food, or into instruments ; and which, 
 however humbly or obediently it may Hsten to or follow the 
 guidance of superior intelligence, never forfeits its own 
 authority as a judging principle, as a will capable either of 
 obeying or rebelling. His false life is, indeed, but one of the 
 conditions of death or stupor, but it acts, even when it cannot 
 be said to animate, and is not always easily known from the 
 true. It is that hfe of custom and accident in which many of 
 us pass much of our time in the world ; that hfe in which we 
 do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not 
 mean, and assent to what we do not understand ; that hfe 
 which is overlaid by the weight of things external to it, and is 
 moulded by them, instead of assimilating them ; that, which 
 instead of growing and blossoming under any wholesome dew, 
 is crystaUised over with it, as with hoar frost, and becomes to 
 the true Ufe what an arborescence is to a tree, a candied 
 agglomeration of thoughts and habits foreign to it, brittle, 
 obstinate, and icy, which can neither bend nor grow, but 
 must be crushed and broken to bits, if it stand in our way. 
 
144 TEE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 All men are liable to be in some degree frost-bitten in this 
 sort ; aU are partly encumbered and crusted over with idle 
 matter ; only, if they have real life in them, they are always 
 breaking this bark away in noble rents, untU it becomes, like 
 the black strips upon the birch tree, only a witness of their 
 own inward strength. But, with all the efforts that the best 
 men make, much of their being passes in a kind of dream, in 
 which they indeed move, and play their parts sufficiently, to 
 the eyes of their fellow-dreamers, but have no clear conscious- 
 ness of what is around them, or within them ; bHnd to the 
 one, insensible to the other, vwOpoi. I would not press the 
 definition into its darker application to the dull heart and 
 heavy ear ; I have to do with it only as it refers to the too fre- 
 quent condition of natural existence, whether of nations or in- 
 dividuals, settling commonly upon them in proportion to their 
 age. The life of a nation is usually, like the flow of a lava 
 stream, first bright and fierce, then languid and covered, at 
 last advancing only by the tumbling over and over of its frozen 
 blocka And that last condition is a sad one to look upon. 
 All the steps are marked most clearly in the arts, and in Archi- 
 tecture more than in any other ; for it, being especially de- 
 pendent, as we have just said, on the warmth of the true Hfe, 
 is also pecvdiarly sensible of the hemlock cold of the false ; 
 and I do not know anything more oppressive, when the mind 
 is once awakened to its characteristics, than the aspect of a 
 dead architectiu'e. The feebleness of childhood is fuU of 
 promise and of interest, — the struggle of imperfect knowledge 
 full of energy and continuity, — but to see impotence and ri- 
 gidity settling upon the form of the developed man ; to see 
 the types which once had the die of thought struck fresh 
 upon them, worn flat by over use ; to see the shell of the 
 living creature in its adult form, when its colors are faded, 
 and its inhabitant perished, — this is a sight more humiliat- 
 ing, more melancholy, than the vanishing of aU knowledge, 
 and the return to confessed and helpless infancy. 
 
 Nay, it is to be wished that such return were always possi- 
 ble. There would be hope if we could change palsy into 
 puerility ; but I know not how far we can become children 
 
TEE LAMP OF LIFE. 145 
 
 again, smd renew our lost life. The stirring which has taken 
 place ill our architectural aimn. and iaterests within these few 
 years, is thought by many to be fuU of promise : I trust it is, 
 but it has a sickly look to me. I cannot tell whether it be 
 indeed a springing of seed or a shaking among bones ; and I 
 do not think the time will be lost which I ask the reader to 
 spend in the inquiry, how far all that we have hitherto ascer- 
 taraed or conjectured to be the best in principle, may be for- 
 mally practised without the spirit or the YitaUty which alone 
 could give it influence, value, or delightfulness. 
 
 rV. Now, in the first place — and this is rather an important 
 point — it is no sign of deadness in a present art that it borrows 
 or imitates, but only if it borrows without paying interest, or 
 if it imitates without choice. The art of a great nation, which 
 is developed vrithout any acquaintance with nobler examples 
 than its own early efforts furnish, exhibits always the most 
 consistent and comprehensible growth, and perhaps is re- 
 garded usually as peculiarly venerable in its self-origination. 
 But there is something to my mind more majestic yet in the 
 life of an architecture like that of the Lombards, rude and in- 
 fantine in itself, and surrounded by fragments of a nobler art 
 of which it is quick in admiration and ready in imitation, and 
 yet so strong in its own new instincts that it re-constructs and 
 re-arranges every fragment that it copies or borrows into har- 
 mony with its own thoughts, — a harmony at first disjointed 
 and awkwai'd, but completed in the end, and fused into per- 
 fect organisation ; all the borrowed elements being subordi- 
 nated to its own primal, unchanged Hf e. I do not know any 
 sensation more exquisite than the discovering of the evidence 
 of this magnificent struggle into independent existence ; the 
 detection of the borrowed thoughts, nay, the finding of the ac- 
 tual blocks and stones carved by other hands and in other ages, 
 wrought into the new walls, vdth a new expression and purpose 
 given to them, like the blocks of tmsubdued rocks (to go back 
 to our former simUe) which we find in the heart of the lava 
 current, great witnesses to the power which has fused all but 
 those calcined fragments into the mass of its homogeneous 
 fire, 
 
 10 
 
li-C THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 V. It will be asked, How is imitation to be rendered healtli, 
 and vital ? TJnliappily, while it is easy to enumerate the signs 
 of life, it is impossible to define or to communicate life ; and 
 while every intelligent writer on Art has insisted on the differ- 
 ence between the copying found in an advancing or recedent 
 period, none have been able to communicate, in the slightest 
 degree, the force of vitality to the copyist over whom they 
 might have influence. Yet it is at least interesting, if not 
 profitable, to note that two very distinguishing characters of 
 vital imitation are, its Frankness and its Audacity ; its Frank- 
 ness is especially singular ; there is never any effort to con- 
 ceal the degree of the sources of its borrowing. Kaffaelle 
 carries off a whole figure from Masaccio, or borrows an entire 
 composition from Perugino, with as much tranquillity and 
 simpUcity of innocence as a young Spartan pickpocket ; and 
 the architect of a Romanesque basilica gathered his columns 
 and capitals where he could find them, as an ant picks up 
 sticks. There is at least a presumption, when we find this 
 frank acceptance, that there is a sense within the mind of 
 power capable of transforming and renewing whatever it 
 adopts ; and too conscious, too exalted, to fear the accusation 
 of plagiarism, — too certain that it can prove, and has proved, 
 its independence, to be afraid of expressing its homage to 
 what it admires in the most open and indubitable way ; and 
 the necessary consequence of this sense of power is the other 
 sign I have named — the Audacity of treatment when it finds 
 treatment necessary, the unhesitating and sweeping sacrifice 
 of precedent where precedent becomes inconvenient. For in- 
 stance, in the characteristic forms of Italian Eomanesque, in 
 which the hypaethral portion of the heathen temple was re- 
 placed by the towering nave, and where, in consequence, the 
 pediment of the west front became divided into three portions, 
 of which the central one, like the apex of a ridge of sloping 
 strata lifted by a sudden fault, was broken away from and 
 raised above the wings ; there remained at the extremities of 
 the aisles two triangular fragments of pediment, which could 
 not now be filled by any of the modes of decoration adapted 
 for the unbroken space ; and the difficulty became greater 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 141 
 
 when the central portion of the front was occupied by colunv 
 nax ranges, which could not, without painful abruptness, ter- 
 minate short of the extremities of the wings. I know not 
 what expedient would have been adopted by architects who 
 had much respect for precedent, under such circumstances, 
 but it certainly would not have been that of the Pisan, — to 
 continue the range of columns into the pedimental space, 
 shortening them to its extremity until the shaft of the last 
 column vanished altogether, and there remained only its capi- 
 tal resting in the angle on its basic plinth. I raise no ques- 
 tion at present whether this arrangement be graceful or other- 
 wise ; I aUege it only as an instance of boldness almost without 
 a parallel, casting aside every received principle that stood in 
 its way, and struggling through every discordance and diffi- 
 culty to the fulfilment of its own instincts. 
 
 YE. Frankness, however, is in itself no excuse for repetition, 
 nor audacity for innovation, when the one is indolent and the 
 other unwise. Nobler and surer signs of vitality must be 
 sought, — signs independent alike of the decorative or original 
 character of the style, and constant in every style that is de- 
 terminedly progressive. 
 
 Of these, one of the most important I believe to be a cer- 
 tain neglect or contempt of refinement in execution, or, at all 
 events, a visible subordination of execution to conception, 
 commonly involuntaiy, but not unfrequently intentional 
 This is a point, however, on which, while I speak confidently, 
 I must at the same time reservedly and carefully, as there 
 would otherwise be much chance of my being dangerously 
 misunderstood. It has been truly observed and well stated 
 by Lord Lindsay, that the best designers of Italy -were also 
 the most careful in their workmanship ; and that the stability 
 and finish of their masonry, mosaic, or other work whatsoever, 
 were always perfect in proportion to the apparent improbabil- 
 ity of the great designers condescending to the care of details 
 among us so despised. Not only do I fuUy admit and re-as- 
 sert this most important fact, but I would insist upon perfect 
 lind most delicate finish in its right place, as a characteristic 
 of all the highest schools of architecture, as much as it is 
 
148 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 those of painting. But on the other hand, as perfect finish 
 belongs to the perfected art, a progressive finish belongs to 
 progressive art ; and I do not think that any more fatal sign 
 of a stupor or numbness settling upon that undeveloped art 
 could possibly be detected, than that it had been taken aback 
 by its own execution, and that the workmanship had gone 
 ahead of the design ; while, even in my admission of absolute 
 finish in the right place, as an attribute of the perfected 
 school, I must reserve to myself the right of answering in my 
 ovm way the two very important questions, what is finish ? 
 and what is its right place ? 
 
 VIL But in illustrating either of these points, we must 
 remember that the correspondence of workmanship with 
 thought is, in existent examples, interfered with by the adop- 
 tion of the designs of an advanced period by the workmen of 
 a rude one. All the beginnings of Christian architecture are 
 of this kind, and the necessary consequence is of course an 
 increase of the visible interval between the power of realisa- 
 tion and the beauty of the idea. We have at first an imita- 
 tion, almost savage in its rudeness, of a classical design ; as 
 the art advances, the design is modified by a mixture of 
 Gothic grotesqueness, and the execution more complete, until 
 a harmony is estabHshed between the two, in which balance 
 they advance to new perfection. Now during the whole 
 period in which the groimd is being recovered, there will be 
 found in the hving architecture marks not to be mistaken, of 
 intense impatience ; a struggle towards something unattained, 
 which causes all minor points of handling to be neglected ; 
 and a restless disdain of all qualities which appear either to 
 confess contentment or to require a time and care which 
 might be better spent. And, exactly as a good and earnest 
 student of drawing will not lose time in ruling lines or finish- 
 ing backgrounds about studies which, while they have an- 
 swered his immediate purpose, he knows to be imperfect and 
 inferior to what he will do hereafter, — so the vigor of a true 
 school of early architecture, which is either working under 
 the influence of high example or which is itself in a state of 
 rapid development, is very curiously traceable, among other 
 

 PLATE XU.-(Page 149-Tol. V.) 
 
 FjlAGMENTS KKOM ABBEVILLE, LuCCA, VENICE, AND PI8A. 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 149 
 
 signs, in the contempt of exact symmetry and measurement^ 
 which in dead architecture are the most painful necessities. 
 
 Vin. In Plate XTT. fig. 1 I have given a most singular in- 
 stance both of rude execution and defied symmetry, in the 
 Uttle pillar and spandril from a panel decoration under the 
 pulpit of St. Mark's at Venice. The imperfection (not merely 
 simpUcity, but actual rudeness and ugliness) of the leaf orna- 
 ment will strike the eye at once : this is general in works of 
 the time, but it is not so common to find a capital which has 
 been so carelessly cut ; its imperfect volutes being pushed up 
 one side far higher than on the other, and contracted on that 
 side, an additional drill hole being put in to fill the space ; 
 besides this, the member a, of the mouldings, is a roll where 
 it follows the arch, and a flat fillet at a; the one being slurred 
 into the other at the angle 6, and finally stopped short alto- 
 gether at the other side by the most uncourteous and re- 
 morseless interference of the outer moulding : and in spite of 
 all this, the grace, proportion, and feeUng of the whole ar- 
 rangement are so great, that, in its place, it leaves nothing to 
 be desired ; aU the science and symmetry in the world could 
 not beat it. In fig. 4 I have endeavored to give some idea of 
 the execution of the subordinate portions of a much higher 
 work, the pulpit of St. Andrea at Pistoja, by Nicolo Pisano. 
 It is covered with figure sculptures, executed with great care 
 and dehcacy ; but when the sculptor came to the simple arch 
 mouldings, he did not choose to draw the eye to them by over 
 precision of work or over sharpness of shadow. The section 
 adopted, k, m, is pecuUarly simple, and so slight and obtuse 
 in its recessions as never to produce a sharp line ; and it is 
 worked with what at first appears slovenliness, but it is in fact 
 sculptural sketching ; exactly coiTespondent to a painter's 
 light execution of a background : the hues appear and disap- 
 pear again, are sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, sometimes 
 quite broken off ; and the recession of the cusp joins that of 
 the external arch at n, in the most fearless defiance of aU. 
 mathematical laws of curvilinear contact. 
 
 IX. There is something very delightful in this bold expres 
 Bion of the mind of the great master. I do not say that it ia 
 
150 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 tbe "perfect work" of patience, but I think that impatience 
 is a glorious character in an advancing school ; and I love the 
 Romanesque and early Gothic especially, because they afford 
 so much room for it ; accidental carelessness of measurement 
 or of execution being mingled undistinguishably -with the 
 purposed departures from symmetrical regularity, and the 
 luxuriousness of perpetually variable fancy, which are emi- 
 nently characteristic of both styles. How great, how fre- 
 quent they are, and how brightly the severity of architectural 
 law is relieved by their grace and suddenness, has not, i 
 think, been enough observed ; still less, the unequal meas- 
 urements of even important features professing to be abso- 
 lutely symmetrical. I am not so familiar with modem prac- 
 tice as to speak with confidence respecting its ordinary 
 precision ; but I imagine that the following measures of the' 
 western front of the cathedral of Pisa, would be looked upon 
 by present architects as very blundering approximations. 
 That front is divided iato seven arched compartments, of 
 which the second, fourth or central, and sixth contain doors ; 
 the seven are in a most subtle alternating proportion ; the 
 central being the largest, next to it the second and sixth, then 
 the first and seventh, lastly the third and fifth. By this ar- 
 rangement, of course, these three pairs should be equal ; and 
 they are so to the eye, but I found theu' actual measures to 
 be the following, taken from piUar to pUlar, in Italian braccia, 
 palmi (four inches each), and inches : — 
 
 Braooia. Palmi. InohcB. Total in 
 lucheH. 
 
 1. Central door 8 = 192 
 
 a. Northern door ) 6 3 li = 157^ 
 
 3. Southern door J 6 4 3 = 163 
 
 4. Extreme northern apace ) 5 5 3^ = 143i 
 
 5. Extreme southern space ) 6 1 0^ = 148i 
 
 6. Northern intervals between the doors ) 5 2 1 = 129 
 
 7. Southern intervals between the doors J 5 2 li = 129J 
 
 There is thus a difference, severally, between 2, 3 and 4, 5, 
 of five inches and a half in the one case, and five inches in the 
 other. 
 
 X. This, however, may perhaps be partly attributable to 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 151 
 
 some accommodation of the accidental distortions wMch evi' 
 dently took place in the walls of the cathedral during their 
 building, as much as in those of the campanile. To my mind, 
 those of the Duomo are far the most wonderful of the two : I 
 do not believe that a single pillar of its walls is absolutely 
 vertical : the ^javement rises and falls to different heights, or 
 rather the pUntli of the walls sinks into it continually to dif- 
 ferent depths, the whole west front HteraUy overhangs (I have 
 not plumbed it ; but the inclination may be seen by the eye, 
 by bringing it into visual contact with the upright pilasters of 
 the Campo Santo) : and a most extraordinary distortion in 
 the masonry of the southern waU shows that this inclination 
 had begun when the first story was built. The cornice above 
 the first arcade of that waU touches the tops of eleven out of 
 its fifteen arches ; but it suddenly leaves the tops of the four 
 westernmost ; the arches nodding westward and sinking into 
 the ground, while the cornice rises (or seems to rise), leaving 
 at any rate, whether by the rise of the one or the fall of the 
 other, an interval of more than two feet between it and the 
 top of the western arch, filled by added courses of masonry. 
 There is another very curious evidence of this struggle of the 
 architect with his yielding wall in the columns of the main 
 entrance. (These notices are perhaps somewhat irrelevant to 
 our immediate subject, but they appear to me highly interest- 
 ing ; and they, at all events, prove one of the points on which 
 I would insist, — how much of imperfection and variety in 
 things professing to be symmetrical the eyes of those eager 
 builders could endure : they looked to loveliness in detail, to 
 nobility in the whole, never to petty measurements.) Those 
 columns of the principal entrance are among the loveliest in 
 Italy ; cyUndrical, and decorated with a rich arabesque of 
 sculptured foliage, which at the base extends nearly all round 
 them, up to the black pilaster in which they are lightly en- 
 gaged : but the shield of foliage, bounded by a severe line, 
 narrows to their tops, where it covers their frontal segment 
 only ; thus giving, when laterally seen, a terminal line sloxsing 
 boldly outwards, which, as I think, was meant to conceal the 
 accidental leaning of the western walls, and, by its exagger^ 
 
152 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 ated inclination in tlie same direction, to throw them by ooi. 
 parison into a seemiag vertical. 
 
 XI. There is another very curious instance of distortion 
 above the central door of the west front. All the intervals be- 
 tween the seven arches are filled vsdth black marble, each con- 
 taining in its centre a white parallelogram filled with animal 
 mosaics, and the whole surmounted by a broad white band, 
 which, generally, does not touch the parallelogram below. 
 But the parallelogram on the north of the central arch has 
 been forced into an obUque position, and touches the white 
 band ; and, as if the architect was determined to show that 
 he did not care whether it did or not, the white band suddenly 
 gets thicker at that place, and remains so over the two next 
 arches. And these differences are the more curious because 
 the workmanship of them all is most finished and masterly, 
 and the distorted stones are fitted with as much neatness as 
 if they tallied to a hair's breadth. There is no look of slur- 
 ring or blundering about it ; it is all cooUy filled in, as if the 
 builder had no sense of anything being wrong or extraordi- 
 nary : I only wish we had a little of his impudence. 
 
 Xn. Still, the reader will say that aU these variations are 
 probably dependent more on the bad foundation than on the 
 architect's feeling. Not so the exquisite delicacies of change 
 in the proportions and dimensions of the apparently symmetri- 
 cal arcades of the west front. It will be remembered that 
 I said the tower of Pisa was the only ugly tower in Italy, 
 because its tiers were equal, or near^Jy so, in height ; a fault 
 this, so contrary to the spirit of the builders of the time, that 
 it can be considered only as an unlucky caprice. Perhaps the 
 general aspect of the west front of the cathedral may then 
 have occurred to the reader's mind, as seemingly another con- 
 tradiction of the rule I had advanced. It would not have been 
 so, however, even had its four upper arcades been actually 
 e^ual ; as they are subordinated to the great seven-arched 
 lower story, in the manner before noticed respecting the spire 
 of Salisbury, and as is actually the case in the Duomo of Lucca 
 and Tower of Pistoja. But the Pisan front is far more subtly 
 proportioned. Not one of its four arcades is of Uke heigl\t 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 153 
 
 with another. The highest is the third, counting upwards j 
 and they diminish in nearly arithmetical proportion alter< 
 nately ; in the order 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 4th. The inequalities in 
 their arches are not less remarkable : they at first strike the 
 eye as aU, equal ; but there is a grace about them which 
 equaUty never obtained : on closer observation, it is perceived 
 that in the first row of nineteen arches, eighteen are equal, 
 and the central one larger than the rest ; in the second arcade, 
 the nine central arches stand over the nine below, having, like 
 them, the ninth central one largest. But on their flanks, where 
 is the slope of the shoulder-like pediment, the arches vanish, 
 and a wedge-shaped frieze takes their place, tapering outwards, 
 in order to allow the columns to be carried to the extremity of 
 the pediment ; and here, where the heights of the shafts are 
 so far shortened, they are set thicker ; five shafts, or rather 
 four and a capital, above, to four of the arcade below, giving 
 twenty-one intervals instead of nineteen. In the next or thu'd 
 arcade,— which, remember, is the highest, — eight arches, all 
 equal, are given in the space of the nine below, so that there 
 is now a central shaft instead of a central arch, and the span 
 of the arches is increased in porportion to their increased 
 height. Finally, in the uppermost arcade, which is the lowest 
 of all, the arches, the same in number as those below, are 
 narrower than any of the fa9ade ; the whole eight going very 
 nearly above the six below them, while the terminal arches of 
 the lower arcade are surmounted by flanking masses of deco- 
 rated wall ivith projecting figures. 
 
 Xm. Now I call that Living Architecture. There is sensa- 
 tion in every inch of it, and an accommodation to every 
 architectural necessity, with a determined variation in ar- 
 rangement, which is exactly Hke the related proportions and 
 provisions in the structure of organic form. I have not space 
 to examine the still lovelier proportioning of the external shafts 
 of the apse of this marvellous building. I prefer, lest the 
 reader should think it a peculiar example, to state the struct- 
 ure of another church, the most graceful and grand piece erf 
 Bomanesque work, as a fragment, in north Italy, that of Sau 
 Giovanni EvangeHsta at Pistqja. 
 
154 TEE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 The side of that church has three stories of arcade, dimitte 
 ishimg in height in bold geometrical proportion, while the 
 arches, for the most part, increase in number in arithmetical, 
 i. e. two in the second arcade, and three in the third, to one 
 in the first Lest, however, this arrangement should be too 
 formal, of the fourteen arches in the lowest series, that 
 which contains the door is made larger than the rest, and is 
 not in the middle, but the sixth from the West, leaving five on 
 one side and eight on the other. Farther : this lowest arcade 
 is terminated by broad flat pilasters, about half the width of 
 its arches ; but the arcade above is continuous ; only the two 
 extreme arches at the west end are made larger than all the 
 rest, and instead of coming, as they should, into the space of 
 the lower extreme arch, take in both it and its broad pilaster. 
 Even this, however, was not out of order enough to satisfy the 
 architect's eye ; for there were still two arches above to each 
 single one below : so at the east end, where there are more 
 arches, and the eye might be more easily cheated, what does 
 he do but marrow the two extreme lower arches by half a 
 braccio ; while he at the same time sUghtly enlarged the 
 upper ones, so as to get only seventeen upper to nine lower, 
 instead of eighteen to nine. The eye is thus thoroughly con- 
 fused, and the whole building thrown into one mass, by the 
 curious variations in the adjustments of the superimposed 
 shafts, not one of which is either exactly in nor positively out 
 of its place ; and, to get this managed the more cunningly, 
 there is from an inch to an inch and a half of gradual gain in 
 the space of the four eastern arches, besides the confessed 
 half braccio. Their measures, counting from the east, I found 
 as follows : — 
 
 Braccia. Palmi. Inches. 
 
 1st 3 1 
 
 2nd 3 2 
 
 3rd 3 3 2 
 
 4th 8 8 3J 
 
 The upper arcade is managed on the same principle ; it 
 looks at first as if there were three arches to each undei pair ; 
 but there are, in reaJity, only thirty-eight (or thirty-seven, I 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 155 
 
 am not quite certain of this number) to the twenty- seven be- 
 low ; and the columns get into all manner of relative posi- 
 tions. Even then, the builder was not satisfied, but must 
 needs carry the irregularity into the spring of the arches, 
 and actually, whUe the general effect is of a symmetrical 
 arcade, there is not one of the arches the same in height as 
 another ; their tops undulate all along the wall hte waves 
 along a harbor quay, some nearly touching the string course 
 above, and others falling from it as much as five or six 
 inches. 
 
 XXV. Let US next examine the plan of the west front of St. 
 Mark's at Venice, which, though in many respects imperfect, 
 is in its proportions, and as a iiieee of rich and fantastic color, 
 as lovely a dream as ever filled human imagination. It may, 
 perhaps, however, interest the reader to hear one opposite 
 opinion upon this subject, and after what has been urged ia the 
 preceding pages respecting proportion in general, more espe- 
 cially respecting the -vvrongness of balanced cathedral towers 
 and other regular designs, together with my frequent references 
 to the Doge's palace, and campanile of St. Mark's, as models 
 of perfection, and my praise of the former especially as pro- 
 jecting above its second arcade, the following extracts from 
 the journal of Wood the architect, written on his arrival 
 at Venice,, may have a pleasing freshness in them, and may 
 show that I have not been stating principles altogether trite 
 or accepted. 
 
 " The strange looking church, and the great ugly campanile, 
 could not be mistaken. The exterior of this church sm-prises 
 you by its extireme ugUness, more than by anything else." 
 
 " The Dueal Palace is even more ugly than anythiag I have 
 previously mentioned. Considered in detail, I can imagine no 
 alteration to make it toleiable ; but if this lofty wall had been 
 set bach behind the two stories of little arches, it would havo 
 been a very noble production-" 
 
 After more observations on " a certain justness of propor- 
 tion," and on the appearajice of riches and power in the church, 
 to which he ascribes a pleasing effect, he goes on : " Some per- 
 sons axe of opinion that irregularity is a necessary part of ita 
 
15G TEE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 excellence. I am decidedly of a contrary opinion, and am con-, 
 ■vinced that a regular design of the same sort would be far su- 
 perior. Let an oblong of good architecture, but not very 
 showy, conduct to a fine cathedral, which should appear be- 
 tween two lofty towers and have two obelisks in front, and on 
 each side of this cathedral let other squares partially open into 
 the first, and one of these extend down to a harbor or sea 
 shore, and you would have a scene which might challenge any 
 thing in existence." 
 
 Why Mr. Wood was unable to enjoy the color of St. Mark's, 
 or perceive the majesty of the Ducal Palace, the reader wQl see 
 after reading the two foUowing extracts regarding the Caracci 
 and Michael Angelo. 
 
 " The pictures here (Bologna) are to my taste far preferable 
 to those of Venice, for if the Venetian school surpass in color- 
 ing, and, perhaps, in composition, the Bolognese is decidedly 
 superior in drawing and expression, and the Caraccis shine here 
 like Gods." 
 
 "What is it that is so much admired in this artist (M. An- 
 gelo) ? Some contend for a grandeur of composition in the 
 lines and disposition of the figures ; this, I confess, I do not 
 comprehend ; yet, while I acknowledge the beauty of certain 
 forms and proportions in architecttu'e, I cannot consistently 
 deny that similar merits may exist in painting, though I am 
 unfortunately unable to appreciate them." 
 
 I think these passages very valuable, as showing the effect 
 of a contracted knowledge and false taste in painting upon an 
 architect's understanding of his own art ; and especially with 
 what curious notions, or lack of notions, about proportion, that 
 art has been sometimes practised. For Mr. Wood is by no 
 means unintelligent in his observations generally, and his criti- 
 cisms on classical art are often most valuable. But those who 
 love Titian better than the Caracci, and who see something to 
 admire in Michael Angelo, wiU, perhaps, be willing to proceed 
 with me to a charitable examination of St. Mark'a For, al- 
 though the present course of European events affords us some 
 chance of seeing the changes proposed by Mr. Wood carried 
 into execution, we may still esteem ourselves fortunate in hav« 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 157 
 
 ing first known hiow it was left "by the builders of the eleventh 
 century. 
 
 XV. The entire front is composed of an upper and lowei 
 series of arches, enclosing spaces of wall decorated with mosaic, 
 and supported on ranges of shafts of which, in the lower series 
 of arches, there is an upper range superimposed on a lower. 
 Thus we have five vertical divisions of the fa9ade ; i.e. two tiers 
 of shafts, and the arched wall they bear, below ; one tier of 
 shafts, and the arched wall they bear, above. In order, how- 
 ever, to bind the two main divisions together, the central 
 lower arch (the main entrance) rises above the level of the 
 gallery and balustrade which crown the lateral arches. 
 
 The proportionmg of the columns and walls of the lower 
 story is so lovely and so varied, that it would need pages of 
 description before it could be fully understood ; but it may be 
 generally stated thus : The height of the lower shafts, upper 
 shafts, and wall, being severally expressed by a, b, and c, then 
 a: c :: c -.b {a beiag the highest) ; and the diameter of shaft 
 b is generally to the diameter of shaft a as height b is to height 
 a, or something less, allowing for the large plinth which dimin- 
 ishes the apparent height of the upper shaft : and when this is 
 their proportion of width, one shaft above is put above one 
 below, with sometimes another upper shaft interposed : but in 
 the extreme arches a single under shaft bears two upper, pro- 
 portioned as truly as the boughs of a tree ; that is to say, 
 the diameter of each upper = f of lower. There being thus 
 the three terms of proportion gained ia the lower story, the 
 upper, while it is only divided into two main members, in 
 order that the whole height may not be divided iato an even 
 number, has the third term added in its pianacles. So far of 
 the vertical division. The lateral is stiU more subtle. There 
 are seven arches ia the lower story ; and, calling the central 
 arch a, and counting to the extremity, they diminish in the 
 alternate order a, v, b, d. The upper story has five arches, and 
 two added pinnacles ; and these diminish in regular order, the 
 central being the largest, and the outermost the leasi Hence, 
 while one proportion ascends, another descends, hke pai'ts in 
 omsic ; and yet the pyramidal form is secured for the whol^ 
 
158 TEE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 and, wkicli was another great point of attention, none of the 
 shafts of the upper arches stand over those of the lower. 
 
 XVL It might have been thought that, by this plan, enough 
 variety had been secured, but the buUder was not satisfied even 
 thus : for — and this is the point bearing on the present part of 
 our subject — always calling the central arch a, and the lateral 
 ones 6 and c in succession, the northern h and c are consider- 
 ably wider than the southern b and c, but the southern d is as 
 much wider than the northern d, and lower beneath its cornice 
 besides ; and, more than this, I hardly believe that one of the 
 effectively symmetrical members of the fa9ade is actually sym- 
 metrical with any other. I regret that I cannot state the actual 
 measures. I gave up the taking them upon the spot, owing to 
 their excessive complexity, and the embarr.issment caused by 
 the yielding and subsidence of the arches. 
 
 Do not let it be supposed that I imagine the Byzantine 
 workmen to have had these various piinciples in their minds as 
 they built. I believe they built altogether from feeling, and 
 that it was because thej' did so, that there is this marvellous 
 life, changefuhiess, and subtlety running through their every 
 arrangement ; and that we reason upon the lovely building as 
 we should upon some fair growth of the trees of the earth, 
 that know not their own beauty. 
 
 XVn. Perhaps, however, a stranger instance than any I have 
 yet given, of the daring variation of pretended symmetry, is 
 fomid in the front of the Cathedral of Bayeux. It consists of 
 five arches with steep pediments, the outermost fiUed, the three 
 central with doors ; and they appear, at first, to diminish in 
 regular proportion from the xDrincipal one in the centre. The 
 two lateral doors are veiy curiously managed. The tympana 
 of their arches are filled with bas-reliefs, in four tiers ; in the 
 lowest tier there is in each a little temple or gate containing 
 the principal figure (in that on the right, it is the gate of Hades 
 with Lucifer). This Httle temple is carried, like a capital, by 
 an isolated shaft which divides the whole arch at about f of its 
 breadth, the larger portion outmost ; and in that larger por- 
 tion is the inner entrance door. This exact correspondence, in 
 the treatment of both gates, might lead us to expect a corre- 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 159 
 
 spondence in dimensioiL Not at alL The small inner northern 
 entrance measures, in EngUsh feet and laches, 4 ft. 7 in. from 
 jamb to jamb, and the southern five feet exactly. Five inches 
 in five feet is a considerable variation. The outer northern 
 porch measures, from face shaft to face shaft, 13 ft. 11 in., and 
 the southern, 14 ft 6 in. ; giving a difference of 7 in. on 14^ ft 
 There are also variations ia the pediment decorations not less 
 extraordinary. 
 
 XVULL I imagine I have given instances enough, though I 
 could multiply them indefinitely, to prove that these variations 
 are not mere blunders, nor carelessnesses, but the result of a 
 fixed scorn, if not disKke, of accuracy in measurements ; and, in 
 most cases, I believe, of a determined resolution to work out 
 an effective symmetry by variations as subtle as those of Na- 
 ture. To what lengths this principle was sometimes carried, 
 we shall see by the very singular management of the towers of 
 Abbeville. I do not say it is right, still less that it is wrong, 
 but it is a wonderful proof of the fearlessness of a Uving archi- 
 tecture ; for, say what we will of it, that Flamboyant of France, 
 however morbid, was as vivid and intense in its animation as 
 ever any phase of mortal mind ; ajid it would have lived tiU 
 now, if it had not taken to telling lies. I have before noticed 
 the general difficulty of managing even lateral division, when 
 it is into two equal parts, imless there be some third reconcU- 
 ing member. I shall give, hereafter, more examples of the 
 modes in which this reconciliation is effected in towers with 
 double Kghts : the Abbeville architect put his sword to the 
 knot perhaps rather too sharply. Vexed by the want of unity 
 between his two windows he literally laid their heads together, 
 and so distorted their ogee curves, as to leave only one of the 
 trefoUed panels above, on the inner side, and three on the 
 outer side of each arch. The arrangement is given in Plate 
 Xn. fig. 3. Associated with the various undulation of flam- 
 boyant curves below, it is in the real tower hardly observed, 
 whUe it binds it into one mass in general effect. Granting it, 
 however, to be ugly and wrong, I like sins of the kind, for the 
 sake of the courage it requires to commit them. In plate IL 
 (part of a small chapel attached to the West front of the 
 
160 TEE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 Cathedral of St. Lo), the reader will see an inBtance, from the 
 same architecture, of a violation of its own principles, for the 
 sake of a pecuUar meaning. If there be any one feature which 
 the flamboyant architect loved to decorate richly, it was the 
 niche — it was what the capital is to the Corinthian order ; yet 
 in the case before us there is an ugly beehive put in the place 
 of the principal niche of the arch. I am not sure if I am right 
 in my interpretation of its meaning, but I have little doubt 
 that two figures below, now broken away, once represented 
 an Annunciation ; and on another part of the same cathedral, 
 I find the descent of the Spirit, encompassed by rays of light, 
 represented very nearly in the form of the niche in question ; 
 which appears, therefore, to be intended for a representation 
 of this efPalgence, while at the same time it was made a canopy 
 for the deUcate figures below. Whether this was its meaning 
 or not, it is remarkable as a daring departure from the com- 
 mon habits of the time. 
 
 XIX. Far more splendid is a hcense taken with the niche 
 decoration of the portal of St Maclou at Eouen. The sub- 
 ject of the tympanum bas-rehef is the Last Judgment, and 
 the sculpture of the inferno side is carried out with a degree 
 of power whose fearful grotesqueness I can only describe as 
 a mingling of the minds of Orcagna and Hogarth. The de- 
 mons are perhaps even more awful than Orcagna's ; and, in 
 some of the expressions of debased humanity in its utmost 
 despair, the English painter is at least equalled. Not less 
 wild is the imagination which gives fury and fear even to the 
 placing of the figures. An evil angel, poised on the wing, 
 drives the condemned troops from before the Judgment seat ; 
 with his left hand he drags behind him a cloud, which is 
 spreading like a winding-sheet over them all ; but they are 
 urged by him so furiously, that they are driven not merely to 
 the extreme limit of that scene, which the sculptor confined 
 elsewhere within the tympanum, but out of the tympanum 
 and into the niches of the arch ; while the flames that follow 
 them, bent by the blast, as it seems, of the angel's wings, rush 
 into the niches also, and burst up through their tracery, the 
 three lowermost niches being represented as aU on fire, while, 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 161 
 
 instead of their usual vaulted and ribbed ceiling, there ia a 
 demon in the roof of each, with his mags folded over it, grin- 
 ning down out of the black shadow. > 
 
 XX. I have, however, given enough instances of vitality 
 shown in mere daring, whether wise, as surely in this last in- 
 stance, or inexpedient ; but, as a single example of the Vital- 
 ity of Assimilation, the faculty which turns to its purposes aU. 
 material that is submitted to it, I would refer the reader to 
 the extraordinary columns of the arcade on the south side of 
 the Cathedral of Ferrara. A single arch of it is given in Plate 
 XTTT . on the right. Foru- sucb columns forming a group, there 
 are interposed two pairs of columns, as seen on the left of the 
 same plate ; and then come another four arches. It is a long 
 ai'cade of, I suppose, not less than forty arches, perhaps of 
 many more ; and in the grace and simpHcity of its stilted By- 
 zantine curves I hardly know its equal Its like, in fancy of 
 column, I certainly do not know ; there being hardly two cor- 
 respondent, and the architect having been ready, as it seems, 
 to adopt ideas and resemblances from any sources whatsoever. 
 The vegetation growing up the two columns is fine, though 
 bizarre ; the distorted pillars beside it suggest images of less 
 agreeable character ; the serpentine arrangements founded on 
 the usual Byzantine double knot are generally graceful ; but 
 I was puzzled to accoimt for the excessively ugly type of the 
 pillar, fig. 3, one of a group of four. It so happened, fortu- 
 nately for me, that there had been a fair in Ferrara ; and, 
 when I had finished my sketch of the pillar, I had to get out 
 of the way of some merchants of miscellaneous wares, who 
 were removing their staU. It had been shaded by an avming 
 supported by poles, which, in order that the covering might 
 be raised or lowered according to the height of the sun, were 
 composed of two separate pieces, fitted to each other by a 
 rack, in which I beheld the prototype of my ugly pillar. It 
 will not be thought, after what I have above said of the inex- 
 pedience of imitating anything but natural form, that I ad- 
 vance this architect's practice as altogether exemplary ; yet the 
 humility is instructive, which condescended to such sources 
 for motives of thought, the boldness, which could depart bo 
 U 
 
162 THE LAMF OF LIFE. 
 
 far from all established types of form, and the life and feel- 
 ing, which out of an assemblage of such quaint and uncouth 
 materials, could produce an harmonious piece of ecclesiastical 
 architecture. 
 
 XXI I have dwelt, however, perhaps, too long upon that 
 form of vitality which is known almost as much by its errors 
 as by its atonements for them. We must briefly note the 
 operation of it, which is always right, and always necessary. 
 Upon those lesser details, where it can neither be superseded 
 by precedents, nor repressed by proprieties. 
 
 I said, early ia this essay, that hand-work might always be 
 known from machine-work ; observing, however, at the same 
 time, that it was possible for men to turn themselves into ma- 
 chines, and to reduce their labor to the machine level ; but so 
 long as men work as men, putting their heart into what they 
 do, and doing their best, it matters not how bad workmen they 
 may be, there will be that in the handling which is above all 
 price : it vitU be plainly seen that some places have been de- 
 lighted in more than others — that there has been a pause, and 
 a care about them ; and then there vrUl come careless bits, and 
 fast bits ; and here the chisel wUl have struck hard, and there 
 lightly, and anon timidly ; and if the man's mind as well as 
 his heart went vtdth his work, aU this will be in the right 
 places, and each part will set off the other ; and the effect of 
 the whole, as compared with the same design cut by a machine 
 or a Hfeless hand, wUl be like that of poetry well read and 
 deeply felt to that of the same verses jangled by rote. There 
 are many to whom the difference is imperceptible ; but to 
 those who love poetry it is everything — they had rather not 
 hear it at all, than hear it ill read ; and to those who love Ar- 
 chitecture, the life and accent of the hand are everything. 
 They had rather not have ornament at all, than see it iU cut- 
 deadly cut, that ia I cannot too often repeat, it is not coarse 
 cutting, it is not blunt cutting, that is necessarily bad ; but it 
 is cold cutting — the look of equal trouble everywhere — the 
 smooth, diffused tranquillity of heartless pains — the regularity 
 of a plough in a levql field. The chUl is more hkely, indeed, 
 to show itself in finished work than in any other — men cool 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 163 
 
 and tii-e as they complete : and if completeness is thought to 
 be vested in polish, and to be attainable by help of sand paper, 
 ■we may as well give the work to the engine-lathe at once. But 
 right finish is simply the full rendering of the intended im- 
 pression ; and high finish is the rendering of a well intended 
 and vivid impression ; and it is of tener got by rough than fine 
 handling. I am not sure whether it is frequently enough ob- 
 served that sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of 
 anything in stone ; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very 
 often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least 
 Uke itself. The sculptor must paint with his chisel : half his 
 touches are not to realize, but to put power into the form : they 
 are touches of Hght and shadow ; and raise a ridge, or sink a 
 hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hoUow, but to get a 
 line of light, or a spot of darkness. In a coarse way, this Idnd 
 of execution is very marked in old French woodwork ; the 
 irises of the eyes of its chimeric monsters being cut boldly 
 into holes, which, variously placed, and always dark, give all 
 kinds of strange and startHng expressions, averted and askance, 
 to the fantastic countenances. Perhaps the highest examples 
 of this kind of sculpture-painting are the works of Mino da 
 Fiesole ; their best effects being reached by strange angular, 
 and seemingly mde, touches of the chisel The lips of one of 
 the children on the tombs in the chiu'ch of the Badia, appear 
 only half finished when they are seen close ; yet the expression 
 is farther carried and more ineffable, than in any piece of mar- 
 ble I have ever seen, especially considering its deUcacy, and the 
 softness of the child-features. In a sterner kind, that of the 
 statues in the sacristy of St. Lorenzo equals it, and there again 
 by incompletion. I know no example of work in which the 
 forms are absolutely true and complete where such a result is 
 attained ; in Ghreek sculptures is not even attempted. 
 
 ITYTT- It is evident that, for architectural apphances, such 
 masculine handling, likely as it must be to retain its effective- 
 ness when higher finish would be injured by time, must al- 
 ways be the most expedient ; and as it is impossible, even 
 were it desirable that the highest finish should be given to 
 the quantity of work which covers a large building, it will be 
 
164 THE LAMP Of LIFE. 
 
 understood how precious the intelligence must become, which 
 renders incompletion itself a means of additional expression ; 
 and how great must be the difference, when the touches are 
 rude and few, between those of a careless and those of a re- 
 gardful mind. It is not easy to retain anything of their char- 
 acter in a copy ; yet the reader will find one or two illustrar- 
 tive points in the examples, given in Plate XIV., from the 
 bas-rehefs of the north of Eouen Cathedral There are three 
 square pedestals under the three main niches on each side of 
 it, and one in the centre ; each of these being on two sides 
 decorated with five quatrefoUed panels. There are thus sev- 
 enty quatref oils in the lower ornament of the gate alone, with- 
 out counting those of the outer course round it, and of the 
 pedestals outside : each quatrefoil is filled with a bas-rehef, 
 the whole reaching to something above a man's height A 
 modem architect would, of course, have made all the five 
 quatrefoils of each pedestal-side equal : not so the Mediaeval. 
 The general form being apparently a quatrefoil composed of 
 semicircles on the sides of a square, it will be found on ex- 
 amination that none of the arcs are semicircles, and none of 
 the basic figures squares. The latter are rhomboids, having 
 their acute or obtuse angles uppermost according to their 
 larger or smaller size ; and the ai'cs upon their sides sHde 
 into such places as they can get in the angles of the enclosing 
 parallelogram, leaving intervals, at each of the four angles, of 
 various shapes, which are filled each by an animal The size 
 of the whole panel being thus varied, the two lowest of the five 
 ai-e tall, the next two short, and the uppermost a Utile higher 
 than the lowest ; while in the course of bas-rehefs which sur- 
 roimds the gate, calling either of the two lowest (which are 
 equal), a, and either of the next two 6, and the fifth and sixth 
 c and d, then d (the largest) : c :: c : o :: a : 6. It is wonderfu] 
 how much of the grace of the whole depends on these variations. 
 XXni. Each of the angles, it was said, is filled by an ani- 
 mal. There are thus 70 x 4=280 animals, all different, iu the 
 mere fillings of the intervals of the bas-reliefs. Three of these 
 intervals, with their beasts, actual size, the curves being traced 
 upon the stone, I have given in Plate XIV. 
 
SUOLPTUUI!:' FIlllM THE CAT[tEDKAL OF UciIIEN. 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE:. 165 
 
 I say nothing of their general design, or of the lines of 
 the wings and scales, which are perhaps, unless in those of 
 the central dragon, not much above the usual commonplaces 
 of good ornamental work ; but there is an evidence in the 
 features of thoughtfulness and fancy which is not common, at 
 least now-a-days. The upper creature on the left is biting 
 something, the form of which is hardly traceable ia the de- 
 faced stone — but biting he is ; and the reader cannot but re- 
 cognise in the pecuUarly reverted eye the expression which is 
 never seen, as I think, but in the eye of a dog gnawing some- 
 thing ia jest, and preparing to start away with it : the mean- 
 ing of the glance, so far as it can be marked by the mere ia- 
 cision of the chisel, wiU be felt by comparing it with the eye 
 of the couchant figure on the right, ia its gloomy and angry 
 brooding. The plan of this head, and the nod of the cap 
 over its brow, are fine ; but there is a little touch above the 
 hand especially well meant : the feUow is vexed and puzzled 
 in his maUce ; and his hand is pressed hard on his cheek 
 bone, and the fl.esh of the cheek is wrinkled tmder the eye by 
 the pressure. The whole, indeed, looks wretchedly coarse, 
 when it is seen on a scale in which it is naturally compared 
 with delicate figure etchings ; but considering it as a mere 
 filling of an iaterstice on the outside of a cathedral gate, and 
 as one of more than three hundred (for in my estimate I did 
 not include the outer pedestals), it proves very noble vitality 
 in the art of the time. 
 
 XXrV. I beUeve the right question to ask, respecting all 
 ornament, is simply this : Was it done with enjoyment — was 
 the carver happy while he was about it ? It may be the hard- 
 est work possible, and the harder because so much pleasure 
 was taken in it ; but it must have been happy too, or it will 
 not be Hving. How much of the stone mason's toil this con- 
 dition would exclude I hardly venture to consider, but the 
 condition is absolute. There is a Gothic chiu'ch lately built 
 near Kouen, vUe enough, indeed, in its general composition, 
 but excessively rich in detail ; many of the details are designed 
 with taste, and aU evidently by a man who has studied old 
 work closely. But it is aU as dead as leaves in December ; 
 
166 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 there is not one tender touch, not one warm stroke, on the 
 ■whole fa9ade. The men who did it hated it, and were thank* 
 ful when it was done. And so long as they do so they are 
 merely loading your walls with shapes of clay : the garlands 
 of everlastings in P6re la Chaise are more cheerful ornaments. 
 You cannot get the f eeUng by paying for it — money wiU not 
 buy life. I am not sure even that you can get it by watching 
 or waiting for it. It is true that here and there a workman 
 may be found who has it in him, but he does not rest con- 
 tented in the inferior work — he struggles forward into an 
 Academician ; and from the mass of available handicraftsmen 
 the power is gone — how recoverable I know not : this only I 
 know, that all expense devoted to sculptural ornament, in the 
 present condition of that power, comes literally under the 
 head of Sacrifice for the sacrifice's sake, or worse. I beheve 
 the only manner of rich ornament that is open to us is the 
 geometrical color-mosaic, and that much might result from our 
 strenuously taking up this mode of design. But, at all events, 
 one thing we have in our power — the doing without machine 
 ornament and cast-iron work. All the stamped metals, and 
 artificial stones, and imitation woods and bronzes, over the 
 invention of which we hear daily exultation — all the short, and 
 cheap, and easy ways of doing that whose difficulty is its honor 
 — are just so many new obstacles in our ah-eady enciimbered 
 road. They will not make one of us happier or wiser — they 
 wiU extend neither the pride of judgment nor the privilege of 
 enjoyment. They will only make us shallower in our under- 
 standings, colder in our hearts, and feebler in our wits. And 
 most justly. For we are not sent into this world to do any 
 thing into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain 
 work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously ; 
 other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heart- 
 ily : neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a vnll ; 
 and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at aJL 
 Perhaps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than 
 an exercise of the heart and of the wiU, and is useless in itself ; 
 but, at aU events, the little use it has may well be spai-ed if it 
 is not worth putting ouv hands and our strength to. It does 
 
TEE LAMP OF MEMORY. 167 
 
 aot become our immortality to take an ease inconsistent with 
 its authority, nor to suffer any instruments with which it can 
 dispense, to come between it and the things it rules : and he 
 ■who would form the creations of his own mind by any other 
 instrument than his own hand, would, also, if he might, give 
 gi-inding organs to Heaven's angels, to make their music easier. 
 There ia dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensu- 
 aUty enough in human existence without our turning the few 
 glowing moments of it into mechanism ; and since cm* life 
 must at the best be but a vapor that appears foi; a little time 
 and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the 
 height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over 
 the blast of the Furnace, and rolHng of the WheeL 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE LAMP OP MEMOHT. 
 
 I. Among the hours of his Hfe to which the writer looks 
 back with peculiar gratitude, as having been marked by more 
 than ordinary fulness of joy or clearness of teaching, is one 
 passed, now some years ago, near time of sunset, among the 
 broken masses of pine forest which skirt the course of the 
 Ain, above the vOlage of Champagnole, in the Jura. It is a 
 spot which has all the solemnity, with none of the savageness, 
 of the Alps ; where there is a sense of a great power begin- 
 ning to be manifested in the earth, and of a deep and majestic 
 concord in the rise of the long low lines of piny hills ; the 
 first utterance of those mighty mountain symphonies, soon to 
 be more loudly Ufted and wildly broken along the battlements 
 of the Alps. But their strength is as yet restrained ; and the 
 far-reaching ridges of pastoral mountain succeed each other, 
 like the long and sighing swell which moves over quiet waters 
 from some far-off stormy sea. And there is a deep tenderness 
 pervading that vast monotony. The destructive forces and 
 the stem expression of the central ranges are alike withdrawn, 
 No frost-ploughed, dust-encumbered paths of ancient glacier 
 
168 TEE LAMP OF MEMORT. 
 
 fret the soft Jura pastures ; no splintered heaps of ruin break 
 the fair ranks of her forests ; no pale, defiled, or furious rivers 
 rend their rude and changeful ways among her rocks. Pa^ 
 tiently, eddy by eddy, the clear green streams wiad along their 
 weU-known beds ; and under the dark quietness of the undis- 
 turbed pines, there spring up, year by year, such company of 
 ]oyful flowers as I know not the like of among aU the bless- 
 ings of the earth. It was Spring time, too ; and all were com- 
 ing forth in clusters crowded for very love ; there was room 
 enough for all, but they crushed their leaves into all manner 
 of strange shapes only to be nearer each other. There was 
 the wood anemone, star after star, closing every now and then 
 into nebulae : and there was the oxahs, troop by troop hke 
 virginal processions of the Mois de Marie, the dark vertical 
 clefts in the limestone choked up with them as with heavy 
 snow, and touched with ivy on the edges — ivy as Kght and 
 lovely as the vine ; and ever and anon, a blue gush of violets, 
 and cowsUp bells in sunny places ; and in the more open 
 ground, the vetch, and comfrey, and mezereon, and the small 
 sapphire buds of the Polygala Alpina, and the wild strawberry, 
 just- a blossom or two, all showered amidst the golden softness 
 of deep, warm, amber-colored moss. I came out presently on 
 the edge of the ravine ; the solemn murmur of its waters rose 
 suddenly from beneath, mixed with the singing of the thrushes 
 among the pine boughs ; and, on the opposite side of the 
 valley, walled all along as it was by grey cHffs of Umestone, 
 there was a hawk sailing slowly off their brow, touching them 
 nearly with his wings, and with the shadows of the pines 
 flickering upon his plumage from above ; but with a fall of a 
 hundred fathoms under his breast, and the curling pools of the 
 gi'een river gliding and glittering dizzily beneath him, their 
 foam globes moving with him as he flew. It would be diffi- 
 cult to conceive a scene less dependent upon any other interest 
 than that of its own secluded and serious beauty ; but the 
 writer well remembers the sudden blankness and chill which 
 were cast upon it when he endeavored, in order more strictly 
 to arrive at the sources of its impressiveness, to imagine it, for 
 a moment, a scene in some aboriginal forect of the New Con- 
 
THE LAMP OP MEMOBT. 169 
 
 tinent. The flowers in an instant lost their light, the river its 
 music " ; the hiUs became oppressively desolate ; a heaviness 
 in the boughs of the darkened forest showed how much of 
 their former power had been dependent upon a life which was 
 not theirs, how much of the glory of the imperishable, or oon- 
 tiauaUy renewed, creation is reflected from things more pre- 
 cious in their memories than it, in its renewing. Those ever 
 springing flowers and ever flowing streams had been dyed by 
 the deep colors of human endurance, valor, and virtue ; and 
 the crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening sky 
 received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell east- 
 ward over the iron waU of Joux and the four-square keep of 
 Granson. 
 
 n. It is as the centralisation and protectress of this sacred 
 influence, that Architecture is to be regarded by us with the 
 most serious thought. We may hve without her, and worship 
 without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold 
 is all history how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which 
 the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears 1 
 how many pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, 
 for a few stones left one upon another ! The ambition of the 
 old Babel builders was well directed for this world : there are 
 but two strong conquerors of the forgetfuhiess of men, Poetry 
 and Architecture ; and the latter in some sort includes the 
 former, and is mightier in its reality ; it is well to have, not 
 only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands 
 have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes 
 beheld, all the days of their hf e. The age of Homer is sur- 
 rounded with darkness, his very personality with doubt. Not 
 so that of Pericles : and the day is coming when we shall con- 
 fess, that we have learned more of Greece out of the crumbled 
 fragments of her sculpture than even from her sweet singers 
 or soldier historians. And if indeed there be any profit in om- 
 knowledge of the past, or any joy in the thought of being re- 
 membered hereafter, which can give strength to present exer- 
 tion, or patience to present endurance, there are two duties 
 respecting national architecture whose importance it is impos- 
 sible to overrate ; the first, to render the architecture of tha 
 
170 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 day historical ; and, the second, to preserve, as the most pre. 
 clous of inheritances, that of past ages. 
 
 HX It is in the first of these two directions that Memory 
 may truly be said to be the Sixth Lamp of Architecture ; for 
 it is in becoming memorial or monumental that a true perfec- 
 tion is attained by civil and domestic buildings ; and this partly 
 as they are, with such a view, bmlt in a more stable maimer, 
 and partly as their decorations are consequently animated by a 
 metaphorical or historical meaning. 
 
 As regards domestic buildings, there must always be a cer- 
 tain limitation to views of this kind in the power, as well as in 
 the hearts, of men ; still I cannot but think it an evil sign of 
 a people when their houses are built to last for one generation 
 only. There is a sanctity in a good man's house which cannot 
 be renewed in every tenement that rises on its ruins : and I 
 believe that good men would generally feel this ; and that 
 having spent their lives happily and honorably, they would be 
 grieved at the close of them to think that the place of their 
 earthly abode, which had seen, and seemed almost to sympa- 
 thise in all their honor, their gladness, or their suffering, — 
 that this, with all the record it bare of them, and aU of material 
 things that they had loved and ruled over, and set the stamp 
 of themselves upon — was to be swept away, as soon as there 
 was room made for them in the grave ; that no respect was to 
 be shown to it, no affection felt for it, no good to be drawn 
 from it by their children ; that though there was a monument 
 in the church, there was no warm monument in the heart and 
 house to them ; that all that they ever treasured was despised, 
 and the places that had sheltered and comforted them were 
 dragged dovm to the dust I say that a good man would fear 
 this ; and that, far more, a good son, a noble descendant, would 
 fear doing it to his father's house. I say that if men lived like 
 men indeed, their houses would be temples — temples which we 
 should hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us 
 holy to be permitted to live ; and there must be a strange dis- 
 solution of natural affection, a strange unthankfulness for aU 
 that homes have given and parents taught, a strange conscious- 
 ness that we have been unfaithful to our fathers' honor, or that 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 171 
 
 our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings sacred 
 to OUT children, when each man would faia build to himself, 
 and build for the little revolution of his own life only. And I 
 look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and clay which 
 spring up in mildewed forwardness out of the kneaded fields 
 about our capital — upon those thin, tottering, foundationless 
 shells of splintered wood and imitated stone — upon those 
 gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike without difference 
 and without fellowship, as solitary as similar — not merely with 
 the careless disgust of an offended e3'e, not merely with sor- 
 row for a desecrated landscape, but with a painful foreboding 
 that the roots of our national greatness must be deeply can- 
 kered when they are thus loosely struck in their native ground ; 
 that those comfortless and unhonored dwellings are the signs 
 of a great and spreading spirit of popular discontent ; that 
 they mark the time when every man's aim is to be in some 
 more elevated sphere than his natural one, and every man's 
 past life is his habitual scorn ; when men bmld in the hope of 
 leaving the places they have buUt, and live in the hope of for- 
 getting the years that they have lived ; when the comfort, the 
 peace, the rehgion of home have ceased to be felt ; and the 
 crowded tenements of a struggling and restless population dif- 
 fer only from the tents of the Arab or the Gipsy by their less 
 healthy openness to the air of heaven, and less happy choice of 
 their spot of earth ; by their sacrifice of liberty without the 
 gain of rest, and of stability without the luxury of change. 
 
 IV. This is no slight, no consequenceless evil : it is omi- 
 nous, infectious, and fecund of other fault and misfortune. 
 When men do not love their hearths, nor reverence their 
 thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonored both, and that 
 they have never acknowledged the true universality of that 
 Christian worship which was indeed to supersede the idolatry, 
 but not the piety, of the pagan. Our God is a household 
 God, as well as a heavenly one ; He has an altar in every 
 man's dwelling ; let men look to it when they rend it lightly 
 and pour out its ashes. It is not a question of mere ocular 
 delight, it is no question of intellectual pride, or of cultivated 
 and critical fancy, how, and vdth what aspect of durability 
 
172 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 and of completeness, the domestic buildings of a nation shall 
 be raised. It is one of those moral duties, not with more 
 impunity to be neglected because the perception of them de- 
 pends on a finely toned and balanced conscientiousness, to 
 bmld our dwellings with care, and patience, and fondness, 
 and diligent completion, and with a view to their duration at 
 least for such a period as, in the ordinary course of national 
 revolutions, might be supposed likely to extend to the entire 
 alteration of the direction of local interests. This at the 
 least ; but it would be better if, in every possible instance, 
 men built their own houses on a scale commensurate rather 
 with their condition at the commencement, than their attain- 
 ments at the termination, of their worldly career ; and built 
 them to stand as long as human work at its strongest can be 
 hoped to stand ; recording to their children what they have 
 been, and from what, if so it had been permitted them, they 
 had risen. And when houses are thus built, we may have 
 that true domestic architecture, the beginning of all other, 
 which does not disdain to treat with respect and thoughtful- 
 ness the small habitation as well as the large, and which in- 
 vests with the dignity of contented manhood the narrovmesB 
 of worldly circumstance. 
 
 V. I look to this spirit of honorable, proud, peaceful self- 
 possession, this abiding vnsdom of contented life, as probably 
 one of the chief sources of great intellectual power in aU ages, 
 and beyond dispute as the very primal source of the great 
 architecture of old Italy and France. To this day, the interest 
 of their fairest cities depends, not on the isolated richness of 
 palaces, but on the cherished and exquisite decoration of 
 even the smallest tenements of their proud periods. The 
 most elaborate piece of architecture in Venice is a small house 
 at the head of the Grand Canal, consisting of a ground iloor 
 with two stories above, three windows in the first, and two in 
 the second. Many of the most exquisite buildings are on 
 the narrower canals, and of no larger dimensions. One of 
 the most interesting pieces of fifteenth century architecture in 
 North Italy, is a small house in a back street, behind the 
 market-place of Yicenza ; it bears date 1481, and the motto, 
 
TEE LAMP OF MEMORY. 173 
 
 II. n'est. rose. sans, ipine ; it has also only a ground floor and 
 two stories, with three windows in each, separated by rich 
 flower-work, and with balconies, supported, the central one 
 by an eagle with open wings, the lateral ones by winged 
 griffins standing on cornucopias. The idea that a house must 
 be large in order to be well buUt, is altogether of modem 
 growth, and is parallel with the idea, that no picture can be 
 historical, except of a size admitting figures larger than Hfe. 
 
 VL I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built 
 to last, and buUt to be lovely ; as rich and full of pleasantness 
 as may be, within and without ; with what degree of likeness 
 to each other in style and manner, I will say presently, under 
 another head ; but, at all events, with such differences as might 
 suit and express each man's character and occupation, and 
 jDartly his history. This right over the house, I conceive, be- 
 longs to its first builder, and is to be respected by his children ; 
 and it would be well that blank stones should be left in places, 
 to be inscribed with a summary of his life and of its experi- 
 ence, raising thus the habitation into a kind of monument, and 
 developing, into more systematic instructiveness, that good 
 custom which was of old universal, and which still remains 
 among some of the Swiss and Germans, of acknowledging the 
 grace of Gkid's permission to build and possess a quiet resting- 
 place, in such sweet words as may well close our speaking of 
 these things. I have taken them from the front of a cottage 
 lately built among the green pastures which descend from the 
 village of Grindelwald to the lower glacier : — 
 
 " Mit herzlichem Vertrauen 
 Hat Johannes Mooter und Maria Bubi 
 Dieses Hans bauen lassen. 
 Der liebe Gott woU uus bewahreu 
 
 Vor allem UngUiok und Gefahren, 1 
 
 Und es in Segeu lassen stehn 
 Auf der Raise durch diese Jammerzeit 
 Naoh dem himmlischen Paradiese, 
 Wo alle Frommen wohnen, 
 Da wird Gott sie belohnen 
 Mit der Friedeuskrone 
 Zu alle EwigkeiU" 
 
1T4 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 VJi. In public buildings the historical purpose should be 
 still more definite. It is one of the advantages of Gothic 
 architecture, — I use the word Gothic in the most extended 
 sense as broadly opposed to classical, — that it admits of a rich- 
 ness of record altogether -unlimited. Its minute and multi- 
 tudinous sculptural decorations afford means of expressing, 
 either symbolically or literally, all that need be known of na- 
 tional feeling or achievement More decoration will, indeed, 
 be usually required than can take so elevated a character ; and 
 much, even in the most thoughtful periods, has been left to 
 the freedom of fancy, or suffered to consist of mere repetitious 
 of some national bearing or symbol It is, however, generally 
 unwise, even in mere surface ornament, to surrender the power 
 and privilege of variety which the spirit of Gothic architecture 
 admits ; much more in important features — capitals of columns 
 or bosses, and string-courses, as of course in aU confessed 
 bas-reliefs. Better the rudest work that tells a story or records 
 a fact, than the richest without meaning. There should not 
 be a single ornament put upon great civic buildings, without 
 some intellectual intention. Actual representation of history 
 has in modern times been checked by a difficulty, mean in- 
 deed, but steadfast : that of immanageable costume ; never- 
 theless, by a sufficiently bold imaginative treatment, and frank 
 use of symbols, aU such obstacles may be vanquished ; not 
 perhaps in the degree necessary to produce sculpture in itself 
 satisfactory, but at all events so as to enable it to become a 
 grand and expressive element of architectural composition. 
 Take, for example, the management of the capitals of the ducal 
 palace at Venice. History, as such, was indeed entrusted to 
 the painters of its interior, but every capital of its arcades was 
 fiUed vdth meaning. The large one, the comer stone of the 
 whole, next the entrance, was devoted to the symbolisation of 
 Abstract Justice ; above it is a sculpture of the Judgment of 
 Solomon, remaxkable for a beautiftd subjection in its treat- 
 ment to its decorative purpose. The figures, if the subject 
 had been entirely composed of them, would have awkwai-dly 
 interrupted the line of the angle, and diminished its apparent 
 strength ; and therefore in the midst of them, entirely without 
 
TEE LAMP OF MEMOIIY. 175 
 
 relation to them, and indeed actually between the executioner 
 and interceding mother, there rises the ribbed trunk of a massy 
 tree, which supports and continues the shaft of the angle, and 
 whose leaves above overshadow and enrich the whole. The 
 capital below bears among its leafage a throned figure of Jus- 
 tice, Trajan doing justice to the widow, Aristotle " che die 
 legge," and one or two other subjects now unintelligible from 
 decay. The capitals next in order represent the virtues and 
 vices in succession, as preseiwative or destructive of national 
 peace and power, concluding with Faith, with the inscription 
 " Fides optima in Deo est." A figure is seen on the opposite 
 side of the capital, worshipping the sun. After these, one or 
 two capitals are fancifully decorated with birds (Plate V.), and 
 then come a series representing, first the various fruits, then 
 the national costumes, and then the animals of the various 
 countries subject to Venetian rule. 
 
 "Vlii. Now, not to speak of any more imjiortant public 
 building, let us imagine our own India House adorned in this 
 way, by historical or symbolical sculpture : massively built in 
 the first place ; then chased with bas-reliefs of our Indian bat- 
 tles, and fretted with carvings of Oriental foliage, or inlaid with 
 Oriental stones ; and the more important members of its deco- 
 ration composed of groups of Indian life and landscape, and 
 prominently expressing the phantasms of Hindoo worship in 
 their subjection to the Cross. Woidd not one such work be 
 better than a thousand histories ? If, however, we have not 
 the invention necessary for such efforts, or if, which is proba- 
 bly one of the most noble excuses we can offer for our defi- 
 ciency in such matters, we have less pleasure in talking about 
 ourselves, even in marble, than the Continental nations, at least 
 we have no excuse for any want of care in the points which in- 
 sure the building's endurance. And as this question is one of 
 great interest in its relations to the choice of various modes of 
 decoration, it will be necessary to enter into it at some length. 
 
 IX. The benevolent regards and purposes of men in masses 
 seldom can be supposed to extend beyond their own genera- 
 tion. They may look to posterity as an audience, may hope 
 for its attention, and labor for its praise : they may kust to 
 
176 TEB LAMP OF MBMORT. 
 
 its recognition of unacknowledged merit, and demand its ju» 
 tice for contemporary wrong. But all this is mere selfishness, 
 and does not involve the slightest regard to, or consideration 
 of, the interest of those by whose numbers we would fain swell 
 the circle of our flatterers, and by whose authority we would 
 gladly support our presently disputed claims. The idea of 
 self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practising present econ- 
 omy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests 
 that our descendants may live under their shade, or of raising 
 cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently 
 takes place among publicly recognised motives of exertion. 
 Yet these are not the less our duties ; nor is our part fitly 
 sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our intended 
 and deliberate usefulness include not only the companions, 
 but the successors, of our pilgrimage. God has lent us the 
 earth for our life ; it is a great entail It belongs as much to 
 those who are to come after us, and whose names are already 
 written in the book of creation, as to us ; and we have no 
 right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in 
 imnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it 
 was in our power to bequeath. And this the more, because it 
 is one of the appointed conditions of the labor of men that, in 
 proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and the har- 
 vest, is the fulness of the fruit ; and that generally, therefore, 
 the farther off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be 
 ourselves the witnesses of what we have labored for, the more 
 vride and rich will be the measure of our success. Men can- 
 not benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those 
 who come after them ; and of all the pulpits from which human 
 voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so 
 far as from the grave. 
 
 X. Nor is there, indeed, any present loss, in such respect, 
 for futurity. Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in 
 all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. 
 It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above 
 all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to 
 his Maker ; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we 
 may not measure by this test. Therefore, when we build, let 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. ITY 
 
 us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present de- 
 hght, nor for present use alone ; let it be such work as our 
 descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone 
 on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held 
 sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men 
 wiU say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of 
 them, " See ! this our fathers did for us." For, indeed, the 
 greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, or in its gold. 
 Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, 
 of stem watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of ap- 
 proval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long 
 been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their 
 lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the 
 transitional character of all things, in the strength which, 
 through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and 
 birth of dynasties, and the changing of the face of the earth, 
 and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeU- 
 ness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following 
 ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it 
 concentrates the sympathy, of nations ; it is in that golden 
 stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and color, 
 and preciousness of architecture ; and it is not until a build- 
 ing has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with 
 the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, tiU its walls have 
 been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shad- 
 ows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that 
 of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted 
 with even so much as these possess of language and of life. 
 
 XI. Tor that period, then, we must build ; not, indeed, re- 
 fusing to ourselves the deHght of present completion, nor hesi- 
 tating to follow such portions of character as mey depend 
 upon delicacy of execution to the highest perfection of which 
 they are capable, even although we may know that in the 
 course of years such details must perish ; but taking care that 
 for work of this kind we sacrifice no endm-ing quality, and 
 that the building shall not depend for its impressiveness upon 
 anything that is perishable. This would, indeed, be the law 
 of good composition under any circumstances, the arrange* 
 13 
 
178 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 ment of the larger masses being always a matter of greater 
 importance than the treatment of the smaller ; but in archi- 
 tecture there is much in that very treatment which is skilful 
 or otherwise in proportion to its just regard to the probable 
 effects of time : and (which is still more to be considered) 
 there is a beauty in those effects themselves, which nothing 
 else can replace, and which it is our wisdom to consult and 
 to desire. For though, hitherto, we have been speaking of 
 the sentiment of age only, there is an actual beauty in the 
 marks of it, such and so great as to have become not unfre- 
 quently the subject of especial choice among certain schools 
 of art, and to have impressed upon those schools the charac- 
 ter usually and loosely expressed by the term " picturesque." 
 It is of some importance to our present purpose to determine 
 the true meaning of this expression, as it is now generally 
 used ; for there is a principle to be developed from that use 
 wliich, while it has occultly been the ground of much that is 
 true and just in our judgment of art, has never been so far 
 understood as to become definitely serviceable. Probably 
 no word in the language (exclusive of theological expres- 
 sions), has been the subject of so frequent or so prolonged 
 dispute ; yet none remained more vague in their acceptance, 
 and it seems to me to be a matter of no small interest to in- 
 vestigate the essence of that idea which all feel, and (to ap- 
 pearance) vyith respect to similar things, and yet which every 
 attempt to define has, as I believe, ended either in mere enu- 
 meration of the effects and objects to which the term has been 
 attached, or else in attempts at abstraction more palpably 
 nugatory than any which have disgraced metaphysical investi- 
 gation on other subjects. A recent critic on Art, for instance, 
 has gravely advanced the theory that the essence of the pictu- 
 resque consists in the expression of "universal decay." It 
 would be curious to see the result of an attempt to illustrate 
 this idea of the picturesque, in a painting of dead flowers 
 and decayed fruit, and equally curious to trace the steps of 
 any reasoning which, on such a theory, should account for the 
 picturesqueness of an ass colt as opposed to a horse foal. Biii 
 there is much excuse for even the most utter failure in rc;v 
 
TEE LAMP OF MEMOBT. 179 
 
 sonings of this Hud, since the subject is, indeed, one of the 
 most obscure of all that may legitimately be submitted to 
 human reason ; and the idea is itself so varied in the minds 
 of different men, according to their subjects of study, that no 
 definition can be expected to embrace more than a certain 
 number of its infinitely multiplied forms. 
 
 Xn. That peculiar character, however, which separates the 
 picturesque from the characters of subject belonging to the 
 higher walks of art (and this is all that is necessary for our 
 present purpose to define), may be shortly and decisively ex- 
 pressed. Pictui-esqueness, in this sense, is Paratdtical Sublim- 
 ity. Of course all subUmity, as well as all beauty, is, in the 
 simple etymological sense, picturesque, that is to say, fit to 
 become the subject of a picture ; and all sublimity is, even in 
 the peculiar sense which I am endeavoring to develope, pict- 
 uresque, as opposed to beauty ; that is to say, there is more 
 picturesqueness in the subject of Michael Angelo than of Pe- 
 rugino, in proportion to the prevalence of the subUme element 
 over the beautiful But that character, of which the extreme 
 pursuit is generally admitted to be degrading to art, is para- 
 sitica/ sublimity ; i.e., a subUmity dependent on the accidents, 
 or on the least essential characters, of the objects to which it 
 belongs ; and the picturesque is developed distinctively exactly 
 in proportion to the distance from the centre of thought of those 
 •points of character in which the sublimity is found. Two ideas, 
 therefore, are essential to pictiiresqueness, — the first, that of 
 sublimity (for pure beauty is not picturesque at all, and be- 
 comes so only as the sublime element mixes with it), and the 
 second, the subordinate or parasitical position of that sublim- 
 ity. Of course, therefore, whatever characters of line or shade 
 or expression are productive of sublimity, will become pro- 
 ductive of picturesqueness ; what these characters are I shall 
 endeavor hereafter to show at length ; but, among those which 
 are generally acknowledged, I may name angular and broken 
 lines, vigorous oppositions of light and shadow, and grave, 
 deep, or boldly contrasted color ; and all these are in a still 
 higher degree effective, when, by resemblance or association, 
 they remind us of objects on which a true and essential sub" 
 
180 TEE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 limity exists, as of rocks or mountains, or stormy clouds at 
 waves. Now if these characters, or any others of a higher and 
 more abstract sublimity, be found in the very heart and sub- 
 stance of what we contemplate, as the sublimity of Michael 
 Angelo depends on the expression of mental character in hia 
 figures far more than even on the noble lines of their arrange- 
 ment, the art which represents such characters cannot be 
 properly called picturesque : but, if they be found in the ac- 
 cidental or external qualities, the distinctive picturesque wiU 
 be the result. 
 
 XTTT. Thus, in the treatment of the features of the human 
 face by Prancia or AngeHco, the shadows are employed only 
 to make the contours of the features thoroughly felt ; and to 
 those features themselves the mind of the observer is exclu- 
 sively directed (that is to say, to the essential characters of 
 the thing represented). All power and all sublimity rest on 
 these ; the shadows are used only for the sake of the features. 
 On the contrary, by Eembrandt, Salvator, or Caravaggio, the 
 features are used for the sake of the shadows ; and the atten- 
 tion is directed, and the power of the painter addressed to 
 characters of accidental light and shade cast across or around 
 those features. In the case of Eembrandt there, is often an 
 essential sublimity in invention and expression besides, and 
 always a high degree of it in the light and shade itself ; btit 
 it is for the most part parasitical or engrafted sublimity as 
 regards the subject of the painting, and, just so far, pictu- 
 resque. 
 
 XIV. Again, in the management of the sculptures of the 
 Parthenon, shadow is frequently employed as a dark field on 
 which the forms are drawn. This is visibly the case in the 
 metopes, and must have been nearly as much so in the pedi- 
 ment. But the use of that shadow is entirely to show the 
 confines of the figures ; and it is to their lines, and not to the 
 shapes of the shadows behind them, that the art and the eye 
 are addressed. The figures themselves are conceived as much 
 as possible in full light, aided by bright reflections ; they are 
 drawn exactly as, on vases, white figures on a dark groimd : 
 and the sculptors have dispensed with, or even struggled to 
 
TEE LAMP OF MEMOBr. 181 
 
 avoid, all shadows which were not absolutely necessary to the 
 explaining of the form. On the contrary, in Gothic sculpture, 
 the shadow becomes itself a subject of thought It is con- 
 sidered as a dark color, to be arranged iii certain agreeable 
 masses ; the figures are very frequently made even subordinate 
 to the placing of its divisions : and their costume is enriched 
 at the expense of the forms underneath, in order to increase 
 the complexity and variety of the points of shade. There are 
 thus, both in sculpture and painting, two, in some sort, oppo- 
 site schools, of which the one follows for its subject the essen- 
 tial forms of things, and the other the accidental lights and 
 shades upon them. There are various degrees of their con- 
 trariety : middle steps, as ia the works of Correggio, and all 
 degrees of nobUity and of degradation in the several manners ; 
 but the one is always recognised as the pure, and the othei 
 as the picturesque school. Portions of picturesque treatment 
 will be found in Greek work, and of pure and unpicturesque 
 in Gothic ; and in both there are countless instances, as pre- 
 eminently in the works of Michael Angelo, in which shadows 
 become valuable as media of expression, and therefore take 
 rank among essential characteristics. Into these multitudi- 
 nous distinctions and exceptions I cannot now enter, desiring 
 only to prove the broad appHcabihty of the general definition. 
 XV. Again, the distinction will be found to exist, not only 
 between forms and shades as subjects of choice, but between 
 essential and inessential forms. One of the chief distinctions 
 between the dramatic and picturesque schools of sculpture is 
 found in the treatment of the hair. By the artists of the time 
 of Pericles it was considered as an excrescence," indicated by 
 few and rude lines, and subordinated in every particular to 
 the principality of the features and person. How completely 
 this was an artistical, not a national idea, it is unnecessary to 
 prove. We need but remember the employment of the Lace- 
 dsemonians, reported by the Persian spy on the evening be- 
 fore the battle of Thermopylae, or glance at any Homeric 
 description of ideal form, to see how purely sculpturesque was 
 the law which reduced the markings of the hair, lest, under 
 the necessary disadvantages of material, they should interfere 
 
182 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 with tlie distinctness of the personal forms. On the contrary, 
 in later sculpture, the hair receives almost the principal cars 
 of the workman ; and whUe the features and limbs are clum- 
 sily and bluntly executed, the hair is curled and twisted, cut 
 into bold and shadowy projections, and arranged in masses 
 elaborately ornamental ; there is true subUmity in the lines 
 and the chiaroscuro of these masses, but it is, as regards the 
 creature represented, parasitical, and therefore picturesque. 
 In the same sense we may understand the application of the 
 term to modern animal painting, distinguished as it has been 
 by peculiar attention to the colors, lustre, and texture of 
 skin ; nor is it in art alone that the definition wiU. hold. In 
 animals themselves, when their sublimity depends upon then- 
 muscular forms or motions, or necessary and principal attri- 
 butes, as perhaps more than all others in the horse, we do 
 not call them picturesque, but consider them as peculiarly fit 
 to be associated with pure historical subject. Exactly in 
 proportion as their character of sublimity passes into excres- 
 cences ; — into mane and beard as in the lion, into horns as in 
 the stag, into shaggy hide as in the instance above given of 
 the ass colt, into variegation as in the zebra, or into plumage, 
 — they become picturesque, and are so in art exactly in pro- 
 portion to the prominence of these excrescential chai-actera. 
 It may often be most expedient that they should be promi- 
 nent ; often there is in them the highest degi'ee of majesty, 
 as in those of the leopard and boar ; and in the hands of 
 men like Tintoret and Eubens, such attributes become means 
 of deepening the very highest and most ideal impressions. 
 But the picturesque direction of their thoughts is always dis- 
 tinctly recognizable, as clinging to the surface, to the less 
 essential character, and as developing out of this a sublimity 
 different from that of the creature itself ; a sublimity which 
 is, in a sort, common to all the objects of creation, and the 
 same in its constituent elements, whether it be sought iu the 
 clefts and folds of shaggy hair, or ia the chasms and rents of 
 rocks, or in the hanging of thickets or hill sides, or in the 
 alternations of gaiety and gloom in the variegation of the 
 shell, the plume, or the cloud. 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 183 
 
 XYI. Now, to return to our immediate subject, it so hap- 
 pens that, in architecture, the superinduced and accidental 
 beauty is most commonly inconsistent with the preservation 
 of original character, and the picturesque is therefore sought 
 in ruin, and supposed to consist in decay. Whereas, even 
 when so sought, it consists in the mere sublimity of the 
 rents, or fractures, or stains, or vegetation, which assimilate 
 the architecture with the work of Natm-e, and bestow upon it 
 those circumstances of color and form which are universally 
 beloved by the eye of man. So far as this is done, to the ex- 
 tinction of the true characters of the architectui'e, it is pict- 
 uresque, and the artist who looks to the stem of the ivy in- 
 stead of the shaft of the pillar, is carrying out in more daring 
 freedom the debased sculptor's choice of the hair instead of the 
 countenance. But so far as it can be rendered consistent 
 with the inherent character, the picturesque or extraneous 
 sublimity of architecture has just this of nobler function in it 
 than that of any other object whatsoever, that it is an expo- 
 nent of age, of that in which, as has been said, the greatest 
 glory of a building consists ; and, therefore, the external 
 signs of this gloi-y, having power and purpose greater than 
 any belonging to their mere sensible beauty, may be consid- 
 ered as taking rank among pure and essential characters ; so 
 essential to my mind, that I think a building cannot be con- 
 sidered as in its prime until four or five centuries have passed 
 over it ; and that the entire choice and arrangement of its 
 details should have i-eference to their appearance after that 
 period, so that none should be admitted which would suffer 
 material injury either by the weather-staining, or the me- 
 chanical degradation which the lapse of such a period would 
 necessitate. 
 
 XVII. It is not my purpose to enter into any of the ques- 
 tions which the application of this principle involves. They 
 ax'e of too great interest and complexity to be even touched 
 upon within my present limits, but this is broadly to be no- 
 ticed, that those styles of architecture which are picturesque 
 in the sense above explained with respect to sculpture, that 
 is to say, whose decoration depends on the arrangement o| 
 
184 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 points of shade rather than on purity of outline, do not suffer, 
 but commonly gaiu in richness of effect when their details 
 are partly worn away ; hence such styles, pre-eminently that 
 of French Gothic, should always be adopted when the mate- 
 rials to be employed are liable to degradation, as brick, sand- 
 stone, or soft Umestone ; and styles in any degree dependent 
 on purity of line, as the ItaKan Gothic, must be practised al- 
 together in hard and undecomposing materials, granite ser- 
 pentine, or crystaUine marbles. There can be no doubt that 
 the nature of the accessible materials influenced the forma^ 
 tion of both styles ; and it should still more authoritatively 
 determine our choice of either. 
 
 XVm. It does not belong to my present plan to consider 
 at length the second head of duty of which I have above 
 spoken ; the preservation of the architecture we possess : but 
 a few words may be forgiven, as especially necessary in mod- 
 em times. Neither by the pubUc, nor by those who have the 
 care of public monuments, is the true meaning of the word 
 restoration understood. It means the most total destruction 
 which a buUdiag can suffer : a destruction out of which no 
 remnants can be gathered; a destruction accompanied with 
 false description of the thing destroyed. Do not let us deceive 
 ourselves ia this important matter ; it is imposbible, as impos- 
 sible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever 
 been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have 
 above insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which 
 is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, never can 
 be recalled. Another spirit may be given by another time, 
 and it is then a new buUding ; but the spirit of the dead 
 workman cannot be summoned up, and commanded to direct 
 other hands, and other thoughts. And as for direct and simple 
 copying, it is palpably impossible. What copying can there 
 be of surfaces that have been worn half an inch down ? The 
 whole finish of the work was in the half inch that is gone ; if 
 you attempt to restore that finish, you do it conjecturally ; if 
 you copy what is left, granting fidelity to be possible (and 
 what care, or watchfu'^ness, or cost can secure it ?), how is the 
 new work better thaL ■^he old ? There was yet in the old 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 185 
 
 some life, some mysterious suggestion of what it had been, 
 and of what it had lost ; some sweetness in the gentle lines 
 which rain and sun had wrought. There can be none in the 
 brute hardness of the new carving. Look at the animalswhich 
 I have given in Plate 14, as an instance of hving wort, and 
 suppose the markiags of the scales and hair once worn away, 
 or the wrinkles of the brows, and who shaJl ever restore 
 them ? The first step to restoration (I have seen it, and that 
 again and again, seen it on the Baptistery of Pisa, seen it on 
 the Casa d' Oro at Venice, seen it on the Cathedral of Lisieux), 
 is to dash the old work to pieces ; the second is usually to 
 put up the cheapest and basest imitation which can escape de- 
 tection, but in all cases, however careful, and however labored, 
 an imitation stUl, a cold model of such parts as can be modelled, 
 with conjectural supplements ; and my experience has as yet 
 furnished me with only one instance, that of the Palais de 
 Justice at Rouen, in which even this, the utmost degree of 
 fidehty which is possible, has been attained or even attempted. 
 XIX. Do not let us talk then of restoration. The thing is 
 a Lie from beginning to end. You may make a model of a 
 building as you may of a corpse, and your model may have 
 the shell of the old waUs within it as your cast might have the 
 skeleton, with what advantage I neither see nor care ; but the 
 old building is destroyed, and that more totally and mercilessly 
 than if it had sunk into a heap of dust, or melted into a mass 
 of clay : more has been gleaned out of desolated Nineveh than 
 ever will be out of re-built Milan. But, it is said, there may 
 come a necessity for restoration ! Granted. Look the neces- 
 sity full in the face, and understand it on its ovrai terms. It is 
 a necessity for destruction. Accept it as such, pull the build- 
 ing down, throw its stones into neglected comers, make ballast 
 of them, or mortar, if you wUl ; but do it honestly, and do not 
 set up a Lie in their place. And look that necessity in the face 
 before it comes, and you may prevent it. The principle of 
 modem times (a principle which I believe, at least in France, 
 to be systematically acted on by the masons, in order to find 
 themselves work, as the abbey of St. Ouen was pulled down by 
 the magistrates of the town by way of giving work to some 
 
186 TEE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 vagrants,) is to neglect buildings first, and restore them after, 
 wards. Take proper care of your monuments, and you -will 
 not need to restore them. A few sheets of lead put in time 
 upon the roof, a few dead leaves and sticks swept in time out 
 of a water-course, will save both roof and walls from ruin. 
 Watch an old building with an anxious care ; guard it as best 
 you may, and at any cost from every influence of dilapidation. 
 Count its stones as you would jewels of a crown ; set watches 
 about it as if at the gates of a besieged city ; bind it together 
 with iron where it loosens ; stay it with timber where it de- 
 cUnes ; do not care about the unsightliness of the aid ; better 
 a crutch than a lost Hmb ; and do this tenderly, and reverently, 
 and continually, and many a generation will still be bom and 
 pass away beneath its shadow. Its evil day must come at last ; 
 but let it come declaredly and openly, and let no dishonoring 
 and false substitute deprive it of the funeral offices of memory. 
 XX. Of more wanton or ignorant ravage it is vain to speak ; 
 my words will not reach those who commit them, and yet, be 
 it heard or not, I must not leave the truth unstated, that it is 
 again no question of expediency or feehng whether we shall 
 preserve the buildings of past times or not. We have no right 
 whatever to touch them. They are not oiu-s. They belong 
 partly to those who built them, and partly to all the genera- 
 tions of mankind who are to follow us. The dead have still 
 their right in them : that which they labored for, the praise of 
 achievement or the expression of religious feeling, or whatso- 
 ever else it might be which in those buildings they intended to 
 be permanent, we have no right to obhterate. What we have 
 ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw down ; but what 
 other men gave their strength, and wealth, and life to accom- 
 plish, their right over does not pass away with their death ; 
 still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested 
 in us only. It belongs to aU their successors. It may here- 
 after be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to mill- 
 ions, that we have consulted our present convenience by cast- 
 ing down such buildings as we choose to dispense with. That 
 Bon-ow, that loss we have no right to inflict. Did the cathe- 
 dral of Avranches belong to the mob who destroyed it, any 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 187 
 
 more than it did to us, who walk in sorrow to and fro over lis 
 foundation ? Neither does any building whatever belong to 
 those mobs who do violence to it. For a mob it is, and must 
 be always ; it matters not whether enraged, or in deliberate 
 folly ; whether countless, or sitting in committees ; the people 
 who destroy anything causelessly are a mob, and Architecture 
 is always destroyed causelessly. A fair building is necessarily 
 worth the groimd it stands upon, and will be so imtil central 
 Africa and America shall have become as populous as Middle- 
 sex ; nor is any cause whatever valid as a ground for its de- 
 struction. If ever valid, certainly not now when the place 
 both of the past and future is too much usurped in our minds 
 by the restless and discontented present. The very quietness 
 of nature is gradually withdrawn from us ; thousands who 
 once in their necessarily prolonged travel were subjected to 
 an influence, from the sUent sky and slumbering fields, mora 
 effectual than known or confessed, now bear with them even 
 there the ceaseless fever of their life ; and along the iron veins 
 that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery 
 pulses of its exertions, hotter and faster every hour. All 
 vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into 
 the central cities ; the country is passed over like a green sea 
 by narrow bridges, and we are thi-own back in continually 
 closer crowds upon the city gates. The only influence which 
 can in any wise there take the place of that of the woods and 
 fields, is the power of ancient Architecture. Do not part vsdth 
 it for the sake of the formal square, or of the fenced and 
 planted walk, nor of the goodly street nor opened quay. Tlie 
 pride of a city is not in these. Leave them to the crowd ; 
 but remember that there will sui-ely be some within the cii-- 
 cuit of the disquieted walls who would ask for some other 
 spots than these wherein to walk ; for some other forms to 
 meet their sight familiarly : like him who sat so often where 
 the sun struck from the WBst, to watch the lines of the dome 
 of Florence drawn on the deep sky, or like those, his Hosts, 
 who could bear daily to behold, from their palace chambers, 
 the places where their fathers lay at rest, at the meeting of 
 the dark streets of Verona. 
 
'■ 83 TEE LAMP OF OBEDIENOB. 
 
 CHAPTEE Vn. 
 
 THE T.AMP OP OBEDIENCE. 
 
 I. It has been my endeavor to show in the preceding pages 
 how eyery form of noble architecture is in some sort the 
 embodiment of the Pohty, Life, History, and ReUgious Faith 
 of nations. Once or twice in doing this, I have named a 
 principle to which I would now assign a definite place among 
 those which direct that embodiment ; the last place, not only 
 as that to which its own humihty would incline, but rather as 
 belonging to it in the aspect of the crowning grace of all the 
 rest ; that principle, I mean, to which Polity owes its stabil- 
 ity, Life its happiness. Faith its acceptance, Creation its con- 
 tiauance, — Obedience. 
 
 Nor is it the least among the sources of more serious satis- 
 faction which I have found in the pursuit of a subject that at 
 first appeared to bear but sUghtly on the grave interests of 
 mankind, that the conditions of material perfection which it 
 leads me in conclusion to consider, furnish a strange proof 
 how false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that 
 treacherous phantom which men call Liberty ; most treach- 
 erous, indeed, of all phantoms ; for the feeblest ray of reason 
 might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its 
 being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the uni- 
 verse. There can never be. The stars have it not ; the earth 
 has it not ; the sea has it not ; and we men have the mockery 
 and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment. 
 
 In one of the noblest poems" for its imagery and its musio 
 belonging to the recent school of our literature, the writer 
 has sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expression of 
 tliat Liberty which, having once loved, he had seen among 
 men in its true dyes of darkness. But with what strange 
 fallacy of interpretation ! since in one noble hne of his invo- 
 cation he has contradicted the assumptions of the rest, and ac- 
 knowledged the presence of a subjection, surely not less se- 
 vere because eternal? How could he otherwise? since if 
 
TEE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 189 
 
 there be any one principle more ■widely than another con- 
 fessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another im- 
 printed on every atom, of the visible creation, that principle is 
 not Liberty, but Law. 
 
 n. The enthusiast would reply that by Liberty he meant 
 the Law of Liberty. Then why use the single and misunder- 
 stood word ? If by liberty you mean chastisement of the pas- 
 sions, discipUne of the intellect, subjection of the wiU ; if you 
 mean the fear of inflicting, the shame of committing a wrong ; 
 if you mean respect for all who are in authority, and consid- 
 eration for all who are in. dependence ; veneration for the 
 good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak ; if you mean 
 watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance in all pleasures, 
 and perseverance in all toUs ; if you mean, in a word, that 
 Service which is defined in the Uturgy of the EngHsh church 
 to be perfect Freedom, why do you name this by the same 
 word by which the luxurious mean hcense, and the reckless 
 mean change ; by which the rogue means rapine, and the fool 
 equality, by which the proud mean anarchy, and the malignant 
 mean violence ? Call it by any name rather than this, but its 
 best and truest is. Obedience. Obedience is, indeed, founded 
 on a kind of freedom, else its would become mere subjugation, 
 but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more 
 perfect ; and thus, whUe a measure of Ucense is necessary to 
 exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and 
 pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their Ee- 
 straint. Compare a river that has burst its banks with one 
 that is bound by them, and the clouds that are scattered over 
 the face of the whole heaven with those that are marshalled 
 into ranks and orders by its winds. So that though restraint, 
 utter and unrelaxing, can never be comely, this is not because 
 it is in itself an evil, but only because, when too great, it over- 
 powers the nature of the thing restrained, and so counteract", 
 the other laws of which that nature is itself composed. And 
 the balance wherein consists the fairness of creation is be- 
 tween the laws of life and being in the things governed and 
 the laws of general sway to which they are subjected ; and the 
 suspension or infringement of either kind of law, or, literally. 
 
190 THE LAMP OF OBEBIEITGE. 
 
 disorder, is equivalent to, and synonymous ■witli, disease; 
 while the increase of both honor and beauty is habitually on 
 the side of restraint (or the action of superior law) rather than 
 of character (or the action of inherent law). The noblest 
 word in the catalogue of social virtue is " Loyalty," and the 
 sweetest which men have learned in the pastures of the wilder- 
 nc'js is " Fold." 
 
 m. Nor is this all ; but we may observe, that exactly in 
 proportion to the majesty of things ia the scale of being, is 
 the completeness of their obedience to the laws that are set 
 over them. Gravitation is less quietly, less instantly obeyed 
 by a grain of dust than it is by the sun and moon ; and the 
 ocean falls and flows under influences which the lake and 
 river do not recognize. So also in estimating the dignity of 
 any action or occupation of men, there is perhaps no better 
 test than the question "are its laws strait?" For their se- 
 verity wiU probably be commensurate with the greatness of 
 the numbers whose labor it concentrates or whose interest it 
 concerns. 
 
 This severity must be singular, therefore, in the case of 
 that art, above aU others, whose productions are the most vast 
 and the most common ; which requires for its practice the co- 
 operation of bodies of men, and for its perfection the per- 
 severance of successive generations. And taking into account 
 also what we have before so often observed of Architecture, 
 her continual influence over the emotions of daily life, and her 
 realism, as opposed to the two sister arts which are in com- 
 parison but the picturing of stories and of dreams, we might 
 beforehand expect that we shoidd find her healthy state and 
 action dependent on far more severe laws than theirs ; that the 
 license which they extend to the workings of individual mind 
 would be withdrawn by her ; and that, in assertion of the re- 
 lations which she holds with all that is universally important 
 to man, she would set forth, by her own majestic subjection, 
 some likeness of that on which man's social happiness and 
 power depend. We might, therefore, without the light of 
 experience, conclude, that Architecture never could flourish 
 except when it was subjected to a national law as strict and 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENOE. 191 
 
 as minutely authoritative as the laws which regulate reUgion, 
 policy, and social relations ; nay, even more authoritative than 
 these, because both capable of more enforcement, as over 
 more passive matter ; and needing more enforcement, as the 
 purest type not of one law nor of another, but of the common 
 authority of all. But in this matter experience speaks more 
 loudly than reason. If there be any one condition which, in 
 watching the progress of architecture, we see distinct and 
 general ; if, amidst the counter evidence of success attending 
 opposite accidents of character and circumstance, any one 
 conclusion may be constantly and indisputably drawn, it is 
 this ; that the architecture of a nation is great only when it is 
 as universal and as established as its language ; and when pro- 
 vincial differences of style are nothing more than so many dia- 
 lects. Other necessities are matters of doubt : nations have 
 been ahke successful in their architecture ia times of poverty 
 and of wealth ; in times of war and of peace ; in times of bar- 
 barism and of refinement ; under governments the most lib- 
 eral or the most arbitrary ; but this one condition has been 
 constant, this one requirement clear in all places and at aU 
 times, that the work shall be that of a school, that no indi- 
 vidual caprice shall dispense with, or materially vary, accepted 
 types and customary decorations ; and that from the cottage 
 to the palace, and from the chapel to the basilica, and from 
 the garden fence to the fortress waU, every member and feat- 
 ure of the architecture of the nation shall be as commonly 
 current, as frankly accepted, as its language or its coin. 
 
 rV. A day never passes without our hearing our English 
 architects called upon to be original, and to invent a new style : 
 about as sensible and necessary an exhortation as to ask of a 
 man who has never had rags enough on his back to keep out 
 cold, to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a 
 whole coat first, and let him concern himself about the fashion 
 of it afterwards. We want no new style of architecture. Who 
 wants a new style of painting or sculpture ? But we want 
 some style. It is of marvellously little importance, if we have 
 a code of laws and they be good laws, whether they be new o» 
 old, foreign or native, Eoman or Saxon, or Norman or Eng- 
 
192 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 lish laws. But it is of considerable importance that we shoulcl 
 have a code of laws of one kind or another, and that code ac- 
 cepted and enforced from one side of the island to another, 
 and not one law made groimd of judgment at York and an- 
 other in Exeter. And in like manner it does not matter one 
 marble splinter whether we have an old or new architecture, 
 but it matters everything whether we have an architecture 
 truly so called or not ; that is, whether an architecture whose 
 laws might be taught at our schools from Cornwall to Nor- 
 thumberland, as we teach English spelling and English gram- 
 mar, or an architecture which is to be invented fresh every 
 time we buUd a workhouse or a parish school. There seems 
 to me to be a wonderful misunderstanding among the major- 
 ity of architects at the present day as to the very nature and 
 meaning of Originality, and of all wherein it consists. Origi- 
 nality in expression does not depend on invention of new words ; 
 nor originality in poetry on invention of new measures ; nor, 
 in painting, on invention of new colors, or new modes of using 
 them. The chords of music, the harmonies of color, the gen- 
 eral principles of the arrangement of sculptural masses, have 
 been determined long ago, and, in aU probability, cannot be 
 added to any more than they can be altered. Granting that 
 they may be, such additions or alterations are much more the 
 work of time and of multitudes than of individual inventors. 
 We may have one Van Eyck, who will be knovni as the in- 
 troducer of a new style once in ten centuries, but he himself 
 will trace his invention to some accidental bye-play or pursuit ; 
 and the use of that invention vsrill depend altogether on the 
 popular necessities or instincts of the period. Originality de- 
 pends on nothing of the kind. A man who has the gift, will 
 take up any style that is going, the style of his day, and will 
 work in that, and be great in that, and make everything that 
 he does in it look as fresh as if every thought of it had just 
 come down from heaven. I do not say that he will not take 
 liberties with his materials, or with his rules : I do not say 
 that strange changes will not sometimes be wrought by his 
 efforts, or his fancies, in both. But those changes will be in- 
 structive, natural, facile, though sometimes marvellous ; they 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 193 
 
 ■will never be sought after as things necessary to his dignitj 
 or to his independence ; and those hberties will be like the 
 liberties that a great speaker takes with the language, not a 
 defiance of its rules for the sake of singularity ; but inevitable, 
 uncalculated, and briUiant consequences of an effort to express 
 what the language, without such infraction, could not. There 
 may be times when, as I have above described, the life of an 
 art is manifested in its changes, and in its refusal of ancient 
 limitations : so there are in the life of an insect ; and there is 
 great interest in the state of both the art and the insect at 
 those periods when, by their natural progress and constitu- 
 tional power, such changes are about to be wrought. But as 
 that woidd be both an uncomfortable and fooHsh caterpillar 
 which, instead of being contented with a caterpillar's Ufe and 
 feeding on caterpillar's food, was always striving to turn itself 
 into a chrysalis ; and as that would be an imhappy chrysalis 
 which should He awake at night and roU restlessly in its 
 cocoon, in efforts to turn itself prematurely into a moth ; so 
 will that art be unhappy and unprosperous which, instead of 
 supporting itself on the food, and contenting itself with the 
 customs which have been enough for the support and guid- 
 ance of other arts before it and like it, is struggling and fret- 
 ting under the natural limitations of its existence, and striving 
 to become something other than it is. And though it is the 
 nobiUty of the highest creatures to look forward to, and partly 
 to understand the changes which ai-e appointed for them, pre- 
 paiing for them beforehand ; and if, as is usual with appointed 
 changes, they be into a higher state, even desii-ing them, and 
 rejoicing in the hope of them, yet it is the strength of every 
 creature, be it changeful or not, to rest for the time being, 
 contented with the conditions of its existence, and striving 
 only to bring about the changes which it desires, by fulfilling 
 to the uttermost the duties for which its present state is 
 appointed and continued. 
 
 V. Neither originality, therefore, nor change, good though 
 both may be, and this is commonly a most merciful and en- 
 thusiastic supposition with respect to either, are ever to be 
 sought in themselves, or can ever be healthily obtained by any 
 13 
 
194 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 struggle or rebellion against common laws. We want neithei 
 the one nor the other. The forms of architecture already 
 known are good enough for us, and for far better than any of 
 us : and it will be time enough to think of changing them for 
 better when we can use them as they are. But there are 
 some things which we not only want, but cannot do without ; 
 and which all the struggling and raving in the world, nay 
 more, which all the real talent and resolution in England, will 
 never enable us to do vyithout : and these are Obedience, 
 Unity, Fellowship, and Order. And all our schools of design, 
 and committees of tastes ; all our academies and lectures, and 
 journalisms, and essays ; all the sacrifices which we are begin- 
 ning to make, all the truth which there is in our English nat- 
 ure, all the power of our English will, and the life of our 
 English intellect, wUl in this matter be as useless as efforts 
 and emotions in a dream, unless we are contented to submit 
 architecture and all art, like other things, to Enghsh law. 
 
 VI. I say architecture and all art ; for I believe architecture 
 must be the beginning of arts, and that the others must fol- 
 low her in their time and order ; and I think the prosperity 
 of our schools of painting and sculpture, in which no one will 
 deny the Ufe, though many the health, depends upon that of 
 our architecture. I think that all wiU languish until that 
 takes the lead, and (this I do not thinh, but I proclaim, as 
 confidently as I would assert the necessity, for the safety of 
 society, of an understood and strongly administered legal gov- 
 ernment) our architecture vMl languish, and that in the very 
 dust, untU the first principle of common sense be manfully 
 obeyed, and an universal system of form and workmanship be 
 everywhere adopted and enforced. It may be said that this 
 is impossible. It may be so — I fear it is so : I have nothing 
 to do with the possibility or impossibility of it ; I simply 
 know and assert the necessity of it. If it be impossible, Eng- 
 lish art is impossible. Give it up at once. You are wasting 
 time, and money, and energy upon it, and though you ex- 
 haust centuries and treasuries, and break hearts for it, you 
 will never raise it above the merest dilettanteism. Think not 
 of it. It is a dangerous vanity, a mere gulph in which geniua 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENOE. 195 
 
 after genius -will be swallowed up, and it will not close. And 
 so it wiU continue to be, imless the one bold and broad step be 
 taken at the beginning. We shall not manufacture art out of 
 pottery and printed stuffs ; we shaU not reason out art by our 
 philosophy ; we shall not stiunble upon art by our experi- 
 ments, not create it by our fancies : I do not say that we can 
 even build it out of brick and stone ; but there is a chance 
 for us in these, and there is none else ; and that chance rests 
 on the bare possibility of obtaining the consent, both of 
 architects and of the public, to choose a style, and to use it 
 universally. 
 
 YET. How surely its principles ought at first to be limited, 
 we may easily determine by the consideration of the neces- 
 sary modes of teaching any other branch of general knowl- 
 edge. When we begin to teach children writing, we force 
 them to absolute copyism, and require absolute accuracy in 
 the formation of the letters ; as they obtain command of the 
 received modes of literal expression, we cannot prevent their 
 falling into such variations as are consistent with their feel- 
 ing, their circumstances, or their characters. So, when a boy 
 is first taught to write Latin, an authority is required of him 
 for every expression he uses ; as he becomes master of the 
 language he may take a Ucense, and feel his right to do so 
 without any authority, and yet vn-ite better Latin than when 
 he borrowed every separate expression. In the same way our 
 architects would have to be taught to write the accepted style. 
 We must first determine what buildings are to be considered 
 Augustan in their authority ; their modes of construction and 
 laws of proportion are to be studied with the most penetrat. 
 ing care ; then the different forms and uses of their decora- 
 tions are to be classed and catalogued, as a German gramma- 
 rian classes the powers of prepositions ; and under this 
 absolute, irrefragable authority, we are to begin to wori ; 
 admitting not so much as an alteration in the depth of a 
 cavetto, or the breadth of a fillet. Then, when our sight is 
 once accustomed to the grammatical forms and arrangements, 
 and our thoughts familiar with the expression of them aU ; 
 when we can speak this dead language naturally, and apply it 
 
196 TEE LAMP OF OBBDIENOE. 
 
 to whatever ideas we have to render, that is to say, to every 
 practical purpose of life ; then, and not tiU then, a license 
 might be permitted ; and individual authority allowed to 
 change or to add to the received forms, always within certain 
 limits ; the decorations, especially, might be made subjects of 
 variable fancy, and enriched with ideas either original or 
 taken from other schools. And thus in process of time and 
 by a great national movement, it might come to pass, that a 
 new stj'le should arise, as language itself changes ; we might 
 perhaps come to speak Italian instead of Latin, or to speak 
 modem instead of old English ; but this would be a mattei 
 of entire indifference, and a matter, besides, which no deter- 
 mination or desire could either hasten or prevent. That 
 alone which it is in our power to obtain, and which it is our 
 duty to desire, is an unanimous style of some kind, and such 
 comprehension and practice of it as would enable us to adapt 
 its features to the peculiar character of every several building, 
 large or small, domestic, civil, or ecclesiastical. I have said 
 that it was immaterial what style was adopted, so far as re- 
 gards the room for originality which its developement would 
 admit : it is not so, however, when we take into consideration 
 the far more important questions of the facility of adaptation 
 to general purposes, and of the sympathy with which this or that 
 style would be popularly regarded. The choice of Classical 
 or Gothic, again using the latter term in its broadest sense, 
 may be questionable when it regards some single and consid- 
 erable pubhc buUding ; but I cannot conceive it questionable, 
 for an instant, when it regards modem uses in general : I 
 cannot conceive any architect insane enough to project the 
 vulgarization of Greek architecture. Neither can it be ration- 
 ally questionable whether we should adopt early or late, origi- 
 nal or derivative Gothic : if the latter were chosen, it must be 
 either some impotent and ugly degradation, like our own 
 Tudor, or else a style whose grammatical laws it would be 
 nearly impossible to limit or arrange, like the French Flam- 
 boyant. We are equally precluded from adopting styles es- 
 sentially infantine or barbarous, however Herculean their in- 
 fancy, or majestic their outlawry, such as our own Norman. 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENOE. 197 
 
 or the Lombard Romanesque. The choice would lie I think 
 between four styles : — 1. The Pisan Romanesque ; 2. The 
 early Gothic of the Western Italian EepubUcs, advanced as 
 far and as fast as our art would enable us to the Gothic of 
 Giotto ; 3. The Venetian Gothic in its purest developement ; 
 4. The English earliest decorated. The most natural, per- 
 haps the safest choice, would be of the last, weU fenced from 
 chance of again stiffening into the perpendicular ; and per- 
 haps enriched by some mingling of decorative elements from 
 the exquisite decorated Gothic of France, of which, in such 
 cases, it would be needful to accept some weU known ex- 
 amples, as the North door of Eouen and the church of St 
 Urbain at Troyes, for final and limiting authorities on the 
 side of decoration. 
 
 "VJLLL It is almost impossible for us to conceive, in our pres- 
 ent state of doubt and ignorance, the sudden dawn of intel- 
 ligence and fancy, the rapidly increasing sense of power and 
 facility, and, in its proper sense, of Freedom, which such whole- 
 some restraint would instantly cause throughout the whole 
 circle of the arts. Freed from the agitation and embarrass- 
 ment of that liberty of choice which is the cause of half the 
 discomforts of the world ; freed from the accompanying ne- 
 cessity of studying aU past, present, or even possible styles ; 
 and enabled, by concentration of individual, and co-operation 
 of multitudinous energy, to penetrate into the uttermost se- 
 crets of the adopted style, the architect would find his whole 
 understanding enlai'ged, his practical knowledge certain and 
 ready to hand, and his imngiaation playful and vigorous, as a 
 child's would be within a waUed garden, who would sit down 
 and shudder if he were left free in a fenceless plain. How 
 many and how bright would be the results in every direction 
 of interest, not to the arts merely, but to national happiness 
 and virtue, it would be as diflScult to preconceive as it would 
 seem extravagant to state : but the first, perhaps the least, of 
 them would be an increased sense of fellowship among our- 
 selves, a cementing of every patriotic bond of union, a proud 
 and happy recognition of our afiection for and sympathy with 
 each other, and our willingness in all things to submit our^ 
 
198 THE LAMP OF OBBDIENQE. 
 
 selves to every law that would advance the interest of the com. 
 mnnity ; a bamer, also, the best conceivable, to the unhappy 
 rivalry of the upper and middle classes, in houses, furniture, 
 and establishments ; and even a check to much of what is 
 as vain as it is painful in the oppositions of religious parties 
 respecting matters of ritual. These, I say, would be the first 
 consequences. Economy increased tenfold, as it would be by 
 the simplicity of practice; domestic comforts uninterfered 
 with by the caprice and mistakes of architects ignorant of the 
 capacities of the styles they use, and all the symmetry and 
 sightliness of our harmonized streets and pubhc buildings, 
 are things of slighter account in the catalogue of benefits. 
 But it would be mere enthusiasm to endeavor to trace them 
 farther. I have suffered myself too long to indulge in the 
 speculative statement of requirements which perhaps we have 
 more immediate and more serious work than to supply, and 
 of feelings which it may be only contingently in our power to 
 recover. I should be unjustly thought unaware of the diffi- 
 culty of what I have proposed, or of the unimportance of the 
 whole subject as compared vrith many which are brought home 
 to our interests and fixed upon our consideration by the vrild 
 course of the present century. But of difficulty and of im- 
 portance it is for others to judge. I have limited myself to 
 the simple statement of what, if we desire to have architecture, 
 we MTJST primarily endeavor to feel and do : but then it may 
 not be desirable for us to have architecture at all. There are 
 many who feel it to be so ; many who sacrifice much to that 
 end ; and I am soriy to see their energies wasted and their 
 lives disquieted in vain. I have stated, therefore, the only 
 ways in which that end is attainable, without venturing even 
 to express an opinion as to its real desirableness. I have an 
 opinion, and the zeal with which I have spoken may some- 
 times have betrayed it, but I hold to it with no confidence. I 
 know too well the undue importance which the study that 
 every man follows must assume in his own eyes, to trust my 
 own impressions of the dignity of that of Architecture ; and 
 yet I think I cannot be utterly mistaljen in regarding it as at 
 least useful in the sense of a National employment. I am con. 
 
I 
 TEE LAMP OP OBEDIENOE. 199 
 
 firmed in this impression by what I see passing among the 
 states of Europe at this instant. All the horror, distress, and 
 tumult which oppress the foreign nations, are traceable, 
 among the other secondary causes through which God is work- 
 ing out His will upon them, to the simple one of their not 
 having enough to do. I am not blind to the distress among 
 their operatives ; nor do I deny the nearer and visibly active 
 causes of the movement : the recklessness of villany in the 
 leaders of revolt, the absence of common moral principle in 
 the upper classes, and of common courage and honesty in the 
 heads of governments. But these causes themselves are ulti- 
 mately traceable to a deeper and simpler one : the recklessness 
 of the demagogue, the immorality of the middle class, and the 
 effeminacy and treachery of the noble, are traceable in all these 
 nations to the commonest and most fruitful cause of calamity 
 in households — idleness. We think too much in our benev- 
 olent efforts, more multiplied and more vain day by day, of 
 bettering men by giving them advice and instruction. There 
 are few who will take either : the chief thing they need is oc- 
 cupation. I do not mean work in the sense of bread, — I mean 
 work in the sense of mental interest ; for those who either 
 are placed above the necessity of labor for their bread, or who 
 will not work although they should. There is a vast quantity 
 of idle energy among European nations at this time, which 
 ought to go into handicrafts ; there are multitudes of idle 
 semi-gentlemen who ought to be shoemakers and carpenters ; 
 but since they will not be these so long as they can help it, 
 the busiaess of the philanthropist is to find them some other 
 employment than disturbing governments. It is of no use 
 to tell them they are fools, and that they will only make them- 
 selves miserable in the end as well as others : if they have 
 nothing else to do, they will dp mischief ; and the man who 
 wiU not work, and who has no means of intellectual pleasure, 
 is as sure to become an instrument of evil as if he had sold him- 
 self bodily to Satan. I have myself seen enough of the daily 
 life of the young educated men of France and Italy, to ac- 
 count for, as it deserves, the deepest national suffering and 
 degradation ; and though, for the most. part, our commerce 
 
200 TEE LAMP OF OBBDIENOB. 
 
 and our natural habita of industry preserve us from a simi* 
 lar paralysis, yet it -would be •wise to consider whether the 
 forms of employment which we chiefly adopt or promote, are 
 as well calculated as they might be to improve and elevate 
 us. 
 
 We have just spent, for instance, a hundred and fifty mill- 
 ions, with which we have paid men for digging ground from 
 one place and depositing it in another. We have formed a 
 large class of men, the railway navvies, especially reckless, un- 
 manageable, and dangerous. We have maintained besides 
 (let us state the benefits as fairly as possible) a niunber of iron 
 founders in an unhealthy and painful employment ; we have 
 developed (this is at least good) a very large amount of me- 
 chanical ingenuity ; and we have, in fine, attained the powel 
 of going fast from one place to another. Meantime we have 
 had no mental interest or concern ourselves in the operations 
 we have set on foot, but have been left to the usual vanities 
 and cares of our existence. Suppose, on the other hand, that 
 we had employed the same sums in building beautiful houses 
 and churchea We should have maintained the same number 
 of men, not in driving wheelbarrows, but in a distinctly tech- 
 nical, if not intellectual, employment, and those who were 
 more intelligent among them would have been especially 
 happy in that employment, as having room in it for the de- 
 velopement of their fancy, and being directed by it to that ob- 
 servation of beauty which, associated with the pursuit of nat- 
 ural science, at present forms the enjoyment of many of the 
 more intelligent manufacturing operatives. Of mechanical in- 
 genuity, there is, I imagine, at least as much required to build 
 a cathedral as to cut a tunnel or conti'ive a locomotive : we 
 should, therefore, have developed as much science, while the 
 artistical element of intellect would have been added to the 
 gain. Meantime we should ourselves have been made happier 
 and wiser by the interest we should have taken in the work 
 with which we were personally concerned ; and when all was 
 done, instead of the very doubtful advantage of the power of 
 going fast from place to place, we should have had the certain 
 advantage of increased pleasure in stopping at home. 
 
TEE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 201 
 
 IX. There are many other less capacious, but more con- 
 stant, channels of expenditure, quite as disputable in theif 
 beneficial tendency ; and we are, perhaps, hardly enough in 
 the habit of inquiring, with respect to any particular form of 
 luxury or any customary appliance of life, whether the kind 
 of employment it gives to the operative or the dependant be 
 as healthy and fitting an employment as we might otherwise 
 provide for him. It is not enough to find men absolute sub- 
 sistence ; we should think of the manner of life which our 
 demands necessitate ; and endeavor, as far as may be, to 
 make aU our needs such as may, in the supply of them, raise, 
 as well as feed, the poor. It is far better to give work which 
 is above the men, than to educate the men to be above their 
 work. It may be doubted, for instance, whether the habits 
 of luxury, which necessitate a large train of men servants, be 
 a wholesome form of expenditure ; and more, whether the 
 pursuits which have a tendency to enlarge the class of the 
 jockey and the gTOom be a philanthropic form of mental occu- 
 pation. So again, consider the large number of men whose 
 Uves are employed by civilized nations in cutting facets upon 
 jewels. There is much dexterity of hand, patience, and inge- 
 nuity thus bestowed, which are simply burned out in the blaze 
 of the tiara, vnthout, so far as I see, bestowing any pleasure 
 upon those who wear or who behold, at all compensatory for 
 the loss of life and mental power which are involved in the 
 employment of the workman. He would be far more healthily 
 and happily sustained by being set to carve stone ; certain 
 qualities of his mind, for which there is no room in his present 
 occupation, would develope themselves in the nobler ; and I 
 believe that most women would, in the end, prefer the pleas- 
 ure of having buUt a church, or contributed to the adornment 
 of a cathedral, to the pride of bearing a certain quantity of 
 adamant on their foreheads. 
 
 X. I could pursue this subject wiUingly, but I have some 
 strange notions about it which it is perhaps wiser not loosely 
 to set down. I content myself with finally reasserting, what 
 has been throughout the burden of the preceding pages, that 
 whatever rank, or whatever importance, may be attributed or 
 
202 TEE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 attached to their immediate subject, there is at least soma 
 value in the analogies with which its pursuit has presented us, 
 and some instruction in the frequent reference of its common- 
 est necessities to the mighty laws, in the sense and scope of 
 which all men are Builders, whom every hour sees laying the 
 stubble or the stone. 
 
 I have paused, not once nortvdce, as I wrote, and often have 
 checked the course of what might otherwise have been impor- 
 tunate persuasion, as the thought has crossed me, how soon 
 all Architecture may be vain, except that which is not made 
 with hands. There is something ominous in the light which 
 has enabled us to look back with disdain upon the ages among 
 whose lovely vestiges we have been wandering. I could smile 
 when I hear the hopeful exultation of many, at the new reach 
 of worldly science, and vigor of worldly effort ; as if we were 
 again at the beginning of days. There is thunder on the ho- 
 rizon as well as dawn. The sun was risen upon the earth 
 when Lot entered into Zoar. 
 
IfTOTES. 
 
 Note 1. 
 
 Page 21. 
 
 " With the idolatrous Egyptian.'" 
 
 The probability is indeed slight in comparison, but it M a probabilitj 
 nevertheless, and one which is daily on the increase. I trust that I 
 may not be thought to underrate the danger of such sympathy, though 
 I speak lightly of the chance ot it. I have confidence in the central 
 religious body of the English and Scottish people, as being not only 
 untainted with Romanism, but immoveably adverse to it : and, how- 
 ever strangely and swiftly the heresy of the Protestant and victory of 
 the Papist may saem to be extending among us, I feel assured that 
 there are barriers in the living faith of this nation which neither can 
 overpass. Yet this confidence is only in the ultimate faithfulness of a 
 few, not in the security of the nation from the sin and the punishment 
 of partial apostasy. Both have, indeed, in some sort, been committed 
 and suffered already ; and, in expressing my belief of the close connec- 
 tion of the distress and burden which the mass of the people at present 
 sustain, with the encouragement which, in various directions, has been 
 given to the Papist, do not let me be called superstitious or irrational. 
 No man was ever more inclined than I, both by natural disposition and 
 by many ties of early association, to a sympathy with the principles 
 and forms of the Romanist Church ; and there is much in its discipline 
 which conscientiously, as well as sympathetically, I could love and ad- 
 vocate. But, in confessing this strength of aTectionate prejudice, 
 surely I vindicate more respect for my firmly expressed belief, that the 
 entire doctrine and system of that Church is in the fullest sense anti- 
 Christian ; that its lying and idolatrous Power is the darkest plague 
 that ever held commission to hurt the Earth ; that all those yearnings 
 for unity and fellowship, and common obedience, which have been the 
 root of our late heresies, are as false in their grounds as fatal in their 
 termination ; that we never can have the remotest fellowship with the 
 utterers of that fearful Falsehood, and live ; that we have nothing to 
 look to from them but treacherous hostility ; and that, exactly in pro- 
 fortiou to tJjH sternness of our separation from them, will be not onlj 
 
204 NOTES. 
 
 the spiritual but the temporal blessings granted by God to this oonntry. 
 How close has been the correspondence hitherto between the degree of 
 resistance to Romanism marked in our national acts, and the honor 
 with which those acts have been crowned, has been sufficiently proved 
 in a short essay by a writer whose investigations into the influence of 
 Beligion upon the fate of Nations have been singularly earnest and suc- 
 cessful — a writer with whom I faithfully and firmly believe that Eng- 
 land will never be prosperous again, and that the honor of her arms 
 will be tarnished, and her commerce blighted, and her national char- 
 acter degraded, until the Romanist is expelled from the place which 
 has impiously been conceded to him among her legislators. " What- 
 ever be the lot of those to whom error is an inheritance, woe be to the 
 man and the people to whom it is an adoption. If England, free above 
 all other nations, sustained amidst the trials which have covered Eu- 
 rope, before her eyes, with burning and slaughter, and enlightened by 
 the fullest knowledge of divine truth, shall refuse fidelity to the com- 
 pact by which those matchless privileges have been given, her condem- 
 nation will not linger. She has already made one step full of danger. 
 She has committed the capital error of mistaking that for a purely polit- 
 ical question which was a purely religious one. Her foot already hangs 
 over the edge of the precipice. It must be retracted, or the empire is but 
 a name. In the clouds and darkness which seem to be deepening on 
 all human policy — in the gathering tumults of Europe, and the feverish 
 discontents at home — it may be even difficult to discern where the 
 power yet lives to erect the fallen majesty of the constitution once more. 
 But there are mighty means in sincerity ; and if no miracle was ever 
 wrought for the faithless and despa-ring, the country that will help it- 
 self will never be left destitute of the help of Heaven " (Historical Es- 
 says, by the Rev. Dr. Croly, 1843). The first of these essays, "Eng- 
 land the Fortress of Christianity," I most earnestly recommend to the 
 meditation of those who doubt that a special punishment is inflicted by 
 the Deity upon all national crime, and perhaps, of all such crime most 
 instantly upon the betrayal on the part of England of the truth and faith 
 with which she has been entrusted. 
 
 Note IL 
 
 Page 25. 
 
 " Not the gift, but the giving." 
 
 Much attention has lately been directed to the subject of religion* 
 art, and we are now in possession of all kinds of interpretations and 
 classifications of it, and of the leading facts of its historj'. But the 
 greatest question of all connected with it remains entirely unanswered, 
 
NOTES. 205 
 
 What good did it do to real religion ? There is no subject into which I 
 should so much rejoice to see a serious and conscientious inquiry insti- 
 tuted as this ; an inquiry neither undertaken in artistioal enthusiasm 
 nor in monkish sympathy, but dogged, merciless and fearless. I love 
 the religious art of Italy as well as most men, but there is a wide differ- 
 ence between loving it as a manifestation of individual feeling, and 
 jooking to it as an instrument of popular benefit. I have not knowledge 
 enough to form even the shadow of an opinion on this latter point, and 
 I should be most grateful to any one who would put it in my power to 
 do so. There are, as it seems to me, three distinct questions to be con- 
 sidered : the first, What has been the effect of external splendor on 
 the genuineness and earnestness of Christian worship ? the second. What 
 the use of pictorial or sculptural representation in the communication of 
 Christian historical knowledge, or excitement of affectionate imagina- 
 tion ? the third. What the influence of the practice of religious art on 
 the life of the artist ? 
 
 In answering these inquiries, we should have to consider separately 
 every collateral influence and circumstance ; and, by a most subtle 
 analysis, to eliminate the real effect of art from the effects of the abuses 
 with which it was associated. This could be done only by a Christian ; 
 not a man who would fall in love with a sweet color or sweet expres- 
 sion, but who would look for true faith and consistent life as the object 
 of all. It never has been done yet, and the question remains a subject 
 of vain and endless contention between parties of opposite prejudices 
 and temperaments. 
 
 Note IIL 
 
 Page 26. 
 
 " TotTie concealment of what ia reaUy good or great." 
 
 I HATE often been surprised at the supposition that Romanism, in its 
 present condition, could either patronise art or profit by it. The noble 
 painted windows of St. Maclou at Rouen, and many other churches in 
 .France, are entirely blocked up behind the altars by the erection of 
 huge gilded wooden sunbeams, with interspersed cherubs. 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 Page 33. 
 
 " With different pattern oftroMries in each." 
 
 I HATE certainly not examined the seven hundred and four traceries 
 (four to each niche) so as to be sure that none are alike ; but they have 
 the aspect of continual variation, and even the roses of the pendants of 
 the small groined niche roofs are all of different patterns. 
 
206 NOTES. 
 
 Note V. 
 Page 43. 
 " lig flamboyant traceries of the last and most degraded forma." 
 They are noticed by Mr. Whewell as forming the figure of the fleur-da 
 lis, always a mark, when in tracery bars, of the most debased flamboy- 
 ant. It occurs in the central tower of Bayeux, very richly in the but" 
 tresses of St. Gervais at Falaise, and in the small niches of some of the 
 domestic buildings at Rouen. Nor is it only the tower of St. Ouen 
 which is overrated. Its nave is a base imitation, in the flamboyant pe- 
 riod, of an early Gothic arrangement ; the niches on its piers are bar- 
 barisms ; there is a huge square shaft run through the ceiling of the 
 aisles to support the nave piers, the vigliest excrescence I ever saw on 
 a Gothic building ; the traceries of the nave are the most insipid and 
 faded flamboyant ; those of the transept clerestory present a singularly 
 distorted condition of perpendicular ; even the elaborate door of the 
 south transept is, for its fine period, extravagant and almost grotesque 
 in its foliation and pendants. There is nothing truly fine in the church 
 but the choir, the light triforium, and tall clerestory, the circle of East- 
 ern chapels, the details of sculpture, and the general lightness of pro- 
 portion ; these merits being seen to the utmost advantage by the freo* 
 dom of the body of the church from all incumbrance. 
 
 Note VL 
 Page 43. 
 CoMPAKE niad S. 1. 319 with Odyssey n. I. 5—10. 
 
 Note VU. 
 Page 44. 
 " Does not admit iron as a constructive material.' 
 Except in Chaucer's noble temple of Mars. 
 
 " And dounward from an hill under a bent, 
 Ther stood the temple of Mars, armipotent. 
 Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree 
 Was longe and streite, and gastly for to see. 
 And thereout^ came a rage and swiche a vise, 
 That it made all the gates for to rise. 
 The northern light in at the dore shone, 
 For window on the wall ne was ther none, 
 Thurgh which men mighten any light di9C?TO9 
 The dore was all of athftBiftut eterne, 
 
NOTES. 207 
 
 Tclenohed overtliwart and onde long 
 With yren tough, and for to make it strong, 
 Every piler the temple to sustene 
 Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene." 
 
 The Knighte's Taie. 
 
 There is, hy the hye, an exquisite piece of architectural color just be' 
 fore: 
 
 " And northward, iu a turret on the wall 
 Of aiabaster white, and red corall, 
 An oratorie riche for to see. 
 In worship of Diane of Chastitee." 
 
 Note Vni. 
 
 Page 44. 
 
 " I%e Builders of Salisbury." 
 
 " This way of tying walls together with iron, instead of making them 
 »f that substance and form, that they shall naturally poise themselves 
 upon tlieir buttment, is against the rules of good architecture, not only 
 because iron is corruptible by rust, but because it is fallacious, having 
 unequal veins in the metal, some places of the same bar being three 
 times stronger than others, and yet all sound to appearance. " Survey 
 of Salisbury' Cathedral in 1068, by Sir C. Wren. For my own part, I 
 think it better work to bind a tower with iron, than to support a false 
 dome by a brick pyramid. 
 
 NOTB IX 
 
 Page 60. 
 
 Plate III. 
 
 In this plate, figures 4, 5, and 6, are glazed windows, but fig. 2 is the 
 open light of a belfry tower, and figures 1 and 3 are in triforia, the lat- 
 ter also occurring filled, on the central tower of Coutanoes. 
 
 Note X. 
 Page 94. 
 " Ornaments of the transept towers of Bouen." 
 The reader cannot but observe agreeableness, as a mere arrangement of 
 shade, which especially belongs to the " sacred trefoil." I do not think 
 that the element of foliation has been enough insisted upon in its inti- 
 mate relations with the power of Gothic work. If I were asked what 
 
208 NOTES. 
 
 was the most distinctive feature of its perfect style, I should say the 
 Trefoil. It is the very soul of it ; and I think tlie loveliest Gothic is 
 always formed upon simple and bold tracings of it, taking place between 
 the blank lancet arch on the one hand, and the overcharged cinque- 
 foiled arch on the other. 
 
 Note XI. 
 
 Page 95. 
 
 " And levelled cusps of stone." 
 
 The plate represents one of the lateral windows of the third story of 
 the Palazzo Foscari. It was drawn from the opposite side of the Grand 
 Canal, and the lines of its traceries are therefore given as they appear in 
 somewhat distant effect. It shows only segments of the characteristic 
 quatrefoils of the central windows. I found by measurement their cou- 
 'truction exceedingly simple. Four circles are drawn in contact within 
 the large circle. Two tangential lines are then drawn to each opposite 
 pair, enclosing the four circles in a hollow cross. An inner circle struck 
 through the intersections of the circles by the tangents, truncates the 
 cusps. 
 
 NoteXII. 
 
 Page 134. 
 
 " Into vertical equal parts." 
 
 Not absolutely so. There are variations partly accidental (or at least 
 compelled by the architect's effort to recover the vertical), between 
 the sides of the stories ; and the upper and lower story are taller than 
 the rest. There is, however, an apparent equality between five out of 
 the eight tiers. 
 
 Note tttt. 
 
 Page 133. 
 
 " Never paint a column with, vertical lines." 
 
 It should be observed, however, that any pattern which gives oppo- 
 nent lines in its parts, may be arranged on lines parallel with the mai u 
 E*iructure. Thus, rows of diamonds, like spots on a snake's back, or the 
 bones on a sturgeon, are exquisitely applied both to vertical and spiral 
 columns. The loveliest Instances of such decoration that I know, are 
 the pillars of the cloister of St. John Lateran, lately illustrated by Mr. 
 Digby Wyatt, in his most valuable and faithful work on antique mo- 
 B»ic. 
 
NOTES. 20y 
 
 Note XIV. 
 
 Page 139. 
 
 On the cover of this volume the reader will find some figure outlines 
 of the same period and character, from the floor of San Minialo at Flor- 
 ence. I have to thank its designer, Mr. W. Harry Rogers, for his intelli- 
 gent arrangement of them, and graceful adaptation of the oonuecting 
 arabesque. (Stamp on cloth cover of London edition.) 
 
 Note XV. 
 
 Page 169. 
 
 " Thefiowers lost tlieir light, the river its music.''' 
 
 Yet not all their light, nor all their music. Compare Modern Paint- 
 ers, vol. ii. sec. 1. chap. iv. § 8. 
 
 Note XVL 
 
 Page 181. 
 
 " By the artists of tlw time of Perides." 
 
 This subordination was first remarked to me by a friend, whose pro- 
 found knowledge of Greek art will not, I trust, be reserved always for 
 the advantage of his friends only : Mr. C. Newton, of the British Mu- 
 seum. 
 
 Note XVH. 
 Page 188. 
 " In one of flie noblest poems.'" 
 Coleridge's Ode to France : 
 
 " Ye Clouds I that far above me float and pause, 
 Whose pathless march no mortal may control I 
 Ye Ocean- Waves ! that wheresoe'er ye roll, 
 Yield homage only to eternal laws I 
 Ye Woods I that listen to the night-birds singing; 
 Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, 
 Save when your own imperious branches swinging, 
 
 Have made a solemn music of the wind I 
 Where, like a man beloved of God, 
 Through glooms, which never woodman trod. 
 
 How oft, pursuing fancies holy, 
 My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, 
 Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, 
 14 
 
210 NOTES. 
 
 By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound I 
 ye loud Waves I and ye Forests high ! 
 
 And ye Clouds that far above me soared I 
 Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky I 
 Yea, everything that is and will be free I 
 Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, 
 With what deep worship I have still adored 
 The spirit of divinest Liberty." 
 
 Noble verse, but erring thought : contrast George Herbert :— 
 
 " Slight those who say amidst their sickly healths, 
 Thou livest by rule. What doth not so but man f 
 Houses are built by rule and Commouwealths. 
 Entice the trusty sun, if that you can, 
 From his ecliptic line ; beckon the sky. 
 Who lives by rule then, keeps good company. 
 
 ♦' Who keeps no guard upon himself is slack, 
 And rots to nothing at the next great thaw ; 
 Man is a shop of rules : a well-truss'd pack 
 Wliose every parcel underwrites a law. 
 liOSe not thyself, nor give thy humors way ; 
 God gave them to thee under lock and key.*' 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING 
 
 DELIVERED AT EDINBURGH, IN NOVEMBER, 185}. 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 The following Lectures are printed, as far as possible, just 
 as they were delivered. Here and there a sentence which 
 seemed obscure has been mended, and the passages which had 
 not been previously written, have been, of course imperfectly, 
 suppHed from memory. But I am well assured that nothing 
 of any substantial importance, which was said in the lecture- 
 room, is either omitted, or altered in its signification, with 
 the exception only of a few sentences struck out from the 
 notice of the works of Turner, in consequence of the impossi' 
 bility of engraving the drawings by which they were illustrated, 
 except at a cost which would have too much raised the price 
 of the volume. Some elucidatory remarks have, however, 
 been added at the close of the second and fourth Lectures, 
 which I hope may be of more use than the passages which I 
 was obliged to omit. 
 
 The drawings by which the Lectures on Architecture were 
 illustrated have been carefully reduced, and well transferred 
 to wood by Mr. Thurston Thompson. Those which were 
 given in the course of the notices of schools of painting could 
 not be so transferred, having been drawn in colour ; and I 
 have therefore merely had a few lines, absolutely necessary to 
 make the text intelligible, copied from engravings. 
 
 I forgot, in preparing the second Lecture for the press, to 
 quote a passage from Lord Lindsay's " Christian Art," illus- 
 trative of what is said in that lecture (page 57), respecting the 
 energy of the mediteval repubUcs.' This passage, describing 
 
214 P'SEFAOR 
 
 the circumstances under wliicli the Campanile of the Duomo 
 of Florence was built, is interesting also as noticing the 
 universaHty of talent which was required of architects ; and 
 which, as I have asserted in the Addenda (p. 65), always 
 ought to be required of them. I do not, however, now 
 regret the omission, as I cannot easUy imagine a better 
 preface to an essay on civil architecture than this simple 
 statement. 
 
 "In 1332, Giotto was chosen to erect it (the campanile), on 
 the ground, avowedly, of the universality of his talents, with 
 the appointment of Capo Maestro, or chief Architect (chief 
 Master, I should rather write), of the Cathedral and its de- 
 pendencies, a yearly salary of one hundred gold florins, and 
 the privilege of citizenship, under the special understanding 
 that he was not to quit Florence. His designs being ap- 
 proved of, the republic passed a decree in the spring of 1334, 
 that the Campanile should be built so as to exceed in mag- 
 nificence, height, and excellence of workmanship whatever in 
 that kind had been achieved by the Greeks and Romans in 
 the time of their utmost power and greatness. The first 
 stone was laid, accordingly, with great pomp, on the 18th of 
 July following, and the work prosecuted with vigour, and with 
 such costliness and utter disregard of expense, that a citizen 
 of Verona, looking on, exclaimed that the republic was taxing 
 her strength too far, that the united resources of two great 
 monarchs would be insufficient to complete it ; a criticism 
 which the Signoria resented by confining bim for two months 
 in prison, and afterwards conducting him through the public 
 treasury, to teach him that the Florentines could build their 
 whole city of marble, and not one poor steeple only, were 
 they so inclined." 
 
 I see that " The Builder," vol. xi. page 690, has been en- 
 deavouring to inspire the citizens of Leeds with some pride 
 
PREFACE. 215 
 
 of this kind respecting their town-haU. The pride would bo 
 well, but I sincerely ti'ust that the tower ia question may not 
 be bmlt on the design there proposed. I am sorry to have to 
 write a special criticism, but it must be remembered that the 
 best works, by the best men living, are in this age abused 
 without mercy by nameless critics ; and it would be imjust 
 to the pubUc, if those who have given their names as guar- 
 antee for their sincerity never had the courage to enter a pro- 
 test against the execution of designs which appear to them 
 unworthy. 
 
 Dbnmabk Hill, 
 16th April, 1854. 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTIIG. 
 
 IiECTDEE L. 
 
 I THINK myself peculiarly happy in being permitted to ad- 
 dress the citizens of Edinburgh on the subject of architecture, 
 for it is one which, they cannot but feel, interests them nearly. 
 Of all the cities ia the British Islands, Edinburgh is the one 
 which presents most advantages for the display of a noble 
 building ; and which, on the other hand, sustains most injury 
 in the erection of a commonplace or unworthy one. You are 
 all proud of your city : surely you must feel it a duty in some 
 sort to justify your pride ; that is to say, to give yourselves a 
 right to be proud of it. That you were born under the shadow 
 of its two fantastic mountains, — that you Uve where from 
 your room windows you can trace the shores of its glittering 
 Firth, are no rightful subjects of pride. Tou did not raise 
 the mountains, nor shape the shores ; and the historical 
 houses of your Canongate, and the broad battlements of your 
 castle, reflect honour upon you only through your ancestors. 
 Before you boast of your city, before even you venture to call 
 it yours, ought you not scrupulously to weigh the exact share 
 you have had in adding to it or adorning it, to calculate seri- 
 ou^y the influence upon its aspect which the work of your 
 own hands has exercised ? I do not say that, even when you 
 
218 LBOTUUBS ON AROEITMOTURW 
 
 regard your city in this scrupulous and testing spirit, you 
 have not considerable ground for exultation. As far as I am 
 acquainted with modem architecture, I am aware of no streets 
 which, in simplicity and manliness of style, or general breadth 
 and brightness of effect equal those of the New Town of Edin- 
 burgh, But yet I am well persuaded that as you traverse 
 those streets, your feelings of pleasure and pride in them are 
 much complicated with those which are excited entirely by 
 the surrounding scenery. As you walk up or down George 
 Street, for instance, do you not look eagerly for every open- 
 ing to the north and south, which lets in the lustre of the 
 Firth of Forth, or the rugged outline of the Castle rock? 
 Taie away the sear-waves, and the dark basalt, and I fear you 
 would find little to interest you in George Street by itself. 
 Now I remember a city, more nobly placed even than your 
 Edinburgh, which, instead of the valley that you have now filled 
 by hnes of railroad, has a broad and rushing river of blue 
 water sweeping through the heart of it ; which, for the dark 
 and solitary rock that bears your castle, has an amphitheatre 
 of cliffs crested vrith cypr-esses and oHve ; which, for the two 
 masses of Arthur's Seat and the ranges of the Pentlands, has 
 a chain of blue mountains higher than the haughtiest peaks 
 of your Highlands ; and which, for your far-away Ben Ledi 
 and Ben More, has the great central chain of the St. Gothard 
 Alps : and yet, as you go out of the gates, and walk in the 
 suburban streets of that city — I mean Verona — the eye never 
 seeks to rest on that external scenery, however gorgeous ; it 
 does not look for the gaps between the houses, as you do here : 
 it may for a few moments follow the broken Une of the great 
 Alpine battlements ; but it is only where they form a back- 
 ground for other battlements, built by the hand of man. 
 There is no necessity felt to dwell on the blue river or the 
 burning hills. The heart and eye have enough to do in the 
 streets of the city itself ; they are contented there ; nay, they 
 sometimes turn from the natural scenery, as if too savage and 
 solitary, to dwell with a deeper interest on the palace walla 
 that cast their shade upon the streets, and the crowd of tow- 
 ers that rise out of that shadow into the depth of the sky. 
 
T 
 
 I <:, ■ ' p^ty'fr-'""' 'i '' 
 
 
 F.g. 1 
 
 ^\\\\\lll////| 
 
 Fig t,. 
 
 PLATiD I,— (Page 219— Vol. V.) 
 Illustrative Diagrams. 
 
AND PAINTING. 219 
 
 That is a city to be proud of, indeed ; and it is this kind 
 of architectural dignity which you should aim at, in what 
 you add to Edinburgh or rebuild in it. For remember, you 
 must either help your scenery or destroy it ; whatever you 
 do has an effect of one kind or the other ; it is never indif- 
 ferent. But, above all, remember that it is chiefly by pri- 
 vate, not by public, effort that your city must be adorned. 
 It does not matter how many beautifxil public buildings you 
 possess, if they are not supported by, and in harmony with, 
 the private houses of the town. Neither the mind nor the 
 eye will accept a new college, or a new hospital, or a new in- 
 stitution, for a city. It is the Canongate, and the Princes 
 Street, and the High Street that are Edinburgh. It is in 
 your own private houses that the real majesty of Edinburgh 
 must consist ; and, what is more, it must be by your own 
 personal interest that the style of the architecture which rises 
 around you must be principally guided. Do not think that 
 you can have good architecture merely by paying for it. It 
 is not by subscribing Hberally for a large building once in 
 forty years that you can call up architects and inspiration. 
 It is only by active and sympathetic attention to the domes- 
 tic and every day work which is done for each of you, that 
 you can educate either yourselves to the feeUng, or your 
 builders to the doing, of what is truly great. 
 
 Well but, you will answer, you cannot feel interested in 
 architecture : you do not care about it, and cannot care about 
 it I know you cannot About such architecture as is built 
 now-a-days, no mortal ever did or could care. You do not 
 feel interested in hearing the same thing over and over again ; 
 — why do you suppose you can feel interested in seeing the 
 same thing over and over again, were that thing even the 
 best and most beautiful in the world ? Now, you all know 
 the kind of window which you usually buUd in Edinburgh : 
 here is an example of the head of one {fig. 1.), a massy lintel 
 of a single stone, laid across from side to side, with bold 
 square-cut jambs — in fact, the simplest form it is possible to 
 build. It is by no means a bad form ; on the contrary, it ia 
 very manly and vigorous, and has a certain dignity in its 
 
220 LECTURES ON ARGHITECTURE 
 
 utter refusal of ornament. But I cannot say it is entertain- 
 ing. How many windows precisely of this form do you sup- 
 pose there are in the New Town of Edinburgh ? I have not 
 counted them aU through the town, but I counted them this 
 morning along this very Queen Street, in which your Hall is ; 
 and on the one side of that street, there are of these windows, 
 absolutely similar to this example, and altogether devoid of 
 any relief by decoration, six hundred and seventy-eight.* 
 And your decorations are just as monotonous as your sim- 
 pUcities. How many Corinthian and Doric columns do you 
 think there are in your banks, and post-offices, institutions, 
 and I know not what else, one exactly like another ? — and yet 
 you expect to be interested ! Nay, but, you will answer me 
 again, we see sunrises and sunsets, and violets and roses, 
 over and over again, and we do not tire of them. What ! 
 did you ever see one sunrise like another? does not God 
 vary his clouds for you every morning and every night? 
 though, indeed, there is enough in the disappearing and ap- 
 pearing of the great orb above the rolling of the world, to 
 interest all of us, one would think, for as many times as we 
 shall see it ; and yet the aspect of it is changed for us daily. 
 Tou see violets and roses often, and are not tired of them. 
 True ! but you did not often see two roses alike, or, if you 
 did, you took care not to put them beside each other in the 
 same nosegay, for fear your nosegay should be uninterest- 
 ing ; and yet you think you can put 150,000 square windows 
 side by side in the same streets, and stUl be interested by 
 them. Why, if I were to say the same thing over and over 
 again, for the single hour you are going to let me talk to 
 you, would you hsten to me? and yet you let your architects 
 do the same thing over and over again for three centuries, 
 and expect to be interested by their architecture ; with a far- 
 ther disadvantage on the side of the builder, as compared 
 with the speaker, that my wasted words would cost you but 
 little, but his wasted stones have cost you no small part of 
 your incomes. 
 
 * Including York Place and Pioardy Place, bnt not counting any win 
 doir which has mouldings. 
 
Fig. 3. 
 
 PLATE ir.— (Page 221— Vol. V.) 
 Window rx Oakham Castle. 
 
AND PAINTING. 281 
 
 " Well, but," you still think within yourselves, " it is not 
 right that architecture should be interesting. It is a very 
 grand thing, this architecture, but essentially unentertain- 
 ing. It is its duty to be dull, it is monotonous by law : it 
 cannot be correct and yet amusing." 
 
 Beheve me, it is not so. All things that are worth doing 
 in art, are interesting and attractive when they are done. 
 There is no law of right which consecrates dulness. The 
 proof of a thing's being right is, that it has power over the 
 heart ; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us. I do not say 
 that it has influence over all, but it has over a large class, one 
 kind of art being fit for one class, and another for another ; 
 and there is no goodness in art which is independent of the 
 power of pleasing. Yet, do not mistake me ; I do not mean 
 that there is no such thing as neglect of the best art, or de- 
 light in the worst, just as many men neglect nature, and feed 
 upon what is artificial and base ; but I mean, that all good 
 art has the capacity of pleasing, if people will attend to it ; 
 that there is no law against its pleasing ; but, on the con- 
 trary, something wrong either in the spectator or the art, 
 when it ceases to please. Now, therefore, if you feel that 
 your present school of architecture is unattractive to you, I 
 say there is something wrong, either in the architecture or in 
 you ; and I trust you will not think I mean to flatter you 
 when I tell you, that the wrong is not in you, but in the 
 architecture. Look at this for a moment {fig. 2.); it is a 
 window actually existing — a window of an English domestic 
 building * — a vrindow buUt six hundred years ago. You wOl 
 not tell me you have no pleasiure in looking at this ; or that 
 you could not, by any possibility, become interested in the 
 art which produced it ; or that, if every window in your 
 streets were of some such form, with perpetual change in 
 their ornaments, you would pass up and down the street with 
 as much indifference as now, when your windows are of this 
 form {f,g. 1.). Can you for an instant suppose that the archi- 
 tect was a greater or wiser man who built this, than he who 
 
 * Oakham Castle. I have enlarged this illustration from Mr. Hudsoii 
 ITurner's admirable work on the domestic architecture ot England. 
 
222 LECTURES ON ABOHITECTURE 
 
 built t' at ? or that in the arrangement of these dull and monofc 
 onous stones there is more wit and sense than you can pene- 
 trate ? BeHeve me, the wrong is not in you ; you would all like 
 the best things best, if you only saw them. What is wrong in 
 you is your temper, not your taste ; your patient and trust- 
 ful temper, which Uves in houses whose architecture it takes 
 for granted, and subscribes to public edifices from which it 
 derives no enjoyment. 
 
 " Well, but what are we to do ? " you will say to me ; we 
 cannot make architects of ourselves. Pardon me, you can — 
 and you ought. Architecture is an art for all men to learn, 
 because all are concerned with it ; and it is so simple, that 
 there is no excuse for not being acquainted with its primary 
 rules, any more than for ignorance of grammar or of spell- 
 ing, which are both of them far more difficult sciences. Par 
 less trouble than is necessary to learn how to play chess, or 
 whist, or goflf, tolerably, — far less than a schoolboy takes to 
 win the meanest prize of the passing year, would acquaint 
 you vrith aU the main principles of the construction of a 
 Gothic cathedral, and I believe you would hardly find the 
 study less amusing. But be that as it may, there are one or 
 two broad principles which need only be stated to be under- 
 stood and accepted ; and those I mean to lay before you, 
 with your permission, before you leave this room. 
 
 You must all, of course, have observed that the principal 
 distinctions between existing styles of architecture depend on 
 their methods of roofing any space, as a window or door for 
 instance, or a space between pillars ; that is to say, that the 
 character of Greek architecture, and of all that is derived 
 from it, depends on its roofing a space with a single stone 
 laid from side to side ; the character of Koman architecture, 
 and of all derived from it, depends on its roofing spaces with 
 round arches ; and the character of Gothic architecture de- 
 pends on its roofing spaces with pointed arches or gables. I 
 need not, of course, in any way follow out for you the mode 
 in which the Greek system of architecture is derived from 
 the horizontal lintel ; but I ought perhaps to explain, that by 
 Koman architecture I do not mean that spurious condition 
 
AND PAINTING. 223 
 
 of temple form wHcli was nothing more than a luscious imi- 
 tation of the Greek ; but I mean that architecture in which 
 the Eoman spirit truly manifested itself, the magnificent 
 vaultings of the aqueduct and the bath, and the colossal 
 lieaping of the rough stones in the arches of the amphi 
 theatre ; an architecture full of expression of gigantic power 
 .•nd strength of will, and from which ai-e dir'ectly derived all 
 our most impressive early buildings, called, as you know, by 
 various antiquaries, Saxon, Norman, or Eomanesque. Now 
 the first point I wish to insist upon is, that the Greek system, 
 considered merely as a piece of construction, is weak and 
 barbarous compared with the two others. For instance, in 
 the case of a large window or door, such as fig. 1, if you have 
 at your disposal a single large and long stone you may indeed 
 roof it in the Greek manner, as you have done here, with com- 
 parative security ; but it is always expensive to obtain and to 
 raise to their place stones of this large size, and in many 
 places nearly impossible to obtain them at all ; and if you 
 have not such stones, and still insist upon roofing the space in 
 the Greek way, that is to say, upon having a square window, 
 you must do it by the miserable feeble adjustment of bricks, 
 fig. 3.* You are ■well aware, of course, that this latter is the 
 usual way in which such windows are now built in England ; 
 you are fortunate enough here in the north to be able to ob- 
 tain single stones, and this circumstance alone gives a con- 
 siderable degree of grandeur to your buildings. But in all 
 cases, and however built, you cannot but see in a moment 
 that this cross bar is weak and imperfect. It may be strong 
 enough for all immediate intents and purposes, but it is not so 
 strong as it might be : however well the house is built, it will 
 still not stand so long as if it had been better constructed ; and 
 there is hardly a day passes but you may see some rent or flaw 
 in bad buildings of this kind. You may see one whenever you 
 choose in one of your most costly, and most ugly buildings, 
 the great church with the dome, at the end of George Street. 
 1 tliink I never saw a building with the principal entrance so 
 utterly ghastly and oppressive ; and it is as weak as it is 
 • On this subject see " The Builder," vol. xi. p. 709, 
 
224 LEGTURB8 ON ARCHITEGTUBE 
 
 ghastly. The huge horizontal lintel above the door is already 
 split right through. But you are not aware of a thousandth 
 part of the evU : the pieces of building that you see are all 
 carefully done ; it is in the parts that are to be concealed by 
 paint and plaster that the bad building of the day is thor- 
 oughly committed. The main mischief lies in the strange 
 devices that are used to support the long horizontal cross 
 beams of our larger apartments and shops, and the frame- 
 work of unseen walls ; girders and ties of cast iron, and props 
 and wedges, and laths nailed and bolted together, on mar- 
 vellously scientific principles ; so scientific, that every now 
 and then, when some tender reparation is undertaken by the 
 unconscious householder, the whole house crashes into a heap 
 of ruin, so total, that the jury which sits on the bodies of the 
 inhabitants cannot tell what has been the matter with it, and 
 returns a dim verdict of accidental death. Did you read the 
 account of the proceedings at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham 
 the other day ? Some dozen of men crushed up among the 
 splinters of the scafiblding in an instant, nobody knew why. 
 All the engineers declare the scaffolding to have been erected 
 on the best principles, — that the fall of it is as much a mys- 
 tery as if it had fallen from heaven, and were all meteoric 
 stones. The jury go to Sydenham and look at the heap of 
 shattered bolts and girders, and come back as wise as they 
 went. Accidental death. Yes verily ; the lives of all those 
 dozen of men had been hanging for months at the mercy of 
 a flaw in an inch or two of cast iron. Very accidental in- 
 deed ! Not the less pitiable. I grant it not to be an easy 
 thing to raise scaffolding to the height of the Crystal Palace 
 vrithout incurring some danger, but that is no reason why your 
 houses should all be nothing but scaffolding. The common 
 system of support of walls over shops is now nothing but 
 permanent scaffolding ; part of iron, part of wood, part of 
 brick ; in its skeleton state awful to behold ; the weight of 
 three or four stories of wall resting sometimes on two or three 
 pillars of the size of gas pipes, sometimes on a single cross 
 beam of wood, laid across from party wall to party wall in 
 the Greek manner. I have a vivid recollection at this mo- 
 
AND PAmTING. 225 
 
 ment of a vast heap of splinters in the Borough Bead, close 
 to St. George's Southwark, in the road between my own 
 house and London. I had passed it the day before, a goodly 
 shop front, and sufficient hoase above, vrith a few repairs un- 
 dertaken in the shop before opening a new business. The 
 master and mistress had found it dusty that afternoon, and 
 went out to tea. "When they came back in the evening, they 
 found their whole house in the form of a heap of bricks 
 blocking the roadway, with a party of men digging out their 
 cook. But I do not insist on casualties Uke these, disgrace- 
 ful to us as they are, for it is, of course, perfectly possible to 
 build a perfectly secure house or a secure window in the 
 Greek manner ; but the simple fact is, that in order to ob- 
 tain in the cross lintel the same amount of strength which 
 you can obtain in a pointed arch, you must go to an im- 
 mensely greater cost in stone or in labour. Stonehenge is 
 strong enough, but it takes some trouble to buUd in the man- 
 ner of Stonelj^ge ; and Stonehenge itself is not so strong as 
 an arch of the Colosseum. You could not raise a circle of 
 four Stonehenges, one over the other, with safety ; and as it 
 is, more of the cross-stones are fallen upon the plain of Sarum 
 than arches rent away, except by the hand of man, from the 
 mighty circle of Eome. But I waste words ; — your own com- 
 mon sense must show you in a moment that this is a weak 
 form ; and there is not at this instant a single street in 
 London where some house could not be pointed out with a 
 flaw running through its brickwork, and repairs rendered 
 necessary xa consequence, merely owing to the adoption of 
 this bad form ; and that our builders know so well, that in 
 myriads of instances you find them actually throwing con- 
 cealed arches above the horizontal lintels to take the weight 
 off them ; and the gabled decoration at the top of some Pal- 
 ladian windows, is merely the ornamental form resulting from 
 a bold device of the old Boman builders to effect the same 
 pm-pose. 
 
 But there is a farther reason for our adopting the pointed 
 arch than its being the sia-ongest form ; it is also the most 
 beautiful form in which a window or door-head can be built 
 
22G LECTUBBa ON ABGHITEGTUBE 
 
 Not tlie most beautiful because it is the strongest ; but most 
 beautiful, because its form is one of those which, as we know 
 by its frequent occurrence in the work of nature around us, 
 has been appointed by the Deity to be an everlasting source 
 of pleasure to the human mind. 
 
 Gather a branch from any of the trees or flowers to which 
 the earth owes its principal beauty. Tou will find that every 
 one of its leaves is terminated, more or less, in the form of 
 the pointed arch ; and to that form owes its grace and char- 
 acter. I wiU take, for instance, a spray of the tree which so 
 gracefully adorns your Scottish glens and crags — there is no 
 loveHer in the world — the common ash. Here is a sketch of 
 the clusters of leaves which form the extremity of one of its 
 young shoots (fig. 4.) ; and, by the way, it will furnish us vyith 
 an interesting illustration of another error in modem archi- 
 tectural systems. You know how fond modem architects, like 
 foolish modern poUticians, are of their equalities, and simi- 
 larities ; how necessary they think it that each part of a 
 building should be like every other part. Now Nature abhors 
 equality, and similitude, just as much as foolish men love 
 them. You wiU find that the ends of the shoots of the ash 
 are composed of four * green stalks bearing leaves, spring- 
 ing in the form of a cross, if seen from above, as in fig. 5., 
 Plate I., and at first you wiU suppose the four arms of the 
 cross are equal. But look more closely, and you wiU find that 
 two opposite arms or stalks have only five leaves each, and 
 the other two have seven, or else, two have seven, and the 
 other two nine ; but always one pair of stalks has two leaves 
 more than the other pair. Sometimes the tree gets a little 
 puzzled, and forgets which is to be the longest stalk, and be- 
 gins with a stem for seven leaves where it should have nine, 
 and then recollects itself at the last minute, and puts on an- 
 other leaf in a great hurry, and so produces a stalk with eight 
 leaves ; but all this care it takes merely to keep itself out of 
 equaHties ; and aU its grace and power of pleasing are owing 
 
 * Sometimes of six ; that is to say, they spring in pairs ; only the two 
 uppermost pairs, sometimes the three uppermost, spring so close togotUBJ 
 as to appear one cluster. 
 
Fig. 4. 
 
 PLATE irr-(Paixe 22G-Y0I. v.) 
 
 Spkay op A8,i-T,tEE, AKP Lmpkotkment of the Same 
 
 ON Greek Phixoiples, 
 
AND PAINTING. 227 
 
 to its doing so, together with the lovely curves in which its 
 stalks, thus arranged, spring from the main bough. Fig. 5. 
 is a plan of their arrangement merely, but fig. 4. is the way 
 in which you are most likely to see them : and observe, they 
 spring from the stalk precisely as a Gothic vaulted roof springs, 
 each stalk representing a rib of the roof, and the leaves ita 
 crossing stones ; and the beauty of. each of those leaves is al- 
 together owing to its terminating in the Gothic form, the 
 pointed arch. Now do you think you would have liked your 
 ash trees as well, if Natxire had taught them Greek, and shown 
 them how to grow according to the received Attic architectural 
 rules of right? I will try you. Here is a cluster of ash leaves, 
 which I have grown expressly for you on Greek principles 
 (Jig. 6., Plate m.). How do you like it ? 
 
 Observe, I have played you no trick in this comparison. It 
 is perfectly fair in aU respects. I have merely substituted 
 for the beautiful spring of the Gothic vaulting in the ash 
 bough, a cross lintel, and then, in order to raise the leaves to 
 the same height, I introduce vertical columns, and I make 
 the leaves square-headed instead of pointed, and their lateral 
 ribs at right angles with the central rib, instead of sloping 
 from ii I have, indeed, only given you two boughs instead 
 of four ; because the perspective of the crossing ones could 
 not have been given without confusing the figure ; but I im- 
 agine) you have quite enough of them as it ia 
 
 Nay, but some of you instantly answer, if we had been as 
 long accustomed to square-leaved ash trees as we have been 
 to sharp-leaved ash trees, we should like them just as well. 
 Do not think it. Axe you not much more accustomed to grey 
 whinstone and brown sandstone than you are to inibies or 
 emeralds ? and yet wiU you teU me you think them as beau- 
 tiful ? Ai-e you not more accustomed to the ordinaiy voices 
 of men than to the perfect accents of sweet singing ? yet do 
 you not instantly declare the song to be loveUest ? Examine 
 well the channels of your admiration, and you wiU find that 
 they are, in verity, as unchangeable as the channels of your 
 heart's blood ; that just as by the pressure of a bandage, or 
 by unwholesome and perpetual action of some part of the 
 
228 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 body, that blood may be wasted or arrested, and in its stag« 
 nancy cease to nourish the frame or in its disturbed flow afi 
 feet it with incurable disease, so also admiration itself may 
 by the bandages of fashion, bound close over the eyes and 
 the arteries of the soul, be arrested in its natural pulse and 
 healthy flow ; but that wherever the artificial pressure is re- 
 moved, it will return into that bed which has been traced for 
 it by the finger of God. 
 
 Consider this subject well, and you vnU. find that custom 
 has indeed no real influence upon our feehngs of the beauti- 
 ful, except in dulling and checking them ; that is to say, it 
 will and does, as we advance in years, deaden in some degree 
 our enjoyment of all beauty, but it in no wise influences our 
 determination of what is beautiful and what is not. You see 
 the broad blue sky every day over your heads ; but you do 
 not for that reason determine blue to be less or more beauti- 
 ful than you did at first ; you are unaccustomed to see stones 
 as blue as the sapphire, but you do not for that reason thuik 
 the sapphire less beautiful than other stones. The blue col- 
 our is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of 
 dehght ; and whether seen perpetually over your head, or 
 crystaUised once in a thousand years into a single and incom- 
 parable stone, your acknowledgment of its beauty is equally 
 natural, simple, and instantaneous. Pardon me for engaging 
 you in a metai^hysical discussion ; for it is necessary to the 
 estabhshment of some of the greatest of all architectural 
 principles that I should fuUy convince you of this great truth, 
 and that I should quite do away with the various objections to 
 it, which I suppose must arise in your minds. Of these there 
 is one more which I must briefly meet. You know how much 
 confusion has been introduced into the subject of criticism, 
 by reference to the power of Association over the human 
 heart ; you know how often it has been said that custom 
 must have something to do with our ideas of beauty, because 
 it endaars so many objects to the affections. But, once for 
 aU, observe that the powers of association and of beauty are 
 two entirely distinct powers, — as distinct, for instance, as the 
 forces of gravitation and electricity. These forces may act 
 
AND PAINTING. 229 
 
 together, or may neutralise one another, but are not for that 
 reason to be supposed the same force ; and the charm of 
 association will sometimes enhance, and sometimes entirely 
 overpower, that of beauty ; but you must not confoimd the two 
 together. You love many things because you are accustomed to 
 them, and are pained by many things because they are strange 
 to you ; but that does not make the accustomed sight mora 
 beautiful, or the strange one less so. The well known object 
 may be dearer to you, or you may have discovered charms 
 in it which others cannot ; but the charm was there before 
 you discovered it, only needing time and love to perceive it. 
 You love your friends and relations more than all the world 
 beside, and may perceive beauties in their faces which others 
 cannot perceive ; but you feel that you would be ridiculous in 
 allowing yourselves to think them the most beautiful persons 
 in the world : you acknowledge that the real beauty of the 
 human coimtenance depends on fixed laws of form and ex- 
 pression, and not on the affection you bear to it, or the degree 
 in which you are famUiarised with it : and so does the beauty 
 of all other existences. 
 
 Now, therefore, I think that, without the risk of any farther 
 serious objection occurring to you, I may state what I believe 
 to be the truth, — that beauty has been appointed by the 
 Deity to be one of the elements by which the human soul is 
 continually sustained ; it is therefore to be found more or less 
 in all natural objects, but in order that we may not satiate 
 ourselves with it, and weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in 
 its utmost degrees. When we see it in those utmost degrees, 
 we are attracted to it strongly, and remember it long, as in 
 the case of singularly beautiful scenery, or a beautiful coun- 
 tenance. On the other hand, absolute ugUness is admitted as 
 rarely as perfect beauty ; but degrees of it more or less dis- 
 tinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death 
 and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature 
 of virtue and of life. 
 
 This being so, you see that when the relative beauty of any 
 particular forms has to be examined, we may reason, from the 
 forms of nature around us, in this manner: — what natm'a 
 
230 LEOTURES ON AROEITECTUBE 
 
 does generally, is sure to be more or less beautiful ; what sba 
 does rarely, will either be iiei-y beautiful, or absolutely ugly ; 
 and we may again easily determine, if we are not wiUiag in 
 such a case to trust our feelings, which of these is indeed the 
 case, by this simple rule, that if the rare occurrence is the 
 result of the complete fulfilment of a natural law, it will be 
 beautiful ; if of the violation of a natural law, it wQl be ugly. 
 For instance, a sapphire is the result of the complete and 
 perfect fulfilment of the laws of aggregation in the earth of 
 alumina, and it is therefore beautiful ; more beautiful than 
 clay, or any other of the conditions of that earth. But a 
 square leaf on any tree would be ugly, being a violation of the 
 laws of growth in trees,* and we ought to feel it so. 
 
 Now, then, I proceed to argue in tliis manner from what 
 we see in the woods and fields around us ; that as they are 
 evidently meant for our delight, and as we always feel them 
 to be beautiful, we may assume that the forms into which 
 their leaves are cast are indeed types of beauty, not of extreme 
 or perfect, but average beauty. And finding that they inva- 
 riably terminate more or less in pointed arches, and are not 
 square-headed, I assert the pointed arch to be one of the 
 forms most fitted for perpetual contemplation by the himian 
 mind ; that it is one of those which never weary, however 
 often repeated ; and that therefore being both the strongest 
 in structure, and a beautiful form (while the square head is 
 both weak in structure, and an ugly form), we are unwise 
 ever to build in any other. 
 
 Here, however, I must anticipate another objection. It 
 may be asked why we are to build only the tops of the win- 
 dows pointed, — why not foUow the leaves, and point them at 
 the bottom also. 
 
 For this simple reason, that, while in architecture you are 
 continually called upon to do what may be unnecessary for 
 the sake of beauty, you are never called upon to do what is 
 
 * I am at present aware only of one tree, the tulip tree, which has an ex. 
 oeptional form, and which, I doubt not, every one will admit loses much 
 beauty in consequence. All other leaves, so far as I know, have th« 
 round or pointed arch in tho form of the extremities of their foils. 
 

 Fit'. T. 
 
 PLATE IV.— (Page 230~Vol. V.) 
 Window in Dumbi.ane Cathedkal. 
 
AND PAINTING. 231 
 
 inconvenient for tlie sake of beauty. Tou want the level win- 
 dow sill to lean upon, or to allow the window to open on a 
 balcony : the eye and the common sense of the beholder re- 
 quire this necessity to be met before any laws of beauty are 
 thought of ; and besides this, there is in the bUI no necessity 
 for the pointed arch as a bearing form ; on the contrary, it 
 vfould give an idea of weak support for the sides of the win- 
 dow, and therefore is at once rejected ; only I beg of you pai'- 
 tioularly to observe that the level siU, although useful, and 
 therefore admitted, does not therefore become beautiful ; the 
 eye does not like it so well as the top of the window, nor 
 does the sculptor like to attract the eye to it ; his richest 
 mouldings, traceries, and sculptures are aU reserved for the 
 top of the window, they are sparingly granted to its horizon- 
 tal base. And farther, observe, that when neither the con- 
 venience of the sill, nor the support of the structui-e, are any 
 more of moment, as in small windows and traceries, you in- 
 stantly have the point given to the bottom of the window. 
 Do you recollect the ^7est window of your own Dumblane 
 Abbey? If you look in any common guide-book, you will 
 find it pointed out as peculiarly beautiful, — it is acknowl- 
 edged to be beautiful by the most careless observer. And 
 why beautiful ? Look at it [fig. 1.). Simply because in ita 
 great contours it has the form of a forest leaf, and because 
 in its decoration it has used nothing but forest leaves. The 
 sharp and expressive moulding which surrounds it is a very 
 interesting example of one used to an enormous extent by 
 the builders of the early English Gothic, usually in the form 
 seen in fig. 2. above, composed of clusters of four sharp leaves 
 each, originally produced by sculpturing the sides of a fom*- 
 sided pyramid, and afterwards brought more or less into a 
 true image of leaves, but deriving all its beauty from the 
 botanical form. In the present instance only two leaves are 
 get in each cluster ; and the architect has been determined 
 that the naturalism should be perfect. For he was no com- 
 mon man who designed that cathedral of Dumblane. I know 
 not anything so perfect in its simplicity, and so beautiful, aa 
 far as it reaches, in all the Gothic with which I am acquainted. 
 
232 LECTURES ON ARGEITEOTUBE 
 
 And just in proportion to his power of mind, that man -waa 
 content to work under Nature's teaching ; and instead of 
 putting a merely formal dogtooth, as every body else did at 
 the time, he went down to the woody bank of the sweet river 
 beneath the rocks on which he was building, and he took up 
 a few of the fallen leaves that lay by it, and he set them in 
 his arch, side by side, for ever. And, look — that he might show 
 you he had done this, — he has made them all of different 
 sizes, just as they lay ; and that you might not by any chance 
 miss noticing the variety, he has put a great broad one at ttie 
 top, and then a little one turned the wrong way, next to it, 
 so that you must be blind indeed if you do not understand 
 his meaning. And the healthy change and playfulness of 
 this just does in the stone-work what it does on the tree 
 boughs, and is a perpetual refreshment and invigoration ; so 
 that, however long you gaze at this simple ornament — and 
 none can be simpler, a village mason could carve it all round 
 the window in a few hours — you are never weary of it, it 
 seems always new. 
 
 It is true that oval windows of this form are comparatively 
 rare in Gothic work, but, as you well know, circular or wheel 
 windows are used constantly, and in most traceries the 
 apertures are curved and pointed as much at the bottom as 
 the top. So that I believe you will now allow me to proceed 
 upon the assumption, that the pointed arch is indeed the 
 best form into which the head either of door or window can 
 be thrown, considered as a means of sustaining weight above 
 it. How these pointed arches ought to be grouped and deco- 
 rated, I shall endeavour to show you in my next lecture. 
 Meantime I must beg of you to consider farther some of the 
 general points connected with the structure of the roof. 
 
 I am sure that all of you must readUy acknowledge the 
 charm which is imparted to any landscape by the presence of 
 cottages ; and you must over and over again have paused at 
 the wicket gate of some cottage garden, dehghted by the sim- 
 ple beauty of the honeysuckle porch and latticed window. 
 Has it ever occurred to you to ask the question, what effect 
 the cottage would have upon your feelings if it had no roof? 
 
AND PAINTING. 233 
 
 no visible roof, I mean ; — if instead of the thatched slope, in 
 which the Uttle upper -windows are buried deep, as in a nest 
 of straw — or the rough shelter of its mountain shales — or 
 warm colouring of russet tUes — there were nothing but a flat 
 leaden top to it, making it look hke a large packing-case with 
 windows in it? I don't think the rarity of such a sight 
 would make you feel it to be beautiful ; on the contrary, if 
 you think over the matter you wiU find that you actually do 
 owe, and ought to owe, a great part of your pleasure in all 
 cottage scenery, and in all the inexhaustible imagery of litera- 
 ture which is founded upon it, to the conspicuousness of the 
 cottage roof —to the subordination of the cottage itself to its 
 covering, which leaves, in nine cases out of ten, really more 
 roof than anything else. It is, indeed, not so much the 
 whitewashed walls — nor the flowery garden — nor the rude 
 fragments of stones set for steps at the door — nor any other 
 picturesqueness of the building which interests you, so much 
 as the grey bank of its heavy eaves, deep-cushioned with 
 green moss and golden stonecrop. And there is a profoimd, 
 yet evident, reason for this feeling. The very soul of the 
 cottage — the essence and meaning of it — are in its roof ; it is 
 that, mainly, wherein consists its shelter ; that, wherein it 
 differs most completely from a cleft in rocks or bower in 
 woods. It is in its thick impenetrable coverHd of close 
 thatch that its whole heart and hospitality are concentrated. 
 Consider the difference, in sound, of the expressions " beneath 
 my roof" and "within my walls," — consider whether you 
 woxild be best sheltered, in a shed, with a stout roof sustained 
 on comer posts, or in an enclosure of four walls without a 
 roof at all, — and you will quickly see how important a part 
 of the cottage the roof must always be to the mind as well 
 as to the eye, and how, from seeing it, the greatest part of 
 our pleasure must continually arise. 
 
 Now, do you suppose that which is so all-important in a 
 cottage, can be of small importance in your own dwelling- 
 house ? Do you think that by any splendour of architecture — 
 any height of stories — you can atone to the mind for the loss 
 of the aspect of the roof ? It is vain to say you take the roof 
 
234 LE0TURE8 ON ABCHITJSICTUBB 
 
 for granted. Tou may as well say you take a man's kindness 
 for granted, though he neither looks nor speaks kindly. Tou 
 may know him to be kind in reality, but you wiU not like him 
 BO well as if he spoke and looked kindly also. And whatever 
 external splendour you may give your houses, you wQl always 
 feel there is something wanting, unless you see their roofs 
 plainly. And this especially in the north. In southern archi 
 tecture the roof is of far less importance ; but here the soul of 
 domestic building is in the largeness and conspicuousness of 
 the protection against the ponderous snow and driving sleet. 
 You may make the fa9ade of the square pile, if the roof be not 
 seen, as handsome as you please, — you may cover it with dec- 
 oration, — but there will always be a heartlessness about it, 
 which you will not know how to conquer ; above all, a per- 
 petual difficulty in finishing the wall at top, which wiU require 
 all kinds of strange inventions in parapets and pinnacles for its 
 decoration, and yet wUl never look right. 
 
 Now, I need not tell you that, as it is desirable, for the sake 
 of the efPect upon the mind, that the roof should be visible, so 
 the best and most natural form of roof in the north is that 
 which will render it most visible, namely, the steep gable ; the 
 best and most natural, I say, because this form not only throws 
 off snow and rain most completely, and dries fastest, but ob- 
 tains the greatest interior space within walls of a given height, 
 removes the heat of the sun most efiiectuaUy from the upper 
 rooms, and affords most space for ventilation. 
 
 You have then, observe, two great principles, as far as north- 
 em architecture is concerned ; first, that the pointed arch is 
 to be the means by which the weight of the vrall or roof is to 
 be sustained ; secondly, that the steep gable is the form most 
 proper for the roof itself. And now observe this most inter- 
 esting fact, that all the loveUest Gothic architectiu:e in the 
 world is based on the group of lines composed of the pointed 
 arch and the gable. If you look at the beautiful apse of Amiens 
 Cathedral — a work justly celebrated over all Europe — ^you will 
 find it formed merely of a series of windows surmounted by 
 pure gables of open work. If you look at the transept porches 
 of Kouen, or at tlie great and celebrated porch of the cathedi-o] 
 
Fl.T- 8. 
 
 ?LATE V.-(Page S3? VoL y.> 
 
AND PAINTING. 235 
 
 of Rheims, or at that of Strasbourg, Bayeux, Amiens, or Pe- 
 terborough, stilljou will see that these lovely compositions are 
 nothing more than richly decorated forms of gable over pointed 
 arch. But more than this, you must be all well aware how 
 fond our best architectural artists are of the street effects of 
 foreign cities ; and even those now present who have not per- 
 sonally visited any of the continental towns must remember, 
 I should think, some of the majij' interesting drawings by Mr. 
 Prout, Mr. Nash, and other excellent draughtsmen, which have 
 for many years adorned our exhibitions. Now, the principal 
 charm of aU those continental street effects is dependent on 
 the houses having high-pitched gable roofs. In the Nether- 
 lands and Northern France, where the material for building is 
 brick or stone, the fronts of the stone gables are raised above 
 the roofs, and you have magnificent and grotesque ranges of 
 steps or curves decorated with various ornaments, succeeding 
 one another in endless perspective along the streets of Antwerp, 
 Ghent, or Brussels. In Picardy and Normandy, again, and 
 many towns of Germany, where the material for building is 
 principally wood, the roof is made to project over the gables, 
 fringed with a beautifully carved cornice, and casting a broad 
 shadow down the house front This is principally seen at Abbe- 
 ville, Kouen, Lisieux, and others of the older towns of France. 
 But, in all cases, the effect of the whole street depends on the 
 prominence of the gables ; not only of the fronts towards the 
 streets, but of the sides also, set with small garret or dormer 
 windows, each of the most fantastic and beautiful form, and 
 crowned with a little spire or pinnacle. Wherever there is a 
 little winding stair, or projecting bow window, or any other 
 irregularity of form, the steep ridges shoot into turrets and 
 small spires, as in fig. 8.*, each in its turn crowned by a fan- 
 tastic ornament, covered with curiously shaped slates or shin- 
 gles, or crested with long fringes of lich ii-onwork, so that, seen 
 from above and from a distance, the intricate grouping of the 
 roofs of a French city is no less interesting than its actual 
 streets ; and in the streets themselves, the masses of broad 
 shadow which the roofs form against the sky, are a most im- 
 * This figure is copied from Prout. 
 
236 LECTURES ON ABCniTEGTUBE 
 
 portant background to the bright and sculptured surfaces of 
 the walls. 
 
 Finally, I need not remind you of the effect upon the 
 northern mind which has always been produced by the heaven- 
 pointing spire, nor of the theory which has been founded 
 upon it of the general meaning of Gothic Architecture as ex- 
 pressive of religious aspiration. In a few minutes, you may 
 ascertain the exact value of that theory, and the degree in 
 which it is true. 
 
 The first tower of which we hear as built upon the earth, 
 was certainly bmlt in a species of aspiration ; but I do not 
 suppose that any one here vnll think it was a reUgious one. 
 " Go to now. Let us build a tower whose top may reach un- 
 to Heaven." From that day to this, whenever men have be- 
 come skilful architects at all, there has been a tendency in 
 them to buUd high ; not in any religious feeUng, but in mere 
 exuberance of spirit and power — as they dance or sing — with 
 a certain mingling of vanity — like the feeling in which a child 
 builds a tower of cards ; and. La nobler instances, with also a 
 strong sense of, and delight in the majesty, height, and 
 strength of the building itself, such as we have in that of a 
 lofty tree or a peaked moimtain. Add to this instinct the fre- 
 quent necessity of points of elevation for watch-towers, or of 
 points of offence, as in towers buUt on the ramparts of cities, 
 and, finally, the need of elevations for the transmission of 
 sound, as in the Turkish minaret and Christian belfry, and 
 you have, I think, a sufficient explanation of the tower-build- 
 ing of the world in general. Look through your Bibles only, 
 and collect the various expressions with reference to tower- 
 building there, and you will have a very complete idea of the 
 spirit in which it is for the most part undertaken. You begin 
 with that of Babel ; then you remember Gideon beating down 
 the Tower of Penuel, in order more completely to humble the 
 pride of the men of the city ; you remember the defence of 
 the tower of Shechem against Abimelech, and the death of 
 Abimelech by the casting of a stone from it by a woman's 
 hand ; you recollect the husbandman building a tower in hia 
 vineyard, and the beautiful expressions in Solomon's Song— 
 
AND PAINTING. 237 
 
 " The Tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus ; " 
 " I am a wall, and my breasts like towers ; " — you recollect the 
 Psalmist's expressions of love and deHght, "Go ye round 
 about Jerusalem ; tell the towers thereof : mark ye well her 
 bulwarks ; consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the gen- 
 eration following." You see in aU these cases how completely 
 the tower is a subject of human pride, or deHght, or defence, 
 not in anywise associated with religious sentiment ; the towers 
 of Jerusalem being named in the same sentence, not with her 
 temple, but with her bulwarks and palaces. And thus, when 
 the tower is in reality connected with a place of worship, it 
 was generally done to add to its magnificence, but not to add 
 to its religious expression. And over the whole of the world, 
 you have various species of elevated buildings, the Egyptian 
 pyramid, the Indian and Chinese pagoda, the Turkish mina- 
 ret, and the Christian belfry — all of them raised either to 
 make a show from a distance, or to cry from, or swing bells 
 in, or hang them round, or for some other very human reason. 
 Thus, when the good people of Beauvais were building their 
 cathedral, that of Amiens, then just completed, had excited 
 the admiration of aU Prance, and the people of Beauvais, in 
 their jealousy and determination to beat the people of Amiens, 
 set to work to build a tower to their own cathedral as high as 
 they possibly could. They built it so high that it tumbled 
 down, and they were never able to finish their cathedral at aU 
 — it stands a wreck to this day. But you wiU not, I should 
 think, imagine this to have been done in heavenward aspira- 
 tion. Mind, however, I don't blame the people of Beauvais, 
 except for their bad building. I think their desire to beat 
 the citizens of Amiens a most amiable weakness, and only wish 
 I could see the citizens of Edinburgh and Glasgow inflamed 
 with the same emulation, building Gothic towers * instead of 
 manufactory chimneys ; only do not confound a feeling which, 
 though healthy and right, may be nearly analogous to that in 
 
 * I did not, at the time of the delivery of these lectures, know how 
 many Gothic towers the worthy Glaswegians liave lately built ; that of 
 8t. Peter's, in particular, being a most meritoiious effort. 
 
238 LBCTVBES ON ARGHITEGTURE 
 
 which you play a cricket-match, •with any feeling allied to youf 
 hope of heaven. 
 
 Such being the state of the case with respect to tower> 
 buUding ia general, let me follow for a few minutes the 
 changes which occur in the towers of northern and southern 
 architects. 
 
 Many of us are familiar with the ordiaary form of the Ital- 
 ian bell-tower or campanile. From the eighth century to the 
 thirteenth there was little change in that form : * four-square, 
 rising high and without tapering into the air, story above 
 story, they stood like giants in the quiet fields beside the piles 
 of the basilica or the Lombardic church, ia this form (Jig. 9. ), 
 tiled at the top in a flat gable, with open arches below, and 
 fewer and fewer arches on each inferior story, down to the 
 bottom. It is worth while noting the difference in form be- 
 tween these and the towers built for military service. The 
 latter were built as in^gr. 10., projecting vigorously at the top 
 over a series of brackets or machicolations, with very small 
 windows, and no decoration below. Such towers as these 
 were attached to every important palace in the cities of Italy, 
 and stood in great circles — troops of towers — around their 
 external walls : their ruins stiU frown along the crests of every 
 promontory of the Apennines, and are seen from far away in 
 the great Lombardic plain, from distances of half-a-day's jour- 
 ney, dark against the amber sky of the horizon. These are 
 of course now built no more, the changed methods of modern 
 warfare having cast them into entire disuse ; but the belfry 
 or campanile has had a very different influence on European 
 architecture. Its form in the plains of Italy and South France 
 being that just shown you, the moment we enter the valleys 
 of the Alps, where there is snow to be sustained, we find its 
 form of roof altered by the substitution of a steep gable for a 
 flat one. f There are probably few in the room who have not 
 
 * There is a good abstract of the forms of the Italian campanile, by 
 Mr. Papworth, in the Journal of the Archaeological Institute, March, 
 1850. 
 
 f The form establishes itself afterwards in the plains, in sympathy 
 with other CrQthio conditions, m in the campanile of St, Mark's at Venio* 
 
I'lg. 10 
 
 Fig. 9. 
 
 PLATE VI. -(Page 238- Vol. V.J 
 LOJIUABIJIC To WEBS 
 
AND PAINTINO. 230 
 
 been in some pai-ts of Soutli Switzerland, and who do not re- 
 member the beautiful effect of the grey mountain churches, 
 many of them hai-dly changed since the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries, whose poLated towers stand up through the green 
 level of the vines, or crown the juttmg rocks that border the 
 valley. From this form to the tnie spire, the change is slight, 
 and consists in little more than various decoration, generally 
 in putting small pinnacles at the angles, and piercing the cen- 
 tral pyramid with traceiied windows, sometimes, as at Fri- 
 bourg and Burgos, throwing it into tracery altogether : but 
 to do this is invariably the sign of a vicious style, as it talies 
 away from the spire its character of a true roof, and tm-ns it 
 nearly into an ornamental excrescence. At Antwerp and Brus- 
 sels, the celebrated towers (one, observe, ecclesiastical, be- 
 ing the tower of the cathedral, and the other secular), are 
 formed by successions of diminishing towers, set one above 
 the other, and each supported by buttresses thrown to the 
 angles of the one beneath. At the EngUsh cathedrals of Lich- 
 field and Salisbury, the spire is seen in great purity, only 
 decorated by sculpture ; but I am aware of no example so 
 striking in its entire simplicity as that of the towers of the 
 cathedral of Ooutances, in Normandy. There is a dispute be- 
 tween French and English antiquaries as to the date of the 
 building, the English being unwilling to admit its complete 
 priority to aU. their own Gothic. I have no doubt of this pri- 
 ority myself ; and I hope that the time will soon come when 
 men wUl cease to confound vanity with patriotism, and will 
 think the honour of their nation more advanced by their own 
 sincerity and courtesy, than by claims, however learnedly con- 
 tested, to the invention of pinnacles and arches. I beHeve the 
 French nation was, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the 
 greatest in the world ; and that the French not only invented 
 Gothic architecture, but carried it to a perfection which no 
 other nation has approached, then or since : but, however this 
 may be, there can be no doubt that the towers of Coutances, 
 if not the earliest, are among the very earliest, examples of 
 the fully developed spire. I have drawn one of them care- 
 fully for you {fig. 11.), and you will see immediately that they 
 
240 LECTURES ON ABCHITECTURE 
 
 are literally domestic roofs, with garret windows, executed ob 
 a large scale, and in stone. Their only ornament is a kind of 
 scaly mail, which is nothing more than the copying in stone of 
 the common wooden shingles of the house-roof ; and their 
 security is provided for by strong gabled dormer windows, of 
 massy masonry, which, though supported on detached shafts, 
 haye weight enough completely to balance the lateral thmsts 
 of the spires. 
 
 Nothing can surpass the boldness or the simphcity of the 
 plan ; and yet, in spite of this simpHcity, the clear detaching 
 of the shafts from the slope of the spire, and their great 
 height, strengthened by rude cross-bars of stone, carried back 
 to the wall behind, occasions so great a complexity and play 
 of cast shadows, that I remember no architectural composi- 
 tion of which the aspect is so completely varied at different 
 hours of the day.* But the main thing I wish you to observe 
 is, the complete domesticity of the work ; the evident treat- 
 ment of the church spire merely as a magnified house-roof ; 
 and the proof herein of the great truth of which I have been 
 endeavouring to persuade you, that all good architecture rises 
 out of good and simple domestic work ; and that, therefore, 
 before you attempt to build great churches and palaces, you 
 must build good house doors and garret windows. Nor is 
 the spire the only ecclesiastical form deducible from domestic 
 architecture. The spires of France and Germany are associ- 
 ated with other towers, even simpler and more straightforward 
 in confession of their nature, in which, though the walls of 
 the tower are covered with sculpture, there is an ordinary 
 ridged gable roof on the top. The finest example I know of 
 this kind of tower, is that on the northwest angle of Eouen 
 Cathedral {fig. 12.) ; but they occur in multitudes in the 
 older towns of Germany ; and the backgrounds of Albert 
 Durer are full of them, and owe to them a great part of their 
 interest : all these great and magnificent masses of architect- 
 ure being repeated on a smaller scale by the little turret 
 roofs and pinnacles of every house in the town ; and the 
 whole system of them being expressive, not by any means of 
 
 • The sketch was made about 10 o'clock on a September morning. 
 
Jt., v' . ^ I 
 
 f ■ T 
 
 ,? 
 
 ^' 
 
 •■!>•■ -*., 
 
 
 
 Fig n 
 
 Fig. la. 
 
 PLATE VII. -(Page 240- Vol, V.) 
 Spikes at Codtances and Rouen. 
 
AND PAlIiTlNO. 241 
 
 religious feeling,* but merely of joyfulness and exhilaration 
 of spirit in the inhabitants of such cities, leading them to 
 throw their roofs high into the sky, and therefore giving to 
 the style of architecture with which these grotesque roofs are 
 associated, a certain charm like that of cheerfulness in the 
 human face ; besides a power of interesting the beholder 
 which is testified, not only by the artist in his constant search 
 after such forms as the elements of his landscape, but by 
 every phrase of our language and literature bearing on such 
 
 ' Among tlie various modes in which, tlie architects, against whose 
 practice my writings are directed, have endeavoured to oppose them, no 
 charge lias been made more frequently than that of their self-contradic- 
 tion ; the fact being, that there are few people in the world who are 
 capable of seeing the two sides of any subject, or of conceiving how the 
 statements of its opposite aspects can possibly be reooncileable. For in- 
 stance, in a recent review, though for the most part both fair and in- 
 telligent, it is remarked, on this very subject of the domestic origin of 
 the northern Gothic, that " Mr. Eusljin is evidently possessed by a fixed 
 idea, that the Venetian architects were devout men, and that their de- 
 votion was expressed in their buildings ; while he will not allow our 
 own cathedrals to have been built by any but worldly men, who had 
 no thoughts of heaven, but only vague ideas of keeping out of hell, by 
 erecting costly places of worship." If this writer had compared the 
 two passages with the care which such a subject necessarily demands, he 
 would have found that I was not opposing Venetian to English piety ; 
 but that in the one case I was speaking of the spirit manifested in the 
 entire architecture of the nation, and in the other of occasional efforts 
 of superstition as distinguished from that spirit ; and, farther, that in 
 the one case, I was speaking of decorative features which are ordinarily 
 the results of feeling, in the other of structural features, which are or- 
 dinarily the results of necessity or convenience. Thus it is rational and 
 just that we should attribute the decoration of the arches of St. Mark's 
 with scriptural mosaics to a religious sentiment ; but it would be a, 
 Btrange absurdity to regard as an effort of piety the invention of the 
 form of the arch itself, of which one of the earliest and most perfect 
 instances is in the Cloaca Maxima. And thus in the case of spires and 
 towers, it is just to asorilje to the devotion of their designers that 
 dignity which was bestowed upon forms derived from the simplest 
 domestic buildings ; but it is ridiculous to attribute any great refinement 
 of religious feeling, or height of religious aspiration, to those who fup 
 niahed the funds for the erection of the loveliest tower in North Franctfj 
 by paying for permission to eat butter in Lent. 
 
242 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 topics. Have not these words, Pinnacle, Turret, Belfry, 
 Spire, Tower, a pleasant sound in all your ears ? I do not 
 speak of your scenery, I do not ask you how much you feel 
 that it owes to the grey battlements that frown through the 
 woods of Craig Millar, to the pointed turrets that flank the 
 front of Holyrood, or to the massy keeps of your Crichtoun 
 and Borthwick and other border towers. But look merely 
 through your poetry and romances ; take away out of your 
 border ballads the word tower wherever it occurs, and the 
 ideas connected with it, and what will become of the ballads ? 
 See how Sir Walter Scott cannot even get through a descrip- 
 tion of Highland scenery without help from the idea : — 
 
 " Each purple peak, each flinty spire. 
 Was bathed in floods of living fire." 
 
 Take away from Scott's romances the word and idea turret, 
 and see how much you would lose. Suppose, for instance, 
 when young Osbaldistone is leaving Osbaldistone Hall, in- 
 stead of saying " The old clock struck two from a turret ad- 
 joining my bedchamber," he had said, "The old clock struck 
 two from the landing at the top of the stair," what would be- 
 come of the passage ? And can you really suppose that what 
 has so much power over you in words has no power over you 
 in reality ? Do you think there is any group of words which 
 would thus interest you, when the things expressed by them 
 are uninteresting ? For instance, you know that, for an im- 
 mense time back, aU your public buildings have been built 
 with a row of pillars supporting a triangular thing called a 
 pediment. You see this form every day in your banks and 
 clubhouses, and churches and chapels ; you are told that it is 
 the perfection of architectural beauty ; and yet suppose Sir 
 Walter Scott, instead of writing, "Each purple peak, each 
 flinty spire,*' had written, "Each purple peak, each flinty 
 ' jjediment.' " * Would you have thought the poem improved ? 
 
 * It has been objected to this comparison that the form of the pedi 
 ment does not properly represent that of the rooks of the Troaaohs 
 The objection is utterly futile, for there is not a single spire or pinnacle 
 from onti end of the Trosaclis to the other. All their rooks are heavily 
 
AND PALNTINO. 243 
 
 And if not, -why wonld it be spoiled ? Simply because the 
 idea is no longer of any value to you ; the thing spoken of is 
 a nonentity. 
 
 These pediments, and stylobates, and architraves never ex- 
 cited a single pleasurable feeling in you — never will, to the 
 end of time. They are evermore dead, lifeless, and useless, 
 in art as in poetry, and though you built as many of them as 
 there are slates on your house-roofs, you will never care for 
 them. They will only remain to later ages as monuments of 
 the patience and pliability with which the people of the nine- 
 teenth century sacrificed their feelings to fashions, and their in- 
 tellects to forms. But on the other hand, that strange and 
 thriUing interest with which such words strike you as are ia 
 any vrise connected with Gothic arcliitecture — as for instance. 
 Vault, Arch, Spire, Pinnacle, Battlement, Barbican, Porch, and 
 myriads of such others, words everlastingly poetical and pow- 
 erfiil whenever they occur — is a most true and certain index 
 that the things themselves are delightful to you, and will ever 
 continue to be so. Believe me, you do indeed love these 
 things, so far as you care about art at all, so far as you are 
 not ashamed to confess what you feel about them. In your 
 public capacities, as bank directors, and charity overseers, and 
 administrators of this and that other undertaking or institution, 
 you cannot express your feelings at all. You form commit- 
 tees to decide upon the style of the new building, and as you 
 have never been in the habit of trusting to your own taste in 
 such matters, you inquire who is the most celebrated, that ia 
 to say, the most employed architect of the day. And you 
 send for the great Mr. Blank, and the, Great Blank sends you 
 
 rounded, and the introduction of the word " spire " is a piece of in- 
 accuracy in description, ventured merdyfor the sake of (lie Ootlvia image. 
 Farther: it has been said that if I had substituted the word "gable," 
 rt would have spoiled the line just as much as the word "pediment," 
 though ' ' gable " is a Gothic word. Of course it would ; but why ? 
 Because "gable " is a term of vulgar domestic architecture, and there- 
 fore destructive of the tone of the heroic description ; whereas ' ' pedi- 
 ment "and "spire" are precisely correlative terms, being each the 
 crowning feature in ecclesiastical edifices, and the comparison of theil 
 effects in the verse is therefore absolutely accurate, logical, and just. 
 
244 LEOTURES ON ABCEITECTVRB 
 
 a plan of a great long marble box ■with ialf-a^dozen pillars at 
 cue end of it, and the same at the other ; and you look at tha 
 Great Blank's great plan La a grave manner, and you daresay 
 it -win be very handsome ; and you ask the Great Blank what 
 sort of a blank cheque niust be filled up before the great plan 
 can be realized, and you subscribe in a generous " burst of 
 confidence " whatever is wa'nted ; and when it is all done, and 
 the great white mai-ble box is set up in your streets, you con- 
 template it, not knowing what to make of it exactly, but hop- 
 ing it is aU right ; and then there is a dinner given to the 
 Great Blank, and the morning Papers say that the new and 
 handsome building, erected by the great Mr. Blank, is one of 
 Ml-. Blank's happiest efforts, and reflects the greatest credit 
 upon the intelligent inhabitants of the city of so and so ; 
 and the building keeps the rain out as well as another, and 
 you remain in a placid state of impoverished satisfaction 
 therewith ; but as for having any real pleasure out of it, you 
 never hoped for such a thing. If you really make up a party 
 of pleasure, and get rid of the forms and fashion of pubUc 
 propriety for an hour or two, where do you go for it ? Where 
 do you go to eat strawberries and cream ? To EosUn Chapel, 
 I beheve ; not to the portico of the last-built institution. 
 "What do you see your children doing, obeying their own nat- 
 ural and true instincts ? What are yoiu- daughters drawing 
 upon their card-board screens as soon as they can use a pencil ? 
 Not Parthenon fronts, I think, but the ruins of Melrose Abbey, 
 or Linlithgow Palace, or Lochleven Castle, their own pure 
 Scotch hearts leading them straight to the right things, in 
 spite of aU that they are told to the contrary. You perhaps 
 call this romantic, and youthful, and foolish. I am pressed 
 for time now, and I cannot ask you to consider the meaning 
 of the word "Romance." I will do that, if you please, in 
 next lecture, for it is a word of greater weight and authority 
 than we commonly believe. In the meantime, I will en 
 deavour, lastly, to show you, not the romantic, but the plain 
 and practical conclusions which should foUow from the fact? 
 I have laid before you. 
 
 I have endeavoured briefly to point out to vou the pro- 
 
AND PAINTINO. ^4:5 
 
 priety and naturalness of the two great Gothic forms, the 
 pointed arch and gable roof. I wish now to tell you in what 
 way they ought to be introduced into modern domestic archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 You will all admit that there is neither romance nor com- 
 fort in waiting at your own or at any one else's door on a 
 windy and rainy day, till the servant comes from the end of 
 the house to open it. You all know the critical nature of 
 that opening — the drift of wind into the passage, the impossi- 
 bility of putting down the umbrella at the proper moment 
 without getting a cupful of water dropped down the back of 
 yoiir neck from the top of the doorway ; and you know how 
 little these inconveniences are abated by the common Greek 
 portico at the top of the steps. You know how the east winds 
 blow through those unlucky couples of pillars, which are all 
 that your architects find consistent with due observance of 
 the Doric order. Then, away with these absurdities; and 
 the next house you build, insist upon having the pure old 
 Gothic porch, walled in on both sides, with its pointed arch 
 entrance and gable roof above. Under that, you can put 
 down your umbrella at your leisure^ and, if you will, stop a 
 moment to talk with your friend as you give him the parting 
 shake of the hand. And if now and then a wayfarer found 
 a moment's rest on a stone seat on each side of it, I believe 
 you would find the insides of your houses not one whit the 
 less comfortable ; and, if you answer me, that were such ref- 
 uges built in the open streets, they would become mere nests 
 of filthy vagrants, I reply that I do not despair of such a 
 change in the administration of the poor laws of this country, 
 as shall no longer leave any of ovu: fellow-creatures in a state 
 in which they would pollute the steps of our houses by rest- 
 ing upon them for a night. But if not, the command to all 
 of us is strict and straight, " When thou seest the naked, 
 that thou cover him, and that thou bring the poor thai are 
 cast out to thy house." * Not to the workhouse, observe, but 
 to thy house : and I say it would be better a thousand-fold, 
 that our doors should be beset by the poor day by day, than 
 * Isai. Iviii. 7. 
 
240 LECTURES ON AROEITECTURE 
 
 that it should be written of any one of us, " They reap every 
 one his corn in the field, and they gather the vintage of the 
 wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without shelter, that 
 they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the 
 showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock, for want of 
 a shelter." * 
 
 This, then, is the first use to which your pointed arches 
 and gable roofs are to be put. The second is of more per- 
 sonal pleasureableness. Tou surely must all of you feel and 
 admit the dehghtfuhiess of a bow vnndow ; I can hardly fancy 
 a room can be perfect without one. Now you have nothing 
 to do but to resolve that every one of your principal rooms 
 shall have a bow vraidow, either large or small. Sustain the 
 projection of it on a bracket, crown it above with a little 
 peaked roof, and give a massy piece of stone sculpture to the 
 pointed arch in each of its casements, and you wiU have as 
 inexhaustible a source of quaint richness in your street archi- 
 tecture, as of additional comfort and delight in the interiors 
 of your rooms. ^ 
 
 Thirdly ; as respects windows which do not project Tou 
 will find that the proposal to build them vrith pointed arches 
 is met by an objection on the part of your architects, that you 
 cannot fit them with comfortable sashes. I beg leave to tell 
 you that such an objection is utterly futile and ridiculous. I 
 have hved for months in Gothic palaces, with pointed win- 
 dows of the most complicated forms, fitted with modern 
 sashes ; and with the most perfect comfort. But granting 
 that the objection were a true one — and I suppose it is true 
 to just this extent, that it may cost some few shillings more 
 per window in the first instance to set the fittings to a pointed 
 arch than to a square one — there is not the smallest necessity 
 for the aperture of the window being of the pointed shape. 
 Make the uppermost or bearing arch pointed only, and make 
 the top of the window square, filling the interval with a stone 
 shield, and you may have a perfect school of architecture, not 
 only consistent vrith, but eminently conducive to, every com- 
 fort of your daily life. The window in Oakham Castle {fig. 2.) 
 * Job, xxiv. 6—8. 
 
AITD PAINTING. 24Y 
 
 Is an example of such a form as actually employed in the thir-< 
 teenth century ; and I shall have to notice another in the course 
 of next lecture. Meanwhile, I have but one word to say in 
 conclusion. Whatever has been advanced in the course of 
 this evening, has rested on the assumption that all architect^ 
 ure was to be of brick and stone ; and may meet with some 
 hesitation in its acceptance, on account of the probable use of 
 iron, glass, and such other materials in our future edifices. 
 I cannot now enter into any statement of the possible uses of 
 iron or glass, but I will give you one reason, which I think 
 wiU weigh strongly with most here, why it is not hkely that 
 they will ever become important elements in architectural 
 effect. I know that I am speaking to a company of philoso- 
 phers, but you are not philosophers of the kind who suppose 
 that the Bible is a superannuated book ; neither are you of 
 those who think the Bible is dishonoured by being referred 
 to for judgment in small matters. The very divinity of the 
 Book seems to me, on the contrary, to justify us in refemng 
 every thing to it, with respect to which any conclusion can be 
 gathered from its pages. Assuming then that the Bible is 
 neither superannuated now, nor ever likely to be so, it wiU 
 foUow that the illustrations which the Bible employs are likely 
 to be clear and intelligible illustrations to the end of time. I 
 do not mean that every thing spoken of in the Bible histories 
 must continue to endure for aU time, but that the things 
 which the Bible uses for illustration of eternal truths are likely 
 to remain eternally intelligible illustrations. Now I find that 
 iron architecture is indeed spoken of in the Bible. You 
 know how it is said to Jeremiah, " Behold, I have made thee 
 this day a defenced city, and an iron piUar, and brazen walls, 
 against the whole land." But I do not find that iron building 
 is ever aUuded to as hkely to hecovie familiar to the minds of 
 men ; but, on the contrary, that an architecture of carved 
 stone is continually employed as a source of the most import- 
 ant illustrations. A simple instance must occur to all of you 
 at once. The force of the image of the Corner Stone, as used 
 throughout Scripture, would completely be lost, if the Christ 
 tian and civilized world were ever extensively to employ any 
 
248 LECTURES ON AnOHITEOTURE 
 
 other material than earth and rock in their domestic build* 
 ings ; I firmly believe that they never mU ; but that as the 
 laws of beauty are more perfectly established, we shall be con- 
 tent still to build as our forefathers built, and still to receive 
 the same great lessons which such building is calculated 
 to convey ; of which one is indeed never to be forgotten. 
 Among the questions respecting towers which were laid before 
 you to-night, one has been omitted : " What man is there of 
 you intending to build a tower that sitteth not down first and 
 counteth the cost, whether he have sufiicient to finish it ? " I 
 have pressed upon you, this evening, the building of domestic 
 towers. You may think it right to dismiss the subject at 
 once from your thoughts ; but let us not do so, without con- 
 sidering, each of us, how far that tower has been built, and 
 how truly its cost has been counted. 
 
 LECTDKE n. 
 
 Befoke proceeding to the principal subject of this evening, 
 I wish to anticipate one or two objections which may arise in 
 your minds to what I must lay before you. It may perhaps 
 have been felt by you last evening, that some things I pro- 
 posed to you were either romantic or Utopian. Let us think 
 for a few moments what romance and Utopianism mean. 
 
 First, romance. In consequence of the many absurd fic- 
 tions which long formed the elements of romance writing, the 
 word romance is sometimes taken as synonymous with false- 
 hood. Thus the French talk of Des Bomans, and thus the 
 English use the word Romancing. 
 
 But in this sense we had much better use the word false- 
 hood at once. It is far plainer and clearer. And if in this 
 sense I put anything romantic before you, pray pay no atten- 
 tion to it, or to me. 
 
 In the second place. Because young people are particularly 
 apt to indulge in reverie, and imaginative pleasures, and to 
 neglect their plain and practical duties the word romantic has 
 come to signify weak, fooHsh, speculative, unpractical, un 
 
AND PAINTING. 249 
 
 principled. In all these cases it would be much better to say 
 weak, foolish, unpractical, unprincipled. The words are clearer. 
 If ia this sense, also I put anything romantic before you, pray 
 pay no attention to me. 
 
 But in the third and last place. The real and proper use 
 of the word romantic is simply to characterise an improbable 
 or unaccustomed degree of beauty, sublimity, or virtue. For 
 instance, in matters of history, is not the Retreat of the Ten 
 Thousand romantic ? Is not the death of Leonidas ? of the 
 Horatii? On the other hand, you find nothing romantic, 
 though much that is monstrous, in the excesses of Tiberius 
 or Commodus. So again, the battle of Agincourt is romantic, 
 and of Banuockburn, simply because there was an extraor- 
 dinary display of human virtue in both those battles. But 
 there is no romance in the battles of the last Italian campaign, 
 in which mere feebleness and distrust were on one side, mere 
 physical force on the other. And even in fiction, the oppo- 
 nents of virtue, in order to be romantic, must have sublimity 
 muagied with their vice. It is not the knave, not the ruffian, 
 that are romantic, but the giant and the dragon ; and these, 
 not because they are false, but because they are majestic. So 
 again as to beauty. You feel that armour is romantic because 
 it is a beautiful dress, and you are not used to it. You do not 
 feel there is anything romantic in the paiut and shells of a 
 Sandwich Islander, for these are not beautiful. 
 
 So, then, observe, this feeling which you are accustomed to 
 despise — this secret and poetical enthusiasm in all your hearts, 
 which, as practical men, you try to restrain — is indeed one of 
 the holiest parts of your being. It is the instinctive delight 
 in, and admiration for, sublimity, beauty, and virtue, unusu- 
 ally manifested. And so far from being a dangerous guide, 
 Jt is the truest part of your being. It is even truer than your 
 consciences. A man's conscience may be utterly perverted and 
 led astray ; but so long as the feelings of romance endure 
 within us, they are unerring — they are as true to what is right 
 and lovely as the needle to the north ; and all that you have 
 to do is to add to the enthusiastic sentiment, the majestic 
 judgment — to mingle jprudence and foresight with imagination 
 
250 LEGTUBBS ON AMOBITECTVBB 
 
 and admiration, and you have the perfect human soul. But 
 the gi-eat evil of these days is that we try to destroy the ro- 
 mantic feeUng, instead of bridling and directing it. Mark 
 what Young says of the men of the world : 
 
 " They, who think nought so strong of the romance, 
 So rank knight-errant, as a real friend." 
 
 And they are right. True friendship is romantic, to the 
 men of the world — true affection is romantic — true religion is 
 romantic ; and if you were to ask me who of all powerful and 
 popular writers in the cause of error had vn"Ought most harm 
 to their race, I should hesitate in reply whether to name Vol- 
 taire or Byron, or the last most ingenious and most venomous 
 of the degraded philosophers of Germany, or rather Cervantes, 
 for he cast scorn upon the holiest principles of humanity — he, 
 of all men, most helped forward the terrible change in the sol- 
 diers of Europe, from the spirit of Bayard to the spirit of 
 Bonaparte,* helped to change loyalty into license, protection 
 into plunder, truth into treachery, chivalry into selfishness ; 
 and since his time, the purest impulses and the noblest pur- 
 poses have perhaps been oftener stayed by the devil, under the 
 name of Quixotism, than under any other base name or false 
 allegation. 
 
 Quixotism, or Utopianism : that is another of the devil's 
 pet words. I believe the quiet admission which we are all of 
 us so ready to make, that, because things have long been 
 wrong, it is impossible they should ever be right, is one of 
 the most fatal sources of misery and crime from which this 
 world suffers. Whenever you hear a man dissuading you 
 from attempting to do well, on the ground that perfection 
 is " Utopian," beware . of that man. Cast the word out of 
 your dictionary altogether. There is no need for it. Things 
 are either possible or impossible — you can easily determine 
 which, in any given state of human science. If the thing is 
 
 * I mean no scandal against the present emperor of the French, whoso 
 truth has, I believe, been as conspicuous in the late political negotia- 
 tions, as his decision and prudence have been throughout the wliolg 
 course of his government. 
 
AND PAINTING. 251 
 
 impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it ; if pos* 
 Bible, try for it. It is very Utopian to hope for the entire 
 doing away with drunkenness and misery out of the Canon- 
 gate ; but the Utopianism is not our business — the work is. 
 It is Utopian to hope to give every child in this kingdom the 
 knowledge of God from its youth ; but the Utopianism is not 
 our business — the work is. 
 
 I have delayed you by the consideration of these two words, 
 only in the fear that they might be inaccurately appUed to 
 the plans I am going to lay before you ; for, though they 
 were Utopian, and though they were romantic, they might 
 be none the worse for that. But they are neither. Utopian 
 they are not ; for they are merely a proposal to do again 
 what has been done for hundreds of years by people whose 
 wealth and power were as nothing compared to ours ; — and 
 romantic they are not, in the sense of self-sacrificing or emi- 
 nently virtuous, for they are merely the proposal to each of 
 you that he should hve in a handsomer house than he does 
 at present, by substituting a cheap mode of ornamentation 
 for a costly one. You perhaps fancied that architectural 
 beauty was a veiy costly thing. Far from it. It is architec- 
 tural ugliness that is costly. In the modern system of archi- 
 tecture, decoration is immoderately expensive, because it 
 is both wrongly placed and vyrongly finished. I say first, 
 wrongly placed. Modern architects decorate the tops of 
 their buildings. Mediaeval ones decorated the bottom.* 
 That makes all the difference between seeing the ornament 
 and not seeing it. If you bought some pictures to decorate 
 such a room as this, where would you put them ? On a level 
 with the eye, I suppose, or nearly so ? Not on a level with 
 the chandelier? If you were determined to put them ujj 
 there, round the cornice, it would be better for you not to 
 buy them at all. You would merely throw your money away. 
 And the fact is, that your money is being thrown away con- 
 tinually, by wholesale ; and while you are dissuaded, on the 
 ground of expense, from building beautiful windows and 
 
 * For farther confirmation of this statement, see the Addenda at the 
 end of this lecture. 
 
252 LECTURES ON ARGEITECTURE 
 
 beautiful cToors, you are continually made to pay for orna< 
 ments at the tops of your houses, which, for all the use thej 
 are of, might as well be in the moon. For instance, there is 
 not, on the whole, a more studied piece of domestic architect- 
 ure in Edinburgh than the street in which so many of your 
 excellent physicians live — Eutland Street. I do not know if 
 you have observed its architecture ; but if you will look at it 
 to-morrow, you will see that a heavy and close balustrade is 
 put aU along the eaves of the houses. Tour physicians are 
 net, I suppose, in the habit of taking academic and medita- 
 tive walks on the roofs of their houses ; and, if not, this bal- 
 ustrade is altogether useless, — nor merely useless, for you 
 will find it runs directly in front of all the garret windows, 
 thus interfering with their light, and blocking out their view 
 of the street. All that the parapet is meant to do, is to give 
 some finish to the fagades, and the inhabitants have thus been 
 made to pay a large sum for a piece of mere decoration. 
 Whether it does finish the fa9ades satisfactorily, or whether 
 the physicians resident in the street, or their patients, are in 
 anjmse edified by the succession of pear-shaped knobs of 
 stone on their house-tops, I leave them to tell you, only do 
 not fancy that the design, whatever its success, is an economi- 
 cal one. 
 
 But this is a very slight waste of money, compared to the 
 constant habit of putting careful sculpture at the tops of 
 houses. A temple of luxury has just been built in London, 
 for the army and navy club. It cost £40,000, exclusive of 
 purchase of ground. It has upon it an enormous quantity of 
 sculpture, representing the gentlemen of the navy as little 
 boys riding upon dolphins, and the gentlemen of the army — ■ 
 I couldn't see as what — nor can anybody ; for aU this sculpt- 
 ure is put up at the top of the house, where the gutter 
 should be, under the cornice. I know that this was a Greek 
 way of doing things. I can't help it : that does not make it 
 ft wise one. Greeks might be willing to pay for what they 
 couldn't see, but Scotchmen and Englishmen shouldn't. 
 
 Not that the Greeks threw their work away as we da 
 As far as I know Greek buildings, their ornamentation. 
 
Fl(r, 14. 
 
 PLATE vm.-iPagc 25D-VOI v.) 
 
 Ij^' 'ISTUATrT. DlAOUAMS. 
 
AJTD PAINTING. 253 
 
 though often bad, is always bold enough and large enough to 
 be visible in its place. It is not putting ornament high that 
 is wrong ; but it is cutting it too fine to be seen, wherever it 
 is. This is the great modem mistake ; you are actually at 
 twice the cost which would produce an impressive ornament, 
 to produce a contemptible one ; you increase the price of 
 your buildings by one-half, in order to mince their decoration 
 into invisibility. Walk through your streets, and try to make 
 out the ornaments on the upper parts of your fine buildings 
 — (there are none at the bottoms of them). Don't do it long, 
 or you will all come home with inflamed eyes, but you will 
 soon discover that you can see nothing but confusion in orna- 
 ments that have cost you ten or twelve shillings a foot. 
 
 Now the Gothic builders placed their decoration on a pre- 
 cisely contrary principle, and on the only rational principle. 
 All their best and most delicate work they put on the founda- 
 tion of the building, close to the spectator, and on the upper 
 parts of the walls they put ornaments large, bold, and capable 
 of being plainly seen at the necessary distance. A single ex- 
 ample win enable you to understand this method of adaptation 
 perfectly. The lower part of the fa9ade of the cathedral of 
 Lyons, built either late in the thu-teenth or early in the four- 
 teenth century, is decorated with a series of niches, filled by 
 statues of considerable size, which are supported upon pedes- 
 tals within about eight feet of the ground. In general, pedes- 
 tals of this kind are supported on some projecting portion of 
 the basement ; but at Lyons, owing to other arrangements of 
 the architectui-e into which I have no time to enter, they are 
 merely projecting tablets, or flat-bottomed brackets of stone, 
 projecting from the wall. Each bracket is about a foot and 
 a half square, and is shaped thus {fig. 13.), showing to the 
 spectator, as he walks beneath, the flat bottom of each bracket, 
 quite in the shade, but within a couple of feet of the eye, and 
 lighted by the reflected light from the pavement. The whole 
 of the surface of the wall round the great entrance is covered 
 with bas-relief, as a matter of course ; but the architect a]> 
 pears to have been jealous of the smallest space which was 
 well vrithin the range of sight , and the bottom of every 
 
254 LECTURES ON ABCHITEOTURE 
 
 bracket is decorated also — nor that slightly, but decorated 
 ■with no fewer than six figures each, besides a Jlower border, in 
 a space, as I said, not quite a foot and a half square. The 
 shape of the field to be decorated being a kind of quatrefoil, 
 as shown in fig. 13., four small figures are placed, one in each 
 foil, and two larger ones in the centre. I had only time, 
 in passing through the town, to make a draning of one of 
 the angles of these pedestals ; that sketch I have enlarged, 
 in order that you may have some idea of the character 
 of the sculpture. Here is the enlargement of it (fig. 15.). 
 Now observe, this is one of the angles of the bottom of 
 a pedestal, not two feet broad, on the outside of a Gothic 
 building ; it contains only one of the four little figures 
 which form those angles ; and it shows you the head only of 
 one of the larger figures in the centre. Yet just observe how 
 much design, how much wonderful composition, there is in 
 this mere fragment of a building of the great times ; a frag- 
 ment, literally no larger than a schoolboy could strike off in 
 wantonness with a stick : and yet I cannot tell you how much 
 care has been spent— not so much on the execution, for it 
 does not take much trouble to execute well on so small a 
 scale — but on the design, of this minute fragment. You see 
 it is composed of a branch of wild roses, which switches 
 round at the angle, embracing the minute figure of the 
 bishop, and terminates in a spray reaching nearly to the head 
 of the large figure. You will observe how beautifully that 
 figure is thus pointed to by the spray of rose, and how all the 
 leaves around it in the same manner are subservient to the 
 grace of its action. Look, if I hide one line, or one rosebud, 
 how the whole is injured, and how much there is to study, in 
 the detail of it. Look at this httle diamond crown, with a 
 lock of the hair escaping from beneath it ; and at the beau- 
 tiful way in which the tiny leaf at a, is set in the angle to pre- 
 vent its harshness ; and having examined this well, consider 
 what a treasure of thought there is in a cathedral front, a 
 hundred feet wide, every inch of which is wrought mth sculpt- 
 ure like this ! And every front of our ■YHirteenth centui-y 
 cathedrals is inwi'ought with sculpture of this quality ! And 
 
Fig. 16. 
 
 PLATE IX.-(Pase 254— Vol. V.) 
 ScuLPTUKE AT Lyons. 
 
Fig. 16. 
 
 PLATE X.— (Page 255-Vol. V.) 
 Niche at Amiens. 
 
AND PAINTJNQ. 255 
 
 yet you quietly allow yourselves to be told that the men -who 
 thus wrought were barbarians, and that your architects are 
 wiser and better in covering your walls with sculpture of this 
 kind {fig. 14 plate 8.). 
 
 Walk round your Edinburgh buildings, and look at the 
 height of your eye, what you wiU get from them. Nothing 
 but square-cut stone — square-cut- stone — a wilderness oi 
 square-cut stone for ever and for ever ; so that your houses 
 ^ook Kke prisons, and truly are so ; for the worst feature oi 
 Greek arohitectiure is, indeed, not its costliness, but its tyi'- 
 anny. These square stones are not prisons of the body, but 
 graves of the soul ; for the very men who could do sculpture 
 hte this of Lyons for you are here ! stUl here, in your de- 
 spised workmen : the race has not degenerated, it is you who 
 have bound them down, and buried them beneath your Greek 
 stones. There would be a resurrection of them, as of re- 
 newed souls, if you would only lift the weight of these weary 
 walls from off their hearts.* 
 
 But I am leaving the point immediately in question, which, 
 you will remember, was the proper adaptation of ornament to 
 its distance from the eye. I have given you one example of 
 Gothic ornament, meant to be seen close ; now let me give 
 3'ou one of Gothic ornament intended to be seen far off. 
 Here {fig. 16.) is a sketch of a niche at Amiens Cathedral, 
 some fifty or sixty feet high on the fapade, and seven or 
 eight feet wide. Now observe, in the ornament close to the 
 eye, you had six figures and a whole wreath of roses in the 
 space of afoot and a half square ; but in the ornament sixty 
 feet from the eye, you have now only ten or twelve large 
 leaves in a space of eight feet square ! and note also that now 
 there is no attempt whatsoever at the refinement of line and 
 finish of edge which there was in the other example. The 
 sculptor knew, that at the height of this niche, people would 
 not attend to the delicate hues, and that the broad shadows 
 would catch the eye instead. He has therefore left, as you 
 see, rude square edges to his niche, and carved his leaves as 
 
 * This subject ia farther pursued ia the Addenda at the end of thi» 
 Lecture. 
 
256 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 massivelj' and broadly as possible ; and yet, observe how dex- 
 terously he has given you a sense of delicacy and minuteness 
 in the work, by mingling these small leaves among the large 
 ones. I made this sketch from a photograph, and the spot 
 in which these leaves occurred was obscure ; I have, there- 
 fore, used those of the Oxalia acetoseUa, of which the quaint 
 form is always interesting. 
 
 And you see by this example also what I meant just now 
 by saying, that our own ornament was not only wrongly 
 placed, but wrongly finishbd. The very qualities which Jit 
 this leaf-decoration for due effect upon the eye, are those 
 which would conduce to economy in its execution. A more 
 expensive ornament would be less effective ; and it is the 
 very price we pay for finishing our decorations which spoils 
 our architecture. And the curious thing is, that while you 
 all appreciate, and that far too highly, what is called " the 
 bold style " in painting, you cannot appreciate it iii sculpture. 
 Tou like a hurried, broad, dashing manner of execution in a 
 watercolour drawing, though that may be seen as near as you 
 choose, and yet you refuse to admit the nobleness of a bold, 
 simple, and dashing stroke of the chisel in work which is to 
 be seen forty fathoms off. Be assured that " handling " is as 
 great a thing in marble as in paint, and that the power of 
 producing a masterly effect with few touches is as essential in 
 an architect as in a draughtsman, though indeed that power 
 is never perfectly attained except by those who possess the 
 power of giving the highest finish when there is occasion. 
 
 But there is yet another and a weightier charge to be 
 brought against our rhodem Pseudo-Greek ornamentation. 
 It is, first, wrongly placed ; secondly, wrongly finished ; and, 
 thirdly, utterly without meaning. Observe in these two 
 Gothic ornaments, and in every other ornament that ever was 
 carved in the great Gothic times, there is a definite aim at 
 the representation of some natural object In fig. 15. you 
 have an exquisite group of rose-stems, with the flowers and 
 buds ; in^gf. 16., various wild weeds, especially the Geranium 
 pratense ; in every case you have an approximation to a nat- 
 ui-al form, and an unceasing vaiiety of suggestion But how 
 
AND PAINTING. 25Y 
 
 much of nature have you hi your Greek buildmgs? I will 
 show you, taking for an example the best you have lately 
 built ; and, in doing so, I trust that nothing that I say wUl be 
 thought to have any personal purpose, and that the architect 
 of the building in question wUl forgive me ; for it is just be- 
 cause it is a good example of the style that I think it more 
 fair to use it for an example. If the building were a bad one 
 of the kind, it would not be a fair instance ; and I hope, 
 therefore, that in speaking of the institution on the mound, 
 just ia progress, I shall be understood as meaning rather a 
 comphment to its architect than otherwise. It is not his 
 fault that we force him to build in the Greek manner. 
 
 Now, according to the orthodox practice in modern archi- 
 tecture, the most delicate and minute pieces of scxilpture on 
 that building are at the very top of it, just under its gutter. 
 You cannot see them in a dark day, and perhaps may never, 
 to this hour, have noticed them at all. But there they are, 
 sixty-six finished heads of lions, all exactly the same ; and, 
 therefore, I suppose, executed on some noble Greek type, too 
 noble to allow any modest Modern to think of improving 
 upon it. But Avhether executed on a Greek type or no, it is to 
 be presumed that, as there are sixty-six of them alike, and on 
 so important a building as that which is to contaui your school 
 of design, and which is the principal example of the Athenian 
 style in modern Athens, there must be something especially 
 admirable in them, and deserving your most attentive con- 
 templation. In order, therefore, that you might have a fair 
 opportunity of estimating their beauty, I was desirous of get- 
 ting a sketch of a real hon's head to compare with them, and 
 my friend Mr. MUlais kindly offered to draw both the one and 
 the other for me. You have not, however, at present, a Hon 
 in your zoological collection ; and it being, as you are prob- 
 ably aware, the first principle of Pre-Raphaehtism, as well as 
 essential to my object in the present instance, that no drawing 
 should be made except from nature itself, I was obliged to be 
 content with a tiger's head, which, however, wUl answer my 
 purpose just as well, in enabUng you to compare a piece of 
 ti'ue, faithful, and natural work with modem architectural 
 
258 LECTifBES ON ARCniTECTUBB 
 
 sculpture. Here, in the first place, is Mr. Millais' drawing 
 from the living beast [fig. 17.). I have not the least fear but 
 that you will at once acknowledge its truth and feel its power. 
 Prepare yourselves next for the Grecian sublimity of the ideal 
 beast, from the cornice of your schools of design. Behold it 
 {fig. 18.). 
 
 Now we call ourselves civilized and refined in matters ol 
 art, but I assure you it is seldom that, in the very basest and 
 coarsest grotesques of the inferior Gothic workmen, anything 
 so contemptible as this head can be ever found. They only 
 sink into such a failure accidentally, and in a single instance ; 
 and we, in our civilization, repeat this noble piece of work 
 threescore and six times over, as not being able to invent any- 
 thing else so good ! Do not think Mr. Millais has caricatured 
 it. It is drawn with the strictest fidelity ; photograph one of 
 the heads to-morrow, and you will find the photograph teU 
 j-ou the same tale. Neither imagine that this is an unusual 
 example of modern work. Tour banks and pubHc offices are 
 covered with ideal lions' heads in every direction, and you 
 will find them all just as bad as this. And, farther, note that 
 the admission of such barbarous types of sculpture is not 
 merely ridiculous ; it is seriously harmful to your powers of 
 perceiving truth and beauty of any kind or at any time. Im- 
 agine the effect on the minds of your children of having such 
 representations of a lion's head as this thrust upon them per- 
 petually ; and consider what a different effect might be pro- 
 duced upon them if, instead of this barren and insipid ablurd- 
 ity, every boss on your buildings were, according to the 
 workman's best ability, a faithful rendering of the form of 
 some existing animal, so that all their walls were so many 
 pages of natural history. And, finally, consider the difference, 
 with respect to the mind of the workman himseK, between 
 being kept all his life carving, by sixties, and forties, and thir- 
 ties, repetitions of one false and futile model — and being sent, 
 for every piece of work he had to execute, to make a stern 
 and faithful study from some living creature of God. 
 
 And this last consideration enables me to press this sub> 
 iect on you on far higher grounds than I have done yet 
 
PLATE SI.-(Page 25S-Vol. V.) 
 
 Tkjer's Head, and Improvement of the SAiLfc 
 
 ON Greek Principles, 
 
AND PAINTING. 259 
 
 I have hitherto appealed only to your national pride, or te 
 your common sense ; but surely I should treat a Scottish 
 audience with indignity if I appealed not finally to something 
 higher than either of them — to their religious principles. 
 
 You know how often it is difficult to be wisely charitable, 
 to do good without multiplying the sources of evil. You 
 know that to give alms is nothing unless you give thought 
 also ; and that therefore it is written, not " blessed is he that 
 feedeth the poor," but, "blessed is he that considereth the 
 poor." And you know that a Httle thought and a Httle kind- 
 ness are often worth more than a great deal of money. 
 
 Now this chaiity of thought is not merely to be exercised 
 towards the poor ; it is to be exercised towards aU men. 
 There is assuredly no action of our social Hfe, however un- 
 important, which, by kindly thought, may not be made to 
 have a beneficial influence upon others ; and it is impossible 
 to spend the smallest sum of money, for any not absolutely 
 necessary purpose, without a grave responsibiUty attaching to 
 the manner of spending it. The object we ourselves covet 
 may, indeed, be desirable and harmless, so far as we are con- 
 cerned, but the providing us with it may, perhaps, be a very 
 prejudicial occupation to some one else. And then it becomes 
 instantly a moral question, whether we are to indulge our- 
 selves or not. Whatever we wish to buy, we ought first to 
 consider not only if the thing be fit for us, but if the manu- 
 facture of it be a wholesome and happy one ; and if, on the 
 whole, the sum we are going to spend will do as much good 
 spent ia this way as it would if spent in any other way. It 
 may be said that we have not time to consider all this before 
 we make a purchase. But no time could be spent in a more 
 important duty ; and God never imposes a duty without giv- 
 ing the time to do it. Let us, however, only acknowledge 
 the principle ; — once make up your mind to allow the consid- 
 eration of the effect of your piu^chases to regulate the kind of 
 your purchase, and you will soon easUy find grounds enough 
 to decide upon. The plea of ignorance will never take away 
 our responsibilities. It is written, "If thou sayest, Behold 
 we knew it not ; doth not he that pondereth the heart con- 
 
260 LE0TTTRE8 ON AliCniTEGTURBl 
 
 aider it ? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he knov* 
 it?" 
 
 I could press this on you at length, but I hasten to apply the 
 principle to the subject of art. I will do so broadly at first, and 
 then come to architecture. Enormous sums are spent annually 
 by this country in what is called patronage of art, but in what 
 is for the most part merely buying what strikes our fancies. 
 True and judicious patronage there is indeed ; many a work of 
 art is bought by those who do not care for its possession, to 
 assist the struggling artist, or relieve the unsuccessful one. But 
 for the most pai-t, I fear we are too much in the habit of buy- 
 ing simply what we like best, wholly irrespective of any good 
 to be done, either to the artist or to the schools of the coun- 
 try. Now let us remember, that every farthing we spend on 
 objects of art has influence over men's minds and spirits, far 
 more than over their bodies. By the purchase of every print 
 which hangs on your walls, of every cup out of which you 
 drink, and every table off which you eat your bread, you are 
 educating a mass of men in one way or another. Tou are 
 either employing them healthily or unwholesomely ; you are 
 making them lead happy or imhappy lives ; you are leading 
 them to look at nature, and to love her — to think, to feel, to 
 enjoy, — or you are blinding them to nature, and keeping 
 them bound, like beasts of burden, in mechanical and monoto- 
 nous employments. We shall aU be asked one day, why we 
 did not think more of this. 
 
 Well but, you wiU say, how can we decide what we ought 
 to buy, but by our likiags? You would not have us buy 
 what we don't like ? No, but I would have you thoroughly 
 sure that there is an absolute right and wrong in all art, and 
 try to find out the right, and Hke that ; and, secondly, some- 
 times to sacrifice a careless preference or fancy, to what you 
 know is for the good of your fellow-creatures. For instance, 
 when you spend a guinea upon an engraving, what have you 
 done ? You have paid a man for a certain number of hours 
 to sit at a dirty table, in a dirty room, inhaling the fumes of 
 nitric acid, stooping over a steel plate, on which, by the help 
 of a magnifying glass, he is, one by one, laboriously cutting 
 
AND PAINTING. 261 
 
 out certain notches and scratches, of which the effect is to be 
 the copy of another man's work. You cannot suppose you 
 have done a very charitable thing in this ! On the other 
 hand, whenever you buy a small watercolour drawing, you 
 have employed a man happily and healthily, working in a 
 clean room (if he likes), or more probably still, out in the 
 pure coimtry and fresh air, thinking about something, and 
 learning something every moment ; not straining his eye- 
 sight, nor breaking his back, but working in ease and happi- 
 ness. Therefore if you can Hke a modest watercolour better 
 than an elaborate engraving, do. There may indeed be en- 
 gravings which are worth the suffering" it costs to produce 
 them ; but at all events, engravings of public dinners and lay- 
 ing of foundation stones, and such things, might be dispensed 
 with. The engraving ought to be a first-rate picture of a 
 first-rate subject to be worth buying. Farther, I know that 
 many conscientious persons are desirous of encouraging art, 
 but feel at the same time that their judgment is not certain 
 enough to secure their choice of the best kind of art. To 
 such persons I would now especially address myself, fully ad- 
 mitting the greatness of their difficulty. It is not an easy 
 thing to acquire a knowledge of painting ; and it is by no 
 means a desirable thing to encourage bad painting. One bad 
 painter makes another, and one bad painting wiU often spoil 
 a great many healthy judgments. I could name popular 
 painters now living, who have retarded the taste of their gen- 
 eration by twenty years. Unless, therefore, we are certain 
 not merely that we like a painting, but that we are right in 
 liking it, we should never buy it. For there is one way of 
 spending money which is perfectly safe, and in which we may 
 be absolutely sure of doing good. I mean, by paying for simple 
 sculpture of natural objects, chiefly flowers and animals. You 
 are aware that the possibilities of error in sculpture are much 
 less than in painting ; it is altogether an easier and simpler 
 art, invariably attaining perfection long before painting, in 
 the progress of a national mind. It may indeed be corrupted 
 by false taste, or thrown into erroneous forms ; but for the 
 most part, the feebleness of a sculptor is shown in imperfec 
 
262 LECTURES ON AROHITECTURE 
 
 tion and rudeness, rather than in definite error. He does not 
 reach the fineness of the forms of nature ; but he approaches 
 them truly up to a certain point, or, if not so, at all events an 
 honest effort will continually improve him : so that if we set 
 a simple natural form before him, and tell him to copy it, we 
 are sure we have given him a wholesome and useful piece of 
 education ; but if we told him to paint it, he might, with all 
 the honesty in the world, paint it wrongly and falsely, to the 
 end of his days. 
 
 So much for the workman. But the workman is not the 
 only person concerned. Observe farther, that when you buy 
 a print, the enjoyment of it is confined to yourself and to 
 your friends. But if you carve a piece of stone, and ]ya.i it 
 on the outside of your house, it wiU give pleasure to every 
 person who passes along the street — to an innumerable mul- 
 titude, instead of a few. 
 
 Nay but, you say, we ourselves shall not be benefited by 
 the sculpture on the outsides of our houses. Yes, you will, 
 and in an extraordinary degree ; for, observe farther, that 
 architecture differs from painting peculiarly in being an art 
 of accumulation. The prints bought by your friends and 
 hung up in their houses, have no collateral effect with yours : 
 they must be separately examined, and if ever they were 
 hung side by side, they would rather injure than assist each 
 other's effect. But the sculpture on your friend's house 
 unites in effect with that on your own. The two houses form 
 one grand mass — far grander than either separately ; much 
 more if a third be added — and a fourth ; much more if the 
 whole street — if the whole city— join in the solemn harmony 
 of sculpture. Your separate possessions of pictures and prints 
 are to you as if you saug pieces of music with your single 
 voices in your own houses. But your architecture would be 
 as if you all sang together in one mighty choir. In the sep- 
 arate picture, it is rare that there exists any very high source 
 of sublime emotion ; but the great concerted music of the 
 streets of the city when turret rises over turret, and casement 
 frowns beyond casement, and tower succeeds to tower along 
 the farthest ridges of the inhabited hills, — this is a sublimity 
 
AND PAINTING. 263 
 
 of which you can at present form no conception ; and capa-- 
 ble, I believe, of exciting almost the deepest emotion that art 
 can ever strike from the bosoms of men. 
 
 And justly the deepest : for it is a law of God and of nature, 
 that your pleasures — as your virtues — shall be enhanced by 
 mutual aid. As, by joining liand in hand, you can sustain 
 each other best, so, hand in hand, you can delight each other 
 best. And there is indeed a charm and sacredness in street 
 architecture which must be wanting even to that of the tem- 
 ple : it is a Uttle thing for men to unite in the forms of a 
 rehgious service, but it is much for them to unite, like truo 
 brethren, in the arts and offices of their daily lives. 
 
 And now, I can conceive only of one objection as likely 
 still to arise in your minds, which I must briefly meet. Your 
 pictures, and other smaller works of art, you can carry with 
 you, wherever you live ; your house must be left behind. 
 Indeed, I believe that the wandering habits which have now 
 become almost necessary to our existence, He more at the 
 root of our bad architecture than any other character of mod- 
 em times. We always look upon our houses as mere tempo- 
 rary lodgings. "We are always hoping to get larger and finer 
 ones, or are forced, in some way or other, to live where we 
 do not choose, and in continual expectation of changing our 
 place of abode. In the present state of society, this is in a 
 great measure unavoidable ; but let us remember it is an 
 euil ; and that so far as it is avoidable, it becomes our duty 
 to check the impulse. It is not for me to lead you at present 
 into any consideration of a matter so closely touching your 
 private interests and feehngs ; but it surely is a subject for 
 serious thought, whether it might not be better for many of 
 us, if, on attaining a certain position in lite, we determined, 
 with God's permission, to choose a home in which to hve and 
 die, — a home not to be increased by adding stone to stone 
 and field to field, but which, being enough for all our vrishes 
 at that period, we should resolve to be satisfied with for 
 ever. Consider this ; and also, whether we ought not to be 
 more in the habit of seeking honour from our descendants 
 than our ancestors ; thinking it better to be nobly remenp 
 
264 LECTURES ON AROHITBCTUBE 
 
 bered than nobly born ; and striving so to live, that our sons, 
 and our sons' sons, for ages to come, might still lead theil 
 children reverently to the doors out of which we had been 
 carried to the grave, saying, " Look : This was his house : 
 This was his chamber." 
 
 I beUeve that you- can bring forward no other serious ob- 
 jection to the principles for which I am pleading. They are 
 so simple, and, it Seems to me, so incontrovertible, that I 
 trust you will not leave this room without determining, as 
 you have opportunity, to do something to advance this long- 
 neglected art of domestic architecture. The reasons I have 
 laid before you would have weight, even were I to ask you to 
 go to some considerable expenditure beyond what you at 
 present are accustomed to devote to such purposes ; but 
 nothing more would be needed than the diversion of ex- 
 penditures, at present scattered and unconsidered, into a sin- 
 gle and effective channel Nay, the mere interest of the 
 money which we are accustomed to keep dormant by us in 
 the form of plate and jewellery, would alone be enough to 
 sustain a school of magnificent architecture. And although, 
 in highly wrought plate, and in finely designed jewellery, 
 noble art may occasionally exist, yet in genei'al both jewels 
 and services of silver are matters of ostentation, much more 
 than sources of intellectual pleasure. There are also many 
 evils connected with them — they are a care to their possessors, 
 a temptation to the dishonest, and a trouble and bitterness 
 to the poor. So that I cannot but think that part of the 
 wealth which now lies buried in these doubtful luxuries, 
 might most wisely and kindly be thrown into a form which 
 would give perpetual pleasure, not to its possessor only, but 
 to thousands besides, and neither tempt the unprincipled, nor 
 inflame the envious, nor mortify the poor ; while, supposing 
 that your own dignity was dear to you, this, you may rely 
 upon it, would be more impressed upon others by the noble- 
 ness of your house-walls than by the gUstening of your side- 
 boards. 
 
 And even supposing that some additional expenditure loere 
 required for this piu^ose, are we indeed so much poorei 
 
Fig, 19. 
 
 PLATE xn— (Page 265 -Vol. V.) 
 Gakret Window in HoteIj pe BoDKOTHEnouDK. 
 
AND PAINTING. 
 
 265 
 
 than our ancestors, that we cannot now, in all the power of 
 Britain, afford to do what was done by every small republic, 
 by every independent city, in the middle ages, throughout 
 France, Italy, and Germany ? I am not aware of a vestige of 
 domestic architecture, belonging to the great mediseval pe- 
 riods, which, according to its material and character, is not 
 richly decorated. But look here (fig. 19.), look to what an 
 extent decoration has been carried in the domestic edifices of 
 a city, I suppose not much superior in importance, commer- 
 cially speaking, to Manchester, Liverpool, or Birmingham — ■ 
 namely, Rouen, in Normandy. This is a garret window, still 
 existing there, — a garret window built by WiUiam de Bourg- 
 theroude in the early part of the sixteenth century. I show 
 it to you, first, as a proof of what may be made of the features 
 of domestic buildings we are apt to disdain ; and secondly, as 
 another exan>ple of a beautiful use of the pointed arch, filled 
 by the soUd shield of stone, and enclosing a square casement. 
 It is indeec^ a peculiarly rich and beautiful instance, but it 
 is a type of which many examples stiU exist in France, and of 
 which many once existed in your own Scotland, of rude work 
 indeed, but admirable always in eflfect upon the outUne of 
 the buUding.* 
 
 I do not, however, hope that you v?ill often be able to go as 
 far as this in decoration ; in fact I would rather recommend 
 a simpler style to you, founded on earHer examples, but, if 
 possible, aided by colour, introduced in various kinds of nat- 
 urally coloured stones. I have observed that your Scottish 
 lapidaries have admirable taste and skill in the disposition of 
 the pebbles of your brooches and other ornaments of dress ; 
 and I have not the least doubt that the genius of your coimtry 
 would, if directed to this particular style of architecture, pro- 
 duce works as beautiful as they would be thoroughly national. 
 The Gothic of Florence, which owes at least the half of its 
 
 ♦ One of the most beautiful instances I know of this kind of window 
 is in the ancient house of the Maxwells, on the estate of Sir John Max- 
 well of PoUoo. I had not seen it when I gave this lecture, or I should 
 have preferred it, as an example, to that of Rouen, with reference to 
 modern possibilities of imitation. 
 
266 LECTURES ON ARGHITECTUBE 
 
 beauty to the art of inlaying, would fumisli you with exqui- 
 site examples ; its sculpture is indeed the most perfect which 
 was ever produced by the Gothic schools ; but, besides thia 
 rich sculpture, all its flat surfaces are inlaid with coloured 
 stones, much being done with a green serpentine, which 
 forms the greater part of the coast of Genoa. You have, 1 
 believe, large beds of this rock in Scotland, and other stones 
 besides, peculiarly Scottish, calculated to form as noble a 
 school of colour as ever existed.* 
 
 And, now, I have but two things more to say to you in 
 conclusion. 
 
 Most of the lecturers whom you allow to address you, lay 
 before you views of the sciences they profess, which are either 
 generally received, or incontrovertible. I come before you 
 at a disadvantage ; for I cannot conscientiously tell you any- 
 thing about architecture but what is at variance with aU com- 
 monly received views upon the subject. I come before you, 
 professedly to speak of things forgotten or things disputed ; 
 and I lay before you, not accepted principles, but questions 
 at issue. Of those questions you are to be the judges, and 
 to you I appeaL You must not, when you leave this room, 
 if you feel doubtful of the truth of what I have said, refer 
 yourselves to some architect of established reputation, and 
 ask him whether I am right or not You might as well, had 
 you lived in the 16th century, have asked a Eoman CathoHo 
 archbishop his opinion of the first reformer. I deny his juris- 
 diction ; I refuse his decision. I call upon you to be Bereana 
 in architecture, as you are in religion, and to search into 
 these things for yoiirselves. Eemember that, however candid 
 a man may be, it is too much to expect of him, when his 
 career in life has been successful, to turn suddenly on tho 
 highway, and to declare that aU he has learned has been false, 
 and all he has done, worthless ; yet nothing less than such a 
 declaration as this must be made by nearly every existing 
 
 * A series of four examples of designs for windows was exhibited at 
 this point of the lecture, but I have not engraved them, as they were 
 liastily made for the purposes of momentary illustration, and are nol 
 each as I choose to publish or perpetuate. 
 
AND PAINTING. 267 
 
 architect, before he admitted the truth of one word that I 
 have said to you this evening. You must be prepared, there- 
 fore, to hear my opinions attacked with all the virulence of 
 established interest, and aU the pertinacity of confirmed 
 prejudice ; you will hear them made the subjects of every 
 species of satire and invective ; but one kind of opposition to 
 them you will never hear ; you wUl never hear them met by 
 quiet, steady, rational argument ; for that is the one way in 
 which they cannot be met. You will constantly hear me 
 accused — you yourselves may be the first to accuse me — of 
 presumption in speaking thus confidently against the estab- 
 hshed authority of ages. Presumption ! Yes, if I had spoken 
 on my own authority ; but I have appealed to two incontro- 
 vertible and irrefragable witnesses, — to the nature that is 
 around you — to the reason that is within you. And if you 
 are willing in this matter to take the voice of authority against 
 that of nature and of reason, take it in other things also. 
 Take it in religion, as you do in architecture. It is not by a 
 Scottish audience, — not by the descendants of the Reformer 
 and the Covenanter — that I expected to be met with a refusal 
 to beheve that the world might possibly have been wrong for 
 three hundred years, in their ways of carving stones and set- 
 ting up of pillars, when they know that they were wrong for 
 twelve hundred years, in their marking how the roads divided, 
 that led to Hell and Heaven. 
 
 You must expect at first that there will be difficulties and 
 inconsistencies in carrying out the new style ; but they will 
 soon be conquered if you attempt not too much at once. Do 
 not be afraid of incongruities, — do not think of unities of 
 effect. Introduce your Gothic line by line and stone by 
 stone ; never mind mixing it with your present architecture ; 
 your existing houses will be none the worse for having httle 
 bits of better work fitted to them ; buUd a porch, or point a 
 window, if you can do nothing else ; and remember that it is 
 the glory of Gothic architecture that it can do anything. 
 Whatever you really and seriously want, Gothic will do for 
 you ; but it must be an earnest want. It is its pride to ac- 
 commodate itself to your needs ; and the one general law un- 
 
268 LBOTUBES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 der which it acts is simply this, — find out what will make 
 you comfortable, build that in. the strongest and boldest way, 
 and then set your fancy free in the decoration of it. Don't 
 do anything to imitate this cathedral or that, however beau- 
 tiful Do what is convenient ; and if the form be a new one, 
 BO much the better ; then set your mason's wits to work, to 
 find out some new way of treating it. Only be steadily de- 
 termined that, even if you cannot get the best Gothic, at least 
 you win have no Greek ; and in a few years' time, — in leas 
 time than you could learn a new science or a new language 
 thoroughly, — the whole art of your native country will be 
 reanimated. 
 
 And, now, lastly. When this shall be accomplished, do 
 not thiTik it wiU make little difference to you, and that you 
 will be little the happier, or little the better for it. You have 
 at present no conception, and can have none, how much you 
 would enjoy a truly beautiful architecture ; but I can give 
 you a proof of it which none of you will be able to deny. 
 You will aU assuredly admit this priaciple — that whatever 
 temporal things are spoken of in the Bible as emblems of the 
 highest spiritual blessings, must be good things in themselves. 
 You would allow that bread, for instance, would not have been 
 used as an emblem of the word of life, unless it had been good, 
 and necessary for man ; nor water used as the emblem of sanc- 
 tification, unless it also had been good and necessary for man. 
 You wUl allow that oil, and honey, and balm are good, when 
 David says, " Let the righteous reprove me ; it shall be an 
 excellent oil ; " or, " How sweet are thy words unto my 
 taste ; yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth ; " or, when 
 Jeremiah cries out in his weeping, "Is there no bahn in 
 Gilead ? is there no physician there ? " You would admit at 
 once that the man who said there was no taste in the literal 
 honey, and no healing in the Uteral balm, must be of dis- 
 torted judgment, since God has used them as emblems of 
 spiritual sweetness and heaUng. And how, then, will you 
 evade the conclusion, that there must be joy, and comfort, 
 and instruction in the literal beauty of architecture, when 
 God, descending in his utmost love to the distressed Jerusa- 
 
AI^B PARTING. 269 
 
 lem, and addressing to her his most precious and solemn prom- 
 ises, speaks to her in such ■words as these : " Oh, thou af- 
 flicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted," — What shall 
 be done to her ? — "What brightest emblem of blessing wUl 
 God set before her ? "Behold, I wiU lay thy stones unthfair 
 colours, and thy foundations with sapphires ; and I wUl make 
 thy loindows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all 
 thy borders of pleasant stones." Nor is this merely an em- 
 blem of spiritual blessing ; for that blessing is added in the 
 concluding words, ' And aU thy children shall be taught of 
 the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." 
 
270 LECTURES ON ARUHITECTURB 
 
 ADDEK'DA 
 
 TO 
 
 LECTDKES I. AND II 
 
 The delivery of the foregoing lectures excited, as it may be 
 imagined, considerable indignation among the architects who 
 happened to hear them, and elicited various attempts at reply. 
 As it seemed to have been expected by the writers of these 
 replies, that in two lectures, each of them lasting not much 
 more than an hour, I should have been able completely to 
 discuss the philosophy and history of the architecture of the 
 world, besides meeting every objection, and reconciling every 
 apparent contradiction, which might suggest itself to the 
 minds of hearers with whom, probably, from first to last, I 
 bad not a single exactly correspondent idea, relating to the 
 matters under discussion, it seems unnecessary to notice any 
 of them in particular. But as this volume may perhaps fall 
 into the hands of readers who have not time to refer to the 
 works in which my views have been expressed more at large, 
 and as I shaU. now not be able to write or to say anything 
 more about architecture for some time to come, it may be 
 useful to state here, and explain in the shortest possible com- 
 pass, the main gist of the propositions which I desire to main- 
 tain respecting that art ; and also to note and answer, once 
 for all, such arguments as are ordinarily used by the archi- 
 tects of the modern school to controvert these propositions. 
 They may be reduced under six heads. 
 
 1. That Gothic or Eomanesque construction is nobler than 
 Greek construction. 
 
 2. That ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, 
 
AND PAINTING. 271 
 
 3. That ornamentation should be visible. 
 
 4. That ornamentation should be natural 
 
 5. That ornamentation should be thoughtful 
 
 6. And that therefore Gothic ornamentation is nobler than 
 Greek ornamentation, and Gothic architecture the only archi 
 tecture which should now be built. 
 
 Proposition 1st. — Oothic or Romanesque construction is nohlci 
 than Greek construction.* That is to say, building an arch, 
 vault, or dome, is a nobler and more ingenious work than lay 
 ing a flat stone or beam over the space to be covered. It is, 
 for instance, a nobler and more ingenious thing to build an 
 arched bridge over a stream, than to lay two pine-trunks across 
 from bank to bank ; and, in like manner, it is a nobler and 
 more ingenious thing to build an arch over a window, door, 
 or room, than to lay a single flat stone over the same space. 
 
 No architects have ever attempted seriously to controvert 
 this proposition. Sometimes, however, they say that " of two 
 ways of doing a thing, the best and most perfect is not always 
 to be adopted, for there may be particular reasons for em- 
 ploying an inferior one. " This I am perfectly ready to grant, 
 only let them show their reasons in each particular case. 
 Sometimes also they say, that there is a charm in the simple 
 construction which is lost in the scientific one. This I am 
 also perfectly ready to grant. There is a charm in Stonehenge 
 which there is not in Amiens Cathedral, and a charm in an 
 Alpine pine bridge which there is not in the Ponte della Trin- 
 
 * The constructive value of Gothic architecture is, however, far 
 greater than that of Komanesque, as the pointed arch is not only sus- 
 ceptible of an infinite variety of forms and applications to the weight to 
 be sustained, but it possesses, in the outline given to its masonry at its 
 perfect periods, the means of self-sustainment to a far greater degree 
 than the round arch. I pointed out, I believe, the first time, the mean- 
 ing and constructive value of the Gothic cusp, in page 139 of the first 
 volume of the ''Stones of Venice." That statement was first denied, 
 and then taken advantage of, by modern architects ; and, considering 
 Iiow often it has been alleged that I have no practical knowledge of 
 architecture, it cannot but be matter of some triumph to me, to find the 
 " Builder," of the 31st January, of this year, describing, as a new in- 
 vention, the successful application to a church in Carlow of the prinor 
 pie which I laid down in the year 1851. 
 
272 LECTURES ON ABCHITEOTURE 
 
 ita afc Florence, and, in general, a charm in savageness •which 
 there is not in science. But do not let it be said, therefore, 
 that savageness is science. 
 
 Proposition 2nd. — Ornamentation is the principal part of 
 architecture. That is to say, the highest nobility of a build- 
 ing does not consist in its being well built, but in its being 
 nobly sculptured or painted. 
 
 This is always, and at the first hearing of it, very naturally, 
 considered one of my most heretical propositions. It is also 
 one of the most important I have to maintain ; and it must ba 
 permitted me to explain it at some length. The first thing to 
 be required of a building — not, observe, the highest thing, but 
 the first thing — is that it shall answer its purposes completely, 
 permanently, and at the smallest expense. If it is a house, it 
 should be just of the size convenient for its owner, containing 
 exactly the kind and number of rooms that he wants, with ex- 
 actly the number of windows he wants, put in the places that 
 he wants. If it is a church, it should be just large enough 
 for its congregation, and of such shape and disposition aa 
 shall make them comfortable in it and let them hear well in 
 it. If it be a pubUc office, it should be so disposed as is most 
 convenient for the clerks in their daily avocations ; and so on ; 
 all this being utterly irrespective of external appearance or 
 lEsthetic considerations of any kind, and all being done solidly, 
 securely, and at the smallest necessary cost. 
 
 The sacrifice of any of these first requirements to external 
 appearance is a futility and absurdity. Rooms must not be 
 darkened to make the ranges of windows symmetrical. Useless 
 wtngs must not be added on one side to balance useful wings 
 on the other, but the house built with one wing, if the owner 
 has no need of two ; and so on. 
 
 But observe, in doing all this, there is no High, or as it is 
 commonly called. Fine Art, required at aU. There may be 
 much science, together with the lower form of art, or "handi- 
 craft," but there is as yet no Fine Art. House-building, on 
 these terms, is no higher thing than ship-building. It indeed 
 will generally be found that the edifice designed with this 
 masculine reference to utility, will have a charm about it^ 
 
AND PAINTING. 273 
 
 otherwise unattainable, just as a ship, constructed -with simple 
 reference to its service against powers of wind and wave, tuma 
 but one of the loveliest things that human hands produce. 
 StiU, we do not, and properly do not, hold ship-building to be 
 a fine art, nor preserve in our memories the names of immor- 
 sal ship-builders ; neither, so long as the mere utihty and con- 
 structive merit of the building are regarded, is architecture to 
 be held a fine art, or are the names of architects to be remem- 
 bered immortally. For any one may at any time be taught to 
 bmld the ship, or (thus far) the house, and there is nothing 
 deserving of immortality in doing what any one may be taught 
 to do. 
 
 But when the house, or church, or other building is thus 
 far designed, and the forms of its dead walls and dead roofs 
 are up to this point determined, comes the divine part of the 
 work — namely, to turn these dead walls into Hving ones. 
 Only Deity, that is to say, those who are taught by Deity, can 
 do that. 
 
 And that is to be done by painting and sculpture, that is 
 to say, by ornamentation. Ornamentation is therefore the 
 principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine 
 art. 
 
 Now observe. It wiU at once foUow from this principle, 
 that a great architect must be a great sculptor or painter. 
 
 This is a universal law. No person who is not a great 
 sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor 
 or painter, he can only be a builder. 
 
 The three greatest architects hitherto known in the world 
 were Phidias, Giotto, and Michael Angelo ; with all of whom, 
 architecture was only their play, sculpture and painting their 
 ■work. AU great works of architecture in existence are either 
 the work of single sculptors or painters, or of societies of 
 sculptors and painters, acting collectively for a series of years. 
 A Gothic cathedral is properly to be defined as a piece of the 
 most magnificent associative sculpture, arranged on the no- 
 blest principles of building, for the service and delight of 
 multitudes ; and the proper definition of architecture, aa 
 distinguished from sculpture, ia merely " the art of design' 
 
274 LECTURES OW ARCniTEOTUBE 
 
 ing sculpture for a particular place, and placing it there on 
 the best principles of building." 
 
 Hence it clearly follows, that in modem days we have no 
 architects. The term "architecture" is not so much as un- 
 derstood by us. I am very sorry to be compelled to the dis- 
 courtesy of stating this fact, but a fact it is, and a fact which 
 it is necessary to state strongly. 
 
 Hence also it wiU follow, that the first thing necessary to 
 the possession of a school of architecture is the formation of 
 a school of able sculptors, and that till we have that, nothing 
 ■we do can be called architecture at all. 
 
 This, then, being my second proposition, the so-called 
 "architects" of the day, as the reader wiH imagine, are not 
 willing to admit it, or to admit any statement which at all 
 involves it ; and every statement, tending in this direction, 
 which I have hitherto made, has of course been met by eager 
 opposition ; opposition which perhaps would have been still 
 more energetic, but that architects have not, I think, till 
 lately, been quite aware of the lengths to which I was pre- 
 pared to carry the principle. 
 
 The arguments, or assertions, which they generally employ 
 against this second proposition and its consequences, are the 
 following. 
 
 First. That the true nobihty of architecture consists, not in 
 decoration (or sculpture), but in the " disposition of ^masses," 
 and that architecture is, in fact, the " art of proportion." 
 
 It is difficult to overstate the enormity of the ignorance 
 which this popular statement implies. For the fact is that 
 all art, and all nature, depend on the " disposition of masses." 
 Painting, sculpture, music, and poetry, depend all equally on 
 the "proportion," whether of colours, stones, notes, or words 
 Proportion is a principle, not of architecture, but of existence. 
 It is by the laws of proportion that stars shine, that moun. 
 tains stand, and rivers flow. Man can hardly perform any act 
 of his life, can hardly utter two words of innocent speech, or 
 move his hand in accordance with those words, without in- 
 volving some reference, whether taught or instinctive, to the 
 laws of proportion. And in the fine arts, it is impossible to 
 
AUB PAINTING. 275 
 
 move a single step, or to execute the smallest and simplesii 
 piece of work, without involving all those laws of proportion 
 in their full complexity. To arrange (by invention) the folda 
 of a piece of drapery, or dispose the locks of hair on the head 
 of a statue, requires as much sense and knowledge of the laws 
 of proportion, as to dispose the masses of a cathedral The one 
 are indeed smaller than the other, but the relations between 
 1, 2, 4, and 8, are precisely the same as the relations between 
 6, 12, 24, and 48. So that the assertion that " architecture 
 is par excellence the art of proportion," cotdd never be made 
 except by persons who know nothing of art in general ; and, 
 in fact, never is made except by those architects, who, not 
 being artists, fancy that the one poor aesthetic principle of 
 which they are cognizant is the whole of art. They find that 
 the " disposition of masses '' is the only thing of impojrtance 
 in the art with which they are acquainted^ and fancy therefore 
 that it is peciuiar to that art ; whereas the fact is, that all 
 great art begins exactly where theirs ends, with the " disposi- 
 tion of masses.'' The assertion that Greek architecture, as 
 opposed to Gothic architecture, is the " architecture of pro- 
 portion," is another of the results of the same broad igno- 
 rance. First, it is a calumny of the old Greek style itself, 
 which, like every other good architecture that ever existed, 
 depends more on its grand figure sculpture, than on its pro- 
 portions of parts ; so that to copy the form of the Parthenon 
 without its friezes and frontal statuary, is like copying the 
 figure of a human being without its eyes and mouth ; and, in 
 the second place, so far as modern pseudo-Greek work does 
 depend on its proportions more than Gothic work, it does so, 
 not because it is better proportioned, but because it has noth- 
 ing hut proportion to depend upon. Gesture is in like man- 
 ner of more importance to a pantomime actor than to a trage- 
 dian, not because his gesture is more refined, but because he 
 has no tongue. And the proportions of our common Greek 
 work are important to it undoubtedly, but not because they 
 are or ever can be more subtle than Gothie proportion, but 
 because that work has no sculpture, nor colour, nor imagina- 
 tion, nor sacredness, nor any other quality whatoroever in ii^ 
 
276 LECTURES ON ARGHITEGTURB 
 
 but ratios of measures. And it is diffictilt to express with 
 sufficient force the absurdity of the supposition that there is 
 more room for refinements of proportion in the relations of 
 seven or eight equal pillars, with the triangular end of a roof 
 above them, than between the shafts, and buttresses, and 
 porches, and pinnacles, and vaultings, and towers, and all 
 other doubly and trebly multiplied magnificences of member- 
 ship which form the framework of a Gothic temple. 
 
 Second Eeply. — It is often said, with some appearance of 
 plausibility, that I dwell in all my writings on little things 
 and contemptible details ; and not on essential and large 
 things. Now, in the first place, as soon as our architects be- 
 come capable of doing and managing little and contemptible 
 things, it wiU be time to talk about larger ones ; at present I 
 do not see that they can design so much as a niche or a 
 bracket, and therefore they need not as yet think about any- 
 thing larger. For although, as both just now, and always, I 
 have said, there is as much science of arrangement needed in 
 the designing of a small group of parts as of a large one, yet 
 assuredly designing the larger one is not the easier work of 
 the two. For the eye and mind can embrace the smaller ob- 
 ject more completely, and if the powers of conception are 
 feeble, they get embarrassed by the inferior members which 
 fall within the divisions of the larger design.* So that, of 
 course, the best way is to begin with the smaller features ; 
 for most assuredly, those who cannot design small things 
 cannot design large ones ; and yet, on the other hand, who- 
 ever can design small things perfectly, can design whatever 
 he chooses. The man who, without copying, and by his own 
 true and original power, can arrange a cluster of rose-leaves 
 nobly, can design anything. He may fail from want of taste 
 or feeling, but not from want of power. 
 
 * Thus, In speaking of Pugin's designs, I said, "Expect no cathedral* 
 of him ; but no one, at present, can design a better flnial, though he 
 will never design even a finial, perfectly." But even this I said less 
 with reference to powers of arrangement, than to materials of fancy ; 
 for many men have stone enough to last them through u boss or < 
 bracket, but not to last them through a church front. 
 
AND PAINTING. 2^1 
 
 And the real reaaon why architects are so eager in protest- 
 ing against my close examination of details, is simply that 
 they know they dare not meet me on that ground. BeiDg, as 
 I have said, in reaJity not ai-chitects, but builders, they can 
 indeed raise a large building, with copied ornaments, which, 
 being huge and wliite, they hope the public may pronoTjoice 
 " handsome." But they cannot design a cluster of oak-leaves 
 — no, nor a single hxunan figure — no, nor so much as a beast, 
 or a bird or a bird's nest ! Let them first learn to invent as 
 much as will fill a quatrefoU, or point a pinnacle, and then it 
 will be time enough to reason with them on the principles of 
 the sublime. 
 
 But farther. The things that I have dwelt upon in exam- 
 ining buildings, though often their least parts, are always in 
 reahty their principal pai-ts. That is the principal part of a 
 building in which its mind is contained, and that, as I have 
 just shown, is its sculpture and painting. I do with a build- 
 ing as I do with a man, watch the eye and the lips : when they 
 ai-e bright and eloquent, the form of the body is of httle con- 
 sequence. 
 
 "Whatever other objections have been made to this second 
 proposition, arise, as far as I remember, merely from a con- 
 fusion of the idea of essentialness or primariness with the 
 idea of nobleness. The essential thing in a building, — its 
 /irst virtue, — is that it be strongly built, and fit for its uses. 
 The noblest thing in a building, and its highest virtue, is that 
 it be nobly sculptured or painted.* 
 
 One or two important corollaries yet remain to be stated. 
 It has just been said that to sacrifice the convenience of a ' 
 building to its external appearance is a futility and absurdity, 
 and that convenience and stabiHty are to be attained at the 
 smallest cost. But when that convenience has been attained, 
 the adding the noble characters of life by painting and 
 sculpture, is a work in which all possible cost may be wisely 
 admitted. There is great difficulty in fuUy explaining the 
 various bearings of this proposition, so as to do away with the 
 
 * Of course I use the term painting as including every mode of ap* 
 plying colour. 
 
278 LECTURES ON ABOHITEGTUSB 
 
 chances of its being erroneously understood and applied. 
 For although, in the first designing of the building, nothing 
 is to be admitted but what is wanted, and no useless wings 
 are to be added to balance useful ones, yet in its ultimate 
 designing, when its sculpture and colour become precious, it 
 may be that actual room is wanted to display them, or richer 
 symmetry wanted to deserve them ; and in such cases even a 
 useless wall may be built to bear the sculpture, as at San 
 Michele of Lucca, or a useless portion added to complete the 
 cadences, as at St. Mark's of Venice, or useless height ad- 
 mitted in order to increase the impressiveness, as in nearly 
 every noble buUding in the world. But the right to do this 
 is dependent upon the actual purpose of the building becom- 
 ing no longer one of utility merely ; as the purpose of a 
 cathedral is not so much to shelter the congregation as to awe 
 them. In such cases even some sacrifice of convenience may 
 occasionally be admitted, as in the case of certain forms of 
 pillared churches. But for the most part, the great law is, 
 convenience first, and\ then the noblest decoration possible ; 
 and this is peculiarly the case in domestic buildings, and 
 such pubhc ones as are constantly to be used for practical 
 purposes. 
 
 Proposition 3rd. — Ornamentation should be visible. 
 
 The reader may imagine this to be an indisputable posi- 
 tion ; but, practically, it is one of the last which modem 
 architects are likely to admit ; for it involves much more 
 than appears at first sight. To render ornamentation, with 
 all its qualities, clearly and entirely visible in its appointed 
 place on the building, requires a knowledge of effect and a 
 power of design which few even of the best artists possess, 
 and which modern architects, so far from possessing, do not 
 so much as comprehend the existence of. But, without 
 dweUing on this highest manner of rendering ornament 
 "visible,"' I desire only at present to conviace the reader 
 thoroughly of the main fact asserted in the text, that while 
 modem builders decorate the tops of buildings, medissval 
 builders decorated the bottom. So singular is the ignorance 
 yet prevailing of the first iirinciples of Gothic architecture 
 
AND PAINTING. 2T9 
 
 that I saw this assertion marked with notes of interrogation 
 ia several of the reports of these Lectures ; although, at 
 Edinburgh, it was only necessary for those who doubted it to 
 have walked to Holyrood Chapel, in order to convince them- 
 selves of the truth of it, so far as their own city was con- 
 cerned ; and although, most assuredly, the cathedrals of 
 Eui'ope have now been drawn often enough to estabHsh the 
 very simple fact that their best sculpture is in their porches, 
 not ia their steeples. However, as this great Gothic principle 
 seems yet imacknowledged, let me state it here, once for all, 
 namely, that the whole building is decorated, in aU pure and 
 fine examples, with the most exactly studied respect to the 
 powers of the eye ; the richest and most deUcate sculpture 
 being put on the walls of the porches, or on the fayade of the 
 building, just high enough above the ground to secure it 
 from accidental, (not from wanton*) injury. The decoration, 
 as it rises, becomes always bolder, and in the buildings of the 
 greatest times generally simpler. Thus at San Zeno, and the 
 duomo of Verona, the only dehcate decorations are on the 
 porches and lower walls of the fapades, the rest of the build-> 
 ings being left comparatively plain ; in the ducal palace of 
 Venice the only very careful work is in the lowest capitals ; 
 and so also the richness of the work diminishes upwards in 
 the transepts of Rouen, and fajades of Bayeux, Bheims, 
 Amiens, Abbeville.f Lyons, and Notre Dame of Paris. But 
 in the middle and later Gothic the tendency is to produce an 
 equal richness of effect over the whole building, or even to in- 
 crease the richness towards the top : but this is done so skil- 
 fully that no fine work is wasted : and when the spectator 
 ascends to the higher points of the building, which he thought 
 were of the most consummate delicacy, he finds them Herculean 
 
 * Nothing is more notable in good Gothic than the confidence of ita 
 builders in the respect of the people for their work. A great school of 
 architecture cannot exist when this respect cannot be calculated upon, 
 as it would be vain to put fine sculpture within the reach of a popula- 
 tion whose only pleasure would be in defacing it. 
 
 f The church at Abbeville is late flamboyant, but well deserves, iot 
 the exquisite beauty of its porches, to be named even with the grsiU 
 works of the thirteenth century. 
 
280 LECTURES ON ARCBITECTURE 
 
 in strengtlL and rough-hewn in style, the really delicate work 
 being all put at the base. The general treatment of Eoman- 
 esque work is to increase the numher of arches at the top, 
 which at once enriches and lightens the mass, and to put the 
 finest sculpture of the arches at the bottom. In towers of 
 all kinds and periods the effective enrichment is towards the 
 top, and most rightly, since their dignity is in their height ; 
 but they are never made the recipients of fine scrolpture, with, 
 as far as I know, the single exception of Giotto's campanile^ 
 which indeed has fine sculpture, hut it is at the bottom. 
 
 The fa9ade of WeUs Cathedral seems to be an exception to 
 the general rule, in having its principal decoration at the top ; 
 but it is on a scale of perfect power and effectiveness ; while 
 in the base modern Gothic of Milan Cathedral the statues are 
 cut delicately everywhere, and the builders think it a merit 
 that the visitor must climb to the roof before he can see them ; 
 and our modem Greek and Italian architecture reaches the 
 utmost pitch of absurdity by placing its fine work at the top 
 only. So that the general condition of the thing may be 
 stated boldly, as in the text : the principal ornaments of 
 Gothic buildings being in their porches, and of modem build- 
 ings, in their parapets. 
 
 Proposition 4tL — Ornamentation should be natural, — that is 
 to say, should in some degree express or adopt the beauty of 
 aatural objects. This law, together with its ultimate reason, 
 is expressed in the statement given in the " Stones of Venice," 
 voL i. p. 213. : " All noble ornament is the expression of 
 man's delight in God's work." 
 
 Observe, it does not hence foUow that it should be an exact 
 imitation of, or endeavour in anywise to supersede, God's work. 
 It may consist only in a partial adoption of, and compliance 
 with, the usual forms of natural things, without at all going 
 to the point of imitation ; and it is possible that the point of 
 imitation may be closely reached by ornaments, which never- 
 theless are entirely unfit for their place, and are the signs only 
 of a degraded ambition and an ignorant dexterity. Bad dec- 
 orators err as easily on the side of imitating nature, as of for- 
 getting her ; and the question of the exact degree in which 
 
AND PAINTING. 281 
 
 imitation should be attempted under given circumstances, is 
 one of the most subtle and difficult in the whole range of 
 criticism. I have elsewhere examined it at some length, and 
 have yet much to say about it ; but here I can only state 
 briefly that the modes in which ornamentation ought to fall 
 short of pure representation or imitation are in the main three, 
 namely, — 
 
 A. Conventionahsm by cause of colour. 
 
 B. Conventionalism by cause of inferiority. 
 
 C. Conventionalism by cause of means. 
 
 A. Conventionahsm by cause of colour. — Abstract colour 
 is not an imitation of nature, but is nature itself ; that is to 
 say, the pleasure taken in blue or red, as such, considered 
 as hues merely, is the same, so long as the brilliancy of the 
 hue is equal, whether it be produced by the chemistry of 
 man, or the chemistry of flowers, or the chemistry of skies. 
 "We deal with colour as with sound — so far ruling the power 
 of the light, as we rule the power of the air, producing beauty 
 not necessarily imitative, but sufficient in itself, so that, 
 wherever colour is introduced, ornamentation may cease to 
 represent natiu-al objects, and may consist in mere spots, or 
 bands, or flamings, or any other condition of arrangement 
 favourable to the colour. 
 
 B. Conventionalism by cause of inferiority. — In general, 
 ornamentation is set upon certain services, subjected to cer- 
 tain systems, and confined within certain limits ; so that its 
 forms require to be lowered or limited in accordance with the 
 required relations. It cannot be allowed to assume the free 
 outlines, or to rise to the perfection of imitation. Whole 
 banks of flowers, for instance, cannot be carved on cathedral 
 fronts, but only narrow mouldings, having some of the char- 
 acters of banks of flowers. Also, some ornaments require to 
 be subdued in value, that they may not interfere with the ef- 
 fect of others ; and aU these necessary inferiorities are attained 
 by means of departing from natural forms — it being an estab- 
 lished law of human admiration that what is most representa. 
 tive of nature shall, cceteris paribus, be most attractive. 
 
 AU the various kinds of ornamentation, consisting of spots^ 
 
282 LECTURES ON ASCHITECTUBE 
 
 points, twisted bands, abstract curves, and other sucb, owe 
 their pecuUar character to this conventionalism " by cause of 
 inferiority." 
 
 C. Conventionalism by cause of means. — In every branch 
 of art, only so much imitation of nature is to be admitted as 
 is consistent with the ease of the workman and the capacities 
 of the material. Whatever shortcomings are appointed (for 
 they are more than permitted, they are in such cases ap- 
 pointed, and meritorious) on account of the untractableness 
 of the material, come under the head of " conventionaUsm by 
 cause of means." 
 
 These conventionalities, then, being duly understood and 
 accepted, in modification of the general law, that law will be, 
 that the glory of all ornamentation consists in the adoption 
 or imitation of the beauties of natural objects, and that no 
 work can be of high value which is not full of this beauty. To 
 this fourth proposition, modem architects have not ventured 
 to make any serious resistance. On the contrary, they seem 
 to be, Uttle by little, gliding into an obscure perception of the 
 fact, that architecture, in most periods of the world, had 
 sculpture upon it, and that the said sculpture generally did 
 represent something inteihgible. For instance, we find Mr. 
 Huggins, of Liverpool, lately lecturing upon architecture " in 
 its relations to nature and the intellect,"* and gravely inform- 
 ing his hearers, that " in the middle ages, angels Avere human 
 figures ; " that " some of the richest ornaments of Solomon's 
 temple were imitated from the palm and pomegranate," and 
 that " the Greeks followed the example of the Egyptians in 
 selecting their ornaments from the plards of their own coun- 
 try." It is to be presumed that the lecturer has never been 
 in the Elgin or Egyptian room of the British Museum, or it 
 might have occurred to him that the Egyptians and Greeks 
 sometimes also selected their ornaments from the men of their 
 own country. But we must not expect too much illumination 
 at once ; and as we are told that, in conclusion, Mr. Huggins 
 glanced at " the error of architects in neglecting the fountain of 
 
 • See the " Builder," for January 12, 1854 
 
AND PAINTING. 283 
 
 wisdom thus open to them in nature," we may expect in due 
 time large results from the discovery of a source of wisdom so 
 un imagined. 
 
 Proposition 5th. — Ornamentation should be thoughtful. That 
 is to say, whenever you put a chisel or a pencil into a man's 
 hand for the purpose of enabling him to produce beauty, you 
 are to expect of him that he will think about what he is doing, 
 and feel something about it, and that the expression of this 
 thought or feeling will be the most noble quality in what he 
 produces with his chisel or brush, inasmuch as the power 
 of thinking and feeUng is the most noble thing in man. It 
 wiU hence follow that as men do not commonly think the same 
 thoughts twice, you are not to require of them that they shall 
 do the same thing twice. You are to expect another and a 
 diflferent thought of them, as soon as one thought has been 
 well expressed. 
 
 Hence, therefore, it follows also that aU noble ornamenta- 
 tion is perpetually varied ornamentation, and that the mo- 
 ment you find ornamentation unchanging, you may know that 
 it is of a degraded kind or degraded school. To this law, the 
 only exceptions arise out of the uses of monotony, as a con- 
 trast to a change. Many subordinate architectural mouldings 
 are severely ahke in their various parts (though never unless 
 they are thoroughly subordinate, for monotony is always 
 deathful according to the degree of it), in order to set off 
 change in others ; and a certain monotony or similarity must 
 be introduced among the most changeful ornaments in order 
 to enhance and exhibit their own changes. 
 
 The truth of this proposition is self-evident ; for no art can 
 be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art 
 is capable of expressing thought which does not change. To 
 require of an artist that he should always reproduce the same 
 picture, would be not one whit more base than to require of 
 a carver that he should always reproduce the same sculpture. 
 
 The principle is perfectly clear and altogether incontroverti- 
 ble. Apply it to modern Greek architecture, and that archi- 
 tecture must cease to exist; for it depends absolutely on 
 copyism. 
 
384 LECTURES ON AMCHITEOTUEE 
 
 The sixth proposition above stated, that Gothic ornamenta- 
 tion is nobler than Greek ornamentation, &c., is therefore suffi- 
 ciently proved by the acceptance of this one principle, no less 
 important than unassailable. Of all that I have to bring for- 
 ward respecting architecture, this is the one I have most at 
 heart ; for on the acceptance of this depends the determina- 
 tion whether the workman shall be a hving, progressive, and 
 happy human being, or whether he shall be a mere machine, 
 with its valves smoothed by heart's blood instead of oil, — the 
 most pitiable form of slave. 
 
 And it is with especial reference to the denial of this prin- 
 ciple in modem and renaissance architecture, that I speak of 
 that architecture with a bitterness which appears to many 
 readers extreme, while in reaUty, so far from exaggerating, I 
 have not grasp enough of thought to embrace, the evils which 
 have resulted among aU the orders of European society from 
 the introduction of the renaissance schools of building, in 
 turning away the eyes of the beholder from natural beauty, 
 and reducing the workman to the level of a machine. In the 
 Gothic times, writing, painting, carving, casting, — it mattered 
 not what, — were aU works done by thoughtful and happy 
 men ; and the illumination of the volume, and the carving 
 and casting of wall and gate, employed, not thousands, but 
 millions, of true and noble artists over aU Christian londa 
 Men in the same position are now left utterly without intel- 
 lectual power or pursuit, and, being unhappy in their work, 
 they rebel against it ; hence one of the worst forms of Un- 
 christian Socialism. So again, there being now no nature or 
 variety in architecture, the multitude are not interested in it ; 
 therefore, for the present, they have lost their taste for art 
 altogether, so that you can no longer trust sculpture within 
 their reach. Consider the innumerable forms of evil involved 
 in the temper and taste of the existing populace of London 
 or Paris, as compared with the temper of the populace of 
 Florence, when the quarter of Santa Maria Novella received 
 its title of "Joyful Quarter," from the rejoicings of the multi- 
 tude at getting a new picture into their church, better than 
 the old ones ; — all this difference b^ing exclusi 'ely charge* 
 
AND PAINXma. 285 
 
 able on the renaissance architecture. And then, farther, if we 
 remember, not only the revolutionary ravage of sacred archi- 
 tecture, but the immeasurably greater destruction effected by 
 the renaissance builders and their sateUites, wherever they 
 came, destruction so wide-spread that there is not a town in 
 France or Italy but it has to deplore the deUberate overthrow 
 of more than half its noblest monuments, in order to put up 
 Greek porticoes or palaces in their stead ; adding also all the 
 blame of the ignorance of the meaner kind of men, operating 
 in thousands of miserable abuses upon the frescoes, books, 
 and pictures, as the architects' hammers did on the carved 
 work, of the Middle Ages * ; and, finally, if we examine the 
 influence which the luxury, and, stUl more, the heathenism, 
 joined with the essential dulness of these schools, have had 
 on the upper classes of society, it will ultimately be found 
 that no expressions are energetic enough to describe, nor 
 broad enough to embrace, the enormous moral evils which 
 have risen from them. 
 
 I omitted, in preparing the preceding lecture for the press, 
 a passage referring to this subject, because it appeared to me, 
 in its place, hardly explained by preceding statements. But 
 I give it here unaltered, as being, in sober earnest, but too 
 weak to characterise the tendencies of the " accursed " archi- 
 tecture of which it speaks. 
 
 "Accursed, I call it, with deUberate purpose. It needed 
 
 • Nothing appears to me much more wonderful, than the remorseless 
 way in which the educated ignorance, even of the present day, will 
 sweep away an ancient monument, if its preservation be not absolutely 
 consistent with immediate convenience or economy. Putting aside all 
 antiquarian considerations, and all artistical ones, I wish that people 
 would only consider the steps, and the weight of the following very 
 simple argument. You allow it is wrong to waste time, that is, your 
 own time ; but then it must be still more wrong to waste other people's; 
 for you have some right to your own time, but none to theirs. Well, 
 then, if it is thus wrong to waste the time of the living, it must be 
 still more wrong to waste the time of the dead ; for the living can re- 
 deem their time, the dead cannot. But you waste the best of the time 
 of the dead when you destroy the works they have left you ; for to 
 those works they gave the best of their time, intending them for im* 
 mortality. 
 
286 LECTURES ON AEGHITECTURE 
 
 but the gathering up of a Babylonish garment to trouble 
 Israel; — these marble garments of the ancient idols of the 
 Gentiles, how many have they troubled? Gathered out of 
 their ruins by the second Bablyon, — gathered by the Papal 
 Chui'ch in the extremity of her sin ; — raised up by her, not 
 when she was sending forth her champions to preach in the 
 highway, and pine in the desert, and perish in the fire, but in 
 the very scarlet fruitage and fulness of her guUt, when her 
 priests vested themselves not with purple only, but with blood, 
 and bade the cups of their feasting foam not with vnne only, but 
 vyith hemlock ; — raised by the hands of the Leos and the Bor- 
 gias, raised first into that mighty temple where the seven hills 
 slope to the Tiber, that marks by its massy dome the central 
 spot, where Eome has reversed the words of Christ, and, as 
 He vivified the stone to the apostleship, she petrifies the apos- 
 tleship into the stumbling stone ; — exalted there first as if to 
 mark what work it had to do,, it went forth to pai-alyse or to 
 pollute, and wherever it came, the lustre faded from the streets 
 of our cities, the grey towers and glorious arches of our 
 abbeys fell by the river sides, the love of nature was uprooted 
 from the hearts of men, base luxuries and cruel formalisms 
 were festered and frozen into them from their youth ; and at 
 last, where, from his fair Gothic chapel beside the Seine, the 
 king St. Louis had gone forth followed by his thousands in 
 the cause of Christ, another king was dragged forth from the 
 gates of his Renaissance palace,* to die by the hands of the 
 
 * The character of Renaissance architecture, and the spirit which dic- 
 tated its adoption, maj be remembered as having been centred and 
 symbolized In the palace of Versailles : whose site was chosen by Louis 
 the Fourteenth, in order that from thence he might TWt see St. Denis, 
 the burial place of his family. The cost of the palace in 27 years is 
 . stated in the " Builder " for March 18th of this year, to have been 
 3,246,000i. money of that period, equal to about seven millions now 
 (900,000!. having been expended in the year 1686 alone). The build- 
 ing is thus notably illustrative of the two feelings which were stated in 
 the " Stones of Venice, "to be peculiarly characteristic of the Renais- 
 sance spirit, the Pride of State and Fear of Death. Compare the horroi 
 of Louis the Fourteenth at the sight of the tower of St. Denis, with the 
 feeling which prompted the Soaligerl at Verona to set their tombs within 
 fifteen feet of their palace walls. 
 
AND PAINTINO. 287 
 
 thousands of his people gathered in another crusade ; or what 
 shall that be called — whose sign was not the cross, but the 
 guillotine ! " 
 
 I have not space here to pursue the subject farther, nor 
 shall I be able to write anything more respecting architecture 
 for some time to come. But in the meanwhile, I would most 
 earnestly desire to leave with the reader this one subject of 
 thought — " The Life of tlie Workman." For it is singular, 
 and far more than singular, that among aU the writers who 
 have attempted to examine the principles stated in the 
 " Stones of Venice," not one * has as yet made a single com- 
 ment on what was precisely and accurately the most impor- 
 tant chapter in the whole book ; namely, the description of 
 the nature of Gothic architecture, as involving the liberty of 
 the workman (vol. ii. ch. vi.). I had hoped that whatever 
 might be the prejudices of modern architects, there would 
 have been found some among them quicksighted enough to 
 see the bearings of this principle, and generous enough to 
 support it. There has hitherto stood foi-ward not one. 
 
 But my purpose must at last be accomplished for all this. 
 The labourer among the gravestones of our modem architect- 
 ure must yet be raised up, and become a Uving soul. Before 
 he can be thus raised, the whole system of Greek architecture, 
 as practised in the present day, must be annihilated ; but it 
 luill be annihilated, and that speedily. For truth and judg- 
 ment are its declared opposites, and against these nothing 
 ever finally prevailed, or shall prevail. 
 
 LECTURE m. 
 
 TUENHR, AND HIS WOKKS. 
 
 My object this evening is not so much to give you any ac- 
 count of the works or the genius of the great painter whom 
 we have so lately lost (which it would require rather a year 
 
 * An article in Fraser's Magazine, whloh has appeared since these 
 sheets wei'6 sent to press, forms a solitary exception. 
 
388 LEGTUBE8 ON ARCSITEOTURE 
 
 than an bour to do), as to give you some idea of the positioa 
 which his works hold with respect to the landscape of other 
 periods, and of the general condition and prospects of the 
 landscape art of the present day. I wUl not lose time in pref- 
 atory remarks, as I have little enough at any rate, but will 
 enter abruptly on my subject 
 
 You are all of you well aware that landscape seems hardly 
 to have exercised any strong influence, as such, on any pagap 
 nation, or pagan artist. I have no time to enter into any de^ 
 taOs on this, of course, most intricate and difficult subject ; 
 but I will only ask you to observe, that wherever natural 
 scenery is alluded to by the ancients, it is either agricultu- 
 rally, with the kind of feeling that a good Scotch farmer has ; 
 sensually, in the enjoyment of sun or shade, cool winds or 
 sweet scents ; fearfully, in a mere vulgar dread of rocks and 
 desolate places, as compared with the comfort of cities ; or, 
 finally, super stitiously, in the personification or deification 
 of natural powers generally with much degradation of their 
 impressiveness, as in the paltry fables of Ulysses receiving 
 the winds in bags from ^olus, and of the Cyclops ham- 
 mering lightning sharp at the ends, on an anvil.* Of course 
 you will here and there find feeble evidences of a higher sen- 
 sibiHty, chiefly, I think, in Plato, ^schylus, Aristophanes, and 
 Virgil. Homer, though in the epithets he applies to land- 
 scape always thoroughly graphic, uses the same epithet for 
 rocks, seas, and trees, from one end of his poem to the other, 
 evidently without the smallest interest in anything of the 
 kind -. and in the mass of heathen writers, the absence of sen- 
 sation on these subjects is singularly painful. For instance, 
 in that, to my mind, most disgusting of all so-called poems, 
 the journey to Brundusium, you remember that Horace takes 
 
 * Of course I do not mean by calling these fables "paltry," to dispute 
 their neatness, ingenuity, or moral depth ; but only their want of ap- 
 prehension of the extent and awf ulness of the phenomena introduced. 
 So also, in denying Homer's interest in nature, I do not mean to deny 
 his accuracy of observation, or his power of seizing on the main point* 
 of landscape, but I deny the power of landscape over his heart, unless 
 when closely associated with, and altogether subordinate to, some hu- 
 man interest. 
 
AND PAINTING. 289 
 
 exactly as much interest in the scenery he is passing through, 
 as Sancho Panza would have done. 
 
 You wUl find, on the other hand, that the language of the 
 Bible is specifically distinguished from all other early htera- 
 ture, by its delight in natural imagery ; and that the dealings 
 of God with his people are calculated peculiarly to awaken 
 this sensibility within them. Out of the monotonous valley 
 of Egypt they are instantly taken into the midst of the might- 
 iest mountain scenery in the peninsula of Arabia ; and that 
 scenery is associated in their minds with the immediate mani- 
 festation and presence of the Divine Power ; so that moun- 
 tains for ever afterwards become invested with a peculiar sa- 
 credness in their minds ; while their descendants being placed 
 in what was then one of the lovehest districts upon the earth, 
 fuU of glorious vegetation, bounded on one side by the sea, 
 on the north by " that goodly mountain " Lebanon, on the 
 south and east by deserts, whose barrenness enhanced by their 
 contrast the sense of the perfection of beauty in their own 
 land, they became, by these means, and by the touch of .God's 
 own hand upon their hearts, sensible to the appeal of natural 
 scenery in a way in which no other people were at the time ; 
 and their literature is full of expressions, not only testifying 
 a vivid sense of the power of nature over man, but showing 
 that sympathy with natural things themselves, as if they had 
 human souls, which is the especial characteristic of true love 
 of the works of God. I intended to have insisted on this 
 sympathy at greater length, but I found, only two or three 
 days ago, much of what I had to say to you anticipated in a 
 little book, impretending, but full of interest, "The Lamp 
 and the Lantern," by Dr. James Hamilton ; and I wQl there- 
 fore only ask you to consider such expressions as that tender 
 and glorious verse in Isaiah, speaking of the cedars on the 
 mountains as rejoicing over the fall of the king of Assyria : 
 "Tea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, 
 saying. Since thou art gone down to the grave, no feller is 
 come up against us." See what sympathy there is here, as if 
 ■with the very hearts of the trees themselves. So also in the 
 words of Christ, in his personification of the lilies; "They 
 
290 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTUEE 
 
 toil not, neither do tliey spia." Consider such, expressions a^ 
 " The sea saw that, and fled, Jordan was driven back. The 
 mountains skipped like rams ; and the little hills like lamhs." 
 Try to find anything in profane writing like this ; and note 
 farther that the whole book of Job appears to have been 
 chiefly written and placed La the inspired volume ia order tc 
 show the value of natural history, and its power on the human 
 heart. I cannot pass by it without pointing out the evidences 
 of the beauty of the country that Job inhabited.* 
 
 Observe, first, it was an arable country. " The oxen were 
 ploughiag, and the asses feeding beside them." It was a pas- 
 toral country : his substance, besides camels and asses, was 
 7,000 sheep. It was a mountain country, fed by streams de- 
 scending from the high snows. " My brethren have dealt 
 deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass 
 away ; which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein 
 the snow is hid : What time they wax warm they vanish : 
 when it is hot they are consumed out of their place." Again : 
 •' If I wash myself wdth snow water, and make my hands never 
 so clean," Again: "Drought and heat consume the snow 
 waters." It was a rocky country, with forests and verdure 
 rooted in the rocks. "His branch shooteth forth in bis gar- 
 den ; his roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the 
 place of stones." Again : " Thou shalt be in league with the 
 stones of the field." It was a place visited, like the valleys of 
 Switzerland, by convulsions and falls of mountains. " Surely 
 the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is re- 
 moved out of his place." "The waters wear the stones : thou 
 washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the 
 earth." "He removeth the mountains and they know not: 
 he overtumeth them in his anger." "He putteth forth his 
 hand upon the rock : he overtumeth the mountains by the 
 roots : he cutteth out rivers among the rocks. " I have not 
 time to go farther into this ; but you see Job's country was 
 one like your own, full of pleasant brooks and rivers, mshing 
 among the rocks, and of all other sweet and noble elements 
 
 * This passage, respecting tlie book of Joli, was omitted in the deliT 
 ery of tlis Lecture, for want of time. 
 
ANV PAINTING. 291 
 
 of landscape. The magnificent allusions to natural sceneiy 
 throughout the book are therefore calculated to touch the 
 heart to the end of time. 
 
 Then at the central point of Jewish prosperity, you have 
 the first great naturalist the world ever saw, Solomon ; not 
 permitted, indeed, to anticipate, in writing, the discoveries 
 of modern times, but so gifted as to show us that heavenly 
 wisdom is manifested as much in the knowledge of the hyssop 
 that springeth out of the waU as in political and philosophical 
 speculation. 
 
 The books of the Old Testament, as distinguished from all 
 other early writings, are thus prepared for an everlasting 
 influence over humanity ; and, finally, Christ himself, setting 
 the concluding example to the conduct and thoughts of men, 
 spends nearly his whole life in the fields, the mountains, or 
 the small country villages of Judea ; and in the very closing 
 scenes of his life, wiU not so much as sleep within the walls 
 of Jerusalem, but rests at the little village of Bethphage, 
 walking in the morning, and returning in the evening, through 
 the peaceful avenues of the mount of OHves, to and from his 
 work of teaching in the temple. 
 
 It would thus naturally follow, both from the general tone 
 and teaching of the Scriptures, and from the example of our 
 Lord himself, that wherever Christianity was preached and 
 accepted, there would be an immediate interest awakened in 
 the works of God, as seen in the natural world ; and, accord- 
 ingly, this is the second universal and distinctive character of 
 Christian art, as distinguished from all pagan work, the first 
 being a peculiar spirituality in its conception of the human 
 form, preferring holiness of expression and strength of char- 
 acter, to beauty of features or of body, and the second, as I 
 say, its intense fondness for natural objects — animals, leaves 
 and flowers, — inducing an immediate transformation of the 
 cold and lifeless pagan ornamentation into vivid imagery of 
 nature. Of course this manifestation of feeling was at first 
 checked by the circumstances under which the Christian re- 
 ligion was disseminated. The art of the first three centuries 
 is entirely subordinate, — restrained partly by persecution, 
 
292 LECTURES ON AROmTECTURE 
 
 partly by a high spirituality, which cared much more about 
 preaching than painting ; and then when, under Constantine, 
 Christianity became the rehgion of the Roman empire, myi-- 
 iads of persons gave the aid of their wealth and of their art 
 to the new religion, who were Christians in nothing but the 
 name, and who decorated a Christian temple just as they 
 would have decorated a pagan one, merely because the new 
 religion had become Imperial. Then, just as the new art was 
 beginning to assume a distinctive form, down came the 
 northern barbarians upon it ; and all their superstitions had 
 to be leavened with it, and all their hard hands and hearts 
 softened by it, before their art could appear in anything like 
 a characteristic form. The warfare in which Europe was 
 perpetually plunged retarded this development for ages ; but 
 it steadily and gradually prevailed, working from the eighth 
 to the eleventh century like a seed in the ground, showing 
 Httle signs of life, but still, if carefully examined, changing 
 essentially every day and every hour : at last, in the twelfth 
 century, the blade appears above the black earth ; in the 
 thirteenth, the plant is in full leaf. 
 
 I begin, then, with the thirteenth century, and must now 
 make to you a general assertion, which, if you wiU note down 
 and examine at your leisure, you will find true and useful, 
 though I have not time at present to give you full demonstra- 
 tion of it. 
 
 I say, then, that the art of the thirteenth century is the 
 foundation of all art, — not merely the foundation, but the 
 root of it ; that is to say, succeeding art is not merely built 
 upon it, but was all comprehended in it, and is developed 
 out of it. Passing this great century we find three successive 
 branches developed from it, in each of the three following 
 centuries. The fourteenth century is pre-eminently the age 
 of Thought, the fifteenth the age of Drawing, and the six- 
 teenth the age of Painting. 
 
 Observe, first, the fourteenth century is pre-eminently the 
 age of thought. It begins with the first words of the poem 
 of Dante ; — and all the great pictorial poems — the mighty 
 series of works in which everything is done to relate, but 
 
AND PAINTING. 293 
 
 nothing to imitate — belong to this century. I should only 
 confuse you by giving you the names of marvellous artists, 
 most of them little familiar to British ears, who adorned this 
 century in Italy ; but you will easily remember it as the age 
 of Dante and Giotto, — the age of Thought. 
 
 The men of the succeeding century (the fifteenth) felt that 
 they could not rival their predecessors in invention but might 
 excel them in execution. Original thoughts belonging to this 
 century are comparatively rare ; even Eaphael and Michael 
 Angelo themselves borrowed all their principal ideas and 
 plans of pictures from their predecessors ; but tibey executed 
 them with a precision up to that time unseen. You must 
 understand by the word " drawing," the perfect rendering of 
 forms, whether in sculptirre or painting ; and then remember 
 the fifteenth century as the age of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Eaphael, — pre-eminently the age of 
 Drawing. 
 
 The sixteenth century produced the four greatest Painters, 
 that is to say, managers of colour, whom the world has seen ; 
 namely, Tintoret, Paul Veronese, Titian, and Correggio. I 
 need not say more to justify my caUing it the age of Paint- 
 ing. 
 
 This, then, being the state of things respecting art in gen- 
 eral, let us next trace the career of landscape through these 
 centuries. 
 
 It was only towards the close of the thirteenth century that fig- 
 ure painting began to assume so perfect a condition as to require 
 some elaborate suggestion of landscape background. Up to 
 that time, if any natural object had to be represented, it was 
 done in an entirely conventional way, as you see it upon Greek 
 vases, or in a Chinese porcelain pattern ; an independent tree 
 or flower being set upon the white ground, or ground of any 
 colour, wherever there was a vacant space for it, without the 
 smallest attempt to imitate the real colours and relations of the 
 earth and sky about it. But at the close of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, Giotto, and in the course of the fourteenth, Orcagna, 
 sought, for the first time, to give some resemblance to nature 
 in their backgrounds, and introduce behind their figures pieces 
 
294 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 of true landscape, formal enough still, but complete in inten* 
 tion, having foregrounds and distances, sky and water, forests 
 and mountains, carefully delineated, not exactly in their true 
 colour, but yet in colour approximating to the truth. The 
 system which they introduced (for though in many points en- 
 riched above the work of earlier ages, the Orcagna and Giotto 
 landscape was a very complete piece of recipe) was observed 
 for a long period by their pupils, and may be thus briefly 
 described : — The sky is always pure blue, paler at the horizon, 
 and vsith a few streaky white clouds in it ; the ground is green 
 even to the extreme distance, with brown rocks projecting 
 trom it ; water is blue streaked with white. The trees are 
 nearly always composed of clusters of their proper leaves re- 
 lieved on a black or dark ground, thus {fig. 20.).* And ob- 
 serve carefully, with respect to the complete drawing of the 
 leaves on this tree, and the smallness of their number, the 
 real distinction between noble conventionalism and false con- 
 ventionalism. You will often hear modem architects defend- 
 ing their monstrous ornamentation on the ground that it is 
 " conventional,'' and that architectural ornament ought to be 
 conventionalised. Eemember when you hear this, that noble 
 conventionahsm is not an agreement between the artist and 
 spectator that the one shall misrepresent nature sixty times 
 over, and the other believe the misrepresentation sixty times 
 over, but it is an agreement that certain means and limitations 
 being prescribed, only that kind of truth is to be expected 
 which is consistent viith those means. For instance, if Sir 
 Joshua Eeynolds had been talking to a friend about the char- 
 acter of a face, and there had been nothing in the room but 
 a deal table and an inkbottle — and no pens — Sir Joshua would 
 have dipped his finger in the ink, and painted a portrait 
 on the table with his finger, — and. a noble portrait too, cer- 
 tainly not delicate in outline, nor representing any of the 
 
 * Having no memoranda of my own taken from Giotto's landscape, I 
 had this tree copied from an engraving ; but I imagine the rude termi- 
 nation of the stems to be a misrepresentation. Fig. 21 is accuratel> 
 copied from an MS., certainly esecnted between 1350 and 1270, and i« 
 more truly characteristic of the early manner. 
 
Fig, 21. 
 PLATE Xlll.-iPage 294— Vol. V.) 
 
 ■rKEES, AS DliAWN IN TIIK TlIIRTEENTIl CeNTUUY. 
 
AND PAINTING. 295 
 
 qualities of the face dependent on rich outline, but getting as 
 much of the face as in that manner was attainable. That is 
 noble conventionalism, and Egyptian work on granite, or illu- 
 minator's work in glass, is aU conventional in the same sense, 
 but not conventionally false. The two noblest and truest 
 carved lions I have ever seen, are the two granite ones in the 
 Egyptian room of the British Museum, and yet in them, the 
 lions' manes and beards are represented by rings of solid 
 rock, as smooth as a mirror ! 
 
 There are indeed one or two other conditions of noble con- 
 ventionalism, noticed more fully in the Addenda to this Lect- 
 ure ; but you will find that they always consist in stopping 
 shoH of nature, not in falsifying nature ; and thus in Giotto's 
 foUage, he stops short of the quantity of leaves on the real 
 tree, but he gives you the form of the leaves represented with 
 perfect truth. His foreground also is nearly always occupied 
 by flowers and herbage, carefully and individually painted 
 from nature ; while, although thus simple in plan, the ar- 
 rangements of line in these landscapes of course show the 
 influence of the master-mind, and sometimes, where the stoiy 
 requires it, we find the usual formulse overleaped, and Giotto 
 at Avignon painting the breakers of the sea on a steep shore 
 with great care, while Orcagna, in his triumph of Death, has 
 painted a thicket of brambles mixed with teazles, in a manner 
 worthy of the best days of landscape art. 
 
 Now from the landscape of these two men to the landscape 
 of Raphael, Leonardo, and Perugino, the advance consists 
 principally in two great steps : The first, that distant objects 
 were more or less invested with a blue colour, — the second, 
 that trees were no longer painted with a black ground, but 
 with a rich dark brown, or deep green. From Giotto's old 
 age, to the youth of Raphael, the advance in and knowledge of, 
 landscape, consisted of no more than these two simple steps ; 
 but the execution of landscape became infinitely more perfect 
 and elaborate. AU the flowers and leaves in the foreground 
 were worked out with the same perfection as the features of 
 the figures ; in the middle distance the brown trees were 
 most delicately defined against the sky ; the blue mountains 
 
296 LEOTURBS ON AROHITEOTURB 
 
 in the extreme distance were exquisitely thrown into aerial 
 gradations, and the sty and clouds were perfect in transpar- 
 ency and softness. But still there is no real advance in knowl- 
 edge of natural objects. The leaves and flowers are, indeed, 
 admirably painted, and thrown into various intricate group- 
 ings, such as Giotto could not have attempted, but the rocks 
 and water are stUl as conventional and imperfect as ever, ex- 
 cept only in colour : the forms of rock in Leonardo's celebrated 
 " Vierge aux Rochers " are literally no better than those on a 
 china plate. Mg. 22. shows a portion of them in mere out- 
 line, with one cluster of the leaves above, and the distant 
 " ideal " mountains. On the whole, the most satisfactory 
 work of the period is that which most resembles missal paint- 
 ing, that is to say, which is fullest of beautiful flowers and 
 animals scattered among the landscape, in the old indepen- 
 dent way, like the birds upon a screen. The landscape of 
 Benozzo Gozzoh is exquisitely rich in incident of this kind. 
 
 The first man who entirely broke through the convention- 
 aUty of his time, and painted pure landscape, was Masaccio, 
 but he died too young to effect the revolution of which his 
 genius was capable. It was left for other men to accompUsh, 
 namely, for Correggio and Titian. These two painters were 
 the first who relieved the foregrounds of their landscape from 
 the grotesque, quaint, and crowded formalism of the early 
 painters ; and gave a close approximation to the forms of nat- 
 ure in all things ; retaining, however, thus much of the old 
 system, that the distances were for the most part painted in 
 deep ultramarine blue, the foregrounds in rich green and 
 brown ; there were no effects of sunshine and shadow, but a 
 generally quiet glow over the whole scene ; and the clouds, 
 though now rolling in irregular masses, and sometimes richly 
 involved among the hills, were never varied in conception, or 
 studied from nature. There were no changes of weather in 
 them, no rain clouds or fair-weather clouds, nothing but va- 
 rious shapes of the cumulus or cirrus, introduced for the sake 
 of Hght on the deep blue sky. Tintoret and Bonifazio intro- 
 duced more natural effects into this monotonous landscape : 
 in their works we meet with showers of rain, with rainbows, 
 

 PLATE XlV.-lPuge 2a6-Vol. V.'i 
 Rocks, as Drawn by the School of Leonardo da Vmci. 
 
AND PAINTlHrO. 297 
 
 sunsets, bright reflections in water, and so on ; but still very 
 subordinate, and carelessly worked out, so as not to justify 
 us in considering their landscape as forming a class by it- 
 self. 
 
 Fig. 23., which is a branch of a tree from the background 
 of Titian's " St. Jerome," at Milan, compared with fig. 20., 
 wUI give you a distinct idea of the kind of change which took 
 place from the time of Giotto to that of Titian, and you wUl 
 find that this whole range of landscape may be conveniently 
 classed in three divisions, namely, Giottesque, Leonardesque, 
 and Titianesque ; the Giottesque embracing nearly aU the work 
 of the fourteenth, the Leonardesque that of the fifteenth, and 
 the Titianesque that of the sixteenth century. Now you see 
 there remained a fourth step to be taken, — the doing away with 
 conventionaUsm altogether, so as to create the perfect art of 
 landscape painting. The course of the mind of Europe was 
 to do this ; but at the very moment when it ought to have 
 been done, the art of all civilised nations was paralysed at 
 once by the operation of the poisonous elements of infidelity 
 and classical learning together, as I have endeavoured to 
 show elsewhere. In this paralysis, like a soldier sliot as he is 
 just gaining an eminence, the art of the seventeenth century- 
 struggled forward, and sank upon the spot it had been en- 
 deavouring to attain. The step which should have freed 
 landscape from conventionalism was actually taken by Claude 
 and Salvator Eosa, but taken in a state of palsy, — taken so 
 as to lose far more than was gained. For up to this time, 
 no painter ever had thought of drawing anything, pebble or 
 blade of grass, or tree or mountain, but as well and distinctly 
 as he could ; and if he could not draw it completely, he drew 
 it at least in a way which should thoroughly show his knowl- 
 edge and feeling of it. For instance, you saw in the oak tree 
 of the Giottesque period, that the main points of the tree, 
 the true shape of leaf and acorn, were all there, perfectly and 
 carefully articulated, and so they continued to be down to the 
 time of Tintoret ; both he and Titian working out the separate 
 leaves of their foUage with the most exquisite botanical care. 
 But now observe ; as Christianity had brought this love of na t- 
 
298 LECTURES ON AROHITEGTURE 
 
 ure into Paganism, the return of Paganism in the shape of clas. 
 sical learning at once destroyed this love of nature ; and at the 
 moment when Claude and Salvator made the final effort to 
 paint the effects of nature faithfully, the objects of nature had 
 ceased to be regarded with affection ; so that, while people 
 were amused and interested by the new effects of sunsets 
 over green seas, and of tempests bursting on rocky moun- 
 tains, which were introduced by the rising school, they entirely 
 ceased to require on the one side, or bestow on the other, 
 that care and thought by which alone the beauty of nature 
 can be understood. The older painting had resembled a 
 careful and deeply studied diagram, illustrative of the most 
 important facts ; it was not to be understood or relished 
 without application of serious thought ; on the contrary, it 
 developed and addressed the highest powers of mind belong- 
 ing to the human race ; while the Claude and Salvator paint- 
 ing was like a scene in a theatre, viciously and falsely painted 
 throughout, and presenting a deceptive appearance of truth 
 to nature ; understood, as far as it went, in a moment, but 
 conveying no accurate knowledge of anything, and, in all its 
 operations on the mind unhealthy, hopeless, and profitless. 
 
 It was, however, received with avidity ; for this main rea^ 
 son, that the architecture, domestic life and manners of the 
 period were gradually getting more and more artificial ; as 
 I showed you last evening, all natural beauty had ceased to 
 be permitted in architectural decoration, whUe the habits of 
 society led them more and more to Hve, if possible, in cities ; 
 and the dress, language, and manners of men in general were 
 approximating to that horrible and lifeless condition in 
 which you find them just before the outbreak of the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Now, observe : exactly aa hoops, and starch, and false hair, 
 and all that in mind and heart these things typify and betray, 
 aa these, I say, gained upon men, there was a necessary re- 
 action in favour of the natural. Men had never hved so ut- 
 terly in defiance of the laws of nature before ; but they could 
 not do this without feeling a strange charm in that which 
 they defied ; and, accordingly, we find this reactionary senti- 
 
AND PAINTING. 299 
 
 ment expressing itself in a base school of what was called 
 pastoral poetry ; that is to say, poetry written in praise of the 
 country, by men who hved in coffee-houses and on the MalL 
 The essence of pastoral poetry is the sense of strange delight- 
 fulness in grass, which is occasionally felt by a man who has 
 seldom set his foot on it ; it is essentially the poetry of the 
 cockney, and for the most part corresponds in its aim and 
 rank, as compared with other literature, to the porcelain 
 shepherds and shepherdesses on a chimney-piece aa com- 
 pared with great works of sculpture. 
 
 Of course all good poetry, descriptive of rural hfe, is essen- 
 tially pastoral, or has the effect of the pastoral, on the minds 
 of men living in cities ; but the class of poetry which I mean, 
 and which you probably understand, by the term pastoral, is 
 that in which a farmer's girl is spoken of as a " nymph,'' and 
 a farmer's boy as a " swain," and in which, throughout, a 
 ridiculous and unnatural refinement is supposed to exist in 
 rural hfe, merely because the poet himself has neither had 
 the courage to endure its hardships, nor the wit to conceive 
 its reahties. If you examine the literature of the past cen- 
 tury, you vrill find that nearly all its expressions, having ref- 
 erence to the country, show something of this kind ; either 
 a foohsh sentimentahty, or a morbid fear, both of com'se 
 coupled with the most curious ignorance. You will find all 
 its descriptive expressions at once vague and monotonous. 
 Brooks are always "purUng;" birds always "warbhng;" 
 mountains always " lift their horrid peaks above the clouds ; " 
 vales always " are lost in the shadow of gloomy woods ; '' a 
 few more distinct ideas about haymaking and curds and 
 cream, acquired in the neighbourhood of Richmond Bridge, 
 serving to give an occasional appearance of freshness to the 
 catalogue of the sublime and beautiful which descended from 
 poet to poet ; while a few true pieces of pastoral, like the 
 "Vicar of Wakefield," and Walton's " Angler," relieved the 
 general waste of dulnesa. Even in these better productions, 
 nothing is more remarkable than the general conception of 
 the country merely as a series of green fields, and the com- 
 bined ignorance and dread of more sublime scenery ; of 
 
300 LEOTUBEB ON AROHirEOTUBE 
 
 which the mysteriea and dangers were enhanced by th« 
 difficulties of travelling at the period. Thus in Walton's 
 "Angler," you have a meeting of two friends, one a Derby- 
 shire man, the other a lowland traveller, who is as much 
 alarmed, and uses nearly as many expressions of astonish- 
 ment, at having to go down a steep hill and ford a brook, as 
 a traveller uses now at crossing the glacier of the Col de 
 Geant. I am not sure whether the difficulties which, until 
 late years, have lain in the way of peaceful and convenient 
 travelling, ought not to have great weight assigned to them 
 among the other causes of the temper of the century ; but be 
 that as it may, if you will examine the whole range of its ht- 
 erature — keeping this point in view — I am well persuaded 
 that you will be struck most forcibly by the strange deadness 
 to the higher sources of landscape sublimity which is mingled 
 with the morbid pastoraHsm. The love of fresh air and green 
 grass forced itself upon the animal natures of men ; but that 
 of the sublimer features of scenery had no place in minds 
 whose chief powers had been repressed by the formalisms of 
 the age. And although in the second-rate vniters continually, 
 and in the first-rate ones occasionally, you find an affectation 
 of interest in mountains, clouds, and forests, yet whenever 
 they write from their heart, you will find an utter absence of 
 feeling respecting anything beyond gardens and grass. Ex- 
 amine, for instance, the novels of SmoUett, Fielding, and 
 Sterne, the comedies of Moliere, and the writings of Johnson 
 and Addison, and I do not think you will find a single expres- 
 sion of true delight in sublime nature in any one of them. 
 Perhaps Sterne's " Sentimental Journey," in its total absence 
 of sentiment on any subject but humanity, and its entii-e want 
 of notice of anything at Geneva, which might not as well have 
 been seen at Coxwold, is the most striking instance I could 
 give you ; and if you compare with this negation of feeling 
 on one side, the interludes of Moli6re in which shepherds and 
 shepherdesses are introduced in court dress, you vsdll have a 
 very accurate conception of the general spirit of the age. 
 
 It was in such a state of society that the landscape of 
 Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa attained ite 
 
AND PAINTINO. 301 
 
 reputation. It is the complete expression on canvas of tha 
 spirit of the time. Claude embodies the foolish pastoralism, 
 Salvator the ignorant terror, and Gaspar the didl and affected 
 erudition. 
 
 It was, however, altogether impossible that this state of 
 things could long continue. The age which had buried itself 
 in formaUsm grew weary at last of the restraint ; and the ap- 
 proach of a new sera was marked by the appearance, and the 
 enthusiastic reception, of writers who, took true delight in 
 those wild scenes of nature which had so long been despised, 
 
 I think the first two writers in whom the symptoms of a 
 change are strongly manifested are Mrs. Eaddiffe tind Eous- 
 Boau ; in both of whom the love of natural scenery, though 
 mingled in the one case with what was merely dramatic, and 
 in the other with much that was pitifully morbid or vicious, 
 was stUl itself genuine, and intense, differing altogether in 
 character from any sentiments previously traceable in litera- 
 ture. And then rapidly followed a group of writers, who 
 expressed, in various ways, the more powerful or more pure 
 feeling which had now become one of the strongest instincts 
 of the age. Of these, the principal is your own Walter Scott. 
 Many writers, indeed, describe nature more minutely and 
 more profoundly ; but none show in higher intensity the pe- 
 culiar passion for what is majestic or lovely in wild nature, to 
 which I am now referring. The whole of the poem of the 
 " Lady of the Lake " is written with almost a boyish enthu- 
 siasm for rocks, and lakes, and cataracts ; the early novels 
 show the same instinct in equal strength wherever he ap- 
 proaches Highland scenery ; and the feeling is mingled, 
 observe, with a most touching and affectionate appreciation 
 of the Gothic architecture, in which alone he foimd the ele- 
 ments of natural beauty seized by art ; so that, to this day, 
 his descriptions of Melrose and Holy Island Cathedral, in the 
 "Lay of the Last Minstrel "and " Marmion," as well as of 
 the ideal abbeys in the "Monastery" and "Antiquary," to- 
 gether with those of Caerlaverock and Lochleven Castles in 
 " Guy Mannering " and " The Abbot," remain the staple pos- 
 sessions and text-books of all travellers, not so much for theii 
 
302 LEOTTJREB ON ABOEITECTUBH 
 
 beauty or accuracy, as for their exactly expressing that degree 
 of feeling with which most men in this century can sympathise. 
 
 Together with Scott appeared the group of poets, — Byron, 
 Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and, finally, Tennyson, — differing 
 widely in moral principles and spiritual temper, but all agree- 
 ing more or less in this love for natural scenery. 
 
 Now, you will ask me— and you will ask me most reason- 
 ably — how this love of nature in modem days can be con- 
 nected with Christianity, seeing it is as strong in the infidel 
 Shelley as in the sacred Wordsworth. Yes, and it is f ovmd in 
 far worse men than Shelley. Shelley was an honest unbeliever, 
 and a man of warm affections ; but this new love of nature is 
 found in the most reckless and unprincipled of the French 
 novelists, — in Eugene Sue, in Dumas, in George Sand, — and 
 that intensely. How is this ? Simply because the feeling is 
 reactionary ; and, in this phase of it, common to the diseased 
 mind as well as to the healthy one. A man dying in the fever 
 of intemperance will cry out for water and that with a bitterer 
 thirst than a man whose healthy frame naturally delights in 
 the mountain spring more than in the wine cup. The water 
 is not dishonoured by the thirst of the diseased, nor is nature 
 dishonoured by the love of the unworthy. That love is, per- 
 haps, the only saving element in their minds ; and it still 
 remains an indisputable truth that the love of nature is a 
 characteristic of the Christian heart, just as the hunger for 
 healthy food is characteristic of the healthy frame. 
 
 In order to meet this new feeling for nature, there necessa- 
 rily arose a new school of landscape painting. That school, 
 like the literature to which it corresponded, had many weak 
 and vicious elements mixed with its noble ones ; it had its 
 Mrs. Eadchffes and Rousseaus, as well as its Wordsworths ; 
 but, on the whole, the feeling with which Eobson drew moun- 
 tains, and Prout architecture, with which Fielding draws 
 moors, and Stanfield sea— is altogether pure, true, and pre- 
 cious, as compared with that which suggested the landscape 
 of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Now observe, how simple the whole subject becomes, 
 f ou have, first, your great ancient Ifindscape divicled into its 
 
AND PAINTINO. 303 
 
 three periods — Giottesque, Leonardesque, Titianesque. Then 
 you have a great gap, full of nonentities and abortions ; a 
 gulph of foolishness, into the bottom of which you may throw 
 Claude and Salvator, neither of them deserving to give a name 
 to anything. Call it "pastoral" landscape, "guarda epassa," 
 and then you have, lastly, the pure, wholesome, simple, mod- 
 ern landscape. You want a name for that : I will give you 
 one in a moment ; for the whole character and power of that 
 landscape is originally based on the work of one man. 
 
 Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Maiden Lane, 
 London, about eighty years ago. The register of his bu'th 
 was burned, and his age at his death could only be arrived at 
 by conjecture. He was the son of a barber ; and his father 
 intended liim, very properly, for his own profession. The 
 bent of the boy was, however, soon manifested, as is always 
 the case in children of extraordinary genius, too strongly to 
 be resisted, and a sketch of a coat of arms on a silver salver, 
 made while his father was shaving a customer, obtained for 
 him, in reluctant compUance with the admiring customer's 
 advice, the permission to follow art as a profession. 
 
 He had, of course, the usual difficulties of young artists to 
 encounter, and they were then far greater than they are now. 
 But Turner differed from most men in this, — that he was al- 
 ways willing to take anything to do that came in his way. 
 He did not shut himself up in a garret to produce unsaleable 
 works of "high art," and starve, or lose his senses. He hired 
 himself out every evening to wash in skies in Indian ink, on 
 other people's drawings, as many as he could, at half-a^-crown 
 a-night, getting his supper into the bargain. " What could I 
 have done better?" he said afterwards: "it was first-rate 
 practice." Then he took to illustrating guide-books and al- 
 manacks, and anything that wanted cheap frontispieces. The 
 Oxford Ahuanack, published on a single sheet, with a copper- 
 plate at the top of it, consisting of a " View " — you perhaps, 
 some of you, know the kind of print characteristic of the last 
 century, under which the word " View " is always printed in 
 large letters, with a dedication, obsequious to the very dust, 
 to the Grand Signior of the neighbourhood. — Well, this Al- 
 
304 LEGTUBEB ON ABGHITEOTURB 
 
 manack had always sucli a view of some Oxford College at th* 
 top of it, dedicated, I think, always to the head of the Col' 
 lege ; and it owed this, its principal decoration, to Turner for 
 many years. I have myself two careful drawings of some old 
 seals, made by him for a local book on the antiquities of 
 Whalley Abbey. And there was hardly a gentleman's seat of 
 any importance in England, towards the close of the last cen- 
 tury, of which you will not find some rude engraving in the 
 local publications of the time, inscribed with the simple name 
 " W. Turner." 
 
 There was another great difference between Turner and 
 other men. In doing these drawings for the commonest pub- 
 lications of the day, and for a remimeration altogether con- 
 temptible, he never did his work badly because he thought it 
 beneath him, or because he was ill-paid. There does not 
 exist such a thing as a slovenly drawing by Turner. With 
 what people were wilUng to give him for his work he was con- 
 tent ; but he considered that work in its relation to himself, 
 not ia its relation to the purchaser. He took a poor price, 
 that he might live ; but he made noble dravnngs, that he might 
 learn. Of course some are slighter than others, and they vary 
 in their materials ; those executed vrith pencil and Indian ink 
 being never finished to the degree of those which are executed 
 in colour. But he is never careless. According to the time 
 and means at his disposal, he always did his best. He never 
 let a drawing leave his hands vrithout having made a step in 
 advance, and having done better in it than he had ever done 
 before ; and there is no important drawing of the period which 
 ia not executed with a total disregard of time and price, and 
 which was not, even then, worth four or five times what 
 Turner received for it. 
 
 Even without genius, a man who thus felt and thus la- 
 boured was sure to do great things ; though it is seldom that, 
 without great genius, men either thus feel or thus labour. 
 Turner was as far beyond all other men in intellect as in indus- 
 try ; and his advance in power and grasp of thought was as 
 steady as the increasing light of sunrise. 
 
 His reputation was' soon so far established that he was able 
 
AND PAINTING. 305 
 
 to devote himself to more consistent study. He never ap« 
 pears literally to have copied any picture ; but whenever any 
 master interested him, or was of so estabhshed a reputation 
 that he thought it necessary to study him, he painted pictures 
 of his own subjects in the style of that master, until he felt 
 himself able to rival his exeUencies, whatever they were. 
 There are thus multitudes of pictures by Turner which are 
 direct imitations of other masters ; especially of Claude, WU- 
 son, Loutherbourg, Gaspar Poussia, Vandevelde, Cuyp, and 
 Rembrandt. It has been argued by Mr. Leslie that, because 
 Turner thus in his early years imitated many of the old mas- 
 ters, therefore he must to the end of his life have considered 
 them gxeater than himself. The nonsequitur is obvious. I trust 
 there are few men so unhappy as never to have learned any- 
 thing from their inferiors ; and I fear there are few men so wise 
 as never to have imitated anything but what was deserving of 
 imitation. The young Turner, indeed, would have been more 
 than mortal if, in a period utterly devoid of all healthy exam- 
 ples of landscape art, he had been able at once to see his way 
 to the attainment of his ultimate ends ; or if, seeing it, he had 
 felt himself at once strong enough to defy the authority of 
 evei-y painter and connoisseur whose style had formed the 
 taste of the public, or whose dicta directed their patronage. 
 
 But the period when he both felt and resolved to assert his 
 own superiority was indicated with perfect clearness, by his 
 publishing a series of engravings, which were nothing else 
 than direct challenges to Claude — then the landscape painter 
 supposed to be the greatest in the world — upon his own 
 ground and his own terms. You are probably aU aware that 
 the studies made by Claude for his pictures, and kept by him 
 under the name of the " Liber Veritatis," were for the most 
 part made with pen and ink, washed over with a brown tint ; 
 and that these drawings have been carefully fac-similed and 
 published in the form of mezzotint engravings, long supposed 
 to be models of taste in landscape composition. In order to 
 provoke comparison between Claude and himself, Turner pub- 
 lished a series of engi-avings, called the "Liber Studiorum," 
 executed in exactly the same manner as these drawings of 
 
30G LEOTUBES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 Claude, — an etching representing what was done with, tha 
 pen, while mezzotint stood for colour. You see the notable 
 publicity of this challenge. Had he confined himself to piict- 
 ures in his trial of skill with Claude, it would only have been 
 in the gallery or the palace that the comparison could have 
 been instituted ; but now it is in the power of all who are in- 
 terested in the matter to make it at their ease.* 
 
 ********** 
 
 Now, what Turner did in contest with Claude, he did with 
 every other then-known master of landscape, each in his turn. 
 He challenged and vanquished, each in his own peculiar field, 
 Vandevelde on the sea, Salvator among rocks, and Cuyp on 
 Lowland rivers ; and, having done this, set himself to paint 
 the natural scenery of skies, mountains, and lakes, which, until 
 his time, had never been so much as attempted. 
 
 He thus, in the extent of his sphere, far surpassed even 
 Titian and Leonardo, the great men of the earlier schools. 
 In their foreground work neither Titian nor Leonardo could 
 be excelled ; but Titian and Leonardo were thoroughly con- 
 ventional in all but their foregrounds. Turner was equally 
 great in all the elements of landscape, and it is on him, and 
 on his daring additions to the received schemes of landscape 
 art, that aU modem landscape has been founded. You will 
 never meet any truly great living landscape painter who will 
 not at once frankly confess his obligations to Turner, not, 
 observe, as having copied him, but as having been led by 
 Turner to look in nature for what he would otherwise either 
 not have discerned, or discerning, not have dared to represent. 
 
 Turner, therefore, was the first man who presented us with 
 the type of perfect landscape art : and the richness of that 
 
 * Wlien this Lecture was delivered, an enlarged copy of a portion of 
 one of these studies by Claude was set beside a similarly magnified por- 
 tion of one by Turner. It was impossible, without much increasing the 
 cost of the publication, to prepare two mezzotint engravings with the 
 care requisite for this purpose ; and the portion of the Lecture relating 
 to these examples is therefore omitted. It is however in the power of 
 every reader to procure one or more plates of each series ; and to judge 
 for himself whether the conclusion of Turner's superiority, which is 
 Assumed in the next sentence of the text, be a just one or not 
 
AND PAINTINO. 307 
 
 art, with which you are at present surrounded, and which 
 enables you to open your walls as it were into so many win- 
 dows, through which you can see whatever has charmed you 
 in the fairest scenery of your country, you will do well to 
 remember as Turneresque. 
 
 So then ypu have these five periods to recollect — you will 
 have no difficulty, I trust, in doing so, — the periods of Giotto, 
 Leonardo, Titian, pastoralism, and Turner. 
 
 But Turner's work is yet only begun. His greatness is, aa 
 yet, altogether denied by many ; and to the full, felt by very 
 few. But every day that he Hes in his grave will bring some 
 new acknowledgement of his power ; and through those eyes, 
 now filled with dust, generations yet unborn will learn to be- 
 hold the Kght of nature. 
 
 You have some ground to-night to accuse me of dogmatism. 
 I can bring no proof before you of what I so boldly assert. 
 But I would not have accepted your invitation to address you, 
 unless I had felt that I had a right to be, in this matter, dog- 
 matic. I did not come here to teU you of my beUefs or my 
 conjectures ; I came to teU you the truth which I have given 
 fifteen years of my life to ascertain, that this man, this Turner, 
 of whom you have known so little while he was Hving among 
 you, will one day take his place beside Shakspeare and Veru- 
 1am, in the aimals of the hght of England. 
 
 Yes : beside Shakspeare and Verulam, a third star in that 
 central constellation, round which, in the astronomy of in- 
 tellect, all other stars make their circuit. By Shakspeare, 
 humanity was unsealed to you ; by Verulam the principles of 
 nature ; and by Turner, her aspect. All these were sent to 
 unlock one of the gates of hght, and to unlock it for the first 
 time. But of all the three, though not the greatest, Turner 
 was the most imprecedented in his work. Bacon did what 
 Aristotle had attempted ; Shakspeare did perfectly what ^s- 
 chylus did partially ; but none before Turner had lifted the 
 veil from the face of nature ; the majesty of the hiUs and 
 forests had received no interpretation, and the clouds passed 
 unrecorded from the face of the heaven which they adorned, 
 and of the earth to which they ministered. , 
 
308 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 And now let me tell you something of his personal charac 
 ter. You have heard him spoken of as ill-natured, and jeal. 
 ous of his brother artists. I wUl tell you how jealous he was. 
 I knew him for ten years, and during that time had much 
 familiar intercourse with him. I never once heard him say an 
 unkind thing of a brother artist, / nexier once heard him find a 
 fault with another man's work. I could say this of no other 
 artist whom I have ever known. 
 
 But I will add a piece of evidence on this matter of peculiar 
 force. Probably many here have read a book which has been 
 lately published, to my mind one of extreme interest and value, 
 the life of the unhappy artist, Benjamin Haydon. Whatever 
 may have been his faults, I believe no person can read his 
 journal without coming to the conclusion that his heart was 
 honest, and that he does not wilfully misrepresent any fact, or 
 any person. Even supposing otherwise, the expression I am 
 going to quote to you would have all the more force, because, 
 as you know, Haydon passed his whole life in war vdth the 
 Royal Academy, of which Turner was one of the most influen- 
 tial members. Yet in the midst of one of his most violent ex- 
 pressions of exultation at one of his victories over the Academy, 
 he draws back suddenly with these words : — " But Turner 
 behaved well, and did me justice." 
 
 I v(dU give you however besides, two plain facts illustrative 
 of Turner's "jealousy." 
 
 You have, perhaps not many of you, heard of a painter of 
 the name of Bird ; I do not myself know his works, but Turner 
 saw some merit in them : and when Bird first sent a picture 
 to the Academy, for exhibition, Turner was on the hanging 
 committee. Bird's picture had great merit ; but no place for 
 it could be found. Turner pleaded hard for it. No, the 
 thing was impossible. Turner sat down and looked at Bird's 
 picture a long time ; then insisted that a place must be found 
 for it. He was still met by the assertion of impracticability. 
 He said no more, but took down one of his own pictures, sent 
 it out of the Academy, and hung Bird's in its place. 
 
 Match that, if you can, among the annals of hanging com- 
 mitteea But he could do nobler things than this. 
 
AND PAINTING. 309 
 
 "When Turner's picture of Cologne was exhibited in the year 
 1826, it was hung between two portraits, by Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence, of Lady Wallscoui-t, and Lady Eobert Manners. 
 
 The sky of Turner's picture was exceedingly bright, and it 
 had a most injurious effect on the colour of the two portraits. 
 Lawrence naturally felt mortified, and complained openly of 
 the position of his pictures. Tou are aware that artists were 
 at that time permitted to retouch their pictures on the walls 
 of the Academy. On the morning of the opening of the ex- 
 hibition, at the private view, a friend of Turner's who had 
 seen the Cologne in all its splendour, led a group of expec- 
 tant critics up to the picture. He started back from it in 
 consternation. The golden sky had changed to a dun colour. 
 He ran up to Turner, who was in another part part of the 
 room. " Turner, whai have you been doing to your picture ? " 
 " Oh,'' muttered Turner, in a low voice, " poor Lawrence was 
 so unhappy. It's only lamp black. It'll all wash off after the 
 exhibition ! " He had actually passed a wash of lamp black 
 in water colour over the whole sky, and utterly spoiled his 
 picture for the time, and so left it ttirough the exhibition, lest 
 it should hurt Lawrences. 
 
 You may easily find instances of self-sacrifice where men 
 have strong motives, and where large benefits are to be con- 
 ferred by the effort, or general admiration obtained by it ; 
 but of pure, unselfish, and perfect generosity, showing itself 
 in a matter of minor interest, and when few could be aware 
 of the sacrifice made, you will not easily find such another ex- 
 ample as this. 
 
 Thus much for his jealousy of his brother-artists. You 
 have also heard much of his niggardliness in money transac- 
 tions. A great part of what you have heard is perfectly tnie, 
 Rllowing for the exaggeration which always takes place in the 
 accounts of an eccentric character. But there are other parts 
 of Turner's conduct of which you have never heard ; and 
 which, if truly reported, would set his niggardliness in a very 
 difierent light. Every person from whom Turner exacted a 
 due shilling, proclaimed the exaction far and wide ; but the 
 persons to whom Turner gave hundreds of pounds were pre- 
 
310 LBGTURES ON ARGHITECTURB 
 
 vented, by their " delicacy," from reporting the kindness ol 
 their benefactor. I may, however, perhaps, be permitted to 
 acquaint you with one circumstance of this nature, creditable 
 alike to both parties concerned. 
 
 At the death of a poor drawing master, Mr. Wells, whom 
 Turner had long known, he was deeply affected, and lent 
 money to the widow until a large sum had accumulated. She 
 was both honest and grateful, and after a long period was 
 happy enough to be able to return to her benefactor the whole 
 sum she had received from him. She waited on him with it ; 
 but Turner kept his hands in his pocket. " Keep it," he said 
 "and send your children to school, and to church." He said 
 this in bitterness ; he had himself been sent to neither. 
 
 Well, but you will answer to me, we have heard Turner all 
 our lives stigmatised as brutal, and uncharitable, and selfish, 
 and miserly. How are we to understand these opposing state- 
 ments ? 
 
 Easily. I have told you truly what Turner was. Tou have 
 often heard what to most people he appeared to be. Imagine 
 what it was for a man to live seventy years in this hard world, 
 with the kindest heart and the noblest intellect of his time, 
 and never to meet with a single word or ray of sympathy, until 
 he felt himself sinking into the grave. From the time he knew 
 his true greatness all the world was turned against him : he 
 held his own ; but it could not be without roughness of bear- 
 ing, and hardening of the temper, if not of the heart. No one 
 understood him, no one trusted him, and every one cried out 
 against him. Imagine, any of you, the effect upon your own 
 minds, if every voice that you heard from the human beings 
 around you were raised, year after year, through all your lives, 
 only in condemnation of your efforts, and denial of your suc- 
 cess. This may be borne, and borne easily, by men who 
 have fixed religious principles, or supporting domestic ties. 
 But Turner had no one to teach him in his youth, and no one 
 to love him in his old age. Eespect and affection, if they 
 came at all, came unbelieved, or came too late. Naturally 
 irritable, though kind, — naturally suspicious, though gener- 
 ous, — the gold gradually became dim, and the most fine gold 
 
AlfD PAINTING. 311 
 
 changed, or, if not changed, overcast and clouded. The deep 
 heart was still beating, but it was beneath a dark and melan- 
 choly mail between whose joints, however, sometimes the 
 slightest arrows found entrance, and power of giving pain. 
 He received no consolation in his last years, nor in his death. 
 Cut ofif in great part from all society, — first, by labour, and at 
 last by sickness, — hunted to his grave by the malignities of 
 small critics, and the jealousies of hopeless rivahy, he died in 
 the house of a stranger, — one companion of his life, and one 
 only, staying with him to the last. The window of his death- 
 chamber was turned towards the west, and the sun shone up- 
 on his face in its setting and rested there, as he expired. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 PKE-BAPHAELITISM. 
 
 The subject on which I would desire to engage your at- 
 tion this evening, is the nature and probable result of a cer- 
 tain schism which took place a few years ago among our 
 British artists. 
 
 This schism, or rather the heresy which led to it, as you 
 are probably aware, was introduced by a small number of 
 very young men ; and consists mainly in the assertion that 
 the principles on which art has been taught for these three 
 hundred years back are essentially wrong, and that the prin- 
 ciples which ought to guide us are those which prevailed 
 before the time of Raphael ; in adopting which, therefore, as 
 their guides, these young men, as a sort of bond of unity 
 among themselves, took the unfortunate and somewhat ludi- 
 crous name of " Pre-Eaphaelite " brethren. 
 
 You must all be aware that this heresy has been opposed 
 with all the influence and all the bitterness of art and 
 criticism ; but that in spite of these the heresy has gained 
 ground, and the pictiu-es painted on these new principles have 
 obtained a most extensive popularity. These circumstances 
 
312 LE0TUBB8 ON ARCEITEGTURE 
 
 are sufficiently singular, but their importance is greater even 
 than their singularity ; and your time will certainly not be 
 wasted in devoting an hour to an inquiry into the true nature 
 of this movement. 
 
 I shall, first, therefore, endeavour to state to you what the 
 real difference is between the principles of art before and 
 after Raphael's time, and then to ascertain, with you, how 
 far these young men truly have understood the difference, 
 and what may be hoped or feared from the effort they are 
 making. 
 
 First, then, What is the real difference between the prin- 
 ciples on which art has been pursued before and since 
 Raphael ? You must be aware, that the principal ground on 
 which the Pre-Eaphaelites have been attacked, is the charge 
 that they wish to bring us back to a time of darkness and 
 ignorance, when the principles of drawing, and of art in 
 general, were comparatively unknown ; and this attack, there- 
 fore, is entirely founded on the assumption that, although for 
 some unaccountable reason we cannot at present produce 
 artists altogether equal to Raphael, yet that we are on the 
 whole in a state of greater illumination than, at all events, 
 any artists who preceded Raphael ; so that we consider our- 
 selves entitled to look down upon them, and to say that, all 
 things considered, they did some wonderful things for their 
 time ; but that, as for comparing the art of Giotto to that of 
 Wilkie or Edwin Landseer, it would be perfectly ridiculous, 
 — the one being a mere infant in his profession, and the 
 others accomplished workmen. 
 
 Now, that this progress has in some things taken place is 
 perfectly true ; but it is true also that this progress is by no 
 means the main thing to be noticed respecting ancient and 
 modem art ; that there are other circumstances, connected 
 with the change from one to the other, immeasurably more 
 important, and which, imtil very lately, have been altogether 
 lost sight of. 
 
 The fact is, that modern art is not so much distinguished 
 from old art by greater skill, as by a radical change in 
 temper. The art of this day is not merely a more knowing 
 
AND PAINTING. 313 
 
 art than that of the thirteenth century, — it is altogether 
 another art. Between the two there is a great gulph, a dis- 
 tinction for ever ineffaceable. The change from one to the 
 other was not that of the chUd into the man, as we usually 
 consider it ; it was that of the chrysalis into the butterfly. 
 There was an entire change in the habits, food, method of 
 existence, and heai-t of the whole creature. That we know 
 more than thirteenth-century people is perfectly true ; but 
 that is not the essential difference between us and them. We 
 are different kind of creatures from them, — as different as 
 moths are different from caterpillars ; and different in a 
 certain broad and vast sense, which I shaU try this evening 
 to explain and prove to you ; — different not merely in this or 
 that result of minor circumstances, — not as you are different 
 from people who never saw a locomotive engine, or a High- 
 lander of this century from a Highlander of 1745 ; — different 
 in a far broader and mightier sense than that, in a sense so great 
 and clear, that we are enabled to separate all the Christian na- 
 tions and tongues of the early time- from those of the latter 
 time, and speak of them in one group as the kingdoms of the 
 Middle Ages. There is an ini&nite significance in that tenn, 
 v/hich I want you to dwell upon and work out ; it is a term 
 which we use in a dim consciousness of the truth, but without 
 fully penetrating into that of which we are conscious. I want 
 to deepen and make clear to you this consciousness that the 
 world has had essentially a Trinity of ages — the Classical 
 Age, the Middle Age, the Modern Age ; each of these embra- 
 cing races and individuals of apparently enormous separation 
 in kind, but united in the spirit of their age, — the Classical 
 Age having its Egyptians and Ninevites, Greeks and Romans, 
 — the Middle Age having its Goths and Franks, Lombards and 
 ItaHans, — the Modem Ages having their French and EngUsh, 
 Spaniards and Germans ; but aU these distinctions being in 
 each case subordinate to the mightier and broader distinction, 
 between Olassicalism, Medicevalism, and Modernism. 
 
 Now our object to-night is indeed only to inquire into a 
 matter of art ; but we cannot do so properly until we consider 
 this art in its relation to the inner spirit of the age in which 
 
314 LEOrURES ON ARCHITECTURE 
 
 it exists ; and by doing so we shall not only arrive at the most 
 just conclusions respecting our present subject, but we shall 
 obtain the means of arriving at just conclusions respecting 
 many other things. 
 
 Now the division of time which the Pre-Eaphaehtes have 
 adopted, in choosing Baphael as a man whose works mark 
 the separation between Medisevalism and Modernism, is per- 
 fectly accurate. It has been accepted as such by aU their 
 opponents. 
 
 Tou have, then, the three periods : Classicalism, extending 
 to the fall of the Roman empire ; Medisevalism, extending 
 from that fall to the close of the fifteenth century ; and Mod- 
 ernism, thenceforward to our days. 
 
 And in examining into the spirit of these three epochs, 
 observe, I don't mean to compare their bad men, — I don't 
 mean to take Tiberius as a type of Classicalism, nor EzzeHn 
 as a type of Medisevalism, nor Eobespierre as a type of Mod- 
 ernism. Bad men tire- like each other in all epochs ; and 
 in the Eoman, the Paduan, or the Parisian, sensuality and 
 cruelty admit of little distinction in the manners of their 
 manifestation. But among men comparatively virtuous, it is 
 important to study the phases of character ; and it is into 
 these only that it is necessary for us to inquire. Consider 
 therefore, first, the essential difference in character between 
 three of the most devoted military heroes whom the three 
 great epochs of the world have produced, — all three devoted 
 to the service of their country, — aU of them dying therein. 
 I mean, Leonidas in the Classical period, St. Louis in the 
 Mediaeval period, and Lord Nelson in the Modern period. 
 
 Leonidas had the most rigid sense of duty, and died with 
 the most perfect faith in the gods of his country, fulfilling 
 the accepted prophecy of his death. St. Louis had the most 
 rigid sense of duty, and the most perfect faith in Christ, 
 Nelson had the most rigid sense of duty, and 
 
 You must supply my pause with youi- charity. 
 
 Now you do not suppose that the main difference between 
 Leonidas and Nelson lay in the modem inventions at the 
 command of the one, as compared with the imperfect military 
 
AND PAINTING. 315 
 
 instruments possessed by the other. They were not essen- 
 tially different, in that the one fought with lances and the 
 other with guns. But they were essentially different in the 
 whole tone of their religious behef. 
 
 By this instance you may be partially prepared for the bold 
 statement I am going to make to you, as to the change which 
 constitutes modernism. I said just now that it was like that 
 of the worm to the butterfly. But the changes which God 
 causes in his lower creatures are almost always from worse 
 to better, while the changes which God allows man to make 
 in himself are very often quite the' other way ; like Adam's 
 new arrangement of his nature. And in saying that this last 
 change was like that of a chrysalis, I raeant only in the com- 
 pleteness of it, not in the tendency of it. Instead of from 
 the worm to the butterfly, it is very possible it may have been 
 from the butterfly to the worm. 
 
 Have patience with me for a moment after I teU you what 
 I believe it to have been, and give me a little time to justify 
 my words. 
 
 I say that Classicalism began, wherever civUisation began, 
 with Pagan Faith. MedisevaUsm began, and contiaued, wher- 
 ever civilisation began and continued to confess Christ. And, 
 lastly. Modernism began and continues, wherever civilisation 
 began and continues to deny Christ. 
 
 You are startled, but give me a moment to explain. What, 
 you would say to me, do you mean to teU us that vx deny 
 Christ ? we who axe essentially modern in every one of our 
 principles and feelings, and yet all of us professing believers 
 in Christ, and we trust most of us true ones? I answer. So 
 far as we are believers indeed, we are one with the faithful of 
 all times, — one with the classical believer of Athens and 
 Ephesus, and one with the mediseval believer of the banks of 
 the Ebone and the valleys of the Monte Viso. But so far as, 
 in various strange ways, some in great and some in small 
 things, we deny this behef, in so far we are essentially infected 
 with this spirit, which I call modernism. 
 
 For observe, the change of which I speak has nothing what- 
 ever to do with the Keformation, or with any of its effects. 
 
3 ! 6 LECTURES ON ARCHITEGTTJBE 
 
 It is a far broader thing than the Eef ormation. It is a change 
 which has taken place, not only in reformed England, and 
 reformed Scotland ; but in unreformed France, in unreformed 
 Italy, in unreformed Austria. I class honest Protestants and 
 honest Eoman Catholics for the present together, under the 
 general term Christians ; if you object to their being so 
 classed together, I pray your pardon, but allow me to do so 
 at present, for the sake of perspicuity, if for nothing else ; 
 and so classing them, I say that a change took place, about 
 the time of Raphael, in the spirit of Eoman Catholics and 
 Protestants both ; and that change consisted in the denial of 
 their religious behef, at least in the external and trivial affairs 
 of life, and often in far more serious things. 
 
 For instance, hear this direction to an upholsterer of the 
 early thirteenth century. Under the commands of the sheriff 
 of Wiltshire, he is thus ordered to make some alterations in 
 a room for Henry the Third. He is to " wainscot the King's 
 lower chamber, and to paint that wainscot of a green colour, 
 and to put a border to it, and to cause the heads of kings and 
 queens to be painted on the borders ; and to paint on the 
 walls of the King's upper chamber the story of St. Margaret, 
 Virgin, and the four Evangelists, and to paint the wainscot 
 of the same chamber of a green colour, spotted with gold." * 
 
 Again, the sheriff of Wiltshire is ordered to "put two 
 small glass windows in the chamber of Edward the King's 
 son ; and put a glass window in the chamber of our Queen at 
 Clarendon ; and in the same window cause to be painted a 
 Mary with her ChUd, and at the feet of the said Mary, a 
 queen with clasped hands." 
 
 Again, the sheriff of Southampton is ordered to "paint the 
 tablet beside the King's bed, with the figures of the guards 
 of the bed of Solomon, and to glaze with white glass the win- 
 dows in the King's great Hall at Southampton, and cause the 
 history of Lazarus and Dives to be painted in the same." 
 
 And so on ; I need not multiply instances. Tou see that 
 in all these cases, the furniture of the King's house is made 
 
 * Liberate BoUs, preserved In the Tower of London, and quoted bji 
 Mr. Turner in his History of the Domestic Architecture of England. 
 
AND PAINTING. 317 
 
 to confess his Christianity. It may be imperfect and impure 
 Christianity, but such as it might be, it was all that men had 
 then to Uve and die by ; and you see there was not a pane 
 of glass in their windows, nor a pallet by their bedside that 
 did not confess and proclaim it. Now, when you go home tc 
 your own rooms, supposing them to be richly decorated at 
 aU, examine what that decoration consists of. You will 
 find Cupids, Graces, Floras, Dianas, Jupiters, Junos. But you 
 wiU not find, except in the form of an engraving, bought prin- 
 cipaJly for its artistic beauty, either Christ, or the Virgin, or 
 Lazarus and Dives. And if a thousand years hence, any curi- 
 ous investigator were to dig up the ruins of Ediaburgh, and 
 not know your history, he would think you had all been born 
 heathens. Now that, so far as it goes, is denying Christ ; it 
 is pure Modernism. 
 
 No, you vrill answer me, " you misunderstand and calum- 
 niate us. We do not, indeed, choose to have Dives and Laz- 
 arus on our windows ; but that is not because we are modems, 
 but because we are Protestants, and do not like rehgious im- 
 agery." Pardon me : that is not the reason. Go into any 
 fashionable lady's boudoir ia Pai-is, and see if you wiU find 
 Dives and Lazarus there. You wUl find, indeed, either that 
 she has her private chapel, or that she has a crucifix in her 
 dressing room ; but for the general decoration of the 
 house, it is all composed of ApoUos and Muses, just as it ia 
 here. 
 
 Again. What do you suppose was the substance of good 
 education, the education of a knight, in the Middle Ages? 
 What was taught to a boy as soon as he was able to learn any- 
 thing ? First, to keep under his body, and bring it into sub 
 jection and perfect strength ; then to take Christ for his cap- 
 tain, to live as always in his presence and, finally, to do hia 
 devoir — mark the word — to all men ? Now, consider first, the 
 difference in their influence over the armies of France, be- 
 tween the ancient word "devoir," and modem word "gloire." 
 And, again, ask yourselves what you expect your own chil- 
 dren to be taught at your great schools and universities. Is 
 it Christian history, or the histories of Pan and Silenus? 
 
318 LECTURES ON AROHITEOTUBE 
 
 Your present education, to all intents and purposes, deniei 
 Christ, and that is intensely and pecuKarly modernism. 
 
 Or, again, what do you suppose was the proclaimed and 
 understood principle of all Christian governments in the 
 middle ages ? I do not say it was a principle acted up to, or 
 that the cimning and violence of wicked men had not too 
 often their full sway then, as now ; but on what principles 
 were that cunning and violence, so far as was possible, re- 
 strained ? By the confessed fear of God, and confessed author- 
 ity of his law. You will find that all treaties, laws, transac- 
 tions whatsoever, in the middle ages, are based on a confession 
 of Christianity as the leading rule of life ; that a text of Script- 
 ure is held, in all public assemblies, strong enough to be set 
 against an appearance of expediency ; and although, in the 
 end, the expediency might triumph, yet it was never without 
 a distinct allowance of Christian principle, as an efficient ele- 
 ment in the consultation. Whatever error might be commit- 
 ted, at least Christ was openly confessed. Now what is the 
 custom of your British Parliament in these days ? You know 
 that nothing would excite greater manifestations of contempt 
 and disgust than the slightest attempt to introduce the au- 
 thority of Scripture in a political consultation. That is deny- 
 ing Christ. It is intensely and peculiarly modernism. 
 
 It would be easy to go on showing you this same thing in 
 many more instances ; but my business to-night is to show 
 you its full effect in one thing only, namely, in art, and I 
 must come straightway to that, as I have little enough time. 
 This, then, is the great and broad fact which distinguishes 
 modem art from old art ; that all ancient art was religious, 
 and all modern art is profane. Once more, your patience for 
 an instant. I say, all ancient art was religious ; that is to saj', 
 religion was its first object ; private luxury or pleasure its 
 second. I say, all modern art is profane ; that is, private lux- 
 luy or pleasure is its first object ; religion its second. Now 
 you all know, that anything which makes religion its second 
 object, makes religion no object. God will put up with a 
 gi-eat many things in the human heart, but there is one thing 
 he will not put up with in it — a second place. He who offers 
 
AND PAINTING. 319 
 
 God a second place, offers him no place. And there is an- 
 other mighty truth which you all know, that he who makes 
 reHgion his first object, makes it his whole object : he has no 
 other work in the world than God's work. Therefore I do 
 not say that ancient art was more rehgious than modern ai-t. 
 There is no question of degree in this matter. Ancient art 
 was religious art ; modem art is profane art ; and between 
 the two the distinction is as firm as between light and dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Now, do not let what I say be encumbered in yovir minds 
 with the objection, that you think art ought not to be brought 
 into the service of religion. That is not the question at 
 present — do not agitate it The simple fact is, that old art 
 nns brought into that service, and received therein a peculiar 
 form ; that modern art is not brought into that service, and 
 has received in consequence another form; that tliis is the 
 great distinction between mediaeval and modern art ; and from 
 that ai-e clearly deducible all other essential difierences be- 
 tween them. That is the point I wish to show you, and of 
 that there can be no dispute. Whether or not Christianity 
 be the purer for lacking the service of art, is disputable — and 
 I do not mean now to begin the dispute ; but that art is the 
 impurer for not being in the service of Christianity, is indisput- 
 able, and that is the main point I have now to do with. 
 
 Perhaps there are some of you hero who would not allow 
 that the reUgion of the thirteenth century was Christianity. Be 
 it so, still is the statement true, which is aU that is necessary 
 for me now to prove, that art was great because it was de- 
 voted to such religion as then existed. Grant that Eoman 
 Catholicism was not Christianity — grant it, if you wiU, to be 
 the same thing as old heathenism, — and still I say to you, 
 whatever it was, men hved and died by it, the ruHng thought 
 of aU their thoughts ; and just as classical art was greatest in 
 building to its gods, so mediaeval art was great in building to 
 its gods, and modem art is not great, because it builds to no 
 God. You have for instance, in your Edinburgh Library, 
 a Bible of the thirteenth century, the Latin Bible, commonly 
 known as tha Vulgate. It containa the Old and New Testaments, 
 
r.20 LECTUBES ON ABCHITEOTUBE 
 
 complete, besides the books of Maccabees, the Wisdom of 
 Solomon, the books of Judith, Barueh, and Tobit. The whole 
 is written in the most beautiful black-letter hand, and each 
 book begins with an illuminated letter, containing three or 
 four figures, illustrative of the book which it begins. Now, 
 whether this were done in the service of true Christianity or 
 not, the simple fact is, that here is a man's Ufetime taken up in 
 writing and ornamenting a Bible, as the sole end of his art ; and 
 that doing this either in a book, or on a wall, was the common 
 artist's life at the time ; that the constant Bible reading and 
 Bible thinking which this work involved, made a man serious 
 and thoughtful, and a good workman, because he was always 
 expressing those feelings which, whether right or wrong, were 
 the groundwork of his whole being. Now, about the year 
 1500, this entire system was changed. Instead of the life of 
 Christ, men had, for the most part, to paint the Uves of Bac- 
 chus and Venus ; and if you walk through any public gr^'Uery 
 of pictures by the " great masters," as they are called, you 
 wHl indeed find here and there what is called a Holy Family, 
 painted for the sake of drawing pretty children, or a pretty 
 woman ; but for the most part you will find nothing but 
 Floras, Pomonas, Satyrs, Graces, Bacchanals, and Banditti 
 Now you vriU not declare — you cannot believe, — that AngeUco 
 painting the life of Christ, Benozzo painting the hfe of Abra- 
 ham, Ghirlandajo painting the life of the Virgin, Giotto paint- 
 ing the life of St. Francis, were worse employed, or likely to 
 produce a less healthy art, than Titian painting the loves of 
 Venus and Adonis, than Correggio painting the naked Antiope, 
 than Salvator painting the slaughters of the thirty years' war ? 
 If you will not let me call the one kind of labour Christian, and 
 the other unchristian, at least you will let me call the one moral, 
 and the other immoral, and that is all I ask you to admit. 
 
 Now observe, hitherto I have been telling you what you 
 may feel inclined to doubt or dispute ; and I must leave you 
 to consider the subject at your leisure. But henceforward I 
 tell you plain facts, which admit neither of doubt nor dispute 
 by any one who will take the pains to acquaint himself witk 
 their subject-matter. 
 
AND PAINTma. 321 
 
 When the entire purpose of art was moral teaching, it nat 
 urally took truth for its first objectj and beauty, and the 
 pleasure resulting from beauty, only for its second. But 
 when it lost all purpose of moral teaching, it as naturally 
 took beauty for its first object, and truth for its second. 
 
 That is to say, in all they did, the old artists endeavoured 
 in one way or another, to express the real facts of the subject 
 or event, this being their chief business : and the question 
 they first asked themselves was always, how would this thing, 
 or that, actually have occurred ? what would this person, or 
 that, have done under the circumstances ? and then, having 
 formed their conception, they work it out with only a second- 
 ary regard to grace, or beauty, while a modern painter inva- 
 riably thinks of the grace and beauty of his work first, and 
 unites afterwards as much truth as he can with its conven- 
 tional graces. I wiU give you a single strong instance to 
 make my meaning plainer. In Orcagna's great fresco of the 
 Triumph of Death, one of the incidents is that three kings,* 
 when out hunting, are met by a spirit, which, desiring them 
 to foUow it, leads them to a churchyard, and points out to 
 them, in open coffins, three bodies of kings such as them- 
 selves, in the last stages of corruption. Now a modem artist, 
 representing this, would have endeavoured dimly and faintly 
 
 * Tida incident is not of Orcagna's invention ; it is variously repre- 
 sented in much earlier art. There is a curious and graphic drawing of 
 it, circa 1300, in the MS. Arundel 83. Brit. Mus., in which the three 
 dead persons are walking, and are met by three queens, who severally 
 utter the sentences, 
 
 " Ich am aferd." 
 
 "Lo, whet ich se ?" 
 
 " Me thinketh hit heth develes thre." 
 
 To which the dead bodies answer, — 
 
 " Ich wes wel fair." 
 " Such schelt ou be." 
 " For Godes love, be wer by me." 
 It is curious, that though the dresses of the living persons, and the 
 " I was well fair " of the first dead speaker, seem to mark them dis- 
 tinctly to be women, some longer legends below are headed " primus 
 rex mortuus." &c. 
 
322 LEOTURES ON AROEITECTUBE 
 
 to suggest the appearance of the dead bodies, and -would have 
 made, or attempted to make, the countenances of the three 
 kings variously and solemnly expressive of thought. This 
 would be in his, or our, view, a poetical and tasteful treat- 
 ment of the subject. But Orcagna disdains both poetry and 
 taste ; he wants \ih.e facts only ; he wishes to give the specta- 
 tor the same lesson that the kings had ; and therefore, in- 
 stead of concealing the dead bodies, he paints them with the 
 most fearful detail And then, he does not consider what 
 the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers only 
 what they actually in all probability would have done. He 
 makes them looking at the coflSns with a startled stare, and 
 one holding his nose. This is an extreme instance ; but you 
 are not to suppose it is because Orcagna had naturally a 
 coarse or prosaic mind. "Where he felt that thoughtfuhiess 
 and beauty could properly be introduced, as in his circles of 
 saints and prophets, no painter of the middle ages is so grand. 
 I can give you no better proof of this, than the one fact that 
 Michael Angelo borrowed from him openly, — borrowed from 
 him in the principal work which he ever executed, the Last 
 Judgment, and borrowed from him the principal figure in 
 that work. But it is just because Orcagna was so firmly and 
 unscrupulously true, that he had the power of being so great 
 when he chose. His arrow went straight to the mark. It 
 was not that he did not love beauty, but he loved truth first. 
 
 So it was with all the men of that time. No painters ever 
 had more power of conceiving graceful form, or more pro- 
 found devotion to the beautiful ; but all these gifts and affec- 
 tions are kept sternly subordinate to their moral purpose ; 
 and, so far as their powers and knowledge went, they either 
 painted from nature things as they were, or from imagination 
 things as they must have been. 
 
 I do not mean that they reached any imitative resemblance 
 to nature. They had neither skill to do it, nor care to do it 
 Their art was conventional and imperfect, but they considered 
 it only as a language wherein to convey the knowledge of cer- 
 tain facts ; it was perfect enough for that ; and though always 
 reaching on to greater attainments, they never suffered their 
 
JJfD PAINTINO. 323 
 
 imperfections to disturb and check them in their immediate 
 purposes. And this mode of treating all subjects was per- 
 sisted in by the greatest men until the close of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 Now so justly have the Pre-Eaphaelites chosen their time 
 and name, that the great change which clouds the career of 
 mediseval art was affected, not only in Baphael's time, but by 
 Baphael's own practice, and by his practice in the very centre 
 of his available life. 
 
 You remember, doubtless, what high ground we have for 
 placing the beginning of human intellectual strength at about 
 the age of twelve years.* Assume, therefore, this period for 
 the beginning of Raphael's strength. He died at thirty-seven. 
 And in his twenty-fifth year, one half-year only passed the pre- 
 cise centre of his available life, he was sent for to Home, to 
 decorate the Vatican for Pope Julius 11., and having until that 
 time worked exclusively in the ancient and stern mediaeval 
 manner, he, in the first chamber which he decorated in that 
 palace, wrote upon its wall the Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, of the 
 Arts of Christianity. 
 
 And he wrote it thus : On one wall of that chamber he 
 placed a picture of the "World or Kingdom of Theology, pre- 
 sided over by Christ. And on the side wall of that same 
 chamber he placed the World or Kingdom of Poetry, pre- 
 sided over by Apollo. And from that spot, and from that 
 hour, the intellect and the art of Italy date their degradation. 
 
 Observe, however, the significance of this fact is not in the 
 mere use of the figure of the heathen god to indicate the 
 domaia of poetry. Such a symbolical use had been made of 
 the figures of heathen deities in the best times of Christian 
 art. But it is in the fact, that being called to Rome especially 
 to adorn the palace of the so-called head of the church, and 
 called as the chief representative of the Christian artists of his 
 time, Raphael had neither religion nor originality enough to 
 trace the spirit of poetry and the spirit of philosophy to the 
 inspiration of the true God, as well as that of theology ; but 
 that, on the contrary, he elevated the creations of fancy on the 
 * Luke ii. 43, 49. 
 
324 LECTURES ON ARCHITEGTZIRE 
 
 one wall, to the same rank as the object of faith upon the other ; 
 that in deliberate, balanced, opposition to the Eock of the 
 Mount Zion, he reared the rock of Parnassus, and the rock of 
 the Acropolis ; that, among the masters of poetry we find him 
 enthroning Petrarch and Pindar, but not Isaiah nor David, and 
 for lords over the domain of philosophy we find the masters 
 of the school of Athens, but neither of those greater masters 
 by the last of whom that school was rebuked, — those who 
 received their wisdom from heaven itself, in the vision of 
 Gibeon,* and the lightning of Damascus. 
 
 The doom of the arts of Europe went forth from that cham- 
 ber, and it was brought about in great part by the very ex- 
 cellencies of the man who had thus marked the commence- 
 ment of decline. The perfection of execution and the beauty 
 of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his 
 great contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty 
 of form the chief objects of aU artists ; and thenceforward exe- 
 cution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rathei- 
 than veracity. 
 
 And as I told you, these are the two secondary causes ot 
 the decline of art ; the first being the loss of moral purpose. 
 Pray note them clearly. In mediaeval art, thought is the first 
 thing, execution the second ; in modem art execution is the 
 first thing, and thought the second. And again, in mediaeval 
 art, truth is first, beauty second ; in modern art, beauty is first, 
 truth second. Tlie mediasval principles led up to Eaphael, 
 and the modern principles lead down from him. 
 
 Now, first, let me give you a familiar illustration of the 
 difference with respect to execution. Suppose you have to 
 teach two children di-awing, one thoroughly clever and active- 
 minded, the other duU and slow ; and you put before them 
 Jullien's chalk studies of heads — etudes d deux crayons — and 
 desii-e them to be copied. The dull child will slowly do your 
 bidding, blacken his paper and rub it white again, and pa- 
 tiently and painfully, in the course of three or four years, at- 
 tain to the performance of a chalk head, not much worse 
 than his original, but still of less value than the paper it is 
 * 1 Kings, iii. 5. 
 
AND PAINTING. S25 
 
 drawn upon. But the clever child will not, or will only by 
 force, consent to this discipline. He finds other means ol 
 expressing himself with his pencil somehow or another ; and 
 presently you find his paper covered with sketches of his 
 grandfather and grandmother, and uncles and cousins, — 
 sketches of the room, and the house, and the cat, and the 
 dog, and the country outside, and everything in the world he 
 can set his eyes on ; and he gets on, and even his child's 
 work has a value in it — a truth which makes it worth keep- 
 ing ; no one knows how precious, perhaps, that portrait of 
 his grandfather may be, if any one has but the sense to keep 
 it till the time when the old man can be seen no more up the 
 lawn, nor by the wood. That child is working in the middle- 
 age spirit — the other in the modem spu-it. 
 
 But there is something stUl more striking in the evils 
 which have resulted from the modern regardlessness of truth. 
 Consider, for instance, its effect on what is called historical 
 painting. What do you at present mean by historical paint- 
 ing ? Now-a-days, it means the endeavouring, by the power 
 of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days. 
 But in the middle ages, it meant representing the acts of their 
 own days ; and that is the only historical painting worth a 
 straw. Of all the wastes of time and sense which modernism 
 has invented — and they are many — none are so ridiculous as 
 this endeavour to represent past history. "What do you sup- 
 pose our descendants wiU care for our imaginations of the 
 events of former days ? Suppose the Greeks, instead of rep- 
 resenting their own warriors as they fought at Marathon, had 
 left us nothing but their imaginations of Egyptian battles ; 
 and suppose the Italians, in like manner, instead of portraits 
 of Can Grande and Dante, or of Leo the Tenth and Eaphael, 
 had left us nothing but imaginary portraits of Pericles and 
 Miltiades ? "What fools we should have thought them I how 
 bitterly we shoidd have been provoked with their folly ! And 
 that is precisely what our descendants wiU feel towards us, 
 so far as our grand historical and classical schools are con- 
 cerned. "What do we care, they wiU say, what those nine- 
 teenth century people fancied about Greek and Eoman his- 
 
326 LEOTURES ON ARCniTEOTUBE 
 
 tory ! If they had left us a few plain and rational sculpture 
 and pictures of their own battles, and their own men, in theit 
 everyday dress, we shotdd have thanked them. Well, but, 
 you will say, we /laue' left them portraits of our great men, 
 and paintings of our great battles. Yes, you have indeed, 
 and that is the only historical painting that you either have 
 or can have ; but you don't call that historical painting. You 
 don't thank the men who do it ; you look down upon them 
 and dissuade them from it, and teU them they don't belong 
 to the grand schools. And yet they are the only true his- 
 torical painters, and the only men who wiU produce any effect 
 on their own generation, or on any other. Wilkie was an 
 historical painter, Chantrey an historical sculptor, because 
 they painted, or carved, the veritable things and men they 
 saw, not men and things as they beUeved they might have 
 been, or should have been. But no one tells such men they 
 are historical painters, and they are discontented with what 
 they do ; and poor Wilkie must needs travel to see the grand 
 school, and imitate the grand school, and ruin himself. And 
 you have had multitudes of other painters ruined, from the 
 beginning, by that grand school. There was Etty, naturally 
 as good a painter as ever lived, but no one told him what to 
 paint, and he studied the antique, and the grand schools, and 
 painted dances of nymphs in red and yellow shawls to the end 
 of his days. Much good may they do you ! He is gone to 
 the grave, a lost mind. There was Flaxman, another natu- 
 rally great man, with as tme an eye for nature as Eaphael, — 
 he stumbles over the blocks of the antique statues — wanders 
 in the dark valley of their ruins to the end of his days. He 
 has left you a few outHnes of muscular men straddling and 
 frowning behind round shields. Much good may they do 
 you ! Another lost mind. And of those who are lost name- 
 lessly, who have not strength enough even to make them- 
 selves known, the poor pale students who lie biuied for ever 
 in the abysses of the great schools, no account can be ren« 
 dered ; they are numberless. 
 
 And the wonderful thing is, that of all these men whom you 
 now have come to call the gi-eat masters, there was not on« 
 
AND PAINTINO. 327 
 
 who confessedly did not paint his own present world, plainly 
 and truly. Homer sang of what he saw ; Phidias carved what 
 he saw ; Eaphael painted the men of his own time in their 
 own caps and mantles ; and every man who has arisen to emi- 
 nence in modern times has done so altogether by his working 
 in their way, and doing the things he saw. How did Eeynolds 
 rise? Not by painting Greek women, but by painting the 
 glorious httle living ladies this, and ladies that, of his own 
 time. How did Hogarth rise ? Not by painting Athenian 
 foUies, but London follies. "Who are the men who have made 
 an impression upon you yourselves, — upon your own age ? I 
 suppose the most popular painter of the day is Landseer. Do 
 you suppose he studied dogs and eagles out of the Elgin Mar- 
 bles ? And yet in the very face of these plain, incontroverti- 
 ble, all- visible facts, we go on from year to year with the base 
 system of Academy teaching, in spite of which every one of 
 these men have risen : I say in spite of the entire method and 
 aim of our art-teaching. It destroys the greater number of 
 its pupils altogether ; it hinders and paralyses the greatest. 
 There is not a living painter whose eminence is not in spite of 
 everything he has been taught from his youth upwards, and 
 who, whatever his eminence may be, has not suffered much 
 injury in the course of his victory. For observe : this love of 
 what is called ideality or beauty in preference to truth, oper- 
 ates not only in making us choose the past rather than the 
 present for our subjects, but it makes us falsify the present 
 when we do take it for our subject. I said just now that por- 
 trait-painters were historical painters ; — so they are ; but not 
 good ones, because not faithful ones. The beginning and end 
 of modern portraitui-e is adulation. The painters cannot Hve 
 but by flattery ; we should desert them if they spoke honestly. 
 And therefore we can have no good portraiture ; for ia the 
 striving after that which is «o< in their model, they lose the 
 inner and deeper nobleness which is in their model I saw 
 not long ago, for the first time, the portrait of a man whom I 
 knew well, — a young man, but a religious man, — and one who 
 had siiffered much from sickness. The whole dignity of hia 
 features and person depended upon the expression of serene, 
 
328 LECTURES ON ARCHITECTUHB 
 
 yet solemn, purpose sustaining a feeble frame ; and the paintei- 
 by way of flattering him, strengthened him, and made him 
 athletic in body, gay in countenance, idle in gesture ; and the 
 whole power and being of the man himself were lost. And 
 this is stUl more the case with our pubHc portraits. You 
 have a portrait, for instance, of the Duke of Wellington at the 
 end of the North Bridge, — one of the thousand equestrian 
 statues of Modernism, — studied from the showriders of the 
 amphitheatre, with their horses on their hindlegs in the saw- 
 dust.* Do you suppose that was the way the Duke sat when 
 your destinies depended on him ? when the foam hung from 
 the lips of his tired horse, and its wet hmbs were dashed with 
 the bloody sUme of the battlefield, and he himself sat anxious 
 in his quietness, grieved in his fearlessness, as he watched, 
 
 * I intended this last sentence of coarse to apply to the thousand stat> 
 UBS, not definitely to the one in immediate question, which, though 
 tainted with the modern affectation, and the nearest example of it to 
 which I could refer an Edinburgh audience, is the work of a most prom- 
 ising sculptor ; and was indeed so far executed on the principles as- 
 serted in the text, that the Duke gave Mr. Steele a sitting on horseback, 
 in order that his mode of riding might be accurately represented. This, 
 liowever does not render the following remarks in the text nugatory, as 
 it may easily be imagined that the action of the Duke, exhibiting hli 
 riding in his own grounds, would be different from his action, or inac- 
 tion, when watching the course of a battle. 
 
 I must also make a most definite exception in favour of Maroohetti, 
 who seems to me a thoroughly great sculptor ; and whose statue of Coeur 
 de Lion, though, according to the principle just stated, not to be consid- 
 ered an hisioriccd work, is an ideal work of the highest beauty and value. 
 Its erection in front of Westminster Hall will tend more to educate tha 
 public eye and mind with respect to art, than anything we have done in 
 London for centuries. 
 
 • •«♦•• 
 
 April Slst. — I stop the press in order to insert the following para- 
 graph from today's Times: — "The Statue op Cceuk De Lion. — 
 Yesterday morning a number of workmen were engaged in pulling down 
 the cast which was placed in New Palace Yard of the colossal equestrian 
 statue of Eiohard Coeur de Lion. Sir C. Barry was, we believe, opposed 
 to the cast remaining there any longer, and to the putting up of the 
 statue itself on the same site, because it did not harmonize with thr 
 building. During the day the horse and figure were removed, and be- 
 fore night the pedestal was demolished and taken away. " 
 
AND PAINTING. 320 
 
 scythe-stroke by scythe-stroke, the gathering in of the harvest 
 of death ? You would have done something had you thus left 
 his image in the enduring iron, but nothing now. 
 
 But the time has at last come for all this to be put an end 
 to ; and nothing can well be more extraordinary than the way 
 in which the men have risen who are to do it. Pupils in the 
 same schools, receiving precisely the same instruction which 
 (or so long a time has paralysed every one of our painters, — 
 these boys agree in disUking to copy the antique statues set 
 before them. They copy them as they, are bid, and they copy 
 them better than any one else, they carry off prize after prize, 
 and yet they hate their work. At last they are admitted to 
 study from the life ; they find the Hfe very different from the 
 antique, and say so. Their teachers teU them the antique is 
 the best, and they mustn't copy the Hfe. They agree among 
 themselves that they like the life, and that copy it they wiLL 
 They do copy it faithfully, and their masters forthwith de- 
 clare them to be lost men. Their fellow-students hiss them 
 whenever they enter the room. They can't help it ; they join 
 hands and tacitly resist both the hissing and the instruction. 
 Accidentally, a few prints of the works of Giotto, a few casts 
 from those of Ghiberti, fall into their hands, and they see in 
 these something they never saw before — something intensely 
 and everlastingly true. They examine farther into the mat- 
 ter ; they discover for themselves the greater part of what I 
 have laid before you to-night ; they form themselves into a 
 body, and enter upon that crusade which has hitherto been 
 victorious. And which will be absolutely and triumphantly 
 victorious. The great mistake which has hitherto prevented 
 the public mind from fully going with them must soon be 
 corrected. That mistake was the supposition that, instead of 
 wishing to recur to the principles of the early ages, these men 
 wished to briag back the ignorance of the early ages. This 
 notion, grounded first on some hardness in their earher 
 works, which resulted — as it must always result — from the 
 downright and earnest effort to paint nature as in a looking- 
 glass, was fostered partly by the jealousy of their beaten com- 
 petitors, and partly by the pure, perverse, and hopeless igno- 
 
330 LECTURES ON ARGEITEOTURE 
 
 ranee of the whole body of art-critics, so called, connected 
 with the press. No notion was ever more baseless or more 
 ridiculous. It was asserted that the Pre-Eaphaelites did not 
 draw well, in the face of the fact, that the principal membei 
 of their body, from the time he entered the schools of the 
 Academy, had Hterally encumbered himself with the medals, 
 given as prizes for drawing, It was asserted that they did 
 not draw ia perspective, by men who themselves knew no 
 more of perspective than they did of astrology ; it was as- 
 serted that they sinned against the appearances of nature, by 
 men who had never drawn so much as a leaf or a blossom 
 from nature in their lives. And, lastly, when all these cal- 
 umnies or absurdities would tell no more, and it began to be 
 forced upon men's unwilling belief that the style of the Pre- 
 Eaphaelites was true and was according to nature, the last 
 forgery invented respecting them is, that they copy photo- 
 graphs. You observe how completely this last piece of mal- 
 ice defeats all the rest. It admits they are true to nature, 
 though only that it may deprive them of all merit in being so. 
 But it may itself be at once refuted by the bold challenge to 
 their opponents to produce a Pre-Raphaelite picture, or any- 
 thing hke one, by themselves copying a photograph. 
 
 Let me at once clear your minds from all these doubts, and 
 at once contradict all these calumnies. 
 
 Pre-Eaphaelitism has but one principle, that of absolute 
 uncompromising truth in all that it does, obtained by work- 
 ing everything, down to the most minute detail, from nat- 
 ure, and from nature only.* Every Pre-Raphaelite landscape 
 background is painted to the last touch, in the open air, from 
 the thing itself. Every Pre-Raphaehte figure, however stud- 
 ied in expression, is a true portrait of some living person. 
 
 * Or, where imagination ia necessarily trusted to, by always endeavour- 
 ing to conceive a fact as it really was likely to have happened, rather 
 than as it most prettily might have happened. The various members 
 of the school are not all equally severe in carrying out its principles, 
 some of them trusting their memory or fancy very far ; only all agree- 
 ing in the effort to make their memories so accurate as to seem like por> 
 traiture, and their fancy so probable as to seem like memory. 
 
AND PAINTINO. ^ 331 
 
 Every minute accessory is painted in the same manner. And 
 one of the chief reasons for the violent opposition with which 
 the school has been attacked by other artists, is the enor- 
 mous cost of care and labour which such a system demands 
 from those who adopt it in contradistinction to the present 
 slovenly and imperfect style. 
 
 This is the main Pre-EaphaeUte principle. But the battle 
 which its supporters have to fight is a hard one ; and for that 
 battle they have been fitted by a very pecuUar character. 
 
 You perceive that the principal resistance they have to 
 make is to that spurious beauty, whose attractiveness had 
 tempted men to forget, or to despise, the more noble quality 
 of sincerity : and in order at once to put them beyond the 
 power of temptation from this beauty, they are, as a body, 
 characterized by a total absence of sensibility to the ordinary 
 and popular forms of artistic gracefulness ; while, to all that 
 still lower kind of prettiness, which regulates the disposition 
 of our scenes upon the stage, and which appears in our lower 
 art, as in our annuals, our common-place portraits, and statu- 
 ary, the Pre-EaphaeUtes are not only dead, but they regard it 
 with a contempt and aversion approaching to disgust. This 
 character is absolutely necessary to them in the present time ; 
 but it, of course, occasionally renders their work compara- 
 tively unpleasing. As the school becomes less aggressive, 
 and more authoritative, — which it wiU do, — they will enlist 
 into their ranks men who wUl work, mainly, upon their prin- 
 ciples, and yet embrace more of those characters which are 
 generally attractive, and this great ground of offence wiU be 
 removed. 
 
 Again ; you observe that, as landscape painters, their prin- 
 ciples must, in great part, confine them to mere foreground 
 work ; and singularly enough, that they may not be tempted 
 away from this work, they have been born with comparatively 
 little enjoyment of those evanescent effects and distant sub- 
 Umities which nothing but the memory can arrest, and noth- 
 ing but a daring conventionalism portray. But for this work 
 they are not needed. Turner had done it before them ; he, 
 though his capacity embraced everything, and though he ■ 
 
332 LECTTIBES ON ABCEITECTUEB 
 
 ■would sometimes, in his foregrounds, paint the spots upon a 
 dead trout, and the dyes upon a butterfly's wing, yet for the 
 most part delighting to begin at that very point where Pre- 
 Eaphaelitism becomes powerless. 
 
 Lastly. The habit of constantly carrying everything up to 
 the utmost point of completion deadens the Pre-Eaphaelites 
 in general to the merits of men who, with an equal love of 
 truth up to a certain point, yet express themselves habitually 
 with speed and power, rather than with finish, and give ab- 
 stracts of tmth rather than total truth. Probably to the end 
 of time artists wiU more or less be divided into these classes, 
 and it will be impossible to make men like MUlais understand 
 the merits of men like Tintoret ; but this is the more to be 
 regretted because the Pre-Eaphaelitea have enormous powers 
 of imagination, well as of realisation, and do not yet them- 
 selves know of how much they would be capable, if they some- 
 times worked on a larger scale, and with a less laborious fin- 
 isL 
 
 With all their faults, their pictures are, since Turner's death, 
 the best — incomparably the best — on the walls of the Royal 
 Academy ; and such works as Mr. Hunt's Claudio and Isabella 
 have never been rivalled, in some respects never approached, 
 at any other period of art. 
 
 This I believe to be a most candid statement of all their 
 faults and all their deficiencies ; not such, you perceive, as 
 are Ukely to arrest their progxess. The " magna est Veritas " 
 was never more sure of accomplishment than by these men. 
 Their adversaries have no chance with them. They will grad- 
 ually unite their influence with whatever is true or powerful 
 in the reactionary art of other countries ; and on their works 
 such a school will be founded as shall justify the third age of 
 the world's civilisation, and render it as great in creation as it 
 has been in discovery. 
 
 And now let me remind you but of one thing more. As 
 you examine into the career of historical painting, you vriU be 
 more and more struck with the fact I have this evening stated 
 to you, — that none was ever truly great but that which repre- 
 sented the living forms and daily deeds of the people among 
 
AND PAINTING. 333 
 
 wliom it aroBe ; — that all precious historical work records, not 
 the past but the present. Eemember, therefore, that it is not 
 BO much in buying pictures, as in being pictures, that you can 
 encourage a noble school The best patronage of art is not 
 that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague 
 ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image ; but that 
 which educates your children into living heroes, and binds 
 down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practictd 
 duty and faithful devotion. 
 
334 LEOIURES ON ABOHITMGTXmB 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 I COULD not enter, in a popular lecture, upon one intricata 
 and difficult question, closely connected with the subject of 
 Pre-Raphaelitism — namely, the relation of invention to obser- 
 vation ; and composition to imitation. It is still less a question 
 to be discussed in the compass of a note ; and I must defer 
 all careful examination of it to a future opportunity. Never, 
 theless, it is impossible to leave altogether unanswered the 
 first objection which is now most commonly made to the Pre- 
 Baphaehte work, namely, that the principle of it seems ad- 
 verse to all exertion of imaginative power. Indeed, such an 
 objection sounds strangely on the Hps of a public who have 
 been in the habit of purchasing for hundreds of pounds, small 
 squares of Dutch canvas, containing only servile imitations 
 of the coarsest nature. It is strange that an imitation of a 
 cow's head by Paul Potter, or of an old woman's by Ostade, 
 or of a scene of tavern debauchery by Teniers, should be pur- 
 chased and proclaimed for high art, while the rendering of 
 the most noble expressions of human feeling in Hunt's 
 Isabella, or of the loveliest English landscape, haunted by sor- 
 row, in Millais' Ophelia, should be declared " puerile." But, 
 strange though the utterance of it be, there is some weight 
 in the objection. It is true that so long as the Pre-Eaphael- 
 ites only paint from nature, however carefully selected and 
 grouped, their pictures can never have the characters of the 
 highest class of compositions. But, on the other hand, the 
 flhaUow and conventional arrangements commonly called 
 "compositions" by the artists of the present day, are iq.. 
 
AND PAINTING. 335 
 
 finitely farther from great art tlian the most patient work 
 of the Pre-Eaphaelites. That work is, even in its humblest 
 form, a secui-e foundation, capable of infinite superstructure ; 
 a reality of true value, as far as it reaches, while the common 
 artistical effects and groupings are a vain effort at superstruct 
 ure without foundation — utter negation and fallacy from 
 beguming to end. 
 
 But more than this, the very faithfulness of the Pre-Eaph- 
 aehtes arises from the redundance of their imaginative power. 
 Not only can aU the members of the school compose a thou- 
 sand times better than the men who pretend to look down 
 upon them, but I question whether even the greatest men of 
 old times possessed more exhaustless invention than either 
 Millais or Eossetti ; and it is partly the very ease vnth which 
 they invent which leads them to despise invention. Men who 
 have no imagination, but have learned merely to produce a 
 spurious resemblance of its results by the recipes of composi- 
 tion, are apt to value themselves mightily on their concoctive 
 science ; but the man whose mind a thousand hving imagi- 
 nations haunt, every hour, is apt to care too little for them ; and 
 to long for the perfect truth which he finds is not to be come 
 at so easily. And though I may perhaps hesitatingly admit 
 that it is possible to love this truth of reaUty too intensely, 
 yet I have no hesitation in declaring that there is no hope for 
 those who despise it, and that the painter, whoever he be, who 
 despises the pictures already produced by the Pre-Eaphael- 
 ites, has himself no capacity of becoming a great painter of 
 any kind. Paul Veronese and Tintoret themselves, without 
 desiring to imitate the Pre-EaphaeUte work, would have looked 
 upon it with deep respect, as John Bellini looked on that of 
 Albert Durer ; none but the ignorant could be unconscious 
 of its truth, and none but the insincere regardless of it. 
 How far it is possible for men educated on the severest Pre- 
 Kaphaelite principles to advance from their present style into 
 that of the great schools of composition, I do not care to in- 
 quire, for at this period such an advance is certainly not de- 
 sirable. Of great compositions we have enough, and more 
 than enough, and it would be well for the world if it were 
 
33G LECTUBES ON AROEITEGTUBE 
 
 willing to take some care of those it has. Of pure and manlj 
 truth, of stem statement of the things done and seen around 
 us daily, we have hitherto had nothing. And in art, as in all 
 other things, besides the literature of which it speaks, that 
 sentence of Carlyle is inevitably and irreversibly true : — " Day 
 after day, looking at the high destinies which yet await Utera- 
 ture, which literature wiU ere long address herself with more 
 decisiveness than ever to fulfil, it grows clearer to us that the 
 proper task of literature lies in the domain of Belief, vrithin 
 which, poetic fiction, as it is charitably named, vrill have 
 to take a quite new figure, if allowed a settlement there. 
 Whereby were it not reasonable to prophecy that this exceed- 
 ing great multitude of novel writers and such Uke, must, in 
 a new generation, gradually do one of two things, either retire 
 into nurseries, and work for children, minors, and semifatu- 
 ous persons of both sexes, or else, what were far better, sweep 
 their novel-fabric into the dust cart, and betake them, with 
 such faculty as they have, to understand and record what is true, 
 of which siu'ely there is and for ever will be a whole infinitude 
 unknown to us, of infinite importance to us. Poetry will 
 more and more come to be understood as nothing but higher 
 knowledge, and the only genuine Romance for grown persons, 
 Reality." 
 
 As I was copying this sentence, a pamphlet was put into 
 my hand, written by a clergyman, denouncing " Woe, woe, 
 woe ! to exceedingly young men of stubborn instincts calling 
 themselves Pre-Raphaelites." * 
 
 I thank God that the Pre-RaphaeHtes are young, and that 
 strength is stiU with them, and life, with aU the war of it, still 
 in front of them. Yet Everett MiUais is this year of the exact 
 age at which Raphael painted the Disputa, his greatest work ; 
 Rossetti and Hunt are both of them older still, — nor is there 
 one member of the body so young as Giotto, when he was 
 chosen from among the painters of Italy to decorate the Vati- 
 
 *Art, its Constitution and Capacities, &o. by the,Kev. Edward Young, 
 M.A. The phrase " exceedingly young men, of stubborn instincts," be- 
 ing twice quoted (carefully excluding the context) from my pamphlet 
 »n Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
AND PAINTING. 337 
 
 can. But Italy, in her great period, knew her great men, and 
 did not " despise their youth." It is reserved for England to 
 insult the strength of her noblest children — to -wither their 
 warm enthusiasm early into the bitterness of patient battle, 
 and leave to those whom she should have cherished and aided, 
 no hope but in resolution, no refuge but in disdain. 
 
 Indeed it is woeful, when the young usurp the place, or de- 
 spise the wisdom, of the aged ; and among the many dark 
 signs of these times, the disobedience and insolence of youth 
 are among the darkest. But with whom is the fault ? Youth 
 never yet lost its modesty where age had not lost its honour ; 
 nor did childhood ever refuse its reverence, except where age 
 had forgotten correction. The cry, "Go up thou bald head," 
 will never be heard in the land which remembers the precept, 
 " See that ye despise not one of these little ones ; " and al- 
 though indeed youth may become despicable, when its eager 
 hope is changed into presumption, and its progressive power 
 into arrested pride, there is something more despicable still, 
 in the old age which has learned neither judgment nor gen- 
 tleness, which is weak without charity, and cold without di»« 
 cretion. 
 
AN INQUIRY 
 
 INTO SOME OF 
 
 THE CONDITIONS AT PRESENT AFFECTING 
 
 THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE 
 
 IN OUR SCHOOLS 
 
 Remd at the Ordinary General Meethtgo/ the Royal Institute of 
 British Architects^ May 15, 1865. 
 
THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 I SUPPOSE there is no man who, permitted to address, for the 
 first time, the Institute of British Architects, would not feel 
 himself abashed and restrained, doubtful of his claim to be 
 heard by them, even it he attempted only to describe what 
 had come under his personal observation, much more if on 
 the occasion he thought it would be expected of him to 
 touch upon any of the general principles of the art of archi- 
 tecture before its principal Enghsh masters. 
 
 But if any more than another should feel thus abashed, it 
 is certainly one who has first to ask their pardon for the petu- 
 lance of boyish expressions of partial thought ; for ungraceful 
 advocacy of principles which needed no support from him, 
 and discourteous blame of work of which he had never felt 
 the difficulty. 
 
 Yet, when I ask this pardon, gentlemen — and I do it sin- 
 cerely and in shame — it is not as desiring to retract anything 
 in the general tenor and scope of what I have hithei-to tried 
 to say. Permit me the pain, and the apparent impertinence, 
 of speaking for a moment of my own past work ; for it is 
 necessary that what I am about to submit to you to-night 
 should be spoken in no disadvantageous connection with that ; 
 and yet understood as spoken in no discordance of purpose 
 with that. Indeed, there is much in old work of mine which 
 I could v?ish to put out of mind. Eeasonings, perhaps not 
 in themselves false, but founded on insufficient data and 
 imperfect experience — eager preferences, and dislikes, depend- 
 ent on chance circumstances of association, and limitations 
 gf sphere of labour : but, while I would fain now, if I could, 
 
34:2 TEE STUDT OF ARCHITEGTURB. 
 
 modify the applications, and chasten the extravagance of my 
 writings, let me also say of them that they were the expres- 
 sion of a delight in the art of architecture which was too 
 intense to be vitally deceived, and of an inquiry too honest 
 and eager to be without some useful result ; and I only wish 
 I had now time, and strength, and power of mind, to carrj 
 on more worthily, the main endeavour of my early work 
 That main endeavour has been throughout to set forth the 
 life of the individual human spirit as modifying the applica- 
 tion of the formal laws of architecture, no less than of aU 
 other arts ; and to show that the power and advance of this 
 art, even in conditions of former nobleness, were dependent 
 on its just association with sculptm-e as a means of expressing 
 the beauty of natural forms : and I the more boldly ask your 
 permission to insist somewhat on this main meaning of my 
 past work, because there are many buildings now rising in 
 the streets of London, as in other cities of England, which 
 appear to be designed in accordance with this principle, and 
 which are, I believe, more offensive to aJl who thoughtfully 
 concur with me in accepting the principle of Naturalism than 
 they are to the classical architect to whose modes of design 
 they are visibly antagonistic. These buildings, in which the 
 mere cast of a flower, or the realization of a vulgar face, 
 carved without pleasure by a workman who is only endeav- 
 ouring to attract attention by novelty, and then fastened 
 on, or appearing to be fastened, as chance may dictate, to 
 an arch, or a pillar, or a wall, hold such relation to nobly 
 naturalistic architecture as common sign-painter's furniture 
 landscapes do to painting, or commonest wax-work to Greek 
 sculpture ; and the feelings with which true naturalists regard 
 such buildings of this class are, as nearly as might be, what 
 a painter would experience, if, having contended earnestly 
 against conventional schools, and having asserted that the 
 Greek vase-painting, and Egyptian wall-painting, and Mediae- 
 val glass-painting, though beautiful, all, in their place and, 
 way, were yet subordinate arts, and culminated only in per- 
 fectly naturalistic work such as Eaphael's in fresco, and 
 Titian's on canvas ; — if, I say, a painter, fixed in such faiU; 
 
THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE. 343 
 
 in an entire, intellectual, and manly truth, and maintaining 
 that an Egyptian profile of a head, however decoratively ap- 
 plicable, was only noble for such human truth as it contained, 
 and was imperfect and ignoble beside a work of Titian's, 
 were shown, by his antagonist, the colored daguerreotype of 
 a human body in its nakedness, and told that it was art such 
 as that which he really advocated, and to such art that his 
 principles, if cai-ried out, would finally lead. 
 
 And because this question lies at the very root of the or- 
 ganization of the system of instruction for our youth, I vent- 
 ure boldly to express the surprise and regret with which I 
 see our schools still agitated by assertions of the opposition 
 of Natui'alism to Invention, and to the higher conditions of 
 art. Even in this very room I believe there has lately been 
 question whether a sculptor should look at a real living 
 creature of which he had to carve the image. I would answer 
 in one sense, — no ; that is to say, he ought to carve no living 
 creature while he stUl needs to look at it If we do not know 
 what a human body is like, we certainly had better look, and 
 look often, at it, before we carve it ; but if we already know 
 the human likeness so well that we can carve it by light of 
 memory, we shall not need to ask whether we ought now to 
 look at it or not ; and what is true of man is true of all other 
 creatures and organisms — of bird, and beast, and leaf. No 
 assertion is more at variance with the laws of classical as 
 well as of subsequent art than the common one that species 
 should not be distinguished in great design. We might as 
 weU say that we ought to carve a man so as not to know him 
 from an ape, as that we should carve a lily so as not to know 
 it from a thistle. It is diflScult for me to conceive how this 
 can be asserted in the presence of any remains either of great 
 Greek or Italian art. A Greek looked at a cockle-shell or a 
 cuttle-fish as carefully as he looked at an Olympic conqueror. 
 The eagle of Elis, the lion of VeUa, the horse of Syracuse, the 
 bull of Thurii, the dolphin of Tarentum, the crab of Agrigen- 
 tum, and the crawfish of Catana, are studied as closely, every 
 one of them, as the Juno of Argos, or Apollo of Clazomenae. 
 Idealism, so far from being contrary to special truth, is the 
 
344 TBE 8TTTDY OF ABCBITEOTURE. 
 
 very abstraction of specialty from everything else. It is the 
 earnest statement of the characters 'which make man mai>, 
 and cockle cockle, and flesh flesh, and fish fish. Feeble 
 thinkers indeed, always suppose that distinction of kind in- 
 volves meanness of style ; but the meanness is in the treat- 
 ment, not in the distinction. There is a noble way of carving 
 a man, and a mean one ; and there is a noble way of carving 
 a beetle, and a mean one ; and a great sculptor carves his 
 scarabaeus grandly, as he carves his king, while a mean 
 sculptor makes vermin of both. And it is a sorrowful truth, 
 yet a sublime one, that this greatness of treatment cannot be 
 taught by talking about it. No, nor even by enforced imita- 
 tive practice of it. Men treat their subjects nobly only when 
 they themselves become noble ; not till then. And that ele- 
 vation of their own nature is assuredly not to be effected by 
 a course of drawing from models, however well chosen, or of 
 listening to lectures, however well intended. 
 
 Art, national or individual, is the result of a long course of 
 previous life and training ; a necessary result, if that Hfe has 
 been loyal, and an impossible one, if it has been base. Let a 
 nation be healthful, happy, pure in its enjoyments, brave in 
 its acts, and broad in its affections, and its art wiU spring 
 round and within it as freely as the foam from a fountain ; 
 but let the springs of its life be impure, and its course pol- 
 luted, and you will not get the bright spray by treatises on 
 the mathematical structure of bubbles. 
 
 And I am to-night the more restrained in addressing you, 
 because, gentlemen — I- tell you honestly — ^I am weary of all 
 writing and speaking about art, and most of my own. No 
 good is to be reached that way. The last fifty years have, in 
 every civilized country of Europe, produced more brilliant 
 thought, and more subtle reasoning about art, than the five 
 thousand before them ; and what has it all come to ? Do not 
 let it be thought that I am insensible to the high merits ol 
 much of our modern work. It cannot be for a moment sup- 
 posed that in speaking of the inefiBcient expression of the 
 doctrines which writers on art have tried to enforce, I was 
 thinking of such Gothic as has been designed and built by 
 
TEE STUDY OF ARGHITECTURE. 345 
 
 Mr. Seott, Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Street, Mr. Waterhouse, Mr. 
 Godwin, or my dead friend. Mi-. Woodward. Their work 
 has been original and independent. So far aa it is good, it 
 has been founded on principles learned not from books, but 
 by study of the monuments of the great schools, developed 
 by national grandeur, not by philosophical speculation. But 
 I am entirely assured that those who have done best among 
 us are the least satisfied with what they have done, and will 
 admit a sorrowful concurrence in my belief that the spirit, or 
 rather, I should say, the dispirit, of the age, is heavily 
 against them ; that all the ingenious writing or thinking 
 which is so rife amongst us has failed to educate a public 
 capable of taking true pleasure ia any kind of art, and that 
 the best designers never satisfy their own requirements of 
 themselves, unless by vainly addressing another temper of 
 mind, and providing for another manner of Ufe, than ours. 
 All lovely architecture was designed for cities in cloudless 
 air ; for cities in which piazzas and gardens opened in bright 
 populousness and peace ; cities built that men might live 
 happily in them, and take delight daily in each other's pres- 
 ence and powers. But our cities, buUt in black air, which, 
 by its accumulated foulness, first renders all ornament invisi- 
 ble in distance, and then chokes its interstices with soot ; 
 cities which are mere crowded masses of store, and ware- 
 house, and counter, and are therefore to the rest of the 
 world what the larder and cellar are to a private house ; 
 cities in which the object of men is not life, but labour ; and 
 in which all chief magnitude of edifice is to enclose machin- 
 ery ; cities in which the streets are not the avenues for the 
 passing and procession of a happy people, but the drains for 
 the discharge of a tormented mob, in which the only object 
 in reaching any spot is to be transferred to another ; in which 
 existence becomes mere transition, and every creature is only 
 one atom in a drift of human dust, and current of inter- 
 changing particles, circulating here by tunnels under groimd, 
 and there by tubes in the air ; for a city, or cities, such aa 
 this, no architecture is possible — nay, no desire of it is pos- 
 sible to their inhabitants. 
 
S46 TSB STU-DT OF ARCBITBGTURB. 
 
 One of the most singrdar proofs of the vanity of all hope 
 that conditions of art may be combined with the occupations 
 of such a city, has been given lately in the design of the new 
 iron bridge over the Thames at Blackf riars. Distinct attempt 
 has been there made to obtain architectural effect on a grand 
 scale. Nor was there anything in the nature of the work to 
 prevent such an effort being successful. It is not an edifice's 
 being of iron, or of glass, or thrown into new forms, de- 
 manded by new purposes, which need hinder its being beau- 
 tiful. But it is the absence of all desire of beauty, of all joy 
 in fancy, and of all freedom in thought. If a Greek, or Egyp- 
 tian, or Gothic architect had been required to design such a 
 bridge, he would have looked instantly at the mala conditions 
 of its structure, and dwelt on them with the delight of imag- 
 ination. He would have seen that the main thing to be done 
 was to hold a horizontal group of iron rods steadily and 
 straight over stone piers. Then he would have said to him- 
 self (or felt without saying), " It is this holding, — this grasp, 
 — this securing tenor of a thing which might be shaken, so 
 that it cannot be shaken, on which I have to insist." And 
 he would have put some life into those iron tenons. As 
 a Greek put human life into his pillars and produced the 
 caryatid ; and an Egyptian lotos life into his pillars, and pro- 
 duced the lily capital : so here, either of them would have 
 put some gigantic or some angelic life into those colossal 
 sockets. He would perhaps have put vast winged statues of 
 bronze, folding their wings, and grasping the iron rails with 
 their hands ; or monstrous eagles, or serpents holding with 
 claw or coil, or strong four-footed animals couchant, holding 
 with the paw, or in fierce action, holding with teeth. Thou- 
 sands of grotesque or of lovely thoughts would have risen 
 before him, and the bronze forms, animal or human, would 
 have signified, either in symbol or in legend, whatever might 
 be gracefully told respecting the purposes of the work and 
 the districts to which it conducted. Whereas, now, the en- 
 tire invention of the designer seems to have exhausted itself 
 in exaggerating to an enormous size a weak form of iron nut, 
 and in conveying the infoi-mation upon it, in large letten% 
 
THE STUDY OF AROHITEOTUBE. 3i7 
 
 that it belongs to the London, Chatham, and Dover Kailway 
 Company. I behe-ve, then, gentlemen, that if there were any 
 life in the national mind in such respects, it would be shown 
 in these its most energetic and costly works. But that there 
 is no such hfe, nothing but a galvanic restlessness and cov- 
 etousnees, with which it is for the present vain to strive ; and 
 in the midst of which, tormented at once by its activities and 
 its apathies, having their work continually thrust aside and 
 dishonoured, always seen to disadvantage, and overtopped by 
 huge masses, discordant and destructive, even the best archi- 
 tects must be unable to do justice to their own powers. 
 
 But, gentlemen, while thus the mechanisms of the age pre- 
 vent even the wisest and best of its artists from producing 
 entirely good work, may we not reflect with consternation 
 what a marvellous abUity the luxury of the age, and the very 
 advantages of education, confer on the unwise and ignoble 
 for the production of attractively and infectiously had work. 
 I do not think that this adverse influence, necessarily afiecting 
 all conditions of so-called civilization, has been ever enough 
 considered. It is impossible to calculate the power of the 
 false workman in an advanced period of national life, nor the 
 temptation to all workmen to become false. 
 
 First, there is the irresistible appeal to vanity. There is 
 hardly any temptation of the kind (there cannot be) while 
 the arts are in progress. The best men must then always be 
 ashamed of themselves ; they never can be satisfied with their 
 work absolutely, but only as it is progressive. Take, for in- 
 stance, any archaic head intended to be beautiful ; say, the 
 Attic Athena, on the fearly Arethusa of Syracuse. In that, and 
 in all archaic work of promise, there is much that is inefficient, 
 much that to us appears ridiculous — but nothing sensual, 
 nothing vain, nothing spurious or imitative. It is a child's 
 work, a childish nation's work, but not a fool's work. You 
 find in children the same tolerance of ugliness, the same eager 
 and innocent delight in their own work for the moment, how- 
 ever feeble ; but next day it is thrown aside, and something 
 better is done. Now, in this careless play, a child or a child- 
 ish nation differs inherently from a foolish educated person, 
 
348 TEE STUDY OF AROEITEOTUBE. 
 
 or a nation adranced in pseudo-civilization. The educated 
 person has seen all kinds of beautiful things, of which he 
 would fain do the like — not to add to their number — but for 
 his own vanity, that he also may be called an artist. Here is 
 at once a singular and fatal difference. The childish nation 
 sees nothiQg in its own past work to satisfy itself. It is 
 pleased at having done this, but wants something better ; it 
 is struggling forward always to reach this better, this ideal 
 conception. It wants more beauty to look at, it wants more 
 subject to feel. It calls out to all its artists — stretching its 
 hands to them as a little child does — " Oh, if you would but 
 teU me another story," — " Oh, if I might but have a doll with 
 bluer eyes.'' That's the right temper to work in, and to get 
 work done for you in. But the vain, aged, highly-educated 
 nation is satiated with beautiful things — it has myriads more 
 than it can look at ; it has fallen into a habit of inattention ; 
 it passes weary and jaded through galleries which contain the 
 best fruit of a thousand years of human travaU ; it gapes and 
 shrugs over them, and pushes its way past them to the door. 
 But there is one feeling that is always distinct ; however jaded 
 and languid we may be La all other pleasures, we are never 
 languid in vanity, and we would still paint and carve for fame. 
 What other motive have the nations of Europe to-day ? If 
 they wanted art for art's sake, they would take care of what they 
 have already got. But at this instant the two noblest pictures 
 in Venice are lying rolled up in out-houses, and the noblest 
 portrait of Titian in existence is hung forty feet fi-om the 
 groimd. "We have absolutely no motive but vanity and the 
 love of money — no others, as nations, than these, whatever 
 we may have as individuals. And as the thirst of vanity thus 
 increases, so the temptation to it. There was no fame of ar- 
 tists in these archaic days. Every year, every hour, saw some 
 one rise to surpass what had been done before. And there 
 was always better work to be done, but never any credit to be 
 got by it. The artist lived in an atmosphere of perpetual, 
 wholesome, inevitable eclipse. Do as well as you choose to- 
 day, — make the whole Borgo dance with delight, they would 
 dance to a better man's pipe to-morrow. Credette Gimabue 
 
THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE. 849 
 
 fwlla pittura, tener lo campo, et ora ha Giotto il gride. Thia 
 was the fate, the necessary fate, even of the strongest. They 
 could only hope to be remembered as links in an endless 
 chain. For the weaker men it was no use even to put their 
 name on theii- works. They did not. If they could not work 
 for joy and for love, and take theii- part simply in the choir 
 of human toU, they might throw up their tools. But now it 
 is far otherwise — now, the best having been done — and for a 
 couple of hundred years, the best of us being confessed to 
 have come short of it, everybody thioks that he may be the 
 great man once again ; and thia is certain, that whatever in 
 art is done for display, is invariably wrong. 
 
 But, secondly, consider the attractive power of false art, 
 completed, as compared with imperfect art advancing to com- 
 pletion. Archaic work, so far as faultful, is repulsive; but 
 advanced work is, in all its faults, attractive. The moment 
 that art has reached the point at which it becomes sensitively 
 and delicately imitative, it appeals to a new audience. From 
 that instant it addresses the sensualist and the idler. Its de- 
 ceptions, its successes, its subtleties, become interesting to 
 every condition of foUy, of frivolity, and of vice. And this 
 new audience brings to bear upon the art ia which its foolish 
 and wicked interest has been unhappily awakened, the fuU 
 power of its riches : the largest bribes of gold as weU as of 
 praise are offered to the artist who wiU betray his art, imtil 
 at last, from the sculpture of Phidias and fresco of Luini, it 
 sinks into the cabinet ivory and the picture kept under lock 
 and key. Between these highest and lowest types, there is a 
 vast mass of merely imitative and deHcately sensual sculpt- 
 ure ; veiled nymphs — chained slaves — soft goddesses seen by 
 rose-light through suspended curtains — drawing-room por- 
 traits and domesticities, and such like, in which the interest 
 is either merely personal and selfish, or dramatic and sensa- 
 tional ; in either case, destructive of the power of the public 
 to sympathize with the aims of great architects. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am no Puritan, and have never praised or ad- 
 vocated Puritanical art. The two pictures which I would last 
 part with out of our National Gallery, if there were question 
 
350 THE STUDY OF AROniTBOTURE. 
 
 of parting with any, would be Titian's Bacchus and Corregf 
 gio's Venus. But the noble naturalism of these was the fruit 
 of ages of previous courage, continence, and religion — it was 
 the fulness of passion in the life of a Britoinart. But the mid 
 age and old age of nations is not lite the mid age or old age 
 of noble women. National decrepitude must be criminal. 
 National death can only be by disease, and yet it is almost 
 impossible, out of the history of the art of nations, to elicit 
 the true conditions relating to its decUne in any demonstra- 
 ble manner. The history of Italian art is that of a struggle 
 between superstition and naturalism on one side, between 
 continence and sensuality on another. So far as naturalism 
 prevailed over superstition, there is always progress ; so far 
 as sensuality over chastity, death. And the two contests are 
 simultaneous. It is impossible to distinguish one victory 
 from the other. Observe, however, I say victory over super- 
 stition, not over religion. Let me carefully define the differ- 
 ence. Superstition, in all times and among aU nations, is the 
 fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts 
 are the acts of a man ; who is present in some places, not in 
 others ; who makes some places holy, and not others ; who is 
 kind to one person, imkind to another ; who is pleased or 
 angry according to the degree of attention you pay to him, or 
 praise you refuse to him ; who is hostile generally to human 
 pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that 
 pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of 
 faith it colours, is the essence of superstition. And religion 
 is the behef in a Spirit whose mercies are over all His works 
 — who is kind even to the unthankful and the evil ; who 
 is everywhere present, and therefore is in no place to be 
 sought, and in no place to be evaded ; to whom all creat- 
 ures, times, and things are everlastingly holy, and who 
 claims — not tithes of wealth, nor sevenths of days — but all 
 the wealth that we have, and all the days that we live, 
 and aU the beings that we are, but who claims that totality 
 because He deHghts only in the delight of His creatures ; and 
 because, therefore, the one duty that they owe to Him, and 
 the only service they can render Him, is to be happy. A 
 
THE STUDY OF ABOHITECTUBE. 351 
 
 Spirit, therefore, whose eternal benevolence cannot be an« 
 gered, cannot be appeased ; whose laws are everlasting and 
 inexorable, so that heaven and earth must indeed pass away 
 If one jot of them failed : laws which attach to every wrong 
 and error a measured, inevitable penalty ; to eveiy rightness 
 and prudence, an assured reward ; penalty, of which the re- 
 mittance cannot be purchased ; and reward, of which the 
 promise cannot be broken. 
 
 And thus, in the history of art, we ought continually to en- 
 deavour to distinguish (while, except in broadest lights, it is 
 impossible to distinguish) the work of reUgion from that of 
 superstition, and the work of reason from that of infidelity. 
 Religion devotes the artist, hand and mind, to the service of 
 the gods ; superstition makes him the slave of ecclesiastical 
 pride, or forbids his work altogether, in terror or disdain. 
 Eeligion perfects the form of the divine statue ; superstition 
 distorts it into ghastly grotesque. EeUgion contemplates the 
 gods as the lords of healing and Hfe, surrounds them vrith 
 glory of affectionate service, and festivity of pure human 
 beauty. Superstition contemplates its idols as lords of death, 
 appeases them with blood, and vows itself to them in torture 
 and solitude. Eeligion proselytizes by love, superstition by 
 war ; religion teaches by example, superstition by persecu- 
 tion. Eehgion gave granite shrine to the Egyptian, golden 
 temple to the Jew, sculptured corridor to the Greek, pillared 
 aisle and frescoed wall to the Christian. Superstition made 
 idols of the splendours by which reUgion had spoken : rever- 
 enced pictures and stones, instead of truths ; letters and laws 
 instead of acts ; and for ever, in various madness of fantastic 
 desolation, kneels in the temple while it crucifies the Christ. 
 
 On the other hand, to reason resisting superstition, we owe 
 the entire compass of modern energies and sciences : the 
 healthy laws of hfe, and the possibihties of future progress. 
 But to infidelity resisting rehgion (or which is often enough 
 the case, taking the mask of it), we owe sensuality, cruelty 
 and war, insolence and avarice, modem poUtical economy, life 
 by conservation of forces, and salvation by every man's look- 
 ing after his own interests ; and generally, whatsoever of guilty 
 
352 TRE STUDY OF ABOHITECTURB. 
 
 and folly, and death, there is abroad among us. And of the 
 two, a thousand-fold rather let us retain some colour of super- 
 stition, so that we may keep also some strength of religion, 
 than comfort ourselves with colour of reason for the desolation 
 of godlessness. I would say to every youth who entered our 
 schools — be a Mahometan, a Diana-worshipper, a Fire-wor- 
 shipper, Eoot-worshipper, if you will ; but at least be so much 
 a man as to know what worship means. I had rather, a mill- 
 ion-fold rather, see you one of those " quibus hsec naseuntur 
 in hortis numina," than one of those quibus hsec won naseuntui 
 in cordibus lumina ; and who are, by everlasting orphanage, 
 divided from the Father of Spirits, who is also the Father of 
 lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift. 
 
 " So much of man," I say, feeling profoundly that all right 
 exercise of any human gift, so descended from the Giver of 
 good, depends on the primary formation of the charncter 
 of true manliness in the youth, — that is to say, of a majestiCi 
 grave, and dehberate strength. How strange the words sound , 
 how little does it seem possible to conceive of majesty, and 
 gravity, and deliberation in the daily track of modern life. 
 Yet, gentlemen, we need not hope that our work will be ma- 
 jestic if there is no majesty in ourselves. The word " manly " 
 has come to mean practically, among us, a schoolboy's char- 
 acter, not a man's. We are, at our best, thoughtlessly impetu- 
 ous, fond of adventure and excitement ; curious in knowled/^e 
 lor its novelty, not for its system and results ; faithful and af- 
 fectionate to those among whom we are by chance cast, but 
 gently and calmly insolent to strangers ; we are stupidly con- 
 scientious, and instinctively brave, and always ready to cast 
 away the lives we take no pains to make valuable, in causes of 
 which we have never ascertained the justice. This is our high- 
 est type — notable peculiarly among nations for its gentleness, 
 together with its courage ; but in lower conditions it is es- 
 pecially liable to degradation by its love of jest and of vulgar 
 sensation. It is against this fatal tendency to vile play that 
 ■we have chiefly to contend. It is the spirit of Milton's Comus ; 
 bestial itself, but having power to arrest and paralyze all who 
 some within its influence, even pure creatures sitting helpless, 
 
THE 8TUD7 OF ABCHITBCTUBE. 353 
 
 mocked by it on their marble thrones. It is incompatiblet 
 not only with all greatness of character, but with all true glad* 
 ness of heart, and it develops itself in nations in proportion 
 to their degradation, connected with a peculiar gloom and a 
 singular tendency to play with death, which is a morbid reac- 
 tion from the morbid excess. 
 
 A book has lately been published on the Mythology of the 
 Bhine, with illustrations by Gustave Dor6. The Rhine god 
 is represented in the vignette title-page with a pipe in one 
 hand and a pot of beer in the other. You cannot have a more 
 complete type of the tendency which is chiefly to be dreaded 
 in this age than in this conception, as opposed to any possi- 
 bility of representation of a river-god, however playful, ia the 
 mind of a Greek painter. The example is the more notable 
 because Gustave Dora's is not a common mind, and, it bom 
 in any other epoch, he would probably have done valuable 
 (though never first-rate) work ; but by glancing (it will be im- 
 possible for you to do more than glance) at his illustrations 
 of Ealzac's " Contes Drolatiques," you will see further how 
 this " drolatique," or semi-comic mask, is, in the truth of it, 
 the mask of a skull, and how the tendency to burlesque jest 
 is both in France and England only an effervescence from the 
 cloaca maxima of the putrid instincts which fasten themselves 
 on national sin, and are in the midst of the luxury of European 
 capitals, what Dante meant when he wrote, quel mi sveglio col 
 puzzo, of the body of the Wealth-Siren ; the mocking levity 
 and mocking gloom being equally signs of the death of the 
 soul ; just as, contrariwise, a passionate seriousness and pas- 
 sionate joyfulness are signs of its full life in works such as 
 those of AJigehco, Luini, Ghiberti, or La Eobbia. 
 
 It is to recover this stem seriousness, this pure and thriU- 
 ing joy, together with perpetual sense and spiritual presence, 
 that all true education of youth must now be directed. This 
 seriousness, this passion, this universal human religion, are 
 the first principles, the true roots of aU art, as they are of aD 
 doing, of aU being. Get this vis viva first and aU great work 
 mil follow. Lose it, and your schools of art will stand among 
 other living schoolB as the frozen corpses stand by the wind- 
 
354r THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 ing stair of the St. Michael's Convent of Mont Cenis, holding 
 theii' hands stretched out under their shrouds, as if beseech- 
 ing the passer-by to look upon the wasting of their death. 
 
 And all the higher branches of technical teaching are vain 
 without this ; nay, are in sorae sort vain altogether, for they 
 are superseded by this. Trou may teach imitation, because 
 the meanest man can imitate ; but you can neither teach ideal- 
 ism nor composition, because only a great man can choose, 
 conceive, or compose ; and he does all these necessarily, and 
 because of his nature. His greatness is in his choice of things, 
 in his analysis of them ; and his combining powers involve 
 the totality of his knowledge in Ufe. His methods of observa- 
 tion and abstraction are essential habits of his thought, con- 
 ditions of his being. ^ If .he looks at a human form he recog- 
 nises the signs of nobility in it, and loves them — hates what- 
 ever is diseased, frightful, sinful, or designant of decay. All 
 ugliness, and abortion, and fading away ; all signs of vice 
 and foulness, he turns away from, as inherently diabolic and 
 horrible ; all signs of unconquered emotion he regrets, as 
 weaknessea He looks only for the cahn purity of the human 
 creature, in living conquest of its passions and of fate. 
 
 That is idealism ; but you cannot teach any one else that 
 preference. Take a man who Ukes to see and paint the gam- 
 bler's rage ; the hedge-ruffian's enjoyment ; the debauched 
 soldier's strife ; the vicious woman's degradation ; — take a 
 man fed on the dusky picturesque of rags and guilt ; talk to 
 him of principles of beauty ! make him draw what you vnll, 
 how you will, he will leave the stain of himself on whatever 
 he touches. You had better go lecture to a snail, and tell it 
 to leave no slime behind it. Try to make a mean man com- 
 pose ; you will find nothing in his thoughts consecutive or 
 proportioned — nothing consistent in his sight — nothing in his 
 fancy. He cannot comprehend two things in relation at once 
 — how much less twenty ! How much less all ! Everything 
 is uppermost with him in its turn, and each as large as the 
 rest ; but Titian or Veronese compose as tranquilly as they 
 would speak — inevitably. The thing comes to them so — 
 they see it so — rightly, and in harmony : they will not tallt 
 
THE S2UDT OF ARCHITECTURE. 355 
 
 to you of composition, hardly even understanding how lower 
 people see things otherwise, but knowing that if they do see 
 otherwise, there is for them the end there, talk as you will. 
 
 I had intended, in conclusion, gentlemen, to incur such 
 blame of presumption as might be involved in offering some 
 hints for present practical methods in architectural schools, 
 but here again I am checked, as I have been throughout, by 
 a sense of the uselessness of all minor means and helps, vrith- 
 out the establishment of a true and broad educational sys- 
 tem. My wish would be to see the^ profession of the archi- 
 tect united, not with that of the engineer, but of the sculp- 
 tor. I think there should be a separate school and university 
 •coui'se for engineers, in which the principal branches of study 
 -connected with that of practical building should be the phys- 
 ical and exact sciences, and honours should be taken in 
 mathematics ; but I think there should be another school and 
 university course for the sculptor and architect in which lit- 
 erature and philosophy should be the associated branches of 
 study, and honours should be taken in Uteris humanioribvs, 
 and I think a young architect's examination for his degree 
 (ior mere pass), should be much stricter than that of youths 
 Intending to enter other professions. The quantity of 
 -scholarship necessary for the efficiency of a country clergy- 
 man is not great. So that he be modest and kindly, the 
 main truths he has to teach may be learned better in his 
 heart than in books, and taught in very simple English. The 
 best physicians I have known spent very little time in their 
 libraries ; and though my lawyer sometimes chats with me 
 over a Greek coin, I think he regards the time so spent in 
 the light rather of concession to my idleness than as helpful 
 to his professional labomrs. 
 
 But there is no task undertaken by a true architect of 
 which the honourable fulfilment will not require a range of 
 knowledge and habitual feeling only attainable by advanced 
 scholarship. 
 
 Since, however, such expansion of system is, at present, 
 beyond hope, the best we can do is to render the studies 
 undertaken in our schools thoughtful, reverent, and refined. 
 
356 TEE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 according to our power. Especially it should be our aim t« 
 prevent the minds of the students from being distracted by 
 models of an unworthy or mixed character. A museum ia- 
 one thing — a school another ; and I am persuaded that as the 
 efSciency of a school of literature depends on the mastering 
 a few good books, so the efficiency of a school of art wOl 
 depend on the understanding a few good models. And so 
 strongly do I feel this that I would, for my own part, at once 
 consent to sacrifice my personal predilections in art, and to 
 Tote for the exclusion of all Gothic or Mediaeval models what- 
 soever, if by this sacrifice I could obtain also the exclusion of 
 Byzantine, Indian, Eenaissance-French, and other more or 
 less attractive but barbarous work ; and thus concentrate the 
 mind of the student wholly upon the study of natural form, 
 and upon its treatment by the sculptors and metal workers 
 of Greece, Ionia, Sicily, and Magna Grsecia, between 500 and 
 350 B.C., but I should hope that exclusiveness need not be. 
 carried quite so far. 
 
 I think DonateUo, Mino of Fiesole, the Robbias, Ghiberti, 
 Verrocchio, and Michael Angelo, should be adequately repre- 
 sented in our schools — together with the Greeks — and that a 
 few carefully chosen examples of the floral sculpture of the 
 North in the thirteenth century should be added, with espe- 
 cial view to display the treatment of naturalistic ornament in 
 subtle connection with constructive requirements ; and in the 
 course of study pursufed with reference to these models, as of 
 admitted perfection, I should endeavour first to make the 
 student thoroughly acquainted with the natural forms and 
 characters of the objects he had to treat, and then to exercise 
 him in the abstraction of these forms, and the suggestion of 
 these characters, under due sculptural limitation. He should, 
 first be taught to draw largely and simply ; then he should 
 make quick and firm sketches of flowers, animals, drapery, 
 and figures, from nature, in the simplest terms of line, and. 
 Ught, and shade ; always being taught to look at the organic 
 actions and masses, not at the textvires or accidental efifecta 
 of shade ; meantime his sentiment respecting all these thinga 
 should be cultivated by close and constant inquiry into their 
 
THE STUDY OF AROmTEOTURE. 357 
 
 aiythological significance and associated traditions; then, 
 knowing the things and creatures thoroughly, and regarding 
 them through an atmosphere of enchanted memory, ha 
 should be shown how the facts he has taken so long to learn 
 are summed up by a great sculptor in a few touches : how 
 those touches are invariably arranged in musical and decora- 
 tive relations ; how every detail unnecessary for his purpose 
 is refused ; how those necessary for his purpose are insisted 
 upon, or even exaggerated, or represented by singular arti- 
 fice, when literal representation is impossible ; and how all 
 this is done under the instinct and passion of an inner com- 
 manding spirit which it is indeed impossible to imitate, but 
 possible, perhaps, to share. 
 
 Perhaps ! Pardon me that I speak despondingly. For 
 my own part, I feel the force of mechanism and the fury of 
 avaricious commerce to be at present so irresistible, that I 
 have seceded from the study not only of architecture, but 
 nearly of aU art ; and have given myself, as I would in a 
 besieged city, to seek the best modes of getting bread and 
 -water for its multitudes, there remaining no question, it 
 seems to me, of other than such grave business for the time. 
 But there is, at least, this ground for courage, if not for 
 hope : As the evil spirits of avarice and luxury are directly 
 <jontrary to art, so, also, art is directly contrary to them, 
 and according to its force expulsive of them and medicinal 
 against them ; so that the establishment of such schools as I 
 have ventured to describe — whatever their immediate suc- 
 cess or ill-success in the teaching of art — would yet be the di- 
 rectest method of resistance to those conditions of evil among 
 which our youth are cast at the most critical period of their 
 lives. We may not be able to produce architectiu:e, but, at 
 the least, we shall resist vice. I do not know if it has been 
 observed that while Dante rightly connects architecture, as 
 the most permanent expression of the pride of humanity, 
 whether just or unjust, with the first cornice of Purgatory, he 
 indicates its noble function by engraving upon it, in perfect 
 sculpture, the stories which rebuke the errors and purify the 
 purposes of noblest souls. In the fulfilment of such function. 
 
358 THE STUDY OF ABOBITBOTUSB. 
 
 literally and practically, here among men, is the only real use 
 or pride of noble architecture, and on its acceptance or sur- 
 render of that function it depends whether, in future, the 
 cities of England melt into a ruin more confused and ghastlj 
 than ever storm wasted or wolf inhabited, or purge and exalt 
 themselves into true habitations of men, whose walls shall bi 
 Safety, and whose gates shall be Praise.