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MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE EDMUND STREET, R.A. 
 
OODbURYTVPE 
 
 /t^U,^^C^^S^'^C^^e.^x^cu^ J^tZZ:^^ 
 
 FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN FOR MEN OF MARK 1877. 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE EDMUND STREET R.A. 
 
 1824-1881 
 
 BY HIS SON 
 
 ARTHUR EDMUND STREET 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1888 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Some apology is due for a book which I feel to be 
 crude and incomplete. 
 
 Originally intended to be no more than a private 
 record of some of my father's opinions and a few of 
 his more important works, it suffers, I am aware, 
 from a want of continuity and cohesion natural to 
 such beginnings and to an inexperienced writer. 
 
 My father's home life — the more intimate side ol 
 his character — is hardly touched upon. 
 
 Such as it is, I trust the Memoir may have some 
 interest for those whose personal acquaintance with 
 its subject will enable them to fill up the picture. 
 
 My warm thanks are due to all the friends who 
 have kindly helped me with their recollections. 
 
 London, March i8< 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The family of Street, or that branch of it from which my 
 father traced his descent, was, at the earHest date at which 
 it is mentioned in contemporary records, connected with the 
 city and county of Worcester. That the Streets were people 
 of some consideration is clear from the fact that Francis 
 Streate was Member of Parliament for the city in 1563, 
 while George Streete was Mayor in 1635. In the eighteenth 
 century various members of the family seem to have migrated 
 to Surrey ; my father's great-grandfather lived in Guildford, 
 a brother of his is spoken of as " Street of Ripley," while 
 a niece intermarried with the family of Austen of Shalford, 
 whose representative, Colonel Godwin Austen, now lives at 
 Shalford House. The monument of the lady in question, on 
 which the arms of the Streets and Austens are quartered, 
 still exists in Shalford Church. My father's grandfather, 
 who was settled in business in London, had three sons, of 
 whom the youngest, Thomas, was the father of the subject 
 of this memoir. This Thomas married, first, Mary, the 
 widow of Thomas Brereton of Winchester, born Ridding ; 
 and secondly, in 181 5, after the death of his first wife with- 
 out issue, Mary Anne Millington, by whom he had three sons 
 — Thomas Henry, Charles Lawrence, and George Edmund, 
 born respectively in 18 16, 1822, and on 20th June 1824 — 
 
 B 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 and one daughter — Mary Anne — born in 1825. In 1784 
 my grandfather started business as a solicitor in Philpot 
 Lane, living meantime in the immediate neighbourhood in 
 Brabant Court. Some time between the birth of his second 
 son in 1822 and that of my father in 1824 my grandfather 
 went to live at Woodford in Essex. There he stopped till 
 1830, when he moved to "The Grove," Camberwell. 
 
 These first six years of my father's life offer no feature of 
 interest : there was nothing precocious in his development, nor 
 did he at that age display any marked aptitudes or likings ; at 
 the same time, it may be said that the force of character and 
 the strong moral sense which distinguished the man were, at that 
 early age, in a degree foreshadowed to those who knew how to 
 read the signs, and there were some who were bold enough to 
 predict that he would be one day heard of. After the move to 
 Camberwell in 1830, my father was sent with his elder brother 
 Charles to a school at Mitcham, and when the collegiate school 
 at Camberwell was opened they went there as day-boys. 
 
 In 1839 my grandfather retired, but the business was 
 carried on in the same place till 1861, when it was trans- 
 ferred to Lincoln's Inn Fields. After his retirement he went 
 to Crediton to live, and thus it came about that my father's 
 schooling was brought to an abrupt end ; he had, however, 
 been almost at the head of the school for some little time 
 before leaving, so that his loss may have been more apparent 
 than real. His behaviour at school seems to have been all 
 that it should have been, albeit the headmaster complained 
 of his having "too much levity;" but he seems by that time 
 to have learnt the habit of sketching for the amusement of 
 himself and the fellows at odd times, and probably in school 
 hours, and on anything which came to his hand — a proceed- 
 ing which, in the eyes of any well-constituted headmaster, 
 might well have justified the use of stronger epithets. I 
 have got now several little pen-and-ink drawings — copies, 
 for the most part, of Cruickshank illustrations and animal 
 subjects — done at this time. They are not absolutely with- 
 out merit, and at least they show that there was already a 
 bias in this direction, but they certainly gave no promise of 
 any unusual powers of draughtsmanship. 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 In the autumn of 1839 my father's eldest brother, 
 Thomas, who had been admitted as a partner into his 
 father's firm in the course of that }-ear, and Hved conse- 
 quently in town, came to spend his autumn holiday at 
 Crediton ; and during his stay there took my father for an 
 excursion of a few days to look at some of the church archi- 
 tecture of the neighbourhood. Had my father been an 
 architect of a commonplace stamp, and with no special 
 aptitude for that profession, it might very well have been 
 said that it was to his brother that he owed being an architect 
 at all. Where, however. Nature had so obviously suggested 
 a particular career, it was not likely that, even though it 
 might be missed for a time, it should not have eventually 
 been found. Be that as it may, my father's brother, at this 
 time a young man of three and twenty, had for some time 
 been full of enthusiasm for mediaeval architecture, and was 
 in the habit, whenever he had a few spare days, of going off 
 with his sketchbook and hunting out churches and old 
 houses. It was to him that my father's earliest training was 
 due, and this, their first excursion, which was to be followed 
 by many another, is interesting as marking an important 
 epoch in my father's life, though unfortunately I cannot 
 find that he put any of his impressions on paper. 
 
 Early in 1840 the boy of fifteen was sent up to town 
 to take his place in the office, probably rather with the idea 
 of giving him some useful employment than of actually 
 initiating him into his real business in life. Anyhow, the 
 office life does not seem to have been at all to his taste, 
 and when once broken off, was never seriously entered upon 
 again. The break came after a very few months, for in May 
 1 840 my grandfather's death brought my father back to 
 live with his mother and sister, first at Crediton, and then, 
 after two or three months, at Exeter. The immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the cathedral had in all probability a good deal 
 to do with the shaping of my father's future. The love of 
 church architecture grew on him fast, and with it grew the 
 love of the services which, heard under a cathedral roof, 
 gain so much in solemnity and impressiveness. From 
 Exeter my father went after a time to Taunton to take 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 lessons in perspective from a Mr. Haseler, an uncle by 
 marriage, who combined teaching with the practice of his 
 art as a painter. Here he seems to have worked assidu- 
 ously, both at perspective and at painting in oils (begun at 
 a remarkably early stage one would say), but the true bent 
 of his mind had not yet become clear even to himself, for 
 he was anxious to go to college with the idea of subse- 
 quently entering the Church. Motives of economy prevented 
 the realisation of the first part of the programme, while the 
 consciousness of not feeling a sufficiently strong call for the 
 work induced him finally to give up the idea of taking orders. 
 
 Before going to Taunton he had made a second short 
 walking tour with his eldest brother to Barnstaple, Bide- 
 ford, Torrington, and Clovelly, and this time he put down 
 his impressions in a book. 
 
 This diary displays undeniable powers of observation, 
 and an intense enjoyment both of man's work and of 
 Nature's. The young enthusiast gets up before six o'clock 
 to make a sketch out of his bedroom window. He describes 
 the towns and the features of the country through which 
 their road lay in funny old-fashioned phraseology, but in a 
 way which in a boy just turned sixteen is so uncommon as 
 to make one wonder that he had not even yet discovered 
 what his true vocation was. 
 
 After returning from Taunton he was so much at a loss 
 what to do as to have an idea of joining his brother Charles, 
 who had gone out to St. John's, New Brunswick, two years 
 before, with the prospect of entering some mercantile house ; 
 and when this plan was fortunately given up had, faute de 
 mieux, resumed his place on the office stool in Philpot Lane, 
 and might have continued for some time longer in that, to 
 him, irksome position, had not a sudden inspiration on the 
 part of his mother changed the whole course of his life. 
 
 In the early part of i 840, while my father was in Lon- 
 don, Mr. Haseler had sent down to Crediton a parcel of 
 architectural sketches made by his cousin, Mr. Owen Carter 
 of Winchester, during a tour in Egypt. My grandfather 
 seems to have exclaimed on seeing them, " Ah ! this would 
 be the very thing for George ! " No more was said or 
 
I GEORGE EDMUND STREET 5 
 
 thought about it at the time, but six months after my 
 grandfather's death, when my father had for the second time 
 been installed in the office, the exclamation suddenlj'' 
 occurred to my grandmother, and in a moment she felt 
 convinced that she had the solution of the problem in her 
 hands. She lost no time in getting Mr. Haseler to sound 
 his cousin as to his ability or willingness to take a pupil. 
 Mr. Haseler's recommendation would seem to have been of 
 so warm a character that Mr. Carter was only too anxious 
 to secure such a paragon, for he accepted the proposition 
 immediately. The preliminaries were speedily arranged, 
 and early in the spring of 1841 my father began work in 
 Winchester as Mr. Carter's articled pupil. Probably there 
 was not a great quantity of work going on in the office, for 
 my father's time seems to have been to a great extent spent 
 in the cathedral, almost the whole of which he sketched and 
 measured ; once, he writes, that he has to stand on the top 
 of the altar-screen, rather an odd place, as he says, for 
 sketching, being only just wide enough for standing-room, 
 and fifty feet from the floor. He often worked till it was 
 too dark to see any longer, and he and the organist, who 
 was in the habit of practising in the afternoon, were fre- 
 quently the only occupants of the great church. One even- 
 ing, when the strains of the organ had made my father 
 quite forgetful of the present, he suddenly awoke to the 
 consciousness that the sound had ceased, and at the same 
 moment heard the door clang and the key turn in the lock. 
 He flew to the door, not relishing the idea of being im- 
 prisoned for the night, and by banging it managed to attract 
 the attention of the verger. The old man seemed consider- 
 ably astonished that my father should have been so anxious 
 to attract his notice, and said, " Lor' bless you, sir, if you'd 
 rung one of the bells, we should have come soon enough." 
 
 Besides becoming thus intimate with the beauties of the 
 cathedral, my father found time to make himself well 
 acquainted with almost everything ot interest within a 
 radius of twenty miles. During the long summer days his 
 brother was accustomed to come down and spend the 
 Sundays with him, and together they thoroughly ransacked 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 the neighbourhood for architectural treasures, besides going 
 farther afield when time allowed. My father's articles 
 expired in two years, but Mr. Carter had by that time 
 become so much alive to his pupil's valuable qualities, that 
 he Avas anxious to keep him on, and their connection did 
 not cease for another twelve months. This last year was 
 utterly irksome to my father ; there was no one in the place 
 for whom he really cared, and his letters all express the 
 same longing for home and companionship. Work was 
 his sole resource, and he had worked assiduously from 
 inclination as well as from necessity. Three years before 
 he had been a mere novice, now he was an enthusiastic, 
 untiring, and intelligent student and ecclesiologist. His 
 industry had never been called in question ; it had been, 
 indeed, testified to time after time, but it had become 
 apparent now that it was united to other qualifications not 
 less important and of greater rarity. In i 844 the oppor- 
 tunity of reunion, for which the whole family had long been 
 waiting, at last came. My uncle took a house at Lee, and 
 was at once joined by his mother and sister. The time had 
 come for my father to put himself under a master of greater 
 pretensions and with a larger practice than Mr. Carter. He 
 accordingly came up to town, and armed with a letter of 
 introduction from Mr. Edwin Nash, and a roll of sketches 
 and drawings, presented himself to Messrs. Scott and Moffatt. 
 He was accepted at once, and such was his energy that the 
 third day in town saw him in his place in the office in 
 Spring Gardens. Hearty in his work, he was no less hearty 
 in his pleasures ; but it is related of him that he was fre- 
 quently in the habit of foregoing an evening's enjoyment 
 that he might be the fresher for his work in the morning. 
 At the moment when he came to Scott, the drawings for 
 the cathedral at Hamburg were just being made, and he 
 was taken on provisionally at first to help till the stress of 
 work should be over ; but so well did he acquit himself, that 
 the provisional engagement became a permanent one, and 
 was not broken till my father found he had so much coming 
 into his hands as to make it expedient for him to do no work 
 but his own. During the years at Scott's, church-hunting was 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 not neglected — every day of holiday being, in fact, devoted to 
 what they called " ecclesiologising." In company with his 
 brother he made a tour — knapsack on back — to Chichester, 
 Boxgrove, Cowdray, etc., during the spring of 1843 ; and 
 the autumn of the same year found them in Lincolnshire, 
 where they saw and sketched Langton, Tattershall, Heck- 
 ington, Addlethorpe, Howden, and a multitude of other 
 churches. In 1844 they were in Sussex. In 1845 i" 
 Northamptonshire — at Barnack and the neighbourhood. 
 The next year they were in Northants again. And in the 
 autumn my father made a long tour through the Lake Coun- 
 try, and to Lanercost, Durham, and Newcastle, and, after 
 being joined by his brother at Richmond, to Wensleydale 
 and the Yorkshire abbeys, missing Jervaulx however. 
 Lanercost filled him with delight. Out of much that he 
 wrote about it I cannot forbear to quote some few sentences, 
 because they show that his love for the church itself, and the 
 architecture which finds its highest expression in sacred 
 buildings, were already connected indissolubly, so that an 
 abbey in ruins afforded him a pleasure which was little 
 removed from pain. 
 
 " I got out," he writes, " at Milton Station, and trudged off for 
 Lanercost Abbey, an enthusiastic ecclesiologist, with everything 
 upon earth to make my enthusiasm higher than usual — a glorious 
 autumn day, a beautiful walk, and an abbey in prospect, in ruins it 
 is true, but so lovely and so admirable in its ruin that, in my 
 admiration of it, the day, and the scenery, I had almost forgotten to 
 be enraged with its iconoclastic destroyers ; but it was not in 
 mortal temper, after having seen it and sketched it and studied it 
 carefully and lovingly as I did, to ascend the hill away from it, to 
 look at the river still rushing along as beautiful and as swift as when 
 holy men planned its bridge of yore, to look at the sunny fields first 
 cultivated by them, and not to feel sorrow and indignation at the 
 thought that avarice and sin could so far have transported men as 
 to lead them to the destruction of so fair a scene." 
 
 Again he writes : " O that the abusers of the monastic system 
 would trouble themselves to examine this once happy valley, to 
 watch the soothing influence of the lovely building and landscape, 
 and would ask themselves whether they did not, in looking, feel 
 more of reverence, more of awe and of love for the religions and 
 for the men than they have heretofore felt. 
 
8 MEMOIR OF 
 
 " It is particularly characteristic of Lanercost that all is in har- 
 mony — every portion seems designed upon the same principle, and 
 with the same amount of reverential feeling, and all is so simple and 
 so severe as to indicate truth and solidity and the absence of gaudy 
 or hypocritical religion." ... "I daresay you have smiled at the 
 way in which I connect architecture and religion ; it may perhaps be 
 the bias of a profession which makes me do so, but I cannot but 
 think that architecture as well as, not more than, the other fine arts 
 is a great and most important assistant to religion. Again, in the 
 matter of abbeys, I know there will be an outcry when you read my 
 journal against my admiration of them and of their system ; but, 
 when I lament their destruction, I lament it because I venerate the 
 men who founded them, and preserved literature, science, and art 
 for our use." 
 
 In the spring of i 847 my father and uncle found them- 
 selves in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, making the round of 
 the magnificent fen-country churches, and in 1850 they were 
 in Northants together for the third time. My father made 
 frequent excursions on his own account, or with other friends, 
 and was gradually making notes of all the fine churches in the 
 country. In these excursions the day's walk often extended 
 to thirty miles or more, and that under the weight of a knapsack. 
 On one occasion, while they were in Yorkshire in 1846, they 
 arrived at Leybourne after dark, and, being obliged to leave 
 by coach at six o'clock the next morning, borrowed a lantern 
 and made what sketches they could of the interior of the 
 church by its feeble light. Indeed, their enthusiasm was 
 boundless. As my father wrote while he was still at Win- 
 chester : " Tom and I get more fiercely architectural and 
 antiquarian every day, and for myself, I think I attend to 
 very little else." 
 
 It was, I think, in 1847 that my father first made 
 acquaintance with the glorious church at West Walton. 
 He made great friends with the vicar, Mr. Blencowe, and 
 seems to have instructed him much as to his church. This is 
 the first time he gave distinct evidence of that power which 
 distinguished him so much afterwards, that of reading the 
 history of the growth of a building, and making a correct 
 diagnosis of its anatomy. He says in a letter : — 
 
 " I ought to have said a word about delightful West Walton. 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 The tower, a most massive and grand fellow, stands detached from 
 the church at the side of the churchyard. The porch and the in- 
 terior of the church are lovely in the extreme, the very ?ie plus 
 ultra of first pointed work. The parson takes immense interest in 
 it — scrapes off whitewash, and hopes some day to spend some thou- 
 sands on a restoration. I enlightened him to a tremendous extent 
 about the original state of the building, about which all the archi- 
 tects whom he has seen there have, I am sure, been making great 
 mistakes. However, he is going to dig and scratch away to find 
 out whether I am right or not." 
 
 Mr. Blencowe, who was keenly appreciative of this 
 enlightenment, set to work at the scraping and digging, with 
 the result of establishing the correctness of my father's views 
 in every particular. I believe Scott himself was to be num- 
 bered among those who had misinterpreted the building. 
 The friendship thus commenced with Mr. Blencowe was 
 never laid aside, and was soon rendered closer by the dis- 
 covery that my father's sister and Miss Blencowe were 
 equally interested in the question of church embroidery. 
 Miss Blencowe being indeed at that time the best work- 
 woman in England. My father's letters to his sister during 
 his tours are full of descriptions of whatever mediaeval em- 
 broidery he lighted upon ; he was constantly sketching it, as 
 much for her guidance as his own pleasure, and many of his 
 designs — numerous enough even in his early days — were 
 worked by her, so that her name became well known as that 
 of a skilful embroideress. 
 
 My uncle retained all his early love for architecture, and 
 it was not till after 1849, when he married and the claims of 
 business became more pressing, that he began to forego his 
 expeditions. At the time they were all living together at 
 Lee, and afterwards at Peckham, my aunt relates how the 
 two young men used to arrive with sketchbooks full, and 
 rolls of rubbings of brasses, and would then sit up till the 
 small hours in all the excitement of archaeological discussions 
 and arguments. My uncle was quite untaught. His love for 
 and appreciation of good architecture were quite spontaneous, 
 and the proficiency which he attained with his pencil, and 
 the knowledge he had of his subject more than consider- 
 able. That two brothers should have had similar powers of 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 draughtsmanship (though in different degrees), and should 
 have been so enthusiastic in the same cause, is the more re- 
 markable because it was certainly not inherited from either 
 parent, or, so far as is known, from any relation. 
 
 In the early part of i 846, after a stay of two years at 
 Lee, a move was made to Peckham. Their house was only 
 about a quarter of a mile distant from St. Giles's, Camber- 
 well ; and the church being on the way to town, my father 
 frequently made an early breakfast, went to matins at eight 
 o'clock or half-past with his sister, and then walked straight 
 into town. He was now full of aspirations for the future, but 
 doubtful how to realise them. Many were the ambitious 
 castles in the air that he and his sister built in their walks 
 together — how he should be made an R.A. and have a great 
 public building to design, both then seemingly most prob- 
 lematical, but both to be fulfilled in a score or so of years. 
 
 The first hope of getting work to do came in 1846. 
 My uncle had at that time a pupil of the name of Barwis, 
 whose mother was anxious to build a church, and at my 
 uncle's instigation put herself into my father's hands. His 
 tour to the lakes in that year, which I have already spoken 
 of, was really undertaken primarily for the purpose of going to 
 Langrigg in Westmoreland, where the Barwis family lived. 
 Here my father spent a fortnight, talking the whole plan 
 over and over, and dreaming of the fortune which the display 
 of his capabilities should bring him ; unfortunately the pro- 
 verb, which warns us against over-confidence, was in this 
 case only too strictly justified, and my father's hopes were 
 dashed just when they seemed most certain. 
 
 The disappointment was for the moment bitter ; but he 
 had not long to wait, for it was in the same year that the 
 much-desired opportunity came, and it was to his sister that 
 he owed it. While staying at Bath she happened to meet a 
 lady from Clifton, who incidentally mentioned that she was 
 doing some work for a church which a clergyman of their 
 acquaintance — a Mr. Prynne — intended building in Cornwall. 
 My aunt wrote off at once to my father, suggesting that 
 he should set to work immediately at plans for a church, and 
 should then submit them to Mr. Piynne ; while she, at the 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 same time, begged her friend to use her influence with Mr. 
 Prynne on my father's behalf She had an interview with 
 Mr. Prynne about it, and his first question made her heart 
 sink. " Has your brother got much work going on ? " 
 There could only be one answer. Luckily this was just the 
 one that was wanted ; and Mr. Prynne, finding that my 
 father would be able to devote all his time and attention to 
 this particular work, gave it him forthwith. 
 
 Thus my father secured his first commission. This was 
 Biscovey Church. It was finished and consecrated two years 
 later. Mr. Prynne was transferred to St. Peter's, Plymouth, 
 while the work was still in progress, and a Mr. Hendy took 
 his place. My father had all this time been working for 
 Scott and Moffatt, but in 1849 he felt justified in taking 
 chambers and starting on his own account. Of his two most 
 intimate office friends — Mr. William White and Mr. G. F. 
 Bodley — the former had settled in Truro a short time before, 
 and had made a considerable practice in the neighbourhood. 
 My father's work at Biscovey gave him a footing in the same 
 county, and fresh work came to him every week. Mr. 
 Prynne again proved himself a good friend by giving him the 
 restoration of St. Peter's, Plymouth. Besides these two works 
 he had, in 1 848-49, Sticker Church, the restoration of St. 
 Mewan, a new church and schools in the same parish, the re- 
 storation of Sheviocke Church, the new church and schools 
 of St. Peter, Treverbyn, and restorations of St. Cuthbert's, of 
 Lostwithiel, St. Austell, the churches at East and West 
 Looe, Little Petherick Church, St. Neot's, SS. Probus and 
 Grace at Probus, and Lanreath, all these being in Cornwall. 
 Besides these, he had restorations at Enfield, Hadleigh, 
 Heston, Sundridge, and Hawes, a new church at Bracknell, 
 and additions to the rectory at Peasemore, but undoubtedly 
 the most important events to him were the restoration of 
 Hadleigh Church and his introduction to Mr. Butler of 
 Wantage, because of the results to which they directly led. 
 
 My father's practice being at first so much in one neigh^ 
 bourhood led to his spending several weeks at a time in 
 Cornwall three or four times a year. In this way all his 
 works were under his immediate superintendence— a fact 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 which was evidently beneficial, because one work led to 
 another in a way which could not have been the case had 
 they not been satisfactory. He owed a great deal of his 
 success to a Mr. Hosken — the clergyman at St. Blazey — 
 who, having quite convinced himself that my father was the 
 right man in the right place, went to work with the view of 
 getting everything in Cornwall put into his hands. To this 
 end he introduced him right and left, and many works were 
 directly due to his advocacy. 
 
 These Cornish tours were as unlike as possible to the 
 wearing and hurried business journeys of subsequent years. 
 My father, indeed, did plenty of hard work while he was 
 away ; every necessary drawing was done with his own hands, 
 and the most careful inspection made of each and all of his 
 works, but he seems speedily to have made friends of his 
 Cornish clients ; and his journals and letters of those days 
 reveal a most pleasant succession of dinners, picnics, even 
 dances, some of them got up for his especial delectation, 
 when the more serious work of the day was done. 
 
 Life was most enjoyable to him then ; robust of body, 
 an enthusiastic student of nature, intensely devoted to his 
 work, and scarcely less appreciative of the pleasures of 
 society, he found himself on a sudden with as much work on 
 his hands as he could manage, surrounded by good friends, 
 and chiefly bound — for the time at least — to a part of the 
 country where his love for nature was amply satisfied. It 
 was about this time — in 1848 — that he met the lady who 
 was a few years later to become his wife. His employment 
 at Hadleigh Church led to his becoming intimate with the 
 family of the vicar, Mr. George Proctor, and at his house he 
 first met the vicar's brother, Mr. Robert Proctor, and his 
 children. To his second daughter, Mariquita, he seems 
 quickly to have become something more than a mere friend, 
 and from that time forward was a frequent visitor at her 
 father's own house — Geys, near Maidenhead. Meantime 
 my uncle had become engaged to the elder daughter of Mr. 
 George Proctor, and his marriage and my father's engage- 
 ment followed the year after. 
 
 My father's connection with the Ecclesiological Society, 
 
I GEORGE EDMUND STREET 13 
 
 and his restoration of Sundridge Church — only a few miles 
 from Brasted, where Mr. Benjamin Webb was then curate — 
 brought him into intimate relations with that gentleman. 
 Mr. Webb early recognised my father's capabilities ; and 
 when Mr. Butler, who was then meditating building himself 
 a vicarage at Wantage, consulted him on the subject, he 
 took the opportunity of mentioning my father as a young 
 man of ability and originality, who, with a love for hard 
 work, was sure to interest himself actively and personally in 
 all he had to do with. Mr. Butler decided to act on Mr. 
 Webb's advice, and certainly never regretted having so done. 
 The vicarage was a great success, and speedily led to my 
 father's employment on new schools at Wantage and other 
 works. My father was now frequently there. In May 1850 
 he spent a week at the vicarage, and painted a compartment 
 of the schoolroom roof in distemper with subjects copied 
 from Overbeck. This was by no means a solitary instance 
 of his setting to work to decorate a building with his own 
 hands. A year or two later he was engaged two or three 
 weeks at Sheviocke Church in painting Fra Angelico sub- 
 jects in medallions ; and at Boyne Hill Church, three or 
 four years after his marriage, to mention no other cases, he 
 painted a large subject in the spandrel over the chancel 
 arch. This was an original design, and the most serious 
 piece of work of the kind he had then undertaken or prob- 
 ably ever undertook. After the first day's work he writes 
 to my mother : — 
 
 " I have only been getting my hand in to-day, but I fancy I 
 shall be able to manage this painting tolerably well, which will be 
 the most satisfactory fact in my artistic life for years. You know 
 how I long to be able to paint on church walls, but I have always 
 been a coward about venturing absolutely to set to work." (This 
 must mean on an original subject.) "The die is certainly cast at 
 Boyne Hill, and I must get out of the scrape somehow or other." 
 
 It was part of his enthusiastic creed that every architect 
 should be, in his degree, as Giotto was or Michael Angelo, 
 and should himself be able to decorate his own building 
 with painting and sculpture. Rapidly-increasing press of 
 work, which gave him little or no leisure, convinced him, I 
 
14 MEMOIR OF 
 
 think, of the inapplicability of such views to our modern 
 times, and obliged him to forego putting them into practice, 
 while still maintaining that such a way of working could 
 alone give a perfect unity of conception entirely harmonious 
 in all its details. 
 
 In November 1850 my father gave up his chambers in 
 town, and settled in Wantage — a step chiefly prompted by 
 his introduction to the Bishop of Oxford (Samuel Wilber- 
 force) by Mr. Butler, and his appointment as architect to the 
 diocese which soon followed upon it. He was thus placed 
 in the middle of his work, and within easy reach of the 
 bishop at Cuddesdon. Success had seemed probable before ; 
 the patronage of the bishop practically secured it. With 
 his rapid power of forming a judgment, that remarkable man 
 had seen at once that the combination of artistic and business 
 faculties which my father exhibited made him unusually 
 well qualified for the post. The frequent intercourse with 
 the bishop which naturally resulted from this appointment 
 led to a friendship which, at least on my father's side, was 
 of the warmest possible kind. 
 
 The two years of hard work which were passed at 
 Wantage were not without their periods of relaxation, which, 
 if brief, were enjoyed with all the more zest on that account. 
 During the summer my father spent his Sundays at Geys 
 whenever he could. Many days were passed on the river, 
 but he rarely failed to combine some church seeing and 
 sketching with his labours at the oar. Sometimes he spent 
 several days running at Geys, but wherever he might be, 
 he might safely be trusted to do a fair share of work. And, 
 indeed, his mother went so far as to hint that an early 
 marriage would be more possible if he devoted himself 
 entirely to Wantage. While admitting herself that she had 
 no grounds for her suspicions, she yet seems to have looked 
 on Maidenhead as her son's Capua. Such was very far 
 from being the case ; if there were temptations to idleness, 
 he was strong enough to resist them, for he possessed in 
 a high degree the power of abstracting himself from 
 his surroundings and concentrating his attention on what 
 was before him, and could go on working all day, if need 
 
f GEORGE EDMUND STREET 15 
 
 were, with a bright sun and a soft breeze wooing him 
 eloquently to the pleasures which awaited him out of doors. 
 
 Of his actual life at Wantage the present Dean of" 
 Lincoln (Dr. William Butler) writes : — 
 
 " The house which he (Mr. Street) designed was, and is, one of 
 the most convenient and pleasant of dwellings, and it has been a 
 subject of never-failing surprise to all who have seen it and inhabited 
 it, that a house so bright and attractive could have been built for so 
 small a sum of money as it actually cost. I remember that the 
 original estimate was not exceeded by more than ;^25 or ;!^3o. 
 Mr, Street, having no special ties to any locality, desired to live at 
 Wantage, where daily service and weekly celebration had been 
 established at a time when such were rare. He took, therefore, in 
 conjunction with Mr. Stillingfleet, — one of the clergy of the parish, — 
 a little house in Wallingford Street. During the time he lived 
 there, I saw him almost daily. When not called from Wantage on 
 business, he regularly attended every service, and took his part in 
 the choir. He had, I remember, a baritone voice, and took a tenor 
 part. He was much interested in the improvement of services, and, 
 although at this time far from wealthy, he offered a large annual 
 subscription, I think it was ;^2o, towards the payment of an 
 organist. His religious opinions were, as all know, definitely of 
 the High Church school ; but at this, as indeed at all periods of 
 his life, he was far from accepting the excesses of the so-called 
 Ritualists, who at the time of which I speak had not come into 
 existence. All that we aimed at was a hearty, loyal, and reverent 
 setting forth of the Prayer-Book, and in this he thoroughly concurred." 
 (A note in my father's diary of 1877 seems in point here: "Meet- 
 ing of Council of English Church Union — I endeavoured in vain to 
 get them to agree to put out a statement that they wished none to go 
 beyond the orders in the Prayer-Book. The more violent men are, 
 the more they seem to carry their point ; and we are driven to 
 defend men with whom we only half agree, and to hold our tongues 
 for their sakes when we ought to speak out.") " Never was there a 
 man of simpler or less luxurious habits. In those two years he 
 dined with us and the clergy of the parish, he drank no wine, and 
 had only the plainest food. I had the privilege of mentioning his 
 name to Bishop Wilberforce, when it was determined to appoint an 
 architect to the diocese. The other candidate was the late Mr. 
 Ferrey, who wanted ;!^ioo per annum for his services. Fortunately 
 for us, Mr. Street was willing to take the office gratuitously, and the 
 committee were wise enough to appoint him unanimously. After 
 he settled in Oxford I only saw him occasionally, but our intimacy 
 never ceased." 
 
1 6 MEMOIR OF 
 
 I shall have to speak at some length later on of the 
 importance which my father attached to the adornment of 
 our church services. He had formed his views at an early 
 age as to the right mode of conducting them, and several 
 years previous to his Wantage days had written with ap- 
 proval of some church which he had lighted upon in the 
 course of his wanderings, " where," he said, " the service is 
 performed as it ought to be, with plenty of chanting and 
 not too much sermonising." 
 
 These two years were quite uneventful, unless the gradual 
 conversion of a small practice into a considerable one may 
 be called an event. As Cornwall had been the chief theatre 
 of his work a year before, so now was the diocese of Ox- 
 ford, and he was soon engaged on quite a cluster of neigh- 
 bouring churches. In September 1850 he had made his 
 first foreign trip. In ten days he saw Paris, Chartres, 
 Alenqon,Caen, Rouen, and Amiens, sketching all the time with 
 might and main. A new volume in the great book of Gothic 
 architecture had been opened before him, and he devoured 
 its pages with enthusiasm. The mighty fabrics themselves, 
 the great sweeps of jewelled glass, the western porches, which 
 seem to invite a world to enter ; the congregations, too, using 
 the churches as they had always been meant to be used ; — 
 all were new to him, and all struck his imagination vividly 
 and inefifaceably. The Channel once crossed, a year rarely if 
 ever passed without his returning to refresh and replenish his 
 knowledge of continental architecture. He thought that 
 the education of the Gothic architect, to be a complete one 
 should embrace every phase of the style without excep- 
 tion, and where inclination and sense of duty were at one, 
 it was not likely that there should be any slackness in 
 doing what was right. In the summer of 185 i, three weeks 
 sufficed to make him acquainted with Mainz, Frankfurt, 
 Wiirzburg, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Ratisbon, Munich, Ulm, 
 Freiburg, Strassburg, Heidelberg, and three or four of the best 
 of the Belgian towns. Many of his first impressions on this 
 tour were to be much modified, or even reversed, afterwards. 
 I think he would hardly have stigmatised the Cologne churches 
 as unsketchable and not to his taste a few years later. The 
 
I GEORGE EDMUND STREET 17 
 
 cathedral, in spite of its grand scale, was never among his 
 prime favourites from first to last. Seven years later he 
 writes : " Cologne Cathedral is more and more distasteful to 
 me. The new work is very unpleasant in its effect externally 
 — pretty indeed, but wanting in vigour and grandeur. Inter- 
 nally the effect will always be much better, owing to the sim- 
 plicity of the columns, upon which almost everything depends ; 
 but the church is both short and narrow in effect." Nuremberg, 
 too, was more modern than he had expected ; its old work, 
 that is to sa)', was of too late a date for the more exclusive 
 preference of a young man. Ratisbon, on the other hand, 
 is beyond all anticipations and beyond all praise. At Con- 
 stance he had his first view of the Alps, and it cost him a 
 struggle not to make a rush to them for a few days at the 
 expense of education. My father's enjoyment of Nature, 
 and particularly of mountain scenery, was so intense as to 
 make it almost a doubtful point whether or not he preferred 
 it to the handiwork of men, as exemplified in Gothic build- 
 ings. I think, however, the human interest of the latter 
 turned the scale ; but to work and sketch in Switzerland, or 
 the Tyrol, or in the Bavarian Uplands, was always a source 
 of the most real pleasure to him. 
 
 For some years he had been a most active member of 
 the Ecclesiological Society, and, besides reading papers, had 
 at their request made a number of designs for every possible 
 kind of church fitting and furniture. Consequently, when 
 Mr. B. P. Willis, of the enterprising firm of Newton, Jones, 
 and Willis, of Birmingham, applied to the Society for advice 
 as to the best man to go to for designs for church furniture for 
 the great Exhibition, they recommended my father. " The 
 Committee think," wrote Mr. Webb, " that these designs will 
 be much in your way. It will be in consequence of our lectur- 
 ing them upon the importance of having the guidance of an 
 artist in these things that they will apply to you, and there- 
 fore we hope that you will accept their commission." The 
 practice up to that time had so generally been to leave the 
 design of the fittings of a church to chance, that my father, 
 who always insisted on making the designs for everything 
 without exception in any work on which he was employed, 
 
 C 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 gladly welcomed the opportunity of showing the public 
 how much better and more congruous such work might 
 be if it were designed by an artist. I noticed quite a 
 short time ago that some of the altar-cloth designs still 
 figure in Messrs. Jones and Willis's book. They are of 
 a quite magnificent character, and it needed not the 
 mention of the name to tell me who had been responsible 
 for them. 
 
 In December my grandmother died at a cottage which 
 my uncle had taken at North End, Hampstead. Her illness, 
 which had been of a lingering character, was very sudden at 
 the last, so that there was no time to summon either my 
 father or my aunt to her bedside. The latter was away at 
 Colton, in Staffordshire, where she was employed on some 
 embroidery work for the church which my father had just 
 been restoring. My father himself was at Wantage. He 
 had been, with the exception of the four years at Lee and 
 Peckham, very much divided from his mother since the old 
 days at Camberwell ; but the loss^mst, none the less, have 
 been a very severe one to him^«''''^lt is enough to read the 
 mother's letters to see the source of the son's strength and 
 steadfastness of character. She was one of those women 
 who, in some indefinable way, have a powerful influence for 
 good on all those into whose company they are thrown ; who, 
 themselves rather sparing in outward signs of affection, create 
 in others a warm love and a perfect confidence. Her pride 
 in her son was unbounded, but was left to be inferred rather 
 than expressed ; while her love was shown more in the de- 
 mand for sacrifices, in the confidence with which she appealed 
 to her son's sense of duty and obedience, however severe the 
 test might be, than in its more obvious manifestations, w/^ 
 
 From the time of his going to Winchester the tone and 
 purport of her letters to him show that, if he was still no more 
 than a boy in years, he was fit to be treated and trusted as a 
 man. Now and again tender words slip out, a little measure 
 of praise and encouragement ; but, as a rule, the greater 
 compliment is paid him of taking for granted in him what 
 would be a subject for approval in others. " I knew that 
 under the circumstances you would be philosopher enough 
 
I GEORGE EDMUND STREET 19 
 
 to give up " this or that, possibly a Httle holiday trip from 
 Winchester. That is a typical expression. It is certain 
 that my father had enough of the Spartan in him never to 
 let his mother or any one else know how utterly weary and 
 lonesome his life at Winchester was, or how bitter such a 
 disappointment must inevitably have been ; but, on the 
 other hand, it may be guessed that the mother had no want 
 of appreciation of her son, and that his cheerful endurance 
 of deprivations, when they were necessary, did more to in- 
 crease it than anything else could have done. 
 
 The time had now arrived when the advisability of 
 having an office at some place where clients could more 
 conveniently come became impressed on my father. Want- 
 age was suitable enough for his purposes as diocesan archi- 
 tect ; but I think he felt that, as long as he practised there, 
 his status would be so distinctly that of a provincial architect 
 as to bar him from getting work of a really important 
 character. It seems natural that under the circumstances 
 he should have looked to Oxford as the most likely place to 
 suit him, for he had not yet made up his mind to venture 
 himself in the great whirlpool into which he was to be drawn 
 before very long. Mr. J. H. Parker, whom he consulted about 
 the prospects of an architect in Oxford, strongly advised him 
 to come, holding out the hope of his getting a good deal of 
 university work. This prediction was, curiously enough, never 
 verified. Possibly my father's very decided adherence to the 
 earlier phase of Gothic, and the eagerness with which he argued 
 that Oxford had already enough of debased types, and should 
 revert to the purity of the early forms, may have frightened 
 the authorities. However this ma}' have been, the rearrange- 
 ment of the interior of Jesus' College Chapel was the only 
 university work he ever did, though he built the church of 
 St. Philip and James in the Parks, and another at Summer- 
 town, besides restoring, in a greater or less degree, most of 
 the Oxford churches. 
 
 Acting on Mr. Parker's advice, my father moved to a 
 house in Beaumont Street, Oxford, in May 1852, and was 
 married on the 1 7th of the following month at Bray Church. 
 In the course of his wedding- tour he saw some more 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 of the great French churches, visiting, among other places, 
 Tro3'es, Sens, Auxerre, and Dijon. Till his marriage I cannot 
 find that he ever had any permanent help. His friend, Mr. 
 Bodley, used occasionally to assist him when he was much 
 pressed, but in general he did everything with his own hand. 
 His working drawings were not beautifully got up, he had 
 neither time nor inclination for that, but they were done well, 
 and done rapidly. Details were often drawn straight off in 
 ink, so sure was his hand. Soon after his marriage, however, 
 it must have become obvious to him that he could no longer 
 cope single-handed with his constantly increasing work. 
 Mr. Edmund Sedding was articled to him almost immedi- 
 ately on his coming to Oxford ; and soon afterwards Mr. 
 Philip Webb entered his office. 
 
 In April 1853 the first stone of the Theological College 
 at Cuddesdon was laid. This was the most important work 
 which he had as yet been engaged upon. It was not com- 
 pleted till five and twenty years later, but the design was 
 wholly made at this time. It was bound to be simple, — 
 paucity of funds made that necessary, — but the absence of 
 enrichment is not noticed, nor is its want felt, because of the 
 admirable proportions and grouping of the whole building. 
 A man of far more experience and training might well have 
 made a design inferior to this in the quality of self-restraint, 
 nor could a building be found which relies more wholly and 
 more successfully on legitimate means for its effect. Just 
 about the same time the original design for the buildings for 
 the East Grinstead Sisterhood was made. My father had 
 long been on terms of intimacy with Mr. Neale, its founder, 
 and so strong were his sympathies for the welfare of the 
 institution that he freely gave his services then and there- 
 after. This design was on somewhat the same lines as that 
 for Cuddesdon College, but perhaps a little more mannered 
 than it, and somewhat ultra-monastic and severe in character. 
 Cuddesdon could hardly have been improved upon, but East 
 Grinstead could and was; and, though the later design follows 
 somewhat the plan of the earlier, it is an infinitely more 
 beautiful and graceful conception, still simple for the most 
 part, but very delicate and refined in effect, with an entire 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 absence of the almost repellent severity of the immature 
 effort, but without a trace of weakness. My father's acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. A. M. Bennett dates from the same year. 
 Their connection as architect and client once begun was 
 never terminated till Mr. Bennett's death. This year — 
 1853 — saw the commencement of various smaller works in 
 Bournemouth and the neighbourhood, and a year or two 
 later a start was made with some portion of what is now the 
 very beautiful church of St. Peter's, Bournemouth, the final 
 touch to which was not given till nearly a quarter of a 
 century later. 
 
 This summer, having already seen something of France 
 and the Rhineland, my father determined on an Italian tour. 
 Italy, so strange and beautiful, was a perfect revelation to 
 him, but the enthusiasm born of such surroundings never 
 made him for a moment disposed to place her architecture 
 above that of his own country. In one of his letters, written 
 while the excitement of novelty was strong upon him, he 
 speaks of the old churches at Brescia as being " very Italian, 
 and that is not so good as very English." So many notes 
 and sketches were taken on this brief trip, that he felt justified 
 in recording for the benefit of the public what he had seen 
 and what his impressions were. The result was his Briek 
 and Marble ArcJiitechire of North Italy, published in 1855. 
 This book, which treated of North Italian architecture in a 
 popular style, but none the less scientifically for that, at once 
 made its way in public favour, and decidedly did somewhat 
 to increase his reputation. It was admitted on all hands to 
 fill an obvious void, and in a way which amateurs no less 
 than architects and archaeologists could appreciate. My 
 father's powers of sketching, already great, served to make 
 the book more valuable from the number, accuracy, and 
 interest of the illustrations ; while his keenness of observation 
 and correctness of reasoning made what seems a bewilder- 
 ingly rapid journey, as one reads his accounts of it, produce 
 the materials for a standard work. 
 
 The following year his summer outing took him to North 
 Germany, — to the brick country, — some account of which he 
 gave in a paper on Miinster and Soest, which he read before 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 the Ecclesiological Society. He worked hard, as he ahvays 
 did, up early and in late. " I have got a great budget of 
 sketches," he writes, " indeed, I have done pretty well, for in 
 a fortnight I have mustered about fifty large sketches, besides 
 filling a goodly memorandum book. We enjoyed Liibeck 
 immensely, and amongst other feats astonished the natives 
 by making rubbings of some magnificent brasses, of which 
 Marique (my mother) did her share, to the delight of the 
 sacristan." The zest with which my mother entered into 
 these architectural tours was remarkable. She had quite 
 caught the infection ; and I remember well in later years, 
 when I participated in the summer journeys, how reluctantly 
 she exchanged architecture for scenery, and towns for country. 
 My father was not one of those who want driving to their 
 work. Had such been the case, she would certainly have 
 done so. She settled in her own mind that he ought to 
 produce so many sketches in a day, whether landscape or 
 architectural subjects, and did not feel quite satisfied if he 
 fell short of his quota. The result was that every tour is 
 chronicled in the most delightful and vivid way. 
 
 All this time he was over head and ears in work, though 
 nothing of any special importance had as yet fallen to him. 
 In 1855 Cuddesdon was opened, and the church and its 
 attendant buildings at Boyne Hill begun. The summer was 
 spent quietly at Geys, and my father got no real holiday at 
 all. In October the writer of these pages was born at 
 Oxford, and shortly afterwards my father began seriously to 
 contemplate what was clearly inevitable sooner or later — the 
 move up to London. He was strongly advised by his friends 
 and admirers to seek a wider field for his talents than Oxford 
 could afford him, and I think he was finally persuaded to do 
 so by Mr. Benjamin Webb. The latter insisted that even 
 university work would be much more likely to come into 
 his hands if he moved, not to speak of the great churches of 
 the land, " which," Mr. Webb said, " no one would ever 
 think of putting into the hands of a provincial man." My 
 uncle had already settled in Gordon Square, and after the 
 usual amount of wearisome house-hunting, my father finally 
 settled in Bloomsbury too, in Montagu Place. 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 From this date till his death, more than a quarter of a 
 century, one important commission succeeded another in a 
 way which would hardly have been the case had he decided 
 to live permanently away from the great centre, so that the 
 move was fully justified. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 In 1855 it had been announced that there was to be a 
 competition for a cathedral at Lille, for which architects 
 throughout the world were cordially invited to enter. Ecclesi- 
 astical works on a really large scale were not so common 
 then as they were to become from that time forward. Nothing 
 certainly of anything like the importance of the proposed work 
 had as yet been undertaken, the only works at all comparable 
 being those at Marseilles, Nantes, and Cologne. 
 
 In our own country the next twenty-five years was to 
 see the hand of the architect laid — for good or evil — on 
 nearly every one of our cathedrals and great parish churches ; 
 was to see complete fabrics rise out of mere ruins, and great 
 new churches built from the very ground ; but to the English 
 Church architect of thirty j'ears back the possibility of having 
 i^ I 20,000 to spend on a great church — absurdly inadequate 
 as that sum was for such a building as the conditions specified 
 — was almost as novel as it was attractive. So strong was 
 the inducement that, in spite of a certain air of speculative- 
 ness which the project wore from the first, many architects of 
 eminence were content to run the risk. My father's objection 
 to competitions, which took deep root later in life, was at 
 this time not sufficiently strong to deter him from taking a 
 share in the lottery in which, as a young man with a reputa- 
 tion still in a great measure to make, he naturally thought 
 that the gain would probably more than counterbalance the 
 loss. 
 
 During the early part of his last year at Oxford he 
 had applied himself earnestly to the plans. The conditions 
 of the competition laid down that the design for the cathedral 
 
CHAP. II MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND- STREET 25 
 
 was to be Gothic and French in character, but my father's 
 tours in France, short though they were, had been so well 
 turned to account, that the latter stipulation offered no 
 difficulty to him. 
 
 Forty-one sets of plans were sent in, of which number 
 fifteen were eventually found to be of French, and fourteen 
 of English origin. The authorities took the unusual course 
 of publicly exhibiting all the drawings before they were 
 submitted to the jury of selection, with the consequence that 
 the criticisms passed on them were to a certain extent im- 
 partial, though it was pretty easy to see in most cases, from 
 the way in which the drawings were got up, what their 
 author's nationality was. My father ran over to Lille for a 
 few days in company with Mr. William Morris, who had 
 then lately been articled to him, and writes home jokingly 
 about the designs : — 
 
 " We have had about three hours at the exhibition. We are 
 agreed naturally that I ought to have place No. i ! Mr. Glutton's 
 (Glutton and Burges) is one of the best, but wrong in several points, 
 and not very good. The other designs are generally very inferior, 
 and some of them are the greatest rubbish I ever saw. The per- 
 spectives are all hung, and make a good show. In other respects 
 Glutton is as complete as I am — in the number of his plans and 
 detail — but few others are. I really think I shall have one of the 
 prizes. Morris says the first. Glutton's church looks very small, 
 the parts are so few and so large." 
 
 A year or two later, writing from Chalons-sur-Marne, my 
 father speaks of the church of Notre Dame there as being 
 the prototype of Mr. Burges's design for Lille Cathedral. 
 He writes : — 
 
 "I made the acquaintance of the cure at Notre Dame — M. 
 Ghampenois — a charming little enthusiast, who is busy restoring the 
 whole church ; he has cleaned and repaired the interior completely, 
 showing all the stone in the groining, etc., and it looks so well. . . . 
 I told him my name, and he was quite up to all about the Lille 
 competition, the more by token that Messrs. Glutton and Burges's 
 design was to a great extent (as I saw directly, and as he told me) a 
 copy of his church." 
 
 The letter is interesting enough to quote a little more : — 
 
26 • MEMOIR OF 
 
 " There is only one altar in the church, the chapels round the 
 apse being all empty. Notwithstanding a good deal of interruption 
 from my little friend I have scored seven large sketches to-day, which 
 I call good work : two of them tinted of old sculpture dug up in 
 making alterations. We had a great discussion about the arrange- 
 ment of the choir, as to which he is heterodox. How curious to find 
 a French priest, actively engaged on church restoration, arguing in 
 favour of singing in a western gallery, and of admitting the ' faithful ' 
 into the choir, and an Anglo-Catholic protesting against both. Yet 
 so it was. However, we parted most excellent friends." 
 
 To return to Lille. An English correspondent sent an 
 account of the various designs to the ecclesiologist at the 
 time, which is so minute and intelligent, and shows so much 
 insight, that I am tempted to quote what he says about this, 
 my father's first really important design : — 
 
 " ' Quam dilecta Tabernacula tua Domine virtutum.' It is, we 
 believe, neither national nor personal prejudice which leads us to 
 detect in this English design certainly one of the best — and (we might 
 almost say) the very best — set of drawings in the whole exhibition. 
 For here we find an unmistakable French church, rigidly observant 
 of the strictest interpretation of the conditions of the competition, in 
 which, however, there is, so far as we can see, little or nothing that 
 is lifelessly copied, little or no ' bookwork ' (as it would be called in 
 a university examination), but rather a pervading unity of con- 
 ception and a living instinct of design, giving proofs of originality 
 and power in almost every detail. The artist, in short, seems to 
 have become penetrated with his style ; or rather, the style is not 
 merely taken up by him for the occasion, but it looks as though it 
 were habitual to him. There is a freedom about the architectural 
 thought which, though not absent from several other designs in the 
 exhibition, is scarcely to be observed, as we fancy, in those nearest 
 in merit to the one now under consideration. 
 
 "This design, instead of being a beautiful vision of the past, 
 seems to us full of life and vigour and promise for the future. We 
 should ourselves have preferred a more developed Pointed, and this 
 artist would probably, though we are not sure of this, share our 
 opinion ; but at any rate the effect of this artistic creation, as com- 
 pared with some of its rivals, is, to our mind, rather that of beauty 
 on the point of ripening into a still richer fulness than of a laboured 
 resuscitation of the superseded details of a past and antiquated period 
 of art. 
 
 " But to proceed to the description of this elaborate set of 
 drawings. The programme of the competition expressed a pre- 
 
II GEORGE EDMUND STREET 27 
 
 ference, on the score of economy, for brick over stone, as the chief 
 material of the proposed church ; and this is one of the few designs 
 in the whole exhibition, and the only one among those which appear 
 in our first class, in which this condition has been recognised. Here, 
 it seems to us, brick is treated with great ability. It is made to 
 enter largely into the general construction, and banded with hori- 
 zontal courses of stone, it gives a warm colouring to the exterior. 
 Inside it is used with equal boldness and effectiveness, and the 
 vaulting (with stone ribs and the cells constructed of red brick) is 
 constructionally and imperishably coloured. The plan comprises a 
 western narthex beween twin spires with the chapels — des fonts 
 and des morts — attached ; a nave of seven bays, transepts of two 
 bays, the crossing marked by a fleche, choir of three bays with 
 seven-sided apse, a procession path and five radiating apsidal chapels. 
 The dependent buildings are well grouped round a cloister on the 
 south side. Externally the somewhat cold and heavy effect, which, 
 being partly the result of the severe style prescribed, we have observed 
 in other designs, is to be noticed in this project also ; still the chevet, 
 with its flying buttresses and massive pinnacles, has dignity and 
 character, and the general massiveness and richness of detail is an 
 English feature most judiciously added to the French type of build- 
 ing. The spires, banded in colour, are by no means the most 
 successful part of the design. In spite of skilful gradations of stages 
 and much constructional merit, the result is ungraceful and ineffective. 
 We can believe that the architect wished to give an original and 
 striking contour to spires which, if erected, would be so conspicuous 
 a landmark in the swamps of French Flanders ; and we can fancy 
 that in a distant view these stern, frowning, accumulated piles would 
 be imposing, but in a near view they lack grace : still they are true 
 spire compositions." 
 
 This is of course merely an expression of individual taste, 
 but I think most people would allow that these spires were 
 amongst the best and most graceful of my father's con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 "The interior is noticeable for the good proportion of its parts, 
 and the proper development of arcade, triforium, and clerestory. 
 The fittings are of great beauty. We observe an open metal rood- 
 screen ; a cloture de chceur carved in subjects in relief, admirably 
 treated ; and a ciborium which, for harmony and elegance of colour 
 and proportions, is surpassed by none in the whole collection. The 
 metalwork of this artist seems to us notably excellent, and the pave- 
 ment has merits. His woodwork also is rich and appropriate, and 
 the great organ at the west end, so arranged as not to interfere with 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 the principal western rose window, is unusually successful. This 
 organ, we believe, does not exclude a choir organ, in a more appro- 
 priate position. 
 
 " The glass designs are a great improvement on the Bourges type 
 (this is indeed high praise), the medallions being drawn (luite free 
 from grotesqueness, and the grisaille being treated in a bold floral 
 style. A word of praise is due for some exquisite perspectives in 
 sepia, showing the chapter-house interior and part of the cloisters. 
 
 " The crowning merit of the design is, we repeat, the proof it 
 gives of its author's perfect mastery of the principles of Pointed 
 design, enabling him to work up the whole of his ideas without imi- 
 tation or exaggeration. We have no doubt the jury will take fully 
 into account the unusual merits of this elaborate design, although 
 they are of a kind which would be probably undervalued by more 
 superficial observers." 
 
 Many of the designs are highly spoken of by the same 
 critic, more particularly that by Messrs. Glutton and Burges, — 
 sent in under the motto " Foederis area," — which he places 
 second to my father's ; but it is amusing to read what he 
 has to say about some of the productions. Very probably 
 a similar competition now would produce no better designs 
 than the best of these ; but at least the diffusion of artistic 
 education and the better training of to-day have made the 
 sort of thing, which the following quotation depicts so 
 vividly, impossible : — 
 
 "'Toute faveur insigne, tout don parfait, vient d'en haut.' 
 This is the production of a madman. The design is one entire 
 insanity. It is a mirage done in all sorts of colours. There are radi- 
 ating jets, of coloured material apparently, spinning and twisting 
 like a thaumatrope, green parapets, yellow tracery, sky-blue arcades, 
 German flamboyant-twisted shafts. We can only describe the whole 
 thing as a cauchemar, which the inventor could only have produced 
 after diligent training on raw pork and liquid pigments. The west 
 front is guarded by two ruffian angels, apparently of bronze, flourish- 
 ing big swords, who recall the Oriental Afrits. Man of woman 
 born could never face these monsters. They look like the angels 
 keeping guard over paradise, and repelling the faithful from church 
 rather than beckoning them into it. Each of them is exactly ten 
 metres — nearly thirty-three feet — high. Above these is a whole 
 flight of bright yellow angels, and then a covey of tender green 
 seraphim. Above them is an open book ; then a lantern and staff" ; 
 then a large text ; then, above all, scrambling over the gable, and 
 
II GEORGE EDMUND STREET 29 
 
 projected clear against the sky, the whole group of the Sistinc 
 Madonna, with the pretty little cherubs lounging with their chins 
 on the parapet. The intersection of nave and transepts is crowned 
 with an iron and glass spire, coloured red, blue, green, and 
 yellow, and the whole is surmounted by a great gilded metal glory, 
 seven metres in diameter, which, we believe, is to be illuminated, 
 and most likely would be visible at Calais. Blasphemy, folly, and 
 impossibility are combined in this insult to common sense and 
 common decency." 
 
 The jury of selection began their work by eliminating 
 for one cause or another twenty-two designs. They then 
 selected nine designs for honourable mention, then four for 
 silver medals, three for gold, and finally three for the prizes 
 of 6000 frs., 4000 frs., and 3000 frs. respectively. The 
 result was eminently complimentary to English art. The 
 first and second prizes fell to the English representatives in 
 Messrs. Glutton and Burges and my father, and out of the 
 fourteen English competitors no fewer than eight got medals 
 or honourable mention. 
 
 The critic, quoted above, says of the decision : — 
 
 " To Messrs. Glutton and Burges they have awarded the first 
 prize, and to Mr. Street the second. As to the adjustment of the 
 merit of these two excellent designs, it was no easy task. We 
 pointed out — and the jury echoes *our observations — that whereas 
 the credit of bolder architectural development was due to Mr. Street, 
 yet that for still closer adherence to the prescribed type and for 
 unequalled hieratic skill in the ameublejiient the palm would go 
 to his competitors. Our own sympathies perhaps rather inclined us 
 to give the preference to the bolder and more original design, but 
 when the jury— pledged to decide according to the rigid terms of 
 prescribed condition — gave their verdict that, in so equally poised 
 a balance, weight should be given to the closest fulfilment of these 
 conditions, we can only say that their award is righteous beyond 
 cavil or exception." 
 
 The actual adjudication of the second prize was in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 "The second prize has been adjudged to the design 'Quam 
 dilecta Tabernacula.' To a profound knowledge of Pointed Art, its 
 author adds a rare power of conception which is shown as well in 
 the details as in the ensemble. We recognise here, at first sight, 
 the work of a great master ; in particular, we must fairly congratulate 
 the author on having complied with all the requirements of the pro- 
 
30 MEMOIR OF 
 
 gramme, and on having faced more boldly than any other competitor 
 the difficulties of employing brick as the material of a monumental edi- 
 fice. If power rather than grace is the general characteristic of this mag- 
 nificent creation of art, elegance finds its due place in the ciborium, 
 in which it is combined with a true splendour of ornamentation. 
 
 " After a lengthened consideration we have unhesitatingly raised 
 this design to the second place, and little was wanting to its mount- 
 ing to the first." 
 
 Mr. Burges had, with only too accurate a knowledge of 
 the people with whom he had to deal, disarmed opposition 
 by getting up his drawings in French style and on French 
 paper. He triumphed for the time, and it must have been 
 a sore disappointment to the jury to find that after all the 
 victor was English ; but it soon began to be whispered 
 about that no plan was likely to find ultimate favour that 
 was not fathered by a Frenchman. 
 
 Loyal patriots refused to subscribe under conditions so 
 humiliating as would be the selection of a foreign architect ; 
 the State felt obliged to put policy before justice. It was 
 evident that the religious zeal of Lille, unless stimulated by 
 a concession to local interests, would never produce an}-thing 
 like adequate funds for the building. 
 
 The architecture of France was justly said to have met 
 its Agincourt at Lille, but intrigue soon snatched away from 
 us the fruits of victory. It is an old story now how Mr. 
 Burges, after having been actually received at Lille as the 
 architect, was ultimately thrown over. All the drawings of 
 the competitors were the property of the town ; with these 
 to help him, a certain well-known priest, aided by a local 
 architect, who was among the unsuccessful competitors, con- 
 cocted a new design in which many elements, much watered, 
 both of Mr. Burgcs's and of my father's design, were recog- 
 nisable, and this was formally accepted. Thus it came about 
 that the invader was himself despoiled as well as driven out, 
 and the patriot prevailed. Scarcely was my father settled 
 in town when, nowise damped by the unsatisfactory termin- 
 ation of the competition, he commenced plans for the 
 Crimean Memorial Church at Constantinople, to be sub- 
 mitted under conditions similar to those which governed 
 
II GEORGE EDMUND STREET 31 
 
 the other competition, except that the adjudication of the 
 prizes was this time in the hands of EngHshmen. 
 
 Forty-six architects from all parts of Europe competed, 
 and the first result was similar to that which had been 
 arrived at at Lille, viz. that Mr. Burges was placed first, 
 and my father second. Mr. Bodley gained the third prize, 
 and Mr. Slater the fourth, while the Foreign Contingent got 
 nothing better than an honourable mention. Mr. Burges's 
 design was, it seems, founded on that of St, Andrea, VercelH, 
 a Southern church, whose architect was certainly influenced 
 by French, possibly by English, examples. My father's 
 design was less Southern in its primary form, but essentially 
 so in its treatment. I find from contemporary criticism 
 that his design was held generally to have at least fulfilled 
 more completely what would seem to have been an all- 
 important requirement, for he was more successful than his 
 fortunate rival in realising the conception of a great archi- 
 tectural monument, and one unmistakably erected to the 
 memory of English dead, — though modified so as to har- 
 monise with the surroundings. He may not have been so 
 well qualified as others to judge of the merits of his own 
 design, as compared with that of Mr. Burges, but he cer- 
 tainly felt very strongly about the decision ; he writes in 
 that sense to his sister : — 
 
 " You saw in The Gua?-dia>i, I daresay, that I ani second in the 
 Constantinople competition. I believe the opinion among architects 
 who have seen the plans is unanimous that I ought to have been 
 first. However, it is too late to grumble about it now. I am 
 working night and day, and shall not have a minute's holiday for 
 the next three weeks." 
 
 My father's design showed a church, cruciform, aisleless, 
 and groined throughout, the nave being of five bays, and 
 the chancel beyond the transepts of two bays, with a five- 
 sided apse. The great vault was supported by very large 
 external buttresses, which were pierced to form a cloister. 
 The windows were of three lights, with an external fenestra- 
 tion of only two lights — a feature which both produced a 
 charming effect, and was calculated to be of great value in 
 so hot a climate. The interval between the two planes of 
 
32 MEMOIR OF 
 
 tracery was roofed between the buttresses, and gave an ex- 
 ternal passage like that at Marburg. A minaret-like turret 
 rose on either side in the angle formed by the chancel and 
 transepts. 
 
 When a site had been given by the Sultan, it was at 
 once found that Mr. Burges's design would need serious 
 alterations. The nave was accordingly shortened by two 
 bays, the transepts were thrust back so as to range with 
 the aisle walls, and the groining was much modified. This 
 was done in 1857. Next year fresh alterations were decided 
 upon, and the history of the church for many months reveals 
 nothing but a succession of little changes and petty delays. 
 Fresh members joined the Committee, and eventually the 
 unsuitability of Mr. Burges's design having become more 
 and more obvious, the commission was finally transferred 
 from him to my father. It was not till many years later, in 
 May 1864, that the work was really commenced. The con- 
 secration took place in 1865, and the actual completion in 
 1869. The church as it now stands is of just the same 
 character and general design as that which I have just 
 described, but the plan was considerably modified. The 
 east end is square instead of being apsidal. The transepts 
 are omitted. The external cloister is curtailed. There is 
 only one bell turret instead of two, and the nave is covered 
 with a wooden-panelled roof in place of a vault. The beauty 
 of the design is great, while the system of protection from 
 heat and glare has been made to yield features which are at 
 once practical and picturesque. The deep and wide-spanned 
 western porch, the double fenestration, the great projecting 
 eaves of the nave carried on the buttresses, the unusual 
 and grand bulk of the buttresses themselves, and the arrange- 
 ment by which the spaces between them are made to form 
 inside a series of arched recesses, which intercept and modify 
 the intense light of an eastern sun, give a marked and a 
 suitable character to the work. 
 
 My father had managed to get a short holiday before 
 starting work on the Constantinople drawings, and had 
 visited for the first time Etampes, Bourges, Tours, le 
 Mans, Poitiers, Angers, Laval, and the Loire district. The 
 
II GEORGE EDMUND STREET 33 
 
 three short weeks were to brace him up, not only for his 
 ordinary work and for the Constantinople competition, but 
 for a greater effort than that, for no sooner were the draw- 
 ings for it complete than he threw himself with energy into 
 the competition for the new Government offices. This gave 
 him an opportunity which he would on no account have 
 foregone, — that of making the attempt to show that the 
 style of his choice was adaptable, not only to ecclesiastical 
 but to any and every secular purpose. 
 
 Gothic had by this time, before this indeed, established 
 itself firmly as the style for church work, but — at any rate so 
 far as the general public was concerned — it had not made 
 good its ground as a suitable medium for satisfying the 
 requirements of a great public building. The palace at 
 Westminster is indeed Gothic in detail, though of a late 
 character, and has much beauty ; but the Gothic is little 
 more than skin deep, while its massing is so distinctly classic 
 as to make it generally looked upon as hardly more than 
 a compromise. 
 
 The competition in question produced several veritable 
 Gothic designs ; of the favour with which they were looked 
 upon, the late Sir Gilbert Scott says in his Recollections : — 
 
 " When my designs for the public offices were exhibited, they 
 excited much attention ; indeed, they were, by those who favoured 
 Gothic, considered generally the best, though opinions were divided 
 to some extent between them and the designs by Mr. Street and Mr. 
 Woodward. . . . The judges, who knew amazingly little about the 
 subject, were not well disposed towards our style, and, though they 
 awarded premiums to all the best Gothic designs, they took care 
 not to put any of them high enough to have much chance." 
 
 The verdict of the judges was of an undecided character, 
 and it is well known how Sir Gilbert Scott, though not 
 placed first in the competition, was eventually chosen. 
 Selected as the author of a Gothic design, he fought man- 
 fully for a time on behalf of that style only to surrender 
 unconditionally in the end to Lord Palmerston — an abnega- 
 tion of his early principles which many were never able to 
 forgive. There were 219 competitors, to seventeen of whom 
 premiums were awarded, my father being among them. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 MEMOIR OF CHAP. 
 
 He was not on the whole dissatisfied with the result. The 
 bias against the Gothicists in the minds of the judges was so 
 obvious as to excuse their position, and he reflected that his 
 ;^ioo would pay for a tour in Italy, while the exhibition of his 
 drawings would no doubt be of service to him, " It makes 
 one savage," he writes, " to think of nothing but Renaissance 
 going down, but we must bide our time." To have designed 
 in any other style would have been impossible to him, feel- 
 ing, as he did, that no architect could conscientiously be a 
 man of many styles ; but in a pamphlet which accompanied 
 his design, he gave his reasons for thinking that Gothic is 
 naturally the right style for our national buildings, and more 
 particularly for one which it was proposed to place on the 
 river front, divided only from the Houses of Parliament by 
 Westminster Bridge — which it was then intended to make a 
 veritable Gothic structure — and in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the Abbey. He showed how well the picturesque 
 towers of Westminster would group with a building of a 
 kindred style, and how, seen from a distance above the hori- 
 zontal lines of a classical building, they would not only make 
 an incongruous medley, but would lose much of their own 
 beauty from the unsuitability of the surroundings. He went 
 on to show that Gothic, as such, may utilise to the full all 
 the most modern improvements ; nay, that it has a plasticity 
 which makes it able to subserve our modern needs, with an 
 ease which cannot be predicated of some other forms of 
 building. 
 
 With Westminster Abbey before his eyes, itself the work 
 of a man who had evidently studied foreign examples dili- 
 gently, he felt that the English style, pure and simple, need 
 not be adhered to scrupulously. Insularity of style, de- 
 votedly as he admired our English Gothic, was always 
 repugnant to him, for he felt strongly that Gothic archi- 
 tecture throughout Europe, however great its local peculi- 
 arities and distinctions, was none the less bound together by 
 a great unity of principle underlying all. 
 
 The conditions of the competition laid down, among 
 other things, that the buildings should be not more than 
 three stories high. This made the use of a steep roof 
 
II GEORGE EDMUND STREET 35 
 
 essential. My father adopted hipped roofs in preference to 
 gables — an arrangement for which there is not much prece- 
 dent in England, but one amply justified by its adoption 
 in some of the most beautiful buildings in Europe, as the 
 Ducal palace at Venice, and the Cloth Hall at Ypres. An- 
 other feature which is uncommon in English work he used 
 freely, viz. the detached shaft as a mullion ; of the use of 
 this he says : " There cannot, except in the narrowest view of 
 our insular tradition, be any rational objection to the adop- 
 tion of noble features, common elsewhere in the Middle 
 Ages, but ordinarily neglected here." The detached shaft, 
 he saw, greatly facilitated the use of ordinary sash windows, 
 and offered, further, a good opportunity for the introduction 
 of colour. 
 
 The use of two different-coloured stones — a feature with 
 which his tours in North Italy had more particularly familiar- 
 ised him — was conspicuous in various parts of the building ; 
 and in some places there was a considerable amount of 
 inlaid work in coloured material. The entire design, indeed, 
 including the fine tower, showed considerable evidence of 
 Italian studies, but without any slavish adherence to its 
 forms. 
 
 Every summer was now adding somewhat to my father's 
 knowledge of continental architecture. In 1857 he was 
 able to return to what he had reluctantly left only half seen 
 before, viz. North Italy. This time he went farther south, 
 and fared even better than before. Starting with Genoa, he 
 went on to Pisa, Lucca, and Siena. Thence he drove across 
 country to Cortona and Arezzo, and from there to Perugia, 
 Assisi, and Florence. Devoted as he was to each and all 
 of the sister arts, their systematic conjunction here, and in 
 so perfect a form, filled him with enthusiasm, while it made 
 him hope, even more ardently than before, that the return 
 to such a state of things might be to some extent possible 
 in his own country. 
 
 In 1858, tired out by long days of incessant work, he 
 went to France for a three-weeks' holiday without my mother. 
 His letters to her form not only a complete and vivid 
 account of all he did and saw, but are full of the most 
 
36 MEMOIR OF 
 
 suggestive hints and comments on the architectural features of 
 the places he visited. He went first to Fecamp and Rouen — 
 seeing the latter place not for the first time — Nantes, Beau- 
 vais, Soissons, Rheims, Laon, Chalons-sur-Marne, Metz, 
 Treves, Cologne, Liege, besides seeing many things off the 
 road which he flattered himself few, if any, tourists but 
 himself had ever reached. The account he gives of the 
 sketches he has made and the note-books he has filled 
 makes it hard of belief that he was really engaged in recruit- 
 ing exhausted nature, but he certainly did all he could to 
 falsify the saying of the old Roman poet ; for change of 
 scene was everything to him, the cares of professional life 
 once put aside were as if they had never existed, and the 
 harder he worked at his self-imposed tasks, the more 
 thoroughly he enjoyed himself, and the more complete was 
 his refreshment. 
 
 The next year was given chiefly to the cultivation of 
 mountain scenery and hard exercise. His old habit of 
 carrying his knapsack on his back during his architectural 
 rambles, and doing everything on foot, made him still a very 
 fair performer among the mountains, though he walked for 
 the sake of enjoyment and not for mere walking's sake, and 
 never attempted any notable ascent. The Zermatt Moun- 
 tains were the main object this year, while a year later the 
 Oberland was worked through, and a move was then made 
 by Lyons to St. Etienne, Le Puy, Brioude, Clermont-Fer- 
 rand, Nevers, and Bourges. 
 
 These two or three years saw much hard work, and among 
 it a good deal that was of interest and importance. That 
 which was perhaps most interesting to my father himself, 
 because of the beauty of the design and detail, and the con- 
 clusion to which his examination of it led him, was the rehabi- 
 litation of Stone Church, near Dartford. This work, to 
 which I shall refer again, he proved pretty conclusively to 
 have been by the same architect and some of the same 
 masons as Westminster Abbey, the village church being 
 superior in delicacy of detail and in quality of workmanship. 
 
 The most important of his original works during the 
 same period was the church of St. James the Less, Garden 
 
II GEORGE EDMUND STREET yj 
 
 Street, Westminster, with its schools, because it was his first 
 opportunity of showing what he could do in London itself. 
 The whole group is one of the most picturesque character. 
 The campanile, with its unusual roofing, stands on the street 
 apart from the church. The church itself forms the north 
 side of a little quadrangle, of which the campanile is the 
 western, and a part of the school buildings the eastern, 
 boundary, the side next the street being bounded by a low 
 wall with a lofty iron railing. Looking at my father's 
 subsequent work, it is not possible to put this church in the 
 first rank, but, at the time it was built, it marked a great 
 step in advance of the ordinary run of church work. Its 
 originality and spirit are beyond all question ; the massing 
 and outline of the whole block of building are most satis- 
 factory, and much of the detail is very good, as, for instance, 
 in the woodwork of the stalls and the decoration of the 
 chancel generally, while the ironwork in the screen on the 
 street and the canopy over the font is very hard to match ; 
 but at the same time there is in some of the masonry and 
 brickwork details, in the carving, and in the proportion of 
 the nave arcade, a want of that grace which was so char- 
 acteristic of all his work, subsequent to this date at any rate — 
 something a little outre and over bold, which seems to speak 
 of a strong and masterful imagination not as yet adequately 
 restrained by a sense of purity and beauty of form. The 
 evidences of Italian travel, visible, as I have said, in my 
 father's design for the Foreign and Colonial Offices, are 
 again to be found pervading the design for this church ; but 
 in passing through the furnace what is Italian has become 
 so entirely absorbed in what belongs to the architect's own 
 inspiration, that it is hard to put the finger on any actual 
 features which recall Italian examples, the influence being 
 traceable rather in the choice and management of materials 
 and the general massing of the block of buildings, than in 
 any more specific points. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 My father's comprehensive love for art, as manifested not 
 only in his own sphere of architecture, but not less in that of 
 her sisters painting and sculpture, led naturally to his seek- 
 ing out and associating not with architects alone, but per- 
 haps even more with artists in general. The pre-Raphaelite 
 movement found in him a hearty and earnest adherent, and 
 one who on many occasions, by writing and speaking, 
 impressed on his brethren the importance and propriety of 
 their giving it all the moral support in their power. He 
 felt truly that the aim of the young enthusiasts, who were 
 striving for truth before everything, was in their particular 
 field identical with the aim of the leaders of the Gothic 
 Revival in the field of architecture. His known views 
 speedily brought him into relations of friendship with many 
 of those who belonged to the pre-Raphaelite group, or were 
 in sympathy with it. Among those with whom he had 
 become acquainted at the time I am speaking of may be 
 named the brothers Dante G. and William Rossetti, W. 
 Holman-Hunt, George P. Boyce, J. W. Inchbold, F. Madox- 
 Brown, William Morris, W. Bell Scott, and E. Burne Jones. 
 Living much in the world of pictures, and loving them 
 not less nearly, it may easily be conceived that my father 
 was not wanting in the desire to see them on his walls. I 
 think the first modern picture he bought was a small oil- 
 painting by Millais, which he secured at a sale in 1858. 
 From that time on a year rarely or never passed without 
 his adding one or more to his store ; a succession of pictures 
 by Mr. G. P. Boyce and Mr. Burne Jones being bought in the 
 course of the next few years. His confidence in his own 
 
CHAP. Ill MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET 39 
 
 future is pretty well vouched for by the readiness with 
 which he became a buyer of pictures, albeit in a humble 
 way, at a time when his fortune, if fated ever to be made, 
 was at any rate still in the future. It says a good deal for 
 his inherent good taste that, untrained as he was, and 
 unaided, except by the light of his own likes and dislikes 
 when he first began buying, he still got no picture which 
 in later life he was otherwise than glad to see on his walls. 
 
 When, many years after, Frederick Walker appeared 
 like a meteor and ran his brief course, in no one did he 
 excite a more sincere admiration and appreciation than in 
 my father ; and indeed, the tribute which was given to his 
 work was given, in its degree, to others also who, with 
 originality of their own, still owed much of the beauty of 
 their conception and workmanship to Walker's example. 
 My father, indeed, became the owner of pictures by both 
 Pinwell and J. W. North before he could attain what was 
 the summit of his ambition in this line — the possession of 
 one of Walker's great oil pictures. 
 
 Once, when the " Harbour of Refuge " came into the 
 market, he went down to Christie's and bid bravely for it, 
 but against the most mighty of picture-dealers his case was 
 hopeless, and he naturally had to return home empty- 
 handed. When he found that the " Old Gate " was to be 
 included in the Benzon Sale in 1874, he profited by experi- 
 ence and put himself in the hands of his quondam com- 
 petitor, with the result that the picture became his. It was 
 his most cherished possession, and I think it added per- 
 manently and distinctly to his sense of wellbeing and 
 happiness. 
 
 His taste in the matter of pictures was just as decided 
 as it was in architecture ; but as the latter, strictly as he 
 confined himself to one style in his own work, was never- 
 theless catholic, so also was the former. On his walls were 
 hung not only contemporary works, but also many panels 
 belonging to the early schools of Christian Art. These 
 early schools, and the Italian more particularly, appealed to 
 him in a special way, apart from whatever merits they might 
 possess as works of art, because he read in many of them 
 
40 MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 (though history records many exceptions), as he did in the 
 pure form and detail 5f our old abbey churches, the devo- 
 tional spirit and personal piety of the men who had given 
 them to the world. 
 
 Foremost among those whose works breathe a spirit of 
 purity and devotion stands Fra Angelico, and so strongly 
 did my father feel the exalted nature of his work, that he 
 made a proper appreciation of it a test of his own moral 
 state. Towards the end of his life, when he was in low 
 spirits and failing health, he visited Paris alone, and writes 
 how he went, according to his usual habit, to feast his eyes 
 on Fra Angelico's " Coronation of the Virgin " in the Louvre. 
 He is fain to think that it must have been touched in some 
 way, because it does not appeal to him quite so forcibly as 
 it has been wont to do, and he refuses to believe that the 
 fault is in himself, because he would attach so special a 
 meaning to such a want. I suppose that every lover of 
 pictures must be well content with what Florence has to 
 offer him, whether the earlier or the later schools be his 
 special object of admiration ; but I doubt if there be many 
 who, while fully appreciating the other almost matchless 
 collection, have studied so carefully or extracted so much 
 pleasure and profit from the collection of early works in the 
 Accademia as did my father. 
 
 To return to the friendships of his early years in town ; 
 one to which he owed no small degree of pleasure was that 
 with Mr. Crabb Robinson, who all his life had known every- 
 body who was worth knowing, and at whose Sunday break- 
 fasts, which my father frequently attended, there was a 
 certainty of interesting company and good conversation. 
 High Churchman and high Tory, my father was all that was 
 naturally repugnant to Mr. Robinson's own views, but in 
 spite of that he was a prime favourite with him, and partly 
 too because of it. Mr. Robinson respected sincerity and 
 strength of conviction, however decidedly their possessor 
 might run counter to his own pet predilections, but this 
 did not prevent his hurling all sorts of opprobrious epithets, 
 half-meant and wholly good-humoured, at my father's head. 
 His friendship was extended equally to my mother, and I 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 41 
 
 can remember, as a boy, that he frequently came in the 
 evening for a quiet cup of tea and a bout of arguing that 
 was not so quiet. 
 
 Among other notices of my father in Mr. Robinson's 
 diary I find the following : — 
 
 " Dined with the Streets. Our amusement was three-handed 
 whist. Both Mr. and Mrs. Street very kind. On every point of 
 public interest he and I differ, but it does not affect our apparent 
 esteem for one another. I hold him in very great respect — indeed, 
 admiration. He has first-rate talent in his profession as architect. 
 He will be a great man in act — he is so in character already." 
 
 A High Churchman and high Tory my father had been 
 by conviction from the very first, but he appreciated none 
 the less warmly those who were opposed to him, nor did it 
 prevent his having an intense personal admiration for one 
 great man, Mr. Gladstone, with whose political career he 
 could not feel any sympathy. It was in 1858 that he was 
 first introduced to him, and received there and then to his 
 great satisfaction an invitation to breakfast at a near date, 
 of which he did not fail to take advantage. This privilege 
 was afterwards extended to him on many occasions. On 
 this occasion he naturally went in some fear and trembling 
 of his elders and betters, but he wrote : — 
 
 " Gladstone was very friendly, and the whole party quite in- 
 formal. Lord Lyttelton was there, the Bishop of Exeter, Mr. 
 Bulwer Lytton, and a Lord Something, whose name has run away 
 from me in an unceremonious manner, though after breakfast he 
 got Gladstone to introduce him to me in order to talk about my 
 Italian book, and to thank me for the help it had been to him ; and 
 he introduced me to another man whose name I did not catch, but 
 who knew who I was. The unknown lord asked me when he might 
 write to me, so I gave him my card ; and if I don't recollect in five 
 minutes what his name was, as I most probably shall, I shall at any 
 rate hear from him. . . . Lord Dunraven is my friend's name." 
 
 My father had always been fond of music, and this was 
 a taste which the wisdom of not trying his eyes too much 
 by working every night enabled him to gratify with a clear 
 conscience. It will be remembered that when he lived at 
 Wantage he figured in the choir there, and was most active 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 in trying to promote good singing and good playing, 
 Wherever he spent his Sundays, he always took his place in 
 the choir if possible, and he was much in request in those 
 days at plain-song meetings. 
 
 The time for this was over now, but he and my mother 
 used to attend the rehearsals and concerts of the Old 
 Philharmonic Society with the greatest regularity. The 
 opera, which had not then fallen on its bad days, never 
 failed to attract him. Many a time, when he had just come 
 off a long and tiring railway journey, he went off after 
 snatching a hasty meal to get his brain cleared at the opera 
 or at a concert of chamber music. This was a form of 
 relaxation which stress of work obliged him more and more 
 to forego, but if he heard music more rarely and gave up 
 his singing almost entirely, it was not because they had lost 
 their attraction for him. I remember well how moved he 
 was the first time he ever heard Wagner's music. It was at 
 an open-air concert at Leipsig, and the piece was the over- 
 ture to TannJiaiiser, then comparatively strange to Eng- 
 lish ears. It was a revelation to him, and he went away 
 determined to make opportunities for hearing more. 
 
 No one could have escaped more completely being 
 fossilised into one groove by constant hard work than did 
 my father. His power of enjoyment continued as keen as 
 in his early days, and its objects became more diverse. 
 From his first year in London till his dying day he 
 was always in the habit of snatching an hour at Lord's 
 three or four times in the season if he could contrive, which 
 generally happened, to make his business lead him in that 
 direction. The river had lost none of its attractions for 
 him, and Saturday afternoons spent on the river, with dinner 
 at the old " Star and Garter " at Richmond, are among my 
 earliest boyish recollections. As soon as I was old enough 
 to stick on a pony's back, he made me a present of one, 
 and a horse on his own account was the natural consequence 
 in a year or so. In those days the whole country around 
 London became familiar to us. Through all the summer 
 months we used to get a two hours' ride and a whiff of 
 country air before breakfast. In the winter an hour in the 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 43 
 
 Row was all that was possible. Sometimes we rode to 
 Stanmore or Harrow to lunch, or took a tour on horseback 
 in which business was combined with pleasure. Without 
 these hours of strong exercise and mental rest, I think even 
 so strong a constitution as my father's would have by this 
 time begun to show signs of wear and tear. Before the 
 days of riding, and very often too after we had a horse, the 
 mornings before breakfast, an hour and a half or two hours 
 were devoted to letter-writing. After a day which was 
 always a struggle to get work done amid and in spite of the 
 constant interruption of calls from clients, builders, clerks of 
 works, and all the host of people with whom his large 
 practice brought him into business relations, the evening 
 found him at his drawing-board for three or more hours, 
 happy in the knowledge that he was not liable to be called 
 away at any minute. " You can hardly fancy how busy I 
 am this year," he writes in 1859; " work seems to press in 
 on all sides, and it is as much as I can do to keep it in 
 hand at all." It is very difficult at all times to gauge the 
 amount of work which has been got through in a day, 
 because the conditions under which the work is done have 
 to be taken into consideration, and my father did not by 
 any means enter all he did in his diary ; but I notice three 
 succeeding days, several years later than the date with 
 which I am now dealing, which are a fair sample of the sort 
 of way in which he kept himself from getting into arrears. 
 The entries are as follows : — 
 
 '■^January 5. — Design for reredos for York Minster. Ground- 
 plan for new church at Barnsley. Wrote to Mr. Roe with estimate 
 for the completion of Christ Church, Dublin. Altered design for 
 altar-cloth, St. Paul's, Rome. Drew large gates and railings, 
 Marlborough College. 
 
 ^'■January 6. — Plans for the restoration of Cotterstock Church. 
 Plans for new English church at Lausanne. 
 
 ^^ January 7. — Design for high screen, Colebrooke Church. 
 Details for York Minster reredos. Plans for reredos and organ, 
 AVarfield. Second design for ground-plan, St. Peter, Barnsley. 
 Several sheets of details for Dunster Church. Several sheets of 
 details for Kildare Cathedral. Wrote report on Milton parsonage ; 
 and another evening directly after produced 'seven sheets of de- 
 tails for restoration of Bignor Church.' " 
 
44 MEMOIR OF 
 
 But if the days at home were wearing, what shall I say 
 of the business journeys, which were almost perpetual ? It 
 makes one feel perfectly dazed to read his descriptions of 
 them. Up early, in late ; getting meals piecemeal and at 
 all sorts of hours ; driving forty miles across country to 
 intercept a train ; fitting in the visits to different places 
 like a complicated puzzle — so many minutes here, so many 
 there ; so many letters, or specifications, or reports to be 
 written in transit. Letter-writing in trains was constant. 
 " I have written nineteen letters between Bletchley and 
 Moreton," he writes, — in the train, of course. Not unfre- 
 quently he wrote his letters in cabs. On one occasion an 
 old gentleman, on getting out of the train, complimented him 
 on being the most industrious person he had ever met. 
 Such a life, in which even minutes were of value, one would 
 hardly have thought likely to excite fresh literary aspira- 
 tions ; yet my father decided to add to his other labours 
 by doing for the unvisited parts of Spain what he had to 
 some extent done for North Italy. His reason for under- 
 taking so serious a task was, he tells us, the conviction that 
 the fuller and wider the study of ancient examples, and the 
 more intimate the knowledge of all the different develop- 
 ments of Gothic architecture, the more likely is the student 
 to become the great architect. Unlike those who deprecated 
 the study of foreign examples for an English architect, my 
 father, whose preference for our own national type increased 
 rather than diminished on better acquaintance with foreign 
 types, thought nothing could be gained by obstinately 
 ignoring the existence of all Gothic other than English, and 
 that much might be lost. Andalusia my father purposely 
 left unvisited : firstly, because it was much better known 
 than the other parts ; and secondly, because for his particular 
 object it was likely to be less generally interesting and 
 useful ; but of Leon, the Castiles, and Aragon he saw a 
 considerable part. Three tours, taken respectively in the 
 autumn of 1861, the early summer of 1862, and the 
 autumn of 1863, enabled him, by dint of utilising his time 
 to the utmost, to see sufficient to answer his purpose, though 
 he was necessarily unable to do it in an exhaustive way in 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 45 
 
 so short a time as twelve weeks, which was what the three 
 tours amounted to, and where such large tracts of country- 
 were in question. In the first tour they (for my mother had 
 the courage to venture) entered Spain from Bayonne by San 
 Sebastian, and so on to Burgos, which was reached after 
 thirty-three hours in a diligence, not a very inspiriting 
 commencement, particularly for my mother ! From Burgos 
 they visited La Cartuca and Las Huelgas, and then went on 
 to Palencia, Valladolid, Madrid, — where my father, intent 
 on studying the manners and customs of the people, went 
 to a bull-fight, — from Madrid to Alcala, Toledo, Valencia ; 
 by sea to Barcelona, Lerida, Tarragona, Gerona, Perpinan. 
 In the second tour my father visited Gerona, Barcelona, 
 Tarragona, Manresa, Lerida, Huesca, Zaragoza, Toledo, and 
 Pampluna ; and in the third and last, Pampluna, Tudela, 
 Tarragona, Siguenza, Guadalajara, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, 
 Avila, Salamanca, Zamora, Benavente, Leon, Astorga, Lugo, 
 Santiago, La Corufia, and thence back by Valladolid and 
 Burgos to San Sebastian and Bayonne. 
 
 The experiences of the first tour made it evident that it 
 would be wiser in the future to travel without a lady. 
 Adventures there were none, but inconveniences were with- 
 out number, and the physical strain was great. In the last 
 of the three tours, which took my father into quite unbeaten 
 tracks, the perpetual travelling, and that often under condi- 
 tions not the most favourable, would have been enough to 
 knock up any one not endowed with great physical strength 
 and proportionate energy. 
 
 Two nights' travelling in rickety diligences to one in bed 
 was something like the proportion throughout the greater 
 part of the tour. Many expeditions had to be made on 
 mule-back, with the legs stretched to the utmost capacity by 
 an enormous saddle covered with a thick manta ; reins and 
 whip were economically combined in a single-handed rope, 
 and with the aid of this primitive contrivance and a muleteer 
 who ran behind and occasionally climbed up to rest himself, 
 the ground was got over somehow. On one occasion, in an 
 out-of-the-way district, when the diligence was slowly climb- 
 ing a hill, my father, following the example of his fellow- 
 
46 MEMOIR OF 
 
 travellers, began to pick the grapes which hung temptingly 
 by the roadside, when the sudden appearance of a man with 
 a musket put them to a disgraceful flight. The diligence 
 was whipped up, and, pursued by the man, they managed to 
 reach and drive through a town which was near before he 
 could summon the authorities to stop them. What they 
 would have been liable to in the event of having been 
 stopped my father never discovered. Ignorance of the 
 language proved much less of a hindrance than might have 
 been expected. Intelligent good-nature on the part of the 
 natives, and an industrious use of a dictionary on that of the 
 traveller, served to get over most difficulties ; occasionally my 
 father got help from unexpected sources. On one of his 
 railway journeys, for instance, he found the engine-driver to 
 be an Englishman, and succeeded in striking up a not wholly 
 disinterested acquaintance with him. At their stopping- 
 place, where my father was anxious to make some notes of 
 the castle, the engine-driver, under the influence of a glass 
 of rum, introduced my father to the chief of the station, and 
 got him to undertake to obtain a sketching order from 
 the commandant. This was duly sent soon afterwards. 
 Sacristans all over the world are proud of the particular 
 churches which are under their wing ; and the Spanish ones, 
 at least, generally appreciated my father's diligence in 
 sketching their charges as a delicate attention to themselves. 
 His second visit to a church generally produced a hearty 
 hand-shake from the sacristan, and even from the priests, 
 though some of the less liberal-minded of the latter occa- 
 sionally objected to his proceedings. At Avila, I think it 
 was, a priest came up to him while he was at work and in- 
 sisted on his stopping. However, he gave my father one 
 last chance. "Do you reverence el Santissimo?" — "Cer- 
 tainly ! " — " Ah, then you are a Christian ! " and no more 
 objection was made. Many of his sketches were of a most 
 elaborate and comprehensive character, but he did not spare 
 himself the drier work of noting and measuring. The plan 
 of every important church visited is given to scale in his 
 book. This was a piece of work which my father seldom if 
 ever failed to do, and one at which constant practice had 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 47 
 
 made him a great adept. " My favourite weakness," he 
 calls it. 
 
 It was not till 1865 that the book appeared. Besides 
 the large amount of letterpress which had to be got through, 
 my father had done all the drawing on the wood himself, so 
 as to secure the accuracy and artistic quality of the illustra- 
 tions ; and all this required much time, which he could ill 
 spare. The number and character of the illustrations, the 
 accurately-drawn plans, and the ingenious system of com- 
 parative analysis to which he subjected all he saw — tracing 
 the work of a man or a body of workmen here, and the in- 
 fluence of a country there — lifted the book out of the ordinary 
 run of such works, and made it of incalculable value to the 
 professional man ; while it was written in such a way, and 
 was so full of information of every kind, as to make it the 
 best possible travelling companion for the ordinary tourist. 
 It gained for my father the credit of having practically dis- 
 covered the Gothic style in Spain, and of being the first 
 author who had not ignored or shown the greatest indiffer- 
 ence to her heroic times. In Spain itself the book was 
 appreciated as a most gratifying and learned tribute to the 
 beauty of their mediaeval monuments, and probably did a 
 good deal towards opening the eyes of the people themselves 
 to the value of their possessions. A second edition was 
 brought out five years later ; but my father never made 
 another visit to Spain, and added nothing to what he had 
 written. 
 
 He brought the same zeal to bear as a churchman which 
 characterised him as an architect ; for the Church, and the 
 art which is its handmaid, were equally dear to him. Of the 
 cause of free and open seats he had been always an untiring 
 advocate, and his services, during the long time he was on 
 the Council of the Free and Open Church Association, to 
 that body were of a lasting kind ; and at a time when a 
 crisis in their affairs threatened to be fatal to the existence 
 of the society, his tact and perseverance brought about a 
 union which resulted in a greatly-increased sphere and power 
 of activity. He was also on the Council of the English 
 Church Union, and was one of its most active lay members ; 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 speedily taking his place among that comparatively small 
 group of laymen who, by speech or paper at public meet- 
 ings or church congresses, and by their work in church 
 societies, try zealously to promote the wellbeing of their 
 church. 
 
 At All Saints, Margaret Street, he had long been Mr. 
 Upton Richards's right-hand man, though the thoroughness 
 with which he insisted on every single seat being kept free, 
 absolutely without exception, was at one time not wholly 
 acceptable to those who had to provide the ways and means 
 for the services of the church. This fear of shortness of funds, 
 however, proved groundless. And if personal liberality were 
 requisite, no one could have been readier or more generous 
 than my father many a time and oft showed himself 
 to be. 
 
 In 1866 a committee was formed, of which he was one, 
 to present vestments to the church. This was wholly in 
 accordance with his views ; indeed, I believe I am right 
 in saying that he was the chief promoter of the movement, 
 as he certainly was the most energetic in getting the idea 
 carried out, as well as himself giving all the designs. 
 
 The next spring Mr. Richards wrote : " I know your deep 
 attachment to All Saints ; would you allow me to nominate 
 you as my representative ? I do not think it will add much 
 to your duties or labours, and it will be a very great pleasure 
 to me personally if you consent." My father accepted, and 
 held the churchwardenship for a considerable number of 
 years. He was thus able to carry out to the full and with 
 the best possible effect his strong views as to the right use of 
 a free church. Perhaps the most striking effect which his 
 strong rule produced was the greatly-increased attendance of 
 men, due to a firmness in keeping the ladies to their own 
 seats, which was a task so disagreeable, and for some little 
 time apparently thankless, that it was only the exceeding 
 strength of his convictions which enabled him to fight the 
 battle out. 
 
 Two or three years previously he had received a pleasant 
 proof of the widespread influence of his work in a letter 
 from a New York architect. This gentleman wrote to him : — 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 49 
 
 " I have for some years been thinking of writing to you. It 
 seemed to me that if God had given to me a great gift, it would give 
 me pleasure to know that one more recognised it ; but even if this 
 is not the case with you, still I may thank you for the pleasure your 
 works have given me, and yet I know of your designs only through 
 a few illustrations in the Builder. I have your book on Brick and 
 Marble in North Italy. It is a charming work, both on account of 
 its graceful, easy style, its earnestness, and the interest of its subject. 
 But your own designs show me that God meant you to be an 
 architect, to exercise a creative power which was to make men 
 happier and better. They have made me happier and, I hope, better. 
 Their originality is wonderful \ yet I prize them most because they 
 touch, I know not why, my heart. Strange that a print of a building 
 in a magazine should speak to me of reverence and awe and tender 
 love towards God, and make me anew consecrate my life to Him ! " 
 
 A few years later, the writer of the letter visited Europe, 
 and one day called on my father with a bouquet of varied 
 and beautiful flowers, each of which had been chosen as 
 expressing to him in some attribute one of my father's 
 churches. A little later, another American architect dedi- 
 cated to him — as one " who is as illustrious in this country as 
 in Europe " — a book on Church Architecture. 
 
 The influence of the Gothic school of architects had 
 indeed become very widespread now, and was every day 
 becoming more so. In i860 my father speaks hopefully of 
 the greatly -increased strength of their party in the In- 
 stitute : — 
 
 " I went to the Institute last night," he writes, " hoping that the 
 Goths would muster strongly and elect some fresh men on the Council. 
 If they had come, they might have done what they liked, as the 
 meeting was not largely attended. As it was, we had some fun. I 
 objected to their sending out the balloting lists only a few days 
 before the election, and protested against the composition of the 
 Council ; and when it came to voting, several men scratched out 
 every name on the House list and substituted Goths for them ; of 
 course a considerable majority were for the House list, but I had 
 nine votes, which was more than any other of the minority ; Scott 
 has about seven, and so on. It was only a piece of amusement for 
 us ; but the Dons were considerably disgusted, as I believe they 
 have never before had such a selection of names substituted for their 
 own. 
 
 " After the meeting Cockerell came to me in a markedly kind 
 
 E 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 manner, shook hands, and so on, and hoped I was satisfied to have 
 liim for President for another year, and that I should come frequently 
 to the meetings." 
 
 In 1864 he writes: "I believe I am to be elected a Vice- 
 President of the Institute of Architects this year, or rather I am to 
 be nominated ; but perhaps Mr. Tite and his friends may come 
 down and pay me in ' my own coin by blackballing me.' I shan't 
 be grieved if they do ; it will save me much time and trouble. . . . 
 The Memorial Church at Constantinople is just being commenced, 
 and will be finished in two years, and in that time I shall have, 
 I suppose, to make a couple of journeys there. I have also a 
 church to build at Genoa, which will afford a very pleasant ex- 
 cuse for a visit to dear Italy. As to my works in England, they 
 are only too numerous, and I really have great difficulty in getting 
 them all done. I must not grumble at being so prosperous. I 
 suppose, really, that now there is no other architect among the 
 Gothic men, save Scott, who has anything like as much as I have 
 to do." 
 
 The election of Mr. Scott as an Associate of the Academy 
 was a most important recognition of the Gothic architects. 
 This was followed, in the early part of 1866, by my father's 
 election by the Committee of the Athenaeum at the head of 
 the poll, and a little later in the year he himself was made 
 an Associate of the Academy. 
 
 A great many large and important works were now either 
 in progress or shortly to be put in hand. The new nave of 
 Bristol Cathedral ; All vSaints Church, Clifton ; St. John's, 
 Torquay ; the chapel and schoolrooms at Uppingham ; St. 
 Mary Magdalen, Paddington ; Longmead, Bishopstoke ; 
 St. Margaret's Convent, East Grinstead ; the restoration of 
 Hedon Church, and, a little later, St. Saviour's, Eastbourne ; 
 St. Margaret's, Liverpool ; the church for Lord Sudeley at 
 Toddington ; Dunecht House and Chapel for Lord Craw- 
 ford ; and a whole group of churches, parsonages, and schools 
 for Sir Tatton Sykes. But these were all quite overshadowed 
 by the two great competitions to which every one's attention 
 was now turned, — those for the National Gallery and the 
 New Courts of Law. These two took place almost simul- 
 taneously, but the former attracted less public attention than 
 it would naturally have done, partly owing to the compara- 
 tive sm.allncss of the outlay proposed, but chicfl\' because 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 51 
 
 nothing definite ever came of it, Mr. Edward Barry being 
 merely commissioned to patch up the existing building. 
 My father was naturally much gratified at his selection as one 
 of the limited number of competitors in both cases. He writes 
 to his sister to tell her that he is going abroad to look at the 
 great foreign galleries : — 
 
 " The Government have asked me to make a design for the New 
 National Gallery, and I want to collect all necessary information on 
 the subject. To-day also, I see by the Times, that it was announced 
 in the House of Commons last night that I was one of the six 
 architects selected to make plans for the New Courts of Law. In 
 both cases it is a great distinction, I consider, to be asked to make a 
 design, and though the chances of competitions are always doubtful, 
 still, of course, there is a fair chance of success in one or other of them. 
 It is the more gratifying because I had never moved in the matter at 
 all, and they pay enough to each architect to make it no loss of money 
 to make the designs. Also another piece of news, which I don't think 
 I have told you, is that the Archbishop of York has made me Diocesan 
 Architect, so the year opens very brightly for me, and I hope I shall 
 deserve my good fortune." 
 
 Ten sets of plans were submitted in the National Gallery 
 competition, their authors being Messrs. Owen Jones, C. 
 Brodrick, Banks and Barry, F. P. Cockerell, Digby Wyatt, 
 Edward Barry, Somers Clarke, Penrose, Murray, and my father. 
 It is remarkable that while so many Gothic designs were 
 submitted for the other great building, in this case only two 
 were sent in ; one by my father and the other by Mr. Somers 
 Clarke, the latter design also appearing, with modifications, 
 in an Italian dress. It seemed to be assumed either that 
 Gothic was not suitable for the particular purpose, or that 
 the surroundings in Trafalgar Square made the adoption of 
 a style so different unadvisable. The first of these assump- 
 tions, if it existed, was quite unreasonable. A range of 
 picture galleries offers a simplicity of plan, indeed, which 
 makes any style possible, but does not for that reason 
 make Gothic any less suitable, unless it were never to be used 
 except as a dernier ressort. Gothic is not, to be sure, bound 
 down to parallelograms, as some styles are, but some of its 
 simplest examples are among the best we have. 
 
 With regard to the second objection, a writer in the 
 
52 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Spectator at that date rightly insisted that too much stress 
 should not be laid upon it : — 
 
 " Except St. Martin's Church," the letter ran, " there is nothing 
 in or near the Square of any architectural value, and it would be 
 better to secure one good building, however little in harmony with 
 what encumbers the neighbouring ground, than choose an inferior 
 plan merely because it suited and added one more to the many 
 abortions that disgrace a capable site. . . . Mr. Street's is the only 
 respectable design in any style, and therefore it is, and not because 
 it is Gothic, that its claims are urged." 
 
 My father himself did not rate the surrounding buildings 
 very highly. The College of Physicians he thought quite 
 unworthy to set the style to a building of much greater 
 importance than itself, and of St. Martin's Church he said : 
 " The spire of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields takes it so completely 
 out of the category of really classical buildings that a Gothic 
 building would harmonise with it quite as well as one of 
 really classic design." 
 
 Early in 1866, with the view of making himself better 
 acquainted with the various ways of arranging picture galleries, 
 the system of lighting, etc., he went first to Munich, then to 
 Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Hanover, and Hildesheim, 
 managing to combine a great deal of interesting sight-seeing 
 with his more special study. In the course of this tour he 
 practically settled pretty much in his own mind what his 
 design was to be, and made a considerable number of pen-and- 
 ink notes and sketches of the building generally and of details, 
 all adhered to pretty closely in the finished design. 
 
 My father gives a brief outline of this tour in a letter 
 which is interesting as showing how much he managed to 
 make of his time, and in what way he spent it : — 
 
 " Of course I must have told you that I had been asked to 
 make designs for the National Gallery and the New Law Courts. 
 Mr. Scott and myself are the only two architects asked for both, so 
 I consider it no slight honour. I made my journey to Germany 
 mainly for the purpose of looking at picture galleries. We really 
 enjoyed our journey very much indeed. Marique (my mother) went 
 with me and did not knock up, and as we travelled seven nights out 
 of the fourteen we were away, she did very well. First of all we went 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 53 
 
 by night to Antwerp ; there we spent the day looking about the old 
 town and seeing the picture gallery. Then on the next night to 
 Cologne, and, after an hour for breakfast, on again by the railway 
 along the Rhine to Mainz and thence to Munich, where we arrived 
 at ten o'clock at night. We were glad to get two nights there see- 
 ing all the sights. Everything is modern. Picture and sculpture 
 galleries, palaces, and new churches, all very gorgeously decorated. 
 But still it is a tristc sort of city. Its public buildings seem too 
 large for the population. 
 
 " From Munich we went by night to Vienna. This is a very 
 different sort of place — smart, crowded, and lively. There is a fine 
 collection of pictures, a magnificent cathedral, and a good many 
 smaller churches. We spent three days here, and came back by 
 night to Prague — a most quaint and picturesque old city, full of 
 interest for me. The bridge is one of the most striking in Europe, 
 with gateways at each end, and statues of saints all along on either 
 side. The Jews' quarter is most remarkable. The oldest synagogue 
 is a curious building of the thirteenth century, singularly interest- 
 ing, and nearly as it was first built. From Prague, after a day 
 spent there, we went by night to Dresden, where we had two days. 
 Here the picture gallery is well arranged, and the pictures very fine. I 
 have seldom seen a nobler collection. The town is very pleasantly 
 situated on the Elbe, with a charming country near it. Then from 
 Dresden we went to Berlin, where we had both been before, but I 
 wanted to look at the picture gallery again. It has a fine collection 
 of pictures, but is abominably planned. Then from Berlin we made 
 our way to Hanover, a nice old town, from which we made an ex- 
 cursion to Hildesheim, which is famous for its cathedral and churches, 
 and thence by night to Cologne, arriving there on Sunday morning, 
 and then on to Brussels, where we dined, and on by night to Lon- 
 don. So you see we lost no time, having been only thirteen days 
 away. We went to a concert at Hanover, and had some good 
 music. At Dresden we heard a poor opera, and at Vienna saw a 
 very elaborate ballet. The music is always extremely good ; and I 
 think I never heard anything so beautiful as the way the band played 
 the overture to Leonora at Hanover. At Berlin also we went to hear 
 Strauss's band play. They confined themselves of course to dance 
 music. 
 
 " I got a great deal of valuable information as to picture galleries, 
 and made the acquaintance of the directors of those at Munich and 
 Dresden, who allowed me to go over every part of them, so that my 
 journey was not fruitless." 
 
 To describe briefly my father's design, the Trafalgar 
 Square front showed a long line of roof, broken only by a 
 
54 MEMOIR OF 
 
 central dome over the entrance hall, with a projecting porch. 
 The angles between the porch and the wings of the south 
 fagade were filled by circular engaged towers, with loggie 
 and dome-capped turrets. The whole front was arcaded 
 with two tiers in each bay, the north-east and south-east 
 angles of the building being treated with great richness and 
 originality. 
 
 Of the great unbroken roof one prominent critic w^as 
 very intolerant, professing that it reminded him of nothing so 
 much as the long roof of a barn ; otherwise the design met 
 with favourable comment at his hands. In strange contra- 
 diction to this strongly expressed opinion, the same gentle- 
 man, in his criticisms on my father's Law Court design, 
 recommended him to study the Cloth Hall at Ypres as a suit- 
 able model for his Strand front. My father's idea was that 
 the Ypres type was more suitable for a building with simple, 
 straightforward uses, like a picture gallery, rather than for 
 one which was to answer all sorts of different purposes, and 
 contain within it a most complicated system of rooms of 
 varied size and character; and common sense assuredly 
 favours his view of the matter. 
 
 The plan was generally well spoken of The Athoneimi 
 said : — 
 
 " Mr. Street has secured perfect communication, easy exit from 
 and entrance to any part of the building without going through all 
 the galleries. These latter are not too large for exhibition purposes. 
 ... It would be hard to find a more beautiful or better adapted 
 work than this." And the Times said that " Mr. Street's plans, so 
 far as they relate to convenience, will commend themselves to 
 common sense." 
 
 The building, as my father proposed it,\v^as to have been en- 
 tirely of stone — externally, and was to have an area of nearly 
 90,000 feet for pictures, at an estimated outlay of i!^3 74,000. 
 It w^as about the cheapest of all the designs sent in, and 
 indeed was calculated to be as cheap agam as the only other 
 Gothic design. The interest in the result of this competition 
 w^as, as I have said, rather languid. It was probably suspected 
 at an early stage that little would be done. Mr. Edward 
 Barry's appointment as architect was notified at the same time 
 
Ill GEORGE EDMUND STREET 55 
 
 as was my father's to the Law Courts. All that was done 
 in his day was to add several new galleries, which, while 
 they are in themselves a great improvement on the little 
 insignificant rooms of which they form the centre, still pre- 
 clude the hope of a radical rearrangement or reconstruc- 
 tion of the whole building, which would have been the most 
 satisfactory course. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The revival of the study and practice of Gothic architecture 
 in this country had been coincidental with a new growth of 
 that devotional spirit which finds its outward expression in 
 the more frequent and more seemly observance of the ser- 
 vices and ordinances of the Church. It was this spirit 
 which had illumined the Middle Ages, which, in times 
 nearer our own, had shone with a less kindly light, and, half 
 a century since, had seemed within a little of being ex- 
 tinguished. The one revival was both a cause and an effect 
 of the other, and their object was practically identical. 
 
 This being so, it was no more than natural that the 
 young men who had thrown themselves with enthusiasm 
 into the one revival — the rising school of Gothic architects 
 — should have been strongly affected by the other. Such 
 was at any rate the case with my father. 
 
 With the view of establishing more firmly the connection 
 between their art and the religion, in the glorification of 
 which it was chiefly concerned, he and others of his own 
 age and temper were, I find, in the year 1848, engaged in 
 the attempt to formulate a scheme which should bring about 
 this result. This took the form of a society or college 
 where students should not only be instructed in religious art 
 by competent masters, — who were themselves to be members 
 of the college, — but should also be under certain religious 
 ordinances and live a life in strict accord with the lofty 
 character of their work. 
 
 In those days when enthusiasm was at its highest, when 
 each man felt, as it were, the fervour of a convert, anything 
 for which the Middle Ages furnished a precedent was likely 
 
cHAiMv MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET 57 
 
 to be welcomed without further recommendation ; and the 
 mediaeval guilds and schools of architects, so far as their 
 nature is known, may be taken to have represented pretty 
 accurately what my father and his associates aimed at doing. 
 The dissimilarity of conditions was, however, such as to make 
 what had been success in the one case almost certain 
 failure in the other. In the first place, what was in the 
 time of the mediaeval architectural guilds practically a trade 
 secret, handed down from one generation to another — the 
 art of design — was necessarily forty years ago no more a 
 secret than it is now, or at most was a secret which patience 
 and intelligence would disclose ; there would have been no 
 possibility of keeping every architect who was engaged in 
 church work in the college or amenable to its rules. Again, 
 there could have been no certainty that the architects outside 
 the pale might not have produced better work than the 
 associates of the society ; and, lastly, as the masters were 
 not likely to be infallible, it might very well have happened 
 that the rules laid down by them, which were to be stringently 
 enforced, and their teaching itself might not have been the 
 best for the attainment of the object in view. These ob- 
 jections and many others were no doubt raised by those of 
 greater age and experience to whom the project was broached. 
 However that may have been, certain it is that the scheme 
 came to nothing, and is only worth mentioning here because 
 it serves to throw into bold relief an all-important feature in 
 my father's artistic life. 
 
 His religion, not an acrid one nor ostentatiously worn, 
 was intimately bound up wdth his work, and exerted a very 
 real and very appreciable influence on its character. It 
 follows naturally that he should have looked for the highest 
 development of his own and the sister arts of painting and 
 sculpture where they were used in the service of religion and 
 the glorification of her truths. 
 
 This was the secret of his love for the men of the Middle 
 Ages and their handiwork. He saw that those glorious 
 monuments, which are the boast of Europe, owe their pure 
 and exalted type of beauty to the devotional and self- 
 obliterating faith of the men who built them ; while in their 
 
58 MEMOIR OF 
 
 creation man's noblest qualities were called into request and 
 developed. 
 
 Work so inspired never failed of being honest, unpre- 
 tentious, and full of a beautiful symbolism ; but as the 
 Church grew more corrupt, so did the arts which were its 
 handmaids. 
 
 My father thought it not too fanciful to see in the pass- 
 ing of the stern and dignified Romanesque into the more 
 delicate and refined Early English, of that again into the 
 growing luxuriance of decorated work, and of that once 
 more into the monotonous uniformity of perpendicular, with 
 its personal conceits and displays of individual whims and 
 cleverness, an accurate reflection of the various stages of 
 corruption through which the Church was passing till a great 
 convulsion of the religious and political world should bring 
 forth the English Reformation. 
 
 It is then against the spirit of self-assertion in his work 
 — mere attempts to display his own powers — that my father 
 would have bid the architect steel his heart. 
 
 " This great truth must be grasped," he said, " that Christian Art 
 is never properly developed except by an essentially Christian in- 
 tention on the part of the artist, as well as on the part of those who 
 employ his talents." And again, "The church architect must 
 thoroughly believe the doctrines of the church for which he builds, 
 and must lead a life of — to say the least — fair conformity to her 
 rules and discipline. He must also be fairly acquainted with her 
 ritual and usages." 
 
 Much of the beauty of old churches is due to the natural 
 habit of man to express himself through symbolism, whether 
 simply in his own person, as in bowing the head or bending 
 the knee, or in a larger way, as in the forms of a building. 
 This symbolism was of two kinds : firstly, that which fol- 
 lowed the general teaching of the Church, and became in 
 time crystallised into a regular system, being always ad- 
 hered to in many features ; and, secondly, the symbolism of 
 the individual, a factor of incalculable value the latter, — in 
 my father's opinion, — and one to which the most strange 
 and piquant beauties of a building are often due. Symbolism 
 gave us first the church shaped in the form of a cross to 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 59 
 
 impress on us the Doctrine of the Atonement. To it we owe 
 the orientation of our churches. The choir, which tends 
 northwards, typifies the inclination of our Lord's head on 
 the Cross, and has a certain architectural value. Churches 
 were built long and narrow in the form of a ship. The 
 chancel was in some degree divided from the nave as a type 
 of the difference between the Church militant on earth and 
 the Church triumphant in heaven. The elevation and orna- 
 mentation of the chancel, its partial separation from the rest 
 of the church, the arrangement of the stalls with their 
 western return, the steps rising to the altar, all came un- 
 deniably from a belief in the doctrine of a real Presence in 
 the Sacrament, and, to use my father's words — 
 
 " Had our churches been mere halls, I cannot think that the 
 revival of religion would have been accomplished with so steady a 
 forward march ; and so if the form of our old churches has saved 
 us from eccentricities of belief in the past, the combination of the 
 same style in new buildings will do the same in the future ; whilst he 
 is no oversanguine man who believes that dissenters, who on all 
 hands nowadays seem to desire to assimilate the architecture of 
 their places of worship to that of our churches and chapels, will in 
 time be led, partly in this way, to that restoration to the Church's 
 fold which all who long for unity so earnestly pray to see." 
 
 Thirty years ago my father wrote : " The English architect of to- 
 day has opportunities as great as those of any of his predecessors, 
 if he will but use them ; but he must use his art as one who re- 
 spects both himself and it. There is no real respect for an art when 
 it is treated, as it always has been by the Renaissance architects 
 and their followers, as a mere affair of display ; no good building was 
 ever yet erected in which the architect designed the front and left 
 the flanks or the internal courts to take care of themselves. So also 
 no good building was ever seen in which the exterior only was 
 thought of, and the internal decoration or design neglected. In such 
 treatment of art as this there is an ingrained falseness which is as 
 demoralising as it is ruinous. If architecture is only an affair of out- 
 side display no one will take any real interest in it ; for, from the first, 
 it is the evidence of the architect's love for his work which has given 
 the human interest which is all in all to it. It is this truthfulness 
 only, in every line and every detail of every part of a building, which 
 can ever make great architecture. It is this only which one would 
 wish to extract from the works of our forefathers." 
 
 It would of course be idle to deny that in every country 
 
6o MEMOIR OF 
 
 shams may be found, put up during the very best period. 
 How many of the great Italian fronts are mere screens, 
 which explain nothing of what is behind them, and, in- 
 deed, suggest what is false ! Lincoln and Ely have their 
 screens ; St. Albans, too, has lately been endowed with 
 one. My father, in laying down the law of truth so 
 strongly, was by no means oblivious to these examples ; 
 but he was, on the contrary, consistent and thoroughgoing 
 in his opinions, and could never bring himself to forgive 
 this unreal and unnatural arrangement even where, as at 
 Lincoln, it is associated with almost the best work we have 
 got. 
 
 This love of truthfulness for its own sake, this sym- 
 pathetic cultivation of the spirit which, in spite of the 
 exceptions noted above, most certainly did animate the 
 mediaeval builders, had doubtless a great and salutary in- 
 fluence on my father's work. It was perhaps to this quality 
 that his buildings owe their kinship with old work, which 
 was closer by far than anything which his predecessors had 
 been able to achieve. He felt — none more strongly — 
 how paramount the beauty of usefulness is, and how much 
 more effective a building is which is marked by a certain 
 dignity and restraint and obviousness of purpose than one 
 which is larded over with unmeaning ornament which 
 gives no emphasis ; where parts which have insignificant 
 uses are promoted to the same degree of prominence, and 
 treated just as elaborately, as others which are of the first 
 importance ; where the grouping of the windows conveys 
 nothing of the internal arrangement : a hall in one wing of 
 a building being balanced by a fagade at the other end, 
 which only serves to mask a group of offices or a number of 
 small rooms ; where, in fine, the architect is visible every- 
 where, controverting the natural laws which should govern 
 design, and intent apparently on putting into the front of a 
 single building a little of all he knows. 
 
 I remember hearing how Sir Gilbert Scott had mistaken 
 a church of my father's for one of the fourteenth century, 
 not from any archaism or inconvenience of plan or arrange- 
 ment, but simply from the presence of that subtle quality 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 6i 
 
 which I have attributed to the spirit which animated him in 
 his work. 
 
 Somewhat akin to his love for truth in building was 
 the consistency with which he worked in one style — a con- 
 sistency which sprang just as much from conviction as did 
 his other quality. Gothic was in his eyes the best of all 
 styles, the most flexible, the most national, — and therefore 
 the best adapted for our climate, — the most richly endowed 
 with the capacity for adopting any and every improvement, 
 and bending itself to satisfy our newest tastes ; and, lastly, 
 the most skilful in its construction. On this head he 
 says : — 
 
 " The pointed arch is not only the most beautiful, but it is at 
 the same time incomparably the most convenient feature in con- 
 struction which has ever been, or, I firmly believe, ever can be 
 invented, and we should not be true artists if we neglected to use 
 it." And again, "The elements of Gothic architecture in the Middle 
 Ages are the adoption of the best princii)les of construction, and a 
 natural and proper treatment of ornamentation without concealment 
 of construction. The accidents are, as it appears to me, the par- 
 ticular character which individual minds may have given to their 
 work — the savageness or grotesqueness, as it has been called, which 
 is mainly to be seen in the elaboration of some particular feature by 
 some particular sculptor or architect, of which, in the noblest work, 
 one sees no trace." 
 
 Here, then, was a style which was, to him, at once the 
 most beautiful both absolutely and also as being the most 
 useful. To have worked in another would have been dis- 
 tasteful to him, and would have constituted to his mind a 
 dereliction of duty. 
 
 Sir Gilbert Scott bore witness to the general sentiment 
 when he said, in presenting to my father the gold medal 
 of the Institute of Architects : — 
 
 " I will rather dwell on the moral side of Mr. Street's artistic 
 character ; his steady pertinacity in following on the great move- 
 ment to which he from the first attached himself. I will not say 
 that he has been wholly unmoved by the passing fluctuations of 
 taste which ever and anon float over us : that would be to convert 
 steadfastness into dull immobility ; but he has adhered to the great 
 revival, and that in its best form — the revival of the earlier and more 
 
62 MEMOIR OF 
 
 perfect type of mediaeval art. ... I envy and revere this unbending 
 steadfastness, and earnestly wish that it may prevail." 
 
 These qualities — truthfulness, abnegation of self, consist- 
 ency — should, in my father's view, animate at least every 
 church architect ; in a word, the man who works in a high 
 cause should be actuated by high and Christian motives. 
 It should be for honest conviction to determine the choice 
 of style in the first instance, and that choice once made, no 
 promptings of personal interest should avail to turn the 
 steps of the conscientious architect into strange paths. 
 
 An architect, be he, religiously speaking, ever so callous, 
 or ever so indifferent to particular forms of worship, must at 
 the same time, to take the lowest grounds, feel a certain 
 interest in the proper planning, and even in the proper use 
 of a church, for a wrong or inadequate use of it stultifies 
 the plan and its maker ; but for the church architect in the 
 real sense of the word, as my father was — the man who has 
 the welfare of the church for which he builds near his heart, 
 whose truths he has the power to emphasise by skill in 
 arrangement — for him the whole planning of a church must 
 ever be a work fraught with deep interest, the subject of 
 deep thought ; while, at least in my father's case, the whole 
 use of the church, its power to promote and foster belief, its 
 availability for rich and poor alike, the due and fitting 
 performance of its ritual and ceremonials, were all the 
 subject of anxious consideration and the text of many a 
 speech and paper. On this point he asks : — 
 
 " How far are architects bound to go in their attempt to com- 
 bine their art with a religious object and intention ? It is certain 
 that if all church architects would firmly refuse to plan churches 
 except on certain conditions as to arrangement, and if again they 
 would endeavour to understand the real uses and objects of churches 
 and their arrangements, we should have far less to deplore at the pre- 
 sent day than we have. I say, and I say positively, that the influence 
 of some men at the present time might enable them to secure invari- 
 ably in the churches which they build such arrangements of the 
 interior as would make it difficult, if not impossible, for people long 
 to ignore those truths which the building is intended to teach." 
 
 Much is required of the architect, but there is another 
 thing necessary even when he has done his work well, 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 63 
 
 that the well-planned and well-designed church should be 
 well used. My father continues : — 
 
 " What is to be said of those whose office it is to use churches ? 
 I speak now alike of priest and people. Nothing can be more dis- 
 heartening than to see the building on which one has spent all 
 one's zeal and art misused or half- used. The architect who 
 connects religion with architecture dreams to himself of church 
 doors open day after day and all day, of altars properly and rever- 
 ently decked, etc." 
 
 My father's interest perhaps was most strong in the use 
 of our cathedrals — the mother churches of our dioceses, 
 which, rightly, should be a pattern for all the daughter 
 churches, leading the zealous, encouraging the timid, awaken- 
 ing the slothful. The mother church, as it is in all like- 
 lihood the most beautiful in form of all the churches in the 
 diocese, and the richest in capabilities for good arrangement, 
 should similarly excel them in the perfection of its ritual 
 and the completeness of its ceremonial. 
 
 He compared, and the comparison could not be a 
 flattering one, the state of our cathedrals a ^ew years since, 
 their use, and the number of ministers and canons engaged 
 in carrying on the work of the services, with what had 
 obtained in early times and in post-Reformation days, for 
 even at the Reformation the old rules were not relaxed. 
 Cranmer proposed that in every cathedral provision should 
 be made for readers or lecturers in divinity as well as in 
 Greek and Hebrew ! that a large number of students should 
 be exercised in the daily worship of God, and trained in a 
 course of study and devotion, whom the bishop might trans- 
 plant out of this nursery into all parts of the diocese. It 
 was the recollection of such facts as these which made 
 my father and others of a like mind feel with how just 
 a censure the cathedral commissioners had said in 1854: 
 " We desire to draw attention to the fact that a great part 
 of the fabrics of our cathedrals is at present unused for 
 public worship." There were, it appears, at that time 
 seventeen cathedrals where the Holy Eucharist was only 
 celebrated monthly, in twelve others it was held weekly, and 
 not in a single one daily. One cathedral, Ripon, had only 
 
64 MEMOIR OF 
 
 one service a day. The number of ministers had dwindled 
 in proportion to the services ; instead of the great establish- 
 ments of the Middle Ages, when it was possible to satisfy 
 the needs of one large congregation after another, there 
 were few resident canons, — in some places all residing in 
 one house, — the services, as we have seen, had nearly ceased, 
 and the congregations had dwindled even more sadly. In 
 fact, the cathedral had become — as my father said with strict 
 justice — for people generally little more than a museum of 
 antiquities, wherein, in some places, was provided an enjoy- 
 able sacred concert on Sunday afternoons. 
 
 What my father earnestly desired to see in our cathe- 
 drals was a reversion to something of the old grandeur of 
 ceremonial. He cordially agreed with Bishop Hamilton, 
 when the latter said : — 
 
 "The giving of greater musical powers to the choir seems to me 
 so essential to the realising the primary object of our foundation 
 that I could even strongly recommend that one of the four existing 
 canonries should be suppressed, and its share of the corporate 
 property appropriated to the improvement of the stipends of the 
 present lay-vicars, and the increase of their members, if funds cannot 
 be obtained for this object without such a sacrifice." 
 
 His wish was to see a service of a more stately and 
 dignified character, such as should impress and rivet the 
 attention of an indifferent people ; further, he held it to be 
 all-important to elevate the Holy Communion again into the 
 great office which it still was theoretically, but had long 
 ceased to be in fact, celebrating it not only in the chilly 
 hours of early morning, but also at the later service, with 
 choral accompaniment of an appropriate character. 
 
 The use to which our cathedral choirs had generally 
 been put, choked up with chairs facing now north, now 
 south, now west, like an ill -arranged auditorium, offered, 
 and indeed offers now in some places, the first obstacle to 
 a proper use of the church, and to such a state of things my 
 father would have had a stop put instantly and peremptorily, 
 while he would have had the choir divided from the body of 
 the church by the lightest open screens, so that a large con- 
 gregation in the nave might have participated in the service 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 65 
 
 in a real way. On the point of ancient close screens, he 
 even went so far as to affirm that he would favour their 
 absolute removal to some other part of the church, in the 
 last resort, if they proved to be an insuperable bar to a 
 satisfactory congregational arrangement. Here are his own 
 words : — 
 
 " Here I would say that though I should always regret having 
 to remove any old screen, I am painfully conscious that by insisting 
 on its retention, together with the present use of choirs, I should 
 not be doing a really conservative work. For it cannot be denied 
 that the choirs suffer much more in effect by the introduction of 
 additional seats and pews, than they could suffer by the removal of 
 the choir screens, if this be accompanied by the removal of the 
 additional seats." 
 
 My father felt that the use of the choir and nave con- 
 jointly very frequently offered difficulties of a real kind, 
 because the choir had been built for a monastic or semi- 
 monastic use ; but even putting aside the use of the two 
 parts of the church conjointly, he still felt that a satisfactory 
 solution of the difficulty might nearly always be found with- 
 out any great trouble. In some cases the right way to go 
 to work seemed quite obvious. It will be seen later how he 
 proposed to treat St. Paul's, and our other great London 
 Church seemed to him adaptable to the needs of a large 
 congregation with the least possible alteration. His sugges- 
 tion for dealing with the Abbey was that the choir should 
 simply be shifted up to the crossing, thus at one stroke 
 enabling the entire congregation in the transepts to hear 
 and see in a satisfactory way, instead of being encouraged 
 to be indifferent and disrespectful, as they may almost be said 
 to be by the present strangely mistaken arrangement. As 
 a general rule, at any rate wherever an ancient close screen 
 was to be preserved, my father would have proposed treating 
 the choir almost in the light of a morning chapel — using it, 
 that is, for all services which were wont to attract only a 
 moderate congregation, whereas all the more important func- 
 tions, and those which it might be hoped would be attended 
 by throngs of people, would have been held in the nave. 
 These nave services, however, which, rightly conducted, 
 
 F 
 
66 MEMOIR OF 
 
 should have a certain magnificence and impressiveness, 
 were, it is needless to say, in my father's view, to have 
 nothing mean or temporary about them. The stalls for 
 the choir he would have had of a permanent character, and 
 sufficiently sumptuous ; while, as a matter of course, there 
 would have been a second altar, not treated, as our altars 
 were, in a cheap and unimpressive way, for in this respect 
 we might have sat at the feet of even the Lutherans with 
 advantage to ourselves, but elevated and enriched so as to 
 be obviously tJie important feature, and even rendered more 
 conspicuous by a canopy or baldachin. At the same time 
 the eastern altar, which has very generally been shifted down 
 west of its original position, would have been restored to its 
 old place. 
 
 Thus would the church have been restored as nearly as 
 might be to its early uses, for, as my father pointed out, its 
 functions to-day are very much those of one of the great 
 religious houses ; at one time it has to reach the hearts of 
 thousands, at another to satisfy the needs of the two or 
 three faithful who daily approach the altar. 
 
 A last suggestion he made, more especially with refer- 
 ence to impressiveness of ceremonial, and that was as to the 
 use of the aisles. These were never meant by their builders 
 to be anything more than passages — procession paths — and 
 are not fitted for congregational purposes. Why, then, he 
 asked, should we not turn them to their original use ? for 
 stateliness and richness both of ceremonial and structure, so 
 that there be nothing meretricious, are important factors in 
 attuning the mind to the contemplation of higher things — a 
 consideration which, so far as the services are concerned, is 
 too much ignored in our cathedrals. Had my father been 
 asked for a model, worthy of imitation in all points both of 
 structure and ceremonial, he would have pointed unhesitat- 
 ingly to those Puritans of the Middle Ages — the order of 
 Cistercians. What he felt so strongly of the use of the 
 mother, he naturally felt also in regard to the daughter 
 churches, though here there were fewer cobwebs to sweep 
 away. At All Saints, Margaret Street, where he was for 
 many years one of the most influential and energetic mem- 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 67 
 
 bers of the congregation, we have seen how heartily he co- 
 operated with Mr. Upton Richards in the introduction of 
 vestments at Holy Communion — a step which he warmly 
 applauded as giving practical effect to what he was always 
 preaching, viz. " That in the direction of ornament we should 
 put a liberal interpretation on the Prayer-Book," and one 
 which, having a legal sanction, he could, as an earnest and 
 devoted son of the Church of England, conscientiously take. 
 " I am," he says about the same time, " I suppose, what you 
 call a Ritualist, for I belong to the party which for twenty 
 years has been striving with no small success to raise the 
 whole tone of Church opinion and practice both in archi- 
 tecture, music, ritual, and doctrine. Every one knows how 
 much the tone has been raised not only among churchmen, 
 but even more remarkably among dissenters." 
 
 A High Churchman essentially he was of the best type ; 
 one who thought that no effort should be spared to make 
 the services of the Church a real act of worship, but who, 
 in his own person, abstained from that extremity of prostra- 
 tion and genuflection which, with all its sincerity of purpose, 
 yet seems, and it did so to him, to make the worshipper 
 conspicuous rather than to reflect honour on the object of 
 his worship. 
 
 At All Saints my father, as I have said, was able as 
 churchwarden to carry out to the fullest extent what were, 
 so far as the formation of a congregation is concerned, his 
 leading principles. Firstly, that the Church of England 
 belongs to all classes of the community equally ; and secondly, 
 that the Church belongs as much to the man as to the 
 woman, and that punctual attendance on her services is as 
 incumbent on the one as on the other. 
 
 As regards free seats, I cannot express better what he 
 felt than by quoting a letter on the subject, written some 
 five and twenty years ago, in which he combines his experi- 
 ences with certain suggestions : — 
 
 "As it happens, few men have so many opportunities as I of 
 learning what is the real feeling of people in regard to free churches, 
 and I am certain that, great as have been the changes which we 
 have witnessed in Church matters during the last few years, none 
 
68 MEMOIR OF 
 
 has been more obvious than the way in which educated men regard 
 their right to the appropriation of seats in churches. In church 
 building and restoration, where one used to have twenty obstinate 
 parishioners to convert, there is now only one to convince, and it 
 has become a common thing to find tradesmen and formers zealous 
 in approval, who till a few years ago would have been earnest in 
 their opposition. The experience of those who really know the 
 working of our town churches is entirely opposed to the conclusion 
 which you draw from an erroneous report of a sermon preached last 
 year by the incumbent of All Saints, Margaret Street. The people 
 in that parish have no difficulty in getting seats in their church ; it 
 is but a slight hardship for them that, in return for a noble church 
 (built without cost to them) and frequent and beautiful services, 
 they must be in their places, for one or two of the Sunday services, 
 some ten or fifteen minutes before the service begins. This is the 
 entire extent of the grievance invented for them by others. On the 
 other hand, if you knew the class which really fills such a church to 
 overflowing, you would find that it consists very largely of people 
 who seem to be unthought of and uncared for by those who argue 
 for the appropriation of pews — all that large class of decently-dressed, 
 well-behaved, but poor people, our domestic servants, our clerks, our 
 shopmen and shopwomen, sempstresses, and the like. 
 
 " For many years I have had most practical evidence of the 
 enormous benefits which free churches confer on those classes, and 
 of the fruits which the Church is reaping in London, in the enthusi- 
 astic attachment to her services on the part of those who, under the 
 old system, were undoubtedly repelled from her ranks. How could 
 it have been otherwise ? Did it often or ever happen that the pro- 
 prietors of those great London shops, which count their assistants 
 by the score or the hundred, secured pews for their use ? And was 
 it likely that in default they — the assistants — would go, save in rare 
 instances, into any of those bare, dreary, and markedly inferior seats 
 which, in small proportions and bad positions, were ticketed ' free ' ? 
 The thing was so unlikely that one's only surprise is that it should 
 have been possible to allow the system so long a life as it has 
 had. 
 
 " It is to beg the whole question to say that the admission of 
 the poor is the exclusion of the rich from the churches which they 
 have built. If the crowds which throng a free church are so great, 
 then clearly the way to meet the difficulty is to multiply the services. 
 The additional services might easily be made to pay their expenses ; 
 while those who have most attentively watched the change in men's 
 views on this question are satisfied that there is no reason for the 
 way in which we confine our services to the same hours everywhere, 
 and that, if crowds of worshippers come to church, they will come 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 69 
 
 as well at ten o'clock as at eleven o'clock, and so make it possible 
 to repeat the morning service to a second congregation. 
 
 " Nothing amazes me more than the waste of money which is 
 involved by our system of appropriation of seats. If you appropriate, 
 you make it useless for the clergyman to give more services in the 
 day than one devout man can endure ; and so our bishop has to 
 draw a startling picture of spiritual destitution in regard to the 
 structural provision for worshippers, which is to a large extent the 
 result not of lack of buildings, but of lack of common sense in our 
 way of using them." 
 
 This letter is of course rather out of date nowadays ; 
 many of its suggestions have been followed, and in churches 
 where the seats are appropriated at the principal Sunday 
 services, provision is frequently made by services at half-past 
 nine or ten for those who are not seatholders ; but at the 
 time my father wrote, no such arrangement for the con- 
 venience of the poorer classes was known, and what had 
 been done in that direction was due to the exertions of a 
 small body of energetic workers like himself 
 
 Even in a church Hke All Saints, which belonged so 
 completely to the new order of things, my father found 
 much to do. I have already spoken of the way in which 
 he insisted on making the church free and open in fact as 
 well as in name, not allowing one single pew to prove the 
 rule by the exception, and putting a stop to the usurpation 
 of men's seats by the other sex. Many years after, in his 
 own church, he was able to carry out the same principle 
 of absolute freedom of seats in the most complete way. 
 There the church is a leveller of classes, as it should be, and 
 serves to throw at least one plank over the gulf which sepa- 
 rates rich from poor. 
 
 After his death the Free and Open Church Advocate 
 bore testimony to his work in that cause in those words : — 
 
 " He was an earnest churchman and an ardent friend of our 
 own cause, he worked both as actual warden of one free church, 
 founder of another, and vindicator of all by tongue and pen. In 
 1872 he rendered valuable service to the cause by the tact and 
 decision with which he helped to bring about the union of the 
 (then two) ' London Councils,' and he was only constrained by the 
 pressure of his many duties to resign the office of treasurer in 
 1874. 
 
70 MEMOIR OF 
 
 As a counsellor and ally, he was always ready, and in both 
 characters his genius and high authority gave a value to his co- 
 operation which we recall with gratitude." 
 
 Perhaps, if there is one sign more than another which is 
 suggestive of the changes which have taken place in the last 
 half-century, it is to be found in the treatment of our altars, 
 and the special character of such part of the service as takes 
 place before them. The altar and the office of Holy Com- 
 munion are nowadays recognised as the sign and seal of the 
 personal nearness of God to us, and the altar, as being the 
 visible token of His presence, has been re-elevated to the 
 place of honour which once belonged to it, but had been 
 gradually usurped by the pulpit. 
 
 It is probably true that where five people listened to a 
 sermon a couple of score of years ago fifty do so now. The 
 sermon has ceased to be a discourse or a mere piece of read- 
 ing aloud. It is often vivid and heart-stirring : it deals 
 with points of doctrine, it grapples with the needs and 
 questions of the hour, but in spite of this, the pulpit has 
 sunk, and rightly, and the altar has risen. 
 
 Where can we find to-day what twenty years since was 
 common enough, what might have been seen within the last 
 five years, that concentric arrangement of seats in the form 
 of an auditorium all looking to and converging on the 
 imposing three-decker ? or where is that mean and pitiful 
 altar to be found which Pugin illustrates, with no exaggera- 
 tion, in his book of Contrasts ? It belongs to an era which 
 is happily almost forgotten now ; but such was not the case 
 when my father was a young man. Much still remained to 
 be done, and among the willing hearts and hands which 
 laboured in the cause none did so more abundantly than his. 
 
 The very excellence of the frontals with which our 
 altars are now generally vested, and of the dossal hangings 
 which serve to make their surroundings rich, must, in some 
 measure, be put down to my father's own individual work. 
 From the very commencement of his career as an architect, 
 or a student of architecture, he had taken a special interest 
 in old church embroidery work, and had devoted himself 
 with a remarkable success to designing embroidery patterns, 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 71 
 
 aided greatly at first by the exertions of his sister, whose 
 skill in reproducing his designs was well known, and did 
 much to make them appreciated. Besides advocating 
 strongly the enrichment of the altar itself, my father held it 
 to be a sine qua non that it should be raised well above 
 the body of the church — an arrangement which is at once 
 valuable architecturally, and makes the altar a conspicuous 
 object. This he did by raising it not on one great flight 
 of steps, such as that at St. Leonard, Hythe, but on a 
 succession of pairs or single steps (called by TJie Record " a 
 series of terraces ") ; the effect of the latter arrangement 
 being that the appearance of a convex ascent is obtained, 
 whereas one great flight, though in theory it is more 
 magnificent, in practice tends to look concave and weak. 
 
 There is, however, one crowning glory of the altar — 
 using the epithet in its fullest sense — which, familiar as it 
 is to the student of Italy, still has its footing to make 
 good here. I allude of course to the baldachin or canopy. 
 In speaking of my father's views on the right treatment of 
 St. Paul's, I shall have something further to say on the 
 subject, because he proposed there to carry out Sir Chris- 
 topher Wren's known views in that respect. I merely quote 
 now a letter written on the subject in 1873, in which he 
 gives his reasons for his predilections. The letter, I should 
 say, was specially directed against a suggestion which had 
 been thrown out in the case of St. Barnabas that a bal- 
 dachin was not suitable for a square- ended church. He 
 writes : — 
 
 " If people are so senseless as to condemn a thing on account 
 of its name, without knowing what it is they are protesting against, 
 I fear no appeal to common sense will be of much avail. . . . The 
 question as to whether there is a sufficiency of space for a canopied 
 altar in the small sanctuary of St. Barnabas is one which depends 
 for its answer on the size of the proposed erection. If it were a 
 large, heavy erection at all like the Renaissance examples, it might 
 well be too big and clumsy for such a church. If, on the other 
 hand, it were to be a delicate and elegant canopy, such as those in 
 the churches of Santa Maria in Cosmedin and Santa Cecilia at Rome, 
 I deny altogether that the chancel of St. Barnabas is at all too 
 small for it. If part of the scheme were the erection of an altar ot 
 
72 MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 exaggerated length, an exaggerated canopy might have followed. 
 But as this is no part of the scheme, and as a canopy or baldachin 
 may be very delicate in its treatment and moderate in its dimensions, 
 I entirely dissent from broad and positive assertion to the contrary. 
 I dissent also from the assertion of a necessary connection of a bal- 
 dachin with an apse. Your correspondent can think of nothing 
 but the earliest treatment of an apse, and describes the planning 
 of almost every apse built in Europe since a.d. 1250 as 'the 
 modern false way ' in which architects treat such forms ; and he 
 goes on to allow that unless the earliest use of an apse, with seats 
 for bishop and clergy round it behind the altar, can be revived, he 
 sees no reason for attempting to revive the ' real ' apse, and with it 
 the canopy over the altar. It will be quite sufficient for my purpose 
 to show that mediaeval architects saw no such difficulty as your 
 correspondent (embarrassed by arch?eological recollections) assumes, 
 in placing a baldachin somewhere else than in the centre of the 
 apse. In Italy, where the apse was used by the clergy, the altar 
 and baldachin were of necessity advanced into the choir ; and the 
 examples of San Lorenzo, Rome (a square-ended church, by the 
 way), Toscanella, Grado, St. Ambrogio (Milan), and St. Mark's 
 (Venice), are all good illustrations of the practice. But in the last- 
 mentioned church one of the most exquisite features is certainly the 
 small baldachin placed against one of the piers on the north side 
 in happy defiance of your correspondent's rule. If we leave Italy 
 and come to countries where the Italian use of the apse did not 
 obtain, we shall find that the ' rule ' was not obeyed. In the 
 fine cathedral at Regensburg, for instance, there are some very 
 beautifully- designed Gothic baldachins standing close to the side 
 walls of the aisles, and perfectly suitable, therefore, to a square- 
 ended chancel. Equally to the point is the charmingly-designed 
 baldachin against a side wall of the Liebfrau Kirche at Eslingen, 
 and an almost equally strong case is that of the famous canopy over 
 the altar in the ' false apse ' of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. Your 
 correspondent has properly said that baldachins are commonly 
 allowed over other features (other than altars, that is) and in other 
 materials. The old velvet tester over the altar in San Juan de los 
 Reyes at Toledo is an almost unique mediaeval example of such a 
 feature, and this is in a square -ended church. The old canopy 
 over the font at Luton, which I had the pleasure of restoring to 
 its proper place some years ago, is the finest example of a baldachin 
 over a font ; but I need hardly say that there are others, as e.g. in 
 the church of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, and what else is the 
 galled canopy over a high tomb but a baldachin, and who can 
 pretend to object to such a feature as that, on architectural grounds, 
 in an English church ? 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 " To me the whole question seems a purely architectural one. 
 Can a canopy over an altar be constructed without damage to the 
 character of a Gothic church ? To this I should unhesitatingly say 
 ' Yes,' and I should maintain also that the scale of the church had 
 but little to do wath the question. 
 
 " If, however, it is to be regarded from the religious side, I 
 would ask whether the Church which can tolerate and admire the 
 rich and gorgeous reredoses now so common, is not straining at a 
 gnat and swallowing a camel, if it accepts them and refuses the 
 baldachin, whose whole character is of necessity simple and com- 
 paratively unadorned ? Loving hands are allowed to decorate our 
 altars, in happy antagonism to the old spirit of carelessness which 
 left them dirty, neglected, and repulsive in their appearance ; and it 
 is sad that, while the carelessness is too often more than tolerated 
 in high places, only too great readiness is shown to thwart its reform 
 when, as in this case, it is possible to make capital out of the use of 
 a word which to most people, even to those of fair education, is so 
 meaningless, as the terrible word ' baldacchino.' 
 
 " Were there less prejudice to contend with, I should say that 
 many of our square-ended churches would be more satisfactorily 
 treated if their altars were under canopies than if they were adorned 
 in any other way. I have myself had the satisfaction of restoring 
 to its old use, with the bishop's consent, an altar under a wooden 
 tester under an arch on the north side of the nave of Burford Church, 
 Oxfordshire. This is really a baldacchino supported on oak posts, 
 almost every part of it being old. And every one who has looked 
 closely into the question knows that in very many square-ended 
 chancels or choirs in England the altar w^as never intended to be 
 put against the east wall. Carlisle Cathedral is a good example of 
 this, and Ripon was until the recent unfortunately destructive altera- 
 tion of its choir arrangements. Furness Abbey, Arundel Church, 
 Stone Church, and Warfield Church, Berks, are other examples, and 
 all of them are square-ended, without chapels to the east of the 
 choir. And in my judgment it would not unfrequently cause less 
 interference with old work behind the altar to erect such a canopy 
 as I propose for St. Barnabas than it would to erect the usual 
 reredos. It is self-contained, does not necessarily touch or interfere 
 with the w^all, and consequently never need conceal any old feature — 
 aumbry, arcade, or whatever it may be. 
 
 " As to the comparative innocence in the eyes of a suspicious or 
 extreme Protestant of a baldachin founded on any old model, and a 
 reredos, such as has been erected in churches and cathedrals with- 
 out end with full legal and episcopal consent, I cannot conceive of 
 a question being raised. The one is of necessity confined in the 
 scope it affords for decoration, is pure and simple in its form, and 
 
74 MEMOIR OF 
 
 has little, if any, space for colour or sculpture. The latter may be, 
 and often is, gorgeous in colour, covered with sculpture which, to 
 some eyes, is more or less objectionable, and altogether much more 
 demonstrative. A man may object to the latter, because he thinks 
 it may be attended with some risk of image-worship ; but I conceive 
 if he objects to the former, he may just as well object to the canopy 
 over the font, the canopy over the bishop or over the preacher, and, 
 finally, to the dome of St. Paul's itself, which (as has been well 
 pointed out) is in itself the supreme example of a baldachin." 
 
 The extent to which the subdivision of our parishes is 
 carried, and its consequences to our buildings, was a matter 
 of regret to my father. 
 
 It is well to keep always in view the strong moral effect 
 which is produced, even on the unimpressionable, by a great 
 interior, such as we might have if we were content to have 
 one great building instead of several of lesser size. It is a 
 feeling with which we are all familiar, that sense of awe 
 which a noble church inspires. It probably does as much 
 for the average man or woman as any service, however 
 solemn or touching. ]\Ir. R. L. Stevenson, in one of his 
 delightful records of a holiday ramble, says : — 
 
 " I could never fathom how a man dares to lift up his voice to 
 preach in a cathedral, ^^'hat is he to say that will not be an anti- 
 climax ? For though I have heard a considerable variety of ser- 
 mons, I never yet heard one that was so expressive as a cathedral. 
 'Tis the best preacher itself, and preaches day and night ; not only 
 telling you of man's art and aspirations in the past, but convincing 
 your own soul of ardent sympathies, or rather, like all good preachers, 
 it sets you preaching to yourself, and every man is his own doctor 
 of divinity in the last resort." 
 
 My father himself, treating the subject from a different 
 point of view, writes : — 
 
 " Who among preachers can hope to preach as the gifted artist 
 does ? It is not only that the sermons are in stones or on walls or 
 canvas, but that they are read and believed by generation after 
 generation of the faithful. The greatest orator has no thought so 
 comforting as this. How short is the popularity and how fleeting 
 the influence of all but the very greatest among us. The preacher 
 may feel well rewarded if his greatest effort save one soul." 
 
 The great church, again, is not only impressive in itself, 
 
IV GEORGE EDMUND STREET 75 
 
 but it is also accompanied by a corresponding dignity in the 
 services. Concentration of the mere bricks and mortar will 
 involve concentration in ever)'thing else connected with the 
 church. Each building could in such a case be served by a 
 much more considerable staff of clergy than is ever found at 
 present. Services could then be multiplied to suit all classes 
 and accommodate any numbers, and the very numbers of 
 the ministry would give that possibility of variety, especially 
 in the matter of sermons, which is always grateful to human 
 nature. In the earlier days of the Revival, the great mistake 
 was made of building town churches not deficient in scale 
 only, but, so far as any peculiar fitness or accordance with 
 their surroundings was concerned, churches which might simply 
 have been transferred from some quiet country village. The 
 form was picturesque rather than dignified, and the material 
 rough in character and rustic in appearance. My father took 
 the greatest exception to such a misuse and misplacing of 
 material. 
 
 "It is a shame and a misery indeed," he said, "that it should 
 ever have been possible in such a city as London for architects to 
 attempt to execute copies of countr)' work. Had there only been 
 fair Christian liberality, we should, instead of Kentish rag, have had 
 hewn ashlar, and for plaster, gorgeous fresco or marble." And 
 again : " I maintain that most of our churches are guilty of very 
 flagrant unreality in their use of unsuitable, inconvenient, and (under 
 the circumstances of London buildings) unsightly materials, and 
 such as none of us would wish to use in any other kind of building. 
 . . . Where man abounds, there his work should be made most of, 
 and any affectation of rusticity, whether in material, design, or exe- 
 cution, be most carefully avoided." 
 
 These designs, in which nothing beyond prettiness was 
 aimed at, ran counter to all my father's strongest convictions 
 as to the proper form of a town church, and the effect which 
 it should produce. He saw that in the country a simplicity 
 which is in harmony with Nature should be aimed at, and 
 could hardly fail of being effective in its own way ; but the 
 conditions in a town are as unlike as possible, and the town 
 church should be strong and simple in its lines, made up of 
 few parts, and those, if possible, large ; it should also be 
 symmetrical in its massing. In the town, the forces which 
 
76 MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET chap, iv 
 
 it is the function of the Church to combat and counteract 
 have their own magnificence of a kind, and, to be met at 
 all adequately, must be met somewhat on their own ground. 
 
 Those who relied on a mere rustic picturesqueness of 
 general effect showed, to my father's mind, not merely a 
 want of appreciation of what the special surroundings of a 
 large town call for, but failed at the same time to supply 
 to those who enter the church door that stimulus towards 
 higher things which a noble architecture may be made to 
 give. 
 
 Going more into detail, my father would have said : " If 
 possible, build a tower or a tower and spire." Norwich alone 
 is enough to show one how noble a feature a tower in a town 
 may be, while, if a spire be added, it should not rely on 
 simple broaches, but should at least have a parapet of some 
 richness, if not pinnacles. That a spire might, however, be 
 made effective without these adjuncts, if cleverly treated, is 
 sufficiently clear from the successful example of All Saints, 
 Margaret Street, and my father's own beautiful work at St. 
 Mary Magdalen, Paddington ; still, a man who had spent 
 his earlier years under the shadow of St. Mary's, Oxford, 
 would naturally feel a predilection for the more ornate type 
 so perfectly illustrated there. 
 
 It is interesting to find that m}- father, in comparing the 
 merits of various important town churches, was inclined to 
 put the tower of St. Dunstan's, and still more that of Wren's 
 church of St. Michael's, Cornhill, above most later examples, 
 much though there was in their detail with which he could 
 feel no sympathy. For Wren's work, however, Goth though 
 he was, he always had a cordial admiration and respect. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 I HAVE already said that my father claimed for Gothic a 
 power of adapting itself to modern uses unsurpassed by any 
 other style, for there seemed to him to be no forms of archi- 
 tecture which leave the hands of the designer so practically 
 free and untrammelled to use or to put aside. " It is not," 
 he said, " necessary to have uniformity to the sacrifice of 
 convenience, but it is possible to have uniformity when it is 
 desirable." To those admirers of classic who twit their 
 Gothic brethren with practising a style which loves irregu- 
 larity for itself, my father would have answered by pointing 
 to the endless succession of similar compartments in the 
 arcades of Exeter, or Wells, or York, or to the magnificent 
 uniformity of the front of the Cloth Hall at Ypres. The 
 widespread notion that Gothic is a style which is like a 
 mummy, and must be taken exactly as it is, for fear it 
 should crumble away before the eyes of the man who would 
 lay a finger on it, was combated in the pamphlet which he 
 issued in explanation of his design for the Foreign and War 
 Office. In this, ridiculous as his task seemed to him, he 
 had gravely to argue that it is not true that Gothic forms 
 will allow nothing but narrow slits, high above the floor, for 
 the admission of light, or that the arrangements for glazing 
 are bound to be of the most primitive character, that, in a 
 word, nothing which was not known in the thirteenth century 
 can be accepted now. 
 
 The use of Gothic forms may indeed be readily and in- 
 definitely extended, and, if that is so, then no less may the 
 form itself be amended or modified. This was my father's 
 view, for he held, and held most strongly, that Gothic as it 
 
78 MEMOIR OF 
 
 was laid aside and as we took it up had not necessarily- 
 reached the limits of its possibilities in the spheres of useful- 
 ness or beauty ; but that, far from having been fossilised into 
 one unalterable form by the lapse of years, it had really been 
 rather in a state of suspended animation, and offered itself 
 to skilful handling rather as a model in clay than one hewn 
 out of a block of granite. 
 
 He saw that Gothic as it is found in every part of Europe, 
 different as are its forms, is but the development under 
 different conditions and among varying tastes of the style of 
 the pointed arch. This being so, are we, he asked, bound 
 absolutely to adhere without any modification to the particular 
 style of our own country, or to any one particular style ? or 
 ought we not rather to consider first of all how far the differ- 
 ences, to take one example, between the Gothic of England 
 and that of Italy are the result of accident, and how far of 
 necessity, and whether we may not perchance get some useful 
 hint, or be put on the track of some useful principle, by the 
 study of such features as are really due to accident, and not 
 dictated by the peculiar conditions of climate ? He held 
 the opinion, it may seem paradoxical at first, that the differ- 
 ences in development due to the conditions and surroundings 
 among which any particular style grew, are after all of a minor 
 kind, such, for example, as the variation in the roof-pitch, in the 
 depth of mouldings, in the use of materials and colour ; while 
 the more important features in Italian Gothic, or in German or 
 Spanish, might just as well have had their birth and growth 
 on English soil and under English skies. 
 
 What more natural, then, such being his opinion, than 
 that he should have turned to the continental styles with an 
 idea of seeing whether they offered any hope of supplementing 
 deficiencies in our own national branch of the universal style ? 
 Nor did he even stop at Gothic, for no architect, however 
 strongly he may be prepossessed in favour of mediaeval work 
 as being more suited to our needs, can wilfully shut his eyes to 
 the merits of the masterpieces of Greek art, and my father had 
 no suspicion of bigotry in his honest preference. To Greece, 
 then, he turned for enlightenment and instruction. There 
 he found much which, as belonging exclusively to the 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 79 
 
 architecture which had not yet learnt the use of the arch, 
 was quite useless to him. The Greek column, standing 
 passively under a direct weight, is naturally very different in 
 form from the column which supports an arch. The fixity of 
 the one is shown by the way in which it spreads to its base ; 
 the other is only a part of one continuous growth : it carries 
 and spreads itself into that arched form which is truly said 
 never to sleep. Sometimes the arch mouldings are gathered 
 on to the cap and run down to the base in a different form ; 
 at other times they run down without, or almost without, a 
 break. 
 
 The Greek column, or any other which supports a 
 dead weight, is, in consequence of it, monolithic in character, 
 while that which bears a weight which is always straining is 
 built in the form of masonry. Though my father found 
 nothing in the column itself which could be of any possible 
 use, on raising his eye a little he became aware of the 
 presence of a quality, the want of which he ahva}'s held to be 
 a distinct failing in our own Gothic, — and in French no less, 
 — going far to mar even the finest work, the quality of 
 horizontality. Now if Gothic errs in its want of accentua- 
 tion of the horizontal line, Greek work, with its heavy cornice, 
 which frustrates any attempt at getting a vertical effect, may 
 be said to err in the other direction. Still my father felt 
 that it taught a valuable lesson in spite of the exaggeration, 
 or even by reason of it, for there is in these buildings a 
 magnificent spirit of repose, which should affect all who are 
 not afraid to learn a truth from an alien style. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, to go so far back as Greek 
 work for a proof of the value of the horizontal line, for 
 Italian Gothic, if it teaches us anything, must teach us this : 
 there indeed the effect is produced almost invariably by colour 
 and not by shadow ; but the result is really identical, and 
 most worthy of imitation. 
 
 In our own country, even so near home as Westminster 
 Abbey, as my father noticed, there are a good many 
 examples of work in two different-coloured stones, which is 
 perhaps none the less beautiful for not being so strongly 
 contrasted, as is frequently the case in Italian work ; but 
 
8o MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 these examples are, after all, few and far between. The use 
 of flint and stone in conjunction, common enough in some 
 counties, can hardly be classed in the same category. The 
 horizontal effect, if given, is for the most part accidental in 
 character, and the regular and simple coursing of the two 
 materials, though it does occur, is still not a common feature 
 in such work. There is another serious want in Northern 
 Gothic, where again my father was able to refer to Greek 
 work for the corrective, and that is in the matter of ornament- 
 ation which it is within the power of the ordinary work- 
 man to carry out. Now the decoration of a Greek building 
 was, as he said, both beautiful to the eye and true in principle. 
 Their sculpture, when they made use of it, was, of course, of 
 fine, often of the highest character, the work of a real sculptor, 
 while the surface ornament generally was such that nothing 
 was required for its execution but the ordinary manual dex- 
 terity of a fair workman. Nearer our own day we find an 
 abundance of genuine workman's enrichment in Romanesque 
 work, and the pointed arch, as it is frequently treated in 
 transitional work, has a beauty which makes one wonder 
 how it was that this form of enrichment was allowed to 
 lapse, for there was certainly nothing in it alien to the spirit 
 of the style which rejected it, or, at least, systematically 
 neglected it. 
 
 In Northern Europe, from the days of the transition 
 onwards, men worked as if all might be sculptors. Of 
 workman's ornamentation — rightly so called — there was 
 literally hardly anything but dog-tooth, nailhead, and ball- 
 flower for the enrichment of mouldings, and the varieties of 
 diapers for flat surfaces. In one of the greatest and most 
 successful ecclesiastical works, the restoration — or reconstruc- 
 tion, I might almost say — of the choir of Christ Church 
 Cathedral, Dublin, my father, who had to work on transi- 
 tional lines, made the freest use of all the beautiful and 
 varied forms of chevron for the enrichment of the arch 
 mouldings with the happiest effect. It was a chance such 
 as men rarely have, and one which he would not have missed 
 on any account, for he probably hoped that the example 
 might lead to imitation. It was a matter of surprise to him. 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 8i 
 
 as it was also one of regret, that even in the latter part of 
 his life, when Gothic had been so long and often so skilfully 
 handled, men were still content to ring the changes on 
 those few familiar forms of ornament which became so 
 monotonous by repetition, and should turn, for variety of 
 effect, rather to second-rate and lifeless carving than to that 
 easily-worked type of ornament, with its almost inexhaustible 
 changes which Romanesque affords. 
 
 My father complained in his early days of " labouring in 
 some quarters under the entirely undeserved imputation of 
 being a blind admirer of everything Italian." We have seen 
 that it was not so. " Very Italian is not so good as very 
 English," he wrote while in the midst of the best Italian 
 work. In truth, an English Gothic had no warmer or more 
 loyal adherent than he. He expresses his devotion to it in 
 words which are sufficiently explicit : — 
 
 " Who, indeed, that has studied on the spot, as I have done, not 
 only a vast number of buildings in England, but also nearly all the 
 best examples in France, Spain, and Germany, could do otherwise 
 than profess his truest allegiance to be due to the truthful beauties 
 of his own national variety of the style." 
 
 But he was no blind admirer, and he saw that on some 
 points we may learn a lesson to whatever part of the Con- 
 tinent we may look. Firstly, in the matter of height. Here, 
 indeed, we have Westminster Abbey, and we do well to be 
 proud of its beautiful proportions ; but putting this one noble 
 church aside, where shall we find another with any approach 
 to that mysterious and thrilling effect of height which is 
 almost the feature in so many of the continental examples ? 
 Nothing is more impressive or more unearthly than this. 
 Of such building my father said that it seems to be " entirely 
 for the glory of God; while length (our iQ^iure par excellence), 
 on the other hand, suggests the nicely calculated less or 
 more," — the building which will accommodate so many wor- 
 shippers, not the willing sacrifice of a people. We have, at 
 least, one other great failing which no one could possibly 
 ignore, viz. the meanness of our doors, more especially those 
 in the west front. The great continental western doors 
 
 G 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 tell us at once that the building of which they are a part is 
 free to the world, and should be entered by all alike. They 
 invite, while ours repel ; they seem to preach forgiveness 
 to all ; ours, how hardly we shall enter the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 If examples were wanted of the salutary nature of the 
 doctrine that, without actually grafting one style upon another, 
 we should at least not be ashamed to learn from others, they are 
 to be found in every country. Take as an example the west 
 front of Genoa Cathedral, which my father declared to be, 
 in his eyes, the finest Gothic front in Italy, and fit to vie with 
 its Northern rivals. He describes it thus : — 
 
 " Unlike any other Italian example, the facade was apparently 
 intended to have been finished with two steeples. This fact, added 
 to the mixed French and Italian character of the sculpture, and to 
 the distinctly French treatment of the mouldings, which are arranged 
 and undercut in a way I have never seen in other Italian works, 
 lead me to believe that this is not to be classed with pure Italian 
 work. Either it was erected by a Frenchman, or, more probably, by 
 an Italian who was well acquainted with the architecture of the 
 north of France." 
 
 He might have referred again to the interior of St. Andrea, 
 Vercelli, with its evident French and possible English influ- 
 ences, or to the glorious Italo-German interior of Milan. Of 
 the effects of foreign study and training, visible in so many of 
 the Spanish cathedrals, he says a great deal in his book ; 
 where the foreign style has been transplanted directly and 
 without modification, the result, it need not be said, is never 
 wholly good ; but where discretion has been used, the effect 
 is completely satisfactory. 
 
 It naturally follows from my father's objection to the 
 use in a town of a design or of materials only fitted for the 
 country, that he should have been equally opposed to a 
 habitual and rigid use of one type of design, whatever its 
 character, when materials are so varied in different parts 
 of the country, and types, by a natural consequence, so 
 different and so marked. 
 
 He travelled far afield, and, wherever he went, his eyes 
 were always open and his attention on the alert ; allied to 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 83 
 
 great powers of observation was a faculty of, as it were, 
 rapidl}' sifting the evidence which came before him, and 
 drawing wide and rapid conclusions with remarkable correct- 
 ness and precision. The result of his observations was that, 
 as our predecessors had formed their style from the materials 
 which they found to their hand, and generally made use 
 of only such materials so to obtain a really truthful and 
 fitting style, we should make our own works conform, 
 when there were no special reasons to the contrary, to the 
 style of the district in which they were to be erected. He 
 saw, of course, that with our altered conditions to-day, with 
 our rapidity and ease of communication and transport, it 
 would be unnatural to ignore in one place improvements 
 which we admitted in another ; and he realised equally well 
 that our forefathers, had they had anything like our advan- 
 tages, would never have been responsible for so many 
 different or such widely divergent styles as have been 
 preserved to us from their times. But, allowing these 
 considerations their full weight, he still had no doubt that 
 the balance in favour of the conformity of style which he 
 advocated was a considerable one. Local peculiarities, he 
 held, should at least be respected, and not outraged, as they 
 sometimes are or were by the introduction of strange forms 
 and incongruous materials. 
 
 "It is impossible to look at our new buildings," he said in 1869, 
 " without feeling that they are too often the result not of original 
 study, but of thoughtless acquiescence in the laws which have been 
 laid down by common custom, or by the practice of some one 
 popular man. Our new churches consist almost always of a build- 
 ing planned within very close limits as to variety, and with as few 
 evidences as possible of the personal feeling of the artist ; whereas, if 
 we look carefully and largely at old buildings, we shall find that they 
 show much greater variety than ours, and that their architects were 
 much less hampered and restrained by self-imposed rules than 
 we are." 
 
 He insists that much of the glory of our national style 
 consists in the variety of its development, and that we should 
 do right to study every phase of it. 
 
 " It has been very much the custom to assume that local varieties 
 
84 MEMOIR OF 
 
 indicate divergence of principle, so that it is not safe for a man to 
 study more than one of them. This is simple nonsense, for it may 
 much more truly be said that no one does understand Oothic art 
 who has not studied that of more than one country ; and it is 
 undoubtedly true that there is as much difference in the style of old 
 buildings in the various counties, districts, or provinces of one 
 country, as there is between any one of these and some one variety 
 of the work of another country." 
 
 The causes of the variety in different districts and of 
 the general likeness between buildings in the same district 
 were various, as my father showed. In the first place, the 
 material at disposal was a factor of great importance ; (2) 
 the influence exerted in particular districts by some excep- 
 tionally gifted man ; (3) the spread of art knowledge by 
 Freemasons, or by religious orders, by conquest, or by the 
 employment of foreign architects. He pointed out how few 
 the exceptions are comparatively to the rule of using the 
 materials to hand. Caen stone was indeed imported at an 
 early date ; Portland stone was taken to Cornwall ; south 
 of England stone to Hedon in Yorkshire ; Isle of Wight 
 stone to Winchester ; Purbeck nearly all over the country ; 
 but in spite of a certain number of such cases, the one local 
 style was never formed except to suit the material most 
 easily come by. We owe Wells and Glastonbury to the 
 Doulting quarries ; Peterborough to Barnack ; Lincoln to 
 those at Haydor ; the best art being found near the best 
 quarries. In granite countries the churches are long and 
 narrow, with very thick walls, and arched granite roofs 
 supporting the outer roof without the use of any timber. 
 Such buildings are to be found in Guernsey, in Wales, in 
 Cumberland, at Cormack's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel ; 
 and in many continental examples timber was dispensed 
 with, as in the churches of Auvergne and Perigord. 
 
 The presence of flint and the absence of other stone 
 gives us a completely different style, and one which led to 
 the display of much ingenuity, as, for instance, in the round 
 towers of Norfolk, which were built in that form in order to 
 avoid having any quoin stones. 
 
 The absence of stone has g^iven us brick architecture in 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 85 
 
 North Italy, in the north-east of Germany, in the west of 
 France, and in some parts of Spain. Its development was 
 very diverse in these different countries, but the special pro- 
 perties and capabilities of brick were discovered and made 
 full use of in every case. My father noticed the affinity, 
 visible through great dissimilarity, between such fronts as 
 that of the Town Hall at Liibeck, the gables of the Toulouse 
 churches, and the transepts of Cremona Cathedral ; and he 
 noticed too, what is more remarkable, that in every one of 
 these cases the nearest stone architecture was sensibly 
 affected by the example of the brick buildings, so that it 
 in some degree adopted the forms. Finally, the abundance 
 or scarcity of timber and its size controlled to a great 
 extent the designs for roofs, and led in many cases to the 
 erection of wooden or half-wooden churches. 
 
 One short quotation will make it clear what my father's 
 feelings were about the employment of brick in good work : — 
 
 " The use of brick in place of stone in connection with good 
 architectural design is a subject of much interest. In all countries, 
 from the earliest period, brick has been used more or less freely to 
 supplement stone, but not often in early times — with a view to 
 architectural effect — in place of it. It may be said, and very rightly, 
 that on the whole Nature's materials, when she affords them, are 
 those which will best harmonise with the highest art. But where 
 granite or marble or stone or even flint are not to be had, it 
 becomes the clear duty of the architect to avail himself of the aid 
 of the brickmaker. 
 
 " Brick was of course used very largely in all Roman construc- 
 tions, but it was used solely to build simple walls, and usually with 
 no view to the effect which they might produce. Indeed, they were 
 chiefly used as a basis for the plasterer. In one respect, — that of 
 hardness, — however, Roman brickwork has never been surpassed." 
 
 What my father saw when he looked to old work for 
 a guidance was quite enough to justify his contention that, 
 unless there were special reasons to the contrary, the general 
 lines of the local style should be adhered to in new work, 
 modified, however, and endowed with a special character 
 by the individuality of the artist — a necessary feature in the 
 work of a man of power, and never, under any circumstances, 
 absent. 
 
86 MEMOIR OF 
 
 " I can admire what is called ' mannerism,' " my father 
 said on one occasion, and he would have added that in a 
 certain sense the architect should be allowed to exercise his 
 powers of invention. Very cautiously must we use the 
 word, however, for no style has ever yet been invented ; 
 either it has come by growth or by decay, the process in 
 either case being as gradual and as equal as it is in Nature 
 itself The field of discovery in architecture is exhausted. 
 It is undeniable, as Ruskin tells us, that no principle of 
 construction has been discovered for centuries. My father 
 thought that Gothic architects had left nothing to be found 
 out worth the finding in construction, and he scoffed at 
 the idea, which some have been bold enough to entertain, 
 that a brand-new Victorian style might be invented, whose 
 birth should rival that of Athene — springing fully armed 
 from the brain of some king of architects. 
 
 The tendency towards decentralisation, if it may be so 
 called, seems to be strong in the architectural world to-day. 
 Every morning the architect gets a notice from some manu- 
 facturer or other — whether he produces tiles or ironwork 
 or even embroidery — who expresses his willingness to supply 
 not only the materials but the design : a sufficient proof 
 that among many members of the profession — whatever 
 their status may be — such a state of things is endured if it 
 is not fostered. While things are allowed to go on in this 
 way, architects cannot complain if they find, as they often 
 do, that their work has been marred by the introduction, 
 unknown to them, of fittings or decoration or glass of an 
 unsuitable character. The completeness of the artistic 
 whole is gone for good and all directly the services of 
 others besides the originator of the complete design are 
 called into requisition. It often seems, indeed it is certainly 
 the case, that those who contribute the special designs have 
 not so much as seen the building in which their works are 
 to be placed. It is not their business to keep in subordina- 
 tion the particular features for which they are responsible, 
 but rather to make them a conspicuous object, and this is 
 generally attained with much success. Further than this, 
 the manufacturer can hardly be expected to vary the type of 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 87 
 
 design in the same way as the man who approaches his 
 work from the artistic and not the business side, and cer- 
 tainly does not do so. 
 
 Such work as this is quite aHen in spirit to anything 
 done in the Middle Ages. In them one seems to see one 
 impress throughout. The work may not have been 
 designed by one man, it may not have been inspired by 
 one man, but at any rate the same spirit, the same love 
 of pure and beautiful form infected all — masters and men. 
 There are churches which we know to have been all the 
 work of one man, and all executed during his lifetime, and 
 these examples have a peculiar value of their own. 
 
 There is no reason nowadays why the architect should 
 not design or inspire every little part which goes to 
 make up a great design, except that it entails much train- 
 ing, great thoroughness, and much hard work. The 
 architect should be able, and it should be his business to 
 settle, the general arrangement of the stained glass, the 
 general scheme of colour, the nature of the subjects, their 
 setting, and their proportion to the background ; and pre- 
 cisely the same may be said of the decoration generally — 
 whether in marbles, mosaics, or simple colour ; whether in 
 subjects or in conventional forms of foliage, architectural 
 patterns and ornaments, and so forth. 
 
 I think I may claim for my father, without hesita- 
 tion, that thoroughness of training and that love for every 
 single part of his work which should enable the architect to 
 deal successfully with every phase of it ; and it was one of 
 the articles of his architectural faith, which he held most un- 
 falteringly, that a work entrusted to an architect should be 
 done so literally, to be dealt with not in parts but as a 
 whole, and that nothing should be inserted without having 
 been at least submitted for his approval and acquiesced in 
 by him. 
 
 "Three-fourths of the poetry of a building," he says, "lies in its 
 minor details ; and it is easier to design a cathedral with academical 
 accuracy than to devise and work out a really fine idea in stained 
 glass, or a true, vigorous, and beautiful treatment of a story, or even 
 of foliage, in the tympanum of a doorway." 
 
88 MEMOIR OF 
 
 It is no uncommon thing for the architect now to see 
 the architectural Hues of his windows set at naught, and 
 broken up by the arrangement of the colour and form in 
 glass over which he has no control, or to find a window, 
 which he had reckoned on as giving its quota of light, made 
 practically useless. My father thought that even where the 
 best artists in glass-painting were concerned, the architect 
 should decidedly have his say. 
 
 Painted glass he classified under architectural decoration 
 strictly so called, and he was able to show by reference to old 
 work that it had always been so treated in its halcyon days. 
 
 The practice which is so common nowadays, not only of 
 spreading a subject over several lights, — that, unfortunately, 
 must be sometimes unavoidable, — but of enclosing such 
 subjects in a framework of ornament with canopies or 
 what not, which run through the mullion at any angle, seem 
 to break what is a fundamental rule in such matters, and 
 damages the architecture as much as it might benefit it. 
 What can be less like this than the way in which the 
 architecture in stone and glass were in many cases so 
 evidently worked together in ancient examples ! This is 
 obviously the case in the choir of Cologne, where window 
 tracery, which would have looked weak by itself, is corrected 
 to the eye by a deep band of colour in the glass which 
 follows the stonework round. At Ratisbon my father 
 noticed how beautifully the glass is graduated — the white 
 background being more and more extended from aisle to 
 triforium, and from triforium to clerestory. He also called 
 attention to the difference which is made by the position in 
 which the glass is fixed. In the great foreign clerestories 
 it is generally found to be as near as possible to the inside 
 face of the stonework so as to be in no way obscured ; while 
 in many old windows, as in the east window of Merton 
 College Chapel, the glass is fixed nearer the external face of 
 the stonework in the tracery of the head than in the lower 
 lights, the result being that the stonework of the tracery 
 seems more delicate than the rest. 
 
 As to the right character of glass, I cannot do better 
 than give his own words := — 
 
V * GEORGE EDMUND STREET 89 
 
 "The medium does not allow of an accurate copy being made 
 of natural objects. The conventional treatment must therefore be 
 boldly adopted, and this the middle-pointed designers in glass did. 
 Conventional representations of natural forms are usually the absolute 
 forms which Nature has produced, taken from the best maple leaves 
 or best lilies to be found, not twisted about in the wild luxuriance 
 of active life, but still represented in their individual shape and with 
 their fibres and their petals just as they are. These forms, so 
 obtained, are genuine ornamental forms ; they do not require 
 an artist to paint each leaf (cp. the advantages of workmen's orna- 
 ment in wood and stone), but a patient, humble workman may do 
 them even more effectually than the most brilliant of painters. 
 
 " In further development of the value of conventionalism, let 
 me ask whether, for example, any representation in oak or brass of 
 a real eagle for a book-desk ever approached in real grandeur or 
 fitness those quaint and magnificent birds with outstretched wings, 
 stiff feathers, and upturned heads, which we call ' eagles,' which 
 symbolise those birds, but are really best when least like them ? 
 Or, again, is not the stiff, conventional mediaeval angel infinitely 
 more solemn and more beautiful than the wretched attempts at 
 natural representations of heavenly beings which for three hundred 
 years have been the fashion ? " 
 
 It is worth while to compare this explanation of con- 
 ventionalism with what Ruskin says on the same subject in 
 the first volume of Stones of Venice .•— 
 
 " In most Romanesque churches of Italy the porches are 
 guarded by gigantic animals — lions or griflfins — of admirable severity 
 of design, yet in many cases of so rude workmanship that it can 
 hardly be determined how much of their severity was intentional, 
 how much involuntary. In the cathedral of Genoa two modern 
 lions have, in imitation of this ancient custom, been placed on the 
 steps of the west front ; and the Italian sculptor, thinking himself a 
 marvellous great man because he knew what lions w^ere really like, 
 has copied them, in the menagerie, with great success, and produced 
 two hairy and well-whiskered beasts, as like to real lions as he 
 could possibly cut them. One wishes them back in the menagerie 
 for his pains, but it is impossible to say how far the offence of their 
 presence is owing to the mere stupidity and vulgarity of the 
 sculpture, and how far we might have been delighted with a 
 realisation carried to nearly the same length by Ghiberti or Michael 
 Angelo {I say nearly, because neither Ghiberti nor Michael Angelo 
 would ever have attempted, or permitted, entire realisation, even in 
 independent sculpture)." 
 
90 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Ruskin goes on to speak of the splendid conventionalism 
 of the Egyptian and Ninevite sculptors. 
 
 My father had studied most of the early glass in Europe, 
 and had sketched much and made many notes of it. On 
 the experience so gained he bases certain conclusions as to 
 the right and the wrong in glass painting : — 
 
 " No shading in glass can be good which is not transparent, 
 and that glass is best which trusts most to outline and least to 
 shading. . . . The absence of shading involves not only the loss of 
 ordinary pictorial effect, or chiaro-oscuro, but also the absence of 
 perspective, and this on grounds additional to the incompatability 
 of perspective with the straight lines of the constructional parts of 
 the window. If you have linear you must have aerial perspective." 
 
 In his own church at Holmbury he had his ideas 
 admirably carried out by Messrs. Clayton and Bell. The 
 windows there are remarkable, as compared with the 
 ordinary run of modern windows, for the amount of light 
 background in proportion to the deeper colour of the sub- 
 jects, and for the beauty of the treatment of the background. 
 They also are a standing proof of the excellent effect 
 obtained by following the architectural lines and not running 
 counter to them. There is an important advantage, too, in 
 glass of such a kind, that it is as cheap as it is effective. I 
 remember my father saying, on first seeing the glass in the 
 windows of the chancel : " If I came on glass like that in 
 old work I should set to work at once and sketch it." 
 
 What is true of glass is not less so of every other form 
 of architectural decoration, or decoration of a building, i.e. 
 that it should have an architectural and formal character, 
 and that it should form an integral part of the design. 
 
 Whether it is proposed to use simple colour or marble, 
 it is equally necessary that there should be a framework of 
 a suitable character and a general symmetry of arrange- 
 ment ; nor is it right to do what is frequently done, viz. to 
 convert stonework directly into marble. A design which is 
 suitable for the one may be, and probably is, quite unfitted 
 for the other ; and this fact should be recognised, that where 
 you reproduce in marble a design which the architect made 
 for execution in stone, you are not carrying out his ideas, 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 91 
 
 and would do better to adopt the spirit and not the letter of 
 his work. 
 
 Such, briefly, was my father's opinion. The subject of 
 decoration generally engaged much of his attention. Feel- 
 ing as strongly as he did the propriety, from every point of 
 view, of making the chancel distinct from and richer in 
 character than the rest of the church, he naturally turned to 
 colour as one of the best means of doing so. In his 
 younger days he confidently hoped that it would be possible 
 to enlist the aid of artists of recognised eminence in church 
 decoration, and he trusted to the work which Mr. Dyce was 
 doing at All Saints, Margaret Street, to give the necessary 
 stimulus to church decoration. 
 
 Speaking of himself and the other enthusiastic pro- 
 moters of the Gothic revival, he said : — 
 
 " We found a dominant school of art, eaten up by eclecticism, 
 forgetful to an extraordinary degree of natural laws, of the law of 
 reality without which no great work of art has ever been done. Our 
 movement has aided greatly in the revival of colour decoration, 
 whether by stained glass, by painted decoration on walls, or by 
 ornamental coloured pavements. We have very distinctly pro- 
 claimed from the first that we must have colour in our buildings. 
 We know that colour was to some extent applied almost invariably 
 by the Greeks and Romans. The same is true of the Syrians, the 
 Jews, the Indians, the Chinese, and the Phoenicians ; while, when 
 we come to Christian schools, we find even a stronger and more 
 strongly-expressed adherence to the same principle." 
 
 He looked to Italy and saw the Arena Chapel at Padua, 
 San Francesco at Assisi, St. Mark's, Venice, the Riccardi 
 Palace Chapel at Florence — all buildings where the decora- 
 tion is all in all, and the architecture of a simple kind, 
 
 "Need I say," he continues, "how St. Louis, in the palmiest 
 days of the French kingdom, covered the walls and windows of his 
 votive chapel with gold and colour and mosaic ; or how, in England, 
 our monarch's wish to rival the zeal of St. Louis gave the world St. 
 Stephen's Chapel, now, alas, gone ! an example equally splendid in 
 richness of colour. 
 
 " Let us then not rest satisfied simply with colour, but let it be 
 the most beautiful, the most glowing, and the most poetical we can 
 obtain. We have made, as yet, but few attempts at painting on 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 walls, and these have been almost without exception, simply decora- 
 tive, and not of any high artistic merit. I shall be met by the com- 
 plaint of the cost of employing artists of real skill, yet large sums of 
 money are now very often spent on other decorative work which 
 might at least as well be spent on good wall-painting. \\'hat im- 
 mense sums are spent annually on stained glass of third-rate char- 
 acter, on carving and decoration of the fabric which might well be 
 dispensed with." 
 
 I have said that my father held the opinion, quixotic as 
 it may seem now, that to get work with real unity of char- 
 acter, we must have the product of one brain, and not of 
 several working together, and that it would be well if the 
 day should come when the great artist should stem the 
 tide of subdivision which is setting so strongly, and once 
 more unite in his own person the arts of architecture, sculp- 
 ture, and painting ; much later on in life he still is able to 
 say : — 
 
 " Let me tell our brethren that we rejoice when we see the brush 
 of the painter and the chisel of the sculptor engaged in decorating 
 and adorning public buildings, for we feel then that the work will 
 be at its best. . . . For myself, I hope that the time may come 
 when we may again see that the great painter and sculptor may 
 also be the great architect. Of old we know that this was so. Giotto 
 was not only a painter but an architect. Niccola Pisano was in the 
 same way both sculptor and architect. Those were the palmy days 
 of art upon which one looks back with a hope that in course of 
 time they may be revived." 
 
 My father, as has been seen, made an attempt to practise 
 what he preached, but was doubtless convinced of the im- 
 practicability of such a course. He was also doomed to some 
 disappointment in his efforts to get church decoration done 
 by artists of eminence. In the matter of sculpture he was 
 more successful ; but he complained that the painter was 
 expensive, and at the same time, with some notable ex- 
 ceptions, rather inefficient for the particular work. The 
 fault lay to a great extent in ignorance of architectural de- 
 coration, and in the attempt to transfer easel pictures direct 
 to the walls of a building without trying to make them at 
 one with their framework. 
 
 He did not consider that stained s:lass militated at all 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 93 
 
 against decoration. In vindication of this he was able to 
 point to many frescoes of Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, and others, 
 which get all their lighting through stained glass of the most 
 brilliant character without losing their effect. 
 
 In such circumstances, however, the painter must be 
 content to confine himself to simple colours. My father 
 asked pertinently whether some recurrence could not be 
 made to the custom — well-known to have existed in the 
 Middle Ages — as at Norwich, of producing works, relying 
 chiefly on outline, which might be copied accurately, and 
 without much loss, by inferior and less highly-paid artists. 
 
 The villages round Norwich bore witness to the exist- 
 ence of such a custom there, and a certain mediocrity of 
 execution would be accepted gratefully nowadays, if the design 
 were but good and original. 
 
 He found himself face to face with much the same diffi- 
 culty with regard to glass mosaic. It is a material article which, 
 rightly used, cannot be surpassed, but may easily look tawdry 
 and distressing. What is it, my father used to ask himself, 
 which makes the difference between old and new ? Is it 
 merely the mellowing effect of years, or is there possibly a 
 virtue in the more haphazard way in which the tesserae were 
 then fixed, one edge projecting a hair's-breadth above its 
 neighbour, till the surface became insensibly relieved of its 
 garishness, and made richer by thousands of minute shadows 
 and reflections ? The simplicity and the magnificence of the 
 early Ravenna mosaics makes it clear that this material too, 
 or perhaps above all, demands a conventional form of design, 
 and a dignified and restrained style of drawing. One great 
 mosaic there is, in a church of my father's, which shows 
 that there is no insuperable bar to success now. I mean 
 the design by Mr. E. Burne Jones which fills the semidome 
 of the apse of the American Church in Rome. This my 
 father unfortunately did not live to see. It would have 
 atoned for much disappointment, for, even in Rome, it holds 
 Its own, and without being affectedly archaic, has all the 
 dignity of early examples, and much of their fine colour. 
 
 There is fortunately another kind of mosaic — marble 
 mosaic — which, if it does not lend itself to any very striking 
 
94 MEMOIR OF 
 
 effects, is at any rate satisfactory in its results and quite 
 safe. My father used a great deal of this on the aisle walls 
 of the Wellington Barracks Chapel, the cartoons being done 
 by Messrs. Clayton and Bell. The colouring is sober, but 
 there is plenty of variety and contrast. These mosaics were 
 the subject of a good deal of disparagement when they were 
 first put up, and they did indubitably look rather cold and 
 poor in colour, but my father always maintained that time 
 and exposure would do wonders for them, and it soon be- 
 came obvious that his words would be completely verified — a 
 consummation which has now been long reached. 
 
 True constructional decoration, where the decorative 
 materials are absolutely part and parcel of the work, — the 
 system on which, to take a well-known instance, the cathe- 
 dral and baptistery at Pisa are built, — seemed to my father 
 to come scarcely within the range of practical architecture 
 in England, except by the use of different-coloured bricks 
 together, or brick and stone in conjunction. There are no 
 doubt a good many mediaeval instances of such a mode of 
 building, and my father himself used two different-coloured 
 stones on several occasions ; but for all that, if a contrast is 
 wanted, brick must usually be accepted as a substitute for 
 the darker stone. Much has been built in this way in the 
 last quarter of a century ; but I am here speaking of my 
 father's views of many years back, when much that we take 
 for granted now was looked upon as almost revolutionary. 
 
 All Saints, Margaret Street, as it was one of the earliest, so 
 was it also one of the most successful examples of this kind of 
 work, to be followed many years later by a more magnificent 
 and more dubious example from the same hand in Keble 
 College, Oxford. The same architect is also responsible for 
 the charming chapel at Balliol, which is constructed in two 
 different stones. 
 
 There is another type of constructive decoration, hardly 
 legitimately to be so called — a type which has produced the 
 most splendid results. St. Mark's at Venice is the best- 
 known example perhaps ; other examples occur, out of Italy, 
 among the churches of Poitou, at Clermont-Ferrand, at St. 
 Etienne, Nevers, where the marble is applied in thin veneers. 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 95 
 
 We may perhaps class under constructive decoration the more 
 fantastic treatment of buildings, of which there are many 
 instances in Northern Europe, such as the combination of 
 brick steeples and copper spires in Germany, and the various- 
 coloured roofing tiles on the cathedral at Bale. 
 
 But my father felt that for us the system of veneering 
 was the most feasible, and the one to which we should 
 naturally turn, offering, as it does, even if economy con- 
 fines us to native materials, an opportunity for a rich treat- 
 ment of wall spaces in a permanent way. There is, how- 
 ever, in such decoration, a danger which he was not slow to 
 point out, viz. that of concealing the true construction. 
 He would have limited veneering strictly to such walls or 
 such parts of walls as were without any particular strain. 
 Much ingenuity has been displayed in old work in the 
 veneering of arches, but against this he set his face resolutely. 
 Even St. Mark's could not reconcile him to the inherent 
 falseness of such work. 
 
 True constructional decoration is open to the objection, 
 as he saw, of being too stripy, but I think the truthfulness 
 of such an effect reduced the failing to a minimum in his eyes, 
 even if he did not quite come to regard it as a virtue. 
 
 With respect to both forms of constructional decoration, 
 it may be said that we must not follow the old models too 
 closely or literally. " Probably they are mainly useful now 
 as showing us certain principles which we may work out 
 and apply to our own rather different circumstances " {Brick 
 and Marble). 
 
 Bands of ornament, such as those which are not unfre- 
 quently seen on church spires, result from precisely the same 
 principle as colour decoration pure and simple ; so, to take 
 an instance from my father's own work, the broad band of 
 carved enrichment, which runs nearly all round the four sides 
 of the Courts of Justice, is intended to produce an effect 
 almost identical with that of the use of a light and dark 
 stone. 
 
 Lastly, there remains decoration in the form of hangings, 
 in which my father did much beautiful and original work. 
 Of such a mode of enrichment he says : " The old men 
 
96 MEMOIR OF 
 
 omitted nothing. In some churches they even covered their 
 doors with crimson linen (as at Halberstadt) or leather, or 
 they spread rich carpets on the floor, or hung the walls with 
 sumptuous and elaborate hangings, as you may see in 
 Nuremberg now." Finally, he asks, " Is it right to treat 
 sculpture, especially that of the human figure, upon those 
 principles (of decoration) ? I think, generally speaking, it 
 is, for every old authority favours such a treatment in some 
 degree." Before quitting the subject of church architecture, 
 I ought to say something further as to my father's ideas on 
 planning. I think it will have been evident from what I 
 have already said, that one great object in his eyes, perhaps 
 I should say the great object, was that, if possible, every 
 member of the congregation should be able to see the altar, 
 or should at least be so placed as to be able to take an 
 intelligent part, not only in those portions of the service 
 which are conducted from the reading-desk, but also in those 
 more solemn portions which take place before the altar 
 itself. 
 
 Such being the case, we need not be surprised to find 
 that he had no actual objection to a western gallery as such, 
 always providing that the amount of accommodation required 
 absolutely demanded it, and providing also that it was not 
 architecturally incongruous. Now, I need not say that this 
 last qualification made the use of a gallery in ancient churches 
 almost an impossibility; while in a new church he would have 
 naturally provided all the seats required on the floor of the 
 church. But in some i^"^ cases, where he had to deal with 
 a blank west end, as at the Wellington Barracks Chapel, he 
 found no violation of principle involved in its use. Galleries 
 along the north and south walls he held to be architecturally 
 indefensible ; and he condemns them further, because their 
 arrangement, with tiers of seats facing north and south, turn 
 what should be a place of worship into the semblance of a 
 theatre for the display of pulpit oratory. " Those churches," 
 he said, " which were built between the Reformation and i 830, 
 can usually be well adapted, but the galleries must be swept 
 away. They are always a mere auditorium arranged round 
 the pulpit." 
 
V GEORGE EDMUND STREET 97 
 
 In the treatment of old churches built, as so many were, 
 on the cruciform plan, with deep chancel and transepts and 
 narrow naves, and ill adapted, consequently, for congrega- 
 tional purposes, he pursued various courses, according to the 
 special circumstances of a case ; either simply putting the 
 choir under the tower, giving those who occupied the transepts 
 the power of joining in the service, but at a sacrifice of 
 accommodation, or putting a second altar under the crossing, 
 and using the chancel for early celebrations ; or, as he says, in 
 the most extreme cases, he would have taken a leaf out of the 
 mediaeval architect's book and done what they would have done 
 in similar circumstances, viz. sacrifice antiquity to convenience 
 and remove the tower. " If we do so, it must only be after the 
 gravest consideration." This, I think, must be taken as the 
 expression of the principle, which he held so strongly, that the 
 needs of the service are paramount, and that, in the last resort, 
 architectural history and beauty may have to be sacrificed to 
 them, and may be put side by side with another expression ot 
 opinion already quoted, viz. the propriety under some conditions 
 of removing an ancient close screen. This possibility is again 
 touched on in the report which he wrote on the adaptation 
 of Southwell Minster for a cathedral service, where he hints, 
 or, indeed, more than hints, that though the knot admitted of 
 being untied in that particular case, it might sometimes 
 have to be cut. A letter which he wrote on Stewkley 
 Church throws considerable light on his views in this respect 
 as to the extent to which old work may be allowed, on 
 account of its intrinsic worth, to interfere with the due per- 
 formance of the services of the church : — 
 
 " As I am the architect entrusted with the restoration of Stewkley 
 Church, will you allow me to say a few words on the subject ? It is 
 perfectly true that, being applied to for plans for the enlargement 
 of the church to meet the want of accommodation for the poor, I 
 consented to undertake the work. It is one of a very distinct class 
 of Romanesque churches, consisting of nave, central tower, and 
 chancel, but without transepts. Iffley, Kempsford, and Castle Rising 
 churches are examples of the same type. If the church was to be 
 enlarged (and about this I had no option, having in vain suggested 
 a second church, which was at once found to be impossible), 
 obviously the enlargement ought to be one which should as little as 
 
 H 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 possible affect the most marked characteristics of the plan. The 
 addition of a transept or of an aisle to the nave would unquestionably 
 have completely altered it, and neither of them was to be thought 
 of. I fell back therefore on the lengthening of the nave, only making 
 it a condition with my client that if the interesting and valuable west 
 front were to be rebuilt, it should not be done by contract, but by 
 workmen employed by me, under the direction of one of my clerks 
 of the works, and in the most cautious way. Every stone was to be 
 arranged in its proper order, under shelter, and re-erected in its old 
 place again, and no scraping or redressing of the stonework was to be 
 allowed. The question is, no doubt, a very important one, whether 
 such work is allowable or possible? Of the latter I feel no doubt. I 
 believe that one of our finest sculptured doorways — that of Higham 
 Ferrers Church — was taken down and rebuilt in Archbishop Laud's 
 time, and has in no degree lost thereby any of its former interest or 
 value. So, too, I have seen in some of the French restorations of 
 recent years old work taken down and reconstructed without any 
 damage to the work in any way. 
 
 " If I mistake not, the west front of Laon Cathedral is an illustra- 
 tion of this, unless, smce its reconstruction, it has been scraped and 
 redressed in the popular fashion, in which case its interest has of 
 course been to a great extent destroyed, though not by rebuilding. In 
 the case of Stewkley Church, I believe I could have guaranteed the 
 replacing of every carved stone throughout the west front in its old 
 position, and without any alteration of its colour or surface, and so 
 that no one should have known whether or not it had been rebuilt. 
 
 " But ought this to be allowed ? Honestly, I think it ought. 
 It may indeed be argued that the lengthening of the nave would 
 destroy the proportions ; unquestionably it would alter them, but so 
 does the erection or retention of a western gallery ; and since the 
 nave of Stewkley Church is very short, I do not believe that any one 
 who knows the proportions of Kempsford and Castle Rising Churches 
 would doubt that it would at any rate not be spoilt, or its interest be 
 in any way destroyed by being altered to something like their much 
 more impressive size and shape. We all know perfectly well how 
 our ancestors would have dealt with such a question. They certainly 
 would not have allowed anything in the building to stand in the way 
 of the greatest good of the people who were to use the church, and 
 would probably have dealt with the church at Stewkley in a way by 
 very far less conservative than mine. 
 
 " However, I was extremely glad not to have to alter the fabric at 
 all. I said myself that I would infinitely rather not have to do so, 
 because, among other reasons, I knew how easy it would be to mis- 
 represent the kind of work I was doing, and to class it with those de- 
 structive works of church restoration which I suspect I deplore more 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 99 
 
 than my critics, and of which an instance carried out under my direc- 
 tion will be looked for in vain. It is no secret that many of our 
 larger churches have been, or are in the course of being, restored 
 in a mode which involves, at least, as complete an alteration of the 
 character of the old work as would have been effected had I pro- 
 posed not only to rebuild one wall of Stewkley Church stone for stone, 
 but to rework and scrape and clean every old stone in it. I yield 
 to no one in my conviction of the extreme importance of preserving 
 our old monuments, and rescuing them from anything like ' destruct- 
 ive ' restoration. I have restored so many churches that perhaps it 
 seems hardly needful to say this, for all those who have consulted 
 me know well how anxious I am at all times to preserve every feature 
 and fragment of antiquity with the most jealous care. . . . One 
 word more as to the suggestion of galleries. I suppose no architect 
 of any sense would any more shrink from making a gallery, on the 
 ground that he could not make it look well, than he would from any 
 other piece of work. The question of ' authority ' or ' no authority ' 
 is quite beside the matter, and fit for a discussion of twenty years ago 
 rather than for one of to-day. The English school of Gothic archi- 
 tects has at any rate shown of late years a determination to prove that 
 Gothic architecture is applicable to every possible purpose. This no 
 one can deny, and the objection to galleries is not an architectural 
 one, or it would never have become so universal." 
 
 Now I have said that it was a matter of principle with 
 my father that churches, old or new, should before all things 
 serve their true purpose, even at some sacrifice of interest 
 and beauty. It was one which he believed in fully, and 
 when he speaks of the possibility of having to destroy old 
 work, he speaks in all sincerity. Yet, as it happened, he 
 never actually was forced to put this rule into practice, and 
 I take the liberty of doubting whether he ever could have 
 done so. Some loophole he would have found at the last 
 moment, some expedient which would have served the 
 purpose without obliging him to take a course so grievous 
 to him as the obliteration and destruction of mediaeval work. 
 Of his views as to the loss of interest involved in the mere 
 shifting of old work without alteration, I shall have something 
 to say in another chapter. 
 
 To return to church plans. There are several which my 
 father regarded as almost equally serviceable for large con- 
 ereeations. 
 
loo MEMOIR OF 
 
 Firstly, the broad nave with narrow aisles, these being used 
 either for chairs or simply as passages. With a nave of great 
 width, which would necessarily result from the sacrifice of all 
 accommodation in the aisles, the chancel would naturally be 
 a good deal narrower, and might either be the width of the east- 
 ern wall of an apsidal termination to the nave, or the last ba}' 
 of the nave might simply be inclined inwards to the desired 
 degree. This arrangement was adopted both at St. Saviour's, 
 Eastbourne, and St. John the Divine, Kennington ; though in 
 both these churches the aisles are used for congregational 
 purposes. In All Saints, Clifton, my father has produced a 
 true congregational church. There the nave is of noble width, 
 with a lofty clerestory and a low arcade, outside which there is 
 nothing but a passage, and the junction of the broad nave and 
 narrower chancel with its aisles is ingenious and picturesque. 
 
 Next there is the domical plan, one which my father, 
 however, never made use of He regretted much, even for 
 purely artistic reasons, that with us at least Gothic has not 
 made the dome her own. It is a form which she might 
 make glorious use of 
 
 The lantern at Ely and a group of circular churches 
 are about the only attempts to touch the problem at 
 all ; they cannot be said to be serious efforts to solve it. 
 As to the suitability of a dome for a large congrega- 
 tion, who that knows St. Paul's on a Sunday afternoon, 
 when there is a great preacher in the pulpit, can doubt it ? 
 The vast size of the dome there does, indeed, under the 
 present conditions, make it difficult for those who are far 
 away from the choir to join in the service in any but an 
 unsatisfactory way, and in speaking more fully of St. Paul's, I 
 shall show how my father would have proposed meeting that 
 difficulty, but with a dome of moderate dimensions no such 
 drawback would exist. 
 
 My father was able to carry out at Bolton Abbey 
 another arrangement very much on the lines of San 
 Clemente at Rome, which is both simple and good. The 
 structural chancel may, if necessary, be dispensed with 
 altogether, or in anj^ case its proportions may be greatly 
 reduced. The choir itself is brought down into the body of 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 the church, surrounded by a low screen, with the pulpit and 
 ambon attached to it. This economises space, and is, archi- 
 tecturally speaking, fresh and piquant. 
 
 Not long ago I saw a suggestion in a paper on church 
 planning which amounts to much the same in effect, viz. 
 that we should make our chancels shallower than we are 
 accustomed to do, and that the choir should project out 
 somewhat into the nave. 
 
 All these schemes have the great merit of enabling the 
 congregation to join as well in that part of the service which 
 is conducted before the altar as in the other less solemn 
 portions. 
 
 One word on the subject of chancel screens. My father, 
 as a strong advocate of open churches, was naturally in 
 favour of screens and gates round the chancel. It is obvious 
 that if a church is to be left unprotected, it must at least 
 have the chancel fenced in, even if the barrier is of a light 
 character. The lightest form of screen compatible with a 
 certain measure of protection would then have been his 
 choice. 
 
 In his own church there is an open wooden screen, but 
 provision is made for leaving the church open at all hours 
 without risk by means of a sort of internal narthex, the 
 small bay at the west end of the nave being divided from 
 the rest by an open screen which hides nothing, while it 
 effectually bars the entrance to the body of the church. 
 On other grounds he favoured chancel screens, and his 
 reasons generally were given in answer to the outcry which 
 the ultra-Protestants of Dublin raised over his screen there. 
 In that instance at any rate — and his arguments would apply 
 equally to other cases — he considered it to be acoustically 
 valuable, besides being so architecturally, and, so far as 
 there is symbolism in the division between nave and chancel, 
 symbolically so too. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Morality in architecture shows itself in many ways which 
 are too obvious to need being insisted on. But there is one 
 form of it, and an essential one, which is perhaps not 
 generally recognised as being so, and that is the fixed and 
 definite character which the true artist will stamp on his 
 work, however varied the form into which it is thrown. 
 Style must necessarily vary with climatic and other con- 
 ditions. It would be a piece of insanity to plant the literal 
 reproduction of an English country church on the shores 
 of the Bosphorus. It is at least questionable whether 
 Italian Gothic admits of being transferred as exactly as it 
 sometimes has been to our sunless and boisterous climate. 
 The architectural forms in which the buildings of a country 
 or county or district are cast, must dictate in a greater or 
 less degree the forms of a work of which they are to be the 
 setting. It is easy enough to produce a bizarre, if not a 
 striking, effect by the bold introduction of a style which is 
 strange and incongruous. Some of the less instructed of 
 the public probably mistake this for originality. I remem- 
 ber on one occasion finding myself in a railway carriage 
 with several people who were going, as I myself was, to 
 the reopening of a church which my father had just been 
 restoring in Devonshire. One of them, a clergyman, was 
 giving his opinion, favourable, so far as I recollect, on the 
 restoration generally, and on the chancel screen in particular, 
 which he did not like. He objected to it because, he said, 
 it was like a Norfolk screen, but " Mr. Street is determined 
 to be original, and that is why he has put it there." The 
 
CHAP. VI MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET 103 
 
 criticism of the screen was as incorrect as the definition of 
 originahty which it implied. 
 
 Youth is as enthusiastic as it is inexperienced, and it is 
 the young man — to whom the beauties of some style, new 
 to him, have only just been revealed — who runs the greatest 
 risk of perpetrating these — miscalled original — crimes. His 
 moral character as an artist is at best only half formed. 
 He has not yet learnt to be individual, perhaps has not the 
 power of ever becoming so. His fancy is seized by some 
 feature in foreign work, and he transplants it boldly to 
 uncongenial quarters, where, to the trained eye, it disturbs 
 its surroundings and surrenders its own beauty of propriety. 
 
 My father's individuality was not slow to express itself, 
 though it may be said possibly that in his earlier works 
 the man is somewhat secondary to the style, while in the 
 maturity the converse was certainly true. Foreign study 
 had an influence on his work throughout his career, but it is 
 more apparent in the earlier days before the process of diges- 
 tion and assimilation were thoroughly accomplished. This, 
 however, is really true of some three or four designs only ; 
 chiefly, perhaps, of that submitted in the competition for the 
 Government offices. This design had much beauty, but the 
 influence of Italian travel was perhaps too obvious to make 
 it wholly appropriate for a national building. The same 
 may be said in a lesser degree of the church of St. James 
 the Less, Westminster. There, however, the process of 
 assimilation was clearly more advanced and the man more 
 to the fore. Of the church of St. Philip and St. James, 
 Oxford, it may be said, though my father disclaimed it, 
 that it is in some sort a reminiscence of Normandy, but the 
 similarity was one of a very qualified kind, and the church 
 is probably as strongly marked with the special charac- 
 teristics of my father's early years as any other. 
 
 Men do not attain so rapidly to the fulness of their 
 powers as to preclude the possibility of faults in the work 
 of a young man — to be rectified possibly in after years. I 
 can see, when I compare my father's earlier and later works, 
 the proofs of immaturity which might reasonably be looked 
 for in the former. There is something too uncompromising 
 
I04 MEMOIR OF 
 
 in their character — an excess of boldness or bluntness, a 
 tinge of eccentricity, a truthfuhiess in displaying construc- 
 tion, which is too much like that of the candid friend. But 
 if excuse is wanted, it will be found in the intention with 
 which such work was done. It was the strongest form 
 of protest against that dull and meaningless symmetry 
 which had long been the leading characteristic of church 
 architecture before the Revival, and if my father laid himself 
 open to the charge of exaggeration, he did so in good 
 company. The feeling which moved him and others had 
 its exact counterpart in that which then actuated the pre- 
 Raphaelite painters. The same exaggeration is visible in 
 their drawings ; but we forgive it and welcome it because 
 of the purity and loftiness of the conceptions with which it 
 was associated and the great results which it achieved. 
 
 Granting that in his first enthusiasm my father was 
 occasionally betrayed into a somewhat over-emphasised 
 honesty, or into too close an adherence to foreign forms, 
 still the designs of which this is true may almost be counted 
 on the fingers of one hand. Putting aside these early 
 examples, his work is strong without being overbold, while 
 it emphatically speaks of the man first and of the vehicle 
 afterwards. It does not occur to one to ask whether this 
 detail may or may not have been suggested by French 
 reminiscences, or whether that one is the outcome of Italian 
 studies. I have already said that my father thought it 
 right to gather a hint here and a principle there rather than 
 to blind himself to everything but what his own country 
 presented to his eyes ; but there is a difference, and a great 
 one, between embodying a principle and servile copyism of 
 a feature, and it was his knowledge of this difference and 
 his constitutional repugnance to the latter which gave his 
 work its unquestionable freshness and individuality. 
 
 If he had to build in a southern country, he set him- 
 self to infuse into forms which should be analogous to those 
 of the architecture of the country some of the spirit of 
 northern work. 
 
 The earliest instance of such a design — though here 
 two closely kindred styles had to be brought into relation 
 
VI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 105 
 
 with one another — was that for the cathedral at Lille. The 
 conditions of the competition had laid down that the style 
 should be French -Gothic of a particular date, and my 
 father fully carried out the spirit of his instructions ; but into 
 the French work he infused in a subtle way so much of the 
 English spirit as not merely to give a charm and freshness 
 to the design of a special kind, but to show — in case of its 
 ever being carried out — that the church was built under 
 English influence, thus permanently and unmistakably stamp- 
 ing its history on its face. 
 
 Other examples are the Memorial Church at Con- 
 stantinople, admirably adapted to the conditions of the 
 climate, and full of most original work, which is as beautiful 
 as it is useful ; the English Church at Genoa, where local 
 peculiarities have been happily made to serve as a basis 
 without being slavishly borrowed ; and the American Church 
 at Rome, where, by his skilful manipulation of the native 
 style, my father succeeded in rousing the enthusiasm of 
 Romans themselves, teaching them that they have archi- 
 tectural treasures of their own in plenty, of the existence of 
 which they were hardly aware. Of the English church 
 there it is difficult to speak with patience ; details mis- 
 understood, leading features omitted, and a style of work- 
 manship which leaves very much to be desired, have done 
 their worst for it. 
 
 To turn to smaller examples, there is much suitability 
 in the little churches at Vevay and Lausanne, though they 
 have unhappily suffered from the want of intelligent super- 
 vision ; while the little stone and timber chapel at Miirren, 
 though still effective and appropriate, would have been 
 much more so had not the enthusiastic landlord of the 
 neighbouring hotel tarred the interior with the same brush 
 as his salle-a-inanger. It is distressing to see good work 
 marred by the want of really intelligent supervision ; but 
 that is what the architect who works abroad has often to 
 reckon with, while the vagaries of the local superintendent 
 are all laid at his door. 
 
 My father confined himself to the style of no particular 
 date in his original work, though he certainly preferred that 
 
io6 MEMOIR OF 
 
 of the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury ; but as a young man he was not so Hberal in his 
 tastes, and showed a decided preference for " first-pointed." 
 Sir Gilbert Scott, in his Recollections, says : *' In my own 
 office Mr. Street and others used to view every one as a 
 heretic who designed in any but the sacred phase. The 
 revived style was one, and its unity was middle-pointed." Sir 
 Gilbert's memory was at fault here, because as a matter of 
 fact my father used, in his own words, " to swear by first- 
 pointed ; and we called Scott's work ' ogee ' because we 
 thought it too late in character." Again he says : " My 
 first church — Biscovey — built in 1848, was of the purest 
 first-pointed." In 1853, while he was. still in practice at 
 Oxford, he showed his predilections plainly enough in a 
 pamphlet which he published, the subject of which was 
 the best type to be adopted in new college or university 
 buildings. He protested equally against the choice of 
 classical or fifteenth century models — the only alternatives at 
 that time ; against the first, because he saw how ill-suited it 
 was to serve the purposes to which it was put ; and he 
 pointed his moral by instancing the Taylorian (a building of 
 which, viewed merely as an architectural monument, I have 
 often heard him express his approval), with its great portico, 
 which neither a modern Socrates nor any one else has ever 
 been seen to use, and its costly windows only made to be 
 blocked up, as a good illustration of the way not to do it. 
 Further, he contended that for mere purposes of contrast 
 there was already classical work enough with the Bodleian, 
 the Clarendon, the Taylorian, etc. Against fifteenth-century 
 Gothic he protested, because he held that what is best in 
 itself must be under all circumstances the best ; while the 
 theory which seemingly prevailed that Gothic in its perfection 
 is only fitted for ecclesiastical work, while the same style in 
 its decadence is everything that could be desired for domestic 
 work made him eager to prove its futility. He pointed to 
 St. Mary's and to Merton, and asked whether fourteenth- 
 century work is not as convincingly the more beautiful as it 
 is constructively the more scientific. It must be confessed 
 that Oxford was not fortunate in its first example of an 
 
\i GEORGE EDMUND STREET 107 
 
 earlier style, and the museum in the Parks, if it did not 
 actually constitute an unanswerable argument against the 
 adoption of fourteenth-century forms, showed at least that 
 the style, though very good at its best, is not so safe to deal 
 with as that stereotyped in Oxford. 
 
 My father's preference for the earlier style was founded 
 no less on admiration of its moral attributes and the right- 
 ness of the principles which it sustained than on its actual 
 beauty of form. He maintained, as Ruskin had done, that 
 the early plate tracery was right in principle, while the 
 elaborate line traceries of middle-pointed were wrong. In 
 the plate traceries the openings were always simple and 
 beautiful, while the lines, if there were any, were full of 
 dignity and order, besides being easily intelligible. In 
 later work the piercings were no longer a matter for con- 
 sideration, and generally assumed the most fantastic and 
 capricious outlines, whilst every effort was directed to 
 making the stonework of the tracery curve about in an 
 irregular and unconstructional way with the idea of getting a 
 pretty effect. To illustrate the beauty of early openings, my 
 father took one particular form as a specimen. He pointed 
 out that the trefoil of early work is as different as possible 
 from the form which we are accustomed to now. The lower 
 curve was almost always stilted, while the upper one was 
 somewhat smaller. The result was a beauty and vigour as 
 well as a truth in construction which uniformity does not 
 give. What was true of trefoils was equally true of cusps. 
 Here again we are accustomed to a lifeless equality, but in 
 mediseval work the curve of the lowest cusp was always 
 greater than that of the centre one, so that there was an 
 avoidance ot any abruptness in the transition from the 
 upright line of the jamb to the curved line of the cusp. 
 The tendency, as Gothic deteriorated, was always towards 
 lines as opposed to bold rounds or hollows. The contrast, 
 my father said, may be easily seen at Worcester Cathedral, 
 where the nave is a fourteenth-century copy of a thirteenth- 
 century choir. The shafts of the early work are replaced 
 by mouldings in the later, while the arch moulds are all 
 on a chamfer plane, instead of being on a succession of 
 
io8 MEMOIR OF 
 
 squares,^ with a consequent loss in light and shade. A natural 
 result of the discontinuance of the detached shaft was a loss 
 of boldly designed and effectiv'e capitals, and the substitution 
 of flowing curvilinear foliage for the more decided and 
 characteristic forms of early work. If the comparison of 
 thirteenth-century work with later developments in England 
 seemed to my father to decisively establish the superiority 
 of the former, a reference to foreign examples seemed to 
 him to make it all the more obvious. Among French 
 buildings he ranged on one side Notre Dame, Paris, and the 
 cathedrals at Chartres, Amiens, Laon, Sens, and Rouen, as 
 examples of a style which was nervous and strong, lapsing 
 at Rheims into beauty merely, marvellous indeed, but nothing 
 beyond beauty, and at Troyes into quaint picturesqueness. 
 He compared St. Gereon at Cologne with the cathedral, to 
 the disadvantage of the latter, its magnificence being marred 
 in his eyes by the vaingloriousness of the effort. Lastly, in 
 Italy, he saw a great fall from St. Mark's, Venice ; San 
 Miniato, Florence'; San Francesco, Assisi; and Sta. Anastasia, 
 Verona, to the cathedral at Milan and San Petronio, 
 Bologna, the earlier buildings in every instance clearly 
 preaching a higher purpose and a loftier morality. Much 
 of this superiority he attributed to the fact that the influence 
 and control of the architect-in-chief did much to prevent 
 the ebullitions of eccentricity which none of the noblest 
 examples show, while in the fifteenth century it had become 
 common for deans and chapters to employ different men for 
 the various kinds of work without having any supreme 
 control. The result was that the masons, carpenters, and 
 the men of the other trades were all developing for them- 
 selves, and producing an architecture full of quaint conceits, 
 and remarkable chiefly for manual dexterity. 
 
 The works which I have already mentioned would be enough 
 in themselves to show that Gothic lost none of its plasticity 
 in my father's hands, while they are a standing evidence of his 
 
 ' In England, however, mouldings on the chamfer plane became common at 
 an early period, owing to the use of circular moulded caps, and they were so 
 skilfully managed as to give as much light and shade with much greater variety 
 than could be obtained on the other system. 
 
VI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 109 
 
 complete grasp of Gothic in all its varieties and develop- 
 ments ; but there are other instances in England itself which 
 make the case stronger. Perhaps the most remarkable 
 among them is the transformation which he effected in the 
 interior of the classical temple which served for a chapel at 
 the Wellington Barracks. Looked at from outside there is 
 little sign that anything has been done, except for a small 
 semidomed excrescence at the east end, and a glimpse of 
 internal tracery to the great plain window openings ; but 
 inside a magician seems to have been at work : the 
 windows have been gracefully treated, divided into two 
 lights by a delicate marble shaft, and filled with very good 
 stained glass : the great bare parallelogram has been 
 divided into nave and aisles, with a chancel and transeptal 
 chancel aisles in two stories, with charmingly treated stair- 
 cases. The eastern wall of the old work has alone been 
 broken through, in order to give the chancel sufficient 
 length. This addition ends in a circular apse and a semi- 
 dome. The nave arcade is of brick, stone, and terra cotta, 
 and supports a barrel vault in brick with stone bands with 
 transverse arches. The aisle walls are all panelled in 
 various marbles, each panel being filled with a figure in 
 marble mosaic, while above are a range of small subjects in 
 terra cotta. The spandrel over the chancel arch and one of 
 the east walls of the chancel aisles are already filled with 
 glass mosaic, as is the drum of the apse ; the semidome is 
 eventually to be treated in the same way. The appropriate- 
 ness and beauty of all the ornaments, enrichments, and 
 carving are not to be surpassed. The handling shows much 
 freedom and originality, but all is in perfect harmony. The 
 designs for the fittings, such as the septum wall with its 
 ambons, the font, the stairs in the chancel aisles, and the 
 whole of the metal and woodwork, have been evidently a 
 labour of love. They are charmingly conceived and worthily 
 carried out. The reconstruction of St. Luke's, Lower Nor- 
 wood, was a work of a less sumptuous character ; but all I 
 have said in praise of the Guards' Chapel may, vnitato nomine, 
 be understood of it. Of my father's power of adopting the 
 design of another, and preserving its main features, while 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 giving it a special and distinct character, I shall speak at 
 some length when I deal with the rebuilding of the cathedral 
 nave at Bristol. Suffice it to say now that in that case he 
 felt himself morally bound to follow the evident intentions of 
 the architect of the choir so far as the general forms went ; 
 but while adhering rigidly to his predecessor's main scheme, 
 he succeeded in transforming a work which, while possess- 
 ing a gracefulness of its own, was somewhat weak in character 
 and poor in detail, into a purer, nobler, and more dignified 
 edition of itself. 
 
 Of his skill in the utilisation of a site there are many 
 instances. At St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, for instance, 
 every bit of the oddly-shaped site is turned to advantage, 
 and made to yield picturesque effects. The lopsided 
 arrangement, which the division of men and women must 
 always demand so long as the churchgoers among the 
 latter preponderate so greatly in numbers, is turned to 
 valuable account, and gives occasion for a plan which is 
 artistically good, but hardly justifiable without a strong 
 reason. The planning of the English Church at Rome is 
 again a most ingenious piece of work. The eastern bound- 
 ary, which runs at an odd angle, is made to fit exactly to 
 the projection of the apse, while the tower carries on the 
 line in a natural way. The use of a four-sided apse with 
 the angle in the centre is an uncommon feature, but not 
 ineffective. Here it has a particular reason, but my father 
 had made use of it once before — at St. Saviour's, East- 
 bourne, — where it was simply a matter of choice. 
 
 People are apt to think and say that the design of the 
 elevation is the more technical part of an architect's work, 
 while a good plan may really be made by any intelligent 
 man, however unskilled in architecture. It may be simple 
 enough to arrange a number of rooms or blocks of rooms 
 in convenient relation to one another, but the intelligent 
 unprofessional man who had got so far would find that, 
 beyond this simple disposition, there are the questions of 
 light and air, of roofing, of getting good masses, which make 
 planning a more complicated thing and more technical than 
 he had been wont to think. To use my father's words : 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 " There is the highest art in so disposing the plan that the 
 arrangement shall be convenient for the purpose, and yet 
 admit of well-balanced masses in the elevation and well- 
 managed outlines and skylines." 
 
 Whatever the effect of iron may ultimately be on our 
 architecture, there is one point at least in which my father 
 thought it ruinous to good work, unless most sparingly 
 used, and that is in planning. The basis of Gothic work is, 
 of course, that construction should be displayed, while iron 
 is directly favourable to a fatal illegitimacy in this respect. 
 The architect is able now, when he finds himself in a dilemma, 
 to put in a girder here or there, and thus the old knack of 
 disposition under difficulties, which should be one of the 
 especial functions and signs of a skilful architect, tends to be 
 lost. In fact, the power of using concealed iron supports 
 naturally leads to those apparent tours dc force which are 
 likely to be wonderful and admirable in the eyes of the 
 public. 
 
 It requires a great deal of courage to cry out against the 
 use of iron, or to ask for some limit, because the detractor 
 of a material which has such powers and opens up such 
 possibilities, naturally lays himself open to the charge of 
 being unpractical and a visionary. My father, as a lover of 
 the truth and beauty in old building, felt bound to protest 
 in .strong terms against, not its use, but its abuse. He main- 
 tained that iron as it is used at present is the bane of good 
 architecture and the fruitful parent of bad architects. 
 
 Great engineering works, where iron does what stone 
 and wood could not do, he cordially admired. There it is 
 the right material in the right place, but used in close con- 
 junction with brick or stone, or copying the lines of stone 
 construction, it seemed to him to abnegate its great powers 
 and to sink into vulgarity. Such works, however, hardly 
 belong to the province of the architect properly speaking. 
 The false construction and false architecture which he had 
 in his mind was that which unhappily we see in its highest 
 development and at its lowest depths in the principal streets 
 of our great towns, where great upper stories seem to stand 
 on nothing more substantial than a sheet of plate glass, and 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 solids are superposed over voids as if nothing could be more 
 satisfying to the eye than such an inversion of the natural 
 order of things. 
 
 May we not, he asked, claim of the engineer or the 
 architect in iron that he shall show us how an iron building 
 can be made pleasing for its own sake, rather than be con- 
 tent to let it be the servant of inferior stone and brick 
 architecture ? and secondly, he asked whether it is really 
 necessary, for so experience would seem to show it to be, 
 that the more scientific construction in iron becomes, the 
 more artistically unsatisfactory it should become also ? In 
 his own work he never used it unless some obvious advan- 
 tage was to be gained by doing so, but preferred invariably 
 to let timber do what it is capable of 
 
 In the use of a material such as wood, he thought it 
 better where it is seen — as in open roofs — not to be content 
 with what is sufficient, but to increase the scantling to such 
 an extent as to satisfy the eye of its solidity and sufficiency. 
 This is an opinion which, in the matter of masonry, he did 
 not hold. It of course has its dangers, and may soon lead 
 to unscientific work if the line be once overstepped. 
 
 I say that in masonry my father did not make his work 
 heavier than was necessary for perfect strength. His works 
 have, indeed, often a simplicity which gives them a look of 
 massiveness greater than they possess. He was always 
 crying out against the ephemeral character of modern work, 
 and his dearest wish and most constant aim was to leave 
 memorials behind him which should resist the inroads of 
 time as successfully as those of our forefathers did. 
 
 In his opening address as President of the R.I.B.A., his 
 last public utterance, he laid particular stress on the need of 
 reform — more especially in the vernacular art, the builders' 
 and workman's art of the country — in this very respect : — 
 
 " In the last century," he said, " there was a simplicity and 
 restraint in design, an absence of vulgar display, which makes one 
 feel a charm in work, most of which is the art of the bricklayer, 
 mason, smith, carpenter, and plasterer, and certainly never passed 
 through an architect's hands. Go from the house of 1750 to one of 
 those which rise in countless numbers on all sides now, and your 
 
VI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 113 
 
 verdict as architects and artists must always, I fear, be given in 
 favour of the former ; compare the two and you will find that the 
 preference of the eighteenth-century builder was for simple and good 
 work rather than ornamental. My only suggestion is that we archi- 
 tects should show by example that simple building may be quite as 
 good as extravagant, and that the essence of all good architecture is 
 that it should be solid and lasting before it tries to be ornamental, 
 and that ornament is a feature which grows out of utility and cannot 
 be applied to a building like a loose-fitting garment to cover defects 
 or to distract attention from parts which are not supposed to be seen. 
 It is unworthy of architects to build what is in its very nature 
 ephemeral ; and I wish heartily before all questions of style that this 
 vital one of solidity were always present to us when we are making 
 our plans." 
 
 Again : " Whole towns rise among us and around us in which 
 not one building in a hundred is well, solidly, or lastingly con- 
 structed, and in most of them the construction being concealed as 
 well as flimsy can scarcely be called honest ; whereas, formerly, there 
 was no thought of self or of building only for one's own time ; now 
 there is a strangely different state of affairs. The art of building has 
 come to be the art of building not for all time but for a certain time. 
 Houses are built with the distinct idea that they are not to last 
 much longer than the term of the lease, or say, than ninety-nine 
 years. The idea that building for a certain time is the only wise 
 course of policy for a great country is even formulated by us into a 
 system. I have myself been told by a high Government official that 
 the best building is not that which will last longest, but rather that 
 which will last a limited time, and may then be rebuilt with all the 
 latest improvements. He maintained that the difference of cost 
 between a building erected to last and one intended to survive a 
 certain time only would, if invested and reinvested in the funds, pro- 
 duce by the end of the term so large a capital sum as to pay for the 
 whole expense of the reconstruction, and he concluded that the only 
 true policy was to build with this view." 
 
 My father's thorough practical acquaintance with every 
 branch of his work earned the respect even of those who 
 might have come better off with a less vigorous and intelli- 
 gent supervision. Experience had taught him how best to 
 use his materials as well as their capabilities and their limit- 
 ations. It seemed to me as I went over his works with him, 
 as I very frequently did, that his keen eye lighted on every 
 blunder or delinquency with unerring certainty, while his 
 settlement of all the difficulties, great and small, which a 
 
 I 
 
114 MEMOIR OF 
 
 clerk of works is apt to spring on the architect, was made 
 with the utmost promptitude and decision. 
 
 Workmen who came in contact with him felt a pleasure 
 in working under a man who was as sure to show his appreci- 
 ation of good work as to condemn bad. 
 
 The work of most architects, — of all, probably, who are 
 connected with church work, is twofold in character. First, 
 there is purely original work ; and secondly, there is that of 
 dealing with old buildings, restoration, reconstruction, en- 
 largement, or whatever it may be in the particular case. 
 
 Restoration is a difficult and tender subject to deal with, 
 and there has been within the last decade or so a great out- 
 cry against it. There has been, it must be owned, much 
 exaggeration and high-handedness in the sayings and doings 
 of many of the champions of anti-restoration, but their influ- 
 ence has been none the less salutary. It is hopeless to 
 expect that complete accord can ever be established between 
 the architect pure and simple and the almost fanatical 
 admirer of anything a hundred years old, be it a mere rude 
 wooden prop or a tottering blank wall. Architecture and 
 archaeology are different things, but their connection is inti- 
 mate ; no architect is worthy of the name who does not 
 reverence old work for itself and for the story it tells as well 
 as for its absolute beauty, but he ought not to be expected to 
 worship a piece of comparatively modern work which hides 
 or mars the effect of something much better worth seeing, 
 simply because it proves that somebody at such and such a 
 date had so little sympathy with earlier work as to obliterate 
 what, on the showing of the anti-restorationists themselves, he 
 should have been anxious to preserve. The ultimate test for 
 the architect must after all be the absolute value or worth- 
 lessness of the work with which he has to deal, unless it have 
 some peculiar archaeological or historical interest. 
 
 My father, though an active member of the Society for 
 the Protection of Ancient Buildings, felt himself unable to go 
 all lengths with them, and indeed he was himself the subject 
 of their strictures on at least one occasion. It would have 
 been odd if a man who had such strong predilections in favour 
 of one particular style should not, when the opportunity 
 
VI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 115 
 
 came, have hastened to free it from the prison which had so 
 often been reared about it during the last two centuries. I 
 think he yielded to none in his respect for the domestic work 
 of the eighteenth century ; the quotation from his opening 
 address shows how he appreciated its good qualities ; but that 
 man must be a zealot indeed who would maintain that the 
 incrustations and mutilations of good work, which were so 
 freely indulged in a hundred years ago, have much claim in 
 themselves to be retained. My father may have respected 
 the sentiment, but it was one he could not share, which goes 
 near forbidding us to point up old brickwork for fear the 
 mortar should be taken to be of the same age as the wall, 
 and so make false history. There are walls — such as those 
 at St. Mark's — which have been mellowed and coloured by 
 time into so harmonious and glowing a tone that to lay a 
 rude finger on them is to take away what ages alone can re- 
 store. No one fought more energetically for the preservation 
 of this venerable building than my father, and I believe it to 
 have been attributable to his warning and his exertions that 
 the west front was not practically rebuilt. Similarly, he 
 spared no pains to avert the danger when the Corporation 
 made their proposal to broaden London Bridge with a couple 
 of iron gangways. The mere mutilation of a fine work was 
 enough to call him to arms, but the manner of the mutilation 
 and the folly of widening a bridge, when the approaches 
 would inevitably have had to be left as they were, appealed at 
 once to his veneration for old work, his artistic feeling, and 
 his practical common sense. In such cases as these, where 
 the work had a special attraction, my father was the first to 
 cry " Hands off!" but he could not go the length of object- 
 ing to the removal bodily of an old work of ordinary type — 
 every stone being, of course, marked and replaced exactly — 
 on the ground that it involved a loss of sentiment. The 
 stones in the old work, so common sense tells us, were set by 
 men who were simply acting under orders, and with no more 
 skill or intelligence than is shown by the workmen of the 
 present day. There is a passage in my father's description 
 of the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, which 
 puts this view of the question very clearly. 
 
ii6 MEMOIR OF 
 
 " The work to be done at the cathedral was absolutely necessary 
 and brooked no delay, but it was as difficult as it was urgent. There 
 were portions of the fabric, as e.g. the north side of the nave, which 
 might have been rebuilt at less expense than was incurred by their 
 repair, but Mr. Roe was entirely in accord with the architect in de- 
 siring that not a single ancient stone which could be retained in its 
 old place should be removed, and such a resolution involved a great 
 deal. To have restored in any other spirit would have been opposed 
 to all right principles. The interest of an old building is twofold. 
 There is, first, the interest of a purely artistic character, which we 
 take in the architectural design ; and there is, next, the antiquarian 
 interest which accrues by mere lapse of time to the stones which 
 form the building. 
 
 " In my opinion, the latter sort of interest should be regarded as 
 hardly, if at all, inferior to the former. It was necessary too, in this 
 case, to consider above all things the importance of making a build- 
 ing as far as possible suitable for our day and our services. Ireland 
 is not rich in such buildings, and an opportunity was here given, 
 such as it would have been culpable not to have made the most of, 
 to show that it was possible to restore an old cathedral with the 
 most reverent respect for all its old features, and yet in such a way 
 as to make it suitable in the very highest degree for the solemn ser- 
 vices of the church, for which it had been originally planned. 
 
 " No doubt such good intentions have only too often led to the 
 destruction of work which ought on no account to have been inter- 
 fered with. In our own days we have seen so much mischievous 
 alteration done that we can hardly feel surprise that, as a natural 
 result, an obstinate objection should exist on the part of many men 
 well entitled to speak, to all restoration upon any pretence whatever. 
 Their complaint is, that it is impossible to restore an ancient build- 
 ing, inasmuch as each age puts its own impress on everything that 
 it does, and that to pretend in the nineteenth century that we are 
 doing work exactly as it would have been done in the thirteenth, is 
 wholly inaccurate and untrue. Now this assertion, correct as it 
 might be under certain circumstances, and clear as its results seem 
 to be, is after all only a half truth, and therefore almost wholly mis- 
 leading. A building is the work not of one man, but of a number 
 of men, working from instructions given to them, probably by one 
 man, certainly by comparatively few. No feature, for example, is 
 more important, or affects the general character of a building more, 
 than the great moulded plinth which, as in the Yorkshire Abbeys, 
 forms the base to an entire fabric ; yet this base must have been 
 designed by one man at once, in the space of, at most, a few 
 minutes, — whether marked on a stone or drawn on a sheet of paper 
 matters not at all, — and then its execution may have occupied a 
 
VI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 117 
 
 gang of workmen for weeks or months. All those workmen had to 
 work the moulding drawn on certain uniform conditions, of the same 
 material, and with the same tools. 
 
 " To give an instance : The whole of the stonework at Salis- 
 bury and York Cathedrals, executed in the thirteenth century, was 
 finished with a ' claw ' tool. Evidently no workman was allowed to 
 use any other, and the conclusion is obvious, viz. that the men in 
 the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries work on the same principle, 
 which is that of obedience to one controlling authority, so as to 
 leave no room whatever for the exercise of any of the personal 
 fancies or tastes of individual workmen. What is true of the plinth 
 is true also of almost every other portion of the truly architectural 
 features of any building. Yet the combination of these strictly archi- 
 tectural features in one harmonious whole is no less the work of one 
 mind and one hand than was the first section of the first moulding. 
 The mere workman of the thirteenth century was in no respect 
 whatever superior to the mere workman of the nineteenth century. 
 He confined himself to doing what he was told, implicitly following 
 the directions of the master. An illustration of this is afforded by 
 the construction of the nave columns of Christ Church. They were 
 all built in the worst possible way, with small pieces of stone, all 
 cut without any allowance for bonding them into the work, and the 
 consequence was that they all gave way to pressure. It is a fair 
 assumption that some thirty masons at least were at work on these 
 columns, and can it be supposed that not one of these men was 
 aware that the work he was doing was very bad, and could not be 
 safely done ? The supposition would be absurd ; and it is clear that 
 what happened was that the workmen absolved themselves of all 
 responsibility, worked the stones they were ordered to work, and ate 
 their meals between times with the same absolute sang froid that 
 marks their successors at the present day. They had no more 
 pleasure in their work, no more originality in their way of doing it, 
 than our workmen have at the present time, all the pretty fables to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. It may be confidently asserted then, 
 that the spirit of the age, as far as it affected the mere workmen, 
 had nothing whatever to do with the highest excellences of ancient 
 architecture. It is not so much the spirit of the age as the marks 
 of age that have to be respected. 
 
 " The truth is, that these old buildings were built like all others, 
 each at one time, by some one artist ; and the only justification for 
 the assumption that this was not the case — which is the question 
 begged by the extreme anti-restorationists — is the fact that in the 
 Middle Ages, in certain kinds of work, the individual workman was 
 often allowed, under certain rules and guidance, to do pretty much 
 as he liked. This happened, no doubt, chiefly in the case of wood 
 
n8 MEMOIR OF 
 
 and stone carving. ... So far from medieval buildings being re- 
 markable for the evidence of the handiwork of the individual work- 
 men who assisted in their erection, the exact opposite is much 
 nearer the truth. Wherever we do come on old work which has 
 this precious personal impress of the workman, no one can agree 
 with the anti-restorationists more cordially than I do that we are 
 bound not to restore, but only to save from further damage, and to 
 deal gently and lovingly with that which cannot possibly be repeated. 
 It is precisely the same thing to restore an ancient piece of sculpture 
 as it is to restore an ancient picture. The whole interest of the 
 work lies in the mark of the artist's own hand on every part of it." 
 
 This is what my father says about the restoration of the 
 porches at Chartres : — 
 
 " I believe the porches of Chartres are to be restored. Can 
 any one who has ever had the privilege of seeing them hear it with- 
 out dread ? They are almost, if not quite, the most precious relics 
 of northern art still left to us, and who is to measure the damage 
 which may be done to them by rash and wholesale cleaning and 
 repairing ? Much better were it to let them go for the rest of time, 
 as now, propped here and there with a heavy timber shore, than to 
 let irreverent hands scrape off every weather stain, repair every 
 damaged feature, and leave the whole as clean and new-looking as 
 when it was first built. In such a case there can be no difficulty in 
 drawing the line between what is lawful and what is unlawful. It is 
 only possible to restore sculpture on the principle that it has no art 
 and no inherent individuality of character." 
 
 These are very explicit declarations of principle, and 
 should satisfy all but those of extreme views. But, as my 
 father truly said, the touch of the individual is absolutely 
 lacking in the actual workmanship of many of the greatest 
 buildings. What is there in the architecture of the temple 
 of Pffistum which could not be exactly repeated to-day ; or 
 in any one of those glorious Cistercian abbeys, where no 
 sculpture of foliage was allowed, much less of figures ? In 
 these works, whatever variety there was was almost certainly 
 due to one mind. And, at any rate, there was no scope for 
 the individuality of the workman to show itself. 
 
 " No one with an atom of judgment," says my father, " would 
 destroy, except under absolute and immediate necessity, work to 
 which time had given that charm of colour which is one of the most 
 precious qualities that age gives to architecture ; nor would any one 
 
VI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 119 
 
 be justified in destroying the works of a later period in order to 
 bring back a wliole building to one uniform condition as to style. 
 This is to obliterate the history which successive generations have 
 left on the face of a building. Marks of this kind are of supreme 
 interest. . . . The architect who would destroy such marks ought 
 to be condemned as a barbarian." 
 
 There are cases, of course, where the enlargement of an 
 old church may be quite unavoidable, but even in such a 
 work it is possible to proceed on lines much less destructive 
 than those pursued by the restorers of the Middle Ages. 
 Their respect for the work of their predecessors was little 
 more than a minus quantity, and the freedom of their pro- 
 ceedings is almost justified by the superiority of the work- 
 executed under such circumstances to that which resulted 
 from the attempt to bring it into harmony with something 
 already existing. 
 
 My father, naturally, in the course of his professional 
 work, came across many works which had been added to and 
 altered again and again. He cites Bloxham Church, Oxford- 
 shire, as a proof that the mediaeval architect as a rule did 
 better to work with perfect freedom in his own style. That 
 church was to a great extent rebuilt in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. The new building took the place of a very ornate 
 Romanesque church, in which there was a great deal of en- 
 richment, chevron and other. In rebuilding the chancel 
 the architect, with the view of retaining somewhat of the 
 old work, used the old enriched stonework in making the 
 inside arches of the windows, with a result which was far 
 from satisfactory. 
 
 At West Walton, Norfolk, the thirteenth-century church 
 was enlarged by simply widening the aisles ; the result of 
 which was that the glorious south porch was half swallowed 
 up, and the proportions of the whole church were ruined ; 
 yet so much use was made of the old stonework that, till 
 my father saw what had happened, the church had been 
 generally accepted as wholly unaltered and perfect. Here, 
 then, was an instance of history falsified, and a fine concep- 
 tion obliterated by conservatism of the most clumsy kind. 
 Ottery St. Mary Church stands almost alone as a fourteenth- 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 century attempt to copy thirteenth-century style, and one so 
 successful as to have deceived many. Here the attempt 
 was evidently a conscious one, and the architect was doing 
 pretty much what we do nowadays, except that he laboured 
 under an additional disadvantage — that of having to forget 
 the style which was familiar to him. The model was of 
 course the neighbouring cathedral of Exeter, and, though 
 the work is not earlier than the middle of the fourteenth 
 century, the windows are all lancets, and obviously meant to 
 look like first-pointed, but the mouldings in themselves are 
 sufficient to betray the date. The effect of the work on my 
 father was conclusive as against eclecticism even under the 
 most favourable circumstances. 
 
 There are instances, though not many, of similar copyism 
 in continental work, and he quotes as an instance the pulpit 
 in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista at Pistoia, erected 
 by Niccola Pisano, as being an almost literal copy of Guido da 
 Como's pulpit, dating from 1250, at San Bartolommeo, in 
 the same town. The idea once taken was then reproduced 
 with variations, as in the famous example in the Baptistery 
 at Pisa, where the plan is hexagonal instead of square ; and 
 again in the pulpit in Siena Cathedral. 
 
 There is sometimes a sort of grandeur of utility, a 
 splendid disregard of the means, in mediaeval additions which 
 compel admiration on their own account. My father men- 
 tioned many examples which he thought worthy of being put 
 in this category. Among them, Cuddesdon Church, Oxford, 
 which may be taken as a sample. In this case the original 
 church had consisted of nave, chancel, transepts, and a cen- 
 tral steeple, there being no aisles. Early in the fourteenth 
 century, when more accommodation was wanted, aisles were 
 added. This was done in a bold way, by inserting arches in 
 the old walls, without removing the upper part, where, to 
 this day, the early windows and corbel table remain, cut into 
 and half destroyed by the new arcade. But the church with 
 its wider aisles was soon found to be very dark, and the 
 outer walls being very low, a dormer window under a stone 
 gable was added ; then, this expedient not having proved 
 satisfactory, the aisle walls were raised, the roofs flattened, 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 the old dormer was encased in the new wall, and large 
 windows were inserted. Subsequently to this the chancel 
 was rebuilt and made longer. Any experienced eye might 
 detect all this, my father says. And, indeed, the remarkably 
 decided way in which things were done was likely to leave 
 much more evidence of what had been than a more gradual 
 and thorough process. This is the way in which history was 
 made ; and such history is immensely interesting and in- 
 structive. It is, however, not to be accepted as a precedent 
 for us to-day. Our work makes no history, except in so far 
 as it tells of the Gothic movement, and is thus quite without 
 one striking merit which all old work had ; but there is a 
 limit to the weight of fetters with which the architect to-day 
 is to load himself The limit, I think, is reached in such a 
 case as that of the Fratry of Carlisle — the restoration of 
 which by my father was so bitterly opposed by the anti- 
 restorationists. Here was an early building, almost intact, 
 if it could but be seen, deformed and hidden by late and 
 squalid additions, which were without architectural value or 
 significance. Great stress was laid by the Society for the 
 Preservation of Ancient Buildings on the necessity of leaving 
 intact certain square-headed classical windows, which were 
 said to have been inserted by the archaeologist Machell. 
 These they dignified with the name of " Venerable Historical 
 Evidences ; " but it seems very pertinent to ask, why the 
 architect of to-day is not to be allowed to have his word as 
 much as the archaeologist of yesterday? Historical evidence 
 in these windows there was none, beyond their showing that 
 the classical style was then floating on the top of the wave, 
 as Gothic was later. All my father did was to clear away 
 what was incongruous from a very charming building, not 
 to make a conjectural restoration of something which had 
 actually been destroyed. 
 
 Not only did my father in his treatment of old works 
 display the greatest regard and handle them in the most 
 tender way, but he possessed a quite remarkable power of 
 grasping and realising the historical growth or decay of a 
 building ; and his great knowledge and real insight into the 
 spirit of old work enabled him, as some learned man will 
 
122 MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET chap, vi 
 
 construct an entire prehistoric animal from a fossil footprint, 
 to do much the same in his own field. The most striking 
 instance of this is perhaps Christ Church Cathedral, of which 
 I shall speak somewhat fully hereafter. What I refer par- 
 ticularly to now is the fact that he designed a new western 
 door there without a fragment to guide him. And after- 
 wards one of the original jamb-stones having been discovered 
 in the wall was found to be almost identical in section with 
 that which had just been worked. This was no more than 
 a happy accident, still it seems to throw a light on the im- 
 mense difference — in kind rather than in degree — between 
 a restoration which is merely careful, and one where deep 
 thought and something like inspiration have given, as it were, 
 the keynote of the whole. 
 
 Out of a whole host of parish church restorations none, I 
 suppose, was more remarkable than that of Clun Church, 
 Salop, — a building which was declared in the time of Charles 
 II. to be beyond repair, but in my father's skilful hands was 
 restored from squalor incredible to its original grandeur. And 
 there, as elsewhere, it is the genuine old work which has been 
 made to tell its tale, and there is little new work compara- 
 tively. 
 
 " Mr. Street's idea of church restoration must certainly be ad- 
 mitted to possess an undeniable sentimental charm. Spare every- 
 thing that is authentic ; cherish everything that is genuine ; even 
 the resthetic incongruities which come of successive alterations during 
 the later Middle Ages do not disturb. The Tudor work itself regard 
 with all respect ; despise not even the Stuart work if it be anywise 
 lifelike. Let the history of the fabric, for good or ill, be treated as a 
 sacred record — there it is, there let it be." 
 
 These rather stilted phrases sum up the impressions of 
 my father's teaching on the subject of restoration, and give 
 us concisely the principles with which he was actuated and 
 on which he worked. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 It seems almost superfluous to say that an architect ought 
 to be a good draughtsman. Most people would regard it as 
 a truism. Still there have, no doubt, been not a few who have 
 become eminent in the profession without ever having ob- 
 tained any mastery over the pencil ; and the great works of 
 the Middle Ages must have been executed from drawings of 
 a very different kind to those in vogue now, — all the full sizes 
 being no doubt drawn on the spot by the architect, whether 
 on the stone or on paper, the small scale or general designs 
 being of a comparatively rough character. 
 
 This much is clear, however, that the man who has the 
 advantage of a ready pencil is at once able to register for 
 himself, and in such a way that he will be little likely to 
 forget it, every noteworthy feature he may come across. The 
 value of ancient examples for educational purposes cannot be 
 overestimated. But they must be used and not abused ; for 
 individuality is a necessity in a great artist, and copyism is 
 the almost infallible sign of a bad one. This, however, 
 does not make it any the less advisable for the architect to 
 register in his memory or in his sketch-book the beauties 
 which are all around him ; for in this way he may insensibly 
 impregnate the imagination with a delicate sense of gradation 
 and proportion, and a right perception of form and outline. 
 
 Some have denied that it is good to sketch much ; have 
 even gone so far as to decry it altogether ; with some idea, 
 perhaps, that it must inevitably lead to copyism, or possibly 
 from believing that a too clever pencil may give a drawing a 
 fictitious charm not due to any merits in the design which it 
 represents. I remember an article in one of the weeklies on 
 
124 MEMOIR OF 
 
 my father's perspective view of his design for the New Law 
 Courts, as proposed to be built on the Embankment, in 
 which there is the expression of a fear of this sort. It was 
 as follows : " Mr. Street has a gift, the witchery of which 
 may not have been fully revealed to himself, in the exercise 
 of which, as he is great, so he ought to be merciful, for he 
 cannot realise the force of his own hand. He is not only a 
 great architect, but a consummate landscape artist. Of those 
 who in our time have had his gift, it has never been developed 
 to so exquisite a degree as in Pugin and Mr. Street." There 
 may be a grain of truth in this, but it must be remembered 
 that the busy architect turns out hundreds of purely archi- 
 tectural drawings for one perspective. The working drawings 
 which came from my father's office were of the most simple 
 character, and did not contain an unnecessary line. They 
 were, in fact, severely utilitarian, and as different as possible 
 from the shaded and beautifully suggestive productions of 
 French ateliers ; the praises of which some are never tired of 
 sounding. My father was wont to say that where so much 
 time is given up to making pretty small-scale drawings, the 
 details run a good chance of being left to take care of them- 
 selves.^ 
 
 In intimate knowledge of all the best mediaeval ex- 
 amples, I believe my father yielded to no man ; and in 
 speaking of his sketching I am tempted to say, remember- 
 ing how many sheets of a sketch-book he would cover in a 
 few hours, and how incessantly he was at work at it when- 
 ever he was away from his desk, that he did it to an extent 
 unsurpassed either before or since. This is a strong state- 
 ment ; but I am sure it is no exaggeration to say that there 
 are none *of the principal or most beautiful mediaeval 
 buildings in Europe from which he did not in a manner 
 extract the goodness ; but I can say with equal assurance 
 that he never referred to a note-book for a suggestion, and 
 that he never even so much as reproduced a moulding in 
 
 ^ The advocates of the French mode of getting up drawings lay much stress 
 on the fact that everything is shown in them — carving, ornament, and figures ; but 
 in my father's work all such detail was invariably given, not to a small scale, but 
 full size. 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 125 
 
 his life except in so far as the storehouse of the brain may 
 have unconsciously yielded up some remembered outline. 
 
 My father believed as little as any one that mere good 
 draughtsmanship is the end, and should be the aim of the 
 architect ; but he records himself how, as a matter of fact, 
 experience had shown him that artistic merit and power of 
 drawing were almost invariably to be found together, and that 
 among young men and architectural students the best executed 
 designs were nearly always the ablest. I believe there is a 
 feeling at the time I write that good draughtsmanship tells 
 in a way that it ought not to do in competitions, and it was 
 perhaps with the view of making this less probable that, in 
 various competitions recently decided — that for the Edin- 
 burgh Municipal Buildings, for example, — it was laid down as 
 one of the conditions that there should be no perspective view. 
 The object is a right one, but the result must be that even for 
 the trained professional assessor the merit of the general 
 arrangement and massing of the various designs must be- 
 come infinitely more difficult to determine with certainty. 
 Subjectively speaking, it seems perfectly clear that facility in 
 the use of the vehicle by which the thoughts are expressed 
 is of as great value to the architect or artist as a correspond- 
 ing power over language is to the literary man. On the 
 subject of sketching my father says : — 
 
 " I plead guilty to having told men to sketch, but I have never 
 thought it the end of an architect's life. I do I don't know how 
 many drawings a year without any attempt at picturesqueness to 
 five or six perspectives. The architect's business is to build and 
 design rather than to draw ; but though a good building may be 
 erected without good drawings, it is still certain that the best archi- 
 tect is likely to be one to whom drawing is so easy as to present 
 no impediment to him when he wishes to put his ideas on paper. 
 Our working drawings are perfectly simple without any of the 
 sponging and shading of French drawings. ... I think an architect 
 should do his own perspectives ; nor do I hold that those drawings 
 have much to say for themselves when the sky and trees and back- 
 ground are even more judiciously dealt with than the design itself." 
 
 This was a propos of certain strictures which had been 
 uttered by a brother architect — presumably not a first-rate 
 draughtsman himself — on the too great attractiveness of my 
 
126 MEMOIR OF 
 
 father's pen-and-ink drawings; the ground of complaint 
 being that skill of hand was made to atone for and disguise 
 want of imagination or feebleness of design. Mr. Edmund 
 Sharpe — no mean authority — maintained on the other hand 
 that it was rather the merit of my father's designs which 
 made pen-and-ink drawings go down than the converse. 
 Pen and ink is so familiar to the present generation — no 
 other medium being indeed so much affected for purposes of 
 exhibition, — that it is difficult to imagine its not having always 
 been popular ; yet not very many years back it was practically 
 unknown, and, indeed, the credit of having founded the great 
 modern school of pen and ink lies with my father as much as 
 any one. There are endless varieties of style and method 
 now, but they have all one common origin. The rapidity and 
 effectiveness of my father's own workmanship have not yet 
 been surpassed, and it was perhaps natural that a man w^th 
 so unusual a power should wish to make it a sine qua non 
 that drawings sent for exhibition should be by the architect's 
 own hand. Still every busy man, even if he have the power, 
 may not be a sufficiently rapid worker to be able to do more 
 than his purely architectural drawings ; and it seems hard 
 that he should be excluded from the benefit or the satisfaction 
 of showing such of the public as ever glance at an architec- 
 tural drawing what his powers of design may be. 
 
 My father then advises the student to sketch, and with 
 no doubtful voice ; and he further gives him this piece of 
 counsel, which is paid too little heed to among us, viz. that 
 he shall begin by making a diligent study of the human 
 form coincidentally with or before applying himself to more 
 technical subjects. A truthful and beautiful portrayal of the 
 highest types of the human form must always be the highest 
 and noblest thing in art, but as it is naturally the subject to 
 which the most consummate artists turn, so should it form the 
 groundwork of the student's education. It teaches us, so my 
 father said, a sublime indifference to certain qualities which 
 are now exerting the worst possible influence on our archi- 
 tecture and our arts ot production in general — the qualities 
 of minute and rigid exactitude, of lifeless repetition, of utter 
 sameness, the perfect similarity of colour, line, and texture 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 127 
 
 which are, or, it may perhaps be now said, which were, sup- 
 posed to be the suminuin boiinin of artistic production. 
 
 " I venture to say," my father exclaims, " that there are 
 varieties in the best works, and that, just as God makes 
 every man and every animal unlike his brother or the rest 
 of his kind, so the variety which is absolutely incompatible 
 with exact accuracy of execution is really the highest quality 
 which any of man's works can have." My father would 
 have had the hand and eye trained by constant practice to 
 work in perfect unison, — a state of things which is particularly 
 to be desired in the case of a young architect, because he 
 is then under less temptation to save himself trouble or to 
 make up for the deficiencies of an unskilful hand by the use 
 of mathematical instruments. " Nothing does so much 
 harm to design as a too frequent dependence on mathemati- 
 cal instruments." Once let the habit be indulged, and it 
 will grow and grow till the smallest design or pattern is 
 arranged so that its curves may be struck. My father 
 insisted that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well 
 and thoroughly. Thus, when the architect is drawing a 
 pattern or an ornament, divided, say, into eight equal parts, it 
 is not enough — it is wrong rather — to draw only one part as 
 a sample of what all are to be, or to do, what is so common 
 a habit, viz. draw one and trace two or three others from it ; 
 but each one of the eight parts should be drawn, and with 
 only so much approximation to exactitude as the eye will 
 give. The result is worth the additional trouble, for, 
 whereas the perfection of accuracy gives a tameness and in- 
 sipidity to the best arrangement of forms, the hand will pro- 
 duce, what Nature invariably gives, a charming irregularity in 
 order. If proof were wanted, m}- father would have pointed 
 to mediaeval and eastern embroidery, or to old Venetian glass, 
 or to ancient painted glass, for in this last is seen even more 
 fully than in the others those beautiful gradations of tints in 
 its golds and blues and rubies, clouded here and brilliant 
 there, which give it such a rich and sumptuous beauty. 
 
 While I am on the subject of drawing, I may perhaps as 
 well refer to my father's views on the use of natural forms 
 in desisrn. 
 
128 MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 " There are two ways," he says, " of using Nature in art. The 
 one is copying her exactly, the other is giving a conventional repre-- 
 sentation of her. Direct copyism is obviously right in certain 
 works, but in a picture it is absolutely impossible to represent every 
 leaf, or the complete stratification of a rock, and the painter is 
 forced to betake himself to a certain sort of conventional treatment 
 which enables him to give the general effect. In decoration, as you 
 cannot copy exactly, it is better frankly to accept the conditions 
 and boldly adopt a conventional treatment. Take a leaf and you 
 will find its leading features to be its outline, the lines of its fibres, 
 and the way it grows out of the stem ; your conventionalised leaf 
 must give you the essence of these three facts in the simplest way 
 and with the least complexity. . . . Nothing is more common now- 
 adays than the practice of making ornaments by the combination or 
 repetition of natural forms, and perhaps it is not going too far to 
 say that nothing is more contemptible." 
 
 My father's own powers as a sketcher were of a very 
 remarkable kind. Very often have I looked over his shoulder 
 while he did a complete sketch, and I cannot say what entire 
 confidence he inspired with his powerful handling. A mis- 
 take seemed almost out of the question. The first few touches 
 of the pencil, the putting in of those first lines on the accu- 
 racy of which all may depend, showed the master hand. There 
 was never any wavering or faltering, apparently no con- 
 sideration as to the best way to put the subject on paper, or 
 as to the scale which the size of the note-book would make 
 necessary. All seemed to have come in a flash and to be 
 as vividly present to him as though — imperceptible to 
 others — the subject were delicately outlined on the paper 
 before him. He delighted in the most difficult subjects, not 
 in the least because of their difficulty, but simply because a 
 subject which gives the gist of a great building must neces- 
 sarily be an intricate one. It was his custom, I believe I 
 may say invariably, to make the ground plan of every 
 church of much interest. On the Continent, where chevets 
 arc so frequent, no two being quite alike, and almost every 
 one displaying cleverness and ingenuity, he certainly made 
 a point of doing this. It was done in many cases and with 
 sufficient correctness for all practical purposes by stepping. 
 The relation of every part was at any rate established in this 
 way with a close approach to accurac}'. The ground plan 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 129 
 
 of a cathedral taken in this way was put on paper in an 
 incredibly short time. He very frequently took the most 
 comprehensive interior and exterior views, looking up the 
 choir from the nave or nave aisle or across it from one of 
 the transepts. A sketch of this kind involved every difficult 
 feature which the architectural sketcher has to grapple with, 
 and it necessitated a great deal of drawing of groining, the 
 correct delineation of which I have often heard my father 
 say is a pretty conclusive test of a man's capabilities. All 
 this was sketched with as much ease and rapidity as the 
 most simple and straightforward parts. But it is futile to 
 try to indicate the subjects which fill my father's note-books. 
 They are of course infinitely varied. Pages and pages are 
 filled with details, accurately and thoroughly measured. 
 This is a feature which, it is to be noticed, characterises 
 all his sketches, except those which obviously dealt with too 
 large a subject. These sketches — executed in such a 
 brilliant way — have in themselves the highest artistic value ; 
 and besides that they are a most accurate and thoroughly 
 intelligible record of what they represent. There is not an 
 arch-mould, or an abacus, or a base, the section of which is 
 not faithfully indicated. Lastly, my father's sketches prove 
 that he knew exactly how much to do and how much to 
 leave undone. They are not worked up to concert pitch 
 in every part, but they omit nothing which should be shown, 
 and have a delightful suggestiveness which tells one every- 
 thing quite as well and in a more attractive form than the 
 most carefully elaborated drawing could do.^ 
 
 Firm and decided as every line is, looking as if it must 
 have been drawn under the most favourable circumstances, 
 such was far from being the case. I have stood with my 
 father at eight o'clock on a bitter early spring morning, after 
 having just got out of the train in which we had been 
 travelling through the night, and have watched him use his 
 pencil as though it were as warm as midsummer, though my 
 
 ^ In spite of the artistic merit of his sketches, it is quite certain that it was 
 never his aim to make them look pretty. What he tried to do was to show as 
 much of some fine piece of work as he could, and in as few lines as possible. He 
 never sketched for mere sketching's sake. He was essentially the architect, not 
 the architectural draughtsman. 
 
 K 
 
I30 MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 own hands, cased in warm gloves, felt as though they were 
 frozen stiff. He drew just as well and firmly whether he sup- 
 ported his book on his knee or merely held it in his hand 
 as he stood. The latter indeed was his habitual method, 
 because he was then free to move, to get a nearer view of 
 some detail, or to take measurements as he worked. His 
 habit of drawing on square note-books obliged him very 
 frequently to extend his sketch over two pages ; but the lines 
 which travel down into the valley between the two sheets 
 and climb up again are none the less straight or decided for 
 having done so. In fact, I think he never felt it to be the 
 least discomfort to have to do so. His advice to young 
 sketchers turned always on the paramount importance of 
 getting perfect self-reliance. He practically said, " Burn your 
 boats behind you," for the young draughtsman without india- 
 rubber is like the army without retreat. Indiarubber may 
 of course be useful once in a way to the most practised 
 draughtsman, but it is the fatal power of drawing what is 
 wrong with the knowledge that it is not done beyond hope 
 of recall, the sense of security which its possession gives 
 which is the mischief of it, and my father thought it better to 
 cut the knot by simply refusing to carry it. It was in this 
 way that he trained himself to be accurate. I never remember 
 his carrying indiarubber. I think if he ever borrowed mine 
 (for I am afraid I did not follow his advice) it was only once 
 or twice ; and certainly there are but few sketches of his, ex- 
 cept among those of his earlier days, where there is anything 
 that needs correction. He was no doubt possessed of unusual 
 powers ; but it is none the less true that sketching, as he did, 
 in ink or in pencil without resorting to indiarubber is the 
 best way to avoid a slipshod and careless style, and will in 
 the end give a freedom to the hand and an accuracy to the 
 eye which is never gained by a less Spartan system of 
 training. Of my father's rapidity in making the pen-and- 
 ink perspectives of his designs which always did him so 
 much credit, I am able to speak with exact precision in one 
 case at least. Two years before his death, in 1879, he 
 exhibited at the Royal Academy a most effective bird's-eye 
 view of the convent of St. Margaret, East Grinstead : the 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 131 
 
 drawing is 34 inches by 22, a very fair size, and full of 
 buildings all running at odd angles to each other, and 
 consequently presenting an unusual quantity of work for 
 the amount of paper to be covered. My father began this 
 one evening at nine o'clock, and before he went to bed at 
 one o'clock had put it all in in pencil, i.e. all that needed 
 pencilling. The next night he worked, and again the next, 
 and on the fourth night he finished it completely, having 
 taken, as he himself records in his diary with some pride, 
 just sixteen hours about it. Any one who remembers 
 the drawing will allow this to be remarkably quick. What 
 was true of my father's sketching was equally true of his 
 original work. There was the same certainty and the same 
 perfect co-operation of hand and eye in the one as in the 
 other. For some time he drew all his full-size mouldings 
 in ink — a conclusive testimony, if there were no other, of his 
 self-reliance. He had no first thoughts and second thoughts 
 about a thing, but he decided rapidly and once for all what 
 Avould be suitable ; and his hand was engaged in registering 
 before the brain had ceased creating, so that in making his 
 details, or even his general designs, there was a complete 
 absence of hesitation or tentativeness. He had, in truth, and 
 of all his qualities it was the highest and rarest, that power 
 of instantaneous and complete mental conception which but 
 few in a generation can lay claim to. It is a power which 
 the reader of Nasmyth's Autobiography will recognise to have 
 been present in him. He tells us in a simple and straight- 
 forward way how he received a letter one morning at break- 
 fast, in which his opinion was asked as to the feasibility or 
 the wisdom of having a cast-iron paddle-shaft for the Great 
 Britain steamship, which was then being built, no hammer 
 at that date being of sufficient power to make a shaft of the 
 required size. He goes on to say that the principle on 
 which a hammer should work to be capable of doing what 
 was wanted struck him on the instant, and in half an hour 
 from the time he received the letter he had put down in a 
 note-book his design for the great steam-hammer, which is 
 now known all over the world, with every detail complete. 
 "I rapidly sketched out my steam-hammer, having it all 
 
132 MEMOIR OF 
 
 clearly before me in my mind's eye." This sketch was not 
 a mere suggestion to be worked out at leisure, but it actually 
 embodied almost everything that is found in the hammer 
 of to-day. " This, my first delineation of the steam-hammer, 
 will be found to comprise all the essential elements of the 
 invention." To take another instance, this time in the 
 sphere of art : All who have studied Turner's life and work 
 in any degree know that it was his habit to jot down his 
 impressions of natural objects and natural phenomena in the 
 most rapid and seemingly undecipherable way. Some of 
 these are reproduced in the pages of Modern Painters ; they 
 are partly in writing, and partly in the roughest kind of 
 sketching. The impression is in fact recorded with all the 
 speed possible, and with as few words and touches as will 
 serve the purpose. Now some of his water-colour drawings, 
 embodying the experience. which he had gained by constant 
 observation and had registered in the way I have mentioned, 
 were, I believe, hardly more than a morning's work. What 
 Turner gives us is not an exact and literal transcript from 
 Nature, but it is the record of an impression not merely 
 gained from the actual piece of scenery which is included in 
 the picture, but, as Ruskin says, the impression received 
 depends on the temper into which the mind has been brought, 
 on the scenery which has been seen in the course of the da}', 
 so that when Turner sits down to paint a scene on the St. 
 Gothard, what he gives us is not a bare and accurate reminis- 
 cence of one spot and its surroundings, but it is a scene which 
 is strongly characteristic of the mountain forms to be found 
 throughout the St. Gothard Pass. This is only possible 
 when the brain has the necessary power of receiving indelible 
 impressions, and of conceiving something which unites and 
 blends all their essential qualities. " The powerfully imagina- 
 tive mind seizes and combines at the same instant, not only 
 two, but all the important ideas of its poem or picture ; and 
 while it works with any one of them, it is at the same time 
 working with and modifying all in their relations to it, never 
 losing sight of their bearings on each other" (^Modern Painters, 
 vol. ii. part iii.) Fuseli laid down that " Second thoughts 
 are admissible in painting and poetry only as dressers of the 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 133 
 
 first conception ; no great idea was ever formed in frag- 
 ments ; " and Ruskin too says : " He alone can conceive and 
 compose who sees the whole at once before him." 
 
 Now this power of complete and instantaneous conception 
 belonged to my father just as much as it did to either 
 Nasmyth or Turner. I have said that his original work was 
 drawn with just as great, or, to be accurate, with even greater 
 rapidity than his architectural sketches. It is clear that the 
 ability to design as rapidly as a skilled hand can work must 
 denote the existence of a complete conception in the brain 
 of the designer. My father's pencil — of remarkable facility — 
 could not yet move as fast as he wished. I have mentioned 
 the rapidity with which he threw off details, but he dealt 
 with complete designs in just the same way. A hostile 
 critic once animadverted on his habit of completing the 
 designs for a church in a morning, and professed himself 
 scandalised to find that an architect of position could do his 
 work in a way which must of necessity be so slipshod ; but 
 happily one can refer with confidence to the admirable 
 results of this rapid work. Putting aside the question whether 
 my father's designs are beautiful or not, it can easily be 
 shown that they are not slipshod. There is not a work of 
 his which bears the mark of carelessness or want of attention ; 
 on the contrary, there is about them every evidence of the 
 most careful consideration of details. Any one who was 
 ever in my father's office can bear witness to his rapidity in 
 designing ; but I think a particularly good instance of his 
 power of conception is afforded by the American Church in 
 Paris, lately opened. My father had been with the rector 
 to see the site which it was then proposed to buy, and had 
 found it sufficiently suitable to decide in favour of it. On 
 his return to the rector's house, the latter asked him whether 
 he would be able to let them have a sketch of his design 
 when he had thought it out, so that intending subscribers 
 might know to what their money would be devoted. My 
 father in return asked for paper, and without further con- 
 sideration made a detailed sketch to a scale of about a 
 twelfth of an inch to the foot. I don't remember how long 
 he took to do it, but he was described as putting his pencil to 
 
134 MEMOIR OF 
 
 paper with apparently no pause at all for reflection, and as fast 
 as his hand could work. Now this sketch is, like Nasmyth's, 
 not a mere suggestion of what might possibly be, but it prac- 
 tically represents the church as it stands there now. It is true 
 that one large window^ has taken the place of two smaller ones 
 in the west front, and that the tower and spire have been 
 shifted from the south side to the north, but these are the 
 only important modifications. Every proportion is exactly 
 similar. The height of the church in relation to its width, 
 the design and proportions of the tower and spire, the pro- 
 portion of the whole to the site on which it stands. The 
 artistic qualities of the sketch and the beauty of the design 
 are obvious to the most unskilled eye ; but the great 
 point is the wonderful power of imagination which is implied 
 in such a tour de force as this, and the immense self-reliance 
 which could enable a man to bind himself, definitely, once 
 for all, and at a moment's notice, to a design for a church, 
 which was about the most costly parish church which he had 
 ever had to build, and was to stand in a great and splendid 
 foreign capital as a monument of what the boasted English 
 school of church architects could accomplish. I lay particular 
 stress on this example because of the importance of the 
 church, but in other respects it was not a whit more remark- 
 able than scores of others ; and, indeed, I never remember my 
 father's designs being produced except, as it seemed to me, 
 by inspiration. I have already spoken of his laying great 
 emphasis on an architect's not restricting his own personal 
 interest in a work to the shell, but on the contrary designing 
 every fitting or piece of furniture in it. Such was invariably 
 his own practice, and much of his most imaginative and 
 beautiful work is to be found among his designs for em- 
 broideries, for plate, for metal, marble, and woodwork of 
 every kind. Of these, I think, it is difficult to speak too 
 highly. Of the merits of his ironwork no one who lives in 
 London need be ignorant, while he has the infinitely varied 
 series of the designs at the Law Courts at his doors. It is 
 difficult to pick out single pieces as being better than others, 
 but there are some among the more easily found which are 
 quite among the best. What, indeed, can be finer than the 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 135 
 
 gates on the Strand front, those, for instance, at the entrance 
 to the office quadrangle, and those again in the archway under 
 the clock tower ? or, on the Carey Street front, what more 
 charming than the little gates in front of the Judges' entrances ? 
 The variety is infinite, the curves have all the beauty of 
 natural outlines, the sections are piquant. It is not uncommon 
 in good and interesting churches to find even nowadays iron- 
 work, hinges more particularly, which seem to have had 
 little or no attention given them by the architect. Even 
 where the outline has been sketched, it is obvious that the 
 section has been forgotten or has been ignored ; yet the 
 section is hardly less important than the form, and a common- 
 place outline with a varied and well-designed section will be 
 quite likely to look better than a good outline where there is 
 no section at all. There is much beautiful ironwork of my 
 father's at Kingstone Church, Dorset ; at All Saints, Clifton ; 
 at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin ; at St. James the Less, 
 Westminster. Indeed, there is probably not a church with 
 which he had to do where there is not some ironwork which 
 is worth study, even if it is nothing more important than 
 hinges. His ironwork was to a great extent executed by 
 Leaver of Maidenhead. Of his work Sir Gilbert Scott said : 
 " I believe Mr. Street has made great progress in metal 
 work, acting through a smith at Maidenhead. I have only 
 seen a little of his work, but that was first-rate." It is 
 impossible to describe embroidery designs, but altar-cloths 
 and hangings of my father's design exist throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land. They rarely, if ever, have 
 any representation of figures — a feature in which it is difficult 
 to strike the happy mean between realism and conven- 
 tionalism, and the results of which are not usually very 
 satisfactory, — but are composed of patterns, devices, and 
 monograms of great originality and endless variety, inter- 
 spersed with conventionalised flowers and foliage. My 
 father often made conventional studies from the flowers 
 themselves, so that no characteristic should be lost or 
 reduced to insignificance in the conversion from the natural 
 to the conventional form. The arrangement of colours was 
 always at least as satisfactory as the patterns. 
 
136 MEMOIR OF 
 
 There is a last point to be noticed in dealing with his 
 thoroughness, and that is, his ability in designing carving and 
 enrichment. This is not unfrequently, I think, classed with 
 hinges as one of the minor adjuncts of a work about which 
 an architect need not trouble himself, beyond perhaps, glanc- 
 ing at a model or two. To quote Sir Gilbert Scott again : — 
 
 " My friend, Mr. Street, during this period, has been working up 
 the pure conventional foliage, Mr. Earp being his handpiece, and 
 he has done very great things. I think that his work and mine 
 together, for the last few years or so, has been a noble development. 
 He can lay claim to his more personally than I can to mine, as he 
 gives drawings, while I do my work by influence ; but the results 
 in both cases are of a high order." 
 
 Without in any way disparaging Sir Gilbert's method, 
 it is impossible not to feel that the true and thorough way 
 of getting your work done, exactly as you zvant it done, is 
 to design, to sketch, or even to model, it yourself Busy as 
 my father was, he yet found time to go into the modeller's 
 shed, which adjoined his office, every time he went down to 
 the Law Courts — two or three times a week — while the work 
 was going on. In that shed he not only made numerous 
 sketches, not willingly foregoing making the design for even 
 the smallest piece of enrichment, but in very many instances 
 he worked on the clay models. The carving throughout the 
 Law Courts is probably of as high a character as any Gothic 
 carving which has been executed in our day, and does every 
 credit to the men who were engaged upon it. Its great 
 value, however, lies in its not being only a near approach to 
 what the architect desired, but in its being literally the em- 
 bodiment of his designs. If there was one thing more than 
 another which my father would never have tolerated, it 
 was the modification of a design by the carver, smith, or 
 whatever he might be, who was employed in carrying it out. 
 " Skidmore kicked over the traces," says Sir Gilbert Scott of 
 the well-known ironworker who did so much for him. That 
 my father would never have allowed. A work once put into 
 his hands, he was determined that all its merits and demerits 
 should be due to him and to no one else. His earliest work, 
 both in iron and carving, though as full as it could be of 
 
vii GEORGE EDMUND STREET \yj 
 
 originality and go, erred on the side of crudeness in some 
 measure — a fault which was, however, very soon eradicated. 
 In addition to his imaginative faculty my father had 
 great powers of critical observation and comparison, the 
 results of which are obvious in all his contributions to 
 architectural and archaeological literature, whether in his 
 books or in the more fugitive pieces. This power enabled 
 him to illustrate, in the most ample way, any architectural 
 feature which he was discussing, or any dictum which he laid 
 down. He never treated a building merely from the artistic 
 point of view, but rather subjected it to a searching analysis, 
 looking for analogies or contrasts, traces of foreign influence, 
 or local idiosyncrasies, — paying the most careful attention to 
 the historical aspect generally. His advice to students shows 
 how necessary a part of an architect's duties and training he 
 held such a course to be. The history of the building which 
 they have to restore, he tells them, must be deciphered with 
 as near an approach to accuracy as possible before all. The 
 architect, who would deserve the name, must be an archaeo- 
 logist as well as an artist, and a builder as well as both. 
 Diligent exercise of scientific observation, combined with a 
 retentive memory and powers of logical classification, enabled 
 my father to make considerable additions to the store of our 
 historical knowledge as to the connection between various 
 works in different parts of our country and in different parts 
 of Europe. The habit of thoroughly co-ordinating and sys- 
 tematising his experiences enabled him to trace the action 
 of various laws in the development of style, and to point to 
 the production of like effects by like causes in different parts 
 of the world. The following short quotation on the subject 
 of the brick architecture of Europe will explain my mean- 
 ing :— 
 
 "The great fields for brick architecture were (i) the north of 
 Italy j (2) the north-east of Germany; (3) the west of France; and 
 (4) various parts of Spain. There were other districts, but these were 
 the most important. The developments of each were different, but 
 they all agreed in the discovery of certain qualities in bricks. In the 
 first place, they all found that if brickwork is to be strong, it must be 
 built with an enormous quantity of mortar ; and so, instead of specify- 
 ing, as some enlightened nineteenth-century architects would do, that 
 
138 MEMOIR OF 
 
 ' no mortar joint is to be more than one quarter of an inch thick,' I 
 think if we could find a mediaeval specification we should find it run 
 in this form, 'No mortar joint to be less than half an inch thick.' 
 Then next they observed that bricks might be moulded, and that, if the 
 earth used were well tempered and fine, any delicate pattern might 
 be reproduced in a hard material which would almost defy weather. 
 In subsequent times we have seen it become the fashion to ignore 
 this vulgar view of the question, and to regard brick as a material 
 which ought to be so soft as to be cut and rubbed easily. Moulded 
 bricks of course made easy a plentiful use of a mould when once it 
 had been made, and there was consequently a temptation to use a 
 pattern over again as often as possible. The result of this was that 
 in most brick districts we see moulded brick traceries used and 
 repeated all over a building, not because they were very beautiful, or 
 because they were required, but because they existed, and therefore 
 had to be used. Look at the cornices of the Italian churches, with 
 their endless repetitions of the same form of tracery, and you will 
 see what I mean ; whilst in North Germany the traceries all over 
 the transepts of St. Katharine at Brandenburg show precisely the 
 same kind of result. Still more curious is it that in Italy, in France, 
 and in Germany, the use of brick led to the erection of sham fronts 
 in front of the roof-gables, the main or only use of which was to 
 show off the variety of moulded bricks. You will also see a close 
 affinity in cause and principle between such fronts (to take typical 
 examples from each country) as those of the Town Hall of Liibeck, 
 the gables of the churches in and near Toulouse, and the transepts 
 of Cremona Cathedral ; whilst, nevertheless, each is entirely inde- 
 pendent of the other in style, and evidently their architects knew 
 nothing of each other's work. And here I am reminded of the 
 curious effect of brickwork upon stonework in the same districts, as, 
 e.g. in Venice, where one cannot look at such traceries as those of 
 the Madonna del Orto, consisting of groups of quatrefoils cut out to 
 fit an arch, and not growing naturally as our own English traceries 
 grow, without seeing that the necessary repetitions of brick traceries 
 had probably suggested them. So again in North Germany we see at 
 Brunswick, Halberstadt, and in that district generally, a remarkable 
 type of west front, consisting of a raised gable between the towers, 
 the sole object of which seems to have been the exhibition of mag- 
 nificent traceries, both to the east and west, which looks almost as 
 if it had been suggested by the common exhibition of grand brick 
 traceries in the churches not far off, as, e.g. in the transept of St. 
 Katharine, Brandenburg, though, no doubt, the Romanesque 
 examples of the same arrangement would rather militate against this 
 theory. In the south of France, in Toulouse and its neighbour- 
 hood, the use of brickwork led to almost exactly the same kind of 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 139 
 
 development as we may see in the front of St. Taur, Toulouse, or 
 that of Ville Nouvelle or Villefranche, not far off; but the details 
 of the works in all these districts are different, and yet in each the 
 style has been affected by the material, and is quite unlike what it 
 would have been if stone had been available for use." 
 
 The power and habit of critical comparison made my 
 father's books on Brick and Marble in North Italy and Gothic 
 ArcJiitcctnre in Spain most valuable ; the latter perhaps par- 
 ticularly, because the architecture of Spain was influenced 
 in so great a degree by foreign examples or executed by 
 foreign architects, and previous accounts had been so meagre 
 and so unscientific. In that book he tells us how the 
 cathedral of Santiago must almost certainly have been 
 inspired by the church of St. Sernin, Toulouse. Lerida, 
 Tarragona, Tudela, Benavente, Salamanca, and other northern 
 examples all show a foreign hand, — and not improbably the 
 same hand, — but not that of the man who was responsible 
 for the cathedral of Santiago. Toledo, Leon, and Burgos 
 all bear on them the marks of French influence, but their 
 architects must have come from different parts of France ; 
 while at Toledo alone is the influence of the popular art of 
 the country visible. Leon has been built without any 
 thought of the conditions to which it is exposed, and the 
 Spanish sun blazes fiercely into a church which is greatly 
 composed of windows — a mistake which my father notes was 
 also made by the German architect of Milan Cathedral. 
 
 On the Continent — in England of course — he is able to 
 group churches as exhibiting similarities which are due to 
 the use of some particular material, such as granite, for in- 
 stance. He draws his examples from far and near, from 
 every point of the compass, all of them illustrating the 
 natural working out of the same principle. In like manner 
 he was able to lay his hand on many a group of buildings in 
 which the hand of the same architect is discernible either in the 
 plan or some other fundamental feature, or possibly in some in- 
 significant and almost unnoticeable details. He finds that the 
 architects of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were fre- 
 quently in the habit of copying the forms of earlier work, though 
 using their own detail, illustrating this among other examples 
 
I40 MEMOIR OF 
 
 by the towers and spires of Normandy and Valencia. He 
 shows how one style may act on another and be itself reacted 
 on by it, and instances some of the work in the He de France 
 and in the Rhineland, more particularly the cathedrals of 
 Laon and Bamberg. He discovers that Gatton Church and 
 Bristol Cathedral, dissimilar as are their designs, own a 
 common author, and establishes beyond a doubt that Stone 
 Church, Kent, was the work of the architect of Westminster 
 Abbey. I might multiply examples indefinitely, but I have 
 said enough to show how systematically my father worked, 
 and how thoroughly he cultivated the scientific as well as 
 the artistic side of his profession. 
 
 It may be of interest to take one case and examine it 
 with greater particularity to show the minuteness of my 
 father's investigations, and the convincing nature of the 
 evidence which he required before he was satisfied with having 
 established his contention. 
 
 Stone Church is at once interesting in itself, and because 
 of its almost certain connection with the Abbey ; and I think 
 I could hardly find an example of a more typical kind, or one 
 which displays better the kind of analysis to which my father 
 subjected a building. 
 
 "Few subjects," he says, "are of more interest to me than this 
 of the extent to which the work of the same artist may be traced in 
 different buildings. I have been able, in a considerable number of 
 cases, to prove pretty clearly what I now wish to prove about Stone 
 and Westminster, but I need hardly say that the evidence is 
 always of a kind which it is extremely difficult to give in writing, 
 though it is hard to resist its force if the two buildings are examined 
 one after the other, and their special peculiarities noted." 
 
 My father in this instance observed (i) that the 
 arcade round the chancel at Stone was almost identical 
 with those round the choir at Westminster, the proportion of 
 the trefoil cusps being very peculiar and almost identical. 
 The spandrels are filled with foliage, carved exactly in the 
 same spirit ; the labels terminate in both cases on small 
 corbels level with the capitals; and the arch moulds are similar 
 in character, and both undercut at the back. (2) The 
 original window tracery at Westminster is the same as that 
 
VII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 141 
 
 at Stone. My father discovered a window at Stone of pre- 
 cisely the same character as those in the south triforium of 
 the nave at Westminster. The lights in both are of excep- 
 tional width ; again the tracer}- bars at Stone, richly moulded 
 on the inside, and with a ver}' broad simple chamfer on the 
 outside, find their parallel at Westminster, and the cusping is 
 let into the stonework in the same way at the two churches. 
 
 (3) The carving in the spandrels of the arcades is treated 
 in just the same way. The foliage of the capitals is gener- 
 ally alike, while the foliage in the chancel arch of Stone 
 — arranged like an enormous dog-tooth — is almost a 
 repetition of the archivolt enrichment in the triforium at 
 Westminster, and the roses round the archivolt of the 
 south door at Stone are of the same kind as those round 
 the inside arches of the north transept doorways of West- 
 minster. There are also some carved crosses in trefoils 
 at Stone which have their counterpart in the Abbey. 
 
 (4) The materials used in the Abbey and the church are as 
 nearly as possible the same. The wrought stonework is 
 executed in Caen stone and Gatton stone, and a great deal of 
 chalk is used for wall-lining and groining, and all the shafts 
 are of marble. (5) The general system of proportion is ob- 
 served in the minster and the village church. In both the 
 width from the aisle walls to the centre of the columns is 
 equal to half the width of the nave. At Westminster the 
 height is given by three equilateral triangles, whose base line 
 is the width across the nave from centre to centre of the 
 columns, and two of these triangles give the height to the 
 springing of the groining, and the third the height of the 
 groining to its apex. At Stone, if triangles are set up on 
 the same base line, the first gives the top of the caps of the 
 nave arcade ; the second — within a very little — the height of 
 the top of the wall ; and the third may very well be supposed 
 to have marked the height of the ridge of the timber roof 
 The width of the bays in the nave of Stone is equal to the 
 diagonal of half the width of the nave ; and the width of 
 the bays in the chancel is equal to the diagonal from the 
 centre of one column to the centre of the nave or aisle 
 opposite the next column ; while the height of the chancel 
 
142 MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET chap, vii 
 
 is given by two triangles similar to those in the nave, whose 
 base is the width from centre to centre of the groining 
 shafts. 
 
 It is further to be noticed, as my father pointed out, that 
 in carefulness and beauty of workmanship the village church 
 is undoubtedly superior to the minster. The carving par- 
 ticularly is of the highest kind. It all seems to be the work 
 of one man ; and he must have been, if not the best of the 
 Westminster sculptors, at any rate equal to the best. This 
 tells very strongly against the supposition that the church 
 was copied from the Abbey, because detail rarely gains in 
 such a process ; while the fact that one or two pieces of carv- 
 ing (for spandrels), which had actually never been fixed, were 
 found by my father, looks as if the architect had been getting 
 the carving done by one of the carvers at the minster, and 
 having it sent down to Stone in a finished state. 
 
 The thoroughness which is apparent in these investiga- 
 tions pervaded all my father's work. The high-road to success 
 — he would have said — lies through hard work, and sustained 
 hard work must depend on enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, if it 
 does not come at once, must be diligently cultivated. His 
 own indebtedness to it w^as great indeed, for from what other 
 source could he have derived the energy which enabled him 
 to turn play into work and work into play, to spend his 
 holidays measuring and sketching and taking notes as he 
 used to do from morning to night? His frequent foreign 
 tours and his diligent study of Gothic under every condition 
 and in every part of Europe were the carrying out of his 
 maxim, that a man should make himself cognisant of even 
 local peculiarities; firstly, so that he should never be taken by 
 surprise or find himself obliged to design on lines which 
 were unfamiliar to him ; and secondly, because the more 
 broad and liberal the education is, and the more thorough 
 the knowledge of good examples, the less likely is a man 
 to desert the great principles which underlie the highest 
 forms of art in architecture, wherever it may be, for tricks 
 and mannerisms which may perhaps claim the attention for 
 the day, but which no one will care to glance at to-morrow. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE NEW LAW COURTS 
 
 The concentration of the Courts of Law, which had some- 
 time previously been mooted in legal circles, was brought 
 prominently forward in 1832 by Mr. Freshfield, who intro- 
 duced the subject in the House of Commons on behalf of 
 the Incorporated Law Society. 
 
 In 1842 a proposition was made to utilise part of 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields as the site for the new buildings ; but 
 the space was so obviously inadequate for the purpose that 
 the proposal dropped, as also did the half measure of Lord 
 Chelmsford — subsequently laid before the House of Commons 
 — which provided for building the Equity Courts only on 
 that site. These less ambitious schemes gave place to others 
 of a more comprehensive and thorough kind ; and in 1865 ^ 
 Commission, presided over by Sir John Coleridge, selected 
 what came to be afterwards known as the Carey Street site, 
 as eminently fitted for the purpose in view. In the same 
 year two Acts were passed : the first for buying the Carey 
 Street site, and the second for providing the necessary funds ; 
 a Commission of about forty members was also appointed 
 in June ; the requirements were gone into with great minute- 
 ness by three separate Committees, and instructions were 
 drawn up for the future guidance of the architect. 
 
 In February 1866, a limited competition having been 
 decided on, invitations were issued to six architects, viz. 
 Messrs. Scott, Street, T. H. Wyatt, Edward Barr>^ P. C. Hard- 
 wick junior, and Alfred Waterhouse. Five judges of designs 
 were nominated (two being named by the Commission), viz. 
 
144 MEMOIR OF 
 
 The Right Hon. W. Cowper, the then First Commissioner 
 of Works ; Right Hon. W, E. Gladstone, the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer ; The Right Hon. Sir A. Cockburn, Lord 
 Chief Justice ; Sir Roundell Palmer, Attorney-General ; and 
 Sir William Stirling Maxwell. Messrs. Shaw and Pownall were 
 subsequently added to the number as professional advisers. 
 The conditions of the competition laid down among other 
 things that i^Soo should be paid to each competitor, that 
 no design was of necessity to be selected for execution, and 
 that the successful competitor should not undertake any new 
 work requiring his personal attention for a period of three 
 years, unless with the consent of the Treasury. The second 
 of these stipulations, which robbed the competition of all 
 finality, proved to be a source of so much dissatisfaction that 
 it was withdrawn. 
 
 Of the six architects who were originally invited to com- 
 pete, Messrs. T. H. Wyatt and P. C. Hard wick at once de- 
 clined. Their places were filled by Messrs. Raphael Brandon 
 and Deane. The third stipulation proved a stumbling-block 
 to Messrs. G. G. Scott and Edward Barry, and they retired, 
 to be replaced by Messrs. Garling and Gibson. 
 
 On 2 2d March 1866 a resolution was passed in the 
 House of Commons affirming the inexpediency of limiting 
 the competition to so small a number as six, and the Trea- 
 sury in conjunction with the Royal Commission, in conse- 
 quence of this resolution, raised the number to twelve. To 
 cut a long story short, designs were finally sent in in January 
 1867 by Messrs. Abraham, Garling, Raphael Brandon, 
 Edward Barry, Scott, Street, Seddon, Waterhouse, Lockwood, 
 Deane, and Burges. 
 
 The award was made in the following July, and was to the 
 effect that the judges felt themselves unable to recommend 
 the adoption of any individual design, but that Mr. Barry's 
 seemed to them best in the distribution of the interior, while 
 Mr. Street's took the first place in regard to merit as an 
 architectural composition ; and they recommended that these 
 two architects should be employed conjointly — Mr. Barry 
 to be chiefly responsible for the internal arrangements, and 
 Mr. Street for the elevations. This recommendation was at 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 145 
 
 once protested against by Mr. G. G. Scott ; his contention 
 being that the conditions did not allow of the judges taking 
 the sum of two men's merits and weighing them in the bal- 
 ance with the individual merits of the others. 
 
 This view, or something like it, was evidently shared in 
 other quarters, and the judges were asked to reconsider their 
 decision, as being one which their conditions did not allow 
 them to come to. The officers of the Crown further pro- 
 nounced such a decision to be invalid ; but in spite of this, 
 and after a delay of four months, the judges announced that 
 they could do nothing but repeat their recommendation. 
 
 This double appointment was accepted by the two prin- 
 cipals and by the majority of the competing architects as a 
 sufficiently satisfactory conclusion ; but public opinion, as 
 represented by the press, was much divided as to what was 
 the proper course to pursue. It was contended that the 
 first competition should be regarded merely as a means of 
 showing the legal gentlemen more fully what they wanted, 
 and that a second competition should be held, perhaps 
 primarily for ground -plan only. This truly afforded a 
 pleasant prospect for the unfortunate competitors. 
 
 The decision of the judges was published in July 1867 ; 
 and from that time till June 1868 rumour said first one 
 thing and then another, till at the latter date it was authori- 
 tatively announced that my father was to be the sole architect 
 of the new Law Courts, while to Mr. Barry was given the 
 building of the new National Gallery. It would be both 
 bewildering and unprofitable to attempt to pursue the subject 
 through those eleven weary months. It was naturally a time 
 of great anxiety to the principals. The decision was accepted 
 in a loyal spirit by Mr. Barry, though he would have been 
 more than human if he had not felt, and said, that he had 
 been dropped a little unceremoniously. Some notice was 
 taken of his case in both Houses ; but a proposal for the 
 appointment of a select Committee to inquire into the cir- 
 cumstances, made by Mr. Goldsmid in the House of Commons, 
 was summarily rejected. 
 
 There was some carping at the adoption of Gothic for 
 the new building, but it was generally allowed to be in 
 
 L 
 
146 MEMOIR OF 
 
 keeping with the venerable age and traditions of legal institu- 
 tions ; and any interference with the architect, on the same 
 Hnes as Lord Palmerston's, was looked on as impossible, with 
 the results of that unfortunate and ill-advised proceeding 
 always in evidence. 
 
 For some six months the subject of the Law Courts was 
 in abeyance ; but from the beginning of 1869 it again came 
 into prominence, while the vexed question between the re- 
 spective claims of the Carey Street and Embankment sites 
 was fought out. 
 
 The battle of the sites was started in the columns of the 
 Times by Sir Charles Trevelyan. He contended that the 
 Commission of i 8 5 8, in selecting the Carey Street site, had 
 been led to do so simply from the want of a better ; and that 
 at that time the merits of a site on the Embankment could 
 not be imagined, while even in 1865 a great deal had to be 
 taken for granted. He himself made a sweeping and com- 
 prehensive proposition which, shortly stated, amounted to 
 this : — 
 
 1. That the building for the new Law Courts should be 
 erected on a site bounded by the Temple and Somerset 
 House on the east and west respectively, by the Strand on 
 the north, and the Embankment on the south. 
 
 2. That the occupants of Lincoln's Inn should move 
 down to Somerset House, so as to be near the Courts. 
 
 3. That King's College and its school should move from 
 Somerset House to Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 4. That the Carey Street site should be covered with 
 buildings adapted for use as chambers. 
 
 5. That Somerset House should be enlarged by the 
 addition of a story. 
 
 6. That the occupants of Gray's Inn should move to 
 Clement's Inn. 
 
 7. That the site of Gray's Inn should be covered with 
 industrial dwellings, to accommodate those who had been 
 rendered homeless by the clearance of the Carey Street 
 site. 
 
 8. That the occupants of Somerset House should move 
 down to Westminster. 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 147 
 
 Naturally there was much in this impossibly large scheme 
 which gave a great handle to its opponents ; still the fact 
 remained that the Embankment might possibly be made, as 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan averred it would, a great quay of 
 palaces ; and that when such a good opportunity for making 
 a splendid commencement was at hand, it would be folly to 
 reject it without ample discussion. 
 
 The advantages of this site were set forth not only by its 
 first promoter, but by many others, in a number of letters to 
 the daily papers ; and it may confidently be said that the 
 cause did not suffer for the want of able advocacy. The 
 advantages claimed for it have subsequently proved to have 
 been founded, to a considerable extent, on misapprehensions 
 and illusions. It was taken for granted that the Embank- 
 ment road would be, what it has not yet become, a great 
 thoroughfare from east to west. Thus Sir Charles Trevelyan 
 argued that the approaches to the new buildings would leave 
 nothing to be desired, with a great thoroughfare on both the 
 north and south fronts. The really fatal objection to the 
 scheme was the immensity of the outlay which it would have 
 entailed. It can hardly be denied that if the building had 
 been placed on that site, the removal of the block of build- 
 ings up to Holywell Street would have been a matter of 
 necessity, otherwise the already congested Strand could by 
 no stretch of the imagination have been regarded as a good 
 approach. The cost of buying this block of buildings would 
 therefore have had to be added to the actual cost of the site, 
 which Sir Charles Trevelyan put at a million and a half 
 sterling. On the other hand, it was at that date assumed 
 that a million would have to be spent in making proper 
 approaches on the north of the Carey Street site, that the 
 Law Institution and King's College Hospital would have 
 to be bought, Clare Market swept away, and that ^^700,000 
 would have to be spent in additions to the original site, the 
 cost of which had been ^800,000. But how does the case 
 stand at the present time ? Not one of these improve- 
 ments, much though they are needed, has proved to be 
 absolutely necessary ; and consequently this extra two 
 millions has remained in the pockets of the public. It is 
 
148 MEMOIR OF 
 
 not too late to hope now that some opening may be made 
 on the north side ; but it certainly needs not to be on the 
 colossal scale which the opponents of this site took to be 
 necessary. 
 
 There were others — Sir William Tite among them — who 
 favoured that subdivision of the building which had long ago 
 been condemned, but they did not succeed in ever catching 
 the public ear. Their suggestion was that my father might 
 be entrusted with one building, and Mr. Barry with the 
 other. 
 
 From a very early stage the conflict became, or was 
 made by the partisans of the Embankment site, a question 
 between the public and the legal profession, and complaints 
 were made that the clients were being sacrificed to the con- 
 venience of the lawyers. 
 
 It is pertinent to ask what the public is ? Does 
 it not mean in reality the public litigant ? and how could 
 the Embankment site be shown to be the more con- 
 venient site for them ? It was not denied — nay, that 
 was the actual ground of complaint — that the Carey Street 
 site was in the heart of the legal district, instead of 
 being at its southern extremity. Now it had been further 
 proved that of those who enter the Courts ninety-two per cent 
 do so from the chambers of barristers or the offices of 
 solicitors, while the residue was, as it always is, composed to 
 a great extent of the idle and out-at-elbows, who hang about 
 the Courts every day of their lives for want of other occupa- 
 tion. All this was very well put in a letter to the Times of 
 that date. It was further argued on this side, that a build- 
 ing on the Embankment would be visible to the people on 
 board the penny steamboats, and to few besides ; and that 
 the inducements to enter the building from that side would 
 not be very great, as it would entail mounting a perfect 
 Jacob's Ladder to reach the Strand level. 
 
 My father was at this time, both on practical and 
 ffisthetical grounds, in favour of the Carey Street site. His 
 reasons were : firstly, that a building there would crown a 
 hill, instead of clinging to a steep declivity ; secondly, it would 
 offer the architect more chances of a picturesque treatment 
 
vHi GEORGE EDMUND STREET 149 
 
 than would be possible in the formal front which the Em- 
 bankment site would require ; and lastly, that — cceteris pari- 
 bus — a building on that site would be the cheaper of the two. 
 The controversy, after raging for some time in the public 
 press, was taken up in the House of Commons by Mr. 
 Gregory, who presented a petition, to which the signatures of 
 a considerable number of legal men were attached, on behalf 
 of the Embankment site. He said little that had not already 
 been well said by Sir Charles Trevelyan, but he presented 
 two estimates of comparative expenditure, in the compilation 
 of which he appeared to have drawn largely on his imagina- 
 tion. He made out somehow or other that the Carey Street 
 site would cost in all over three millions, while the other, he 
 maintained, would not be likely to exceed a million and a half; 
 and he represented further that the land already bought might 
 be very profitably disposed of Sir Roundell Palmer followed 
 him in a very able speech, and advocated the Carey Street 
 site on the ground of superior convenience both to suitors 
 and lawyers. He quoted Mr. Edwin Field's dictum that 
 " every day saved to the suitors saves ;6^2 5,000 ; " and showed 
 that the extra five minutes' walk to the Embankment would 
 make this estimate no mere figure of speech, but a tangible 
 fact. Further, he pointed out that the Embankment site 
 would in all probability cost two millions and a quarter, 
 while some ^^400,000 would be lost in the resale of the land 
 already bought. Again, while the Carey Street site would 
 be the more convenient for 5087 solicitors, the other site 
 would only be the more easily accessible to 1 1 1 9 ; and of the 
 houses so placed as not necessarily to prefer the one site to 
 the other, a majority of 15 19 were in favour of keeping to 
 the land already bought. He also drew attention to what I 
 have noticed above, that the nature of the foundations and 
 the steep slope of the ground from the Strand to the river 
 made it quite impossible to put a building erected there at 
 as low a figure as would pay for one on solid and level 
 ground. An unexpected termination was put to the debate 
 by the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Right Hon. 
 Robert Lowe), which made both sides feel that they had been 
 made cat's paws of. Mr. Lowe began by saying that when he 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 came into office and was confronted with the proposal of the 
 Commissioners to spend a sum of ;^66o,ooo on additions to 
 the Carey Street site, he was struck with such dismay that he 
 at once put a veto on it. He showed that the money, far 
 from coming from the suitors' fund, was in reahty to be taken 
 out of the pockets of the ratepayers. Once, he said, exchange 
 the frenzy of concentration for a rational desire to group 
 together all the really necessary offices, and you will find that 
 neither the swollen Carey Street site nor Sir Charles Tre- 
 velyan's exaggerated scheme is in the least necessary. All 
 that is wanted may very well be built within the boundaries 
 of Essex Street, Howard Street, Somerset House, and the 
 Embankment. 
 
 Audacious as this proposal seemed at the first blush, and 
 scouted as it was by the press with hardly an exception, it 
 was not long before it had quite superseded the larger pro- 
 posal. It was felt that there was a good deal of truth in the 
 phrase " frenzy of concentration," and that it would impose 
 on the architect a less impossible task were the building re- 
 duced to more reasonable limits ; at the same time it was 
 strongly held that, if any good purpose could be served by a 
 larger expenditure, this was not the occasion for grudging a 
 half million or so. 
 
 The first and most obvious criticism on the Howard 
 Street site was that if it were thought possible to build all 
 that was essential on this restricted site, the necessary build- 
 ings could be at least as well contained on the ground 
 already bought and cleared, the interest on the purchase- 
 money of which was all this time being wasted. 
 
 Mr. Lowe's action seemed to have been modelled on the 
 judgment of Solomon. He settled the question by destroy- 
 ing the subject-matter. 
 
 The Howard Street cause was damaged by the proposal 
 to utilise an old design for a water front by Inigo Jones as a 
 part of the new building, with the view of saving a modicum 
 of the architect's fees. This treatment of the architect as an 
 importunate and superfluous middleman was conspicuous at 
 the time ; and my father incurred certain strictures in some 
 quarters for having contravened the usages of the profession 
 
vnr GEORGE EDMUND STREET 151 
 
 in accepting a lump sum in lieu of commission, which repre- 
 sented somewhat less than the usual percentage on the cost. 
 It was doubtless a pitiful piece of cheeseparing on the part 
 of the authorities to make the demand, and it is probable that 
 such a mode of encouraging a man at the outset of a great 
 undertaking is peculiar to this country ; at the same time, 
 when pressure was applied, the individual had no alternative 
 but to give way. It is difficult, out of the multitude of 
 estimates presented by either side, to arrive at the exact 
 truth as to the relative cost which the rival sites would 
 entail. 
 
 The cost of the Embankment site was put at ;^6oo,ooo 
 by Mr. (now Sir H. A.) Hunt, and at i^66 2, 000 by Mr. 
 Pownall ; but these estimates did not take into account the 
 inevitable widening of Essex Street at the upper end, which 
 would have meant a further sum of ;^ 150,000. This would 
 have brought the amount up to a figure almost identical with 
 the ;^76 5, 000 spent on the Carey Street site. There was 
 another factor to take into account, viz. the probable result 
 of a resale of the latter piece of ground ; but on this point 
 Mr. Hunt announced that he had been in communication 
 with people of means who proposed building chambers there, 
 and who were prepared to pay seven per cent per annum on 
 the amount of the purchase-money. Mr. Eiloart asserted that 
 many years of experience had proved to him that chambers 
 could never be made to pay : still Government had an appar- 
 ently bond fide offer, with the result that they were free to 
 choose quite unreservedly between two sites which were 
 practically identical in value. 
 
 Directly my father entered seriously into the considera- 
 tion of a building on the Embankment, he arrived at the 
 conclusion that it would be mere waste of money and space 
 to build a vast basement similar to that of Somerset House, 
 a course which had hitherto been always taken for granted. 
 He decided to start from the Embankment level, and 
 found that by doing so the slope of the ground, so far from 
 being a stumblingblock, might be made to lend itself to an 
 ingenious and convenient treatment of the different levels. 
 This alteration did much to equalise the probable outlay on 
 
152 MEMOIR OF 
 
 the two buildings, or reduced the difference in favour of 
 Carey Street to a minimum. 
 
 On 4th May Mr. (now Sir H. A.) Layard asked for 
 leave to bring in a Bill to enable the Commissioners of Her 
 Majesty's Public Works to obtain a new site for the concen- 
 tration of law business. He had previously announced that 
 the Government were preparing to submit to the House a 
 scheme for a building on the Howard Street site at a total 
 cost (inclusive of the site) of ^1,600,000. From the point 
 of view of economy the Howard Street site struck him as 
 having at least one very satisfactory feature, viz. that it did 
 not admit of expansion. The announcement of this negative 
 virtue was received with ironical cheers. As regarded style, 
 Mr. Layard suggested that something after the manner of 
 the Ducal Palace at Venice would be very much in keeping. 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan continued as active as ever in promot- 
 ing a river site ; and, indeed, only two days after Mr. Layard's 
 speech, he wrote a letter to the Times claiming for the Howard 
 Street site that very capability for expansion, the absence 
 of which had, in Mr. Layard's eyes, been its chief attraction. 
 He also continued to suggest schemes for the rearrangement 
 of that part of London of about as comprehensive a character 
 as that which Colonel Fougas submitted to Napoleon for the 
 better ordering of Paris. It seemed as if the great and 
 crucial question of style was to be settled by everybody 
 except the architect. Sir Charles Trevelyan expressed 
 himself as strongly in favour of some style which would 
 admit of the ground floor being devoted to shops. Let them 
 but be contrived with granite or iron supports and plenty of 
 plate glass, and he thought they would present an appear- 
 ance of great cheerfulness. Whether his idea was that the 
 form of London's great buildings should symbolically remind 
 us that our empire is founded on trade is not clear, but even 
 that could hardly have been sufficient compensation for such 
 a Lowther-Arcadian style. 
 
 A fortnight later my father, who had now thrown him- 
 self with great zest into the Embankment scheme, had com- 
 pleted his sketch plans of the new design, and published a 
 report on the respective capabilities of the two smaller sites, 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 153 
 
 with plans of the buildings as proposed on each. The 
 Architect of 29th May said : — 
 
 " The intention of the Government to move the Law Courts to 
 the Embankment was first known on 20th April. On 4th May 
 Mr. Layard was able to announce that Mr. Street was already en- 
 gaged on the plans ;" and added, "Even those acquainted with the 
 extraordinary rapidity with which this brilliant architect works may be 
 astonished to know that finished sketches of the new design are 
 already complete." 
 
 Mr. Layard, on his part, said in the House that it " had 
 not been their fortune to see a more artistic production than 
 the sketch of the new design by Mr. G. E. Street." 
 
 Other architectural critics thought there was a little want 
 of simplicity in the design, but attributed it to the fearful 
 way in which the architect had been hurried, and eulogised 
 the general grouping of the parts, and more particularly the 
 way in which the building was brought forward in front of 
 Somerset House, in echelon, as it were, so as to follow the 
 sweep of the river. 
 
 I have already mentioned that my father's early pre- 
 dilection for Carey Street had been seriously modified. The 
 Embankment site, though too much in a hole, still offered 
 superior facilities for the admission of light and air, and the 
 shape was also more favourable to a convenient arrangement 
 than the square Carey Street plot. In his report he pointed 
 out that, whichever of the sites might be decided on, the 
 original plan would have to be completely reconsidered, as 
 it involved the widening of Carey Street and the readjust- 
 ment of Clement's Inn on the west and Bell Yard on the 
 east. 
 
 The surroundings of the buildings on this site (the Carey 
 Street one) were all amply provided for in the plan approved 
 by the Commissioners ; but every portion of them — except 
 on the Strand side — depended on the power to make addi- 
 tional purchases of land. " If these purchases are not made 
 under compulsory powers, I do not see," he goes on to say, 
 '' how a public building can properly be placed on this 
 site." 
 
 Dealing first with the Howard Street site, my father pro- 
 
154 MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 nounced it to be extremely well off in the matter of access : the 
 streets running down from the Strand, to use his words, are 
 wide and have no traffic. The railway station and steamboat 
 pier will be in immediate proximity. Essex Street on the 
 east will be widened, Howard Street will be widened and 
 lengthened, and both these streets will then afford capital 
 means of access. 
 
 The terrace of Somerset House is to be utilised as an 
 entrance for the judges on the level, and Essex Street 
 is to be treated in a similar way to the Rows at Chester, so 
 that lawyers may cross the Strand by a bridge and enter 
 the Courts without going up and down. 
 
 Light and air are good, though a considerable opening 
 should be made into the heart of the building from the Em- 
 bankment. In my father's own words : — 
 
 " It is difficult to conceive a public building being erected in 
 London with greater advantages in its surroundings than this site 
 affords. ... At first sight the rapid slope of the ground presented 
 considerable difficulties, there being a rise of no less than twenty- 
 three feet from the Embankment to the highest point of Howard 
 Street. ... I have preferred to adopt the more common-sense plan 
 of taking the levels of the ground as they are, and building to suit 
 them ; and the advantage of this course is that I am able to make 
 entrances at various levels, and so give to many offices the practical 
 effect of being on the ground floor, which, on a level site, would 
 have to use flights of steps up or down. Thus I have ground-floor 
 entrances on the Embankment, and at higher levels in Essex Street, 
 and still higher in Howard Street, and from the Somerset House 
 Terrace ; and if my suggestion of a bridge across the Strand is ever 
 adopted, there will be the still further advantage of enabling people to 
 go from the Strand to the upper part of the building with an ex- 
 tremely moderate ascent of steps. " On the question of the architectural 
 advantages of this site he added, " Before I thoroughly "went into 
 the question of a design for the Embankment site, I had not realised 
 some of the advantages which it affords. It is true that I allowed 
 in the discussion on the subject, which took place at the Society of 
 Arts Rooms, that the Embankment site was preferable to that on the 
 north side of the Strand ; but I protested against the unfair dispar- 
 agement of the latter site, as it was proposed to be formed by means 
 of additional purchases, and I pointed out how these had enabled 
 me to design a building, which would not only be very convenient 
 and very conveniently placed, but which would also, I hoped, be an 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 155 
 
 ornament to London. At that time I thought of the Embankment 
 building as raised upon a terrace Hke that in front of Somerset 
 House. I foresaw that my building would then rise far higher than 
 Somerset House, and that the suggestion made by some one to add 
 a story to Sir William Chambers's building was not one which I 
 could ever endorse. I foresaw also considerable difficulty in plant- 
 ing my building on the curved line of the Embankment, without 
 danger of producing an unpleasant result. But in working out the 
 plan to suit the site, I think, as is often the case in architectural 
 designs, that the very difficulties of the case have proved in the end 
 to be its greatest gain." 
 
 My father, ho\\-ever sensible he was of the merits of 
 the original Carey Street site, was unable to speak in very 
 high terms of the restricted one. To begin with, the shape 
 of the site seemed to him unsatisfactory. It had less Hght 
 and air, and promised to be more noisy, than that south 
 of Howard Street. The levels worked out fairly well, but 
 could not be made to yield any noticeable advantages, such 
 as that afforded by the ingenious use of Somerset House 
 Terrace. The height above the river was an excellent point, 
 but this was rather negatived by the loss of the lofty towers 
 which had formed part of the original design. 
 
 He pointed out what liberties the Incorporated Law 
 Society had taken in their report on and plan of the rival 
 sites. The inaccuracies were many, and, curiously enough, 
 they all favoured their pet scheme. He goes on as 
 follows : — 
 
 "The object of the map is obtained by altering the eastern 
 boundaries of the ground already bought, and bringing them con- 
 siderably nearer to Chancery Lane than they really are; and in order 
 to do this, the whole block of houses, from the Law Institution on 
 the north to those which front the Strand on the south, is drawn of 
 much smaller dimensions than it ought to be, — for example, from 
 the east side of Chancery Lane to the west face of the Law Institu- 
 tion the Law Society's plan gives 135 feet; in reality it is 180 feet. 
 So again the distance from the south-east angle of Chancery Lane 
 to the south-east angle of the purchased site is shown as 105 feet; 
 whereas, in reality, it measures on the Ordnance map 145 feet. Again 
 the clear dimensions from east to west between the houses in Bell 
 Yard and the houses in Clement's Inn is shown as 630 feet, out of 
 which two 60-feet roads being taken would leave an area 510 feet 
 in length for building on ; in reality the exact length on the Ordnance 
 
156 MEMOIR OF 
 
 map, between the two points, is only 560 feet, which, if the proposed 
 roads are deducted, leaves a building area of not more than 440 feet. 
 Any one may see that this alteration has really been made on this 
 map by comparing it with my plan of the building on this site, or with 
 the Parliamentary map of ist August 1845, from which it professes 
 to be, but is not, accurately copied. It will be seen that while 
 the south-east angle of my building only projects about 10 feet to 
 the east of Temple Bar, the yellow (or building) site on the Law 
 Society's map projects 50 feet east of Temple Bar. The result of 
 this examination of the actual dimensions of the ground is that, 
 allowing the same depth from north to south that I have shown on 
 my plan, viz. 470 feet, and allowing for the two roads east and west 
 of the building, the site coloured yellow on the Law Society's plan, 
 and described as containing 6 acres, would, in truth, only contain 
 4 acres 2 roods and 1 1 7 5 square yards. 
 
 " As I have felt obliged to show the inaccuracy of this plan in 
 regard to this site, it may not be out of place to say here that it is 
 similarly inaccurate as regards the Embankment site ; but the in- 
 accuracy in this case makes the distance from the north side of 
 Howard Street to the line of Somerset House Terrace about 40 
 feet less than it ought to be, and so diminishes the apparent size 
 and value of this site in the same degree that it increases those of 
 the other." 
 
 The report concludes thus : — 
 
 " On the whole, it appears to me that the Embankment site 
 affords by far the best opportunity for a great work, now that the 
 reduced scale of the building is accepted by the opponents to your 
 scheme {i.e. the Howard Street). I have found, I am bound to con- 
 fess, that the more I worked at the plan for the building on the 
 Embankment, the more did it seem to be possible to make the work 
 one with which men of taste might be satisfied, from an architectural 
 point of view ; and I have good hopes that, if the building is in the 
 end put on this site, it would be possible, in the way I have indi- 
 cated, to make it so really convenient to all those whose business 
 would lie in it as to involve no very serious sacrifice, if any, of the 
 present use or associations of the great Inns of Court or other 
 centres of legal business." 
 
 In spite of the apparently general agreement of outside 
 opinion in favour of the site which my father in this report 
 so decidedly upholds, the professional party finally gained 
 the day, and in August it was known that the restricted 
 Carey Street site had been definitely decided on. Probably 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 157 
 
 the right choice, in view of the convenience of those attending 
 the Courts, was made, and I remember my father, in later 
 years, expressing to me his real satisfaction that the choice 
 had fallen where it did. The site is beyond all question too 
 small for the buildings which it has to contain, but that is a 
 misfortune which seems quite inevitable in London, and 
 would have been almost as much felt on the other site. Many 
 improvements there no doubt are, which, if not imperatively 
 necessary, are yet earnestly to be desired, such as the clearing 
 away of the Holywell Street block, the demolition of the low 
 and squalid houses at the north-w^est angle of the building, 
 and the widening of Searle Street, and its continuation 
 through the great turnstile into and across Holborn. 
 
 The decision was generally accepted as a relief even by 
 those whom it most severely disappointed. An extremely 
 good article appeared in one of the papers which had con- 
 sistently supported the Carey Street site throughout It was 
 shown, with great truth, that the Thames can never, owing 
 to its breadth, be a great water highway in the sense that 
 the Seine is. Its volume naturally dwarfs whatever is on 
 its banks, and it is better to accept this frankly, and treat the 
 Thames quay as a servant and not as a master, spacing the 
 buildings out, and allowing wide and ample inlets for fresh 
 air up to the Strand. Were the wishes of the lovers of the 
 Embankment to be carried out, the writer went on to say, 
 the architectural improvement of the whole of the rest of 
 London would have to be postponed to the one object of 
 accumulating on that Embankment the most numerous and 
 most unbroken 'series possible of monumental constructions. 
 Somerset House standing on its foundations, — now made 
 painfully public, — and jostled by a neighbour rising from 
 the ground level, would, in the words of the same writer, 
 look rather like a person in a smart Court dress, with his 
 legs encased in rough jack-boots. 
 
 The Committee must have been firmly convinced of the 
 superiority of the Carey Street site in the matter of con- 
 venience, for it cannot be denied that the claims of the 
 Embankment were presented in a most attractive way in 
 my father's drawings. His perspective view of the river 
 
158 MEMOIR OF 
 
 front of the proposed building met with the most flattering 
 criticisms on all hands. 
 
 Thus ended the well -fought battle of the sites. A 
 settlement once arrived at, the Law Courts ceased for the 
 time to be one of the burning questions of the day. 
 
 My father had at first intended perfecting the scheme 
 shown in the block plan of his report, that being a modifica- 
 tion of the plan originally submitted in the competition, but 
 he eventually decided on an entire rearrangement of all the 
 principal blocks, and in his new scheme placed the office 
 wing and the quadrangle which it formed with the main 
 building on the east side instead of on the south, while the 
 central hall was now placed north and south, instead of east 
 and west. There was one conspicuous advantage in the 
 amended scheme, viz. that it at once gave the opportunity 
 for a great centre in the Strand front — a feature which it 
 would have been difficult to obtain legitimately with the old 
 arrangement. 
 
 In August 1870 so much progress had been made that 
 Mr. Ayrton was able to promise to lay upon the table of the 
 House an estimate of preliminary work, so that as much as 
 possible might be done before the meeting of Parliament in 
 the next year. 
 
 The foundations were meantime being put in, and the 
 drawings for the superstructure made, and it was hoped 
 that tenders might be sent in in the course of 1871. 
 The preliminary or sketch plans were submitted on ist 
 January of that year, and were provisionally approved in the 
 following August, but in that word " provisionally " lurked 
 a thousand worries and delays, bickerings and criticisms, 
 parings and cuttings down, so that it was not till 25th March 
 1873, or a year and three-quarters later, that tenders were 
 actually submitted, and the contract was not signed till 
 4th February i 874. 
 
 During the whole of this period my father was the 
 subject more or less continuously of bitter and personal 
 attacks by the self-elected upholders of the canons of art, 
 while, instead of being supported by the Office of Works, his 
 task was daily made harder and more thankless by their 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 159- 
 
 penny-wise economy and persistent red-tapeism. While irre- 
 sponsible critics asked for a lofty and sumptuous palace that 
 should bear visibly on its front the imprint of the majesty of 
 the law, the architect had to meet the views of a First 
 Commissioner who professedly regarded and spoke of architec- 
 ture as a trade of the same dignity as the market-gardener's, 
 and of architects as mere servants who owed a slavish 
 obedience to every utterance from the Office of Works. 
 Unfortunately this quasi -Oriental habit of mind was not 
 accompanied by a correspondingly warm imagination or love 
 of beauty, and in spite of the acknowledged fact that prices 
 were rising in every trade, the hard-and-fast limit of expendi- 
 ture was rigorously kept to, and the omission of features 
 most vital to the dignity and beauty of the building, no less 
 than to its unity and completeness of arrangement, seemed 
 to give the only possibility of satisfying the official love for 
 false economy. I allude especially to the central hall, the 
 loss of which would have made the building little better than 
 limbs without a trunk. It was not indeed sacrificed, but it 
 was not for want of suggestions to that effect on the part of 
 the chief official. The design, moreover, does suffer from 
 the want of a tower of grander proportions than that which 
 marks the south-east angle of the present building. 
 
 I should be glad to pass over in silence the hostile and 
 unreasonable criticisms which filled the columns of some few 
 of the papers in 1871, albeit emanating chiefly from one or 
 two sources, but they must have been read by thousands, and 
 were no doubt generally accepted without question. The 
 merits or demerits of the building speak for themselves now, 
 but in those days a few architectural elevations afforded the 
 only food for the critics, and these were often misunderstood, 
 and quite as often not so much as looked at. It was recog- 
 nised even at the time that the attack was a good deal 
 personal to the man and not so much against his art, and 
 partly a supreme effort by the anti-Gothic party to prevent 
 the erection of an important building in the style of their 
 abhorrence. 
 
 The first, as he was the bitterest opponent, was the 
 late Mr. James Fergusson, who, in letters, in leaders, in the 
 
•i6o MEMOIR OF 
 
 pages of magazines, consistently waged war against the 
 architect, against Gothic, against what he termed mediaeval- 
 ism, generally. To him as to most of the critics the building 
 resolved itself into a Strand facade and a central hall. For 
 all purposes of criticism the rest of the building did not 
 exist, or was possibly beneath notice. 
 
 Mr. Fergusson declared the central hall to be " an imper- 
 forate gloomy vault, which nobody wants but Mr. Street." 
 . . , " It is not a Gothic hall in any true sense of the term 
 either." ..." No Gothic hall of anything like this size and 
 applied to civil uses was vaulted in the Middle Ages." To 
 call the same erection a gloomy vault, and at the same time 
 a bigger hall than any erected for the same purpose in the 
 Middle Ages seems to show a slight confusion in the mind 
 of the critic. 
 
 To an architect or to any one versed in architectural 
 terms, the word "vault" simply means the "vaulted ceiling;" 
 but to the general public it would be calculated to suggest 
 dark and mouldy crypts, wholly or partially underground, 
 and if Mr. Fergusson were to be implicitly believed, without 
 a single window. This is the same gloomy and cavernous 
 cellar in which the opening ceremony took place. Not a 
 feature of the design which Mr. Fergusson stigmatised in such 
 ridiculous terms has been changed. The hall is forty-eight 
 feet wide, eighty feet high, and proportionately long. It has 
 large windows at its north and south ends, and eight very 
 large ones on each side. It stands clear of buildings all 
 round, and may probably be said to be the lightest hall in 
 Europe, yet all this was shown exactly in the plans from 
 which Mr. Fergusson may be supposed to have obtained his 
 information. 
 
 Again he complains, Gothic is bad enough, but this is 
 not even Gothic : and why ? Because, he says, no Gothic 
 architect in the Middle Ages would have vaulted it. The 
 criticism is meaningless in itself, but is still more so as coming 
 from a man who, doubtless from strong convictions, spent his 
 life in decrying all medieval precedent and in prophesying 
 the uprising, or rather the invention, of a nineteenth-century 
 style, eclectic and all-embracing, allowing the fullest use of 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET i6i 
 
 all the latest inventions, and of every modern appliance and 
 material. It was seemingly a part of his theory of the 
 impossibility of Gothic, remarkable as that style really is for 
 elasticity and power of assimilation, to deny to it the faculty 
 of utilising any improvement posterior to the thirteenth 
 century, even those so obviously unconnected with any par- 
 ticular style as heating and ventilating. 
 
 The windows throughout the building were, he declared, 
 to be filled with rich stained glass, the chairs to be high 
 and straight-backed, and, generally, discomfort was to reign 
 supreme. 
 
 With regard to the Strand front, Mr. Fergusson expressed 
 himself as follows : — " I have no hesitation in saying that it 
 is the meanest design for the principal front of so important 
 and pretentious a building which has been produced in our 
 day." He objected more particularly to the arrangement by 
 which the recessed Central hall was made to form the central 
 feature, and advised that it should be closed up so as to 
 make one face with the rest of the buildings. No long 
 time before he had, I believe, been telling the world that 
 Somerset House would be much improved if the centre were 
 recessed, and the wings brought forward. 
 
 From other criticisms couched in more general terms, 
 and smacking rather of the literary than the professional 
 man, I take a few quotations at random, which are a fair 
 sample of the whole : — 
 
 " The design lacks pure and noble form." ..." Mr. Street has 
 given us a chaos of ill-distributed masses of weak and confused out- 
 line." ... "It looks more like a street in a collegiate town — some 
 goodly houses, a church, and a town hall." ..." The general 
 effect of the front is too ecclesiastical." . . . "Mr. Street has 
 written ably on secular Gothic, but he has clearly not mastered it." 
 etc. etc. 
 
 Now what does all this amount to when it is divested of 
 its fine phraseology ? To this, I think : that the writer or 
 writers had just looked at the drawings — had seen that the 
 building did not present one level parapet throughout — that 
 all-desiderated unbroken skyline — that the central hall was 
 not in the exact centre of the site, and that, consequently, 
 
 M 
 
i62 MEMOIR OF 
 
 " there was not a perfect balance of parts," that a certain 
 number of pointed window heads were used (arched stone 
 heads over square openings invariably in the rooms however), 
 that in some cases window openings did not come exactly 
 under the centre of the gables, and a few other points of a 
 similar character. It was on such merely superficial points 
 as these, without inquiry into the conditions of internal 
 structure, which might explain and justify the external 
 irregularity, that the attack was based. For all such criti- 
 cism I can find no other epithet but " ignorant." What is 
 the objection which is put in the forefront ? That the building 
 is too ecclesiastical in style, and that Mr. Street, however 
 well he may write of secular Gothic, is evidently unable to 
 rightly use it. Now let the writer be credited with all that he 
 deserves ; he has indisputably the merit of having discovered 
 this distinction without a difference — this secular Gothic as 
 opposed to, or at least strongly differentiated from, the eccle- 
 siastical form of that style. 
 
 But in what, to the mind of the writer, did the differ- 
 ence lie ? Difference of plan, difference in degree of orna- 
 mentation, there naturally must be. The purposes of a 
 house make it impossible that it should bear any resemblance 
 in form to a church, the same is in a lesser degree true of a 
 hall ; but where does the difference in style make its appear- 
 ance ? Is Westminster Hall or is the hall at Eltham 
 Gothic ? If not, wherein is the Central hall of the Law 
 Courts Gothic ? for it bears precisely the same relation to the 
 church work of its date as the other two halls do to that of 
 their date, — that is to say, the art is identical, but the circum- 
 stances are different. Enough, however, about this great 
 discovery, for the distinction, if never professedly given up, 
 was at any rate put very much into the background. 
 
 The Strand front was compared by one gentleman to a 
 group of almshouses. The most charitable supposition is that, 
 not being habituated to the use of a scale, he had got con- 
 fused. The same also may be said of Sir George Bowyer, who 
 regretted that the front was so squat. Does it seem squat 
 in reality ? and what would the occupants of the upper floors 
 have said to the endless flights of steps which Sir George 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 163 
 
 Bowyer's impossibly tall ideal would have entailed on them ? 
 Some one else complained that the main entrance to the build- 
 ing was by one little church-like door. Seventeen feet wide, 
 answered my father. No, no more seventeen than sevent}-, 
 retorted the critic ; it is only twelve feet wide, and is divided 
 by a central pier into two openings of five feet apiece. This 
 explanation made it obvious that the intelligent critic had been 
 looking at the doors into the central hall, a long way back, 
 while the real entrance had been seemingly too large for his 
 visual capacities, or had at any rate quite escaped his notice. 
 Let me touch on another point in which " ignorance " is 
 strikingly manifested. I mean the implied necessity of 
 regularity of elevation without any regard to plan. Now the 
 new Law Courts were meant to accommodate people and 
 fulfil needs of the most varying descriptions. There were 
 primarily the Courts, the judges' rooms in connection with 
 them, consulting rooms, offices in immediate connection with 
 Courts, offices not necessarily so near, and so forth. All 
 this does not signify. If the building has an office wing, it 
 must be carefully assimilated to the other part ; no part of 
 the exterior is to show what is inside. It is merely an outer 
 shell. Windows must be in the centre of gables even if it 
 involves a partition wall coming into the middle of one ; 
 regularity is everything, and all in all ; the beauty of truth 
 and usefulness nothing. The examples held up for imitation 
 were sufficiently ludicrous. The town hall at Brussels, a 
 very picturesque but fussy building, and obviously deficient 
 in dignity ; the town halls at Louvain and Ghent, beauti- 
 ful buildings in themselves, though much over -decorated, 
 but quite small and by no means admitting of being multi- 
 plied indefinitely ; all, moreover, town halls, the very name 
 one would have thought predicating a use, and therefore an 
 outward appearance, as different as possible from that of 
 Courts of Law. One large room was an essential, so that 
 the regularity, instead of being a sham, was a piece of truth- 
 ful designing. Still more unintelligible was the suggestion 
 of the Cloth Hall at Ypres as a model ; one of the most per- 
 fectly beautiful buildings in Europe without a doubt, but a 
 cloth hall and not a house of justice, and presenting on its 
 
1 64 MEMOIR OF 
 
 upper floor one great unbroken chamber throughout. These 
 were, however, not the only suggestions. Mr. Sidney Smirke 
 gravely cautioned the architect to keep the Flavian amphi- 
 theatre before his mind's eye as a model. To this Mr. E. W. 
 Pugin retorted that he surely must have meant the pyramids ; 
 but Mr. Pugin himself had a suggestion to make, viz. that 
 the architect would do well to take the Granville Hotel at 
 Ramsgate as his guide. He laid down the law in the most 
 decided way, so much so that the general public must have 
 felt that it was very stupid of them not to have realised before 
 that he was the head of his profession, and should rightly 
 have had the work. When my father was first appointed, Mr. 
 Pugin was so good as to approve. " I have little doubt," he 
 was pleased to say, " that Mr. Street is perfectly competent 
 to improve and perfect his ground-plan ; but I have far less 
 doubt about Mr. Barry's incapacity for mending his elevation." 
 This is rather hard on Mr. Barry, but my father's new and 
 vastly superior design for the Strand front drew from him criti- 
 cisms which, always humorously written, were equally funny in 
 being so much de haut en has. I am afraid the Strand front 
 never did approximate to the high ideal which he had 
 formed, and his original advocacy, or rather approval, of the 
 selection of my father must have stuck very much in his 
 throat. All the critics united in condemning the profusion 
 of detail and ornament which were scattered over the face of 
 the building, even those who held up as an example the 
 simple grace of the Belgian town halls. Where, it may be 
 asked, is all this detail ? I think it may be confidently said 
 that there is no great public building, new or old, with so 
 little. Compare it with Louvain or Brussels, or with the 
 Houses of Parliament at Westminster ; where, indeed, is it 
 possible to find window mouldings more simple and 
 restrained, a more sparing use of carving or enrichment ? 
 
 I return to Mr. Fergusson, who, determined that the 
 nineteenth century should not have to admit its inability to 
 invent a style, had, after much rumination, had the good for- 
 tune to light on what he termed a growing, living style, one 
 which would be perfectly suitable here, and which would be 
 handled well by a hundred architects whom he could name. 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 165 
 
 " It is sometimes called Italian," he said. So then his won- 
 derful discovery meant neither more nor less than deliberately 
 transplanting an exotic and laying it in here by the heels in a 
 cold and uncongenial soil. One thinks how wise M. Taine 
 was ; he shuddered to see Somerset House shivering on the 
 banks of the foggy Thames, and when he came to Westminster 
 Abbey exclaimed, " Here is the true style of the country, 
 serious and earnest, capable of battling with fogs and storms ! " 
 Mr. Fergusson gave the new heaven-sent style the best 
 credentials : " It can use either pillars or pinnacles as may 
 be required ; it admits of towers and spires or domes ; it can 
 either indulge in plain walls or pierce them with innumerable 
 windows ; it knows no guide but common sense : it owns no 
 master but true taste." .Now every single word of this 
 might at least as well have been said of Gothic. Mr. Fer- 
 gusson then condemned Gothic because it ivas Gothic, and 
 my father's design because it was in that hated style, without 
 any particular reference to the individual design. Lord 
 Grimthorpe (then Mr. E. B. Denison) condemned it because, 
 as he said, it was Streetian (a very sufficient reason to him), 
 because it showed the outcome of foreign study, and of 
 the outcry for a new style, because it was not slavishly 
 mediaeval. One critic, who objected to the design because 
 it lacked unity, regularity, majesty, had two years before 
 expressed his objection to all the drawings submitted in the 
 competition because they aimed at making one great building 
 of what should have been, and in the Middle Ages would 
 have been, a group of several. 
 
 One wonders what is the way to set about inventing a 
 new style. The forms and methods of construction have 
 been tested and proved. If we are to invent new ones we 
 must be content with something inferior. To be radically 
 new, they must be radically bad. An arch is the most con- 
 venient form of bridging an opening ; a pointed arch is the 
 most convenient and adaptable form ; an arch of an entirely 
 new shape could not but be hideous both in its shape and 
 from its comparative uselessness. Mr. Fergusson said : " Let 
 the architect leave this to the engineer." It is for him 
 (the architect) "to construct ornamentally, and to ornament 
 
i66 MEMOIR OF 
 
 his construction ; " but how docs that dictum concern 
 style ? 
 
 Gothic, so far from being indigenous of the soil, seemed 
 in his eyes so ill adapted for our needs or our conditions, 
 and so inadaptable, that one would almost imagine it to 
 have been imported from some other planet. But are 
 our climate and our conditions so different from what 
 they used to be ? We have learnt to need more, doubt- 
 less, and we have also learnt concurrently how to gratify 
 those needs ; but Gothic lends itself in the fullest and 
 most liberal way to the most complete satisfaction of our 
 latest requirements, though Mr. Fergusson would not have it 
 so. This is what he said : " The Houses of Parliament are 
 two centuries nearer our time than Mr. Street's building, and 
 thus incorporate all the improvements that were introduced 
 during those two hundred years." It is hardly to be believed 
 that this can have been written seriously. Why did he 
 not go a step further and say, as some one suggested, that 
 none of the improvements in legal procedure could be ad- 
 mitted into such a monastic edifice ? " We shall be reminded 
 of manorial and baronial privileges, of gallows and villeinage, 
 and all the bric-d-brac of the Middle Ages." 
 
 The building, of course, was not without its warm ad- 
 herents in public, while private expressions of sympathy and 
 admiration were without number. The former — gentlemen 
 of acknowledged taste and knowledge like Mr. Ruskin, Mr. 
 Edmund Sharpe, Mr. E. W. Godwin, Mr. Paley — showed 
 that Gothic had a dignity and a majesty eminently fitted to 
 express that of the law, that it was a revival, but founded on 
 the needs of our climate, and not necessarily to be taken up 
 in exactly the same state in which it had been left. Its 
 animation had simply been suspended ; it could grow to 
 meet the manifold wants of modern times, and would show 
 itself possessed of a flexibility unknown to many of the 
 later growths. 
 
 What my father's object had been in designing the Strand 
 front, and, indeed, the whole building, as he had, was justly 
 and clearly explained. He had tried, or it had been natural 
 to him, to make his exterior not merely contain the interior. 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 167 
 
 but explain it and express its uses. First and most im- 
 portant was of course the plan ; this once completed so as 
 to meet what was required, then was the time for turning to 
 the elevation. 
 
 The building, as it has come from his hands, explains 
 itself. To the east you have what is obviously a wing of 
 offices, distinct from the rest, but connected with it. West- 
 ward is a symmetrical block, the nucleus of which is the 
 central hall, with its dependencies grouped round it. The 
 building is thus roughly divisible into two parts, but these 
 two parts are ingeniously and beautifully welded into one 
 group by the entrance to the office quadrangle. There is 
 then to the west the central hall with its wings, next the 
 entrance to the office quadrangle, also with wings, but with 
 that to the east the more important, and terminating in a 
 tower, and lastly, the office block, forming a whole by itself 
 There are then in a sense two centres, though that to the 
 east is quite subservient to the main centre ; the result is 
 that in the narrow Strand thoroughfare, when the passer-by 
 looks up, he is confronted not by a slice of a monotonous 
 front, but a piece of building which in itself makes a satisfy- 
 ing whole. The front towards Clement's Inn, as being more 
 open, has been more regularly treated. On the subject of 
 his design for the Strand front, I quote a few pregnant 
 words from a published letter of Professor Roger Smith : — 
 
 " His observation also points out that Mr. Street has well under- 
 stood this canon of street architecture, viz. that a large building in a 
 street will be seen as a whole when seen from up or down the street, 
 but will be extremely foreshortened, and must be designed so as to 
 look well when so foreshortened. The observation of ' Point of 
 Sight ' (the writer of a letter on the subject) points out a second 
 canon of street architecture, which may be stated thus : a large 
 building in a street will be seen only piecemeal when seen from the 
 opposite side of the street, and must be designed so as to look well 
 when seen in detail. Both these principles are sound, and both of 
 them have been conformed to by Mr. Street in designing his Strand 
 front." 
 
 Here are well -measured, thoughtful, practical words, 
 giving tersely and clearly the rationale of this design, and 
 
1 68 MEMOIR OF 
 
 worth a whole world of flimsy sentiments about dignities, 
 unities, lines which carry on the eye, and the like. 
 
 I have already said that my father was engaged from 
 the middle of 1871 till early in 1873 in finally settling his 
 arrangements so as to meet every requirement, and in en- 
 deavouring to cut his building down to the hard-and-fast 
 limit. However, as it happened, prices continued to rise 
 throughout these two years, and consequently when the 
 tenders were sent in, the lowest, that of Messrs. Bull, was 
 found to be somewhat over the amount which Mr. Ayrton 
 considered requisite. In spite of remonstrances both inside 
 and outside the House, the First Commissioner made the 
 continued reduction of this unhappy building a personal 
 matter. He allowed himself to speak in insulting terms of 
 the architect, explaining, for the edification of the House, 
 that they ought to force their servant strictly to obey orders 
 at any price. A more false and unreal piece of economy 
 than that on which Mr. Ayrton was insisting can hardly be 
 conceived, when it is remembered that all this time the 
 interest on the i^8oo,ooo paid for the site was simply being 
 lost, while rates and taxes were being paid to the amount of 
 ;^95oo per annum. Nineteen tenders were sent in on 25th 
 March, and Messrs. Bull, who submitted the lowest, undertook 
 to erect the building in Portland stone for ^744,000, with 
 a further sum of ;^8o4 for the fittings of each of the eighteen 
 courts. This sum, added to the ^31,500 spent on the 
 foundations, made a total of ;^7 90,000, whereas the limit for 
 the fabric had been put at three-quarters of a million. 
 
 Deaf to all arguments, the First Commissioner again 
 returned the drawings to my father for still further recon- 
 sideration, meaning reduction. This resulted finally in the 
 contract being signed on 4th February 1874 for i^68o,ooo. 
 Messrs. Bull therein undertook to hand over the eastern or 
 office block to the authorities in August 1877, and to com- 
 plete the entire contract in six years and a half. My father 
 had, for his part, been forced to undertake his share of this 
 more than usually onerous work for a sum considerably 
 under the recognised fee of an architect, — a piece of economy 
 which, let us hope, commended itself to Mr. Ayrton's con- 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 169 
 
 stituents, as it certainly can have affected no one else except 
 the victim. 
 
 In the design, as it went first into the hands of the 
 contractors for the purposes of tendering, there was very 
 little carving or enrichment ; but the building, as it was 
 finally contracted for, had less by ;^i 5,000 worth — an amount 
 which, spread over such a mass of work, was little enough in 
 itself, but of which every pound's worth would have told, 
 and the omission cannot but have meant a direct loss of 
 effect. 
 
 Hitherto the history of the new Law Courts has been 
 on one side the record of skill in surmounting difficulties, 
 thoroughness in details, and unequalled forbearance under 
 the greatest provocation ; on the other, of misrepresentations 
 and attacks, where even personal hostility was not wanting, 
 and of a cold, unsympathetic, petty treatment by a Govern- 
 ment who were content to lose the substance in grasping at 
 the delusive shadow of economy. 
 
 It has ever been the prerogative of the British public to 
 bully its architects. Wren, at St. Paul's, could have said 
 something to this. Witness, too, the building of Regent 
 Street, or, later, of the Palace of Westminster ; but I doubt 
 if the architect in any of these cases had to bear as much 
 as my father had, or would have borne so much in silence 
 as he did. 
 
 It is possible that my father had to some extent to 
 suffer for the sins of his predecessors. There is no doubt 
 that, owing probably to the number of small, ill-defined 
 contracts, the Houses of Parliament did very greatly exceed 
 the amount which had been settled on, and nothing could 
 persuade people that the same would not happen with the 
 new Law Courts ; whereas, now, there was one definite con- 
 tract in the place of many, and a mass of details thoroughly 
 completed at an early stage instead of their being deferred 
 till over-late, as had been the case at Westminster. That 
 the public were wrong in anticipating a great excess, or indeed 
 any excess, over the contract amount, the sequel will show. 
 
 Before concluding, I ought to mention that the first stone, 
 or, to be quite accurate, the first brick, was laid by the con- 
 
I70 MEMOIR OF 
 
 tractor and his wife, in a perfectly private and informal way, 
 in May 1874. It is usual with a building which has the 
 least claim to importance, that the laying of the first stone 
 should be attended with some little attempt at ceremonial, 
 but probably fresh scruples of economy interfered to prevent 
 such a totally unremunerative outlay. 
 
 Public opinion, which had been so much exercised on this 
 subject, was, after a brief space, again directed to it by the 
 discovery or the suggestion that Temple Bar was in a dan- 
 gerous state, owing, as it was alleged, to the proceedings of the 
 contractor for the Law Courts. Perhaps it is hardly neces- 
 sary to say that, if danger there was, the contractor was 
 perfectly innocent in the matter. The substitution of solid 
 concrete for rubbish immediately against the foundations of 
 the Bar was not likely to make it unsafe, and, as a matter of 
 fact, all that was done was much more calculated to prolong 
 the existence of that venerable structure than to shorten it. I 
 have heard my father say many a time that the whole scare 
 was in a great measure groundless, and that the crack which 
 created so much dismay was an old one, the filling in of 
 which had been either accidentally or purposely displaced. 
 The Bar, however, cut adrift on its north side and dwarfed 
 into insignificance by the lofty pile which was rising out of 
 the forest of scaffolding almost immediately over it, looked 
 sadly out of place, and its reputation would no doubt have 
 suffered more by its retention than it has by being taken 
 away ; for, whereas its memory is now cherished with a 
 certain regret as one among many of the relics of the past 
 which the utilitarianism or indifference of to-day has sacrificed, 
 it would, in the contrary case, have had to bear some measure 
 of the odium which the present obstruction so justly incurs. 
 
 In any case, it is quite untrue to say that my father was 
 anxious for its removal. From his point of view it would 
 have been a most useful foil, and would have served to give 
 scale to his own building, and he could consequently have 
 had no possible objection to its being retained. 
 
 The history of the Law Courts for some years is a 
 chronicle of bricks and mortar, of workmen to be counted 
 by their hundreds, of machinery in unequalled profusion. 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 171 
 
 of scafifolding of unprecedented ingenuity, of order reigning 
 in apparent confusion, and of a thousand springs and checks 
 working with the regularity of clockwork. Such is the 
 record of the next three years and a half till July 1877. 
 Then came a sudden interruption which threatened to throw 
 the whole of the complicated machine out of gear. This 
 was occasioned by the claim made by the masons for a re- 
 duction in the working hours, and the strike consequent on 
 the refusal of the contractors to entertain their demands. 
 Messrs. Bull, with praiseworthy pluck and promptitude, find- 
 ing the strikers resolute, made immediate arrangements for 
 the importation of stone-masons from Germany, Italy, Canada, 
 and the United States. 
 
 The strike was not without its stirring and dramatic 
 elements. The imported workmen were at first starting lodged 
 in the vicinity of the site, but not actually on it. This 
 arrangement soon proved to be impracticable, as the men 
 were subjected to frequent attacks on their way to and from 
 the works at the hands of the Trades Unionists or their 
 rough hangers-on. The lower stories of the main block were 
 accordingly made to supply a rough species of accommoda- 
 tion, and the foreign workmen were permanently lodged there, 
 and were from that time in no way obliged, unless so disposed, 
 to quit the security of the site. 
 
 Great complaints were made by the strikers of unfair- 
 ness, of hitting below the belt, and the like ; and it must 
 doubtless have been a great disappointment to them to see 
 their well-concerted scheme so easily and so successfully 
 foiled. The strike itself formally terminated on i 8th March 
 1878, after having lasted seven months and a half; but men 
 had been dropping in by twos and threes for a long time, 
 and there were at the date of the termination of the strike 
 quite a number of Englishmen engaged. Some hundred 
 and fifty German masons were retained on the works till 
 the stonework was complete. They were employed in a 
 separate shed, and continued to work on terms of friendly 
 rivalry with their old antagonists. The contract had provided 
 that the eastern or Chancery Lane block, which was to be 
 occupied mainly by masters, registrars, chief clerks, etc., 
 
172 MEMOIR OF 
 
 should be handed over complete to the Government in 
 August 1877, but it was not actually done till April 1878, 
 various unavoidable causes having contributed to the delay. 
 Owing to an unfortunate difference of opinion between 
 Government and the contractors, the accounts for the main 
 building at the moment of writing still await settlement ; 
 but the accounts for the eastern block were settled shortly 
 after the completion of the building, and the strictness and 
 exactitude with which the amount provided for in the con- 
 tract was adhered to — a matter, as all who are experienced 
 in such things know well, of immense difficulty and very 
 rare attainment in so large an undertaking — bore a mute but 
 striking testimony not less to my father's business capacities 
 than to the earnestness and thoroughness with which he had 
 considered every detail of the work. 
 
 The strike once settled, the contractors had no adverse 
 influences, except those of weather, to contend against till 
 the completion of the works. 
 
 It has often been said before that the individual atten- 
 tion bestowed by the architect, not only on the larger ques- 
 tions but on details, on every detail, I might almost say, in 
 this vast work, was something which would be incredible, 
 were it not that there are many witnesses to testify to it, the 
 writer among others. I think I may say without exaggera- 
 tion that there is not a single feature in the building which 
 he did not accurately draw, not a piece of carving which 
 he did not sketch or touch in the clay, not a single mould- 
 ing of which he did not give the full size, perhaps hardly 
 a chamfer or splay the angle and depth of which he did not 
 decide. 
 
 Some writers have almost hinted that there was some- 
 thing morbid in my father's love for variation and variety, 
 that he loved them for themselves as ends, not means ; but 
 I think that any one who looks at this building thoughtfully 
 will see that it is not so. Immense variety there is, but not 
 in juxtaposition. To take an instance : Every court differs 
 from every other ; each roof is a single design in itself, and 
 borrowed from no other. In the principal rooms again every 
 mantelpiece of any richness is a distinct design ; but surely 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 173 
 
 variety of this kind implies no more than the proper use of 
 materials, such as wood and stone. They are not run in moulds 
 like terra cotta ; if the fancy is there, let it run riot where 
 it has the scope. But I have said that this variety does not 
 occur in features which are in juxtaposition. You cannot 
 see two courts at once, you cannot see two mantelpieces at 
 once, the eye is consequently not worried by a want of rest- 
 fulness in the design, because each coup cVml comprises an 
 organic and harmonious whole ; but it is spared that aching 
 sense of weariness which the constant reiteration of one 
 ornament or of one feature is sure to give. 
 
 Now let us take a larger instance : Take the Strand front, 
 take the western front, or indeed any of them. Are there 
 not here masses which balance masses, not with exact regu- 
 larity or with absolute similarity of detail, but with great and 
 sufficient resemblance of general outline and arrangement ? 
 Can it be denied ? 
 
 The most regularly arranged front is of course the 
 western, for the reason that it is the only one which can be 
 seen in its entirety. Its little differences in detail give it 
 life and vitality ; its general symmetry of massing gives it 
 repose and dignity. Quite as well balanced, but not so 
 much as a whole, because it can by no possibility be seen as 
 a whole, is the principal front, that to the Strand. This 
 may perhaps be said to be composed of two parts ; not of 
 two parts which are distinct from one another, but of two 
 parts which overlap each other, and have some portion in 
 common ; of two parts which, seen in abrupt perspective — 
 the only possible view — do form a whole, which is a master- 
 piece of inspiration and reasoning. Many have been the 
 criticisms on this front, various the suggestions, mostly or all 
 by amateurs, or by gentlemen who were prepared to find 
 fault with any style not that which they themselves particu- 
 larly affected. It has been said that the tower at the Fleet 
 Street end should have had its exact counterpart opposite 
 St. Clement Danes. A truly delightful suggestion, and one 
 which, if carried out, would have the effect of shortening the 
 front one-quarter in appearance ! What an opportunity was 
 lost when the clock tower at Westminster was made so 
 
174 MEMOIR OF 
 
 dissimilar to the Victoria Tower ! and yet, in spite of this 
 astounding freak, the Houses of Parliament are generally 
 condemned as being over-symmetrical. 
 
 One word about the illustrations of the building which 
 have from time to time appeared. These have in many 
 cases — nay, it may almost be said, invariably — been taken 
 from utterly impossible points of view, denoting in the artist 
 a power of seeing not merely through deal planks, but even 
 through blocks of houses. There are strong objections to 
 such a proceeding which must be patent to every one who 
 considers the matter, but there is a convenience in so doing 
 which is quite sufficient to outweigh the objections so long 
 — and this is the important point, — so long as the mistake 
 is not made of criticising the design as it appears under 
 conditions which were rightly never considered and will 
 never in reality exist. The mistake, unfortunately, is only 
 too often made, and even the artist himself again and again 
 stands convicted of ignorance of the first principles of design 
 by deliberately basing his criticisms, whether favourable or 
 unfavourable matters not, on an assumption which deprives 
 them of all application, and scatters to the wind every 
 element of value they might otherwise have possessed. 
 
 It is true that the building itself is now in evidence : 
 impossible points of view are things of the past ; but pre- 
 judices notoriously die hard, and such is our nature that 
 most of us, having been told that the front lacks oneness, 
 assume that it does, and when we have occasion to pass the 
 building, do not trouble ourselves to see whether personal 
 observation verifies the criticism or the reverse. Suggestions 
 as to the puniness of the great entrance, the squatness and 
 unimpressiveness of the whole pile, are bits of highly imagin- 
 ative description, which seem to be sufficiently refuted by 
 the reality. 
 
 The amount of actual physical and mental work which 
 my father underwent in the execution of his task must have 
 been a severe strain even to so robust a constitution, but he 
 would have been more than equal to it had not his work 
 been embittered by constant worry, the result, I feel bound 
 to say, of an ill-advised economy on the part of Govern- 
 
VIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 175 
 
 ment in letting the work to a firm which had no inexhaust- 
 ible funds to fall back upon, and for an amount which really 
 was inadequate for the profitable carrying out of the work. 
 My father was consequently harassed day and night by his 
 efforts to get the work through without a stoppage. 
 
 He was successful, but it cost him his life. He may 
 indeed be said to have died in the service of his country just 
 as really as the soldier who falls with his face to the enemy. 
 For years he worked without recognition from the Bar 
 or from Government, and it remained for death to bring 
 about a public expression of the value of his services. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Just about the time that the competitions for the Law 
 Courts and National Gallery were announced, a move 
 was being made in Bristol towards getting funds for the 
 rebuilding of the cathedral nave, and some time in 1866 my 
 father was called in to advise the Committee thereon. He 
 made a careful examination of the site, and his report was 
 laid before a public meeting in June of the following year. 
 The unusual character of the nave, which was afterwards 
 erected from his designs, makes it interesting to see what 
 his reasons were for the course he took. To make a brief 
 resume of the report. 
 
 It appears that when he came to examine the ground, 
 he found some remains of the original church, dating from 
 I 142, still in place. These showed the chapter-house, the 
 outer angles of the north transept, the south wall of the 
 south transept, and the south-west angle of the south aisle. 
 These fixed points were, from the importance of their posi- 
 tions, sufficient to give the complete dimensions of all that 
 part of the original scheme. The probability is, that this 
 church was still in its entirety when, early in the fourteenth 
 century. Abbot Knowle began his work of complete demo- 
 lition and partial rebuilding, to which it was now contem- 
 plated putting the finishing touch. 
 
 Abbot Knowle began, after the manner of these days, 
 by simply pulling down the old choir, and then building up 
 another entirely independent of it. This new choir is the 
 one still existing, — a work of great originality of conception, 
 and full of the evidences of the genuine constructive skill of 
 its architect. Its unusual features are the uniform height 
 
CHAP. IX MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET i77 
 
 of the choir proper and its aisles, and the omission of tri- 
 forium and clerestory, which is a natural consequence of such 
 an arrangement. Whatever may have been the motive for so 
 complete a departure from the stereotyped form of a cathe- 
 dral church, the result certainly justifies it ; for we have here 
 an interior which looks both dignified and spacious in spite of 
 there being a good deal to reprobate in the detail. One pos- 
 sible explanation of the design is that it was thought desirable 
 to retain the central tower — an unusual piece of conservatism, 
 — and that the church was consequently strictly limited in 
 height, or it may have been that the whole design was 
 simply an ingenious way of getting a church of large area 
 at much less than the usual cost. 
 
 The choir completed, a similar course was evidently to 
 have been followed with the nave, but the work never got 
 beyond the earlier stages. My father discovered the founda- 
 tions of the new north wall that was to have been, with an 
 arrangement of buttresses precisely similar to that of the 
 choir, and he also found a portion of the south-west angle 
 of the south aisle. The fragments of the Norman south 
 wall, never removed, bore mute but convincing testimony to 
 the sudden stoppage of the works at this stage. Subse- 
 quently to the building of the new choir, the old central 
 tower was taken down and rebuilt. 
 
 The fourteenth-century foundations showed so incontest- 
 ably what the outlines of the nave were intended to be, and 
 the similarity of the size and arrangement of the buttresses 
 to those of the choir pointed so distinctly to a general 
 scheme similar to that of the completed work, that my father 
 felt that there was really no course open to him but to 
 build on the old foundations and on the same lines as the 
 choir, and to make the distinction between the old and new 
 work in the detail, such as a greater elaboration of the 
 mouldings, a variety in the window -traceries and in the 
 character of the sculpture, and a different treatment of the 
 groining. He also made fresh designs for all the monu- 
 mental recesses which, following the old model, he intro- 
 duced under the aisle windows. The only additions to the 
 old scheme were the north porch — placed in the same posi- 
 
 N 
 
178 MEMOIR OF 
 
 tion as the old Norman one — and the western towers. The 
 treatment of the west end was necessarily hypothetical. 
 Still, my father's opinion that the probabilities were cer- 
 tainly against there having been western towers in the 
 original scheme, did not deter him from including them in 
 his own, because he thought they would be specially valuable 
 in a building which was both unlike the ordinary cathedral 
 type, and on an unusually small scale, as expressing the 
 fact of its being a cathedral. The unique and effective 
 vaulting in the choir aisles was reproduced in those of the 
 nave, but with considerable improvements. I am tempted 
 to quote from a letter which appeared in one of the Bristol 
 papers, wherein a comparison was drawn between the char- 
 acter of the nave and that of the choir, because, though 
 rather ludicrously fanciful, it does not give altogether a bad 
 idea of the difference between the old and new work. It 
 runs as follows : — 
 
 " The construction of the nave may be regarded as the providing 
 of a husband to the widowed, or perhaps virgin, choir. A com- 
 parison of the details of the choir with that of the new work of the 
 nave will show this. The choir is essentially female in its character 
 and expression. Dean Eliot is wont to say to his friends : ' I have 
 always regarded the arcading of this choir with its graceful lancet 
 arches, rising in unbroken sweep from floor to apex, as the most 
 perfect realisation of female grace and virgin purity yet achieved in 
 architecture ; ' and the Dean is right, and Street is right too. He 
 was restricted to the style of architecture of the choir ; he has com- 
 plied with the restriction, and has saved his reputation as a poet by 
 simply changing his sex. Out of the rib he took from the female he 
 has made a male ; every member of the one is to be found in the 
 other, and yet no member is precisely alike in both ; every nerve 
 and muscle, every vein and artery, every bone and every articulation 
 is in each, and yet not alike ; the one are those of the female, the 
 other of the male structure." 
 
 The work was commenced in 1867, and for some years 
 progressed surely and peaceably, till in 1876 the placing 
 of the statues of the four doctors — SS. Jerome, Gregory, 
 Augustine, and Ambrose — in the niches which had been 
 prepared for them in the north porch, the exclusive gift of 
 Mr. W. K. Wait, raised an outcry among a section of the 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 179 
 
 townspeople. A meeting was held at Colston Hall, at which 
 incredibly strong language was used, though strong protests 
 were made by Dr. Perceval and others against the outrageous 
 character of the proceedings. A memorial was thereupon 
 drawn up and presented to the Dean and Chapter, in which 
 the removal of the four figures was asked for, and special 
 exception was taken to the figures of the Virgin and Child 
 over the door. In the words of this temperate memorial, 
 our Lord was said to be " seated on the goddess, predominant 
 above all the saints, the object of special worship and 
 adoration." 
 
 There was no satisfying the Protestants when once they 
 had drawn blood. To doctrinal objections were added 
 purely architectural ones, and the whole was now con- 
 demned, where a short time before only a part had been 
 called in question. One gentleman asserted that the archi- 
 tect had gone out of his way to make the " gateway as 
 uninviting as possible, and has certainly given us a signally 
 debased specimen of architecture." The good taste in thus 
 characterising the special gift of a most munificent donor 
 is no less notable than the conjunction of such adjectives 
 with the particular piece of work. Others who may reason- 
 ably be supposed to know better hold this porch to be 
 amongst the most completely successful and beautiful pieces 
 of work that the architects of the Gothic revival have given 
 us. The Dean and Chapter determined {diss. Norris and 
 Wade, to the former of whom the inception of the whole 
 scheme was chiefly due, and to whose exertions and offerings 
 the Building Committee were largely indebted for their 
 success hitherto) that the offending statues should be re- 
 moved, and informed Mr. Wait of their resolution, the 
 Building Committee having already refused to move them 
 unless legally compelled to do so. Without more ado a 
 gang of men made their appearance one morning and pro- 
 ceeded to the defacing of Mr. Wait's sumptuous and beautiful 
 gift. " The figures," the Dean courteously said, " will be 
 retained for the disposition of the Committee." If, however, 
 the evidence of an anonymous correspondent of the Pall 
 Mall Gazette is to be credited, at least one figure, that of the 
 
i8o MEMOIR OF 
 
 Virgin — and presumably the Child — would have reached the 
 Committee in small pieces. The figures of the four doctors 
 now adorn the tower of one of the many churches which 
 my father built for Sir Tatton Sykes in the Wolds. 
 
 A short time after this event the Dean wrote to my father 
 to say that " the substitution of Scripture characters for those 
 which had been removed must be taken as a si7ic qua iioii" 
 My father's own position and views are well defined by two 
 letters which I quote below ; one to the Dean, and the other 
 to the Guardian paper. To the Dean he wrote : — 
 
 " When it came to be a question as to what figures should be 
 introduced, there was a discussion in the usual way with the execu- 
 tive, and it was finally decided to erect the statues and subject to 
 which you have so great an objection. The names of the saints 
 to be represented were never given or suggested by me in any report, 
 nor did you, as Dean, at any time between 1867 and this day ask 
 me a single question about them, or my intentions as to them ; yet, 
 when you first saw the drawings of the nave in 1867, the six figures 
 of the saints were very distinctly shown on the plans, and when I 
 exhibited a large drawing at the Royal Academy, these statues were 
 equally conspicuous. This drawing was photographed, and circulated 
 extensively, in Bristol, and I myself frequently saw copies of it in shop 
 windows near the cathedral. I cannot doubt that you, too, saw it. 
 But you will excuse my saying that, seeing with what singular care 
 you avoided discussing anything connected with the new works with 
 me, I should have thought it a grave impertinence to ask your 
 opinion of any of the details. I gathered from your manner that 
 you did not much like the work being undertaken, nor cared to 
 make yourself in any way responsible for the character of any portion 
 of it. You left all the responsibility, both for the cost and execution 
 of my designs, to the Committee. When the subjects for the figures 
 were settled, I never thought even of consulting you, and I should 
 have felt certain, if I had thought about it at all, that after you had 
 sanctioned six indefinite figures of saints, you would never have 
 objected if we put four figures of such universally acknowledged 
 worthies as SS. Gregory, Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, and a 
 subject from the life of our blessed Lord Himself, instead of that 
 from the life of St. Augustine. I am bound to say that I think Mr. 
 Redfern, the sculptor, was injudicious in making so much of some 
 of the insignia of the four doctors. They were finished and fixed 
 during my absence from England. Had I seen them before they 
 were sent down, I should have been inclined to ask him to omit the 
 cardinal's hat and papal tiara, and these alterations could be made 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET iSi 
 
 even now if the statues have not been damaged (as I am informed 
 they have been) by the careless and hasty way in which your removal 
 of them was effected." 
 
 In the Guardian my father wrote : — 
 
 "The statues of the four doctors were not selected by me, nor 
 ordered until I had received authority to order them. The designs 
 of the figures were not mine, but those of the sculptor, Mr. Redfern, 
 who executed them." 
 
 He then supports the choice of subjects and their treat- 
 ment by a reference to symbolism in general : — 
 
 " It is," he goes on, " a more generally interesting question, I 
 think, whether or no the usual dresses and symbols of saints are 
 properly to be criticised as being ' both doctrinally and historically 
 objectionable.' ... I do not gather anywhere what the doctrinal 
 objection to the symbols ordinarily used in figures of the four doctors 
 may be, but certainly, if there is any such objection, I should be 
 very sorry to use them. I have seen them only to-day on statues 
 introduced within a few years in four niches in the south porch of 
 Gloucester Cathedral, where the Dean cannot be charged with any 
 desire to favour Popery, and where the bishop is the same as at 
 Bristol, and the architect Sir G. Gilbert Scott. They have been 
 used for hundreds of years over a great part of Europe, and certainly 
 during the last seventy years have been introduced without any such 
 intention in scores of instances, either in stained glass or sculpture, 
 and (so far as I know) without serious objection on the part of any 
 one. The historical objection appears to me to be equally untenable, 
 unless for the future we are all to be bound to a purely realistic 
 treatment of all figures and subjects introduced into any kind of 
 church decoration. For myself, I do not think that reverence for 
 our blessed Lord's person would be at all aided, if each artist repre- 
 sented Him as he thinks it possible that in reality He appeared. 
 . . . The conventional representation of Him, clothed in the 
 accepted attributes of sovereignty, is, I venture to think, even if 
 historically inaccurate (as it certainly is), far more reverent. 
 
 " So with the saints. No one supposes when St. Michael or St. 
 George, or scores of other saints, are represented in dresses and 
 armour which they never wore, that a real historical blunder has been 
 committed. A cope or vestment decorated with patterns never 
 thought of before the fifteenth century cannot certainly have been 
 used by a bishop or priest who lived in the seventh, but the object 
 of the representation of such vestments is not, and was never 
 supposed to be, to give an exact picture of the man as he lived, but 
 to show — as it does clearly — what the office was which he filled. So 
 
i84 MEMOIR OF 
 
 If my father was disheartened at Beverley, he had the 
 satisfaction of finding in the Master of Sledmere a chent who 
 was as anxious as he could have been himself, not only to 
 give every village a building where the people could meet for 
 public worship, but such a building as should be an incentive 
 to worship, and should, by the purity and beauty of its archi- 
 tecture and the completeness of its arrangements, insensibly 
 affect for good those who were gathered together within its 
 walls. This is what our old-time architects did, and what, I 
 think, my father also succeeded in doing. 
 
 I am reminded of what the late headmaster of Up- 
 pingham told me about his own chapel which had been 
 opened not long before this time. He was showing it to the 
 present Bishop of St. Alban's (Dr. Claughton), and the words 
 " consecrated building " somehow came up in the course of 
 conversation. Mr. Thring explained that the chapel was not 
 consecrated, whereupon Dr. Claughton turned to him and, 
 putting his hand on his shoulder, said, " Never mind, Mr. 
 Thring, never mind. It's a holy building." The chapel is 
 indeed a work of unusual grace and dignity. Its win- 
 dows are rather richly traceried, and are set equally all along 
 the wall between buttresses which, as a combination of 
 strength and delicacy, are the perfection of their kind. Two 
 or three days before the opening, when my father was paying 
 his last visit to the works, he was standing with Mr. Thring 
 looking at the chapel ; and the latter, speaking of the language 
 of architecture, told him that he must say, though it were to 
 his face, that the building which he had given them spoke 
 the language of truth if ever building did. "Yes," answered 
 my father ; " you let me build a good wall." These words 
 impressed Mr. Thring greatly ; and, indeed, they are an epi- 
 tome of the differences between a good and beautiful and 
 truthful style and one which is the reverse of all these. 
 
 My father's skill as a restorer, his intuitive perception of 
 the right method in each case, had resulted in many success- 
 ful works of the kind. It was in Ireland, where he had 
 already done a considerable amount of work for Lord Bess- 
 borough and others, that his great opportunity was to come. 
 This was the restoration of the older of the two cathedrals of 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 185 
 
 Dublin, Christ Church or, as it was formerly called, Holy- 
 Trinity. The state of this church had long been a standing 
 disgrace to the town, and its squalid meanness became all the 
 more noticeable when private liberality had restored to the 
 sister church — St. Patrick's — a semblance of its former 
 beauty. My father had been originally called in in 1868 to 
 advise the Dean and Chapter as to the restoration of all that 
 part of the church which was west of the transepts, but with 
 the passing of the Irish Church Act all hope of getting sub- 
 scriptions sufficient for so large an undertaking seemed at an 
 end, and for some time no further steps were taken. The 
 Duke of Leinster then took the matter up, and my father 
 was instructed by him to make plans showing how the choir 
 might best be restored to its original state ; the rehabilitation 
 of the nave my father had estimated to cost .;^ 16, 5 00, and 
 the work on the choir he now put at i^ 14, 5 00. These 
 amounts are very small indeed compared with what was 
 ultimately spent ; but it must be remembered that they 
 represented simply what was necessary for making the church 
 at all fit for use, while, on the other hand, the works when 
 carried out were, by the desire of the donor, treated in the 
 most expensive way in order to make absolutely certain of 
 preserving all the old work intact and without removal. A 
 scheme for a synod house, which it was at that time intended 
 to place on the site of the old Conventual buildings on the 
 south side of the cathedral, made a further addition of 
 ;^ I 5,000 to the proposed outlay. 
 
 It was at this juncture, in March 1871, when things 
 looked none too hopeful, that the Archbishop of Dublin, who 
 was also by virtue of that office Dean of Christ Church, 
 received a letter from Mr. Henry Roe jun., a wealthy and 
 public-spirited citizen of Dublin, offering to take on his own 
 shoulders the whole burden of restoring the cathedral in a 
 thorough way and building the synod house, and proposing to 
 entrust the entire work to the exclusive control of my father. 
 
 This offer having naturally been accepted, the work was 
 commenced almost immediately, and was carried on with so 
 much vigour that the opening services were held almost 
 exactly seven years afterwards. 
 
1 84 MEMOIR OF 
 
 If my father was disheartened at Beverley, he had the 
 satisfaction of finding in the Master of Sledmere a cHent who 
 was as anxious as he could have been himself, not only to 
 give every village a building where the people could meet for 
 public worship, but such a building as should be an incentive 
 to worship, and should, by the purity and beauty of its archi- 
 tecture and the completeness of its arrangements, insensibly 
 affect for good those who were gathered together within its 
 walls. This is what our old-time architects did, and what, I 
 think, my father also succeeded in doing. 
 
 I am reminded of what the late headmaster of Up- 
 pingham told me about his own chapel which had been 
 opened not long before this time. He was showing it to the 
 present Bishop of St. Alban's (Dr. Claughton), and the words 
 " consecrated building " somehow came up in the course of 
 conversation. Mr. Thring explained that the chapel was not 
 consecrated, whereupon Dr. Claughton turned to him and, 
 putting his hand on his shoulder, said, " Never mind, Mr. 
 Thring, never mind. It's a holy building." The chapel is 
 indeed a work of unusual grace and dignity. Its win- 
 dows are rather richly traceried, and are set equally all along 
 the wall between buttresses which, as a combination of 
 strength and delicacy, are the perfection of their kind. Two 
 or three days before the opening, when my father was paying 
 his last visit to the works, he was standing with Mr. Thring 
 looking at the chapel ; and the latter, speaking of the language 
 of architecture, told him that he must say, though it were to 
 his face, that the building which he had given them spoke 
 the language of truth if ever building did. " Yes," answered 
 my father ; " you let me build a good wall." These words 
 impressed Mr. Thring greatly ; and, indeed, they are an epi- 
 tome of the differences between a good and beautiful and 
 truthful style and one which is the reverse of all these. 
 
 My father's skill as a restorer, his intuitive perception of 
 the right method in each case, had resulted in many success- 
 ful works of the kind. It was in Ireland, where he had 
 already done a considerable amount of work for Lord Bess- 
 borough and others, that his great opportunity was to come. 
 This was the restoration of the older of the two cathedrals of 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 185 
 
 Dublin, Christ Church or, as it was formerly called, Holy 
 Trinity. The state of this church had long been a standing 
 disgrace to the town, and its squalid meanness became all the 
 more noticeable when private liberality had restored to the 
 sister church — St. Patrick's — a semblance of its former 
 beauty. My father had been originally called in in 1868 to 
 advise the Dean and Chapter as to the restoration of all that 
 part of the church which was west of the transepts, but with 
 the passing of the Irish Church Act all hope of getting sub- 
 scriptions sufficient for so large an undertaking seemed at an 
 end, and for some time no further steps were taken. The 
 Duke of Leinster then took the matter up, and my father 
 was instructed by him to make plans showing how the choir 
 might best be restored to its original state ; the rehabilitation 
 of the nave my father had estimated to cost ^16,500, and 
 the work on the choir he now put at i^ 14,500. These 
 amounts are very small indeed compared with what was 
 ultimately spent ; but it must be remembered that they 
 represented simply what was necessary for making the church 
 at all fit for use, while, on the other hand, the works when 
 carried out were, by the desire of the donor, treated in the 
 most expensive way in order to make absolutely certain of 
 preserving all the old work intact and without removal. A 
 scheme for a synod house, which it was at that time intended 
 to place on the site of the old Conv-entual buildings on the 
 south side of the cathedral, made a further addition of 
 ,^15,000 to the proposed outlay. 
 
 It was at this juncture, in March 1871, when things 
 looked none too hopeful, that the Archbishop of Dublin, who 
 was also by virtue of that office Dean of Christ Church, 
 received a letter from Mr. Henry Roe jun., a wealthy and 
 public-spirited citizen of Dublin, offering to take on his own 
 shoulders the whole burden of restoring the cathedral in a 
 thorough way and building the synod house, and proposing to 
 entrust the entire work to the exclusive control of my father. 
 
 This offer having naturally been accepted, the work was 
 commenced almost immediately, and was carried on with so 
 much vigour that the opening services were held almost 
 exactly seven years afterwards. 
 
1 86 MEMOIR OF 
 
 In the inspection of the western part of the church, which 
 my father made in 1868, so far from confining himself to 
 that part with which he was then chiefly concerned, he had 
 made careful investigations of the eastern arm of the church, 
 with the result of discovering that the original choir had been 
 built on lines of a very unusual character and at the same 
 time most suitable for the requirements of the services of the 
 church as they are conducted to-day. The plan of the choir 
 was in effect discovered through the medium of the crypt. 
 This showed — very roughly — a chevet planned with an apse 
 of three sides with an aisle round it, there being only one 
 bay of choir between the apse and the central tower. Per- 
 haps it would be more correct to say that the choir was 
 composed simply of a five-sided apse ; east of the apse were 
 three square-ended chapels, the centre one having a greater 
 projection than the other two. This plan was as far removed 
 from that of the fabric which then stood upon it as the poles 
 are asunder. 
 
 The church, as my father found it, w^as a cruciform one, 
 with a nave and north aisle of six bays, north and south 
 transepts and a long choir, in the form of a simple parallelo- 
 gram, with choir aisles extending to not much more than half 
 its length. The site of the old south aisle of the nave was 
 occupied by a library, a chapter-room, a robing-room for the 
 choir, and a lobby leading to the sexton's house, which was 
 attached to the south-west wall of the nave. On the south 
 side of the choir was a modern entrance with a vestry-room 
 or waiting-room attached to it. The tower, which belonged to 
 the seventeenth century, was mean in appearance both inside 
 and out. It was supported on rude whitewashed limestone 
 piers and arches. The transepts had only one old feature 
 left to them externally, viz. a doorway in the south transept. 
 Inside they were defaced with whitewash and ceiled with 
 wretched lath and plaster vaulting. The north wall of the 
 nave was in a highly dangerous state : cracked all over, and 
 bulging in every direction ; the triforium and clerestory were 
 as a natural consequence much out of the perpendicular, and 
 my father was of opinion that the wall had given way before 
 the nave vaulting fell in in 1562. The south wall of the 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET iS"; 
 
 nave had been dragged down in the ruin of the vault. The 
 vaulting of the north aisle had fallen — presumably at the 
 same time, — and the whole aisle wall had been propped up 
 externally with an immense mass of masonry which entirely 
 covered, while fortunately preserving, the old windows. The 
 south wall of the nave itself had been replaced by a curious 
 sixteenth -century attempt to reproduce thirteenth -century 
 forms. The west front had been completely modernised, and 
 every trace of old work obliterated. The choir was divided 
 from the church by a solid screen, on which stood the organ. 
 The walls were covered with plaster panelling, cornices, and 
 pinnacles of a contemptible character and redolent of Batty 
 Langley. The floor was closely packed with pews, and the 
 choir aisles had been converted into galleries. Throughout, 
 not merely the choir, but the whole church, there was abso- 
 lutely not one single old window remaining open. Exter- 
 nally there hardly remained one old wrought stone. A 
 certain importance the church still had, which it owed to its 
 considerable size and to the roofs and gables which retained 
 their old forms, but a feature of beauty would have been 
 looked for in vain. 
 
 In spite of the incredibly degraded and deformed condi- 
 tion into which the church had been allowed to drift, or into 
 which something worse than indifference had hurried it, there 
 were still found some wrong-headed enough to protest against 
 the removal of these squalid accretions of comparatively 
 modern date. More especially did they clamour for the pre- 
 .servation of the interesting sixteenth -century nave wall, 
 rendered all the more historically valuable as it was by the 
 pithy and genuinely Irish inscription, " This wal fel in i 562 ; 
 this wal was built in 1562." The removal of such a relic 
 may have revealed the cloven hoof of vandalism to the eye 
 which always seeks for such appendages in the architect of a 
 restoration, but moderate men were agreed that if ever a re- 
 storation was legitimate it was here. The building seemed 
 to cry aloud to be released from its bonds. It cannot, of 
 course, be said of this restoration that every feature had its 
 warrant in what existed before ; much of the old work had 
 been so completely destroyed as to make that impossible. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 There are features which may never have existed at all, such 
 as the flying buttresses which are so conspicuous outside, but 
 they have the merit of extreme usefulness, if indeed not of 
 necessity. Innovations were unavoidable, but a survey of 
 what was done, and a consideration of the principles on 
 which my father acted, will, I venture to think, make it clear 
 that any real history, which the variety in the styles of the 
 different parts of the church might convey, was rather ren- 
 dered more conspicuous than obliterated by the course which 
 was pursued. 
 
 Interesting as the entire restoration was as a work 
 of revelation, the plan of the choir, as verified by my 
 father, could boast an originality which made it perhaps 
 the most engrossing part of the whole work. I have 
 already said that he found a long narrow choir, remark- 
 able chiefly for its utter poverty of design and detail. Its 
 east end was square, as were the ends of its aisles. This 
 plan my father was at once able to pronounce to be of much 
 later date than the foundations, and the process of verification 
 and analysis by which his old plan — first suggested by the 
 rough outlines of the crypt — was made a matter of certainty, 
 is full of interest even for the unprofessional man, and to the 
 architect is eloquent of my father's skill and learning. Mr. 
 Thomas Drew, R.H.A., a Dublin architect of eminence, and 
 since appointed as hononary architect to the cathedral, writes: 
 " To Mr. George E. Street's marvellous instinct for the com- 
 parative anatomy, as I may term it, of an ancient building, 
 and profound architectural erudition, we owe the recreation 
 of the perfect and unique twelfth and thirteenth century 
 church from the merest shreds of evidence." My father has 
 himself described his work of restoration, and I don't think 
 I can do better than adopt his words for the time : — 
 
 " By the time the modern fittings and decoration of the choir 
 had been removed, it was evident that more could be restored than at 
 first sight seemed probable. Right and left of the choir, close to the 
 tower, there remained two arches, opening to the aisles, of very rich 
 transitional work of the end of the twelfth century. These had been 
 much repaired and disguised with plaster mouldings and other 
 ornaments, but were evidently in their old position and of old con- 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 189 
 
 struction. Next to them came two wide stone piers ; and beyond 
 these were two stone arches generally similar to those already 
 described ; but on close inspection it became clear that of these the 
 northern one only was ancient, the other being a copy made in plas- 
 ter, probably at the last refitting of the interior in 1831. Here, then, 
 we had three old arches to deal with, and one of them — that to the 
 east on the north side — clearly not in its old place, as its supports 
 came over voids and not over piers in the crypt below. I then pro- 
 ceeded to cut into the south pier, east of the old choir arch, and 
 soon discovered the wrought stonework of the commencement of the 
 canted side of an apse ; some of these stones were quite perfect, and 
 gave all that was required for the plan of the apse, for, in addition 
 to the angle-stones, which gave the slope of the side of the apse, there 
 remained also the springing-stone of the second arch from the west, 
 w'hich started at a lower level than, and at a different radius from, 
 the others. It occurred to me at once that the arch which had been 
 rebuilt on the north wall was really the eastern archway of the apse, 
 and that the two intermediate archways which formed the canted sides 
 of the apse, springing as they did at a lower level, were no doubt 
 also narrower than the others. Worked out in this way, the whole 
 of the stones came together perfectly over the old foundations in the 
 crypt, and there can be no doubt whatever that in this most singular, 
 if not unique, portion of the plan and design, the choir, as now re- 
 built, up to the level of the string-course above the main arches, is 
 an exact reproduction of the original work, being indeed to a large 
 extent reconstructed, with the old carved and moulded stones brought 
 back once more to their old places. 
 
 " As to the exact date of the earliest portion of the church above 
 the crypt, it is a little difficult to speak with certainty ; but the 
 mixed character of what at first sight looks like Norman detail proves 
 that it is really nowhere earlier than the transition from Norman to 
 first-pointed ; whilst, if we regard the circumstances under which the 
 church was built, we may fairly assume, I think, that it would be 
 rather later in date than the corresponding class of work in Eng- 
 land. . . . 
 
 " In making the designs for the completion of the new choir, of 
 which the lower portion had been so fortunately and with so much 
 certainty recovered, it was decided to introduce freely the same kind 
 of enriched mouldings throughout as those of the five arches of the 
 lower stage. To have adopted a more advanced style would have 
 been to establish a violent discord between the several stages of the 
 choir, as also between this and its aisles and chapels ; and though it is 
 true that the church gains by the great difference between the choir, 
 the transepts, and the nave, it is equally true that the completeness 
 of each portion in itself is one of the charms of the building." 
 
I90 MEMOIR OF 
 
 The triforium and clerestory of the choir having wholly 
 disappeared, my father adopted a scheme of window open- 
 ings similar in arrangement to the beautiful ones in the 
 nave, while he so arranged his design as to be able to put a 
 single -light window over the two narrow bays, and double 
 lights over the three wider ones. In the transepts, which are 
 of about the same date as the choir, my father found none 
 but round-headed arches used internally, so he reproduced 
 that form in the outer wall too. 
 
 In the south transept he placed the organ on a groined 
 gallery, which takes up hardly any room on the floor of the 
 church and hides no architectural beauties. It is also 
 directly at the back of the choir, w^hich is placed at the 
 crossing. 
 
 The transepts my father looked upon as the productions 
 of a man who was copying English works with only imper- 
 fect understanding of them. The mouldings seemed to him 
 to be of a mixed character and not quite in keeping with the 
 round-headed arches. The design altogether lacked the 
 decision of that of the nave, which he did not doubt to be 
 that of another man, though one educated in the same 
 school, the English school namely, which had its headquarters 
 at Glastonbury and Wells and spread thence to Llandaff, St. 
 Davids, and Cwm Hir Abbey, the arcade from which now 
 adorns the parish church at Llanidloes. 
 
 The interior of the nave as now completed presents few, 
 if any, features for which there was no authority. The 
 vaulting, of course, had fallen in, but the wall ribs remained, 
 and the curve of the vault and the section of the ribs were 
 accordingly a matter of certainty. The whole south wall 
 was rebuilt, and it would have been more economical to have 
 treated the old north wall in the same way, but so deeply was 
 Mr. Roe imbued with reverence for the old work that he 
 permitted my father at great expense to treat it as it stood. 
 The wall had to be carefully shored up while the columns 
 were removed and replaced. These columns, though as 
 much as six feet in diameter, were so miserably constructed 
 in the thirteenth century that they had proved quite unequal 
 to the task of carrying the vault, the weight of which they 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 191 
 
 should rightly have been able to bear many times over. 
 Beautiful indeed as they are with their clustered shafts, 
 they really subtract something from the merit of the design 
 from the utter want of science which they display, the 
 diameter being actually equal to half the space between each 
 pair. 
 
 The exterior of the nave having been almost wholly 
 destroyed, my father boldly put a series of picturesque flying 
 buttresses to resist the thrust of the vault. It is needless to 
 say that the columns of the nave, now that they have been 
 properly reconstructed, are very much too strong for the 
 purpose, but no other course was open. 
 
 While the work was in progress, the remains of a cham- 
 ber groined in three bays were found on the north side of 
 the nave near the west end. This my father has rebuilt 
 from rather fragmentary evidence, and the chamber, which 
 he has made a very beautiful one, now serves as a baptistery. 
 
 The west front, I have already said, seemed to be hope- 
 lessly modern, but the jambs of a west window of five 
 lancet lights were discovered in the wall, and after my father 
 had designed a new west door with a double entrance and 
 central pier, and even after some part of it was fixed in its 
 place, one of the old jamb-stones was found, and by an ex- 
 traordinary chance proved to be of almost the identical 
 section of the new stonework, insomuch that, I believe, it was 
 incorporated with it. My father was rather proud of this 
 testimony to the harmonious nature of his own work. From 
 the south wall of the nave aisle, in the westernmost bay, a 
 picturesque staircase starts, this crosses the street by a bridge 
 formed of one bold segmental arch, and connects the 
 cathedral with the new synod buildings. The synod hall 
 with its accessory offices was built on the site of the 
 modernised St. Michael's Church, the tower of which — its 
 only old feature — was incorporated in the new work. As 
 for the tower of the cathedral itself, it was, as I have said, 
 wholly without interest, but a bold and withal most simple 
 treatment of it has made it a very effective crown to the 
 whole pile. 
 
 Internally it rested on low rough arches and plain white- 
 
192 MEMOIR OF 
 
 washed limestone piers. Those piers were slowly elaborated 
 i}i situ till they became rich enough to harmonise with the 
 plentiful detail of everything about them, and the arches were 
 replaced by others some ten feet higher. This work was 
 done in the way the mediaeval workmen would have done it, 
 — that is to say, the stones were cut out and replaced by new 
 ones separately and without any system of shoring. The 
 whole was successfully finished without a sign of a settlement. 
 
 There is one feature in the restoration which has been 
 freely subjected to criticism, and that is the exterior of the 
 nave clerestory. Undeniably it is ugly, and my father felt 
 it to be so ; but at the same time he had assured himself to 
 his own satisfaction that it was undoubtedly old, and he felt 
 bound to reproduce it without modification. 
 
 The church was of course elaborately fitted with fur- 
 niture. The pavement in particular is remarkable for its 
 extraordinary richness. No less than sixty-three different 
 patterns of old tiles were found, and were all reproduced from 
 accurate sketches in colour. 
 
 On this subject and on the ironwork I may quote the 
 criticism of an architect : — 
 
 " Unmeasured praise is bestowed on the ironwork. The grilles 
 which surround the choir are simply the culmination of Mr. Street's 
 ablest designs in a branch in which he excels. When a future 
 school of architects historicise the architecture of the middle of the 
 nineteenth century, and point to the best examples of what the 
 Gothic architects of the Revival did at their best, they will probably 
 point to this work as exemplitive of what they could achieve original 
 in treatment, perfect in technical manipulation, and characteristic 
 of nineteenth-century feeling fired with admiration and appreciation 
 for the honesty of medieval art. Then, as for the pavement of the 
 entire church, it is simply a gorgeous sight. So brave in originality 
 and so striking in aspect, it is not to be wondered at if, on the open- 
 ing day, it somewhat appalled the timid souls of men used to the 
 simplicity and breadth of effect to which the hideous black and 
 Carlow blue flagging have accustomed too dismally the eye of the 
 Dubliner." 
 
 Every window throughout the church was filled with 
 stained glass. Under the western tower arch was placed a 
 delicate open screen in marble and alabaster — a feature for 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 193 
 
 which there was plenty of evidence in the old work. Every- 
 thing had been done with a thoroughness which was almost 
 lavish, and, to quote an unprejudiced opinion, " with a 
 studious desire to avoid symbolism or accessories which 
 would touch the sensitive feelings of a not very liberal or 
 well-informed section of the Irish people." All the chief 
 authorities — Dr. Stephens, Dr. Studdert, and Dr. Battersby, 
 the Archbishop's chancellor — agreed in stating that the whole 
 work without any exception was both within the letter and 
 the spirit of the law. In spite of this a letter appeared on 
 1st May 1878, written on the very day of the opening, in 
 which these sentences occurred : — 
 
 " The large, unmeaning stone cross over the arched screen 
 should be removed. The picture of the crucifix in the east window 
 should be exchanged, and if the Agnus Dei and the stone structure 
 (meaning the simple retable) behind the communion table offend 
 those for whom the building is intended, I feel certain that Mr. Roe 
 has too much good sense not to take them away also. If not, the 
 cathedral must be closed, or the Protestants of Ireland will them- 
 selves pull down the obnoxious emblems." 
 
 Surely bigotry and bad taste could no further go ; and 
 yet this is only a sample of many letters all in the same 
 tenor, emanating from the small and illiberal community of 
 ultra-Protestants, gentlemen who, after the work was com- 
 plete, said that Mr, Roe ought to have left it to be done 
 by the Protestants of Ireland, but at an earlier stage of the 
 proceedings had been discreetly silent. 
 
 Dr. Battersby, who had been specially enjoined to take 
 note of the " obnoxious emblems," wrote to the Arch- 
 bishop : — 
 
 " There is nothing in the church, as I saw it, that would justify 
 your grace, either as dean or archbishop, in refusing to take pos- 
 session whenever the work shall be finished. The cross and Agnus 
 Dei were so little striking that, although I went expressly to see 
 them, I did not observe them until they were pointed out to me." 
 
 I should not have touched upon this unsavoury subject 
 but for its having drawn a reply from my father, which is 
 interesting as showing his views : — 
 
 O 
 
194 MEMOIR OF 
 
 " I have read the address to Mr. Roe on the subject of one of 
 the screens in Christ Church Cathedral witli much interest. I had 
 seen various statements as to its artistic effect on the building, and 
 its moral effect on the worshippers, which appeared to me to be so 
 extremely one-sided and unreasonable, that I was anxious to know 
 what might be urged by those whose objections to what I have done 
 might be assumed to be well considered and marked by sobriety of 
 statement. The objections to the screen, stated in the Memorial, 
 are twofold. That which is stated to be the greater is, that many 
 people object to it on religious grounds. The answer to this, though 
 it is not an architectural one, is obvious, viz. that many people on 
 the same grounds object to its removal, and that their opinion is as 
 much entitled to respect as the opposite one, if the screen is a legal 
 article of furniture or ornament, as to which, I suppose, there is no 
 question. The other objections are : — 
 
 " {a) That it is of no practical use. {b) That it spoils the 
 beauty of the church, {c) That it lessens its apparent dimensions, 
 and {d) greatly obstructs the majority of the congregation from 
 hearing, seeing, and intelligently taking part in divine service. I 
 will, with your permission, say a few words on each of these heads, 
 premising only that they are all matters of taste and opinion, and 
 not matters of fact; and that, therefore, my judgment on all of 
 them must be allowed by candid men to be of more weight than 
 that of gentlemen who have not had any artistic or professional 
 training. 
 
 " {a) The choir screens or enclosures of our cathedrals are of so 
 much practical use as to be almost universal in the English com- 
 munion. The office -books and music -books remain in the choir 
 when no service is going on, and it is always found inconvenient to 
 leave them unprotected. When screens surround the choir, it is 
 possible to leave the whole of the rest of the church open all day. 
 This is the custom in all or nearly all English cathedrals, and I hope 
 that ere long it will be equally the custom at Christ Church. 
 
 " (/-') In my opinion the screen adds greatly to the beauty of the 
 interior. The old architects thought so, no doubt, for we found 
 remains of their screen during the progress of the works. Of the 
 design of the particular screen it does not become me to speak ; but 
 I am obliged to say in self-defence that it is as good and as successful 
 as anything I have ever done, and certainly equal in merit to the 
 rest of my work at Christ Church. 
 
 " (r) Those who have studied the question know that the effect 
 of a partial obstruction or subdivision is to increase, not to decrease, 
 the apparent size of a building. An unbroken area, like that of St. 
 Peter's or the Pantheon at Rome, always makes buildings look 
 smaller than they really are. The subdivisions of Gothic buildings 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 195 
 
 were evidently meant by their designers to increase to the utmost 
 their apparent size. The subdivision of parts (such as ' mouldings ') 
 was carried to the utmost point with the same object. The cathedral 
 of Christ Church is really one of small dimensions, and, thanks to 
 its subdivisions and, above all things, to the screen between the choir 
 and the nave, it now looks much larger than it really is, and its scale 
 would suffer immensely if the screen were removed. Of this I am 
 as certain as I can be of anything. 
 
 " (//) The memorialists are bold in their assertion that they could 
 hear better without the screen. My confident belief is that in its 
 absence there would be almost a certainty of a considerable echo. 
 At present I have found myself able to hear perfectly well in all 
 parts both service and sermon. If the screen is removed, I do not 
 believe that I should any longer be able to say this. The other 
 objection, as to seeing and joining intelligently in the service, can 
 hardly be quite serious. This does not apply at all to that part of 
 the congregation which sits in the aisles out of sight of the screen ; 
 and for those who sit in the transepts, the removal of the transept 
 screens is equally required ; while for those who sit in the nave, in 
 full view of the screen, I assert that there is no difficulty whatever in 
 an equally intelligent joining in the service, whether there is a screen 
 or no screen ; and that for some reasons in all cathedral churches it 
 is more productive of devotional feeling to be able to join in the 
 service without seeing every attitude and every expression of the face 
 of those who are engaged in the musical portion of it. 
 
 " Allow me to say, in conclusion, that it is a matter of extreme 
 pain to me that there should be any controversy about any portion 
 of this great and important work. I have done my best to make 
 Christ Church all that it should be, and I declare, on my honour, 
 that if the particular alteration now asked for is conceded, my work 
 will be immensely damaged, and much of its architectural and 
 artistic effect destroyed. Surely the artist, though he may not be in- 
 fallible as you say, is at least the person whose opinion is of the most 
 weight as to what will or will not damage or improve his work. If 
 in such a building he does what is illegal, of course there can be no 
 question whatever that his work must be altered ; but if, as in this 
 case, he has not done so, and has devoted the whole of his powers 
 and knowledge and taste to make the work as good, as harmonious, 
 and as perfect a whole as he could, he has a fair claim to ask that it 
 may be left in its entirety as it came from his hands. Every one 
 would concede this in the case of a painter or sculptor, and I see no 
 reason why the work of the architect should be less respected than 
 that of the artist." 
 
 Within the last two or three years Mr. Drew, the honorary 
 
196 MEMOIR OF 
 
 architect to the cathedral, in excavating for a drain at the 
 south side of the cathedral, discovered the ancient level of 
 the cloister garth. This is nine feet below the church floor, 
 and the level explains the nature of what seemed to be an 
 old cellar door adjoining the cathedral at its south-west angle. 
 It was no doubt the Abbey gateway. Further investigation 
 has shown that what was formerly the Exchange must have 
 been the old chapter-house ; while Mr. Drew has also dis- 
 covered the blocked-up entrance from the south-west angle 
 of the south transept up into the dormitory. At the time 
 of the restoration this piece of land, at one time destined to 
 hold the synod hall, was occupied by masons' sheds, and 
 all the paraphernalia which so large an undertaking makes 
 necessary, and consequently no thorough investigation was 
 ever made into its possible hidden treasures. 
 
 In 1868 my father was made Diocesan Architect of 
 Ripon, a post which he already held in the dioceses of York 
 and Oxford, to which Winchester was subsequently added ; 
 besides this he was appointed, almost at the same time. 
 Architect to York Minster, and, later on, to Salisbury and 
 Carlisle Cathedrals. 
 
 The high estimation in which his work was held on the 
 Continent was shown by his election to the Corresponding 
 Membership of the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts in 
 1 869, while in England he attained the highest distinction 
 open to an artist by his election as a Royal Academician in 
 I 871. A year before this he had, in the absence through 
 ill-health of Sir G. G. Scott, who then held the Professorship 
 of Architecture in the Academy, given a couple of lectures, 
 which were an earnest of the admirable series which he was 
 to deliver when he himself occupied the chair a few years 
 afterwards. These lectures, which attracted much attention, 
 are appended to the present volume. 
 
 Directly after his election to the full membership, it 
 became my father's duty to serve on the Council in common 
 with the other newly-elected academicians. As a member 
 of Council, his energy of character and good business qualities 
 made him very valuable. He entered thoroughly into his 
 duties, and devoted himself with special zest to the attempt 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 197 
 
 to place the teaching in the architectural schools on a par 
 with that which the student of painting received. I am 
 indebted to Mr. R. Phene Spiers, F.S.A., the Master in the 
 Royal Academy Architectural School, for the following note 
 on his work in that particular : — 
 
 " My first recollections of the late Mr. G. E. Street, in connec- 
 tion with the schools of the Royal Academy, date from the year 
 1 87 1, when, having become a full member, he took his place on 
 the Council. A Committee was appointed to revise and reorganise 
 the schools, and Mr. Street was placed on the Committee to advise 
 respecting the architectural school. The time, however, was not 
 ripe for the changes which were proposed, and the Committee was 
 dissolved without any definite action having been taken. 
 
 " Subsequently the work of this Committee was brought forward, 
 with the result that many changes were introduced into the working 
 of the schools. Among other propositions was that of Mr. Street, 
 that the architect members should in future take their turn as 
 visitors in the architectural school, in the same way as had always 
 been done in the painting schools by the painter members of the 
 Academy. 
 
 "At first I did not think the proposal was likely to succeed, for 
 it seemed improbable that architects in busy practice, whose works 
 necessitated their frequent absence from town, would be able to 
 attend regularly at the schools to give the students the advantage of 
 their experience and criticism. In this, however, I was mistaken. 
 The architectural visitors made their weekly visit an appointment 
 always to be kept, and, foremost among them, Mr. Street (who was 
 the first to undertake the task) not only never missed an evening, 
 but arrived punctually at six o'clock, and remained till the closing 
 of the school at eight o'clock." (My father made his first visit in 
 January 1878.) 
 
 "The immense value of his teaching was apparent from the 
 first. He threw all his energy into the task, and commenced on 
 his first visit by sketching altogether a fresh design for each student. 
 Subsequently, finding that the students preferred to wait for his 
 designs, instead of thinking for themselves, he changed his plan, 
 and confined his attention to the correction of their work when 
 placed before him : and it was interesting to note how a poor 
 commonplace cardboard design gradually became developed, under 
 his advice, into one showing vigour and boldness in its treatment, 
 with simple but effective mouldings, and with its construction well 
 insisted on. Mr. Street invariably required a portion of the design 
 to be set out at an early stage to a half-inch scale ; on one half of 
 this he would draw in all the sections of his mouldings, and alter 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 the design of the tracery and other features, requiring the student 
 to copy them on the other half. These he would correct again, if 
 necessary, on a subsequent visit, and revise from time to time on 
 the final drawings. 
 
 " Mr. Street from the first ingratiated himself with the students 
 by the kindness of his manner ; he always seemed to try and work 
 with them to ascertain their ideas, and point out how they best 
 could realise them, instead of putting forward ideas of his own, — the 
 result being that the students took a much greater interest in their 
 work than they would have, had they been simply carrying out some 
 one else's design. 
 
 " Mr. Street continued his work in the schools till within a short 
 time of his death, and it was only on the occasion of his last visit, I 
 think, that for the first time I heard him complain of feeling tired, 
 though he had frequently passed the night before his weekly visit in 
 the railway train, and had then been hard at work all day. 
 
 " His untimely death was a great and serious loss to the profes- 
 sion at large, and to no section of it more than to the Academy 
 students, who profited so much by his sound advice." 
 
 My father-in-law, Mr. Wells, the Royal Academician, 
 writes to me : — 
 
 "Although your father and I were elected into the Royal 
 Academy on the same day, it was, of course, not until we had passed 
 through our probation as Associates, and had become full members 
 of the Institution, with the right of taking our parts in its business 
 and management, that I had the opportunity of seeing how valuable 
 his services were likely to be. 
 
 " As a newly-elected academician he took his seat upon the 
 Council at a time when it so happened he was able to be of especial 
 use to the Academy, for the new galleries had been recently opened, 
 and the members were awaiting the completion of Burlington House 
 itself for the removal of the entire establishment from Trafalgar 
 Square to its new home. 
 
 " It was a time of change and expansion. The schools had 
 commenced working on an increased scale ; there was a launching- 
 out in every department ; and, besides the rising yearly expenditure, 
 very large dealings with the builders were going on. Under these 
 circumstances, and when there was danger lest the ideas and habits 
 of business, which were the traditions of the comparatively small 
 establishment at Trafalgar Square, should be too strictly adhered to, 
 your father fortunately came among us with his clear perception and 
 knowledge of affairs. It was my fortune to sit at Council with him 
 during his first year of office, when his mastery in dealing with all the 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 199 
 
 various kinds of business which came before us soon made itself 
 apparent. I also served with him on the Audits and on the 
 Finance Committee, where his vigilant supervision of our new 
 expenditure came into full play and led to reforms in many im- 
 portant matters. 
 
 " But the work for which he will be most generally remembered 
 at the Academy, as I am sure he would himself have wished, was his 
 putting of the architectural schools on their present footing. 
 Strangely enough, until he intervened, the students of architecture, 
 unlike those of painting and sculpture, had never received their 
 teaching from members of the Academy, and had thus been excepted 
 from the advantages of the system of visitorship which puts the 
 student in contact with the most eminent artists of the country. 
 Without doubt there were obstacles to making the different schools 
 alike (I may instance that architectural students are generally em- 
 ployed in offices during the daytime, and are prevented from giving 
 the hours of attendance of the other students, and from following the 
 general routine of the schools). Your father, however, took up all 
 the conditions of the problem in his practical way, and when in 
 1877 he introduced to the General Assembly his measure for the 
 creation of visitorships to the architectural schools, he presented it in 
 such a form that it obtained the ready acceptance of the academi- 
 cians and, if I remember rightly, by an unanimous vote. 
 
 " The measure at once gave life to these schools. Very natur- 
 ally your father was closely associated with their success, and was 
 seen to be ever watchful for their further development. His oppor- 
 tunities came in the years 1880 and 1881, when the General 
 Assembly, with the help of a special committee, on which he served, 
 devoted much time to the whole subject of teaching, and revised the 
 laws and regulations with a view to increasing and improving the 
 schools. 
 
 " In this remodelling, the architectural division came in for quite 
 its full share of additions, and the new regulations for it, which took 
 their shape chiefly under your father's advice and by his advocacy, 
 are those in force at the present time. 
 
 " The interest your father took in everything connected with the 
 Royal Academy was shown by his unremitting attendance at the 
 schools, and at the various meetings of Council committees and 
 General Assembly, at a time when his great professional practice was 
 calling him away to all parts of the kingdom, and even to the Con- 
 tinent. On one of his professional visits to Italy my own services, 
 I remember, were enlisted to keep him informed of the course of 
 Academy business, for it so happened an important General Assem- 
 bly was impending, and he was so anxious not to be absent from it 
 that he intended to hurry back to England if the then unannounced 
 
MEMOIR or 
 
 date of the meeting made it necessary for him to do so. Indeed, 
 he seemed to make his own personal engagements, as far as 
 possible, dependent upon the course of business at Burlington 
 House. 
 
 " That his devotion was a consequence of his belief in the Royal 
 Academy as an instrument for benefiting the Arts he made clear on 
 a notable occasion shortly before his death, when he gave his address 
 as the newly-elected President of the Institute of Architects. On 
 that occasion, after expressing his conviction that the two institutions 
 had work to do in common, and were not in the least antagonistic, 
 he said that were it otherwise he would not then be addressing his 
 audience. Knowing, as I did, how much he had been gratified 
 by the honour of election to that chair, I was struck by this burst 
 of manly candour, which threw a meaning into all the services I had 
 been a witness of through several years of comradeship. 
 
 " His death fell as a great blow upon his colleagues. He had 
 become our Treasurer, and was looked at as a pillar of strength to 
 be counted upon for many years to come. He was apparently in 
 the fullest vigour of health ; and as he sat in front of us at the last 
 meeting he attended, no thought but of life could be associated with 
 him. 
 
 " When at the meeting that followed his death the formal 
 announcement of it had to be made by the President, Sir Frederick 
 Leighton could not refrain, although the custom of the Academy was 
 against him, from putting into words what was uppermost in all our 
 hearts, and when he ended by saying that our late colleague would 
 always have to be remembered by us as a ' great academician,' I, for 
 one, felt he had most correctly defined our loss. In my own time 
 I have known of no one to whom that title so well applies." 
 
 There are many entries in my father's diary during this 
 time which show how much interest he took in the experi- 
 ment, and how thoroughly satisfactory he could conscien- 
 tiously take the result to be. 
 
 To his hard work was now added the worry of having to 
 sit still under the strictures which were launched almost daily 
 from a certain quarter against his design for the new Law 
 Courts. He was able to write lightheartedly enough about 
 it though : — 
 
 "The only bother about the Law Courts is the abuse of my 
 
 plans in They have never seen them, so the criticisms are all 
 
 the more free and unprejudiced, of course ! but I don't suppose it 
 has any weight with any one capable of really arriving at any reason- 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 able conclusion on such questions, and every one else has written 
 most favourably about me and about my work. This work, of 
 course, engrosses me very much ; but I am obliged to find time 
 for plenty of other business, among other things for a great work — 
 the restoration of the south transept of York Minster. I am also 
 just making plans for the restoration of the ruined cathedral of 
 Kildare, and of course I have told you of the grand work I have in 
 hand at Christ Church, Dublin, which is almost tantamount to the 
 building of a cathedral." 
 
 Besides these, and a whole host of less important works, 
 the chapel and house for Lord Crawford at Dunecht were 
 now in progress. Here he had to add his own work on to 
 a bald piece of building with which it would almost have 
 seemed hopeless to find any common ground ; yet my father 
 managed with such skill that the noble chapel and dignified 
 pile of building for which he is responsible, at least produce 
 no discord, as they stand side by side with the original com- 
 monplace modern house. The whole work looks grave, 
 simple, and large, as my father would have wished. The 
 chapel is something more than that. 
 
 The work at York Minster gave him peculiar pleasure. 
 Its two great transepts had always stood out to him as 
 representing in perfection first-rate English work. It was 
 no common satisfaction then that a piece of work which he 
 regarded in such a light should owe its restoration to its 
 original and beautiful state to his own care. 
 
 It was in 1871 that he was first applied to by the 
 chapter, the state of the south transept having become 
 obviously so dangerous as to call for some immediate and 
 decided action. My father found, upon examination, that 
 the weight of the roof had thrust the clerestory walls very 
 much out of the perpendicular, with the natural consequence 
 that the groining had spread, while the south face of the 
 transept was in a terrible state of decay, and much spoilt 
 and concealed by modern additions. Two great longitudinal 
 stages were erected on the floor of the transept, and support 
 was thus given to the entire roof, while the clerestory walls 
 were rebuilt. The slates on the roof were replaced by lead, 
 and the plaster filling-in of the groining by oak, while the 
 groining itself was lifted up into its proper position. Besides 
 
MEMOIR OF CHAP. 
 
 this, the east and west walls were underpinned. The south 
 front and the eastern aisle were the first to be entered upon, 
 and the work on them was finished for the most part in 
 three years, but it was as long again before the octagonal 
 turrets which flank the front were completed. These were 
 designed to take the place of the modernised remnants of 
 the old ones, and were to some extent conjectural. Indeed, 
 it is probable that the old turrets had never actually been 
 finished ; at least my father was inclined to that view. 
 
 This, however, was the solitary innovation, and it cer- 
 tainly seems a most warrantable one, for the simple restoration 
 to the statu quo would have been worse than quixotic. The 
 rebuilding of the clerestory was of course fallen foul of by 
 those who would let our old buildings become small by degrees 
 till there was nothing left of them ; but my father made haste 
 to give extremely good reasons for having laid his rash hand 
 on the work : — 
 
 " If I had not rebuilt the clerestory of the south transept it would 
 have fallen. Much of the external stonework was so effectually 
 tooled and redressed many years ago that in parts hardly any of the 
 untouched face of the original stonework remained. By care and 
 great pains we can find the original mouldings almost everywhere, 
 and these I am substituting for the bad copies of an ignorant period. 
 To those who do not value our matchless English mouldings, such 
 a work may be repugnant. To me, I confess, it is one of the very 
 greatest interest. We have no finer or more classical work in 
 England than the transepts of York Minster, and I am not a little 
 proud to have a hand in exposing them to view again in their old 
 state, and minus whitewash and modern alterations." 
 
 In 1874, when the work was complete, my father wrote 
 from York to my mother : — 
 
 "The transept of the Minster looks so magnificent now; I think 
 more interesting and striking than anything we have seen in France, 
 and on such a grand scale ! The Dean is charmed with it, etc." 
 
 The restoration of the cathedral of St. Brigid, Kildare, 
 was another of those cases where the disagreement of opinion 
 between those who would leave a ruin to moulder away till 
 its place knew it no more, and those who prefer to preserve a 
 design and save a church, showed itself markedly. 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 203 
 
 St. Brigid, when my father was asked to report as to the 
 feasibility of again making it fit for service, had the side walls 
 of the nave still standing as well as the south transept and 
 the south wall of the central tower. The west wall of the 
 nave and the north transept had entirely disappeared, and 
 an ugly modern tower had been built close to the ruins of 
 the old one. The choir was chiefly modern, and what was 
 old had been altered so much as to be almost unrecognisable 
 as such. My father reported favourably as to the possibility 
 of restoration. The wall that remained he regarded as 
 striking in design, and well worth preservation, and such 
 parts of the church as were destroyed could, in his opinion, 
 be at least built up so as to harmonise with the rest without 
 difficulty : — 
 
 " The south transept and nave," he said, " have lost their roofs, 
 but almost all the other architectural features still remain, either in- 
 tact or in such a state as to make their restoration a matter of no 
 difficulty. The south elevation of the south transept is one of great 
 simplicity, and of good character and proportion ; its window is a 
 well-designed triplet, simple externally, but with shafts and mould- 
 ings internally. The side walls of the nave present a very remark- 
 able design. The windows are simple lancets, separated from each 
 other by buttresses ; between these buttresses bold arches are formed 
 nearly on a face with the front of the buttresses, and with a narrow 
 space between them and the face of the wall. The effect of this 
 arrangement is to throw a very bold shadow over the windows, and 
 the effect produced is most picturesque. . . . The central tower is 
 a mere wreck; one side only — the south — is fairly perfect; the whole 
 of the rest of it has been destroyed. It is a work of fine design and 
 proportion, not very lofty, but, in its complete state, so large as to 
 give a good deal of the dignity of a cathedral to what might otherwise 
 have looked somewhat too much like a parish church." 
 
 I have already said that the thoroughgoing anti-restora- 
 tionists exclaimed against anything being done, and argued 
 that there were other national improvements on which, at any 
 rate, the money might more profitably be spent ; but the feel- 
 ing among Dublin architects and archaeologists, as expressed 
 by one of their most representative men, was distinctly in 
 favour of the contemplated work of preservation, and of its 
 being entrusted to an architect — a foreigner though he might 
 
204 MEMOIR OF 
 
 be called by some — who had shown himself in so many cases 
 capable of masterly and conservative work. There is a beauty 
 in usefulness, and, to those who thought of it, the objections of 
 the laisser-allcr party seemed whimsical and absurd. My father, 
 after paying one of his periodical visits to the church, wrote : 
 " The work at the cathedral getting on bravely ; what a pleasure 
 it is to see the nave walls all restored, and the north transept 
 rising from the ground on its old lines ! It is really a grand 
 work to restore a ruined church exactly to its old state." 
 
 During the same period important churches were in pro- 
 gress at Torquay, Clifton, Kingstone, Kennington, Liverpool, 
 Eastbourne, Bournemouth, and Paddington. All of them 
 have their special features of beauty and interest, though 
 it is impossible to give them in words. Toddington and 
 Kingstone, built respectively for Lords Sudeley and Eldon, 
 and both built without a contractor, are examples of 
 churches where money was not spared. The first of these 
 is remarkable for the beauty of its window -traceries, the 
 delicacy of its detail, and its charming tower and spire — a 
 feature in which my father may be said to have always suc- 
 ceeded. Take a group of his larger designs for towers and 
 spires, beginning with Lille Cathedral, then St. Philip and 
 St. James, Oxford ; Boyne Hill ; St. Saviour's, Eastbourne ; 
 St. Peter's, Bournemouth ; St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington ; 
 Edinburgh Cathedral competition design, and, among those 
 only partially built or not begun, Whiston, Kennington, Chapel 
 Allerton, and the American Church, Paris ; and, diverse as 
 they are, they all have a marked beauty of outline, and exhibit 
 great skill in the treatment of the junction of the tower and 
 spire, whether there are pinnacles and parapets, or one of the 
 many forms of broaches, and in the treatment, placing, and 
 projection of the spire lights, so that there is no sense of any 
 abruptness in the change from the perpendicular line of the 
 tower to the slope of the spire, but the whole mass seems to 
 spring to the sky from the ground itself in one great sweep. 
 Many of my father's earliest designs — executed and not 
 executed — included towers and spires, and I think it must 
 have needed but a glance at one of these to see that their 
 youthful author was something out of the common run. 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 205 
 
 Kingstone Church, near Wareham, is probably one of 
 the most complete things my father ever did. It is a regular 
 cross church, with an upstanding central tower, and an apsidal 
 east end. The chancel, crossing, and nave aisles are groined. 
 In the west wall is a great rose window, under which is a 
 narthex of the width of the nave. The mouldings through- 
 out the church are elaborate and beautiful, and the nave 
 arcade, with its richly-clustered shafts, has probably hardly a 
 rival among purely country churches. Lord Eldon being 
 the owner of great quarries of Purbeck marble, that material 
 is used in profusion throughout ; all the windows in the 
 church, with the exception of the roses in the west end and 
 clerestory, are lancets, richly moulded internally, and having 
 shafts in the jambs — this gives the opportunity for the use 
 of Purbeck from end to end. Two notes from my father's 
 diary, one during the progress of the work, one after its 
 completion, are here given. The first is as follows: — 
 
 "The church is looking well. I hope the interior may be 
 beautiful. It ought to be, for they have already spent a large 
 sum of money on it. It will be difficult to find, even among old 
 buildings, anything more thoroughly elaborated, I believe. It is a 
 real pleasure to work for such a man as Lord Eldon." 
 
 And afterwards he wrote : — 
 
 " To Kingstone, where Lord Eldon met me. I could not help 
 saying that the church looked well. It is a pleasure to be allowed 
 to make work so much after one's own heart, as this will be ; I think 
 it is the joUiest church I have built." 
 
 On this point, however, he was really no better able to 
 make up his mind exactly than other people are, and always 
 objected to people saying, " This or that is your best work." 
 Another design of this period is worth mention, because it 
 showed the power which was afterwards still further ex- 
 emplified at the Guards Chapel, viz. that for the alteration 
 of St. Luke's, Lower Norwood. There my father had to 
 deal with a hopeless kind of temple, which he succeeded in 
 turning into a fine Byzantine-looking church at no great cost. 
 
 Of St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, I have already 
 spoken in reference to the way it is planned ; for London 
 
2o6 MEMOIR OF 
 
 church-goers there is no need to describe its architectural 
 features. The only serious mishap which ever occurred, so 
 far as I remember, in any work of my father's, was the 
 partial destruction of this church by fire a few weeks before 
 it should have been opened. A workman with a candle 
 somehow set a light to the felt on the nave roof, and the 
 results were rather disastrous. The roofs of the chancel and 
 nave were entirely burnt, and that of the transept was seri- 
 ously damaged. Strange to say, the stonework and brickwork 
 and the stained glass, which was fixed, was not materially 
 damaged ; the chancel being saved by its groining. This 
 accident made my father for a time very shy of using felt ; 
 but before long he had to acknowledge to himself that its 
 advantages more than balanced the risk of using it. 
 
 From I 867 on, the year in which I got into college at 
 Eton, and was able to reap the benefit of the extra week, 
 which was always a feature of summer holidays there in those 
 days, I went with my father and mother on all their autumn 
 tours ; Italy was none too cool at that time of the year, 
 but my father, nevertheless, managed to revisit most of his 
 old favourites in the summers of 1867-69, besides see- 
 ing Ravenna. In 1868 we made our way from Venice 
 into Titian's country, and up to Cortina, where the beauty of 
 the country and the primitive simplicity of the people were 
 equally charming. In the course of those years we visited 
 the Engadine, the Oberland, the Val d'Aosta, and a great part 
 of Southern Germany. 
 
 So much of what he saw was already in my father's note- 
 books that he turned to watercolours, and did a great deal of 
 architectural and landscape work in that medium. I remem- 
 ber, on my first visit to Venice in 1867, that he used to 
 appear every morning at breakfast with a large sepia study 
 of one of the capitals of the Ducal Palace — work which he 
 never tired of As might have been expected, his landscape 
 sketches are chiefly remarkable for the success with which 
 mountain form and structure is rendered, and besides this, they 
 were truthful to the smallest detail, not being intended so much 
 as subject-sketches, but rather as a vivid form of diary. It is 
 easy to illustrate the accuracy of his work. The first time 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 207 
 
 we visited Pontresina, he made a sketch of the valley which 
 runs up to the Roseg Glacier, and is closed at the head by 
 various peaks of the Bernina range, and among them by the 
 " Capuchin." Those who know Pontresina will hardly believe 
 that, during the whole of our stay there, we never discovered 
 the capuchin's face, which, once seen, is a constant torment. 
 Such, however, was the case, and my father consequently 
 made his sketch without having the least idea that he was 
 putting a grotesque head on his paper. On a second visit 
 we saw the face at once, and immediately began to wonder 
 how it would appear on the old sketch. Directly we got 
 home we had the sketch-book out, and there, sure enough, 
 was the face to a very small scale, but about as true as a 
 photograph. It must be remembered, too, that all these 
 sketches were done very rapidly, which makes the extreme 
 accuracy the more surprising. 
 
 In 1870 the war drove us to Scotland, and we saw 
 Hexham, Kelso, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, Melrose, Dunfermline, 
 St. Andrews, Arbroath, Elgin, Pluscardine, Dunkeld, besides 
 getting a glimpse at Fountains, York, and Lincoln on our 
 way home. 
 
 The next year, while we were in Switzerland, my father 
 met with an accident which might have had the most serious 
 consequences for him. We were run away with in the dark 
 on the Weissenstein, a mountain above Solothurn, the horses 
 dashed up a bank, and we were thrown out amid the debris 
 of the carriage. Luckily we were only some few hundred 
 yards from the hotel, and within sight of its lights. My 
 father suffered so much pain in his left — happily his left — 
 arm, that it was clear it was either dislocated or broken, and 
 apparently the former. As the Weissenstein hotel is three 
 or four hours above Solothurn, there was nothing to be done 
 that night, and he had to grin and bear it. The doctor did not 
 put in an appearance next day till late in the afternoon — 
 about eighteen hours after the event. He found the arm 
 to be dislocated, and so firmly fixed had it become that the 
 services of several waiters had to be enlisted to pull it in 
 again. The innkeeper from whom we had hired the carriage 
 demanded compensation ; but our landlord with great kind- 
 
2o8 MEMOIR OF 
 
 ness took the whole thing into his own hands, and we heard 
 no more of the claim. The effects of the accident were 
 lasting ; whenever my father used his hand he felt a sensa- 
 tion of cramp, which would have been enough to stop his 
 drawing almost entirely if it had been in the other hand. 
 
 Curiously enough, when, some years afterwards, he was 
 making the experiment of crossing the St. Gothard in the 
 winter, his sledge was suddenly upset in a snowdrift, and in 
 trying to save himself he put the arm out again. He got up 
 ruefully, and motioned to the driver to help him into his 
 seat ; the boy with rustic awkwardness seized him promptly 
 by the bad arm and gave a lusty hoist. My father was pre- 
 paring to make as strong a remonstrance as his German would 
 allow of, when he felt that his arm had been pushed into its 
 place, and the more acute pain quickly began to subside. I 
 believe that if you dislocate your arm in the hunting-field, the 
 remedy is to put it over a gate and give a sharp pull from 
 below with the other hand. The principle is the same, but 
 that it should have been applied simply through excess of 
 clumsiness was the most fortunate chance. 
 
 In 1872 we struck into some new country. 
 
 " We went by Luxembourg," wrote my father, " and Treves, and 
 down the Moselle for the first time to Coblenz. Thence to 
 Munich, and by carriage past the Bavarian lakes, the Tegern and 
 Achen See to Innsbruck. After that we struck south-eastwards into 
 a delicious country full of beautiful mountains, and with no tourists 
 but ourselves. This was in the valleys of the Drave and the Gail. 
 We went also to Heiligenblut, which lies just under the Gros 
 Glockner, a great snow mountain. Then we made our way across 
 the Predil Pass to the Adriatic, and had a few days at Gorizia, 
 Udine, Aquileia, Venice, Verona, Brescia, and Bergamo, and hence 
 again by the Engadine, finishing up at Augsburg, and then down 
 the Rhine. Altogether we agree that we never made a more delight- 
 ful tour. I worked hard and brought back a well-filled sketch-book, 
 mainly watercolour drawings of mountain scenery." 
 
 The first edition of Brick and Marble had long been ex- 
 hausted, and a year or two after this journey a second edition 
 was brought out with a good deal of new matter in it, to 
 which this 1872 tour contributed a good deal. 
 
 In 1 87 1 Dr. Nevin, the American chaplain in Rome 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 209 
 
 had asked my father to build them a church there. The 
 commission was an attractive one in every way. Dr. Nevin 
 was a man of such energy and resource that funds were sure 
 to be forthcoming sufficient to provide a church which should 
 hold its own even in this centre of the Roman Catholic 
 world, and, moreover, it gave my father the necessary impulse 
 — the wish had never been wanting — to make a push for 
 South Italy. Accordingly, in the spring of 1872, he made 
 it possible to get away. The first stop was made at Orvieto, 
 then at Viterbo and Toscanella, and the rail for Rome was 
 taken at Corneto. Six days was all that could be given to 
 Rome. We are told that to know Rome at all, month after 
 month must be devoted to it. The inside of a week was 
 lamentably short even for a trained traveller who did not 
 know what fatigue was, who knew what he cared to look at 
 and what not, and who never forgot what he saw. These 
 six days at least served this purpose for my father : they 
 made clear to him the necessity for another and more 
 lengthened visit. Goth, as he delighted to call himself, 
 ancient Rome held him spellbound ; the indefinable attract- 
 iveness of the city, born partly of its associations, and partly 
 of what it offers to the eye, of humanity as well as of brick 
 and stone, made itself felt hardly less strongly in him than 
 in the student whose heart is wrapped up in the Rome of the 
 past. 
 
 After leaving the Eternal City, my father and mother 
 made their headquarters at Portici, where her father had a 
 villa planted on the lower slopes of Vesuvius, flanked by a 
 hanging orange garden, and looking over the bay to Castel- 
 lamare and Sorrento : a perfect site, were not the lava too 
 close to be pleasant. During their stay they visited Naples, 
 Pompeii, Salerno, and Paestum, reserving Capri and the ex- 
 quisite coast scenery between Salerno and Amalfi for another 
 visit. It was, I think, about a year later that Naples was 
 thrown into commotion by a great eruption of Vesuvius, the 
 lava at night-time seeming to the frightened people to be 
 bearing down directly upon the city. If the Neapolitans 
 were frightened, the people of Portici were naturally much 
 more so. My grandfather, who had an Englishman's objec- 
 
 P 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 tion to being disturbed by thoughtless cbulHtions, whether on 
 the part of Nature or his fellowmen, and who was also some- 
 what of an invalid, stood his ground, but he was temporarily 
 deserted by his whole household. 
 
 Shortly after his return from Italy, my father started on 
 another competition work, that for the Episcopal Cathedral 
 at Edinburgh, for which, though unsuccessful, he made a 
 design of great excellence. 
 
 Edinburgh Cathedral Competition. 
 
 This was held in accordance with the provisions of the 
 will of Miss Walker of Drumsheugh, who left a sum of 
 ;^4 5,000 for this purpose. The arrangements were left in 
 the hands of six or eight trustees, citizens of Edinburgh, 
 most of whom were so ex officio, as, for instance, the Bishop, 
 the Dean, the Provost, etc. 
 
 It was stipulated that there should be six architects, half 
 of them English and half Scotch : the latter being Mr. Alex. 
 Ross, Mr. Lessels, and Messrs. Peddie and Kinnear ; and the 
 former, Sir G. Gilbert Scott, Mr. Burges, and my father. I 
 am tempted to describe the circumstances of the competition 
 and the characteristics of my father's design at some length, 
 because, in spite of his want of success, this latter seems to 
 me to have been conspicuous for its suitability and complete- 
 ness of arrangement. The drawings were to be sent in in 
 August, and before the end of the year it was known that 
 Sir Gilbert Scott had been selected as architect, while Mr. 
 Ross had, next to him, found most favour with the trustees. 
 
 The decision was not generally accepted as a good one, 
 certainly not in professional circles ; and as more facts 
 came out, it was found to be really indefensible unless the 
 terms of the competition were to be regarded as not binding. 
 Supposing those terms to remain in force, the choice could 
 only have been between my father and Mr. Burges, as they 
 were the only two who had kept themselves within the pre- 
 scribed limits of expense and fulfilled the requirements. 
 
 According to the Edinburgh correspondent of the Church 
 Times, only two of the trustees, viz. the Bishop and the 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 Dean, were Churchmen. The others were Presbyterians, 
 and, as such, unable to appreciate the planning of an Epis- 
 copal church. Further than this, they were men taken quite 
 at haphazard, simply from the fact of their holding certain 
 offices at the particular time, and, in the matter of taste, were 
 generally remarkable for the want of it. From the same 
 source we learn that the Bishop supported Sir Gilbert Scott 
 through thick and thin, while the Provost did the same for 
 Mr. Lessels, for whom no one else could say a good word. 
 Naturally dissatisfied with the way in which the stipulations 
 of the competition had been set aside, my father appealed to 
 the Press for a hearing. From his letters it appeared that 
 he had visited Edinburgh in the early part of 1872, and 
 had had an interview with the Bishop, from which he came 
 away fully satisfied that the trustees would not undertake 
 the selection of the architect themselves, but would either 
 appoint a professional adviser or a small committee of skilled 
 persons. " If I had supposed," he writes, " that the trustees 
 of Miss Walker's will were to be the judges, as I am not a 
 madman I should not have thought twice before refusing to 
 compete." 
 
 Many of the trustees being, as I have said, non-Episco- 
 palians, would necessarily have seen special objections in a 
 really good arrangement, such as my father undoubtedly gave. 
 
 It was originally stipulated that ^45,000 was to be the 
 limit of the expenditure, and that the cost of the various 
 designs was to be tested by a qualified surveyor, and an 
 independent estimate made by him. 
 
 Two or three months later, when my father had already 
 made his design and done a good deal of work on it, it was 
 announced that the limit was to be extended to ;^65,ooo, so 
 that he had to begin his work afresh. 
 
 The first thing heard of after the sending in of the draw- 
 ings was that one of the competitors had broken the stipula- 
 tions by sending in two designs, and that one of them, in 
 consequence, had had to be returned to him, — a process by 
 which the trustees must necessarily have become cognisant 
 of his name. Late in the month of August, the drawings 
 having been sent in on the first, my father, who was on a 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 tour in Carinthia, heard from one of his clerks that rumours 
 were afloat to the effect that the trustees were, after all, 
 going to take the onus of deciding the competition upon 
 their own shoulders. A protest, however, was sent in by 
 Sir Gilbert Scott, with Mr. Burges's assent, against such a 
 course, and eventually, to the satisfaction of the competitors, 
 Mr. Ewan Christian was appointed as adviser. 
 
 After the authoritative announcement of Sir Gilbert 
 Scott's appointment, my father applied to the trustees for a 
 copy of Mr. Christian's report, but they had marked it 
 " private and confidential," and refused to let him see it, 
 thus making him pretty certain of what he had surmised 
 before, that they had not abided by its suggestions. He 
 was the more certain of this, because it was pretty generally 
 said that my father's and Mr. Burges's plans were the onl\- 
 two which could be carried out for the sum allowed. 
 
 My father, in insisting on the printing of the report of 
 the architectural assessor, wrote : " If this work was to be 
 given to Sir G. G. Scott, Mr. Burges and I have a right to 
 complain that our time and skill have been wasted." On 
 Mr. Christian's also writing strongly in favour of the publica- 
 tion of his recommendations, the trustees at last conceded 
 the point, professing at the same time that they had till 
 then been ignorant of the existence of any such wish on the 
 part either of the competitors or of Mr. Christian. 
 
 Briefly, the report eliminated Mr. Lessels and Messrs. 
 Peddie and Kinnear at once ; and of the other four, had 
 their merits in other respects been equal, two should have 
 been at once put out of count by their failure to keep the 
 expense within the limit. Roughly put, the estimated cost 
 of carrying out these four designs was, beginning at the 
 highest — Mr. Ross, ;^i 13,500; Sir G. G. Scott, ;^75,ooo ; 
 I\Ir. Burges, £^1,^^00 ; Mr. Street, 60,500; so that Mr. 
 Ross exceeded by more than iJ^4 8,000 and Sir G. G. Scott 
 by £ 1 0,000, the stipulated amount. 
 
 Mr. Christian spoke favourably of Mr. Ross's design, 
 which was, however, obviously on too large a scale when 
 there was not unlimited money to be spent, with its central 
 and two western towers and apsidal east end. In view of 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 213 
 
 the selection of Sir G. G. Scott's design by the trustees, in 
 spite of its cost, it is interesting to notice what Mr. Christian 
 said of it. Briefly, he spoke of the central tower as being 
 designed with considerable power, while other portions of 
 the exterior, and notably the west front, seemed to him 
 much less happy and forcible. Of the interior he said that, 
 in the main, if it showed little originality, it had at any 
 rate a thoroughly church-like and dignified character. 
 
 With regard to Mr. Burges's design, the report pointed 
 out several shortcomings : firstly, that the accommodation 
 in the transepts and nave and aisles was only sufficient 
 for thirteen instead of fifteen hundred, which was the 
 number to be provided for ; again, that no provision had 
 been made for daily services, and that the chapter-house and 
 approaches were on too mean a scale. 
 
 Like Mr. Ross, Mr. Burges had included two western 
 towers and a circular apse, but had substituted a flccJic for 
 the central tower. Of the design the report said : " It is 
 very beautiful, and is founded on a French type. The interior 
 would be bold and simple, yet rich in effect." The aisle 
 roofs, however, were said not to be well treated, ugly outside, 
 and calculated to hold a great deal of snow. Generally, how- 
 ever, the design was warmly praised in spite of a few defects. 
 
 Of my father's plan Mr. Christian said : — 
 
 " I may remark on this point that the plan of the church has 
 been very carefully considered, and the result is most excellent. 
 The nave and aisles are admirably adapted for a large congregation, 
 and the arrangement of the choir is such that it would be thoroughly 
 available for congregational purposes. Nothing, indeed, can be 
 better than the manner in which the whole building is, as it were, 
 brought together for the purposes of worship, and there can be no 
 doubt that a church so designed would, internally, be both thoroughly 
 useful and exceedingly beautiful. The large area westward of the 
 preacher allows of the central tower being made an open lantern, the 
 effect of which, internally, must needs be good." Of the exterior he 
 says : " The design is throughout very simple in its general character, 
 though bold and vigorous in detail ; but the author has evidently 
 felt himself considerably straitened by the limit of expenditure." 
 And again : "The design is one of great excellence in detail, and, 
 although perhaps severe, is wrought out in a bold and vigorous style, 
 combined with much elegance, and would undoubtedly, if executed, 
 
214 MEMOIR OF 
 
 produce externally a dignified and noble result, whilst the interior 
 would be remarkably light and elegant." 
 
 The excellence of plan, and conscientious fulfilment of 
 eveiy requirement within the moderate limit of expense, with 
 a reliance on purity and dignity of mass and outline rather 
 than on costly detail, was, unfortunately, very unlikely to win 
 the suffrages of men who had not had experience or knowledge 
 of architecture, and most of whom probably now saw archi- 
 tectural drawings, or troubled themselves to understand 
 architectural plans and elevations, for the first time in their 
 lives. 
 
 The Edinburgh correspondent of the CJiurcli Times said 
 of my father's design : — 
 
 " It is not likely to attract the multitude, but it has a meaning 
 and an interest unattained by the others. ... It is the noblest 
 design for a church that any of our modern architects have pro- 
 duced." 
 
 The same sentiments were expressed by many others in 
 the columns of the same paper. 
 The CliurcJi Herald said : — 
 
 " No architect, Roman Catholic or Anglican, Continental or 
 English, knows so thoroughly and exactly as Mr. Street does what 
 is required in a cathedral, and his design for Edinburgh was masterly. 
 Unfortunately some of those who had to give judgment knew no 
 more of architecture then a codfish knows of computation." 
 
 The Bui/dingNeivs spoke of the design as being thoroughly 
 characteristic, and founded on the native style : — 
 
 " It is in general conception the most original, and in point of 
 plan and arrangement the most suitable. Had the prize fallen to 
 this design the result would, in our opinion, have been more con- 
 sistent with the views of the profession." 
 
 The same paper's Edinburgh correspondent said : — 
 
 " Mr. Street's drawings were unquestionably first in execution 
 and in perfection of detail. The plan too was more full of interesting 
 matter for study than any of the others, having evidently been de- 
 signed to meet all the possible contingencies of cathedral service. 
 If Mr. Street, by adhering to conditions as to cost, conscientiously 
 refrained from giving the element of popularity to his design, he 
 
X GEORGE EDMUND STREET 215 
 
 is not to blame ; and we can only regret the more that, while 
 Sir G. G. Scott has been allowed ^10,000 for mere ornament, 
 Mr. Street has not been suffered to leave his mark on our archi- 
 tecture." 
 
 After the publication of Mr. Christian's report, a long 
 and exhaustive letter appeared in the Scottish Guardian, 
 traversing the decision of the trustees. The writer pointed 
 out how distinct and well-defined were the conditions as to 
 cost, the trustees even binding themselves to appoint an in- 
 dependent surveyor to satisfy them " that the design can be 
 carried out for the above sum." Mr. Street and Mr. Burges 
 are evidently selected by Mr. Christian ; the trustees, however, 
 throw them over for Sir G. G. Scott and Mr. Ross. 
 
 It is instructive to note the difference between the views 
 of Sir G. G. Scott and my father as to the cost test. 
 
 The former says : "I have made a calculation as to the cost, 
 which gives a result as favourable as I could anticipate ; but as such 
 works as this are rarely executed in our day, I will not pledge my- 
 self to meet your views with minute accuracy, but content myself 
 with carefully aiming at the prescribed sum; and I believe that with 
 care and reasonable economy, and possibly with the aid of some 
 safety-valves, it may be realised, though it would not be wise, in a 
 matter proverbially so much of a lottery as the cost of a large build- 
 ing, to pledge oneself too minutely. My object has been to give 
 the best and noblest church which your conditions appear to admit. 
 I have made this my anxious aim, but beyond this I will not bind 
 myself, further than to say that I believe I have realised my aim 
 with very considerable accuracy. Some of the more decorative fittings, 
 such as the reredos, may be looked for as special gifts, and the paifited 
 decorations would not be include dP 
 
 Contrast with this cloud of words the directness with 
 which my father goes to the point, and the loyalty with 
 which he accepts the limit imposed : — 
 
 " I have been most careful not to exceed the limit set ; I have 
 made a careful calculation of the cost, founded upon my knowledge 
 of the cost of corresponding buildings, and am satisfied that the 
 work, as drawn by vie, will be completed for the sum you have 
 named." 
 
 The writer I have quoted goes on to point out that in 
 various respects Mr. Burges had broken the conditions, as 
 
!i6 MEMOIR OF 
 
 the consulting architect's report showed, and that in this 
 respect my father was the only one of the competitors who 
 was quite faultless : — 
 
 " I think it almost impossible to escape from the conviction that 
 Mr. Street ought to have been the successful man. In conclusion, I 
 can only again express regret at the unfortunate selection the 
 trustees have made." 
 
 It only remains to give my father's own explanation of 
 the intention of his design, condensing the language of his 
 report 
 
 1. As to style, he expressly stated that he held it to 
 be a mistake to copy any distinctly foreign feature, such as 
 an apsidal termination, or to aim at importing any novelty of 
 style, but rather to use the style of the country as seen at 
 Dunblane, St. Andrews, and Elgin Cathedrals, and the abbeys 
 of Sweetheart, Pluscardine, Melrose, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and 
 Holyrood — a style remarkable for its purity and simplicity. 
 Further, he pointed out that to provide a large and stately 
 church for the money made it a sine qua non that rich, curious, 
 and elaborate details should be dispensed with. 
 
 2. As to the plan. This was explained to be on the 
 usual cathedral scheme of a cross church : — 
 
 " The choir is of moderate length so as to afford proper accom- 
 modation for the clergy and choristers only. The nave and transepts 
 of ample dimensions to accommodate the number required. The 
 choir furnished with aisles for the convenience of passing all round 
 it, and of seeing and hearing well in all parts ; and the exterior 
 marked as a cathedral by its central lantern (open from the floor in- 
 side), and for the adornment of the city by its lofty western tower. 
 I have made my nave unusually spacious. All its occupants will 
 be within view of the altar, pulpit, and choir, and its length is such 
 as to allow of the preacher and the choir being heard to the fullest 
 extent." 
 
 A morning chapel was provided on the east side of the 
 south transept for services with small congregations : — 
 
 " The organist is so placed between this chapel and the choir 
 that he can attend equally to services held in either place, and the 
 organ — opening as it does both to the choir and to the south 
 transept — will be heard equally well all over the church. The organ 
 
IX GEORGE EDMUND STREET 217 
 
 chamber is vaulted for purposes of sound. There is room in the 
 choir stalls for forty clergy and choirmen. The stalls for the clergy 
 are brought forward-under the lantern, so that their occupants may 
 be well seen and heard. The altar is brought forward from the east 
 wall, and placed under a canopy. The space or passage behind the 
 altar will add much to the perspective, and is consistent with all the 
 traditions of British cathedrals. The arrangement of the aisle round 
 the choir will give easy means of communication from the vestries to 
 the altar in the choir, or to the altar in the chapel opening out of 
 the transept. . . . 
 
 " The synod house in my plan occupies the place ordinarily 
 taken by the chapter-house on the east of the cloister. ... I have 
 provided a distinct baptistery for the font opposite the south door- 
 way. This is a picturesque as well as a convenient arrangement. 
 ... I have provided a vaulted gallery in the western tower : this 
 might be used congregationally or for a great organ." 
 
 3. As to structural arrangements : — 
 
 " I propose to build the church with walls faced inside and 
 out with wrought stone ... to cover the whole eastern part of the 
 church, i.e. the transepts and the choir with its aisles and side chapel, 
 with stone-vaulted roofs. The tower and the north and south aisles 
 of nave will also be vaulted in stone. The nave I propose to cover 
 with a wooden vault : this was a common mediaeval arrangement. 
 I may instance the transept roofs of York Minster." 
 
 The report concludes with a reference to the acoustic 
 advantages of stone vaults and the estimate of expense which I 
 have already quoted. Here I leave the subject. To my father 
 it was a naturally distasteful one, and he never spoke of it at 
 all ; but I take pleasure in putting down, once for all, in 
 black and white, the rights and wrongs of the matter ; for my 
 father's want of success, due as it was, firstly, to a refusal to 
 pander to love of ornament, and secondly, to a conscientious 
 adherence to the smallest item in the conditions, reflected 
 as much credit on him as did the remarkable beauty and 
 fitness of the desisfn. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 In January we had moved from Russell Square, after having 
 lived there several years, to a house at the corner of Cavendish 
 Place and Cavendish Square — a most desirable change in 
 every way, pleasant to my father personally and acceptable 
 to those who had to do business with him. My father used 
 to think that the position could not be bettered. When the 
 succursale of the Langham was built at the back of our 
 house, it made one's mouth water to see the gravel which 
 came out of the foundations, and, to any one with a weak- 
 ness for a gravel soil, must have inspired the most implicit 
 confidence. We always looked upon it — proper pride de- 
 manded as much — as the healthiest spot in London, and were 
 accordingly rather amused to find this view borne out by an 
 old Frenchman with whom we struck up an acquaintance 
 somewhere in France. He spoke excellent English, and 
 began to enlarge on the subject of health in towns and the 
 comparative healthiness of the great cities. He was all for 
 London, and out of all London he pronounced the western 
 district to be the healthiest, selecting Cavendish Square as 
 the best part of it ; and, he said, " the best part of Cavendish 
 Square is the north-east corner of it." This was rather 
 startling, and suggested that we might have been playing 
 Box to his Cox in the house. It appeared afterwards that 
 he lived habitually at the Langham, which at one point 
 actually touched our house. 
 
 My mother had long been urging on my father that he 
 might well treat himself to 2. pied a terre in the country some- 
 where within easy reach of London, so as to be able to get 
 a little fresh air on Sundays, but the project had taken no 
 
CHAP. X MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET 2ig 
 
 definite shape, and might very likely not have got beyond 
 the region of possibilities had not the chance suddenly offered 
 itself of getting a piece of ground in so charming a country 
 as to make consideration little more than a pretence. It 
 was in September 1872 that my father and mother went 
 down to spend the Sunday with his fellow-academician, Mr. 
 H. T. Wells, at his house at Holmbury, in the beautiful 
 Dorking district. The station at which they arrived lies in 
 a valley from which you gradually ascend, till at a certain 
 point the view over the Sussex Weald suddenly bursts on 
 you. As my father and mother came upon it, the distance 
 was seen framed between two great beeches, where there was 
 a rough opening to a piece of ground which had seemingly 
 been lately bought, and was then being stocked with young 
 trees and shrubs. The view was so beautiful and so unlooked- 
 for that my mother cried out, "It is heaven's gate." The 
 end of their journey was only five minutes farther on, and I 
 imagine when they got there they were still full of it. Mr, 
 Wells was able to give them the intelligence that, owing to 
 the death of the gentleman who had bought it, it was actually 
 in the market at the time. The piece of ground was only 
 some fourteen or fifteen acres in extent — too little in a country 
 which is all up and down, particularly as it would have been 
 liable to have the view quite ruined by a building on the 
 nearest brow ; but when my father found that he could secure 
 so much more as to effectually prevent his ever being over- 
 looked, he hesitated no longer. 
 
 This new possession was the source of intense happiness 
 to him, and when he was weighed down by sorrow upon 
 sorrow in the years that followed, it may almost be said to 
 have given him a new lease of life. The actual ground 
 itself, when it passed into his hands, was in the roughest 
 possible state — genuine raw material on which to exercise his 
 skill, but the lie of the land was all that could have been 
 wished for. Below the hill, on which he proposed to place 
 the house, whenever he should see his way to begin building, 
 the ground swept down in an amphitheatre, open at one end 
 to give a glimpse of the blue distance seen over a bit of 
 parklike foreground, whilst above it rose one spur behind 
 
220 MEMOIR OF 
 
 another of the near hill clothed with junipers and grand 
 bushes of holly, and over them again the farther edge of the 
 hill crowned with masses of dark firs. 
 
 All that was needed was just that touch of man's handi- 
 work which, by contrast, serves to make Nature all the more 
 lovely ; and that touch my father hastened to give. 
 
 He had the wisdom to depart from the orthodox rules of 
 proceeding, which ordain that, first of all, the brand-new 
 house, complete in every accessory, is to be planted down in 
 a rough field, or, may be, on a stony brow — looking as much 
 out of place as a gentleman in court dress on a snow 
 mountain, — while the really more important half of the work, 
 and far the more lengthy, what is to be looked at, instead of 
 what is to be looked out of, is postponed si)i£ die. It requires 
 a good deal of self-restraint, when you have bought your 
 ground, resolutely to face a delay of years before actually 
 settling down on it, but that is what my father did. He 
 preferred to put off for a time the enjoyment of living on a 
 piece of ground of his own, in order that it might be without 
 drawback when the time did come. 
 
 The ground which he had to deal with no doubt lent 
 itself very happily to a quasi -formal treatment ; still he 
 could not do more than score a success, and that he certainly 
 achieved, giving every proof of being no indifferent landscape 
 gardener. The house he decided to place on a brow, with a 
 terrace running all along its front, overlooking the amphi- 
 theatre ; the whole, or nearly the whole, of the garden being 
 disposed in the hollow below. Here he set a regular gang 
 of men at work, cutting in and filling up till a certain formal 
 effect had been obtained by sunk rectangular lawns and 
 banks, which just gave the required contrast to all the 
 running lines and wild growth of the surroundings ; a carriage 
 drive right through the grounds to a lower road, and a 
 gradual obliteration of hedgerows, bound the whole together, 
 and opened out the views of the distant country : — 
 
 " I have been doing a great deal of gardening and planting this 
 winter," he writes a year after the purchase, " and am now looking 
 forward to the spring for a revelation of all the benefits that I have 
 conferred on my land. I have made a charming arrangement of 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 terraced garden and lawn in a deep dip between two steep hills, on 
 the top of one of which my chateau is some day to rise, and then 
 beyond this I have made a long carriage drive, which looks very 
 well, and as I have been planting quantities of rhododendrons, I 
 hope in due course of time we shall be very gay and beautiful. I 
 cannot say what a pleasure this hobby is to me, and what a relief 1 
 find it from my rather too ceaseless hard work." 
 
 Though my father had no intention of building his house 
 till the garden had grown up somewhat, that did not prevent 
 his doing the plans. As the views to the south and south- 
 east were almost equally good, he planned the house in two 
 wings, forming an obtuse angle one with the other, one facing 
 south-east and the other full south over the sunk garden. A 
 view of the house from the north-west, showing the entrance, 
 was exhibited in the Academy. The design was of a simple 
 and unaffected character, with no odd excrescences or extra- 
 vagant bits of picturesqueness. One-half of this was eventu- 
 ally carried out, but the whole was not completed during 
 my father's lifetime. In the early summer of 1873, having 
 decided to make some use of his newly-acquired land, and 
 at the same time superintend the earthworks which were in 
 progress, he took rooms at Ockley, a village some three 
 miles to the south, and from there we used to drive up every 
 day to Holmdale — such was the name with which we found 
 the place labelled, — spend the whole day watching the 
 garden grow into shape, and return in the evening laden 
 with peas and potatoes from our own kitchen garden. Never 
 did vegetables taste so delicious as those — the first-fruits of 
 our own soil. 
 
 Just before our visit to Ockley the Bishop of Winchester 
 had met with his death at Evershead's Rough, not more than 
 three miles from our ground. He was then riding to Mr. 
 Leveson Gower's at Holmbury with Lord Granville, and had 
 intended looking at the proposed site of our house while 
 he was there. My father was much shocked at the sudden 
 death of one who had been his true friend and patron from 
 his earliest days, and the manner and place of the accident 
 made it all the more grievous to him, and seemed like a bad 
 omen at this our first coming. He attended the funeral, 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 which took place at Graffham near Lavington, where he 
 afterwards practically rebuilt the church for Mr. Reginald 
 Wilberforce, in memory of the Bishop. A few years later he 
 designed the large memorial church of St. Mary's, South- 
 ampton, for Canon Wilberforce. St. Mary's is simplicity 
 itself, in no way cheap-looking, but a large church for its 
 cost. Internally it is most impressive, very spacious and 
 dignified, and relieved from the possibility of severity by a 
 well-placed richness in various of the fittings. There is no 
 chancel arch at all, the division between the nave and 
 chancel being shown by nothing more than a cusped wooden 
 roof principal. The result is that the eye is carried in from 
 the nave arcade across the transept to the chancel arcade, 
 and a great appearance of length is in that way obtained. 
 The vestries are in an unusual position, east of the chancel, 
 and of course at a somewhat lower level than the chancel 
 floor. The chancel is approached from them by two stair- 
 cases of a few steps through the east wall, one on each side 
 of the altar, the altar itself being protected on either side by 
 a stone wing screen. The arrangement is convenient and 
 effective, but would be obviously out of place in any but a 
 very wide chancel, which this one is. 
 
 Among the more important works which my father was 
 doing at this time were the hall, Wigan, for the Hon. and 
 Rev. G. T, O. Bridgman, for whom he had done work at 
 Blymhill many years before ; the restorations of Thirsk, 
 Oswestry, Dunster, and Clun churches — all of them fine 
 buildings and most successful restorations, more particularly 
 the last, perhaps because of the terrible state of decay into 
 which it had fallen, and the grand look of the church after 
 restoration. Besides this he was engaged on various works 
 at Marlborough College, a chapel at Luton Hoo for Mrs. 
 Gerard Leigh, new churches at Blickling and Putney, and 
 what was practically one at Huish for Lord Clinton. 
 
 The latter part of the summer, which had been begun 
 at Ockley, was spent in the lake country. My father can 
 hardly have been there since he went up to stop at Langrigg 
 in quest of his first commission some thirty years before. 
 He manacred to get some architectural sketching at Furness 
 
X GEORGE EDMUND STREET 223 
 
 Abbey, Cartmel, and Calder, and Egglestone Abbeys, and, 
 going back through Yorkshire, revisited Richmond and Easby 
 Abbey, which he had first seen thirty years previously. 
 
 During my Christmas holidays a second tour was made 
 to South Italy. This time we took an unusual and round- 
 about route to Naples in order to see some fresh places. 
 Stopping first at Ancona, we went next to Foggia — a wild- 
 looking place, unvisited of tourists, and inhabited by some- 
 thing very like banditti ; in the neighbourhood — at Lucera 
 — was a most interesting church. From Foggia we made 
 our way by Benevento to Naples. After a stay at Portici 
 my grandfather joined us in our excursion to Salerno, and 
 along the exquisite coast road to Amalfi and Ravello. Ten 
 days were spent in Rome, a good deal of which my father 
 had to give up to business, an English church having been 
 put into his hands as well as the American one, and there 
 being a good deal of difficulty about a site. On our way 
 back we stopped at Terni to see the grand fall, Spoleto and 
 Foligno, driving from the latter place to Spello and Assisi, 
 with which my father was enraptured, then to Perugia, 
 Asti in polar weather, and so home. 
 
 In the summer of 1874 we saw Troyes, Sens, Dijon, 
 Beaune, Auxerre, Tonnerre, Pontigny, Avallon, Vezelay, 
 Chartres, and Rouen, besides spending two or three weeks in 
 Switzerland. This tour has a melancholy interest, because it 
 was the last my mother was ever to take ; by a strange irony 
 of fate we went on this, her last tour, to several of the places 
 which she and my father had seen on their honeymoon. By 
 the light of her illness, which came on gradually during the 
 tour, we could see that for a year or two her health had been 
 gradually failing. Physically, but not constitutionally, strong, 
 the many hardworking journeys she had taken part in had 
 possibly helped to sap her strength, though the interest she 
 felt never allowed her to show fatigue, and very likely pre- 
 vented her feeling it in full at the moment. None of us, 
 she, I feel sure, as little as any, had the least idea that her 
 illness was likely to be serious, and after our return from 
 abroad we went down to a little inn within a mile or two of 
 Holmdale, with the idea that a little perfect rest would put 
 
224 MEMOIR OF 
 
 her in the way of recovery. One afternoon she walked on 
 from Holmdale to see Mr. Wells and his family, and I know 
 they were much struck by the change in her ; but the doctors 
 gave us no alarming hint ; and to us, seeing her as we did 
 every day, a change would be less perceptible. As October 
 wore on she took to her bed, and as late as the 1 3th we 
 had no suspicion of danger. That day, being my birthday, 
 we had contemplated spending at Holmdale, and my mother 
 insisted on our going, though she felt too unwell to go with 
 us. The next day she became unconscious, intermittently 
 at first, and continued so till the i6th, when she died. 
 
 The loss to my father was a terrible one. The com- 
 panion of a quarter of a century, whose love had seemed to 
 grow with the years, who had shared his joys and sorrows and 
 made them her own, rejoicing in his success more intensely 
 than he did himself, was suddenly snatched from his side. 
 
 My mother had not been satisfied to enter only into 
 half my father's life, content to let business be her successful 
 rival in his thoughts during the greater part of each day, but 
 — his office had always been at home, and that made it easier 
 — she had identified herself from the first with the workaday 
 side of his life ; she knew all that he was doing, how his 
 works were progressing, his doubts and his hopes, as this 
 promised less well than he had anticipated and something 
 else better ; she had soon learnt to take an intelligent 
 interest, not only in his designs, but in architecture gener- 
 ally, and moreover, had her strong likes and dislikes, being 
 a devoted adherent of first - pointed work, and almost 
 intolerant of anything later. 
 
 Her admiration for my father was as boundless as her 
 devotion to him. To me she was the best of mothers, 
 always ready to sacrifice herself, if by doing so she could do 
 me pleasure. Almost the last time she spoke to me, it was 
 to blame herself for having spoilt the enjoyment of my 
 birthday by being ill, entirely forgetful of herself She was 
 the warmest, the most enthusiastic, the most faithful of 
 friends ; indeed, I think the number of close and affectionate 
 friendships she formed was one of the most remarkable 
 thinsfs about her. One of the earliest of them was almost 
 
X GEORGE EDMUND STREET 225 
 
 like a case of love at first sight. She was so much touched 
 by the acting and the looks of a lady who was then almost 
 the first among our actresses, that she could not rest till she 
 had got to know her. The acquaintance once made soon 
 ripened into the warmest friendship on both sides, and only 
 ended with her death. 
 
 A nature which was so prodigal of its best naturally 
 craved for much in return, but did so with no tinge of 
 jealousy, and in claiming a rich tribute of affection as its 
 due, would have been pained if it had meant the exclusion 
 of others. She was buried at Boyne Hill, in the shadow of 
 one of my father's churches, built during the earliest years 
 of their marriage, and near, too, to her old home at Geys. 
 
 The day after the funeral I went up to Oxford to keep 
 my first term, and my father was left alone in the desolate 
 house. Hard work was his great resource, varied with rapid 
 dashes down to Surrey. His work at Holmdale became 
 every day more and more of a pleasure to him, and in his 
 projects for the future there he found some relief from his 
 thoughts. A month after my mother's death he wrote to 
 me : — 
 
 " Before Bishop Wilberforce died, I had offered him to build a 
 chancel if he could get a church built near Holmdale, where we 
 might reckon on decent services. Since your mother's death I have 
 been thinking a good deal about it, and I have now offered the 
 bishop to build a church if he can get a district made for it, to take 
 in Holmdale and the other houses on the hill. I think the present 
 bishop will be inclined to help me, though not so vigorously as the 
 last would have done perhaps. ... I have had such a happy pros- 
 perous life that it is time for me to say, ' Quid retribuam Domino ? ' 
 ... I had a very cold journey back from Dublin again on Saturday 
 night ; we were nearly five hours crossing, so that we did not get to 
 Euston Square till half-past seven on Sunday morning ; but as I had 
 come up for the express purpose of going to the early service at 
 All Saints, I got home, gave myself a very mild polish, and got into 
 church by 8 a.m, I think, after such a feat as that, I may be 
 expected, ere long, to be figuring on the cinders against some of 
 your athletes ; don't you think so ? ... I am going to breakfast 
 very early to-morrow, in order to go to Warfield, near Windsor, and 
 I shall get back to luncheon. After dinner I am going down by 
 the 11.50 P.M. Pullman car train to Leeds, in order to go to a couple 
 
 Q 
 
226 MEMOIR OF 
 
 of places in Yorkshire, and I hope to get home again on Thursday 
 night. . . . Your uncle and his family are coming on Saturday. I 
 am very glad to have some one here, for the solitary confinement 
 does not suit me at all." 
 
 This gives some idea of the sort of life my father was 
 leading. Incessant occupation gave the only hope of escaping 
 from his natural depression of spirits. My uncle and his 
 wife and family came at the end of November and stopped 
 some months, so that my father was spared the lone- 
 liness which he had felt so much during the first sad 
 weeks. 
 
 In 1874 the gold medal annually presented by the 
 Institute of Architects was bestowed on my father. It was, 
 and is, the custom not to confine this honour to Englishmen, 
 nor yet to practising architects, but to confer it at regular 
 intervals on literary, in contradistinction to practical, exponents 
 of architecture, and this particular year it had been decided, 
 in the words of the Resolution, " to confer the distinction on 
 an Englishman distinguished for his literary productions in 
 connection with architecture." 
 
 The choice had fallen on Professor Ruskin, and the 
 thing was taken as settled, but, unfortunately for the dignity 
 of the Institute, there were two parties to be consulted in 
 the matter, and Professor Ruskin took the unprecedented 
 step of entirely declining to receive the medal, at the same 
 time rapping the members of the Institute on the knuckles 
 for the numerous delinquencies which were accountable for 
 his refusal of the proffered honour. 
 
 The Council then decided to rescind their previous resolu- 
 tion, and to substitute an architect as the recipient in place 
 of a literary man. My father, whose claims to be elected as 
 a writer were considerable, was unanimously chosen as the 
 most eminent practical exponent of the art. The medal 
 with its gilt rubbed off was loyally accepted by him. The 
 presentation took place so immediately after my mother's 
 death that my father was unable to be present, and Mr, 
 Pearson acted as his representative. Sir G. G. Scott, in 
 handing him the medal, after eulogising my father's work 
 and the morality of his artistic character, took occasion to 
 
X GEORGE EDMUND STREET 227 
 
 point out that his claims rested by no means wholly on his 
 actual works : — 
 
 "Mr. Street is an author," he said, "of no mean eminence, 
 and his book on tlie Brick and Marble Architecture of North Italy, 
 and his Gothic Architecture i?i Spain will always stand forth as 
 practical evidences of this fact, not to mention the more fugitive pro- 
 ductions of his pen. These works are not only of the utmost value 
 from the talent of their author, but are so more especially as pro- 
 ceeding from one who has probably extended his studies and his 
 wonderful powers of sketching to the medieval buildings of a greater 
 number of countries and places than any other living man." 
 
 On my return from Oxford we started for Rome and 
 spent some five weeks away. From Mentone we drove 
 along the Riviera. After a day in Genoa we left by a very 
 early train with the intention of going right through to 
 Rome and getting there to sleep. A mistake at Pisa, where, 
 by the misdirection of a porter, we changed into a train 
 which was going back to Genoa instead of that for Florence, 
 upset our arrangements, and gave us an opportunity of see- 
 ing the great pinewood of Pisa. The first station we stopped 
 at was Viareggio, ten miles out — a desolate-looking place, but 
 boasting a horse which, harnessed to a strange springless 
 cart, carried us through the pinewood to Pisa in the hour. 
 The rest of the day was spent there, and, starting in the 
 evening, we reached Rome early the next morning, well 
 satisfied with the result of our contretemps. This year from 
 Naples we explored the coast north of it, and on our way 
 home spent a few days at Florence with Lord Crawford at 
 the Villa Palmieri, a house beautifully situated on the road 
 to Fiesole, and the scene of the Decameron. 
 
 While he was in Rome my father wrote an interesting 
 letter on the probable meaning of the network of walls which 
 was then being laid bare under the arena of the Colosseum. 
 A letter had appeared in the Times a short time before in 
 which some explanation was offered, but it seemed to him 
 so unsatisfactory as to induce him to write. 
 
 " I venture," he wrote, " to give what seems a more correct ex- 
 planation of the results. Your correspondent treats the whole of 
 the substructure of the arena as a comparatively modern addition to 
 
MEMOIR OF CHAP. 
 
 the original building, erected on the old paved floor, which remains 
 some twenty feet below what hitherto appeared to be the ground 
 line. If he had compared this substructure with that of the still 
 almost perfect amphitheatre at Pozzuoli, he would have been less 
 likely to have ventured on such a suggestion. The use of the build- 
 ing would involve the necessity of buildings, rooms and passages 
 under the floor of the arena, and when we see them all perfectly 
 preserved, with all the necessary provisions for lighting, for ingress, 
 and for drainage as at Pozzuoli, we might be sure that some similar 
 arrangements must once have existed under the arena of the Colos- 
 seum, even if all traces of them had been destroyed. 
 
 " Fortunately the excavations already made show that the two 
 buildings were arranged very much in the same way. Looking at 
 the uncovered basement walls of the Colosseum from above, we 
 find that the whole central portion of the arena was occupied with 
 constructions that did not follow the oval lines of the amphitheatre, 
 but were rectangular in plan. They present the appearance of three 
 parallel canals or passages, surrounded by double walls, strengthened 
 at short intervals by cross walls. Though these walls are too close 
 together for use as passages, they are all plastered, and it seems 
 probable, therefore, that this cellular construction of walls, plastered 
 on the face, was devised for the purpose of supporting the weight, 
 and also preventing the escape, of water in the canals above them, 
 whenever the arena was required for nautical combats. In the 
 central passage or canal the masonry is built on a slope from the 
 basement up to the floor of the arena, and at the bottom lies the 
 wooden framework referred to by your correspondent. This is not 
 constructed as a floor would be, but is evidently a sliding way, up 
 which vessels might have been pulled from below into the arena. 
 Just in advance of the front seats in the arena, a double row of 
 recesses is constructed all round the basement. Mr. S. H. Parker 
 is of opinion that these recesses were used as cages for wild beasts, 
 and this is the ordinary account of the corresponding recesses at 
 Pozzuoli. The objection to the theory is that there seem to be no 
 remains or marks in either case of any enclosures in front of these 
 dens, and that it would be difficult, to say the least, to put wild 
 beasts into places so difficult of access. The passages in front of 
 them were probably lighted in the same way as at Pozzuoli, where a 
 large number of square openings are left in the floor of the arena. 
 These were fitted with frames let into stone-rebated margins, and 
 probably contained iron gratings which, when required, could be 
 covered with boards. I am myself more inclined to think that two 
 large chambers, which exist right and left of the principal entrance 
 to the basement, were the commonly used dens. The metal sockets 
 in the floor described by your correspondent w^ould allow of the 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 main supports for the front of the dens being firmly fixed, leaving a 
 passage-way in front, and allowing of the confined beasts being let 
 loose into the arena without risk to the attendants. The arrange- 
 ment is somewhat similar to that for the entrance of the bull into 
 the Spanish arena, and the ascending-way would have served for the 
 beasts to reach the arena. In front of the double arcade of recesses 
 or dens are visible pairs of large corbels of travertine at regular 
 intervals. 
 
 " These formed the base ot square chases made in the walls for 
 the admission, when required, of timber-posts of great strength. 
 These would have formed the supports for a palisading a few feet 
 from the front seats of the arena, leaving an unoccupied alley or 
 passage-way between the arena and the spectators. How necessary 
 such a contrivance is, I need not point out to any one who has ever 
 seen a bull-fight. 
 
 "At Pozzuoli, precisely the same provision is made by square 
 holes through the vault of the substructure, which left a space of 
 six feet clear of the front seats. Here the arrangement is more 
 obvious to an ordinary visitor, but once pointed out, every one may 
 see plainly that it existed also at the Colosseum. In both these 
 theatres there are numbers of chases cut in the walls, which are so 
 cut that pieces of cross timber might be inserted, wedged tightly in, 
 and removed at pleasure. In the Colosseum many of these look at 
 first sight as though they had been additions made for the sake of 
 gaining additional support for the walls. But seeing that precisely 
 the same kind of groove is made at regular intervals in the canal at 
 Pozzuoli, I come to the conclusion that they show that the provision 
 for water displays was not of a permanent kind, and that the cisterns, 
 tanks, or canals, were constructed mainly of wood, while, no doubt, 
 when not in use, they were covered over with wooden floors. It 
 would have been quite impossible to flood the whole arena without 
 flooding at the same time all the rooms and passages below its level 
 all round the building, and at the same time stopping all means of 
 access to the arena for combatants. And it is quite clear that a 
 building used at different times for various kinds of displays would 
 be likely to show, as the substructure of the Colosseum does, many 
 marks of removable constructions, such as those on which I have 
 remarked. I will only add that if the suggestion which has been 
 made as to the original level of the arena having been some twenty 
 feet lower than has hitherto been supposed were correct, either the 
 arena must have been reduced to the smallest possible dimensions, 
 or it would have been such a deeply-sunk pit that none of the spec- 
 tators, except those in the front row, would have seen anything of 
 the performances that went on in it. The suggestion therefore 
 carries its own refutation on its face." 
 
ISO MEMOIR OF 
 
 In his journey over the Brenner, my father met with a 
 very interesting fellow-traveller, who, upon an interchange 
 of cards, turned out to be Count George Seckendorf, then 
 on his way to Pegli. My father met him subsequently in 
 London, and was introduced by him to the German Crown 
 Prince and Princess, who spoke warmly of their admiration 
 for my father's work generally, and his little church in 
 Genoa in particular. 
 
 In the summer of 1875 "^7 father became engaged to 
 Jessie, second daughter of Mr. William Holland of Harley 
 Street, a lady who had been of all my mother's friends the 
 most highly prized, and had been so intimate with us as to 
 have been her companion on many of our autumn tours. 
 This year closed with every promise of a peaceful and happy 
 future ; my father was on the eve of a marriage, of the wis- 
 dom of which there could be no doubt. Work poured in as 
 fast as ever, and found him no less able than heretofore to 
 cope with it, while the house at Holmdale was now fast 
 rising out of the ground, with every sign of being ready for 
 living in during the coming summer. 
 
 My father was married on i ith January 1 876. The wed- 
 ding tour took them over a great deal of ground which he knew 
 well, and some which was new to him — Capri, for instance. 
 On their way back they stopped a few fatal days in Rome, 
 and then came rapidly home. I was still at Oxford when 
 letters came from my father saying that his wife was not 
 well ; then that she had been feverish, but that the doctors 
 were not anxious, and the fever was abating ; and then, again, 
 that all was over. The last flicker had raised hopes which 
 were to be only too quickly dispelled, and Rome was answer- 
 able for one more victim. I had never seen my father's wife 
 during the short eight weeks of her married life. She was 
 buried at Cranleigh, in which parish part of my father's land 
 lay, under the shadow of the church to which in those days 
 we used to go every Sunday to service. 
 
 When our church was built at Holmbury her remains 
 were moved there. 
 
 The effect of this blow following so quickly upon the 
 first was numbing in its effects. I think my father dreaded 
 
X GEORGE EDMUND STREET 231 
 
 the prospect of living on. The happiness of the past six 
 months had shown him how much more complete a happi- 
 ness he might reasonably look for in the future. Hardly had 
 he begun to realise how entirely his hopes were being fulfilled 
 when the cup was, with startling suddenness, dashed from 
 his lips. London became abhorrent to him, and whenever 
 he could spare a day he betook himself to Holmdale, on 
 which his affections and interests became more and more 
 fixed, though he could not but associate it with the memories 
 of those who had not been permitted to go down into the 
 promised land. To dwell on the serene face of Nature was 
 his delight. The spring told him of birth and growth, and 
 the summer of exuberance of life and health, with a reality 
 which his frequent watching in the chamber of death made 
 all the more vivid. Even in autumn he found in Nature the 
 needed contrast : " The autumn tints on the foliage," he 
 wrote, " are exquisite, beyond anything I have seen before, 
 I think ; calm decay everywhere." 
 
 In the summer of 1876 our house was completed, and 
 the next eight weeks were spent there with only short breaks. 
 I think this time was not an unhappy one. My father had 
 pleasant neighbours and sympathetic friends about him, and 
 the possession of one or two spare rooms, which were rarely 
 empty, enabled him to renew his friendship with many whom, 
 in the long period of isolation caused by his double loss, he 
 had almost lost sight of. From this time forward, winter or 
 summer, there was hardly a Saturday to Monday that he did 
 not spend there, and through all the spring and summer 
 months he, generally speaking, had friends with him. These 
 days in the country were as prolific of work as they were en- 
 joyable ; so rapidly was he able to do his drawing, when quite 
 uninterrupted, that he could, with the best possible conscience, 
 spend much time in the garden which, in London, would 
 have been spent, and very likely half-wasted, in his study. 
 As an instance of what he was able to do in a few quiet 
 hours, I notice in his diary the result of one day's work 
 entered there : " Twelve sheets of full-size drawings for hinges 
 for Christ Church Cathedral, etc. Specification for Melk- 
 sham Church." I need not say that all the ironwork 
 
232 MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET chap. x. 
 
 for Christ Church, Dublin, is of the most elaborate char- 
 acter. 
 
 The certainty that he would never be able to give his 
 town house a mistress, and a feeling that there were many- 
 more rooms in it than he could ever really use, made him 
 seriously think of moving to some smaller house in the 
 neighbourhood. We had actually settled on one in Park 
 Square, and were trying to pretend to each other that the 
 new house would be all that we wanted when, at the last 
 moment, there was a hitch in the negotiations, and one that 
 proved fatal. 
 
 The relief was intense. My father wrote to me at Ox- 
 ford:— 
 
 " I saw ; he told me he never saw so charming a room as 
 
 this drawing-room, and he was rejoicing that I could not leave it just 
 now. Nearly every one seems to be of the same mind, and I must 
 
 own that when I heard that would not take me for a tenant, 
 
 I felt as if I had been reprieved after a sentence of death. All my 
 happiest associations are with these rooms, and I begin to think I 
 should be less happy anywhere else." 
 
 Naturally my father never had any further thought of 
 leaving a house which he found to be so bound up with his 
 affections. With the certainty of keeping his house came 
 the desire to make a better use of it, and of gathering now 
 and again at his table the friends whom his busy life did not 
 allow him to see at other times. There being no lady of 
 the house, it was natural that he should generally have con- 
 fined himself to men. Most of the members of the Academy 
 were his guests at one time or another, and professional 
 brethren, with a smattering of outsiders made up the 
 number. I think a sly stroke of business was done in the 
 judicious mixture of members of the Academy and architects. 
 My father never tired of doing all he could to forward the 
 interests of his profession, and get recognition for the talented 
 among its members, and in this way he delicately hinted to 
 his fellow-academicians that there were many architects, still 
 outside the pale, worthy of being admitted within the magic 
 circle. 
 
'N 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 In spite of the multitude of his engagements my father was 
 able to devote time and energy to the support of these move- 
 ments, which have become common of late years, directed 
 now to the preservation of some ancient monument, at home 
 or abroad, from wanton alteration, at another time to the 
 rescue of some work of our own day from the clutches ot 
 the reckless improver. 
 
 Some of the subjects with which I deal in this chapter 
 do not, as will readily be seen, come, accurately speaking, 
 under either of these heads, but they are at the same time 
 somewhat analogous to those which do come strictly within 
 this category, and have this feature in common, that they 
 show my father, not as the architect in charge, but as the 
 critic, dealing, in some few cases indeed, with the proposals 
 of a brother architect, not, however, unless constrained by 
 the paramount importance of the question in dispute and 
 the general interest taken in it. 
 
 The first important subject of this character in point of 
 date was probably that of the decoration of St. Paul's, so long 
 debated, — so barren, even now, of visible result. The fitting 
 treatment of Wren's masterpiece had always been very near 
 my father's heart. He, indeed, felt not only a very genuine 
 and often expressed admiration for the building itself, but he 
 had that sort of selfish interest, "ovSev to rovrov 'fxaXkov rj 
 Tov/jiov aKoircbv," which every architect should have in keep- 
 ing intact and unhurt the conception of a great predecessor. 
 My father's contribution to the controversy, if it may be so 
 called, was interesting both objectively and subjectively. 
 It displayed so emphatically that feeling which always 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 governed him in dealing with churches old or new, a respect 
 for the building — if it deserved it, — and still more a respect 
 for its sacred use, and a desire to make its purpose more 
 entirely attainable ; and again his suggestions had the merit 
 of being unlike anything which had been previously mooted, 
 and were as practical as they were original. First, he pre- 
 mised, a great artist's work ought not to be restored or com- 
 pleted if that process is to involve any departure from what he 
 would conceivably or probably have done himself. Now, in 
 my father's words, it is impossible that much applied decora- 
 tion (such as was then contemplated) can be done without 
 wholly altering the architectural character of an interior. 
 When a man's real intentions are as much a matter of guess- 
 work as Wren's are in this case, it is cruel to remodel his 
 work. My father insisted strongly that the translation of 
 stone into marble was inadmissible. A design, when made, is 
 arranged for execution either with surfaces of stone or with 
 a marble face, but the treatment in the two cases will 
 naturally be very different. It did, however, seem to him 
 very necessary to alter the existing surface by restoring 
 the stone to sight throughout, leaving the walls otherwise in- 
 tact. This, he thought, would add sensibly to the dignity 
 and beauty of the interior. 
 
 Broadly stated, his real proposal amounted to this, that 
 the new work should be done not on the walls or in the 
 dome but on the floor of the church. He gives his reasons 
 for the changes and additions which he proposes. 
 
 The service of the church, rightly looked at, needs two 
 things : — 
 
 1. An altar, so placed as to be a central object, visible 
 to the whole congregation, and 
 
 2. A choir and organ, so disposed as to direct the 
 largest possible number in the most effective way. The 
 modern use of a cathedral in a big town is, as has been said 
 before, not unlike that of a great religious house in the Middle 
 Ages. It has to convert the multitudes which, on special 
 occasions, throng the building ; and at another time to satisfy 
 the two or three who gather day after day at the choir 
 services. 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 235 
 
 These latter services, continuing the analogy, answer to 
 those of the religious, and the popular nave services to those 
 for which the religious orders provided their great naves and 
 people's altars. 
 
 My father was so strongly impressed by the twofold 
 character of the need, that he proposed making permanent 
 provision for two kinds of congregations. 
 
 Firstly, the choir was to be retained, practically without 
 alteration ; and secondly, another altar and choir was to be 
 made for^ the large congregations collected on Sundays, 
 festivals, and exceptional occasions. He pointed out, very 
 justly, that for all purposes of worship, supposing that word 
 to have any meaning, the services conducted in the choir 
 were practically useless for a congregation assembled under 
 the dome. No one but a most devout churchman could under 
 such circumstances dream of kneeling, still less of joining in 
 the chanting : — 
 
 " Architecturally," he says, " I can conceive nothing more mag- 
 nificent than the result which my alternative plan would achieve. I 
 should put a noble altar under the dome, raised on steps, and under 
 a sumptuous baldachin. The arrangement of the choir might be 
 similar to that of the cathedral at Florence. The baldachin might 
 be largely made of metal or of sculptured marble, and the retable 
 behind the altar might rival that of Pistoia in its wealth of enamel 
 and silver ; mosaics might be used for the roof and groining of the 
 canopy. The baldachin and altar alone would more than redeem 
 the church from its present poverty." 
 
 The casket would have been glorified by the jewel as 
 Or San Michele is by Orcagna's shrine and baldachin. 
 
 Further, the pavements were all to be converted into 
 opus Alexandrinum, and the organ was to be placed over the 
 screen between the choir and the dome — a position acquiesced 
 in by Wren, and one which would have made the instrument 
 equally available for either service. Plenty of room would 
 have been left on either side of it so as to avoid blocking the 
 vista up the choir. 
 
 This alteration my father regarded as a sine qjid iion. 
 One more change would have been necessitated by his plan, 
 viz. the removal of the present pulpit. The new one would 
 
236 MEMOIR OF 
 
 have been placed against the marble septum wall of the 
 choir in the form of a grand ambon, following the arrange- 
 ment so well exemplified at San Clemente in Rome. 
 
 For the decoration of the windows — for he contemplated 
 the substitution of colour for the simple white glass as in no 
 way calculated to interfere with the architectural effect — he 
 suggested as a model the exquisite French glass of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the most marked features 
 of which are its delicacy of drawing and the predominance 
 of white background. 
 
 This was the complete scheme ; one which, as my father 
 truly averred, had at least this merit, that it destroyed 
 nothing and altered no existing effect except where the 
 alteration was a reversion to the original scheme. It how- 
 ever lacked that tentativeness ^ which seems a necessary 
 ingredient in any plan for dealing with St. Paul's, and the 
 very fact that it was capable of fulfilling so completely the 
 two great essentials as laid down by my father at starting, 
 was likely to frighten all but the stronger spirits. Let us 
 hope that the mosaic designs which are some day to decorate 
 the dome will not have the effect anticipated by my father 
 of destroying the impressive largeness of scale, which is due 
 so much to a sense of atmosphere and indistinctness of 
 colour and detail. 
 
 I find from a letter of my father's that the pamphlet — 
 one of some length — in which he expressed the views which 
 I have given here very shortly, was written one night at a 
 client's house after he had gone up at twelve o'clock, pre- 
 sumably to bed. 
 
 London Bridge. 
 
 In 1875 the question of the best means of relieving the 
 congestion of traffic on London Bridge came before the 
 Court of Common Council for consideration, and one morn- 
 ing the announcement was made in the papers, to the general 
 dismay, that a resolution had been passed in favour of 
 widening the bridge by the application of iron structures to 
 its sides — such an arrangement being in accordance with 
 ^ Written before the new reredos was put up. 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 237 
 
 certain recommendations which had been made by the 
 Bridge House Estate Committee. My father lost no time 
 in writing to the papers to protest most strongly from both 
 the purely artistic and the practical point of view against the 
 proposals contained in the resolution : — 
 
 " I suppose no one," he wrote, " would consent to doubling the 
 width of Westminster Abbey by the addition of brick aisles outside 
 the existing walls ; yet it seems to me that such a proposition would 
 be no more monstrous than the scheme which seems to have been 
 approved by the Common Council for widening and entirely con- 
 cealing the design of Rennie's very magnificent work, London 
 Bridge. ... In the place of the bridge as it now exists we should 
 have a network of iron which, as it would have to conform to some 
 extent to the old masonry outlines, would have none of the merits 
 of a real and genuine iron construction. . . . The one merit of the 
 proposal is its economy : the alteration can, it seems, be made for 
 ;^65,ooo. . . . The wisdom of any proposal for mixing up iron and 
 granite in any structure is in itself open to serious question. The 
 two materials will not decay at the same pace, and the project is, 
 therefore, on this ground open to objection, on the ground of its 
 temporary nature, as opposed to the monumental character of the 
 existing bridge." 
 
 From the practical point of view my father argued, in 
 common with others, that a wider bridge could be of no man- 
 ner of use unless the approaches were made wider too. His 
 opposition to this scheme, for which the city authorities did 
 not cease to battle, met with recognition from various quarters. 
 TrutJi especially paid him the compliment of devoting an 
 entire paragraph to him of the most veracious kind : 
 
 " I trust that London Bridge will not be rendered hideous by 
 Mr. Street's plan to widen it by facing the present granite arches with 
 iron arches. It is a monstrous scheme." 
 
 For some time the project was little heard of, but in 
 1879 there was a decided recrudescence, till fortunately the 
 Bill was shelved on a third reading in the House of Lords, 
 and no more was heard of it. 
 
 A few extracts from my father's diary will be of interest 
 as showing the part he took : — 
 
 '■'■June 23. — Attended meeting of the Committee for the con- 
 servation of London Bridge. Afterwards went to London Bridge 
 
238 MEMOIR OF 
 
 to look at the traffic, etc., then at 4 p.m. to a meeting of the 
 Council of the R.I.B.A., where my resolution was again carried 
 unanimously, and ordered to be sent as a petition to the House of 
 Lords. This is capital ! ' 
 
 Again : " Dined at Lord Eldon's. He met me with the news that 
 Lord Carnarvon's motion had been quite successful about London 
 Bridge. The question was referred to a committee finally. If there 
 had been a division our side would have had a large majority. 
 I am well pleased at this so far satisfactory result of my protest. 
 
 " Went to Lord Carnarvon's to consult about London Bridge 
 Committee. Thence to call on Sir Frederick Leighton, G. F. Watts, 
 Millais, and Poynter ; got all of them to agree to give evidence 
 against the alteration of London Bridge. They are all very hot 
 about it. 
 
 '"'' July 10. — Examined at Lords Committee, and gave evidence 
 against the alteration. 
 
 ^^ July II. — As I came out of the Athenaeum this evening met 
 Gregory, the engineer, who said : ' Well, you have thrown out our Bill 
 for widening London Bridge.' I was of course delighted to hear 
 that I had done so." 
 
 The next day Lord Carnarvon wrote to my father : — 
 
 " I am really rejoiced to have been able to save London 
 Bridge ; but I should have known nothing of the danger, nor could 
 I have averted it, but for your warning and help." 
 
 Southwell Minster. 
 
 In 1876 my father made a report on this interesting 
 church at the instance of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 
 whose architect — Mr. Ewan Christian — had already made 
 a scheme for its restoration. He met Mr. Christian at the 
 church, where they examined it together, and subsequently 
 wrote his report. 
 
 The question on which he was asked his advice was that 
 constantly recurring one, viz. the best way to make an old 
 building suitable for our services without pulling it about. 
 My father's opinion, as expressed in the report, is another 
 exemplification of the spirit which always animated him in 
 such cases, and shows yet once again the relative importance 
 which he attached to an old building merely as such, and as 
 a thing possessing certain possibilities and having certain 
 functions to fulfil. 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 239 
 
 He first proceeds to show how admirably adapted the 
 thirteenth- century plan, in its untouched state, would have 
 been for our purposes. The choir was a short one, only 
 fifty-five feet in length, and, even when prolonged westward 
 across the transept, only about eighty feet long. This 
 would not have been too large for the clergy and choir of a 
 cathedral at the present day. The nave and transepts would 
 have served for the congregation, the noble eastern chapel 
 for early celebrations, week-day morning services, or indeed 
 any services which do not draw a large congregation. 
 
 The old arrangement my father took to have been as 
 follows : — 
 
 The three eastern bays of the choir formed the lady 
 chapel. (These were, at the time the report was written, 
 included in the choir, and Mr. Christian did not propose to 
 make any alteration.) The next bay westward was in all 
 probability left open, so as to form a passage behind the 
 altar and give access to the lady chapel and the chapels at 
 the east end of the north and south aisles. It seemed likely 
 that these chapels were screened off at the ends and sides, 
 and they were almost certainly not used as passage ways, to 
 which purpose Mr. Christian wished to put them. 
 
 Had the church been left untouched, it would have pre- 
 sented no difficulty at all, but the fourteenth-century additions 
 offered a problem not easy to solve. At that time a great 
 stone rood screen and loft was put up. This was something 
 like fifteen feet in depth from east to west, groined in three 
 divisions, with two staircases leading up to the loft. Upon it 
 was a large organ, so that the church was actually cut in two. 
 
 My father, before approaching the solution of the problem, 
 cleared the ground by stating what he thought should be the 
 aim of an architect in trying to adapt an old church. The 
 right course, he said, is, first of all, to replace the altar in its 
 original position, to restore all the old arrangements as far 
 as they can be discerned, and when that is done, to see how 
 far the plan can be made to serve the needs of to-day. 
 
 If the complete utility of the original scheme is found to 
 be interfered with by subsequent erections of the nature of 
 the rood screen in this instance, then the only true course, if 
 
240 MEMOIR OF 
 
 the obstruction is a really serious one, is to have the courage 
 to remove it, preserving it carefully and re-erecting it in some 
 other part of the building. 
 
 At Southwell, however, the smallness of the population 
 seemed to make a compromise more than ordinarily feasible. 
 
 In calculating the amount of accommodation to be pro- 
 vided, my father would always have wished it to be kept in 
 mind that choir aisles were built as passages and used as such, 
 and consequently should not, under any circumstances, be 
 obstructed by seats and chairs. Having laid this down, he 
 advised that the next step should be the screening off of the 
 lady chapel, leaving the first bay west of it clear, in order 
 to give it a proper access ; there would then be four bays of 
 choir east of the tower and rood screen, with a total length 
 of sixty feet. Bernasconi's plaster screens and stalls should 
 be removed, and their place taken by others of the original 
 design (which my father was able to make out completely 
 from fragments which he had discovered in the middle of 
 lumber). These new stalls should occupy the two western 
 bays two rows deep, and with one row of chairs in front of 
 them would give all the accommodation necessary for week- 
 day congregations. 
 
 The difficult question, however, of providing for the 
 largely attended services still remained. 
 
 My father assumed that the rood screen would be left 
 undisturbed — such a course being in accordance with his own 
 views ; but its retention was obviously a source of difficulty. 
 He explained that unfortunately it did not lend itself to any 
 system of piercing. Accepting it, then, as an obstruction, he 
 asked himself what the purpose of its builders had been, and 
 to what use such an ample loft had been designed. Far 
 from having been intended as a barrier, it had doubtless 
 been put up by the fourteenth-century men in order to make 
 the service more audible to the congregation in the nave. 
 The organs of those days were very unlike what we are 
 accustomed to now, and took up comparatively little space, so 
 that this screen might well have served as a singing gallery. 
 Why not, he asked, put it to its old use ? There would be 
 ample room for the choir with a pair of small organs, the 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 241 
 
 great organ being put in some other part, as at Canterbury. 
 In this way the people would be enabled to join intelligently 
 in the service, the lessons might then be read from an eagle 
 under the central tower, and the pulpit placed against one 
 of its piers. 
 
 My father was convinced that this was the right way 
 to overcome the difficulty — to face it boldly. For all that 
 he could not disguise from himself that the novelty of the 
 arrangement in our day would be quite enough to frighten 
 " safe " men. With this possibility before him, he alluded in 
 his report to two other schemes, which he gave in the order 
 of their merit. 
 
 The first alternative was that of removing the rood 
 screen bodily, and erecting it somewhere else, as, for 
 instance, across the transept. On this point he wrote that 
 he would not mind being responsible for its removal " were 
 I not distinctly of opinion that the screen may be utilised 
 in the way I have suggested." It would, to his mind, have 
 been straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel to alter the 
 whole of the old arrangement for the sake of preserving one 
 feature, but in this particular case he was glad to feel that the 
 necessity for this strong measure did not arise. 
 
 The second and less commendable plan was the same 
 as the original one up to a certain point. It involved the 
 restoration of the choir to its old state, but the organ was to 
 be retained on the screen, and a second altar provided in the 
 nave for the services there. This arrangement my father did 
 not feel able to say much in favour of, still he preferred it 
 to the scheme which was fathered by Mr. Christian, viz. 
 to throw the whole choir open, to put the altar where that of 
 the lady chapel had originally stood, increasing the number 
 of stalls, and seating the congregation in rows of chairs or 
 seats — facing north and south — between the stalls and the 
 altar ; in one word, upsetting the whole of the old arrange- 
 ment of the church to preserve one later piece of furniture. 
 
 Mr. Christian wrote a reply to my father's report, the 
 gist of which was that my father had no proof of the old 
 arrangement having been what he had suggested. " The only 
 difference between us," he summed up, " is, that Mr. Street 
 
 R 
 
242 MEMOIR OF 
 
 wishes to restore the choir to what he beheves to have been 
 its original state, while I wish to utilise it as it comes to me 
 with its fourteenth -century additions and alterations." A 
 difference of a very fundamental kind however ! 
 
 My father was the subject of a bitter attack for his sup- 
 posed vandalism in having suggested that the removal of the 
 screen was within the bounds of possibility. It was useless 
 for him to repeat that he had merely mentioned it as one of 
 several obvious courses while strongly advocating another. 
 His fault, in the eyes of his critics, lay in his having pro- 
 fessed himself courageous enough to counsel the removal of 
 a piece of old work in any instance where it proved an 
 insuperable bar to a proper use of a church, and where no 
 less heroic treatment was possible. 
 
 His conclusion is the one to which he had willingly and 
 gladly bound himself in speaking and writing from his 
 earliest years, and it is a perfectly logical one to any one who 
 regards a church primarily as a building which owes its exist- 
 ence to the needs of public worship, and should therefore be 
 made to subserve them properly, rather than to play the part 
 of a museum of architectural antiquities. Indeed, the differ- 
 ence between the man who clings to the dry bones of the 
 building rather than to the spirit which vivifies them and the 
 man who just reverses the order lies very deep, and can 
 hardly be the subject of argument. 
 
 St. Albans Abbey. 
 
 Sir Gilbert Scott, at the time of his death, was employed 
 among other things on a restoration of the Abbey Church of 
 St. Albans, but as this was being done piecemeal, it was left 
 a good deal to the imagination of his successors to divine 
 what would have been his action in certain particulars which 
 had never received his full attention. 
 
 Foremost among these was the treatment of the nave 
 roof — a subject which was brought very fully before the 
 public in 1878-79, and into the merits of which I do not 
 propose to go except in so far as my father's strong views 
 on the point make it necessary. A good deal of dismay was 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 243 
 
 created in architectural and antiquarian circles when it was 
 found that it was proposed to replace the existing flat roof 
 and panelled ceiling by a roof of steep pitch with parapets. 
 
 It appeared that Sir Gilbert Scott had never actually- 
 expressed his intentions, but Mr. J. O. Scott, who had taken 
 his father's place, stated that, as far as he could ascertain 
 his father's views, and judging by his action in analogous 
 cases, as, for instance, at Selby, he concluded that a new 
 high-pitched roof would have been substituted for the exist- 
 ing one, which was in very bad condition. His own opinion 
 was that a high pitch was most valuable architecturally, and 
 he was unhesitatingly in favour of sacrificing the rotten old 
 one. On loth August 1878 the St. Albans Restoration 
 Committee passed a resolution that 
 
 " The roof of the nave having become ruinous, it is desirable 
 to restore it to the original pitch indicated by the weathering on 
 the tower, keeping so much of the painted and panelled ceiling as is 
 in a sound condition, and restoring the rest in a similar style." 
 
 A meeting of the Society of Antiquaries was held a 
 month later, for the purpose of protesting against this resolu- 
 tion. The president. Lord Carnarvon, who was unable to be 
 present, forwarded a letter which he had written to Lord 
 Verulam, the chairman of the St. Albans Committee, in 
 which he quoted from a letter written by Mr. J. O. Scott in 
 the June previous, to the effect that Sir Gilbert had taken 
 exact and accurate notes of the roof, and Mr. Scott went on : 
 " I need not say that my father's object was twofold — to 
 preserve the old roof and to render it sound ; and," he 
 added, " no doubt a sound roof could be obtained." 
 
 It appeared that Sir Gilbert Scott had decided as to the 
 treatment of every separate principal in the roof, and it was 
 clear that he must have contemplated preserving it. Lord 
 Carnarvon admitted that a high-pitched roof would not be 
 an absolute novelty, but he argued that it would detract 
 greatly from the importance of the central tower — the best 
 feature of the exterior. 
 
 Papers followed from Mr. Neale, F.S.A., who testified to 
 the possibility of making a good restoration of the existing 
 
244 MEMOIR OF 
 
 roof, and from my father. He (my father) premised that the 
 roofs were no doubt originally uniform and of a high pitch, and 
 exhibited a drawing which he had prepared, giving the roof 
 as nearly as possible as it originally was. This he had been 
 enabled to do by the discovery of a great deal of the original 
 timber which had been reused in the flat roof The common 
 rafters were all marked by the same mortices and correspond- 
 ing holes for pins through similar tenons. This gave him 
 the exact position on the rafters of the collars, braces, etc. 
 This evidence my father regarded as conclusive. He further 
 pointed out that there were two blocked-up doorways in the 
 west wall of the tower which opened towards the nave from 
 the galleries of the tower. The lower doorway fixed the 
 level of the tie-beams of the Norman roof, on to which it 
 must have led, for it would have been useless for any other 
 purpose, and in like manner the upper doorway fixed the 
 level of the upper side of the collar beams of the old roof 
 The existence of the lower doorway suggested to my father 
 the probability of there having always been a ceiling. 
 
 It was impossible that the original roof, as made out in 
 this way, could have had parapets. The walls of the choir 
 were raised at an early period and a flat roof put over it. 
 If, then, the nave and transept roofs were now to be raised 
 to their old level, the church would have much the appear- 
 ance that it had then. My father parenthetically mentioned 
 that a raising of the nave roof would necessarily involve a 
 similar treatment of those of the transepts. 
 
 At some date subsequent to the raising of the walls of 
 the choir those of the nave were raised about three feet. 
 
 The date of the flat roof of the nave my father stated to 
 be between 1494 and 1526. It was all of oak, and, as Mr. 
 Scott said, quite admitted of satisfactory restoration. One 
 great advantage in leaving it would be that the grand mass 
 of the central tower would be unimpaired. 
 
 The proposal of the Committee to build a steep roof 
 with parapets seemed the more regrettable because the two 
 could never have coexisted, so that it would be a complete 
 novelty, besides which no steep roof which admitted of a 
 parapet could agree with the old marks on the tower. The 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 245 
 
 Committee erred again, inasmuch as they were going to 
 replace a good oak roof with a Hght fir one. An exact 
 restoration of the old oak roof would, my father said, be 
 splendid internally, particularly if the ten western bays were 
 left unceiled, so that at the end of the long vista of trusses 
 the eye could rest on the three bays of panelled ceiling at 
 the eastern end restored by Sir Gilbert Scott. Anything 
 short of this would be fatal. My father pointed out further 
 that the good old lead could be recast for the flat roof, 
 whereas the steep roof would probably be covered with slates. 
 
 Messrs. Christian and Blomfield, who had, by request, 
 accompanied my father to St. Albans on a tour of inspection, 
 agreed with him in every one of these conclusions. Mr. 
 Chappie, who was then in charge of the building, had met 
 them there and given them every facility for arriving at the 
 truth. At the end of the discussion the Society of Anti- 
 quaries passed a resolution condemnatory of the proposal to 
 destroy the old roof 
 
 My father subsequently wrote to the papers against 
 what was apparently a new departure of Mr. Scott's, which 
 was nothing less than a proposal to retain the old roof and 
 to build the new one over it. This had, Mr. Scott said, 
 always been his own wish, and had only been given up 
 when he found that he had no supporters on the Committee. 
 He further alleged that there were the marks of two 
 separate roofs on the western face of the tower, the higher 
 of which he took to be the original. 
 
 To this my father made the natural objection that 
 the original roof line would not have been likely to have 
 cut through string-courses and across windows of the same 
 date, as this line did, and added that he was strongly of 
 opinion that all the roofs were of the same height, and that 
 the transept gables really showed what it was. 
 
 A further objection to the Committee's scheme was the 
 practical one of expense, the probable cost of the new fir 
 roof being double that of the repair of the old one. 
 
 The Building Committee seems now to have come round 
 to Mr. Scott's view, and he was able to announce publicly 
 that it was their intention to restore and retain the old roof 
 
246 MEMOIR OF 
 
 under the new one if their funds admitted of it. Thus was 
 a piece of spurious renovation as opposed to genuine con- 
 servation decided on. The flat roof, though admittedly not 
 the original one, was none the less genuine. It was the 
 typical roof four centuries ago, and consequently much 
 superior, even apart from historical associations, to any 
 modern copy of a supposed original. 
 
 Lord Grimthorpe, the Lord Paramount of St. Albans, 
 strongly favoured the high-pitched roof, particularly on 
 aesthetical grounds, and when my father hopefully asked 
 whether judgment could not be suspended as the timber for 
 the new roof had not yet been ordered, crushed out the last 
 spark of hope by saying that, on the contrary, a great deal 
 was actually on the spot, and that my father must have been 
 very shortsighted not to have observed it when he " sneaked 
 down " to St. Albans. My father was not wont to go 
 about with his eyes shut, so one is not surprised to find that 
 Lord Grimthorpe's roof timbers were in reality scaffold poles. 
 Lord Grimthorpe's version of my father's views was that he 
 wished to rebuild an ugly and debased roof, while he and 
 his meant to rebuild the handsome one of the best period. 
 If this had been a fair statement of the case there would 
 have been nothing more to be said. 
 
 Still undaunted, my father returned once again to Mr. 
 Scott's theory of the two high roofs, and showed that this 
 theory had at any rate never commended itself to Sir Gilbert, 
 even if it had seemed to him within the range of pos- 
 sibility, for in cleaning down the tower he had done his 
 best to make the lines, which he must have thought the 
 original ones — on three sides of the tower — as conspicuous 
 as possible, while obscuring the line on which Mr. Scott laid 
 so much stress. 
 
 If a simple explanation of the double roof line were 
 wanted, it would be that the higher roof belonged to the 
 same date as the raising of the walls. With regard to the 
 existing parapets, my father said that he saw no evidence of 
 their being old, the section of the coping appearing to him 
 to be of very uncertain date, while the moulding below 
 might well have belonged to a corbel table under the eaves. 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 247 
 
 The general correctness of my father's views was soon proved 
 in a remarkable way through the untiring exertions of Mr. 
 Neale. 
 
 That gentleman had, under the most adverse conditions, 
 succeeded in drawing full size all the important parts of 
 the west wall of the tower, and the result of his work was 
 shown in a diagram which was published in the building 
 papers. This absolutely accurate reproduction of the stone- 
 work of the tower proved, in Mr. Neale's words, that " the 
 only high-pitched roof which has been conclusively proved 
 (by the actual grooves) to have existed could not have stood 
 between the Tower parapets." The outlines of the grooves 
 as fixed by Mr. Neale's measurements and tests showed 
 that my father's original drawing, founded, as I have said, 
 on the evidence of the old rafters, had only varied from the 
 actual line by some few inches. 
 
 Mr. Christian now wrote urging strongly that some con- 
 sideration should be given to their view now that its correct- 
 ness had been so triumphantly vindicated. 
 
 Mr. Scott had himself made a drawing, the object of 
 which was to establish the fact of there having been two 
 roofs. Mr. Neale showed that its accuracy might be simply 
 and effectively tested. " Hammer in," he said, " a nail at the 
 apex of the proposed roof, and hold a cord from it to the 
 required point, and you will find that the line actually 
 passes over original and untouched tilework." 
 
 With evidence thus piled on evidence it might have 
 been hoped that the Committee would have seen the reason- 
 ableness of abandoning their high-pitched roof, the right 
 course, as Mr. Scott himself admitted, providing my father's 
 drawing could be proved correct. 
 
 It could not be seriously urged in favour of their pro- 
 posal that they were carrying out Sir Gilbert's scheme, 
 because my father was able to show that he had written 
 very strongly in a contrary sense on a very parallel case. 
 
 If justification is wanted for the strong line my father 
 took, it must be looked for in the interesting character of 
 the building itself, and in the unfortunate result of the 
 decision of the Building Committee — now fully revealed. 
 
248 MEMOIR OF chap. 
 
 St. Mark's, Venice. 
 
 The year 1879 saw the beginning of the movement which 
 had for its object the preservation, not of one of our great 
 national monuments, but of a building which may almost be 
 said to belong to the whole world of art — St. Mark's. 
 
 In this agitation my father was one of the prime movers 
 and most unwearying workers. The safety of the whole 
 west front was at stake ; for the restoration, had it not been 
 happily checked in time, would have involved rebuilding it 
 absolutely from the ground, and on lines by no means 
 identical with the old. 
 
 The feeling in this country that the Italian Government, 
 ever ready to spend money in the preservation of the monu- 
 ments of antiquity, which do so much to make Italy what 
 it is, was in this case, with the best possible intentions, 
 spending large sums of money in destroying the interest of 
 a unique building, had become so strong as to overcome the 
 natural scruples which so delicate a step as interference with 
 a foreign government would be likely to give rise to. 
 
 In furtherance of the view that representations should be 
 made on the subject to the Italian Government, a meeting 
 was held at Oxford in the Sheldonian, in the latter part of 
 November, at which resolutions were carried to the effect 
 that the works contemplated by the architect in the employ 
 of the Government were unnecessary, and destructive of 
 much of the interest and beauty of the building, and that 
 the Government should be memorialised on the subject. 
 
 My father, who moved the first resolution, argued that, 
 from the nature of the construction of the building, any 
 attempt at restoration was necessarily attended with consider- 
 able risk. " Once begin to tamper," he said, " with the thin 
 incrustation of marble which overlies the brick core, and 
 it will be almost impossible to stop short of absolute reno- 
 vation." The glory of St. Mark's lies, as he said, in the 
 warmth of colouring given by its marble and mosaic incrus- 
 tations. These it would be suicidal to touch ; and he in- 
 stanced as an example of what might be confidently looked 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 249 
 
 for in such a contingency, that part of the fagade which 
 had already been restored with its cold and dirty-coloured 
 marbles and its staring new mosaic. Among other things he 
 noticed the commonplace effect produced by a pavement which 
 was laid dead-level instead of being undulated like the old. 
 
 Other resolutions were moved and seconded by Messrs. 
 E. Burne Jones and William Morris, Professors W. B. 
 Richmond and Holland, and others, and were carried by 
 acclamation. 
 
 A few days later my father stated the subject of com- 
 plaint more explicitly in the columns of the Times, and 
 showed by instances how one piece of new work led, almost 
 inevitably, to another ; the new wine having the usual effect 
 on the old bottles. 
 
 The baptistery roof and a part of its walls were covered 
 with ancient mosaics. The works in progress on the outside 
 of this part of the church caused a settlement in one of the 
 vaults. In 1877 my father saw that it was shored up. Two 
 years later there was not a particle of the old mosaic on either 
 the walls or vault ; all was brand-new. He returns again to 
 the subject of the pavement, on which he felt very strongly. 
 The whole north aisle has been repaired, he goes on ; the old 
 designs have not been adhered to ; and the surface has been 
 made absolutely level, instead of being raised and sunk in 
 undulations as the old one was. This arrangement he held 
 to be nearly, if not quite, unique. If not the first to conceive 
 the idea, he, at any rate, seems to have first given expression 
 to the opinion that this undulation of the floor was due to 
 design and not to accident. It is, perhaps, a startling theory 
 at the first blush, and one which in our matter-of-fact days 
 is difficult to credit without some very strong evidence in 
 its favour. 
 
 Objections were not wanting from Mr. Fowler and 
 others, the first-named gentleman stating that the subsidence 
 of the ground, owing to the sinking of the water underneath, 
 was quite enough to account for the phenomenon, and he 
 further maintained that he had carefully noted the undula- 
 tions on his numerous visits, and had found them to vary 
 considerably. The accurate verification of these supposed 
 
250 MEMOIR OF 
 
 changes can have been no easy task, and my father, at any 
 rate, felt that he had such strong grounds for his contention, 
 that he refused to be convinced of the accuracy of Mr. 
 Fowler's observations. 
 
 In the first place, he urged that if the pavement had 
 been giving way owing to imperfect foundations, inasmuch 
 as it is composed of countless small pieces of marble 
 arranged in combination with a few large pieces, every par- 
 ticle would naturally have been broken up, and some parts 
 would have sunk abruptly and broken away, while others, 
 getting a permanent support on the foundations of piers 
 or walls, would have kept their original position. At St. 
 Mark's there was nothing at all like this. 
 
 To epitomise his arguments. The pavement against 
 the chancel screen is distinctly undulating. The screen 
 itself dates from the eleventh century, the upper part, how- 
 ever, being fourteenth-century work. It is perfectly upright, 
 and shows not the least sign of giving. Clearly, then, there 
 is no settlement here, at the screen itself, and yet the pave- 
 ment is noticeably out of the level. Had a settlement taken 
 place westward of the footings of the screen, then the pave- 
 ment would naturally have been drawn away from it, or 
 there would have been a distinct lateral crack running 
 parallel to the screen, and at a little distance from it, just 
 beyond the support of the footings. 
 
 There is nothing of the sort. 
 
 Again : The choir is built over a crypt ; the crypt itself 
 is perfectly firm, and shows no trace of a settlement ; the 
 floor above, however, is quite uneven. The entrances to the 
 crypt are by staircases and passages under the choir aisles ; 
 the pavement above these is also uneven. The great slabs 
 of gray marble which form a sea before the choir — many of 
 them unbroken — are waved on the surface. 
 
 "I remember," my father continues, "how we are told that the 
 pavement of St. Sofia was made in the form of a central sea, from 
 which the four rivers of Paradise flowed to its four doors, and I ask 
 myself why, if this symbolism might be avowed in the mother church 
 at Constantinople, it might not also be indulged in the daughter 
 church at Venice ? I look, too, at the architecture of St. Mark's, 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 251 
 
 and I see that there is nowhere in it a hard hne. The angles are 
 all rounded off, the ceilings are all domes, the very front is planned 
 on a curve, and the dimensions of apparently corresponding parts 
 are almost invariably dissimilar ; and I ask again, why, if there was 
 this love of irregularity and of curves everywhere else, the pavement 
 alone should have been of that exact and hard level which not 
 unnaturally commends itself to Mr. Fowler's professional instincts ? " 
 
 I have admitted that my father's theory seems at first 
 rather startling, but I think it not unfair to set it at least 
 on a par with that of men whose work, though it may be 
 in some ways highly imaginative, still rather tends to the 
 glorification of the matter of fact as embodied in straight 
 lines, right angles, and dead levels ; my father's view, at 
 any rate, was supported no less by hard facts than by senti- 
 ment, and I have never to this day seen any explanation 
 offered for some of the chief features on which he rested his 
 case. 
 
 It is to be noticed that another opus Alexandrinum 
 pavement at Venice — that at Murano — is also undulating 
 like that of St. Mark's. This might be an argument for 
 either side, except that a special reason given for the in- 
 equality of the St. Mark's pavement — which I shall allude 
 to presently — is certainly not applicable at Murano. 
 
 In the spring of 1880, on our way to Rome, we made a 
 detour to Venice, as my father was most anxious to see how 
 Signor Meduma — the architect then employed by Govern- 
 ment — was doing his work. He found that a start had 
 been made at w^hat was apparently to be an entire rebuilding 
 of the w^est front. The work had been commenced at the 
 south-west angle, and the few feet of new work which had 
 been built agreed neither in elevation nor on plan with the 
 old. The waved line of the west front seemed to have been 
 just as distressing to the eye of the architect as the waved 
 line of the pavement, and he had set himself resolutely to 
 redress it. The consequence of this proceeding was that, 
 where the new work joined the old, there was a distinct 
 hiatus, the marble step or slab round the base of the church 
 being, where the new work stopped, as much as twelve 
 centimetres higher than the old work, and fifteen centimetres 
 
252 MEMOIR OF 
 
 in advance of it westward. My father felt himself, in con- 
 sequence, able to justify fully the statement made at the 
 meeting at Oxford, that it was proposed to do neither more 
 nor less than rebuild the west front. 
 
 The justification for the action of those who started the 
 agitation against this act of constructive vandalism is found, 
 if any is needed, in the constitution of the Comite de San 
 Marc de Venise, and in the temperate character of the re- 
 monstrance which was presented by them. Therein it was 
 stated with great justice that, looking to the utter destruction 
 of all the interest of the Fondaco dei Turchi and St. Maria di 
 Murano by over-restoration, the members of the Comite were 
 naturally unable to trust blindly in the self-restraint of the 
 Italian authorities. 
 
 The memorial was signed by men of eminence, repre- 
 senting not art alone, from England, America, France, Ger- 
 many, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, 
 Switzerland, and last, but not least, Italy itself St. Mark's, 
 with its glorious and irreplaceable harmony of colouring, is 
 indeed something quite by itself, the heirloom of all culti- 
 vated peoples, a monument in admiration of which painters 
 and architects, experts, and the world at large, can more 
 fully and sympathetically share than in the case of any 
 other raised by man's hands. To counsel its thorough 
 restoration was, my father said, as though a man should 
 propose to clean down the Sistine Chapel and replace the 
 masterpieces of mediaeval giants by the daubs of a scene 
 painter. 
 
 At the end of last year (i 886) the question of the pave- 
 ment again cropped up in the newspapers, the Secretary of 
 the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings writing 
 to protest against its restoration, though he pronounced 
 the undulations to be certainly due to subsidence, and added, 
 as with a touch of scorn, that some enthusiastic admirers 
 have actually gone the length of asserting that the undula- 
 tions were purposely introduced when the pavement was 
 laid, to mark the connection of the building with the Queen 
 of the Adriatic — one of the last things which a mediaeval 
 builder would have done. This last assertion is rather 
 
XI GEORGE EDMUND STREET 253 
 
 startling ; the direct contrary may really be asserted with- 
 out hesitation. Ancient Christian Art is so instinct with 
 symbolical meaning that the probability of there being a 
 symbolism in the waves of the pavement naturally suggests 
 itself to the student of mediaevalism ; but that the architect 
 should have intended to typify the queenship of the Adriatic 
 implies a remarkable power of prophetic instinct on his 
 part. That, however, was not the symbolism which sug- 
 gested itself to my father ; as he read it, the pavement and 
 the fabric above were to be taken together : the pavement as 
 the sea, the building itself as the ark of the Church, resting 
 upon the waters. Such a symbolism is not unknown. We 
 are told of the church of St. John Baptist at Ravenna (a 
 votive building erected by Galla Placidia, after escape from 
 shipwreck in 424) : 
 
 "Jubet Augusta ubique naufragii sui prxsentari formam 
 ut quodammodo tota operis facies Reginae pericula loqueretur. 
 Pavimcntum undosum undique mare, quod, quasi ventis agi- 
 tatum, procelloSc-E tempestatis gerit imaginem." 
 
 It is argued on the other side that this merely means that 
 the marble was laid in wavy patterns ; but surely the mouth- 
 filling alliteration iindosjivi Jindiquc could hardly have been 
 applied to so feeble a portraiture of the tempest as these 
 interminable little niggling patterns all over the pavement 
 would imply. Dr. Saccardo, the present architect, explains 
 the unevenness of the pavement of the nave by reminding 
 us that there was once a vault under it, as there still is 
 under the choir. This, he tells us, was demolished, and the 
 space filled up with rubbish, without the precaution being 
 taken to remove the piers and columns, the result being that 
 they offer a firm support to the pavement above, while the 
 loose earth around them gives way. This accounts for the 
 so-called waves of the sea. 
 
 So much for the nave : the removal of the vault suffi- 
 ciently accounting for the state of its pavement. 
 
 Now for the choir : in this case we are told by another 
 writer that the sinking of the pavement is beyond all ques- 
 tion attributable to its being laid on a vault, as it would be 
 very likely to sink into the pockets unless the filling in was 
 
254 MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET chap, xi 
 
 firmly rammed down. Accepting this explanation, let us 
 now turn to Murano and ask what is the explanation of the 
 similar feature there. What but the subsidence of the water, 
 and the consequent sinking of the ground ? Here, then, are 
 three different causes all producing an identical effect in 
 the same place, all very plausible, taken singly, but rather 
 confusing when taken together, and none of them explaining 
 how it is that the inclines of the pavement are all so rounded 
 and flowing when we should naturally have looked for abrupt 
 sinkings and gaping cracks in places where they certainly 
 do not exist.^ It is the fashion to laugh at symbolism ; 
 much has doubtless been clothed with a meaning which 
 would surprise no one more than the mediaeval builders 
 who are made responsible for it, but those who deny are at 
 the least as wrong as those who exaggerate ; and I think 
 that with examples before us of pavements which are known 
 on credible evidence to have been meant, in one way or 
 another, to represent the sea, my father's theory requires a 
 more logical and connected attempt at refutation than it has 
 yet had, before it can be pronounced confidently to be base- 
 less or chimerical. 
 
 ^ It is argued with some reason that the waste of marble consequent on the 
 working of the uneven surfaces in large pieces makes it unlikely that such a course 
 should have been taken, but how are they to be explained then ? 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The years 1877-78 were not very eventful ones, though they 
 brought in much new and important work. In the latter 
 year, as I have already said, the east wing of the Courts of 
 Justice was opened in a perfectly quiet way. 
 
 My father was at this time appointed Architect to Salis- 
 bury Cathedral — a post which he was very glad to hold, and 
 he was also called in to advise at Gloucester and Winchester 
 Cathedrals. 
 
 In May he went abroad for a short time, revisiting many 
 of the places which he had seen under such far happier cir- 
 cumstances seventeen months before. The tour was an ex- 
 periment, and not a successful one ; he himself soon began 
 to doubt the wisdom of dwelling too exclusively on old 
 associations. He travelled about alone for the most part, 
 but met Ruskin at Venice, and joined him in a chorus of 
 lamentation over the evidences of the all -pervading spirit 
 of the age, which, now that the city is in the way to be 
 prosperous, is changing its whole character. The following 
 Christmas we passed at Brussels, making excursions to all 
 the old towns which lie so conveniently in a nutshell for the 
 traveller's benefit. 
 
 The nave of Bristol Cathedral was sufficiently complete 
 in October 1877 for the opening ceremony to take place. 
 My father speaks of it thus in his diary : — 
 
 " Bristol Cathedral nave opened ; not a very imposing service 
 for such an occasion. The whole of the arrangements of the choir 
 are so thoroughly bad that the sooner they are altered the better. 
 I think every one sees how unsatisfactory they are. Went to Canon 
 Girdlestone's for lunch, but as every one was marshalled in before 
 
256 MEMOIR OF 
 
 me, I took the opportunity to slip away instead of going into the 
 dining-room. It suited me, as I was in rather a hurry for time, and 
 really it does seem rather absurd that all the young parsons and 
 elderly aldermen should be thought of first, and the architect left to 
 himself on such an occasion." 
 
 The summers of both those years were spent for the 
 most part at Holmdale ; in the latter year my father induced 
 the Royal Academy Club to make their annual outing to 
 Dorking ; many of the members came to Holmdale for 
 lunch, and then drove over Leith Hill to Dorking for dinner. 
 In May he wrote : — 
 
 " Last week seems to have been given up to bishops and other 
 swells. Lord Beauchamp gave two breakfasts, to both of which 
 he invited me, and we had eight or ten bishops at each, and as 
 many distinguished laymen. They were both pleasant gatherings." 
 
 These breakfasts, at which there was much discussion 
 of Church prospects, were great meetings of the most im- 
 portant ecclesiastical and lay representatives of the High 
 Church party, and for some years my father was frequently 
 present at them. 
 
 In October he paid a brief visit to Paris to see the 
 exhibition, and soon afterwards writes : — 
 
 " I saw in this morning's Times that I am to be made a Knight 
 of the Legion of Honour, as a reward for sending some drawings to 
 the exhibition. I cannot say I am much elated." 
 
 Meantime the chief object of my father's life had been 
 steadily marching to a successful issue. An ecclesiastical 
 district had been formed from outlying parts of the six 
 parishes of Shere, Abinger, Ewhurst, Cranleigh, Ockley, and 
 Ockham, under the name of Holmbury St. Mary. So much 
 of the tithes of Ewhurst and Cranleigh as were drawn from 
 the district were contributed by their respective rectors. 
 The parsonage house and school at Felday, the latter of 
 which had up to that time served also as a chapel -of- 
 ease for Shere, was transferred at the same time to the 
 living. They had been erected chiefly at the expense of 
 Mr. Reginald Bray, the Lord of the Manor, and Mr. Laur- 
 ence Adams, the Rector of Shere. A site for the church 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 257 
 
 of unusual beauty was also given by Mr, Bray, and the 
 church itself was begun in the course of 1878. The next 
 thing was to find a suitable man for the first vicar. My 
 father had arranged that the presentation to the living should 
 be in the hands of the bishop of the diocese for the time 
 being, with the sole reservation that the first appointment 
 should be one with which he could heartily concur. The 
 offer of the living was made to Mr. John Shearme, who was 
 then acting as curate to Canon Sapte at Cranleigh, and 
 in November he signified his acceptance of it — a fact 
 fraught with the happiest augury for the future of the 
 parish. 
 
 My father's gift of the fabric of the church was met by 
 a most generous response on the part of the parishioners 
 generally to an appeal for funds for an endowment. The 
 site of the church had been given, and the laying out and 
 enclosing of the churchyard with its high gate were also due 
 to private munificence. 
 
 The church which my father built, whether it is to be 
 numbered among his happiest efforts or not, is something 
 quite out of the common run of village churches, from the 
 picturesqueness of the site, the beauty and congruity of the 
 building itself, and the completeness of its furniture and 
 fittings. It stands under the lee of a wood of Scotch firs 
 on a hillside which slopes rapidly to the east and north ; 
 advantage has been taken of the considerable difference in 
 the levels to place the sexton's room, etc., under the chancel, 
 while over the vestries is a raised north chancel aisle, which 
 is in itself an unusual and picturesque feature. Here the 
 school-children are placed — apart from the rest of the con- 
 gregation, and so visible as to make good behaviour a neces- 
 sity. The common Surrey feature of a great roof embracing 
 both nave and aisles is reproduced, and the chancel is only 
 divided from the nave internally by a cusped wooden roof 
 principal, and a graceful open wooden screen. At the west 
 end is a simple open screen which serves to support the 
 bellcote above, and forms a sort of internal narthex. The 
 outer door of the church is left open, and that of the screen 
 kept closed, so that the building is always open for private 
 
 S 
 
.58 MEMOIR OF 
 
 prayer, and at the same time there is no opportunity for 
 horse-play in the body of the church itself. 
 
 The stained glass, the altar-plate and coverings, are very 
 complete and of beautiful design. The altar-cloths were 
 worked by the East Grinstead sisters as a gift to one who 
 had been largely the benefactor. 
 
 The 6th of November i 879 saw the consecration which my 
 father had so set his heart upon. The energy and bon- 
 Jiovnnie of the vicar had already made the church a power 
 in the village such as it had never been before, and the 
 enthusiastic and overflowing congregations on the day of 
 consecration and after testified in an unmistakable way to 
 the appreciation of the people. Since that day there has 
 been constant progress. What the actual building has done 
 for the outward beauty of the place has been equalled by the 
 moral influence which has been exerted by the services. It 
 is happily still our boast that we can show what my father 
 earnestly desired we should show — a church which belongs 
 to the poor just as much as to the rich, where the villager 
 does not fear to take a good seat or hesitate to sit side by 
 side with his master. 
 
 Not long after the opening, Gladstone told my father 
 that he thought our congregation more rapt than any he had 
 ever seen in a village church. 
 
 " He told me," my father wrote, "he was so glad to see me in 
 the midst of my own work. He came to service again in the even- 
 ing, and walked back with me as far as this house (Holmdale) after- 
 wards. He discoursed much about hymns, defending the emotional 
 character of modern hymns, but regretting their too great number. 
 He was very warm in favour of free and open churches, and told me 
 they had lately made theirs at Hawarden so. . . . Shearme tells me 
 that Gladstone went to see the church last Aveek, and spoke very 
 warmly about it." 
 
 The night after, my father w^as his next neighbour at 
 dinner, and jotted down in his diary afterwards some of the 
 topics of conversation. 
 
 " Gladstone talked about London improvements and the increasing 
 height of houses. He saw no reason why, in fifty years or so, London 
 should not have ten millions of people living in it, and Eng- 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 259 
 
 land seventy millions. He expressed himself strongly about the 
 treatment of the lower orders in such a matter as not being allowed 
 to drive across the parks. He denounced our divorce laws, to which 
 his objection is evidently no slighter than it was when the Act was 
 passed. Talking about a gate which had been found locked across 
 a public thoroughfare, I said that if I saw any one breaking the lock 
 I should certainly not interfere. ' No,' said he, ' nor should I ; and 
 after all, in defence of what we consider our rights, we should all do 
 what the Irish are attacked for doing.' 
 
 " In various ways I thought I saw evidence that the dominant 
 idea in Gladstone's mind at present is that of treating all men on 
 equal terms, and doing away as far as possible with all favours to 
 particular classes. He inveighed against the custom of sending 
 venison from royal parks to men in his position." 
 
 In the summer of 1879 we made a short tour through 
 Normandy and on by le Mans to the Loire, returning 
 by Orleans and Bourges. My father seemed in better fettle 
 for sketching than ever, and though we saw little that was 
 new to him, except Mont St. Michel and some of the 
 chateaux on the Loire, he naturally found subjects without 
 number. 
 
 In the spring of 1880 another visit to Rome was neces- 
 sary, and we made some most interesting excursions into the 
 country round about. Starting from Tivoli, we went through 
 a wild-looking country to Subiaco (above which lies Sta. 
 Scolastica, the mother of religious houses) ; Olevano, much 
 frequented by the German painter fraternity ; and Pales- 
 trina ; and afterwards to Albano and Frascati. 
 
 In the following autumn we made a tour through the 
 series of magnificent houses in Wilts and Somerset. I re- 
 member on this ' occasion that my father, who felt that 
 church-building could not go on much longer in such volume, 
 strongly impressed on me the advisability of turning my 
 attention more particularly to house-work. The seven years 
 that have passed since then have, however, seen little of the 
 diminution which he anticipated. 
 
 The death of Mr. Edward Barry made a vacancy in 
 the Professorship of Architecture at the Royal Academy. 
 My father had tried unsuccessfully for the post two years 
 Sefore. 
 
26o MEMOIR OF 
 
 " I offered myself for the Professorship of Architecture, and had 
 eight votes against fourteen (I think) for Barry. This is certainly as 
 uncomplimentary a snub as I ever received ; but, on the other hand, 
 it is a great relief not to have to lecture, and they cannot say that I 
 shirked it." 
 
 My father only lived to deliver one course of lectures in 
 the spring of 1881, but they were so able and so suggestive 
 as to attract a great deal of attention both inside and outside 
 the institution on behalf of which he gave them. 
 
 The writing of these lectures was a serious inconvenience 
 to so busy a man, and my father must have offered himself 
 for the post with rather mixed feelings ; still he valued so 
 highly any opportunity for advancing the study of archi- 
 tecture that, in his heart of hearts, he was no doubt glad to 
 avail himself of this, though it entailed considerable personal 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The greater part of the writing was done in the evenings 
 at Holmdale. The sound of the pen used to be almost con- 
 tinuous. The hard facts and the deductions to be made 
 from them came to hand with equal quickness and reliability. 
 In November of the same year he was elected, practi- 
 cally unanimously, to the Treasurership of the Academy, the 
 post next in honour to the presidentship, and, till his death, 
 generally, if not invariably, filled by an architect. 
 
 Mr. Barry's death had been preceded by that of m}' 
 father's old master and consistent friend. Sir Gilbert Scott. 
 Death was indeed busy among those with whom he had 
 worked long and happily. The Dean of York, Dr. Dun- 
 combe, in whom my father had had a constant friend and 
 supporter throughout his work on the transept, had just 
 died ; as had also Mr. Bennett of Bournemouth, who had 
 been his client for seven and twenty years. During the whole 
 of this period that truly untiring man had gradually been 
 elaborating St. Peter's Church, and it was not till after his death 
 that the last touch was put by the completion of the spire. 
 
 It would be tiresome to give a long list of all that my 
 father was doing at this time, but his work at Carlisle 
 should be mentioned because it made a certain stir in some 
 circles. 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 261 
 
 My father had done a good deal of work at CarHsle 
 Cathedral at one time or another, including the Paley 
 memorial pulpit — a very elaborate and beautiful work — and a 
 fine canopied bishop's throne ; but the most important under- 
 taking in connection with the cathedral was the rehabilitation 
 of the interesting old Fratry. This was a building dating 
 from the fifteenth century, but cut about and defaced and 
 maltreated at various times and in different ways till little 
 enough of the old work was visible to any one but an expert, 
 and much of that which could be seen was evidently out of 
 its place. 
 
 Windows had been wholly or partially blocked up, 
 square-headed openings had been inserted which had them- 
 selves come to depend for existence on rough brick piers and 
 wooden props of eccentric and hideous form, niches had 
 been torn down from one place and put up incontinently 
 in another, string-courses had been broken away, floors and 
 ceilings had been inserted at fancy levels, and a wall with a 
 fireplace in it erected so as to cut the original chamber into 
 two rooms — a larger one to the west and a smaller to the 
 east. The additions belonged for the most part to the ends 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the square-headed 
 windows being attributed to Machell the antiquary. My 
 father's proposal to root out all the rank growth, which had 
 wellnigh stifled the life out of the original work, met with 
 much reprobation at the hands of certain archaeologists ; par- 
 ticular stress was laid on the iniquity of moving any of 
 Machell's work ; but, as it was pointed out at the time, the 
 fact that the windows were the work of an archaeologist really 
 made them valueless as historical evidence, and all they 
 showed was that the style in which they were built was 
 the one which Machell, who was an ardent promoter of the 
 classic revival, chiefly affected. Others cried out that if the 
 programme of the architect were adhered to nothing would 
 be left of that old Fratry where, as some say, Edward I. held 
 his Parliament ; of all the pleas in favour of retaining the 
 ramshackle accretions which did so much to damage a fine 
 building, this was probably the oddest. Even had my father 
 proposed to sacrifice the old work to the new, the exact 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 converse of which was, of course, the case, he would even 
 then have been counselHng the destruction of a building 
 which was not begun till nearly two centuries after Edward's 
 death. My father's reply to those who objected to the 
 removal of the " venerable evidences of history during two 
 centuries," and the " genuine remnants of a past living archi- 
 tecture" (which is just the last thing which could be rightly 
 said of Machell's work), was of the nature of a reductio ad 
 absurduvi. He contented himself with sending to a building 
 paper a literal and truthful representation of the Fratry as 
 it was at the time (early in 1880), when some part of the 
 clearing away had been done, and much of the old work 
 exposed. 
 
 He subjected to the searching light of publicity the 
 venerable eighteenth-century roof — one of the meanest con- 
 ceivable, — the much-belauded windows — mere square open- 
 ings, without the strength to stand a day if deprived of the 
 motley group of pillars and posts on which their sagging 
 lintels rested. The true nature of the historical evidences 
 by which so much store was set became immediately ap- 
 parent, as did also the real and solid character of the evi- 
 dence on which the proposed restoration was based. 
 
 Luckily the destruction of the old work had not been 
 thoroughly carried out ; much had been merely hidden or 
 removed instead of being actually destroyed, and it did not 
 need a professional eye to see that what was wanted was 
 rather the rehabilitation of work still existing, after due lop- 
 ping off of fungus growths, than actual new work. 
 
 Time after time did my father, where he found additions 
 or alterations with an intrinsic value of their own, or when 
 the nature of the work supplanted was in any degree prob- 
 lematical, time after time did he accept the later form, and 
 do his utmost to preserve it ; but he felt that the architect 
 who knows his work should exercise his judgment on each 
 particular case as it arises, and should refuse to be bound 
 by sentimental phrases, which only cramp and disable the 
 exercise of that wisdom which is the natural outcome of a 
 properly utilised experience. 
 
 Only a year or so before the time when the controversy 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 263 
 
 over his projects at Carlisle was raging, he had been examin- 
 ing Brewood Church, Staffordshire, with a view to its restor- 
 ation. After his visit he wrote in his diary : — 
 
 " Completed the plans of Brewood — a very curious church. 
 The most remarkable features were altered or almost destroyed in 
 the fifteenth century. This is the real puzzle of a restoration — how 
 to restore the interesting portions of two periods, one of which was 
 destructive of the other." 
 
 Here, then, is an unsolicited concession to the claims 
 of history, though to ask for it would argue great ignorance 
 of my father's works ; but when the evidence of history is 
 confined to a few flimsy obstructions which, without any 
 artistic claims or anything to show their date, serve but 
 to make the building which they adorn useless, it is mere 
 Quixotism to insist on their retention, and common sense 
 refuses to be shackled by such feeble bonds. 
 
 About this time I find a note in my father's diary, brief 
 enough, but telling a tale to those who can understand it, of 
 admirable management and remarkable forethought : — 
 
 " Went to the Office of Works w4th the accounts for the east 
 wing of the Law Courts. These show a saving of between two and 
 three thousand pounds on the amount I was authorised to spend : a 
 result which Sir Henry Hunt calls 'wonderful,' certainly very rare 
 in any case. Here the cost w^as about ;^i 90,000, and there were 
 no provisions to meet any extras." 
 
 In 1 8 79 it became my father's turn to serve on the 
 Council of the Royal Academy, and in consequence of the 
 amount of time which his duties there were sure to take up, 
 he sent in his resignation of the vice-presidentship, and his 
 seat on the Council of the Institute of British Architects. 
 In his letter he said : — 
 
 " This year (and next year will be the same) so much of my 
 time is taken up by being on the Council of the R.A., that I have 
 really no time to spare for other similar duties ; and as, under the 
 present system at the Institute of Architects, any chance of getting 
 new blood into the Council ought to be seized, I feel that I ought 
 to resign my post as Vice-President and Member of Council. Will 
 you be so good, therefore, as to see that my name is struck out of 
 the House list ? etc." 
 
264 MEMOIR OF 
 
 The notification of his resignation appeared shortly after- 
 wards in the following terms : — 
 
 " The Council have received, with great regret, a letter intimat- 
 ing that, owing to large demands on his time at the Council of the 
 Royal Academy during the next two years, and to the feeling that 
 he ought not to hold a position, the business of which he cannot in 
 consequence discharge to his own satisfaction, Mr. Street resigns 
 his seat on the Council." 
 
 It is clear from the misinterpretation of my father's 
 note, and the entire omission of the real gist of it, that 
 some sting lay in the sentence expunged ; and, indeed, his 
 resignation was generally taken, as it was meant, to be 
 an emphatic protest against the Council as reorganised dur- 
 ing the presidentship of Mr. Charles Barry, and the scheme 
 of succession to the chair with which it was associated. The 
 reconstituted Council was to consist of the leaders of the 
 profession in perpetual succession. This order had been, in 
 the first instance, decided by an incidence of votes, which 
 was in some measure fortuitous. Each member of it in 
 turn was to be nominated by the Council, as a body, for the 
 presidentship. The attainment of the chair was thus to be 
 along the highroad of patience. My father's view was that 
 the arrangement was unfair to the younger men, who at 
 once had the thing settled for them, and were themselves 
 kept at a distance by that settlement, and that it was as in- 
 jurious as it was unjust to substitute for the old mode of 
 selection, by which the man was chosen who at the time of 
 the election was best qualified to fill the post, a new cut- 
 and-dried inelastic system in which a healthy competition 
 had no place. 
 
 My father speaks thus of his resignation : — 
 
 " I have resigned my vice-presidentship because it would lead 
 by routine to my being president, and I don't think that is the way 
 in which the presidentship should be conferred, if it is to be an 
 honour." 
 
 This feeling was shared by a considerable section of the 
 members of the Institute, but it is quite likely that it would 
 not have found emphatic expression had it not been for the 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 265 
 
 retirement of Professor Hayter Lewis early in 1881 from the 
 succession to the presidential chair — shortly to be vacated by 
 Mr. Whichcord — which it would have been his turn to fill. 
 
 This gave an unexpected opening for the election of my 
 father, who had refused to take advantage of the new by- 
 laws, and without in any way postponing the expectations 
 of others. The next in order to Professor Lewis was the 
 late Sir Horace Jones (then Mr. Jones), but the opposition 
 to him was simply the affirmation of a principle, and had 
 nothing the least personal in it. This is sufficiently shown 
 by a letter of Mr. E. C. Robins, in which he said : — 
 
 " Mr. Street's personal fitness is not now in question. That is 
 admitted. His claim to election is on the ground of the principle 
 of freedom of election." 
 
 The opponents of this principle based their action on a 
 technical disapproval of my father's act of resignation. They 
 contended that his candidature was a breach of order and a 
 stultification of their body, inasmuch as it directly broke a 
 by-law which had only been enacted a short time before. 
 
 It was on the reading of this by - law that the whole 
 question turned, and it was argued by the opponents of the 
 Council's nominee, Mr. H. Jones, with great apparent justice, 
 that the nomination of the next in succession on the list of 
 the Council by the Council was a formal and unavoidable 
 act, and not a personal expression of opinion by the mem- 
 bers severally, and that, far from its of necessity carrying 
 the vote and sympathy of the general body, it did not even 
 pledge the member of Council as an individual to ratify by 
 his vote the recommendation which his official position had 
 obliged him to make. 
 
 It followed, then, that the nominee of the Council being 
 merely " recommended " to the general body of the Insti- 
 tute, it was quite open to any individuals to start a rival 
 candidate. 
 
 My father's own view may be put shortly in his own 
 ■ words : — 
 
 " I am the person," he said, " who, when the order of presidents 
 
266 MEMOIR OF 
 
 was settled four years ago, was placed next in succession to Mr. 
 Whichcord, and above Mr. Horace Jones. But feeling that I could 
 not possibly take the presidentship on the strength of such an elec- 
 tion, in justice either to the Fellows or to myself, 1 retired. Since 
 that time I have been absolutely passive on the subject, but I have 
 always felt that it would be an honour to be elected to the office, 
 and when I was asked by a member of the Council whether I would 
 serve if elected, I had no hesitation in agreeing to do so on this 
 occasion." 
 
 Again he said : " I resigned my vice-presidentship because I did 
 not choose to succeed to such a post as a mere matter of rotation. 
 I think the system an extremely bad one, and if I am ever presi- 
 dent it will be in spite of this rule." 
 
 My father's consent to serve having been obtained, he 
 was duly proposed by certain members of the Council. 
 Much as the sticklers for order deprecated the idea of a 
 contested election, the more liberal section of the Institute 
 felt that, even at the cost of displaying to the public the 
 internal dissensions of their body, they could not logically 
 refuse the battle. 
 
 On 9th May my father was elected after a hard fight, 
 but he only lived to hold the post for a few months. 
 
 It is interesting to notice what his attitude was towards 
 the movement in favour of closing the profession, and how 
 far he was satisfied with the position of the modern architect. 
 There was in his lifetime — there is still more now — a tendency 
 by means of qualifying examinations, and by the granting of 
 diplomas, to make the practice of architecture as impossible 
 for any one outside the close corporation as is the practice 
 of the law for those not duly qualified. The architect is 
 from this point of view primarily the professional man, the 
 man of business, and secondarily the artist. He will be 
 the first to approve of the system on which architects are 
 at present paid — the percentage on the outlay — because it 
 appeals to business instincts ; and, indeed, the system has 
 able supporters, for has not Lord Grimthorpe himself raised 
 his voice in favour of it, and has instanced in a way as flat- 
 tering as it is convincing the terms on which a broker is 
 paid ? yet happily there are some who hold strongly to the 
 opposite view, and even go so far as to refuse to be stigma- 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 267 
 
 tised as professional men. My father did not go so far as 
 this, but he was profoundly dissatisfied with the low stand- 
 point which many of his brethren were prepared to take, 
 and of the system of payment he said : "In old days men 
 were paid for their work and for the exercise of their talents, 
 and not on our ludicrous and unsatisfactory percentage 
 system." 
 
 His opposition to the illiberal spirit which prompts the 
 closing of the door against all who will not submit them- 
 selves to the tender mercies of the examiner, dated from his 
 earliest days, and continued without abatement to the end of 
 his life. Here is a letter written to the Times five and 
 twenty years ago, which makes his position plain : — 
 
 " Mr. Cole's very natural and affectionate reference to Captain 
 Fowke might well, I think, have been allowed to pass without 
 question ; and remembering how very rare the instances are in com- 
 petitions where the second prizeman does not think himself unfairly 
 treated by the judges, one may be permitted to think also that a 
 competitor, fairly defeated by Captain Fowke, was the last person 
 who should have allowed himself to utter the protest which has been 
 addressed to you to-day. As, however, your correspondent has 
 raised the question of Captain Fowke's claim to be called an architect 
 at all, I pray you to allow me, as one who entirely believes that he 
 has just as much right to do so as most of us, to say a few words on 
 
 this subject. Mr. 's ' specially educated architect ' earns his 
 
 right to call himself one solely by the process of paying a premium 
 to some practising architect, and spending from three to four years 
 in his office ; after which, if he can persuade any one to give him 
 work to do, nobody will object to his calling himself an architect and 
 undertaking the work. Captain Fowke, on the other hand, adopted 
 a profession which at least involved a great deal of scientific educa- 
 tion, and trained him in many ways most admirably for the practice 
 of a constructive art. Then, after many years' successful pursuit of 
 his profession, accident or his own choice induced him to devote 
 some eight or ten years of his life almost entirely to the preparation 
 of designs for buildings of various kinds and various degrees of 
 importance, from the simplest volunteer shed to the museum build- 
 ings at Edinburgh, South Kensington, and the like. 
 
 " In common fairness one must admit that he was at least as 
 likely to do his work well as any man ' specially educated ' in the 
 usual way would be. The real test of his claim to be an architect 
 in the best sense of the word is the examination of the works which 
 
j68 memoir of 
 
 he carried into execution. Had Mr. 's theories as to architects 
 
 been invented long enough ago, many of our greatest men would 
 have been utterly unknown. I will take two examples only from 
 among many of all ages, and ask whether or no Giotto was an 
 architect when he built his campanile at Florence, or whether Sir 
 Christopher Wren — who probably began to practise as an architect 
 at about the same age as Captain Fowke — ever acquired any right 
 to the title, seeing that he had never been ' specially educated ' for 
 the purpose ? 
 
 " The simple truth is that he is the best architect who can erect 
 the best building, and whatever doubts many of us may have as to 
 Captain Fowke's exact rank in the profession, there are but few, I 
 hope, who would pretend to charge him with being a mere amateur ; 
 while I hope that all those who regard architecture as an art, instead 
 of a mere trade or profession, join me in a decided opinion that, 
 as all arts owe very much to the enthusiasm of amateurs, so he is 
 no real artist who wishes to shut us up within the narrow bounds 
 of routine and conventionahsm, which it is the tendency of special 
 education to establish for its pupils. 
 
 " To many of us it was rather a pleasure than the reverse to find 
 so accomplished, so able, and so earnest a man as Captain Fowke 
 willing to throw in his lot with us, and to most of us, I am sure, it 
 is a pain rather than a pleasure to find that the grave has no sooner 
 closed over his body than the first opportunity is seized with avidity 
 to proclaim that after all he was only an amateur." 
 
 This manly protest against professional cliqueism excited 
 many warm expressions of agreement from other " specially 
 educated " architects, and brought my father proof that he 
 was not alone in the view he took. The position then assumed 
 was resolutely maintained, and naturally so, for is it not one 
 which all must take who do not wish to see their art degraded 
 into something not worthy the name, and who prefer the clear 
 ray of Art strong and unfettered to the fitful gleam of the 
 rushlight of professional routine ? 
 
 A society which is recognised as having on its roll the 
 names of many of the most illustrious in their calling, and, 
 if numbers are a test, representative of the general views of 
 those who practise in the metropolis, should, as a consequence, 
 have an influence, if not an authority, of a more real kind 
 than the Institute can be said to have. My father felt this 
 strongly. He was of opinion that the Government or the 
 governing bodies of large cities should be encouraged and 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 269 
 
 urged to consult the Council of the Institute as to the pre- 
 liminaries of any great operations, as to the best routes for 
 streets, the best sites for great public buildings, the best 
 openings for architectural improvements. Had this been an 
 established custom we might, as he said, have been spared 
 the vast and barnlike sheds at Cannon Street and Charing 
 Cross, which are a disfigurement to the riverside, or indeed 
 the recent half-hearted improvements at Piccadilly Circus 
 and Hyde Park Corner. He would have also welcomed 
 most gladly the extension of the influence of the Institute 
 in saving works by deceased architects. Such a surveillance 
 would have made it impossible to put up a series of 
 erections on the top of the General Post Office, or to 
 leave the Colonial Office without the towers at the angles of 
 the Whitehall front ; it might well be even extended to all 
 our architectural treasures. The instances where the exercise 
 of such an influence might have saved us from Vandalism are 
 legion. There is the colonnade of Burlington House heaped 
 up somewhere on the other side of the river ; Temple Bar 
 laid up in some similar limbo ; the Buckingham Water Gate 
 half covered by earth, and used as a sort of rockery by the 
 gardener of those parts. All these cases seemed to my 
 father to cry out to be dealt with at once. They are still 
 waiting for some one with influence enough to give the 
 necessary impetus. Then, again, there are city churches 
 whose towers and spires, though far and away the most 
 picturesque features in a general view of our great city, are 
 yet given over to the destroyer one after another. 
 
 Here my father felt there was a boundless field for the 
 exercise of a salutary and intelligent influence. 
 
 The natural solution seemed to him to be the formation 
 of a ministry of fine arts, to which such a body as the 
 Institute would naturally stand in the relation of a consulting 
 architect. Not very long before his election as president, a 
 request had been made to the Institute to exercise a control 
 over or advise upon the general designs of certain buildings 
 in Northumberland Avenue. My father felt that the position 
 of the Institute on that occasion was a difficult one, and net 
 likely to be of service to architecture. Though the individual 
 
270 MEMOIR OF 
 
 members of the Council might, as he said, be excellent judges, 
 yet as a body they were unwilling to criticise too much the 
 work of one of their brethren, or to recommend conjointly 
 any alterations. 
 
 In this particular instance only elevations were sub- 
 mitted, so that only simple modifications could be suggested. 
 What advice was given did not appear to receive any 
 attention, and the sole consequence was that buildings over 
 which the Institute had really exercised no control wxre 
 erected with the cachet of that body. " For myself," my 
 father said, " I have no hesitation in saying that if we are 
 to have no more power than at present, we should have 
 less." 
 
 The election of my father as president "seemed to augur," 
 as I have seen it said, " a prosperous epoch for architecture 
 in England. He was no sooner installed in office than he 
 took by storm both friends and opponents by the broad, 
 impartial, and far-sighted view which he took of the responsi- 
 bilities of his office, and the dignity of a profession in which 
 he used his authority as a peacemaker and a reformer." 
 
 The moral influence which my father wished to see 
 evidences of in our vernacular art does indeed seem to have 
 become somewhat more apparent since he uttered his much- 
 applauded presidential address. The solidity for which he 
 argued so forcibly is not so transparently lacking as it was 
 even in actual shop-fronts, and if much of the less inferior 
 work in our main streets is nothing more than copyism, 
 sometimes rather ignorant, yet this is better than bad work 
 pure and simple, and the good houses which are sprinkled 
 about may be confidently said to have done something to 
 leaven the mass in the last decade. 
 
 In the early part of 1881 an event took place which 
 caused my father more real happiness than anything affect- 
 ing him alone could have given, viz. my engagement to the 
 elder daughter of his friend and colleague, Mr. Wells. My 
 father had a peculiar affection for my wife, and had looked 
 forward to the possibility of our engagement with an interest 
 which did much to make him forget his own grief A couple 
 of months later — in June — not feeling in the best of health. 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 271 
 
 he proposed that wc should go abroad together, perhaps for 
 the last time as he said, only too truly. His first idea was 
 to show me something of Spain, but finally he decided on 
 Germany as being more accessible. From Cologne we went 
 to Ems, Limburg-on-the-Lahn, Dietkirchen, Wetzlar — name 
 familiar to lovers of Goethe — Marburg, Gelnhausen, Eisen- 
 ach, Erfurt, Arnstadt, Naumburg, Schulpforta, Halle, Merse- 
 burg, Leipzig, Dresden, Meissen, Jiiterbog, Berlin. During 
 the early part of the tour my father seemed well ; he entered 
 into the sight-seeing with his accustomed zest and made no 
 complaint, but as we went on symptoms of suppressed gout 
 began to show themselves, and his ailment, though seemingly 
 trivial, spoilt his pleasure so much, that he decided to try 
 whether Surrey air would not have a better effect. We had 
 intended going from Berlin into the brick country of the 
 north, particularly to Stralsund and Stettin, which my father 
 had never seen, but we now made straight for Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 where he spent a few days unprofitably in drinking the 
 waters, and so home. 
 
 Once in England he went about his work in the ordinary 
 way, and with not less than his usual vigour. His great 
 work at East Grinstead was now drawing to a close, and on 
 St. Margaret's day we attended the annual gathering there, 
 to see how things looked. " There," as my father character- 
 istically said, " we found a great mob of people, among 
 whom the shy architect seemed the least important." If 
 the architect did occupy a subordinate position that day, 
 he had himself to thank for it. He had a natural horror of 
 being made much of in his own person, which it was difficult 
 to reconcile with the importance which he rightly attached 
 to his official position as architect of the building, the com- 
 pletion of which was being celebrated. On this occasion the 
 health of the architect was certainly proposed, probably in 
 flattering terms, but the architect himself was unconscious 
 , of the fact, as we had effected our retreat from the tent just 
 before the speeches began. 
 
 I think after this time my father never felt thoroughly well. 
 He began to suffer from headache, intermittent at first, after- 
 wards chronic, of a worrying rather than a painful nature. 
 
272 MEMOIR OF 
 
 On 6th August he writes in his diary : " Went to see the 
 doctor, being troubled a Httle with headache ; he puts it down 
 to overwork, and wants me to go to the Baths of St. Gervais." 
 Nothing could have been much less acceptable than such a 
 suggestion ; he was never so happy as when he was in har- 
 ness, and looked forward dismally to the prospect of vegetat- 
 ing for weeks at a place of which he did not then know the 
 attractiveness, without companionship, and with the know- 
 ledge that there was lots of work at home which wanted 
 doing. Luckily Mr. Pearson, R.A., was meditating taking 
 his holiday at the same time, and arranged to go with him. 
 They started in the latter end of August and went straight 
 to their destination, where, for a fortnight, they conscientiously 
 submitted themselves to the daily baths and walks ; a day 
 or two before my father left they were joined by Mr. Ewan 
 Christian. From St. Gervais my father went to Chamounix, 
 and, after looking at the churches at Vevay and Lausanne, 
 joined his colleagues again at Aix-les-Bains. He was away 
 about four weeks altogether, and was troubled more or less 
 by headache the whole time ; but his general health did 
 not seem bad, and he did a good deal of walking and sketch- 
 ing in spite of very bad weather. 
 
 After returning to England he seemed to get gradually 
 better, and by October had even got rid of his headache. 
 In the course of the month he went down to Combe Bank 
 to spend a Sunday with Mr. Spottiswoode, a strange coin- 
 cidence, for these two — host and guest — were the very 
 next two to whom a resting-place in the Abbey was to be 
 given. 
 
 Early in November I went down to Southwold and 
 Blythburgh with my father, and we sketched and measured 
 the churches together ; and on the 7th of the month the 
 winter session at the Institute began, and he gave his wise 
 and thoughtful opening address ; on that evening I was 
 present as a visitor, and the cheers which greeted my name, 
 when it was read out among the list of candidates for 
 election to the Associateship, testified to the popularity of 
 the new president. 
 
 On the 1 8th of November I went with my father to 
 
XII GEORGE EDMUND STREET i-j^ 
 
 Salisbur)', and we spent the whole afternoon sketching and 
 measuring an old house, which it was intended to convert to 
 some other use. I never saw my father more alert ; he did 
 his work quickly and thoroughly. That evening he saw the 
 dean on some cathedral business, and the next morning we 
 left early for Holmdale. I noticed that he was unusually 
 drowsy while we were in the train, and while we were walk- 
 ing up from the station to the house it became evident to 
 me that something had happened ; I feared that he had had 
 a paralytic stroke, though I could not tell at what moment. 
 He began speaking of my mother as though she were still 
 living. I noticed too that there was a hesitation in his 
 walk which was unusual. 
 
 Two days later we came up to town, and my father 
 seemed to mend, though very 'slowly. He made no attempt 
 to do work of any kind. Friends came to see him, and his 
 progress towards convalescence was such that we made all 
 our preparations for a lengthened tour in Egypt. It had 
 been arranged that I should accompany him during the 
 earlier part of the journey, and my place was then to have 
 been taken b}' Mr. P"rank Walton, the painter, who, for friend- 
 ship's sake, was prepared to take upon himself this anxious 
 and responsible position. 
 
 Three or four days only before the date fixed for our 
 start my father was again struck by paralysis. He was 
 sitting at the dinner-table talking to Mr. Wells, who had 
 been dining with him, when the seizure took place. He 
 must have realised then that his end was near ; it is more 
 than probable that he had done so before, though he always 
 made light of his illness, and affected to see no reason for 
 behaving as an invalid. Once in bed he soon sank into 
 sleep, and the next morning was seemingly almost unconscious, 
 just able to say to me, " I am glad to hear your voice," and 
 never speaking again. On 1 8th December he gradually 
 passed from unconsciousness into death. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 My father is said, by some at least of those who knew him, 
 to have been of rather a serious disposition as a child, with a 
 propensity to seek the society of his elders. This preference 
 was due in some measure to the circumstance of his having 
 been thrown so much into thd company of a brother several 
 years older than himself, whose tastes and occupations he 
 had learnt to share at an age when most boys would have 
 found them irksome ; and it is a very natural one in a child 
 with an active brain, who innocently looks upon his elders 
 as walking encyclopaedias for supplying information and 
 solving difficulties. 
 
 I gather, however, from various little signs, that my father 
 was boyish enough among boys, and as full of life and fun 
 as a healthy high-spirited child naturally is. In manhood, 
 though he gave evidence of a grave and earnest disposition — 
 " a mixture of gentleness and strength," as I have heard it 
 called, — yet he was the best and most cheery of companions, 
 knowing when to be serious, but the last person in the 
 world to stalk through the lighter scenes of life as though it 
 were all high tragedy. 
 
 His merits and demerits were those of the typical 
 Englishman. He told me once that at her last breath my 
 stepmother murmured, " TJie English face." The face was 
 a faithful index to the character. He may have had some 
 of that insular exclusiveness which makes an Englishman 
 hesitate before he gives his friendship, or the semblance of 
 it, to every one he meets ; possibly to those who did not 
 know him he may have seemed hard of approach, but such 
 an idea was soon dispelled on a better acquaintance, and 
 
CHAP. XIII MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET 275 
 
 where he once gave his friendship he did not hghtly with- 
 draw it ; nor was it of that selfish type which would take all 
 for itself and give nothing in return. There are many who 
 could testify to services rendered again and again by him, to 
 a thoughtfulness always on the watch, to a willing sacrifice of 
 time and trouble at friendship's call. 
 
 I'^ffusive he was not ; but he was straightforward, sincere, 
 and charitable ; not one of those who utter unpalatable truths, 
 but a man who, where he could, gave praise, and, where he 
 could not, was silent. 
 
 Few can honestly say that they have cast no stones at 
 their neighbours. My father had to put up with unusual 
 provocation, but he spoke no uncharitable word when it 
 might well have been forgiven. His weapon, when he had 
 to draw it, was the good broadsword of honest outspokenness 
 and not the rapier of innuendo. 
 
 His charity was large, and so given that he himself could 
 not know its extent, others certainly not. After his death I 
 had ample opportunity for gauging, what I had till then 
 been only able to guess at, the extent to which he had been 
 in the habit of helping those who, from bad health or want 
 of ability, had fallen out of the teeming ranks of his profes- 
 sion to swell the vast multitude of the respectable unem- 
 ployed ; nor was this help by any means restricted to that 
 form which is easiest for the giver and the least useful to 
 the recipient — money, — but it represented an expenditure 
 of time and thought on his part in the attempt to secure a 
 relief which should be of a more permanent kind, and less 
 wounding to the susceptibilities. 
 
 What he did on behalf of the church in whose welfare 
 he took so deep an interest is too well known to need 
 recapitulation. In many instances, where his sympathy was 
 strongly in a work, he freely gave his services as architect, 
 with the proviso, however, that his having done so should not 
 be known. In the case of the very first work which came 
 into his hands, when as yet he was quite uncertain whether 
 a second was ever to follow, he expressed his intention, as 
 a true son of the Church, of giving his earliest work to her 
 as a free offering". 
 
176 MEMOIR OF 
 
 But, though generous when a cause commended itself to 
 him, he had on occasion to assert his rights in no doubtful 
 tone, when, as sometimes happened, he found that it had 
 been taken for granted that he was prepared to devote his 
 time and talents on some one else's behalf, for the mere love 
 of the thing. More than once, after having been asked to 
 make designs by some one of whom he had had no previous 
 kno\\'ledge at all, he was met, when he asked for payment, 
 by an outburst of righteous indignation at the request, and 
 nothing more substantial. To be generous to the gentleman 
 who is engaged in rifling one's pockets is not in human 
 nature, and he rebelled in an unmistakable way. 
 
 Without any trace of self-conceit, he must early have 
 become conscious of the possession of considerable powers. 
 That he admitted to himself satisfaction in much of his 
 own work his diary and his most intimate letters bear 
 witness, but he confesses with equal frankness the presence 
 of a blemish where he perceives one. He criticises the 
 products of his own imagination ; but that he should have 
 felt proud of much that he did was no more than the logical 
 consequence of his never allowing a design to leave his 
 office unless he was thoroughly satisfied at the time that he 
 could not better it. 
 
 There must be hours and days in the life of every man 
 when the imagination cannot answer fully to the calls made 
 upon it. It may be that the frame is jaded with overwork 
 or weakened by illness, or there is some thought which 
 dominates and engrosses the mind with paralysing complete- 
 ness. The products of the imagination working under such 
 disadvantages as these must almost necessarily be below the 
 usual standard of excellence. My father's robust health, 
 and the strength of will which enabled him to give an 
 undivided attention to his work directly he applied himself 
 to it, made such occasions rare with him ; but I can remem- 
 ber instances of designs done under such conditions which 
 were afterwards discarded wholly and ruthlessly when he 
 came to look at them again. 
 
 In his dealings with his clients he never placed himself 
 on the pedestal of infallibility. His relation to them was 
 
XIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 277 
 
 that of friend and adviser, not that of an autocrat to his 
 subject. He held his business to be to carry out their 
 wishes with exactness, when expressed, and so to manipulate 
 their ideas as to make them susceptible of translation into 
 brick and stone, not to begin by showing them that what 
 they wanted was wrong or impossible, and then insisting on 
 their acceptance of something quite different. But with 
 all this there was a limit which self-respect would not allow 
 him to overstep. The free criticism which seems to come 
 most readily from those who know the subject least, the 
 sweeping suggestions which are made so glibly as if it were 
 an architect's business to be constantly doing the same 
 plans over and over again, generally found him inflexible. 
 What, indeed, would be left to the architect, or to what 
 purpose his training, if, himself an expert, he were to be 
 always bound to defer to the views of those who were 
 not so ? 
 
 It is true that those who put themselves in his hands 
 were generally content to do so with little restriction. His 
 obvious self-reliance and strength of character begat a 
 corresponding feeling of security in those for whom he 
 worked which often became enthusiasm. It is rare, indeed, 
 for me to meet a client of his who does not cherish his 
 memory as a man and as an artist. Much more commonly 
 does it happen that they will speak of him with unaffected 
 emotion and respect, and welcome the son for the sake of 
 the father. I fear to exaggerate, but I think it true that 
 wherever he bestowed his friendship he exerted by his stead- 
 fastness and right-mindedness a real and appreciable moral 
 influence ; certainly none who were thrown much against 
 him could help feeling sensible of his power. 
 
 I am indebted to General Philip Smith, for whom my 
 father restored Wendover Church in 1867, for the following 
 notes on their relations as architect and client : — 
 
 "In 1877 the reconstruction of the interior of the Royal Military 
 Chapel, Wellington Barracks, having been entrusted to your father, 
 I was, as Treasurer to the Committee which had charge of the work, 
 brought into intimate relations with him. 
 
 " There was a great mass of detail to be prepared besides the 
 
278 MEMOIR OF 
 
 general arrangement of the decoration, which had to be considered, 
 not only with reference to its artistic effect, but also with regard to 
 the religious feeling to be produced by it. 
 
 " Whether in making the sketch for a capital, or criticising and 
 modifying the designs for a stained glass window, a mosaic, or a 
 relief, Mr. Street was equally remarkable for the ease and correctness 
 with which he decided on what was requisite and desirable, while he 
 never failed to maintain the religious character of the building, and 
 to appreciate the sacred object for which the ornamentation was 
 intended. 
 
 " He invariably received suggestions with perfect patience and 
 forbearance, and discussed carefully points which were brought 
 before him, accepting what was good, and declining what, for valid 
 reasons, he knew to be unsuitable. The result speaks for itself. 
 
 " As regards myself, I was often amazed at the readiness with 
 which he grasped a suggestion, the facility with which he put on 
 paper the sketch of what was proposed, and his decision in pro- 
 nouncing on its merit or the reverse. I always felt the greatest 
 confidence that he would not allow a mistake to be made. I look 
 back upon my work with him with the greatest pleasure, and with 
 gratitude for the manner in which he often discussed ideas which no 
 doubt had at once appeared to him to be crude and inappropriate. 
 
 " 1 had the greatest possible admiration for him, and, whether as 
 regards his feelings or his powers, I always found him ec]ually superior. 
 
 " I consider myself most happy to have been so well acrjuainted 
 with him.'' 
 
 I have said something of the energy with which my father 
 worked for his own profession generally and its individual 
 members. He had its good very much at heart, and did not 
 spare time or pains to better it. This is well illustrated by 
 his action in starting the visitorships in the Royal Academy 
 Architectural School, in his willingness to read papers, to 
 give lectures to advance the study of tlie art general!}', in his 
 constant attendance at the Royal Institute, and the promi- 
 nent part he took in the business when any vital question 
 arose, in the diligence with which he sought out the younger 
 men whose ability he had marked, and ga\'e them what 
 prominence he was able. He had a heart)' admiration for 
 the work of man}' of his brother architects, and his relations 
 with them were kindly and cordial. If he had any feeling 
 of jealousy or rivalr}' he did not show it, and it certain!}^ 
 did not influence his words or actions. I have often heard 
 
xiii GEORGE EDMUND STREET 279 
 
 him congratulate himself on belonging to a profession in 
 which jealousy had so small a part, and where men were 
 glad and eager to praise each other's work frankly and cor- 
 dially. 
 
 My father's dealings with those in a lower station showed 
 consistent kindness and consideration. To the thousands of 
 workmen with whom he had to do at one time and another 
 he was an object of sincere respect, because they saw 
 that he knew his work in no superficial way, and because, 
 so knowing it, he was never unjustly severe or foolishly 
 lenient. At his death the men employed at the Law Courts 
 tendered an unsought testimony to his merits as an architect 
 and a master. The same feeling showed itself among all 
 with whom he had business relations. His thoroughness 
 commanded respect, and his strict and equal justice was 
 welcomed with much more real satisfaction than a weaker 
 and less consistent course would have been. 
 
 As a master he was sincerely esteemed by those in his 
 service, while in the little village where he had made his 
 home, one and all recognised what an epoch his coming 
 among them had created, and how great the benefits he had 
 secured for them. 
 
 Our vicar tells me that his devout example, his rever- 
 ence and devotion in the house of God, have borne fruit in 
 the heartiness and orderliness of the churchgoers to-day, and 
 that many of the people have told him as much. As to the 
 esteem in which his memory is held by them, he says : " It is 
 a significant fact that in many of their cottages there is 
 hanging on the wall the best printed likeness that their 
 means could procure." 
 
 Of his intimate life day by day, of his relations to my 
 ^mother and me, I have said little or nothing, though it is 
 the home side of him that I knew best and remember most, 
 because I feel it to be hopeless to try and put my recollections 
 into words. Our fireside circle was so small in itself that I 
 fancy there was more than the usual intimacy, sympathy, and 
 affection between us ; and the very length of my father's 
 work-a-day hours, while keeping him somewhat apart, made 
 the mutual enjoyment of his rare leisure all the greater. As 
 
28o MEMOIR OF 
 
 far back as I can remember it was his practice to be down by 
 half-past seven or earlier, winter and summer, to set to work 
 upon his correspondence, which was voluminous. During 
 my mother's lifetime our breakfast hour was nine, and not 
 unfrequently a little later, mine the fault, I am ashamed to 
 say ; for I well remember now how often it happened that 
 while I was guiltily snatching a few minutes' extra sleep, I 
 would hear my father's step as he came running up like a 
 big brother, to tumble me out of bed and joke me out of my 
 laziness. By that time he had done a good hour and a half's 
 work, which sufficed as a rule to clear off the arrears of un- 
 answered letters of the evening before, and to make a good 
 start at those of the morning. The majority of the letters he 
 received were answered personally, on the others he wrote in 
 pencil a brief outline of what he wished written in reply. It 
 was his custom to go with my mother every Saints' Day to 
 early celebration at All Saints, Margaret Street. This rule 
 was never departed from, and involved some slight alteration 
 in the arrangement of the day's work. Breakfast, however, 
 was always at the same time, and did not take more than 
 half an hour, so that by a quarter to ten my father was in 
 his study again ready to deal with the series of questions 
 arising out of the office business ; and then, when they were 
 disposed of, buckling down to his work for the day. During 
 the next three hours he did as much designing as he could, 
 but a great deal of time was necessarily — and sometimes 
 unnecessarily — devoted to long interviews with clients and 
 others. 
 
 After lunch, which he took soon after one o'clock, he saw 
 no one except his clerks, so that he was comparatively free 
 from interruption. What exercise he was able to get he took 
 in the afternoon, generally between three and five ; he would 
 then inspect any work he might have going on in town. 
 Very frequently he would have to attend a meeting or fulfil 
 some engagement ; once in a way he would look in at an ex- 
 hibition of pictures. During the progress of the Law Courts 
 a considerable proportion of his afternoons was spent at work 
 in the office there or on the building — two, three, or even 
 more in a week. These visits generally lasted two or three 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 hours, and one such visit, provided there was no inter- 
 ruption, would give more than enough work for the whole 
 of the staff there. We used to hear the rattle of his 
 T-square through the door as it dashed up and down the 
 board, and then my father would come out of his room 
 with a sheaf of papers, put them down, and go out. No 
 sooner was his back turned than we would all run to see 
 what he had done for us, making a selection, so far as I 
 remember, according to our likings and our various degrees 
 of proficiency. 
 
 My father sometimes looked in at his club after leaving 
 the Law Courts, but he was, generally speaking, home again 
 between five and six, and would then set to work at letter- 
 writing again at once. Afternoon tea was a thing quite un- 
 known to him ; I doubt if he ever took it in his life except 
 on Sundays and when he had visitors. It came at a time 
 which was too valuable to be wasted — ^just before the post. 
 Letter-writing kept him employed till nearly dinner-time, 
 but he was usually able to make a start at his evening's task 
 before being called away. From seven till half-past nine he 
 put business wholly aside. After dinner in his early days 
 he very often sang. Music of all kinds had a great charm 
 for him, but he became a listener rather than a performer 
 while I was still quite a boy. If there was no music, he 
 either read or we had a few games of cards. Unfortunately, 
 victory almost always inclined to the same side, whether my 
 mother or I opposed him, for he had, as lar as I could judge, the 
 makings of a card-player of excellence — memory, judgment, 
 power of combination, dash. In the summer we often enough 
 sat out in the square or on the balcony while my father 
 smoked the cigar, at first rare and afterwards habitual. Then, 
 as the cloud of smoke rose slowly up, we seemed all of us to 
 'see visions of fair towns and pleasant countries still unvisited. 
 Those were the hours when we talked over — with what en- 
 thusiasm ! — our summer holiday. My father's keenness for 
 travel was never dulled so long as he lived. The change 
 from the weary routine of professional life, the intensity of 
 his enjoyment of the beautiful in art and nature, the robust- 
 ness of a constitution which never failed to respond to the 
 
282 MEMOIR OF 
 
 benefits of change of scene and fresh air combined to make 
 those few weeks precious to him hardly less by anticipation 
 than actually. The cigar finished, my father had tea, and 
 then went to his study for three good hours of work, rarely 
 going up to bed till half-past twelve. This was the time 
 when he felt most at his ease in designing, and worked most 
 rapidly, because he knew that he should not hear the step on 
 the office stair which foreboded interruption. 
 
 The day thus systematically divided allowed but little 
 time for reading. My father generally managed to exhaust 
 the paper during the short intervals before going to work after 
 breakfast and lunch. In politics he took a decided though 
 not an active interest ; his convictions were strong and his 
 opinions well known. He was able to read very quickly, 
 and yet to retain what he read with considerable 
 accuracy. Novels he rarely touched in my recollection, but 
 he was familiar with all the best. When he did read them 
 he was often much moved. I remember how, after my 
 stepmother's untimely death, he took up the Heir of Redclyffe ; 
 he found, as he expected, a sort of companionship in Amy's 
 loss which soothed him even though it made him dwell on 
 his own bereavement. 
 
 With the literature of architecture, art, and religion he 
 was widely conversant. He had read and studied these sub- 
 jects diligently as a young man, and had thought them over 
 so seriously that the views he then formed underwent com- 
 paratively little change. 
 
 It resulted from the immense amount of railway travel- 
 ling which his practice entailed, that he read a great deal of 
 that literature in the form of journals and reviews which can 
 be finished at a sitting. He was never idle when he was in 
 the train ; if he was not reading he was writing, or if the 
 country through which he was passing was an interesting 
 one, he would constant!}- make rough sketches of what struck 
 him as worth seeing. In this way he was able to note down 
 places to be included in a future tour, with the amount or 
 kind of interest attaching to each. 
 
 I remember on the day when he was first struck with 
 paralysis, how surprised and even disturbed I was to see 
 
XIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 283 
 
 him constantly dozing off in the train between Guildford 
 and Gomshall. Soon after our arrival at the latter station 
 the seizure took place ; we were walking at the time, but so 
 indomitable was his energy even then that he walked two or 
 three miles farther to our home, though it was evidently ex- 
 hausting to him. His servant told me afterwards that for 
 two or three mornings previous to the attack he had had a 
 little difficulty in waking him in the morning. The circum- 
 stance had struck him particularly, because, as a general rule, 
 my father was wide awake on the instant. 
 
 Of his earlier work-a-day life Mr. R. Norman Shaw, R.A., 
 writes to me as follows : — 
 
 " My first introduction to Mr. Street was in the early part of 
 1859, when I went to arrange with him about going into his office, 
 as successor to Mr. Philip Webb, who was about to leave. We 
 soon completed our arranc^ements, and he was uniformly kind and 
 courteous from that day till the last time I saw him, which happened 
 to be at the Academy in the autumn of 1881. My feeling is that 
 he was a man of an even temper, for whilst in his office I had ample 
 opportunities of seeing him tried in many ways ; of course business 
 matters did not always go smoothly — he had often to alter or modify 
 his work to suit the tastes or caprices of clients, — and he had dis- 
 agreeable letters just as other people have, but they rarely seemed 
 to ruffle him, and never made him in any way unreasonable with us 
 in the office. 
 
 " We worked hard — or thought we did, — we had to be at 
 the office at nine o'clock, and our hour of leaving was six o'clock — 
 long hours, — but he never encroached on our own time, and 
 as a matter of fact I am sure I never stayed a minute past six 
 o'clock. 
 
 "There were some interesting men in the office, and we were 
 thoroughly happy. I am sure we were loyal, and believed in our 
 master entirely, so that our work was really a pleasure ; he was our 
 master — and let us know it, — not by nagging or in an aggressive 
 spirit, but by daily showing that he knew more than any of us, and 
 'could in a given time do about twice as much. 
 
 " When a new work appeared, his custom was to draw it out in 
 pencil in his own room — plans, elevations, and sections, — even put- 
 ting in the margin lines and places where he wished the title to go ; 
 nothing was sketched in ; it was drawn, and exactly as he wished it to 
 be, so that really there was little to do, except to ink in his drawings, 
 and tint and complete them. 
 
 " The rapidity and precision with which he drew were marvellous. 
 
284 MEMOIR OF 
 
 I have never seen any one, not merely to equal, but to approach him, 
 and he was as accurate as he was rapid. 
 
 " We used to prepare for him a dozen or fifteen sheets of details 
 — all slightly set out to a large scale with full-size mouldings, etc., 
 and these we placed in his room of an evening. When we came in 
 the morning we flew to our boards to find the whole carefully cor- 
 rected and any amount added, both of drawing and of notes. 
 Often, in fact generally, the sheets were covered on both sides 3 
 every piece of tracery had been amended, every moulding drawn 
 with a fine clear line, and perhaps half a dozen sheets of ironwork 
 (in designing which he was very fertile and original) drawn full size 
 with all the sections indicated. No wonder that we were enthusi- 
 astic with such performances going on under our eyes daily. 
 
 " I well remember a little tour de force that fairly took our breath 
 away. He told us one morning that he was just off to measure an 
 old church — I think in Buckinghamshire, — and he left by the ten 
 o'clock train. About half-past four he came back and into the office 
 for some drawing paper ; he then retired into his own room, re- 
 appearing in about an hour's time with the whole church carefully 
 drawn to scale, with his proposed additions to it, margin lines and 
 title as usual, all ready to ink in and finish. Surely this was a suffi- 
 ciently good day's work ! two journeys, a whole church measured, 
 plotted to scale, and new parts designed in about seven hours and 
 a half 
 
 " He was the beau-ideal of a perfect enthusiast. He believed in 
 his own work, and in what he was doing at the time, absolutely ; 
 and the charm of his work is that when looking at it you may be 
 certain that it is entirely his own, and this applies to the smallest 
 detail as to the general conception. 
 
 " I am certain that during the whole time I was with him I never 
 designed one single moulding." 
 
 I spent a great deal of my time in the study while I 
 was a child, leaning as far as I could over the high table 
 at which my father used to work — generally standing — and 
 watching his pencil perform feats which fascinated me, none 
 the less because the results were not intelligible to me. My 
 father liked to have me there, but I often wonder now at 
 the forbearance he showed, for whenever his T-square moved 
 up or down the board the chances were that it encountered 
 my elbow at just the critical moment. That is my most 
 vivid recollection. I knew the iniquity of my proceeding, 
 but my memory was as short as his patience was long. No 
 
XIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 285 
 
 doubt he was glad that I should take an interest, how- 
 ever unintelligent, in what he hoped I should make the 
 business of my life. He never in any way forced my in- 
 clinations, but I could see that it would be a disappoint- 
 ment to him if I did not follow in his steps so far as I 
 was able. 
 
 From very early days he encouraged me to look over 
 his shoulder while he sketched ; and he was unaffectedly glad 
 when, of my own will, I set myself to try and put something 
 on paper. Generally speaking, he left me free to choose my 
 own subjects ; at other times he would make a choice for 
 me, putting in some of the leading lines when they presented a 
 difficulty which would be likely to discourage me, and correct- 
 ing my finished attempt. If by chance I achieved anything 
 above my usual average he was so obviously glad and proud 
 as to make me anxious to do much more. His own sketches 
 he was never in the habit of showing people unless specially 
 asked to do so, but he delighted in showing mine to his 
 friends if the opportunity came, talking them over with a 
 pleasure which might have made me think them better than 
 they were had I not known what a more than lenient critic 
 he was in all that concerned me. 
 
 Our foreign journeys, in which so much time was devoted 
 to architectural sightseeing and sketching, might easily have 
 become distasteful to a schoolboy, but my father contrived to 
 make them so entirely holiday trips, giving me information 
 in so interesting and apparently unmethodical a way, leaving 
 me free to do exactly what I liked, and apparently always 
 satisfied so long as I was happy and contented, that these 
 tours, in which I hope I learnt something, were the source of 
 infinite enjoyment to me. 
 
 Even during my mother's lifetime many of my days 
 abroad were spent in the sole companionship of my father. 
 Miss Holland, who was subsequently to be my father's 
 second wife, was often with us, so that we were able to leave 
 her with my mother while we made walking expeditions. 
 My father's pleasure in walking was hardly less than it had 
 been when he was a young man ; but it was a much more 
 severe exertion, and a good deal of pluck was wanted to keep 
 
286 MEMOIR OF 
 
 abreast of a boy who had no weight to cany. Mountain 
 scenery had a great charm for him, in fact he had a strong 
 sensibihty to the beauties of Nature, though he must have been 
 a little wanting in eye for colour, as his landscape work 
 hardly ever avoided a certain coldness, which he was quite 
 conscious of himself. My own watercolour sketching was 
 contemptible enough, but I was not afraid to put a little 
 of all the warm colours in the box on my paper, so that 
 my father often expressed a sort of amused admiration at the 
 generous richness of the effect. 
 
 His drawing of form and structure and of the lie of a 
 country was as good as it could be ; it was in the pure use 
 of colour that he failed. This criticism hardly applies to 
 his watercolour sketches of architectural subjects, which 
 were of great merit, though he rarely devoted the time to 
 making anything like a finished drawing. 
 
 The fact of my being an only child naturally threw me much 
 into his company, and during the seven years that followed 
 my mother's death we were almost constantly together ; but 
 he never let me feel the want of a brother or sister. He 
 was boyish when I was a boy, and entered into all my 
 amusements and interests with a life and spirit which was 
 not assumed. His companionship was better to me than 
 any one else's, and he must have known it ; but in the un- 
 selfish desire to do what he thought would be pleasant to 
 me, whatever the loss to himself, he expressly furnished a 
 room for me, so that I might be able to see my friends tcte- 
 a-tctc. The evidences of his kindness and thoughtfulness 
 might be multiplied indefinitely. 
 
 He trusted me implicitly and unreservedly, rarely giving 
 me advice, but doing better by setting an example which I 
 could not fail to accept as a good one. In money matters 
 he took the same line. He was most generous to me, giving 
 me in fact what I wanted, and only begging me never to 
 get into the habit of leaving bills unpaid. When I was 
 quite young a couple of hundred pounds were left me. The 
 monc)' burnt in my pocket ; vague possibilities haunted me. 
 My father waited some time hoping that I should make a 
 proposal on my own account ; and then, though I could see 
 
XIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 287 
 
 he did not like doing it, he told me jokingly that " the worst 
 bank in the world was my breeches pocket," and that I had 
 better let him invest the money. The suggestion was really 
 a relief to me. The money was invested accordingly in some 
 mysterious stock which yielded me from that time a mar- 
 vellously high rate of interest. 
 
 I remember his distress at accidentally opening a lawyer's 
 letter sent to me from Oxford in respect of some small and 
 long-forgotten bill. He was always so prompt in payment 
 himself that he had rather a horror of lawyer's letters ; but 
 he was distressed most by the idea that I might have left 
 this bill unpaid because I did not like to ask him for the 
 money. Such was not the case, for he always made such 
 requests so easy that I never felt at all concerned when I 
 had to make them. 
 
 He never spoke a harsh word that I remember, and I 
 felt that anger which it took so much to rouse would be a 
 terrible thing. Perhaps his temperament may have been an 
 equable one, but he certainly always impressed me as exer- 
 cising a great command over the expression of his feelings. 
 In the display of his affection, on the other hand, he had no 
 care for concealment ; his love for those who were dear to 
 him was evident in his whole demeanour. 
 
 I have said that his face was a typical English one : elo- 
 quent of strength and rectitude. His forehead was broad and 
 high, of a noticeable capacity ; his hair brown, inclining to 
 light, and soft in character— that on his face being decidedly 
 darker. His eyes were a peculiarly light blue, penetrating 
 and critical, but full of kindness, often twinkling with fun, 
 but too clearsighted to make deception advisable. His lips 
 were well formed and slightly compressed, in a way that was 
 suggestive of firmness and self-control ; when opened they 
 displayed a row of white and even teeth, which never gave 
 their possessor a moment's pain his whole life through. His 
 chin, hidden for the last twenty years of his life by a beard, 
 was square and strong. His complexion was fair but a little 
 weatherbeaten and with a good deal of colour. 
 
 In height he was a little over five feet ten, thickly and 
 muscularly built, and framed to bear any amount of fatigue ; 
 
288 MEMOIR OF 
 
 his shoulders were broad and rather sloping, his chest deep. 
 His hands were well shaped and rather small, with tapering 
 fingers. He suffered a good deal at times from delicacy of 
 their skin, which made them liable to become cracked and 
 painful ; this affection gave them latterly a rather unnatural 
 thickness, but did not destroy their characteristics. The 
 hand was not that of a listless or indolent man, but in repose 
 was habitually slightly clenched. When he sat reading in 
 his easy chair he was hardly ever quite still ; either he was 
 tapping with the paper-knife, or moving his leg gently up 
 and down. These motions did not in the least resemble 
 those which come from a fretful or worrying nature, but 
 hand and leg both were clearly parts of an organism which 
 rejoiced in an intense vitality. 
 
 Such a frame has all the elements of strength and endur- 
 ance in it, and my father was strong and healthy much 
 beyond the generality. Till the brief and fatal illness for 
 which a long business life spent at too high a pressure, and 
 with insufficient relaxation was mainly responsible, he had 
 hardly known what it was to be sick or sorry for a day. 
 Headache and toothache were alike unknown to him. Busy 
 days and short nights seemed to leave no mark. At fifty 
 he seemed to be as happy in the consciousness of perfect 
 health, or as happily unconscious of sickness, as he had been 
 thirty years before. 
 
 He did not know what it was to have a personal interest 
 in a country life till he was verging on fifty, but the zest 
 with which he entered into it, and the rapidity with which 
 he became conversant with all the arts of making a country 
 place, were remarkable. I have said elsewhere how skilfully 
 he disposed his grounds — a skill, by the way, which not so 
 long ago was justly regarded as part of an architect's neces- 
 sary equipment, — but he was not content to be responsible 
 merely for the general scheme. As in his own sphere of 
 work his motto seems from the very beginning to have been, 
 " If you want a thing done, do it yourself," so it was with his 
 gardening. Every detail of our garden at Holmdale was 
 his and no one else's. He speedily made himself acquainted 
 with all the trees and shrubs which are of the essence of the 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 garden of to-day, their capabilities, their uses, and their 
 limitations, and superintended every bit of planting, laying- 
 out, or disposing, as though to the manner born. It was not 
 merely that he preferred doing his own work, but he took 
 the greatest possible pleasure and interest in it. 
 
 Associated as it was in his mind with a succession of 
 sorrows, Holmdale speedily became an unequalled source of 
 consolation and happiness to him. His love for the rhodo- 
 dendrons and azaleas, of which he had made a great feature, 
 had something almost personal about it. The calm beauty 
 of the great masses of flower, with their glowing tokens of 
 life and vigour, appealed strongly to a heart which had been 
 lately wrung by death. Whenever he could escape from 
 town he did so, and he was able to get through an amount 
 of work there which in town would have been an impossi- 
 bility. More than this, the rapidity which perfect quiet 
 assured for his work allowed of his devoting a comparatively 
 short time to it. 
 
 In his earlier years he had been very fond of riding ; 
 for many \-ears he had contrived to get a ride with me 
 nearly every day when I was at home, but I think he felt 
 that he had arrived at the time of life when it is not wise 
 to risk an accident. Not long before coming to Holmdale 
 he was riding a horse which was in the habit of pulling up 
 short when it was frightened. My father was cantering 
 along a lane at a good pace when the horse suddenly 
 stopped dead. He was on the look-out, and kept his seat, 
 but his weight threw the horse down. The horse was badly 
 cut, and my father's confidence in it was destroyed, so that 
 he got rid of it at once. Almost at the very same time his 
 old friend. Bishop Wilberforce, met his death in a way so 
 nearly identical as to bring home forcibly to his mind the 
 serious possibilities to which he laid himself open by riding ; 
 at any rate he gave it up from that time and took to driving 
 instead. The whole country round Holmdale was practically 
 new to him, though he had been in the near neighbourhood 
 on some of his walks with his brother in his boyhood, and 
 he took a keen pleasure in finding out all its beauties and 
 showincf them to his friends. Even when he had visitors in 
 
290 MEMOIR OF 
 
 the house, which was ahnost more often than not, he usually 
 dev^oted his morning" to work, except for a stroll in the 
 garden after breakfast. In the afternoon he would give 
 himself a holiday, either driving, or roaming over the hill, 
 or playing lawn-tennis, which he enjoyed heartily and un- 
 affectedly, and without any of the usual gravity of the 
 middle-aged man \\\\o regards it as a serious pleasure, and 
 is proportionately sensitive to defeat. 
 
 When he was alone with me, he devoted more time to 
 work and less to leisure, otherwise the routine was the 
 same. He rarely did any work in the evening except 
 writing. 
 
 To feel dull in the country never occurred to him ; 
 nothing pleased him more than his own garden, where he 
 would sedulously pick off the dead rhododendron blossoms 
 or weed the lawn, encouraged by the approving glances 
 of his collies, Gyp, and old Rory his inseparable com- 
 panion. He liked, however, to have his friends round him. 
 As a host he was full of humour and gaiety, and his obvious 
 enjoyment of their company put his guests on the best terms 
 with themselves. His disposition was an eminently sociable 
 one. After my mother's death he was terribh' depressed 
 by loneliness ; London gives no companionship to the lonely, 
 but in the country he found something sympathetic in all 
 his surroundings. With many of his neighbours he was on 
 a footing of warm intimacy ; with all he was on good terms. 
 He did not love cliques, nor did he refuse an acquaintance 
 that was proffered to him. 
 
 Even in town my father never seemed to bring the 
 atmosphere of the office into the drawing-room, but in the 
 country the professional man was sunk altogether. " Shop," 
 pure and simple, was abominable to him. One friend he 
 had, I remember, not in the profession, who seemed deter- 
 mined to meet him on his own ground, and went on 
 describing church after church, till my father was fairly 
 wearied out. I can hear now the unconscious sigh of 
 relief he gave when the unfortunate gentleman, who no 
 doubt was congratulating himself on his admirable selec- 
 tion of subjects for conversation, took his bedroom candle. 
 
xui GEORGE EDMUND STREET 291 
 
 His interests were those of the country-side, not merely by 
 choice, but from his very nature. No need for him to 
 assume tastes and ways not naturally belonging to him ; 
 rather, it may be said, the simple, affectionate disposition of 
 the man which had come unscathed through the fiery ordeal 
 of a long professional career found in the country life sur- 
 roundings which were thoroughly congenial. 
 
 Throughout the winter he spent his Sundays in the 
 country. Sunday was his holiday, and he did not think it 
 wrong, after having been to church in the morning, to put 
 on his skates in the afternoon. I confess I always saw him 
 do so with fear and trembling. He had a perfect confidence 
 in his own ability to do difficult figures which was really not 
 justified. Twenty years before he had been able to do 
 them, but he had lost most of his youthful ability through 
 want of practice, and the result of his rash attempts was not 
 unfrequently a heavy fall, in which the back of his head 
 suffered most severely. In the days I am speaking of we 
 used to drive in nearly all weathers some six miles to church 
 at Cranleigh every Sunday morning ; after our own church 
 was built my father as churchwarden gave up the habit of 
 skating or playing lawn -tennis on Sunday afternoons, for 
 fear of its being misunderstood by the villagers, besides 
 which he never failed to attend evening service. Not only 
 did he give the church to the village, but he showed in his 
 own person how it should be used ; of his demeanour there 
 and its effect our vicar has spoken. Amid all the satis- 
 factions of the place the church, the memorial of his griefs, 
 was the greatest, and he rarely failed to take advantage of 
 the week-day service when he was there. The establishment 
 of \veek-day services was one of the aims of his life, and he 
 was happy in having been able to carry out his wish so near 
 his own doors. 
 
 The death of an architect must almost necessarily cause 
 some break of continuity in the works. In an undertaking 
 of such magnitude as the Law Courts, such a break might 
 easily have been fatal to the unity of the whole. Happily, 
 however, the design had been brought so near absolute 
 
292 MEMOIR OF 
 
 completion in all essentials as to make such a misfortune 
 impossible. In reality, little more remained than to see 
 that my father's intentions were strictly carried out. This 
 duty the Government entrusted to me in conjunction with 
 Mr. Arthur W. Blomfield, A.R.A., a friend of my father's — 
 in sympathy with his work, — one whose name he had men- 
 tioned during the course of his illness as being well fitted 
 for the task, — a man, too, in whom the public were sure to 
 put implicit trust. 
 
 Though, structurally, so little remained to be done, all 
 those little odds and ends which, even in a small building, 
 are so fruitful a source of delay, made another year's work 
 necessary, and it was not till 4th December 1882 that the 
 opening ceremony actually took place. 
 
 If the laying of the first stone had been performed in 
 almost too unpretending a way, the same complaint certainly 
 cannot be made of the proceedings which attended the open- 
 ing. It is not for me to enter here on the absolutely unique 
 character of the ceremony of the day, the meeting of the 
 sovereign with the whole body of her judges, and the formal 
 completion and fulfilment of the long-cherished idea of con- 
 centrating all the branches of the judicature under one roof 
 It is enough to say that everything combined to make the 
 pageant worthy of the occasion. The rare sunshine came 
 opportunely to make the scene a gorgeous one. 
 
 The ceremony itself was brief and impressive. Having 
 proceeded up the great hall, which was filled with a brilliant 
 throng, the Queen, standing on a dais at the northern end, 
 received the key — the outward symbol of possession — from 
 the hands of the First Commissioner of Works, and gave 
 it to the Lord Chancellor, at the same time declaring the 
 building to be open for ever. 
 
 After a speech from the Lord Chancellor, in which 
 sympathetic reference was made to the absence of the archi- 
 tect, the Queen passed out through the north cross corridor, 
 and the proceedings were so far complete. Later on in the 
 day the various Inns of Court celebrated the occasion in a 
 sumptuous way. 
 
 Immediately after my father's death the Council of the 
 
XIII GEORGE EDMUND STREET 293 
 
 Institute took the initiative in asking the Dean of West- 
 minster to allow of his being publicly interred in the Abbey. 
 This request was backed up by representatives of the Royal 
 Academy and many distinguished men, and was at once 
 acceded to. It was the first time since Dr. Bradley entered 
 on his office that he had been called upon to exercise his 
 prerogative. 
 
 The funeral, which took place on 29th December, was 
 remarkable for the extraordinarily large attendance of the 
 members of architectural and artistic bodies. The pall- 
 bearers were : Right Hon. A. J. B. Beresford Hope, M.P. (Presi- 
 dent of the Architectural Museum) ; Sir Frederick Leighton, 
 Bart, P.R.A. ; Right Hon. G. J. Shaw Lefevre, M.P. (the First 
 Commissioner of Works) ; Mr. W. H. Gladstone, M.P. (repre- 
 senting the Prime Minister) ; Mr. Edwin Freshficld (represent- 
 ing the Societ}' of Antiquaries) ; Professor T. Hayter Lewis 
 (acting President of the R.I.B.A.) ; the Bishop of Winchester 
 (Dr. Harold Browne) ; and Mr. Justice Kay (representing the 
 Lord Chancellor). Delegations from all the chief societies 
 with which my father had been connected attended, and the 
 Prince of Whales sent a fully-equipped carriage. 
 
 The place of interment was immediately at the foot [i.e. 
 eastward) of that where Sir Gilbert Scott had been laid 
 three years and a half before, the grave of Sir Charles 
 Barry being again at the head of the latter — a most happy 
 and appropriate selection. The coffin bore the simple in- 
 scription : — 
 
 "George Ed.mund Street, R.A. 
 "Born June 20, 1824. Died December 18, 1881." 
 
 , The grave is now marked by a beautiful brass from the 
 design of Messrs. Bodley and Garner. 
 
 On the Sunday following a funeral sermon was preached 
 by the Right Rev. Dr. Barry (now Bishop of Melbourne). 
 
 It was felt generally that some memorial of a per- 
 manent kind should be raised, and a committee was formed 
 forthwith, with Mr. Beresford Hope as Chairman, and Messrs. 
 Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., and A. W. Blomfield, A.R.A., as 
 Hon. Treasurer and Hon. Secretary respectively. A meeting 
 
294 MEMOIR OF 
 
 was held in the central hall of the Courts of Justice on 
 4th April 1882, at which it was resolved : — 
 
 First, upon the motion of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, 
 seconded by Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A. : — 
 
 " That the intended memorial shall be a mural monument, in- 
 cluding a full-length figure of the late Mr. Street, and that it shall 
 be placed on the east side of the central hall of the Royal Courts 
 of Justice, in the second bay from the south end." 
 
 And secondly, on the motion of the Right Hon. G. J. 
 Shaw Lefevre, the First Commissioner, seconded by Mr. 
 Henry Hucks Gibbs : — 
 
 " That Mr. Armstead, R.A., be appointed as the sculptor to 
 carry out the work, etc." 
 
 The memorial thus auspiciously started was unveiled on 
 24th March 1886. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor (Lord Herschell), in unveiling the 
 figure, spoke as follows : — 
 
 " I have been requested, as representing for the time being those 
 who are engaged in the administration of justice, to attend here 
 to-day to unveil the memorial of Mr. Street. We must all feel that 
 it is most fit that it should rest here, for this Palace of Justice was 
 the crowning work of his life, and he was engaged upon it at the 
 time of his death. He was a man whose success in life was emi- 
 nently due to his own merits, genius, and energy. While this is the 
 crowning work of his life, there is scarcely a county in England — I 
 believe there is no part of the United Kingdom — which does not 
 owe to him some monument or work of beauty. He was a man 
 who not only by his own genius was enabled to realise beautiful 
 creations and to give them visible form, but he found time amid 
 the labours of a most laborious life to devote himself to some works 
 of literature, to assist and benefit those pursuing the profession of 
 which he was so great an ornament, and to write some instructive 
 books on Church Architecture. 
 
 " His merits were recognised by those best able to judge of 
 them. The Royal Academy made him one of their body, and 
 elected him Professor of Architecture. 
 
 "No doubt, however, he devoted to this Palace of Justice more 
 patience and loving effort than to any other of the works to which 
 I have alluded. 
 
GEORGE EDMUND STREET 295 
 
 " It is impossible for any one to examine this vast building 
 without being struck with astonishment at the enormous amount of 
 labour that was expended upon it. He was not satisfied, having 
 many courts to construct, to design one as a pattern for all. Every 
 court was separately designed with all its details of ornament by 
 himself. No doubt the building has been criticised, — I believe it 
 would have been equally the case whatever human architect had 
 been engaged. Human tastes differ, and human ideas of human 
 wants and requirements and views differ as to the best way of meet- 
 ing them. It must also be borne in mind that the architect was 
 not left an entirely free hand. He had to work under certain con- 
 ditions, and some of the greatest faults laid to his charge, if faults 
 they be, were due to the conditions. 
 
 " I am quite sure of this, that the more this building is studied, 
 and the longer the profession live in it, the more reason they will 
 see to be grateful to the architect who designed it, and to be satis- 
 fied with the result of his labours. I remember on the day when 
 the courts were opened, a gentleman, whom I see present now, 
 said he was quite sure that every day we lived in them we should 
 discover some fresh beauty in them. As far as I am concerned, 
 that observation has been completely verified. It is not in a day 
 or a year that the minute care and pains bestowed on this building 
 can be thoroughly appreciated or known. It was not unnatural 
 that those who admired the work of this great architect, not only in 
 this building but in other parts of the country, and those who 
 enjoyed his friendship, should unite to rear this monument to his 
 memory, and that they should desire that it should rest in this his 
 last and greatest Avork. He has exhibited qualities of the true 
 artist ; he has created things of beauty, and I am quite sure that as 
 long as there exists in this country a taste for the beautiful, so long 
 — and I hope it may indeed be long — will the work of Mr. Street in 
 various parts of the country be regarded with admiration and 
 delight." 
 
 The memorial, which is composed of a seated figure, 
 with paper and dividers in hand, raised on a pedestal which 
 stands on marble shafts, and is covered with reliefs illustrat- 
 ing the various arts of design, fills the space of two bays of 
 the wall arcading which runs round the hall, and is enclosed 
 under a single large arch. The sculpture is Mr. Armstead's, 
 and the architectural design Mr. Blomfield's. The idea of 
 making the memorial an integral part of my father's greatest 
 work was a singularly happy one, and has certainly lost 
 nothing in the carrying out. 
 
296 MEMOIR OF GEORGE EDMUND STREET chai>. xiii 
 
 There were two other memorials : one in the form of a 
 bust, also executed by Mr. Armstead, which was subscribed 
 for by members of the R.I.B.A., and is now placed in their 
 rooms in Conduit Street ; the other, a churchyard cross, put 
 up by some of his intimate friends and relations in the 
 churchyard at Holmbury as a more personal tribute to a 
 lovincr and beloved friend. 
 
ORIGINAL WORKS BY G. E. STREET 
 
 NoiT. — This list does not pretend to complete accuracy nor to exhaustivcness, 
 nor is it intended to include ciny designs made but not executed. Those 
 works which are mentioned in the Memoir are marked with tlie num- 
 ber of the page on which they occur. 
 
 Abergele Schools. 
 Adderley, Salop, cottages, etc. 
 Amington Church, Stafifordshire. 
 
 Schools, Staffordshire. 
 Ardamine Church, Ireland. 
 Arthingworth House. 
 Ashbury Schools, Bucks. 
 Ashley-Green Church, Bucks. 
 Aston Church, Salop. 
 Aston (Little) Church, Warwick. 
 
 Banbury (South) Schools. 
 Barford (Great) Parsonage, Oxon. 
 Barton Schools, Warwickshire. 
 Bare Heath Schools, Dorset. 
 Bettisfield Church, Flintshire. 
 Biscovey Church, Cornwall, ii, 
 
 106. 
 Bishopstoke, Hants, Longmead 
 House. 
 Mission Church. 
 Blaston Church, Notts. 
 Bloxham, House for Rev. J. A. 
 Gould, Oxon. 
 Grammar School, Oxon. 
 Parsonage, Oxon. 
 Blymhill Parsonage, Stafifordshire. 
 
 Church, Stafifordshire. 
 Bolton - le - Moors Church, Lan- 
 cashire. 
 Boston Spa Church, Yorks. 
 Bournemouth, St. Peter's Church, 
 21, 204, 260. 
 
 Bournemouth, Schools. 
 
 Boyne Hill, Church, 13, 204, 225. 
 
 Almshouses. 
 
 Schools. 
 
 House for Miss Hulme. 
 Bracknell Church, 1 1 . 
 Branstone, School Chapel. 
 Bright- Walton Schools. 
 Brimpton, Agricultural College. 
 Bristol Cathedral, new nave. 50, 
 
 1 10, 140, 176. 
 Buckingham, School Chapel. 
 
 Curate's House. 
 Buckland Schools, Berks. 
 Burford Schools, Oxon. 
 Burton -on -Trent, House for Mr. 
 A. Bass. 
 
 Schools. 
 Butcroft Church, Stafifordshire. 
 
 Caldvmanor Schools. 
 Carlton Church, Yorks. 
 
 Vicarage, Yorks. 
 Chadstone Schools, Northants. 
 Challow Schools, Berks. 
 
 Parsonage, Berks. 
 Chalvey Schools, Bucks. 
 Chapel Allerton Parsonage. 
 Chapmanslade Schools. 
 Charley wood Church, Herts. 
 Chatham Schools. 
 Chesham Schools, Bucks. 
 Chinnor School, Oxford. 
 
ORIGINAL WORKS 
 
 Chipping Norton, Schools. 
 
 Workhouse Chapel. 
 Churchill School. 
 
 Clapham, Christ Church Vicarage. 
 Claremont Estate, Lancashire. 
 Cleobury Mortimer Schools, Salop. 
 Clifton, All Saints' Church, 50, 
 
 100, 135, 204. 
 Coatham, Hospital Chapel. 
 Collingbourne-Ducis Schools. 
 
 Vicarage. 
 Colmere Church, Stafifordshire. 
 Colnbrook Vicarage. 
 Constantinople, Memorial Church, 
 
 30, 50, 105. 
 Cotebrook Church, Cheshire. 
 Cuddesdon Theological College, 
 Oxford, 20. 
 Vicarage, Oxford. 
 
 Dafon Church. 
 Denchworth Schools, Berks. 
 Denstone Parsonage. 
 Diss School, Norfolk. 
 Ditton (Long), Surrey. 
 Down, St. Mary's School. 
 Dublin, Christ Church Synod Hall. 
 Dundee, House of Mercy. 
 Dunecht, House and Chapel, 50, 201 
 
 Eastbourne, St. Saviour's Church, 
 
 100, 1 10, 204. 
 Eastbury School. 
 East Grinstead, St. ^Lirgaret's 
 
 Convent, 20, 50, 258, 271. 
 Eastleigh Church, Hants. 
 East Parley Chapel School. 
 Eccleshall School, Staffordshire. 
 Ellon Church, Aberdeen. 
 Eltham Church, Kent. 
 
 Schools, Kent. 
 Erlestoke Parsonage, Wilts. 
 
 Church, Wilts. 
 Eton Schools, Bucks. 
 
 Farlington Church, Hants. 
 Ffynnon Grouw Church, N. Wales. 
 Filkins Church, Oxford. 
 Fimber Church, Yorks. 
 Fylingdales Church, Yorks. 
 
 Gadsden (Little) Schools. 
 
 Garston (East) Church. 
 
 Genoa, English Church, 105, 230. 
 
 Goosey Schools. 
 
 Grafifham Church, Sussex. 
 
 Granborough Schools. 
 
 Gravesend Mission Church. 
 
 Haddo House Chapel. 
 Hadington Church, Oxon. 
 Hadleigh Vicarage. 
 Hatford, Cottages. 
 Hedsor, Parsonage. 
 Helperthorpe Church, Yorks. 
 
 Parsonage, Yorks. 
 Heslerton (East) Church, Yorks. 
 
 Parsonage, Yorks. 
 Holmbury, St. Mary Church, Surrey, 
 69, 90, loi, 257. 
 
 Holmdale, Surrey, 221, 223, 
 225, 231, 255. ^ 
 Horsham, House for Miss Paget. 
 Howsham Church, Yorks. 
 Hull, All Saints' Church. 
 
 Parsonage. 
 
 IDE Hill School. 
 India Monuments. 
 
 Kettering Church. 
 Kingstone Church, Dorset, 135, 
 204, 205. 
 Parsonage, Dorset. 
 Kirkburn, Yorks, Cottages. 
 
 Lambourne Schools, Berks. 
 Lausanne, English Church, 105. 
 
 272. 
 Laverstoke School, Hants. 
 Leeds, St. Andrew's Parsonage. 
 Leicester, St. Peter's Church. 
 Leigh Schools, Stafifordshire. 
 Lichfield, Monument to Archdeacon 
 
 Hodson. 
 Liverpool, St. Margaret's Church, 
 
 204. 
 Llanasa Church, N. Wales. 
 Llandulas Church. 
 Llanelly Church, S. Wales. 
 Parsonage, S. Wales. 
 
BY GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 299 
 
 Llanelly, House for E. Phillips, 
 
 Esq., S. Wales. 
 Llanon, Parsonage, S. Wales. 
 Llysfaen Schools, Denbighshire. 
 Lockinge Schools, Berks. 
 London — 
 
 All Saints' Church, Putney. 
 No. 4 Cadogan Square, S.W. 
 Norwood Cemetery, Monu- 
 ment to P. Ralli, Esq. 
 Royal Courts of Justice, 50, 
 134, Chap. VIII., 200, 278. 
 St. Cyprian's Home, Marjle- 
 
 bone. 
 St. James's, Paddington. 
 St. James the Less, Westmin- 
 ster, 37, 103, 135. 
 Schools, Westminster. 
 St. John the Divine, Kenning- 
 
 ton, 100, 204. 
 St. Mary Magdalene, Padding- 
 ton, 50, 76, 204. 
 Lostwithiel, Cornwall, House of 
 
 Mercy. 
 Luton Hoo, Private Chapel. 
 Lutton (West) Church, Yorks. 
 Lydford, Parsonage. 
 Schools. 
 
 M.^RLBOROUGH School, Bradley 
 Memorial Buildings. 
 
 Mr. Gilmore's House. 
 
 Mr. Thompson's House. 
 Harlow (Great) Parsonage. 
 Melksham Schools, Wilts. 
 
 Parsonage, Wilts. 
 Mersea (East) Schools. 
 
 Parsonage. 
 Middlesborough, All Saints' Church. 
 Milnrow Church, Rochdale, Yorks. 
 Milton Schools, Gravesend. 
 Milton Schools, Shipton. 
 Minehead Church, Somerset. 
 Monkland, Cottages. 
 Monmouth, St. Mary's Church. 
 Moordown Schools, Bournemouth. 
 
 Church, Bournemouth. 
 Miirren Church, Switzerland, 105. 
 
 Muskham Parsonage, Notts. 
 
 Nash Schools, Bucks. 
 
 Noke Parsonage. 
 
 North Moreton Parsonage, Berks. 
 
 North Muskham Parsonage, Notts. 
 
 Oxford — 
 
 St. Ebbe's Schools. 
 
 St. Ebbe's Parsonage. 
 
 St. Paul's School. 
 
 St. Philip's and St. James's 
 
 Church, 19, 204. 
 St. Sepulchre's Cemetery 
 
 Lodge. 
 
 Paris, American Church, i '^y-},^ 204. 
 Peasemore Rectory, 11. 
 Pewsey Schools, Wilts. 
 Pitsligo Church, Aberdeen. 
 Pitstone Parsonage, Bucks. 
 Plymouth, St. Peter's Schools. 
 Pokesdown Schools, Hants. 
 Polesworth, Dordon Chapel. 
 Probus Grammar School. 
 Purbrook Parsonage, Hants. 
 
 Raund's Schools, Northants. 
 Rollright (Great) Schools. 
 Rome, American Church, 93, 105, 
 208. 
 
 American Clergy House. 
 
 English Church, 105, i 10. 
 
 Sandhurst, Lodge. 
 Shefifield Schools. 
 Shipton Schools, O.xon. 
 Sledmere Schools, Yorks. 
 Southampton, St. Mary's Church, 
 
 222. 
 Speenhamland Church. 
 
 Vicarage. 
 Stanford, Cottages. 
 Stanford le Vale Schools. 
 Stantonbury Church. 
 
 Parsonage. 
 
 Schools. 
 .Steventon School, Berks. 
 Stone Parsonage, Kent. 
 .Stoney Stratford Vicarage. 
 
300 ORIGINAL WORKS BY GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 Stourbridge Church. 
 Summertown Church, Oxon, 1 9. 
 Swindon Church. 
 
 Parsonage. 
 
 Schools. 
 Swinton Church, Lancashire. 
 
 Teddington Church. 
 Thixendale Church, Yorks. 
 
 Parsonage, Yorks. 
 Tinsley Church, Rotherham. 
 Toddington Church, 50, 204. 
 
 Schools. 
 Torquay, St. John's Church, 204. 
 Towyn Church, N. Wales. 
 
 Parsonage, N. Wales. 
 
 Schools, N. Wales. 
 Treverbyn, St. Peter's Church, 11. 
 
 Parsonage. 
 
 Schools. 
 Trinidad, Magistrates' Courts. 
 
 Uffington, Schools. 
 Uppingham, School Chapel, 50, 84. 
 
 Libraries and Schoolrooms. 
 Upton Magna, Parsonage, Salop. 
 Upton, Vicarage, Bucks. 
 
 Vevay, English Church, 105, 27: 
 
 Wansford Church, Yorks. 
 
 Parsonage, Yorks. 
 
 Schools, Yorks. 
 Wantage, Vicarage, 11, 13, 15. 
 
 House of Mercy. 
 Warminster Schools, Wilts. 
 Wellington, St. George's Church. 
 Wendovcr Schools. 
 Wescott Church, Bucks. 
 
 Schools, Bucks. 
 Wheatley Schools. 
 Whelford Chapel, Wilts. 
 Whiston Church, Lancashire. 
 Whitwell Parsonage, Yorks. 
 Wigan, Schools. 
 
 St. Michael's Church. 
 
 The Hall. 
 Winchester, Master's House. 
 Windsor, Holy Trinity Vicarage. 
 
 St. John's Schools. 
 
 St. Mark's School. 
 Winkfield Schools. 
 Wolverton, Mechanics' Institute. 
 Woodstock, Workhouse Chapel. 
 Wycombe, Chapel School. 
 
RESTORATIONS AND ADDITIONS 
 
 Abbots Bromley Chuicli. 
 Aberdeen, St. Andrew. 
 
 St. John. 
 
 St. Machar. 
 Abingdon, St. Helen. 
 Acton Trussell Church. 
 Addington Church, Bucks. 
 Adel Church, Yorks. 
 Alnwick Church. 
 Arley Hall, Cheshire. 
 Armitage Chuixh, Staffordshire. 
 Ascott Church, Oxon. 
 Ashburton Church, Devon. 
 Ashbury Church, Berks. 
 Ashchurch Church. 
 Aston Abbots Church, Bucks. 
 Aston Clinton Church. 
 Astwood Church, Bucks. 
 
 Backwell Church, Somerset. 
 Balscott Church, Oxon. 
 Banbury Church. 
 Banstead Church, Surrey. 
 Barford (Little) Church. 
 Barnstone Church, Cheshire. 
 Barrow Church, Salop. 
 Barton-in-Fabis Church, Notts. 
 Bathwick Church. 
 Baydon Church, Wilts. 
 Beachampton Church. 
 Benfleet (North) Church. 
 Bensington Church, Oxon. 
 Bere Regis Church, Dorset. 
 Bicester Church, Oxon. 
 Bicknoller Church, Somerset. 
 Bignor Church, Sussex. 
 Bilton Church, Warwickshire. 
 
 Bishops Wilton Church. 
 Blakedown Church, Worcester- 
 shire. 
 Bletchingley Church. 
 Blickling Church, Norfolk. 
 Blithfield Church, Staffordshire. 
 Bloxham Church, Oxon. 
 Blymhill Church. 
 Blythburgh Church, Suffolk. 
 Bolton Abbey, Yorks. 
 Boningate Church, Salop. 
 Bow Church, Essex. 
 Bow Common, St. Paul's Church. 
 Brackley School. 
 Bradenham Church, Bucks. 
 Bray, St. Michael's Church. 
 Brayfield Church. 
 Brewood Church, Staffordshire. 
 Brickhill (Great) Church, Bucks. 
 Brickhill (Little) Church. 
 Bright Walton Church. 
 Britford Church. 
 Brize Norton Church, Oxon. 
 Brodsworth Church, Yorks. 
 Broughton Church. 
 Buckden Church, Hants. 
 Burford Church, Oxon. 
 Burnham Church, Bucks. 
 Burton Church, Staffordshire. 
 Butcombe Church, Somersetshire. 
 
 Caldymanor, Cheshire. 
 Canford Church, Dorset. 
 Cardiff, St. Fagan's. 
 Carlisle Cathedral, 196, 261. 
 
 Fratry, 121, 261. 
 Castle Ashby Church. 
 
302 
 
 RESTORATIONS AND ADDITIONS 
 
 Castle Rising Church, Norfolk. 
 
 Catton Church, Yorks. 
 
 Chadderton, Manchester. 
 
 Chaddesden Church, Derbyshire. 
 
 Chaddesley Church, Worcester- 
 shire. 
 
 Chaddleworth Church. 
 
 Chadlington Church. 
 
 Chalfont, St. Giles's, Bucks. 
 St. Peter's, Bucks. 
 
 Challow Church, Berks. 
 
 Chalvey Church, Bucks. 
 
 Chapmanslade Church, Wilts. 
 
 Charlbury, St. Mary, Oxen. 
 
 Charlton Church, Oxon. 
 
 Charthain Church, Kent. 
 
 Chatham .Schools. 
 
 Cheadle Church, Cheshire. 
 
 Cheddington Church, Bucks. 
 
 Chiddingstone Church, Kent. 
 
 Chilton, All Saints' Church, Wilts. 
 
 Chihon Church, Berks. 
 
 Chipping Sodbury, Gloucester- 
 shire. 
 
 Chislehurst, St. Mary's Church. 
 
 Claybrooke Church, Leicester. 
 
 Claycross Church, Derbyshire. 
 
 Clifton Campville Church. 
 
 Clifton Hampden Church. 
 
 Clun Church, Salop, 122. 
 
 Cobham Church, Surrey. 
 
 Colebrooke Church, 43. 
 
 Coleshill Church, Bucks. 
 
 Collingbourne-Ducis Church, Wilts. 
 
 Colton Church, Stafford. 
 
 Colyton Church, Devon. 
 
 Corfe Castle Chapel. 
 
 Corsham Church, Wilts. 
 
 Cotterstock Church, 43. 
 
 Coventry, St. Michael's Church. 
 
 Cowley Church, Oxon. 
 
 Crawley Church, Hants. 
 
 Croxall Church, Stafford. 
 
 Croxton Church, Norfolk. 
 
 Cubert Church, Cornwall, i i. 
 
 Cuddesdon Church, Oxon, 1 20. 
 Palace, Oxon. 
 
 Cuddington Church, Bucks. 
 
 Deddington Church, Oxon. 
 Denchworth School, Berks. 
 Denham Church, Bucks. 
 Denstone Church, Derbyshire. 
 Derby, St. Peter's Church. 
 Diddington Church. 
 Dinton Church, Bucks. 
 Dover Priory. 
 Downham Church, Essex. 
 Down, St. Mary Church, Devon. 
 Drayton Church, Banbury. 
 Drayton Church, Wallingford. 
 Driffield, All Saints' Church. 
 Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral, 
 80, 101,115,122,135,184. 
 Archbishof>;s Palace. 
 Dunmow Church, Essex. 
 Dunnington Church, Yorks. 
 Dunster Church, Somerset, 43. 
 
 Ealington Park, Warwick. 
 Eastbury Church, 
 Eccleshall Church, Stafford. 
 Edgmond Church, Salop. 
 Edwinstowe Church, Notts. 
 Elford Church, Stafford. 
 Ellesmere Church. 
 Elmley, St. James's Church, 
 
 Kent. 
 Elsfield Church. 
 Enfield Church, 1 1. 
 Enstone Church, Oxon. 
 Ercall (High) Church, Salop. 
 Eton College Chapel. 
 Eyam Church, Derbyshire. 
 
 Fag.\n's, St., S. Wales. 
 Fairhamstead Church. 
 Farlington Church, Hants. 
 Fawley Church, Berks. 
 Fenny-Stratford Church, Oxon. 
 Fiddown Church, Ireland. 
 Filkins Church, Oxon. 
 Fingest Church, Plucks. 
 Finmere Church, O.xon. 
 Finstock Church, Oxon. 
 Firsby Church, Lincolnshire. 
 Foresthill School, Walthamstow. 
 
BY GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 303 
 
 Freckenham Church, Cambridge- 
 shire. 
 Frenchay Church, Gloucestershire. 
 Fringford Church, Oxon. 
 P>it\vell Church. 
 Frosterley Church, Durham. 
 Fuhner Church, Bucks. 
 Fyfield Church, Berks. 
 
 CiARBOLDISHAM Church, Norfolk, 
 (barton Church, Yorks. 
 Glympton Church, Oxon. 
 Graffham Church, Sussex, 222. 
 Great Bedwyn Church, Wilts. 
 Great Marlow Church. 
 Great Smeaton Church, Yorks. 
 Greenhithe Church. 
 Gresford Church, Denbighshire. 
 Gressage Church, Somerset, 
 (jrwych Castle, Abergele. 
 Guilsfield Church, Montgomery. 
 
 Hadleigh Church, 1 1. 
 Hadley, St. Mary's Church. 
 Hadzor Church, Worcester. 
 Hagley Church, Worcester. 
 Hallow Church, Worcester. 
 Halton 'Church, Lincoln. 
 Hampnett Church, Gloucester. 
 Hampton Poyle Church, Oxon. 
 Hanbury Church. 
 Hanley Church, Worcester. 
 Hanney Church, Berks. 
 Hanslope Church, Bucks. 
 Hardwick Church, Bucks. 
 Hartley Wespall Church, Hants. 
 Hartwell Church. 
 Harwell Church, Berks. 
 Hatfield Church, Herts. 
 Hatfield Peverell Church, Essex. 
 Hawes Church, 11. 
 Hayling Church, Hants. 
 Headbower Worthy Church, Hants. 
 Headley Church, Surrey. 
 Heallom Church, N. Wales. 
 Hedon Church, Yorks. 
 Hedsor Church, Bucks. 
 Henbury Church, Gloucester. 
 
 Henley in Arden, Stafford. 
 Heme Hill Church. 
 Heston Church, 1 1. 
 Hethe Church, Oxon. 
 Highgate, St. Michael's Church. 
 High Halden Church, Kent. 
 High Wycombe Church. 
 Hilgay Church. 
 
 Hillingdon Church, Middlesex. 
 Hilmarton Church, Wilts. 
 Hinton Admiral Church. 
 Hognaston Church. 
 Holkham Church, Norfolk. 
 Hollington Church, Stafford. 
 Hope Mansell Church, Hereford. 
 Huish Church, Devon. 
 Hulcott Church, Bucks. 
 Hunsdon Church, Herts. 
 Hutton Church, Essex. 
 Hythe Church, Kent. 
 
 IDE Hill, Sevenoaks. 
 Ightfield Church, Salop. 
 Ilnier Church, Bucks. 
 Ilsley (West) Church, Berks. 
 Isleham Church, Cambridge. 
 Iver Church, Bucks. 
 Ivinghoe Church, Bucks. 
 
 Kempsford Church, Gloucester. 
 Kerry Church, Montgomery. 
 Kew Stoke Church, Somerset. 
 Kidlestone Church, Derbyshire. 
 Kidlington Church, Oxon. 
 
 Parsonage, Oxon. 
 Kildare Cathedral, 201, 203. 
 Kildwick Church, Leeds. 
 Kilkenny Cathedral. 
 Kiltennell Church, Ireland. 
 Kilverston Church, Norfolk. 
 Kingston Lisle Church, Bucks. 
 Kingstone Church, Stafford. 
 Kirby Grindalyth Church, Yorks. 
 Kirby Underdale Church, Yorks. 
 Kirby Wiske Church, Yorks. 
 Kirkburn Church, Yorks. 
 Kirkby Overblow Church, Yorks. 
 Kirk Hallam Church, Derby. 
 
304 
 
 RESTORATIONS AND ADDITIONS 
 
 Ladock Church, Cornwall. 
 Lambourne, St. Michael's Church. 
 Lanreath Church, ii. 
 Lapworth Church, Warwick. 
 Lavington Church, Sussex. 
 Leckhampton Church, Bucks. 
 Lee Church. 
 Leeds, Parish Church. 
 
 St. Saviour's Church. 
 Leek Church, Stafford. 
 Leicester, St. Margaret's Church. 
 
 St. Martin's. 
 Lewknor Church, Oxon. 
 Lichfield, St. Mary's Church. 
 Lilleshall Church, Salop. 
 Lillingstone Dayrell Church, Bucks. 
 Limerick Cathedral. 
 Linton Church, Hereford. 
 Little Petherick Church, Cornwall, 
 
 I I. 
 Llanasa Church, N. Wales. 
 Llandinam Church, Montgomery. 
 Llandysilio Church, Montgomery. 
 Llanidloes Church, Montgomery. 
 Llanilterne Church, Glamorgan. 
 Llanithern Church. 
 Llansantfraid Church. 
 Llysfaen Church, Denbigh. 
 Lockinge Church, Berks. 
 London — 
 
 All Saints' Church, Lothbury. 
 
 All Saints' Home Chapel, 
 Margaret Street. 
 
 Christ Church, Clapham. 
 
 St. Andrew's, Wells Street. 
 
 St. George's, Bloomsbury. 
 
 St. George's Hospital Chapel. 
 
 St. Luke's, Lower Norwood, 
 109. 
 
 St. Matthew's, City Road. 
 
 Wellington Barracks Chapel, 
 94, 96, 109. 
 Long Eaton Church, Derbyshire. 
 Longfleet Church, Hants. 
 Looe (East and West) Churches, 
 
 Cornwall. 
 Lostwithiel Church, Cornwall. 
 Luffenham (North) Church. 
 
 Luffenham (South) Church. 
 Luton Church, Bedfordshire. 
 Lydford Church, Devon. 
 Lydiard Millicent Church, Wilts. 
 Lyndhurst Church, Hants. 
 
 Madresfield Church. 
 Malvern (West) Church. 
 Marlborough, St. ALiry's Church. 
 Melksham Church, Wilts. 
 Middleton Cheney Church, North- 
 ants. 
 Middleton Stony Church, Northants. 
 Milbourne St. Andrew, Dorset. 
 Milcomb (Great) Church, Oxon. 
 Milland Church, Sussex. 
 Milton Church, Gravesend. 
 Milton Church, O.xon. 
 Milton Church, St. Blaize, Berks. 
 Milton Church, Wilts. 
 Milton Keynes Church, Bucks. 
 Mimms (South) Church, Middlesex. 
 Mixbury Church, Bucks. 
 MoUington Church, O.xon. 
 Monkland Church. 
 Monks Kirby Church, Warwick. 
 Monks Risborough Church, Bucks. 
 Moulsford Church, Oxon. 
 
 Nash Church, Bucks. 
 Newport Pagnell Church, Bucks. 
 Newtown Church. 
 Normanton Church, Leicester. 
 North Benfleet Church. 
 North Leigh Church, Oxon. 
 North Moreton Church, Berks. 
 Norton Church, Derbyshire. 
 Norwich, St. Peter Mancroft Church 
 Nutshalling Church, Hants. 
 
 Oldland Church, Gloucester. 
 
 Oswestry Church, Salop. 
 
 Otford Church, Kent. 
 
 Oving Church, Bucks. 
 
 Oxford- 
 Holy Cross Church. 
 Jesus College Chapel, 19. 
 St. Aldate's Church. 
 
 I 
 
/;}' GEORGE EDMUND STREET 
 
 305 
 
 St. Ebbe's Church. 
 St. John's Church. 
 St. .Michael's Church. 
 St. Thomas's Church. 
 
 Peasemore Church, Berks. 
 Penkivel, St. Michael Church, 
 
 Cornwall. 
 Pewsey Church, Wilts. 
 Parsonage, Wilts. 
 Pickhill Church, Yorks. 
 Pitcombe Church, Somerset. 
 Plymouth, St. Peter's Church. 
 Pokesdown Church, Hants. 
 Polesworth Church. 
 Pontesbury Church, Salop. 
 Portsmouth, Garrison Chapel. 
 Prees Church, Salop. 
 Prestbury Church, Gloucester. 
 Probus, SS. Probus and Grace, 
 
 Cornwall. 
 Purley Church, Berks. 
 
 Rodney Stoke Church, Somerset. 
 RoUright (Great) Church. 
 Roydon Church, Norfolk. 
 Rye Church, Sussex. 
 
 Saby Church, Yorks. 
 
 Salford Church, Oxon. 
 
 Salisbury Cathedral, 117, 196, 
 
 255- 
 Salisbury, St. Thomas. 
 Saltley Church, Warwick. 
 Sandford Church, O.xon. 
 Sandhurst Church. 
 Scotton Church, Lincoln. 
 Seckington Church, Warwick. 
 Shepton Beauchamp Church, 
 
 Somerset. 
 Sherrington Church, Bucks. 
 Sheviocke Church, Cornwall. 
 Shiplake Church, Oxon. 
 Shipmeadow Church, Stafford. 
 Shipton-on-StourChurch,Worcester 
 Shipton-under-Wichwood Church. 
 Shottisbroke Church. 
 
 Shrawley Church, Worcester. 
 Shrivenham Church, Berks. 
 Skirbeck Church, Lincoln. 
 Smeaton (Great) Church. 
 Solihull Church, Warwick. 
 Soulbury Church. 
 Sparsholt Church. 
 Speen Church, Berks. 
 Spratton Church, Northants. 
 Standon Church, Stafford. 
 Stanford-le-Vale, St. Uenis. 
 Staple Church, Kent. 
 Steventon Church, Berk§. 
 Stewkley Church, Berks, 98. 
 Sticker Church, Cornwall. 
 Stogumber Church, Somerset. 
 Stone Church, Kent, 36, 140. 
 Stoney Stratford Church, Bucks. 
 Stoughton (Great), Hunts. 
 Stratton Audley Church. 
 St. Austell Church, Cornwall. 
 St. Mewan Church, Cornwall. 
 St. Neot's Church, Cornwall. 
 Sundridge Church, Kent. 
 Sunningdale Church. 
 Swanbourne Church, Bucks. 
 Swavesey Church, Huntingdon. 
 
 Tackley Church, Oxon. 
 Talk Church, Stafford. 
 Tanworth Church, Warwick. 
 Taunton Church. 
 
 Temple Balsall Church, Warwick. 
 Tettenhall Church, Stafford. 
 Tew (Great) Church, Oxon. 
 Tew (Little) Church, Oxon. 
 Thirsk Church, Yorks. 
 Thornhill Church, Yorks. 
 Thorpe Arch Church, Yorks. 
 Thrumpton Church, Derby. 
 Thurgoland Church, Yorks. 
 Tilehurst, St. Michael's, Berks. 
 Tong Church, Salop. 
 Trumpington Church. 
 Tuddenham Church, Norfolk. 
 Turweston Church. 
 Tutbuiy Church, Stafford. 
 Twyning Church, Gloucester. 
 
 X 
 
3o6 RESTORATIONS AND ADDITIONS BY G. E. STREET 
 
 Ukfington Church. 
 Upham Church, Hants. 
 Upton Magna Church, Salop. 
 Upton Scudamore Churcli, Wilts. 
 
 Walsgrave Church. 
 Walsingham Church, Norftjlk. 
 Walton Church, Stafford. 
 Wantage Church. 
 Warfield Church, Berks. 
 Warminster Church, Wilts. 
 Warnborough (South) Churcli, 
 
 Hants. _ 
 Watchfiekl Church, Berks. 
 Waterstock Church. 
 Waters Upton Church, Salop. 
 Weaverthorp Church, Yorks. 
 Welshpool Church. 
 Wendlebury Church. 
 Wendover Church, Bucks. 
 Westbury Church, Bucks. 
 Westcott Barton Church. 
 West Keal Church,- Lincoln. 
 Weston (South) Church, Oxon. 
 Weston - under - Penyard Church, 
 
 Hereford. 
 West Walton Church, 8, i 1 9. 
 Wexham Church. 
 Whatley Church, Somerset. 
 Wheatley Church, Oxon. 
 
 Whitchurch Church, Bucks. 
 
 Whitchurch, St. Nicholas, Somer- 
 set. 
 
 White Waltham Church. 
 
 Whitwell Church. 
 
 Whixhall Church, Salop. 
 
 Wiggenhall, St. Mary's Church, 
 Norfolk. 
 
 Winchester, Hospital Chapel. 
 
 Winkfield Church, Berks. 
 
 Winterbourne Church. 
 
 Winterbourne, Kingston Church. 
 
 Witcombe Church. 
 
 Withington Church, Salo]). 
 
 Witney Church, Oxon. 
 
 Wolverton Church. 
 
 Wombourne Church, Worcester. 
 
 Woolborough Church, Devon. 
 
 Woollavington Church, Sussex. 
 
 \yootton Basset Church, Wilts. 
 
 Wootton Rivers Church. 
 
 Wootton Underwood Church, 
 Bucks. 
 
 Wretham Church, Norfolk. 
 
 Wymering Church, Hants. 
 
 Wymeswold Church, Leicester. 
 
 Yatton Church, Somerset. 
 Yatton Keynell Church, Wilts. 
 York Minster, 117, 196, 201, 217. 
 
INDEX 
 
 AuHKV, Ail)ioath, 207. 
 
 Dryhuigh, 207, 216. 
 
 Easby, 223. 
 
 Fountains, 207. 
 
 Furness, 222. 
 
 Hexham, 207. 
 
 Jedburgh, 207, 216. 
 
 Lanercost, 7. 
 
 Mehose, 207, 216. 
 
 Westminster, 65, 79, 81, 140, 
 165, 279. 
 Academy, Royal, 50, 196, 260, 263. 
 Aix-Ies-Bains, 272. 
 All Saints, Clifton, 50, 100, 135, 204. 
 
 Margaret Street, 48, 67, 68, 76, 
 
 91. 94- 
 Altar, 66, 70, 73, loi, 234, 239. 
 American Church, Paris, 133, 204. 
 
 Rome, 93, 105, 208. 
 Amiens, Cathedral, 108. 
 Ancona, 223. 
 Angelico, Fra, 40. 
 Acjuileia, 208. 
 Arbroath Abbey, 207. 
 Architectural jninciples, 58, 59, 62, 
 
 III, 113. 
 Architecture, Greek, 78; street, iii, 
 
 113 ; the practice of, closed, 266. 
 Armstead, H. II., R.A., 294, 295. 
 Art and Religion, 8, 56, 57. 
 Assisi, San Francisco, 91, 108. 
 Athena'um Club, 50. 
 Ayrton, Right Hon. A. S., 158, 159, 
 
 1 68. 
 
 Baldachin, 66, 71. 
 Bamberg, Cathedral, 140. 
 Bany, Sir Charles, 280. 
 
 Edward M., 51, 55, 143, 145, 
 164, 259. 
 Battersby, Dr., 193. 
 Beauchamp, Lord, 256. 
 
 Bennett, Rev. A. M., 21, 260. 
 Beverley ^linster, 183. 
 Biscovey, Church, 11, 106. 
 Blencowe, Rev. Mr., 8 
 
 Miss, 9. 
 Blomfield, A. W., A.R.A., 245, 292, 
 
 293. 295- 
 Bodley, G. F. , A.R.A. , 11, 20, 31, 
 
 293- 
 Bournemouth, St. Peter's, 21, 204, 
 
 260. 
 Boyce, G. P., 38. 
 Boyne Hill Church, 13, 204, 225. 
 Bradley, Dean, 293. 
 Bray, Reginald, 256, 257. 
 Brick and Marble, 21, 49, 139, 208, 
 
 227. 
 Brick architecture, 84, 137. 
 Bristol Cathedra], 50, no, 140, 176. 
 Brussels, town hall, 164. 
 Bull, Messrs., 169. 
 
 Burges, William, 25, 30, 31, 144, 210. 
 Burne Jones, E., A. R.A., 38, 93, 249. 
 Butler, Dean (of Lincoln), 11, 13, 15. 
 
 Carey Street site, 146, 157. 
 Carlisle Cathedral, ig6, 261. 
 
 Fratry, 121, 261. 
 Carnarvon, Lord, 238, 243. 
 Carter, Owen, 4, 5. 
 Cathedral, Amiens, 108. 
 
 Baml^erg, 140. 
 
 Bristol, 50, no, 140, 176, 255. 
 
 Carlisle, 196, 261. 
 
 Chalons-sur-Marne, 25. 
 
 Chartres, loS, 1 1 8, 223. 
 
 Cologne, 17, 88, 108. 
 
 Cremona, 138. 
 
 Dublin (Christ Church), 80, loi, 
 115, 122, 135, 184. 
 
 Dunblane, 207, 216. 
 
 Edinburgh, 210. 
 
3o8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cathedral, Elgin, 207, 216. 
 
 Exeter, 3, 120. 
 
 Genoa, 82. 
 
 Gloucester, 181, 255. 
 
 Kildare, 201, 203. 
 
 Laon, 98, 108, 140. 
 
 Leon, 139. 
 
 Lille, 24, 105, 204. 
 
 London (St. Paul's), 71, 100, 233. 
 
 Milan, 108, 139. 
 
 Paris (Notre Dame), 108. 
 
 Rheims, 108. 
 
 Rouen, 108, 223. 
 
 Salisbury, 117, 196, 255. 
 
 Santiago, 139. 
 
 Southwell Minster, 97, 238. 
 
 St. Alban's, 242. 
 
 St. Andrew's, 207, 216. 
 
 Toledo, 139. 
 
 Winchester, 5, 196, 255. 
 
 Worcester, 107. 
 
 York Minster, 117, 196, 201, 217. 
 Cathedral Services, 3, 63, 183. 
 Cavendish Place, 218. 
 Chalons-sur-Marne Cathedral, 25. 
 Chapel, Merton College, 106. 
 
 Wellington Barracks, 94, 96, 109. 
 Chartres Cathedral, 108, 118. 
 Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, 80, 
 
 loi, 115, 122, 135, 184. 
 Christian, Ewan, 212, 238, 241, 245. 
 Church planning, 97, 99, no. 
 Clifton, All Saints, 50, 135. 
 Clun, Church, 122. 
 Cockerell, Sir C, 50. 
 Cologne Cathedral, 17, 88, 108. 
 
 St. Gereon, 108. 
 Colosseum, The, 227. 
 Constantinople, Crimean Memorial 
 Church, 30, 50, 105. 
 St. Sofia, 251. 
 Conventionalism, 89, 128. 
 Crabb Robinson, H., 40. 
 Cranleigh, 230, 256. 
 Crawford, Lord, 201, 227. 
 Cremona Cathedral, 138. 
 Cuddesdon Church, 120. 
 College, 20. 
 
 Decoration, 79, 87, 91. 
 Drew, Thomas, 188, 196. 
 Dryburgh Abbey, 207, 216. 
 Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral, 80, 
 
 loi, 115, 122, 135, 184. 
 Dunecht House, 50, 20I. 
 
 Easby Abbey, 223. 
 
 Eastbourne, St. Saviour's, 100, no, 204. 
 
 East Grinstead, St. Margaret's, 20, 50, 
 
 258, 271. 
 Ecclesiological Society, 12, 17, 22. 
 Edinburgh Cathedral, 210. 
 Eldon, Lord, 204, 238. 
 Elevation and plan, 163. 
 Elgin Cathedral, 207, 216. 
 Eliot, Dean, 178, 180. 
 Embankment site for Law Courts, 146, 
 
 15;- 
 English Church. 
 
 Genoa, 105, 230. 
 
 Lausanne, 105, 272. 
 
 Miirren, 105. 
 
 Rome, 105, 1 10. 
 
 Vevay, 105, 272. 
 Exeter, 3. 
 
 Cathedral, 3, 120. 
 
 Fergusson, J., 159. 
 Field, Edwin, 149. 
 Foggia, 223. 
 Fountains Abbey, 207. 
 Fowke, Captain, 267. 
 Fowler, J., 250. 
 Fra Angelico, 40. 
 Fratry, Carlisle, 121, 261. 
 Free seats, 67, 69. 
 Furness Abbey, 222. 
 
 Galleries in churches, 96, 99. 
 
 Gallery, National, 50. 
 
 Gatton Church, 140. 
 
 Genoa Cathedral, 82. 
 
 English Church, 105, 230. 
 
 Gervais, St., Baths of, 272. 
 
 Geys House, 12, 14, 225. 
 
 Ghent, town hall, 164. 
 
 Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E. , 41, 
 144, 258. 
 Mr. W. H., 293. 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral, 181. 
 
 Gothic architecture in Spain, 47, 139, 
 227. 
 
 Gothic, capabilities of, 34, 61, 99 ; 
 constructional merits, 80, 166 ; 
 ecclesiastical and secular, 162 ; for 
 the new Law Courts, 145, 159 ; for 
 the National Gallery, 52 ; not a 
 dead style, 77 ; position of, 33, 49 ; 
 unity, 34, 78 ; variety, 83. 
 
 Government offices, 33, 103. 
 
 Grafl'ham Cluirch, 222. 
 
INDEX 
 
 309 
 
 Greek architecture, 78. 
 Grimthorpe, Lord, 165, 246, 266. 
 Guildford, i. 
 
 Hadleigh Church, 11. 
 Haseler, Mr., 3, 4. 
 Herschell, Lord, 294. 
 Hexham Abbey, 207. 
 Holland, Mr. William, 230. 
 
 Miss (Mrs. G. E. Street), 230, 
 274. 
 Holmbury, 219. 
 Holmbury St. Mary, 256. 
 
 Church of St. Mary tlie Virgin, 
 69, 90, loi, 257. 
 Holmdale, 221, 223, 225, 231, 255. 
 Hope, Right Hon. A. J. Beresford, 
 
 293- 
 
 Houses of Parliament, 34, 170, 174. 
 Howard Street site for new Law 
 
 Courts, 150. 
 Hunt, Sir H. A., 151, 263. 
 
 Institute, Royal, of Britisli Archi- 
 tects, 49, 50, 112, 226, 238, 263, 
 282. 
 
 Iron construction, iii. 
 
 Ironwork, 37, 134, 135, 192. 
 
 Jedburgh Abbey, 207, 216. 
 Jones, E. Burne, A.R.A., 38, 93, 249. 
 Sir Horace, 265. 
 
 Kennington, St. John the Divine, 
 
 100, 204. 
 Kildare Cathedral, 201, 203. 
 Kingstone Church, 135, 204, 205. 
 
 Lanercost Abbey, 7. 
 Laon Cathedral, 98, 108, 140. 
 Lausanne, English Church, 105, 272. 
 Law Courts, the new, 50, 134, chap. 
 
 viii. , 200, 278. 
 Layard, Sir H. A., 151. 
 teighton. Sir F;,-Bart., P.R.A., 200, 
 
 238, 293, 294. 
 Leon Cathedral, 139. 
 Lewis, Professor T. Haytcr, 265, 
 
 280. 
 Lille Cathedral, 24, 105, 204. 
 Liverpool, St. Margaret's, 204. 
 London Bridge, 115, 236. 
 Louvain, town hall, 164. 
 Lowe, Right Hon. R. (Lord Sher- 
 
 brooke), 149. 
 
 Machell, 261. 
 
 Mark's, St., Venice, 72, 91, 94, 108, 
 
 IIS, 248. 
 Melrose Abbey, 207, 216. 
 Mcrton College, 88, 106. 
 Milan Cathedral, 108. 
 Millais, SirJohnE., Bart., R. A., 38, 238. 
 Monastic system, 8. 
 Morris, William, 25, 38, 249. 
 Murano, 251. 
 Miirren, English Church, 105. 
 
 Nasmyth, J., 131. 
 
 National Gallery, 50. 
 
 Neale, J., 243, 247. 
 
 Nevin, Dr., 208. 
 
 New Law Courts, 50, 134, chap, viii., 
 
 200, 278. 
 Norris, Canon, 179. 
 Notre Dame, Paris, 108. 
 Nuremberg, 17, 96. 
 
 OcKLEY, 221. 
 
 Offices, Government, 33, 103. 
 Ornament, workmen's, 80. 
 Ottery St. Mary, 119. 
 Oxford, 19, 106, 248. 
 
 St. Mary's, 76, 106. 
 
 St. Philip and St. James, 19, 204. 
 
 Paddington, St. Mary Magdalene, 
 
 50, 76, 204. 
 Painted glass, 88. 
 Palmer, Sir H. (Lord Selborne), 144, 
 
 149, 279. 
 Paris, American Church, 133, 204. 
 
 Notre Dame, 108. 
 Parker, Mr. J. H., 19. 
 Parliament, houses of, 30, 170, 174. 
 Pearson, Mr. J. L., R.A., 226, 272. 
 Pisa, 227. 
 
 Plan and elevation, 163. 
 Plans, church, 97, 99, no, 214. 
 Pluscardine Abbey, 207, 216. 
 Pontresina, 206. 
 Portici, 209. 
 
 Poynter, Mr. E. J., R.A., 238. 
 Pozzuoli, 228. 
 Pre-Raphaelites, 38, 104. 
 Proctor, Mr. George, 12. 
 
 Mr. Robert, 12, 209, 223. 
 
 Ratisbox, 17, 88. 
 Ravenna, 206, 253. 
 Redfern, Mr., 180. 
 
3IO 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Religion and Art, 8, 56, 57. 
 Restoration, 98, 99, 114, 116, 184, 
 
 202, chap. xi. , 262. 
 Rheims, Cathedral, 108. 
 Ripon, 196. 
 
 Robinson, Mr. H. Crabb, 40. 
 Roe, Mr. Henry, jun., 116, 185, 190. 
 Rome, 209, 223, 230, 259. 
 
 American Church, 93, 105, 208. 
 
 Enghsh Church, 105, no, 223. 
 
 San Clemente, 100, 236. 
 
 The Colosseum, 227. 
 Rouen Cathedral, 108. 
 Royal Academy, 50, 196, 260, 263. 
 Royal Institute of British Architects, 
 
 49, 50, 112, 226, 238, 263, 2S2. 
 Ruskin, Professor, 132, 167, 226, 255. 
 Russell Square, 218. 
 
 Salisbury, 273. 
 
 Cathedral, 117, 196, 255. 
 San Clemente, Rome, 100, 236. 
 San Francesco, Assisi, 91, 108. 
 Santiago Cathedral, 139. 
 Scott, Sir G. G., 6, 9, 50, 60, 61, 
 106, 135, 136, 143, 181, 196, 
 210, 226, 242, 247, 260. 
 
 Mr. J. O., 243. 
 Screens, church, 65, 10 1, 193. 
 Seats, free, 67, 69. 
 Sedding, Mr. E., 20. 
 Services, cathedral, 3, 63, 183. 
 Sharpe, Mr. E., 125, 167. 
 Shaw, Lefevre, Right Hon. G. J., 293, 
 294. 
 
 R. Norman, R.A., 283. 
 Shearme, Rev. J., 257, 258, 278. 
 Sketching, 125. 
 Smith, General Philip, C.B., 277. 
 
 Professor Roger, 168. 
 Society, Ecclesiological, 12, 17, 22. 
 Southampton, St. Maiy's, 222. 
 Southwell Minster, 97, 238. 
 Spiers, Mr. R. Phene, 197. 
 Spottiswoode, Mr. W., 272. 
 St. Alban's Cathedral, 242. 
 St. Andrew's Cathedral, 207, 216. 
 St. Barnabas, 71. 
 St. Gereon, Cologne, 108. 
 St. James the Less, Westminster, 37, 
 
 103, 135- 
 St. John's, Torquay, 204. 
 St. John the Divine, Kennington, 100, 
 
 204. 
 St. Luke, Lower Norwood, 109. 
 
 St. l^Largaret's, East Grinstead, 20, 
 50, 258, 271. 
 
 St. Margaret's, Liverpool, 204. 
 
 St. Mark's, Venice, 72, 91, 94, 108, 
 115, 248. 
 
 St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, 52. 
 
 St. Mary's, Southampton, 222. 
 
 vSt. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, 50, 
 76, no, 204. 
 
 St. Mary the Virgin, Holmbury, 69, 
 90, loi, 257. 
 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, 71, 100, 233. 
 
 .St. Peter's, Bournemouth, 21, 204, 260. 
 
 St. Philip and St. James, Oxford, 19, 
 103. 
 
 vSt. Saviour's, Eastbourne, 100, iio, 
 204. 
 
 .St. Sofia, Constantinople, 251. 
 
 Stewkley, Church, 98. 
 
 Stone, Cliurch, 36, 140. 
 
 Street, A. E., 22. 
 
 Mrs. A. E., 270. 
 George Edmund, in a solicitor's 
 office, 3 ; goes to Scott's, 
 6 ; his first commission, 1 1 ; 
 engaged to Miss Proctor, 12 ; 
 settles at Wantage, 14 ; made 
 Diocesan Architect of Oxford, 
 14 ; his first foreign tour, 16 ; 
 marries and goes to Oxford, 19 ; 
 first Italian tour, 21 ; moves to 
 London, 22 ; second prize in 
 Lille comj^etition, 29 ; made 
 A.R.A., 50 ; elected to Athen- 
 aeum, 50 ; appointed to Lav/ 
 Courts with E. M. Barry, 145 ; 
 sole a]ipointment to Law Courts, 
 145 ; the contract signed, 169 ; 
 the eastern block opened, 172 ; 
 made an R.A., 196 ; dislocates 
 his arm, 207 ; buys Holmdalc, 
 219 ; my mother's death, 224 ; 
 presented with R.I.B.A. gold 
 medal, 226 ; his engagement to 
 Miss Holland, 230 ; his secon'd 
 marriage, 230 ; made Professor 
 of Architecture in the R.A. , 
 260 ; treasurer, R.A., 260 ; 
 elected President of R.I.B.A., 
 266 ; goesabroad for health, 272 ; 
 his death, 273 ; burial at the 
 Abbey, 279 ; memorial in the 
 Law Courts, 280 ; artistic char- 
 acter, 17, 57, 60, 61, 87 ; 
 churchmanship, 15, 26, 40, 47, 
 
INDEX 
 
 ^7) 73 '■> \o\& of painting, 38 ; 
 love of music, 15, 42, 53 ; power 
 of work, 43, 231 ; business 
 qualities, 172, 196 ; rapidity in 
 design, 153 ; skill as a draughts- 
 man, 124, 227 ; accuracy in 
 sketching, 207 ; power of con- 
 ception, 131 ; power of criti- 
 cal observation, 8, 83, 120, 
 122, 137 ; thoroughness, 134, 
 172, 276 ; knowledge of his 
 work, 113, 188, 192; indivi- 
 duality, 103, 104 ; preference 
 for English Gothic, 21, 81, 
 202 ; preference for the earlier 
 forms, 19, 106, 107, 108; views 
 on training of an architect, 
 125, 137, 142 ; views as to 
 the close connection of painting, 
 sculpture, and architecture, 13, 
 92. 
 
 Street, Mrs. G. E., 12, 22, 223, 224. 
 Charles, i, 4. 
 Mr. (the father), i, 3. 
 Mrs. (the mother), i, 14, 18. 
 Miss M. A., 1, 9, 10, 18, 71. 
 Thomas Heniy, i, 3, 5, 9, 12, 
 226, 274. 
 
 Street architecture, iii, 113. 
 
 Style, Victorian, 86, 160, 165. 
 
 Sundridge, 11, 13. 
 
 Sykes, Sir Tatton, Bart., 50, 180, 183. 
 
 Symbolism, 58, loi, 181. 
 
 System, monastic, 8. 
 
 Taixe, M., 165. 
 Temple Bar, 170. 
 Thring, Rev. E., 184. 
 Toddington Church, 50, 204. 
 Toledo Cathedral, 139. 
 Torquay, St. John's, 204. 
 Town hall, Brussels, 164. 
 Ghent, 164. 
 
 Town hall, Louvain, 164. 
 Trevelyan, Sir C, 146, 152. 
 Triangles, designing on system of, 141 
 Turner, J. M. \V. , 132. 
 
 Uppingham, 50, 184. 
 
 Venice, 206, 208. 
 
 St. Mark's, 72, 91, 94, 108, lis, 
 248. 
 Verona, 208. 
 
 Vevay, English Church, 105, 272. 
 Vezelay, 223. 
 Victorian style, 86, 160, 165. 
 
 Wait, Mr. W. K., 178. 
 
 Walker, F., 39. 
 
 W^alton, Frank, R.I., 273. 
 
 Wantage, 11, 13, 15. 
 
 Waterhouse, Alfred, R.A. , 143, 293. 
 
 Watts, F., R.A., 238. 
 
 Webb, Rev. B., 13, 22. 
 
 Mr. Philip, 20. 
 Weissenstein, 207. 
 Wellington Barracks Chapel, 94, 96, 
 
 109. 
 Wells, H. T., R.A., 198, 219, 224, 
 
 270, 273. 
 Westminster Abbey, 65, 79, 81, 140, 
 165. 
 
 St. James the Less, 37, 103, 135. 
 West Walton Church, 8, 119. 
 White, Mr. William, 11. 
 Wilberforce, Bishop, 14, 221, 225. 
 Winchester, 5. 
 
 Cathedral, 5. 
 Worcester, i. 
 
 Cathedral, 107. 
 Workmen's ornament, 80. 
 Wren, Sir C, 76, 170, 233, 268. 
 
 York Minster, 117, 196, 201, 217. 
 Vpres, Cloth Hall, 54, 164. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS 
 
 OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY IN THE SPRING OF I 88 I, 
 
 BY G. E. STREET, R.A., 
 
 AS PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF THE ART OF 
 ARCHITECTURE! 
 
 It is impossible for a professor who enters on his duties under such 
 circumstances as have involved my appointment to this office, not 
 to say at least a few words of a somewhat personal character. Three 
 of my brethren who, in succession, occupied this chair within my 
 time, have all been taken away from us within a brief period. One 
 of them was the master under whom I had studied, and to whose 
 varied information, skill, and enthusiasm for his art I shall always 
 feel myself a great debtor. But the last was one to whom many of 
 you students who are here to-night are similarly indebted. Mr. 
 Barry had, as many of you are aware, held the post of professor in 
 this Academy for some six or seven years. His lectures were 
 marked by the variety of the subjects which they embraced, and by 
 the judicial impartiality which it was his aim to show in his apprecia- 
 tion of what was, in his eyes, good in all styles. The sad event 
 which closed his career so suddenly interrupted last year's lectures 
 when their delivery was but half completed. But they are shortly 
 to be published, and will, I doubt not, be well worthy of your study 
 and attention, as containing the advice, criticisms, and views upon 
 our art of one who held a most distinguished place among his 
 brethren. This is not the place or the time to say more on such a 
 subject. But less than this I cannot say on an occasion when all 
 of us would have been so glad that it should still have been his 
 voice to which you listened, and his counsel that you had to accept. 
 There is one difficulty which all professors must feel in the work 
 which is to be done here. It is, as I think, our first duty to think 
 of our students and their good. And in successive years it might 
 be necessary, or, to say the least, advantageous, if the simple truths 
 and precepts which are the foundation of all that is best in art were 
 repeated time after time to the succeeding audiences of fresh 
 
 ' Lecture on Architecture to Students of the Royal Academy. Delivered 
 Monday, 14th February 1881. 
 
3i6 APPENDIX 
 
 students. And so, perhaps, it may matter little if sometimes I 
 repeat what has been far better said before, in hopes that to some 
 at least there may be freshness, instruction, and novelty in what I 
 say. The real difficulty is that a professor who wishes to teach well 
 must, of necessity, inculcate only what he himself believes to be 
 true ; and that in dealing with art, as soon as he leaves the domain 
 of simple first principles he comes upon ground where every view 
 is contested, and each man's heart is, to a great extent, independent 
 of his neighbours. And my hope is that in listening to me you 
 will none of you forget that, after all, what I tell you is intended to 
 be suggestive before anything. If I tell you of first principles which all 
 acknowledge, and then give you advice which seems to sin against 
 them, you may be sure I have not made myself understood, and in 
 any case it is the first principle which must be held fast by. To- 
 night, however, I shall have to confine myself very much to ques- 
 tions which much concern those of you more especially who are 
 students in our architectural school, but which may, I fear, be com- 
 paratively uninteresting to the rest of my audience. In subsequent 
 lectures I hope I may find it possible to deal with questions of a 
 different and pleasanter kind — less elementary, and such as all of 
 us who wish to be artists are bound to interest ourselves in. It is 
 a good rule of the Academy that compels you all — painters and 
 sculptors, as well as architects — to listen to architectural teaching. 
 But no teaching can be worth anything which tries to accommodate 
 itself to the indifference of an audience ; and it would be a mistake 
 to assume for an instant that any of you wish to know only a little 
 about any one of the arts, and care only to attend here because the 
 Academy insists upon your doing so. The first test of an artist is that 
 he should feel a real and absolute, if not an almost equal, interest 
 in all the arts, and the painter who does not care to know some- 
 thing about architecture is sure, at least, never to be so good a 
 painter as he might have been ; whilst to you students of sculpture, 
 I would say that my art and yours are so intimately allied, neither 
 in their highest developments being ever perfect without the aid of 
 the other, that it is incumbent upon you, if you would excel, to 
 know much more than merely a little about architecture. The three 
 arts are indeed all dependent on each other. The most perfect 
 building is that in which not only the architectural lines, proportions, 
 and features are all good and beautiful in themselves, but the one in 
 which provision is thoughtfully and wisely made by the architect for 
 the best display in harmony -of the arts of painting and sculpture. 
 The architect deals with outlines and masses, with light and shade ; 
 but for that deeper interest which touches one most after these 
 general effects have been produced, he depends, except in the 
 vastest buildings, upon the other arts, and he must know and feel 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 317 
 
 enough about them to make him competent to provide for their 
 worthy and dignified treatment. And surely it is not less needful 
 that the painter and the sculptor should be so well trained in 
 architectural detail as to make it impossible for them to do or 
 admire work in which ignorance of that art is exhibited — such 
 ignorance being fatal in its effect wherever it exists or is conspicuous. 
 Nor should it ever be forgotten that the study of the most perma- 
 nent of all the arts has a real value if it leads all artists to consider in 
 their work not only what is good for to-day and for the fashion of 
 the time, but for ages to come, so that it may be looked at with 
 love and respect by their descendants for many generations. So 
 much only do I think it necessary to say by way of introduction to 
 my subject for to-night, which I have selected as being one on 
 which we ought first of all to understand each other, and on which 
 one who is growing old may well speak decided words of counsel 
 to you who are only on the threshold of your career. With what 
 conception of art are you bound, then, to begin your work ? The 
 work of the architect is evidently complicated by conditions peculiar 
 to itself It must be useful first of all, beautiful afterwards. Unless 
 it is useful, it is not really artistic. Usefulness may be exhibited in 
 trifles as much as in the greatest affairs. You must realise that it is 
 not only necessary to learn how to plan a building so as to make it 
 most thoroughly fit for its purpose, but you must learn also how to 
 design every detail so that it shall be the fittest for the place, and 
 for the work it has to do. You must therefore begin by studying 
 how to plan well, and how to build well. Good construction is the 
 basis of good art ; though even here a word of caution is required, 
 for new modes of construction may be popular, but not good : and 
 the only test that I know of good construction is the certainty of its 
 being permanent. Unfortunately, you will find that this is the 
 greatest temptation which will assail you from the first in your 
 architectural career. You will be tempted to sacrifice solidity to 
 some fancied necessity for ornament ; but it is nevertheless the fact 
 that many very noble buildings of all ages are almost absolutely 
 devoid of mere ornament, and that no work which is not solid and 
 well constructed and proportioned, however richly it may be adorned, 
 is ever in the end lastingly ornamental. Consider for an instant in 
 what way this rule affects you when in practice. The Egyptian and 
 Greek remains — quite apart from any intrinsic beauty which they 
 possess — affect every one by the evidence of their admirably solid 
 mode of construction. The somewhat unsightly masses of brick- 
 work which are all that are at first seen of some great Roman 
 works, such as, e.g. the baths of Caracalla, affect the senses in the 
 same way. In mediaeval times, it is when you are traversing some 
 passage formed in the thickness of a wall that the same feeling is 
 
31 8 APPENDIX 
 
 excited, and in all these cases it is the respect for his work which 
 the builder shows that reacts upon us. Nothing is ever entirely 
 unworthy of notice that is done with this feeling, and as it would 
 be wholly impossible to obtain, as it would also be absurd to 
 demand, the same goodness of design in a mere temporary erection 
 as in a permanent one, so the nierit of an architectural work will 
 almost always have some distinct relation to the solidity of its con- 
 struction. The reason for putting this fact before all others which 
 bear on the study and practice of an art is that, if you have but a 
 firm grip of it, all your studies will bear more fruit, because it will 
 give you in one vital point an infallible critical test for the examina- 
 tion of all architectural work. And if I do not attempt to teach 
 you in my lecture much about the merely practical side of your 
 work, you must never forget that this is in no degree whatever 
 because I wish you to ignore what is absolutely essential, but only 
 because it seems to me that this Academy of the Fine Arts requires 
 of its professors and of its students that their main devotion shall 
 be to the artistic side of our art, with but such incidental references 
 to its practical side as grow naturally out of or tend to illustrate and 
 explain the other. Such references, even if only incidental, cannot 
 be infrequent. 
 
 At every turn we are met with the question whether what we 
 have designed is the best thing possible under the circumstances, 
 not whether it is the most beautiful — the best thing in architecture 
 being always that which combines the most sagacious use of the 
 materials available, the soundest construction, and the most con- 
 venient adaptation to the requirements, with thoroughly good artistic 
 character and proportion in the mass and in all the details, and some 
 evidence of imagination in the design. The architect has to work 
 under limitations wholly unknown to the painter, sculptor, or 
 musician, and yet his art requires for its perfection no less invention 
 and imagination and loftiness of character. If we look carefully at 
 painters' work, we are struck with the extraordinary extent to which 
 the artist reveals himself in his work. On the canvas of a great 
 painter you see not only the man who sat for his portrait, but almost 
 equally the man who painted it. In a more subtle way the architect 
 is revealed in his work. His refinement or his coarseness, his love 
 of truth or indifference to it, are always evident. In the highest art 
 it is the man rather than the society or the system that is seen ; and 
 as in ages when insecurity of life, tyranny of rulers, ruthlessness, or 
 religious intolerance, were rife, the very existence of these things 
 involved the existence of men of the strongest and most heroic 
 character, so in the same times the greatest buildings were erected. 
 The individual man lived often a higher life, and had a higher con- 
 ception of his work than is usual in more easy and perhaps more 
 
 •u 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 319 
 
 polished and virtuous times. At the same time, though, the highest 
 art is a reflex of the spirit of the man. The man is dominated to 
 a great extent by the age ; so that the spirit of the age is seen more 
 or less in the architectural works of all times. Our own history 
 will be read in ours possibly long after all other records of its 
 work are lost, and it lies with us to secure that the record shall be 
 that of the best features, not of the worst of our times. The 
 lesson for you is obvious : you must cultivate in yourselves a high 
 sense of the requirements of your art, and a persistent self-reliance 
 and individuality. Without these you cannot be great architects. 
 And it is more necessary to insist on this with you than with your 
 brethren of the brush and the chisel, because your daily life may 
 be, and too often 1 know is, spent in working under influences 
 wholly hostile to this higher view. 
 
 It is well to speak thus to you who are still young, and who, 
 being so, are also generous, and I hope enthusiastic. You will soon 
 cease to be young ; but unless you maintain to the end the other 
 qualities you will not be great artists. There may, of course, be 
 enthusiasm of a certain sort for bad things. Many of us, I fear, 
 fancy whilst we are doing commonplace, if not vulgar things, that our 
 work is worthy to excite such a feeling, never realising any of the 
 necessary conditions. And it is worth while to ask, therefore, what 
 is it which really does create our enthusiasm in ancient examples ? 
 Enthusiasm is not merely the highest kind of interest. This may be 
 kindled by historical associations ; but a bare field on which a battle 
 has been fought has this. Extreme age gi\es interest, but it is not 
 necessarily lovely. Singularity of situation, of material, of adaptation to 
 exceptional purposes, may all give interest. But none of them create 
 real enthusiasm. And the only architectural work which does excite it 
 is that in which you find evidence throughout that the artist thought 
 nothing of his own part in it, but only of the perfection of his work, 
 of its solidity first, and then of its refinement. Try by this test such 
 buildings as the Parthenon, the Temple of Neptune at Paistum, the 
 Campanile at Florence, Amiens Cathedral, or the choir of West- 
 minster Abbey, and you will find that all possess these qualities, and 
 all of them kindle undying enthusiasm. Once learn to see that such 
 qualities exist and produce their effect, and you have made one step 
 at least towards possessing them yourselves. Nor is it necessary 
 that you should have any hope of exhibiting your qualities on build- 
 ings of such importance as those just mentioned. Recollect that in 
 Athens, in Italy, in France, and in England small works have been 
 at least as interesting and perfect as large ones, and that no artist 
 depends upon the largeness of the work which he has to deal with for 
 the opportunity of showing his real worth. I recollect when I sat in 
 your place hearing one of tlie greatest of my predecessors — the 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 illustrious Cockerell — declare that the most perfect thing he had ever 
 designed was a scraper ; and, strange as the illustration is, he was 
 serious, and justified in being serious in such a view. It may be 
 argued that in ancient times there was an intuitive rather than a 
 conscious recognition of the need for refinement which I assume to 
 be necessary ; but this I am inclined to doubt. What, for instance, 
 is the story of the long and slow development of Doric architecture, 
 but one of an attempt to secure more refinement by the gradual 
 perfection of every detail ? The enthusiasm for what had gone 
 before being the stimulus to greater perfection, and the refinement 
 being the consequence of the enthusiasm. Or, again, in the whole 
 history of art, is there a more interesting chapter than that of the 
 gradual development, by repeated changes and modifications, of the 
 circular Roman and Byzantine buildings, through the Romanesque apse 
 into the intricate and beautiful Gothic chevet of the French churches 
 in its complete form ? — a development which was gradual only in 
 the sense that we can trace all the steps by which it proceeded, but 
 which, as compared with the slow and patient development ot 
 Egyptian and Greek art, astonishes us by the rapidity of its pro- 
 ceedings, the fertility of imagination shown by those who conducted 
 it, and the vast and complete change in all architectural forms which 
 in a few years was achieved. Some among you may have no 
 enthusiasm for your art, and may have no interest in such evidence 
 of what the architects of old must have felt. You may have been 
 told to be architects, not because you refused to be anything else, 
 but because the profession seems to offer a fair mode of getting a 
 living. This is to reduce your art to the level of the basest trade, 
 to deprive yourselves of all chance of real success, and to condemn 
 yourselves to a career of mediocrity which will benefit neither you 
 nor your neighbours. If there are any such students here let me 
 beseech them to take a new view of their duty, and to cultivate, by 
 every means in their power, the frame of mind I have been de- 
 scribing. It does not lie in the power of every one to become a 
 great artist. But it is in the power of even the least gifted among 
 you, by cultivating his reverence for the ways and work of great 
 artists, to make it impossible that he should ever be guilty of anything 
 wholly bad and contemptible. Consider what a glorious inheritance 
 you have ! In every part of the civilised world, the architect whose 
 eyes are open finds, on all sides, works which speak to him more for- 
 cibly, the more he examines them, of the great and eternal lessons of his 
 art. He, above all men, has a delight in the past, because he can read 
 better than others the most permanent and intelligible of its visible 
 records. If he is wise he never ceases to learn, for the examples he 
 has to study are of inexhaustible number and variety. Even if 
 circumstances compel him to limit his studies to his own country. 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 321 
 
 there is no cause for regret, for I suppose the man has not yet hved 
 who has seen all that is worth seeing, even of English architecture ; 
 and as much may often be learnt by the patient study of small works 
 as by more ambitious attempts to study, to group, and to analyse the 
 origin, principles, and developments of the art all over the civilised 
 world. When you have resolved to look at your work in this spirit, 
 you must be reminded that there are some minor conditions of 
 success which I do not think beneath notice here. Your first 
 business is to become an accomplished draughtsman. As you will 
 hear presently, good architects have existed, and may always exist, 
 who do not draw well ; but no one can safely say to himself that he 
 will elect to be numbered among them. Architectural draughtsman- 
 ship is a good training for every one, because its first essentials are 
 clearness and accuracy ; and the man who has to depend very much 
 on these qualities for his knowledge of the effect his work will produce 
 must learn so to represent it on paper as to ensure that his drawing is 
 a fair representation of its effect. The habit of tinting and shading 
 architectural elevations is a bad one, and not to be encouraged. It is 
 a simple waste of time. In outlining geometrical drawings, as well as 
 in sketching, never use a very hard pencil, and make up your mind 
 in the latter to dispense almost, if not altogether, with india-rubber. 
 The essence of good architectural drawing is not only that it should 
 be clear and accurate, but that it should be done positively and once 
 for all. Nothing is more fatal than a slovenly and tentative habit in 
 architectural draughtsmanship, and if you indulge in it you will find 
 it stand much in your way when you attempt to make original 
 designs. When you draw these, the first thing you must endeavour 
 to accomplish is to acquire the habit of seeing in your mind what 
 you want to draw before you draw it. To see some men draw, one 
 might almost suppose that the pencil was gifted with the miraculous 
 power of making a design, so little does it seem to be certainly 
 guided by the hand that holds it. The habit of picturing your 
 design to yourself before you draw it would save a great deal of this 
 confused sort of work. Knowing what your intention is, you have 
 then only to put it on paper ; but if you have not taken this pre- 
 liminary trouble, you will never work with half the accuracy or speed 
 which would otherwise be possible. Good draughtsmanship is a 
 necessity in these days for a really accomplished architect. 
 
 It is impossible in this respect to put ourselves exactly in the 
 position of men who had not our facilities and our system of educa- 
 tion. It is true we are not better artists than they were ; but in one 
 sense we can draw better, and are, therefore, bound to do so. I am 
 not aware that any one knows how a Greek architect set out his 
 design. And as to the mediaeval draughtsman, we know, by such 
 books as that of Willars de Honecort, a thirteenth-century French 
 
 V 
 
322 APPENDIX 
 
 architect, that an architect's drawings then were something like 
 children's drawings now. And even at a later date the still extant 
 original drawings for such works as the front of the church at Lou- 
 vain, the steeple of Ulm, and the cathedral at Koln were strangely 
 unlike the exact geometrical drawings which we are able to make. 
 These drawings — published in MoUer's Deiikmalcr — and Hollar's 
 drawing of the steeple at Mechlin, engraved, no doubt, from an 
 original drawing, afford interesting illustrations of this kind of eleva- 
 tion. You will find that though they are in elevation, they are 
 frequently so far put into projection as to exhibit at all points the 
 plan or horizontal section of the work. Both the drawing of eleva- 
 tion and plan are, however, so slight, that it must have been impos- 
 sible for any architect to have satisfied himself without further 
 details, and these, there is some evidence to show, were set out by 
 the architect himself at large on a floor specially provided for the 
 purpose. Such a floor exists in the workroom over the passage to 
 the chapter-house at York, and at Limoges the original setting-out 
 of the groining was found by M. Verneille in a similar position. 
 Possibly, also, models were more used than they are now. At Lou- 
 vain is still preserved a most exquisite model, cut in stone, of the 
 complete design for the west front of a church, which itself has 
 never been completed. When compared with the design, which is 
 also preserved, it is seen that the model represents mouldings and 
 traceries with an exact accuracy which is not attempted in the draw- 
 ing. But the making of a model by an old architect, in place of a 
 careful geometrical drawing, is no excuse to any one for making care- 
 less drawings in the first place now. They are sure to lead to care- 
 less details afterwards. Too many of you come here wholly ignorant 
 of all works on your art. Many of them, to which it is always easy 
 to gain access, will give you more evidence of the best kind of 
 architectural drawing than any verbal hints can. But you will find 
 that in these there are united clearness, accuracy, feeling for detail, 
 delicacy, and conformity of line, and you will find no back-lining to 
 mark the supposed shaded side of projections, and none of those 
 provoking splotches of black which are unhappily so much in favour 
 with some young draughtsmen. A power of drawing in perspective 
 is of the first importance on two grounds : first, that without this 
 knowledge your enjoyment and success in sketching will be very 
 small ; and, secondly, because it will render it more easy to you to 
 realise the effects of your building in perspective, without having the 
 trouble of making a careful drawing or a model, to convince yourself 
 of its real appearance. Without this power you will hardly be able 
 to realise the real light and shade of a design ; and without this 
 ability it were better never to attempt to make a design at all. The 
 delicacy of draughtsmanship on which I have insisted will lead to 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 323 
 
 refinement in other ways. An essentially vulgar drawing may be 
 made of a refined building ; it should be your aim to let the drawing 
 itself have that air of refinement also. You are, all of you, armed 
 with mathematical instruments, the like of which no age before our 
 own has ever seen. Remember that these are useful servants, and 
 no more, and that, whenever you can do so, you had far better use 
 your hand in place of your instrument. You cannot practise this 
 too much or too steadily. Draw accurately, firmly, and, as far as 
 may be, with a single stroke, the outline of a Greek or Etruscan 
 vase, the volute of a good Ionic capital, the sections of Greek 
 mouldings, and equally of our own English mouldings of the thir- 
 teenth and fourteenth centuries. The hand trained in this way is, 
 believe me, a much better servant than the bow-pencil. The curves 
 which can be drawn by a trained hand, under the guidance of a 
 trained eye, are far more beautiful, because more subtle in their 
 variations and prolongations than those of any instrument ; and I 
 insist on this point because, unhappily, the bow-pencil and not the 
 hand is at the root of almost all the so-called ornament of the nine- 
 teenth century. Another habit which it is desirable to encourage is 
 that of representing with a, few lines the effect of several. In draw- 
 ings to a very small scale the attempt to represent every line of 
 moulding and detail is sure to be a failure as well as a waste of 
 time ; and the selection of those lines which are essential is always 
 evidence of good draughtsmanship. This cannot be done without a 
 real knowledge of the character of the details. And as no one can 
 draw a building accurately without this knowledge, I need hardly say 
 that it is very far from a waste of time for a painter to give some 
 attention to architectural detail. Some of Turner's pencil-drawings 
 are capital examples of his power of indicating so accurately the de- 
 tails of a building, that no one need be in doubt as to the style in 
 which it is built. He could not have done this unless he had 
 educated himself by the study of architectural detail, and his example 
 ought to be followed by every painter-student who wishes to be able 
 to introduce any architectural features into his pictures — as who does 
 not? 
 
 One word of caution is necessary here. The power of making 
 good and attractive drawings is of immense value, and may make a 
 vast difference in your prosperity and success in life. But it is a 
 means only, and not the end. It has its dangerous side. It is pos- 
 sible to make a design look well on paper which will never pass 
 muster in execution. Nothing is more suicidal than this ; but, 
 unfortunately, there is nothing against which it is more necessary to 
 warn you. If you do devote yourselves to making attractive archi- 
 tectural drawings, do them always, I beg you, with a conscientious 
 determination to represent your work absolutely as it will appear — 
 
324 APPENDIX 
 
 the real object of working out architectural designs in perspective 
 being the discovery of weak points in the design, so that they may 
 be corrected in execution. When once you are able to draw fairly 
 well, you are prepared for what is the best and widest field of study 
 — the buildings which are the best illustrations of our art. And in 
 these it is well, I need hardly say, to devote yourselves as far as pos- 
 sible only to the best examples. In sketching it is best at first to 
 err on the side of formality, to draw, above all, clearly and accu- 
 rately, the ground plan of every building you visit ; for without this 
 no other sketches are complete, and with it sketches of the elevations 
 or details, however slight, are nevertheless intelligible. At the be- 
 ginning you can hardly take too many dimensions ; your work 
 must be sketched and measured on the spot with equal accuracy. 
 At a later period you will be able to generalise more, and to dis- 
 pense with this elaborate detail in your studies. In sketching, never 
 make the mistake of using the commonest paper. Treat yourselves, 
 from the first, to luxury in this one respect. Make your measured 
 sketches in a book, and take care to make your dimensions ample 
 enough to ensure the accuracy of the drawing you make from those 
 sketches ; but in the case of mouldings, of sculpture, of the filling-in 
 of panels or arches, let your sketch be as carefully drawn as possible, 
 and do not depend at all upon your two-foot rules for the accuracy 
 of your sketching. Pay special attention to such points in construc- 
 tion as the jointing of stonework, the design of mouldings meant to 
 meet special wants, as, e.g. the slopes of buttresses and of other 
 members intended to throw off water, the adaptation of architectural 
 features to their situation, as, for example, the details used near the eye 
 and far from it, and the modes adopted for making them both properly 
 visible and at the same time strong enough for their place and work. 
 Finally, in whatever style it is that you are most interested, never 
 fail to draw with the utmost care, and to store up in your mind the 
 effect of all the best mouldings you see. There is no part of your 
 studies more important than this. Never believe any one who speaks 
 lightly of the science or art of moulding. I call it by both terms, 
 because it embraces both. By no test can you separate good work 
 from bad more surely than by the comparison of the mouldings. A 
 good moulding grows out of the necessities of the occasion. It gives 
 us the power of accentuating our lines or proportions in the most 
 positive manner if we choose, or of softening them off so delicately 
 as almost to conceal the transition from one feature to another. 
 Without their aid there is a rudeness — a coarseness, one may 
 almost say — which is offensive ; whilst with their aid that refinement 
 of line which, as I have told you, it should be your great aim to 
 achieve, is made more perfect, and carried to greater perfection than 
 in any other way. In drawing mouldings, I advise you always to 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 325 
 
 sketch them with as much accuracy as possible, and to a good size, 
 and on no account to depend upon correcting your indifferent 
 sketches by a multitude of dimensions. Your eye, your hand, and 
 your memory will be misled. You will look again and again at your 
 sketches, and will forget all about your dimensions, and so be led to 
 a permanently false impression of their real contour. 
 
 Remember always that sketches of mouldings alone, without 
 equally accurate sketches of the features to which they belong, or 
 with which they are connected, are useless. One of the most 
 accurate works on the subject is utterly valueless, owing to an 
 omission of this kind. Arch mouldings are drawn without any plan 
 of the capitals, or of the jambs below the capitals. The relation of 
 one of these to the other is of the very essence of the matter, and 
 unless both are drawn it is really of little use to draw either. In the 
 same way the relation of the mouldings of a window to its tracery, 
 of a column to its capital and base, and of both to the entablature, 
 ought always to be recorded in a sketch. 
 
 From the drawing of mouldings you will go on to that of sculp- 
 tured or carved members, and in these it is the effect which was 
 intended to be produced of which you must be thinking. So, for 
 this purpose, I attach but little importance, save as a test of mere 
 draughtmanship, to the work which you have to do in our schools 
 from casts. All architectural features in which carving is intro- 
 duced ought to be looked at and drawn in the very place for which 
 they were intended. If a cap appear perfectly well hung against a 
 wall, on a level whh the eye, it can hardly be suitable for its real 
 position in the building some fifty feet above the spectator ; and a 
 great difference in treatment ought to exist between a piece of 
 carving which is made to appear to do hard service, and another 
 which evidently has no such serious work to do, and is rather the 
 evidence of the artist's pleasure in his work. There is no subject 
 for study more important than the relation of carved ornament to 
 architecture. You know how in all times it has formed a leading 
 feature. The repetition of definite ornaments at regular intervals is 
 one of the easiest modes of securing due attention to the member 
 on which it occurs. The moulding adorned with carving is always 
 more noticed than any other, and the lines which require special 
 emphasis are those to which such work ought to be confined. You 
 will soon find that these carvings, as well as the mouldings, are 
 modified to suit their positions, near or at a distance from the eye. 
 You wnll notice also certain contrasts between the ornament in good 
 and bad work. In the former it is never aggressive or too pro- 
 minent ; in the latter it is almost always so. In the former it is 
 used with due deference to the common sense of construction ; in 
 the latter it disregards the construction entirely. I cannot give you 
 
326 APPENDIX 
 
 a better example of this than is afforded by the division of such an 
 enrichment as the so-called dog-tooth flower. In good work this is 
 always divided to suit the joints of the stonework ; in bad work it is 
 set out with absolute uniformity all round an arch without any refer- 
 ence to the joints, which thus, instead of coming always between 
 the flowers, occur in the worst possible places. I mention these 
 points because, if you once notice them for yourselves, you will see 
 how important they are, and how certainly they indicate the quality 
 of the work in which they are found. As there is no sort of train- 
 ing for an architect equal to that of the study of buildings, so it is 
 absolutely impossible for you to learn your art only from the lessons 
 which we are able to teach you here, or which you learn in the 
 routine of architects' practice. At all costs, then, you must spend a 
 certain proportion of every year in travelling and examining build- 
 ings for yourselves, and the only special advice I can give you now 
 is, not to try to cover too much ground at first. It is wiser to 
 study a few good works well, and to make yourselves thoroughly 
 masters of them. Having done this for some time you will find 
 your power of seizing the best points in the buildings you visit 
 increase rapidly, and you may then make your journeys more rapid 
 and less exhaustive and particular. These very general suggestions 
 may seem almost unnecessary ; but unfortunately I know from 
 experience how few of us spend enough time in sketching and 
 measuring existing works ; and how few manage to make clean, 
 clear, decided sketches of what they see. Observe that it is gener- 
 ally impossible to improve a sketch after it is once made ; whatever 
 it is, pray leave it with all its first freshness about it. There is a 
 virtue in that which will never be increased by after-work. If you 
 have any feeling of the artist in your composition it will be impos- 
 sible for you to go on for long drawing the good work of other men 
 or other times without gradually finding yourselves distinguishing 
 clearly between good, inferior, and bad work. 
 
 In this country it so happens that you all have, within reach, 
 examples of a national architecture perhaps as noble, and certainly 
 as universal in its developments, as that of any other land. Some 
 of you, as you pass through our schools, give painful evidence of 
 the fact that you wholly ignore this great — indeed untold — advan- 
 tage. Compare your own chances of education with that of the 
 student whose fate has ordained that he shall learn all that he knows 
 in new countries, where not a fragment remains of an older art than 
 that of his own time, and you will see how immense your advan- 
 tages are compared to his, and how far in advance of him you ought 
 to be in real taste and culture. But I am told, sometimes, that you 
 have no time, no opportunity, no means to avail yourselves of your 
 advantages ; and when I ask one who excuses himself in this way 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 327 
 
 whether he has drawn much of Westminster Abbey, or of the 
 cathedral nearest to the town from which he comes, I find that he 
 has deferred this duty to some future day, or that he thinks the 
 advice too impossible to be practicable. Others among you, too, 
 may believe what you are often told, that what you ought to aim at 
 is an original style, and that the constant study of already executed 
 work is not likely to assist you in this. Well, this is too long a 
 question for this evening, but if the nineteenth century is to dis- 
 tinguish itself by not caring for what has gone before, I can only 
 say that it will distinguish itself in a quite unique fashion. I shall 
 have to speak to you more at length on this point in my third 
 lecture, and need, therefore, only say here that we know of no 
 period in our art in which architects were not studying the work of 
 men who had gone before. They studied them wisely, so that they 
 might improve them. The variations which they made were some- 
 times so slight and so slowly made as hardly to amount to varia- 
 tions at all ; and if there ever was a people more prone to such a 
 course than another, it was that Greek nation to whose art we all 
 look up as among the most inspired results of the highest training. 
 
 I would never have you draw and sketch existing examples with 
 a view to copying or reproducing them. That is wholly contrary 
 to right principles. What I wish is that you should draw so much 
 of them as to find yourselves penetrated with the feeling for archi- 
 tectural form and perfection which, as the results of centuries of 
 development, have been discovered to be the best. This study is, 
 in truth, analogous to that of the sculptor, as illustrated by the 
 exquisite work of that great man Flaxman, which just now you have 
 an opportunity of studying within these walls. You see him drawing 
 from the life until he has mastered all the motions and attitudes, 
 outhnes and muscles of the human form. Then, possessed to the 
 full of this knowledge, he lavishes his poetical spirit on combinations 
 of figures, which illustrate at every turn his power, his knowledge, 
 and the perfection of his sentiment. The commonest subject in his 
 hands becomes endued with a beauty and a grace which are so 
 natural as to seem inherent. What the human form was to him, 
 the complete study of the accumulated experience of ages in exist- 
 ing buildings is to you. And you are to use them not that you 
 may steal from them, but that you may be able to deal with the 
 problems that come before you with the same spirit and power that 
 they show, whilst you avoid with care the failures and mistakes 
 which you can discover in them. 
 
 You may well ask me here how far such a due study of ancient 
 examples as I have been advising must be carried in the direction of 
 purely archaeological inquiries ; and I think some advice on this 
 point will not be thrown away. It is quite true that archaeology is 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 not architecture ; birt one-half at least of the studies of any architect 
 who cares for anything beyond the work of his own hands has its 
 antiquarian side ; and what is important is, that this alternative side 
 to your studies, far from diminishing your interest in them, is sure 
 to enhance them. In the history of the development of styles, you 
 have matter for endless interest. The buildings you admire and 
 examine are the work of men of whom you know nothing, and who 
 lived ages ago, perhaps. Unless you can put them in their proper 
 places in relation to each other, in their proper sequence, you will 
 never be able to understand their gradual developments ; and 
 accurate knowledge on such a point is, beyond everything, useful to 
 men who have any hope of making any further developments in 
 their art. There is a fruitful sort of antiquarianism, and a dry and 
 fruitless sort ; and it is with the former only that I care to advise 
 you to interest yourselves. You may well leave the rest to the men 
 who are antiquaries and nothing else, and with whom art counts for 
 no more than antiquity. But you cannot leave to them those 
 analyses of the progress of art in each man's work, from one man 
 and one age to another, or from one country to another, without 
 most serious loss to yourselves. I know nothing more useful than 
 such studies and such accomplishments as these. They will prevent 
 your being drawn into the downward current which sets strongly in 
 the direction of business as against art ; for the man who has once 
 devoted himself to them will never lose that interest in the higher 
 developments of his art which it ought to be, above all, your ambition 
 to have and maintain. 
 
 There is much more to be said as to the direction your studies 
 should take ; but before I touch on this I must get you, if I can, to 
 realise that you must devote some at least of your time to the 
 sister arts of painting and sculpture ; and this not with any idea of 
 excelling in the practice of all the arts — that is a happiness reserved 
 for a few heaven-born and greatly gifted mortals, — but rather with 
 the thought that unless you know enough about other arts to be 
 convinced that their highest development is in connection with archi- 
 tecture, you will be, like so many of your predecessors, unable or 
 unwilling to recognise that in the harmonious combination of all the 
 arts is the greatest future for each of them separately ; and it is 
 from among the ranks of you who are now growing up that we hope 
 the men will come who will have the happiness of seeing what will 
 really be a resurrection of art in this land. The practical divorce 
 of the arts has ended in the gravest loss to all. The architect has 
 become too much of a mere builder ; the painter lives to make 
 pictures, to be lived with and loved by a few, instead of the many ; 
 and the sculptor's life is too often spent on work for which he 
 cannot care much, because it is of no general interest, men having 
 
1 STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 329 
 
 too often forgotten that his work is beyond all other that which com- 
 pletes and beautifies and ennobles the work of the architect. On 
 some other occasion I shall hope to be able to speak to some of 
 you at length on this point, for I am persuaded that there is nothing 
 by which both arts will gain so much as by the more frequent com- 
 bination of the two. For your own share in such a consummation 
 in the future, you will not find so much opportunity for study in 
 England as elsewhere, but you should lose no opportunity of familiar- 
 ising yourselves with examples of mural decoration, whether by 
 sculpture or painting, in books, of which, as you know, we have 
 access to a goodly store in the library of this Academy ; and for 
 acquainting yourselves with sculpture there is nothing more to be 
 desired than that you should give up some of your time to drawing 
 and modelling from ancient examples, a very large proportion of 
 the finest works of all times being the sculptured decorations of 
 buildings of the Classical, the Mediieval, and the Early Renaissance 
 schools. 
 
 No small advantage will those gain who devote some of their 
 time to learning to model. In my opinion, all the decorative 
 sculpture or carving in a building ought to be modelled in the first 
 instance by the architect. This is the only way in which that 
 harmony throughout the work can be secured which is essential to 
 good effect. It is impossible to direct another man properly merely 
 by giving drawings for such work, and you must learn to give your 
 instructions in the round. The day, I hope, may not be far distant 
 when all sculptors will agree with me — if, indeed, they do not so 
 already — in thinking that the best of their work would be even 
 better than before if it showed a thorough appreciation of, and fit- 
 ness for, the requirements of the building in which it is placed. I 
 know nothing more fascinating than the evidence in most ancient 
 work of the same feeling as to detail being common to the architect 
 and the sculptor. You do not see where the work of one ends and 
 of the other begins. The sculptor seems to know all about archi- 
 tecture, and the architect to be quite conversant with sculpture ;' and 
 I much wish that in the architectural school here we may occasion- 
 ally — or even, I may say, regularly — find some students of sculpture 
 laying aside their modelling tools and their chisels, and coming to 
 us for some instruction in the art, a good knowledge of which is 
 essential to their own complete success. In future lectures in this 
 course I shall have repeatedly to refer to the works of sculptors and 
 architects, in which it is difificult to say which of the two arts can 
 most rightly claim the artist. But if this is again to be the case, 
 the young sculptor must understand that he has to master some- 
 thing more than the rudiments of architectural styles, and that, when 
 he condescends to think of work which is half architectural and 
 
330 APPENDIX 
 
 half sculptural, it must be with a complete sense of the equality of 
 the two arts, if his work is to live with that of the great masters of 
 all old and true schools. 
 
 If the sculptor ought to learn so much of architecture, how far 
 ought the architect to go in the study of the human figure ? It is a 
 question surrounded with difficulty. A great building may be built 
 which shall not include any representation of the human figure. 
 Either by accident or by robbery of their sculpture, some buildings 
 which once had figure sculpture have none now, and yet are hardly 
 less evidently beautiful in their effect. The practical difficulty about 
 drawing from the life is that if it is carried a very httle way it is ot 
 no service, whilst if it is persevered in very far it is almost certain to 
 be at the expense of other accomplishments which are even more 
 essential, and there is a risk that the student may end by being both 
 a bad figure-painter and a worse architect than he would other- 
 wise have been. It is only, therefore, in those cases in which an 
 architectural student feels a complete conviction that he has the 
 unusual and rarely-given power of combining the two arts that he 
 should venture to avail himself, to any great extent, of the privilege 
 which is conceded to him in this Academy, though he should never 
 lose any opportunity of studying the history of the combination ot 
 painting with architecture, and of making himself fairly learned in the 
 theory of such work. This he may do, whether he can draw the 
 human figure or not, and unless he has done it he will never be able 
 to associate himself with a painter in counsels as to the completion 
 of his own work.^ 
 
 In addition to improving your skill as artists, on which I have 
 been saying so much, you are bound to spend a great deal of time 
 on other studies, without which you can hardly hope to rise to real 
 eminence. There is, first of all, a long course of practical study, 
 which will show its results in your work with certainty. All the 
 visitors of our Architectural School feel, I am sure, as I do, that 
 there is much to be desired in this respect in the work of the 
 majority of the students. You ought never to make serious mistakes 
 about simple matters of construction, or simple details of arrange- 
 ment. Many of them are the result simply of a want of a little 
 common sense — a quality which the artist of every sort ought to 
 cultivate very sedulously, and the architect most of all. And as, 
 perhaps, it is when you make a ground plan that this failure is 
 most evident, a few words on this, which is the foundation of all 
 good architectural work, will not be out of place. In making a 
 
 ^ I should perhajis qualify the statement in the Memoir that my father re- 
 garded the drawing of the figure as an unexceptionable training for an architect by 
 saying that, except in some few cases, he looked upon it rather as the best means 
 of becoming a good draughtsman than a good architect pure and simple. 
 
I STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 331 
 
 plan there are two things to consider : first, the convenience of 
 the building for its purpose ; and next, its suitability for its position. 
 All good artists welcome with pleasure what is called a difficult site. 
 In truth, there is no site so easy to deal with. It is when the site 
 has no marked features of its own that the architect must make those 
 of his own work prominent. The Acropolis of Athens and the 
 Forum Romanum of Rome are, in one sense, difficult sites. That is, 
 they are so picturesque, so irregular in their levels, that everything 
 has to grow out of the necessities of its situation. There are no 
 lessons more useful than those which you may learn from such ex- 
 amples as these. The Greek added one building to another in an 
 almost picturesque confusion, and in a mode in which, if we believed 
 some of our teachers of a few years back, it is impossible for any but 
 the most erratic Gothic architect to take any pleasure. The 
 Roman made a winding and irregular descent from the Capitol, with 
 buildings of wholly dissimilar style on either hand as he descended, 
 and then, when he had passed through the arch of Septimus Severus, 
 and found himself in face of a straight road for a short distance, he 
 took care that it should be occupied by a succession of irregularly- 
 placed and designed columns, monumental pedestals, and buildings 
 whose beauty was that which came from the individual character of 
 each, as well as from the gradual growth of the whole, and the 
 evidence it afforded of the historical continuity of the community and 
 its arts. Nor when the Forum was left behind, and but a short 
 distance separated the Roman from the Coliseum, was there any care 
 to secure a straight road from one to the other. The paved road- 
 way meandered on under the arch of Titus, suiting itself to whatever 
 conditions existed, in the easiest fashion possible, and without any 
 thought whatever of those necessities for formal setting out of cities 
 which are only reasonable when, as in many Transatlantic examples, 
 there is no history whatever to be recorded, and a whole town 
 is laid out at one time, and completed almost as soon as laid 
 out. 
 
 There are cases in which, however, the wise architect endeavours 
 not only to build to suit his site, but to make the peculiarities of 
 his site suit some sumptuous and scenic laying out of his whole 
 building. Time will not admit, however, to give more than a pass- 
 ing reference to a subject which in itself affords materials for 
 many a lecture. Nor is it at the outset of your life that you are 
 likely to have such opportunities as would enable you to realise the 
 advantages of the study. 
 
 I have told you that you must study convenience of plan. This 
 you may do, not to the exclusion of architectural effect and character, 
 but always with a strict eye to it. In designing the plan of a house, 
 for instance, it does not do to make the external design first and 
 
332 APPENDIX 
 
 then to make the interior fit it somehow or other. It is necessary 
 to keep both in your mind, but it is the interior that ought to be 
 supreme. The best exterior in the world would not atone for a faulty 
 internal plan. And observe that a good interior is not simply one 
 planned upon some everyday scheme, but one which does more than 
 make life merely go on smoothly and without hindrance ; to merit 
 the epithet, it should have much suggestiveness and special adapta- 
 tion as to make it in every way interesting to live in or to use. To 
 accomplish this you must realise how every part is to be used, and 
 so contrive as to give every one pleasure in using it. It is this 
 harmonious and reasonable variation of plan that gives the greatest 
 value and charm not only to the interior, but, as a natural conse- 
 quence, to the exterior also. 
 
 The same rule applies to all other buildings. If they are well 
 contrived for their special use, depend upon it you will be just as 
 well able to make their elevations good as if they are carelessly con- 
 trived. A church requires by custom, by law, or by sentiment, a 
 generally similar arrangement of the plan. At least, it requires the 
 same component parts — a nave, a chancel, a porch, a steeple, a vestry. 
 How differently may not these be grouped and designed ! The 
 variations in the provisions for the given wants in this case are, as 
 you know, innumerable. And how much more various may not the 
 plans for a house be ? 
 
 If you realise that the real value of architecture, as of all the 
 arts, is its human and personal interest, you will see how impossible 
 it is that any art can be worth anything in which this is wholly 
 ignored. The only justification of endless rows and groups of 
 houses all arranged on the same lines, down to the pattern of the 
 scraper and the design of the area railings or of the balconies, is, that 
 the people who are to inhabit them are so identical in all their wants, 
 wishes, and modes of life, that one pattern of house will do for all. 
 Fortunately this is no more true of this age than of past ages. And 
 now, as then, the best planned buildings will be those which take 
 account of the existence of a diversity of men, with endless varieties 
 of tastes, and wants, and circumstances. It is here that the study 
 of ancient art is so invaluable. In former days, with much less 
 facility for intercourse and movement, we see how many are the 
 adaptations which architects had to make when they went from one 
 part of Europe to another. In our own times this is of everyday 
 occurrence. An English architect may be called on at any time, at 
 the very outset of his career, to go to some foreign dependency where 
 every condition of life and climate are wholly different from what 
 they are in England. The plans as well as the architectural forms 
 which are suitable in England are wholly out of place in a tropical 
 country. In one, just as much as in the other, the same first principles 
 
1 STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE ^^T) 
 
 will have to be observed, but the resulting forms will be wholly dis- 
 similar ; and the man who begins life with some knowledge of how 
 such differences have been successfully dealt with before, has an un- 
 told advantage over the man who treats all countries and all climates 
 alike, as if the satisfaction of local requirements were not, in truth, 
 the very first condition of a good piece of architecture. 
 
 Before I conclude, there are two points only on which I must say 
 a few words. One is the necessity for study of much that we cannot 
 teach you here, and much that you will never learn in the workshop 
 of an architect. Such, for instance, is the study of language and 
 the study of books. I cannot too strongly insist on the former. 
 Without a knowledge of modern languages you cannot travel with 
 complete pleasure, and you cannot know anything of the largest half 
 of the literature of your art ; and unless you have travelled, and un- 
 less you have read a good deal of what architects and critics in other 
 countries teach and think, you have deliberately shut yourselves out 
 from a large portion of the education which is indispensable to an 
 accomplished architect. As students, you have access in this Academy 
 to a most admirable artistic library, year by year becoming more and 
 more complete, and where you may do more to cultivate your own 
 taste by acquaintance with the best examples of all times than I can 
 do for you by any number of lectures or addresses. And, in the 
 second place, I wish to say but a few words on the way in which 
 you avail yourselves of the instruction offered you in the schools. I 
 have no desire whatever to exaggerate its importance. Most of you, 
 I hope, are at work day after day on the drawings and designs of 
 the architects under whom you are studying. Nothing, I believe, is 
 a better training than such work as this. If you have the original 
 drawing, be it general design, or detail of a part to a large scale, and 
 are condemned to complete it either by putting the pencil lines into 
 ink, or by the slower process of copying it, you are learning in the 
 best way all that it can teach you. But you are in one groove, and 
 affected only by one mind ; and by coming here you find yourselves 
 brought face to face with new ideas and views, inasmuch as you have 
 to work under the direction of the Visitors assisted by the Master. 
 
 But, to make any good use of such opportunities, it is not 
 enough to come here occasionally, and only and so often as is 
 absolutely necessary, but with regularity, punctuality, and prepared- 
 ness. The one regret that I feel in connection with our architectural 
 school is that the students do not, as a rule, appear to wish to attend 
 once more than is absolutely necessary ; and when one sees any- 
 thing short of the highest zeal, one is led to anticipate something very 
 far short of the highest success. It is this absence of enthusiasm for 
 his work which is fatal to an artist. If you have it, you will think no 
 hours too long for work ; and labour, instead of being toilsome, will 
 
334 APPENDIX 
 
 be your greatest pleasure. Unless you have enthusiasm for your art 
 yourselves, how can you expect that others will have any to spare for 
 you and your work ? It is a contagious quality. The artist who 
 really has it does his work in such a way as to make others feel 
 for him what he feels for his own work. This is seldom, if ever, 
 worthy of love and admiration, unless it is the outcome of a zeal and 
 a fire which are real and intense. If we have such a zeal, how will it 
 show itself in our works ? This is a question which affects what is 
 called the practice of our art as distinguished from the study. I have 
 left myself scant time to speak on this part of my subject, but fortunately 
 there is not much to be said. In art a man who has zeal must almost 
 of necessity have more zeal for some of its forms than for others. The 
 forms which our art has taken are styles in which it is almost im- 
 possible for any artist to take an equal interest. And a man who is 
 really an artist will find it natural to practice in one style, impossible to 
 do so in another. Modern practice has tried to convert the world to 
 an opposite view; it has assumed that an architect can design equally 
 well in any style. Of course, if this were true, there would be no art 
 in the work, for an artist must show himself in his work, and it would 
 be impossible to do this in antagonistic things. It is not, in my 
 judgment, necessary or desirable that I should pronounce positively 
 to you as to which is the best form for the architecture of the present 
 day. That, when you have studied and thought, and worked 
 for a few more years, each of you will have to decide for himself 
 But this I can tell you, that if you have zeal enough and enthusiasm 
 enough to care for your art for Art's sake, you are far more sure of 
 success by adhering strictly to what you believe to be good, true, 
 honest, and artistic work, than if you attempt to please everybody by 
 doing whatever you are asked to do in whatever style or fashion may 
 be dictated. The man who knows how to do one thing well is more 
 certain of success than he who tries to know a little of everything, 
 and in study and in practice common sense and good art both claim 
 from you that you should at any rate know the style of your own 
 choice well. Beyond all doubt it is a sort of inspiration that is re- 
 quired in the artist who is ever to do any really great work, and 
 this will never come to one who never dreams of perfection, who 
 thinks first of all of gain and worldly interest, who treats his art as 
 a mere matter of business and routine, not as an imperious mistress 
 who must have all his devotion and all his heart. To secure this 
 enthusiasm you must be dreamers in one way only : you may give 
 reins to your imagination — you may dream of beauty, of majesty, of 
 perfection — you may picture to yourself what you would and will 
 accomplish ; but you must be no dreamers about your proper work. 
 That must be constant, steady in purpose, thoughtful, and always in 
 some way bearing on your art either directly or indirectly. The 
 
1 STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE 335 
 
 more time you devote to study the more will you become engrossed 
 in your art, and the more you will find that it is delightful and in- 
 teresting in all its changes and developments, and in the practical 
 application of what you learn from your studies of old work to the 
 art of your own time. Industry alone will not make a great artist 3 
 but if there is one thing more certain than another in art, it is that 
 all great artists have been industrious, and that if you wish to be 
 numbered in their ranks you must follow their example. 
 
LECTURE II 
 PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE ^ 
 
 In my last lecture I endeavoured — and, I hope, not in vain — to show 
 you what course you ought to take in pursuing the study of archi- 
 tecture as a fine art. I assumed that you were all students, whether 
 of my own branch of art or of others, and that you would all, if you 
 really aimed at success, gladly welcome my advice, even if at times 
 I seemed to demand very much from you in the way of imagination, 
 of zeal, of enthusiasm, and, more than all, of industry. To-night I 
 advance a step farther in an attempt to show you what are the prin- 
 ciples of the art to which some of you are devoting yourselves, and 
 in which all of you are interested. 
 
 Few, I suppose, can doubt that there are true and false principles 
 in all the arts ; but that they are more capable of definition in 
 regard to architecture than to any of the others is certain — and this 
 because the absolute truth or falsehood of an architectural work is 
 capable of demonstration up to a certain point. But by p7-inciples 
 you must well understand that I do not mean rules} These last 
 have often been laid down, with the result that where they have been 
 obeyed implicitly, all life has been most effectually stamped out. 
 Such, e.g. is the supposed rule of proportion of columns and their 
 entablatures in Greek and Roman temples. This was derived from 
 the measurement of some one example, and the establishment of 
 that as the model for all others ; so that, given the diameter of your 
 column, the rest followed, and, in short, the rule was not one for 
 designing a good column, but one for copying exactly a particular 
 column. There is no pretence for believing that such rules ever 
 affected the original architects ; and the particular features to 
 which they are applied are so different in their proportions in 
 ancient examples as to prove that, even in the best days, there was 
 
 ^ Second lecture, delivered on Thursd.iy, 17th February, to the Students of the 
 Royal Academy. 
 
 - Rules have been compared to the ])arapets of a bridge, which prevent your 
 falling into the water but do not help you to cross the river. 
 
II PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 337 
 
 great latitude allowed, and that there was none of the insipidity 
 which is the certain consequence of ol)edience to such arbitrary 
 rules. If you want to know how far the framers of such rules may 
 try to take you, a few quotations from Scamozzi's Mirror of Archi- 
 tecture will suffice. "Here," he says, "is shown how the columns 
 follow one another, and how high every one must be. . . . The Doric 
 must be twelve modules and fifty-three minutes and a half high. . . . 
 The Ionic must be thirteen modules high. . . . The Tuscan arch 
 must be three modules and fifty-two minutes wide. . . . The impost 
 is twenty-seven minutes high," and so on, down to every detail of the 
 column, its capital and base, pedestal and impost. Everything " must 
 be" of an exact and defined height, projection, or distance apart. 
 
 The principles of the art of architecture are as eternal and 
 reasonable as the so-called " rules " are arbitrary and ephemeral. It 
 is with the former only that we are concerned to-night. The most 
 indisputable are those which affect construction, and they are of 
 universal application. The construction of a building must be good 
 if it is to be a work deserving of our respect ; and by goodness we 
 understand that it must be (i) permanent; (2) exhibited rather than 
 concealed ; (3) natural ; (4) suitable to its purpose and material ; and 
 (5) it must avail itself of the latest discoveries and inventions where 
 it is clear that they are usable under or consistently with the first 
 four conditions. 
 
 A few words only will be necessary on each of these divisions, 
 (i) Construction must be permanent. In my last lecture I told you 
 that our respect for old architects was generally in exact proportion 
 to their respect for themselves and their work. No architect would 
 willingly, I suppose, build a wall that was certain to fall ; but he is 
 hardly less to blame who knowingly builds one that is sure not to 
 last very long ; who makes it too thin, builds it without sufficient 
 foundations, or uses a bad quality or insufficient quantity of mortar 
 or cement. And as it is certain that purely temporary building 
 is not architecture at all, so that is most likely to be architectural 
 which is made to last as it were for ever. Now, to be permanent, 
 a wall must be well constructed. It must not only have good and 
 solid foundations, but its weight must be evenly adjusted and duly 
 provided for, and its various openings must be, as far as possible, 
 no cause of weakness to it. But, according to the second principle, 
 that construction should be exhibited rather than concealed, the 
 coverings of these openings ought to be evident and obviously strong 
 enough for their place. A lintel is a good thing to use if you can 
 be quite sure that it is strong enough not to break in two, but it is 
 not a good thing if it really does no work, but is relieved of all weight 
 by a hidden lintel of iron, or by an arch concealed in the wall above 
 it. So, also, in good work, the construction of the exterior should, 
 
 Z 
 
338 APPEXDIX 
 
 as far as possible, show the arrangement of the interior, and you 
 ought at once to know something about the positions of the floors, 
 the sliape of the roofs, and the sizes and uses of the principal rooms, 
 merely by examining the exterior of a building. The next principle 
 that I have laid down is that the design must always be natural ; 
 that is, proper to the place, as simple as the case allows, and not 
 strained or eccentric in its character or detail for the mere sake 
 of producing effect. And on this point I cannot do better than 
 quote what Leon Battista Alberti has well said (book i., chap, 
 ix.) :— 
 
 "We ought not to lay out our whole study in adorning one part 
 of our building, so as to leave the rest neglected and homely in com- 
 parison of it ; but let them bear that proportion among themselves 
 that they may appear to be an entire and perfect body, and not 
 disjointed and unfinished members. Moreover, in the forming of 
 these members we ought to imitate the modesty of nature. Let the 
 members, therefore, be modestly proportioned and necessary for 
 your uses. For all building, if you consider it well, owes its birth 
 to necessit}', was nursed by convenience, and embellished by use. 
 Pleasure was the last thing consulted in it, which is never truly 
 obtained by things that are immoderate. Let your building, there- 
 fore, be such that it may not want any members which it has not, 
 and that those which it has may not in any respect deserve to be 
 condemned. Nor would I have an edifice terminated with even 
 continued lines void of all manner of variety. Variety is, without 
 dispute, a very great beauty in everything when it joins and brings 
 things together in a regular manner, — things different but proportion- 
 able to each other. For, as in music, when the bass answers the 
 treble, and the tenor agrees with both, there arises from that variety 
 of sounds a harmonising whole, so the like happens in everjthing 
 else. Of course things must be executed according to the approved 
 practice of men of skill, but with this caution, that when famous 
 architects seem by their practice to have determined this or that 
 treatment of Doric, Ionic, Composite, or Tuscan to be the most 
 beautiful of any, yet they do not tie us down to follow them so 
 closely as to transcribe their very designs, but only stir us up by 
 their instructions to produce something of our own invention, and to 
 endeavour to acquire equal or greater praise even than they did." 
 
 The natural treatment of the general design of a building is, 
 therefore, that which you should always aim at, providing for the 
 requirements of the building without any violent sacrifice for the 
 sake of mere architectural effect. But such a principle as this has, 
 of course, its limits. There is a sort of scenic effect which is not to 
 be obtained so easily in any other way as by elaborately symmetrical 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 
 
 339 
 
 arrangements of plan and building. Few finer examples of this can 
 be pointed to than Greenwich Hospital, where, save for the blank 
 absence of any central object to which the rest may lead up, the 
 effect is unquestionably stately and impressive in a very high degree. 
 Another example of the same class is Bernini's really grand quad- 
 rupled curved colonnade, leading up Avith a vast sweep to the front 
 of St. Peter's at Rome. Its scale is grand, and its extent magnifi- 
 cent ; but it overwhelms the building to which it leads, and, grand 
 as the idea is, the effect is not perfect, simply, as at Greenwich, 
 because the central object is dwarfed by the magnificent scale of the 
 approach. In the late Genoese palaces you will find good illustra- 
 tions of the same sort of scenic architecture, dependent for its effect 
 on stately arcades leading from terrace to terrace, and in many of 
 the French and English houses of the Renaissance there are some- 
 what similar arrangements. One wing corresponds with another ; 
 there is a central porch ; and the garden is arranged in regular 
 terraces, with pavilions or summer-houses at proper intervals. But 
 if you compare one of the finer buildings of this class — as, for 
 instance, Montacute House or Barrington Court — with the design 
 of, say, Haddon Hall or Magdalen College, Oxford, where every 
 portion of the building tells its own story, and is differently treated 
 accordingly, it is impossible to deny that the love of stately balance 
 and symmetry may be satisfied at too great a cost, and that a far 
 better artist is generally revealed in the less formal work of the two. 
 However much one may appreciate scenic architecture, it is neces- 
 sary here to be rather discouraging as to its common introduction. 
 For a long time the student has been taught that the only possible 
 good arrangement of a large building is one founded on this prin- 
 ciple. It has been assumed that all buildings must have a centre 
 and wings corresponding exactly. If the stables are built in the 
 guise of a wing connected with the mansion by a colonnade, then 
 some use must be found, at all risks, for a corresponding colonnade 
 and wing on the opposite side. So, a chapel and kitchen having 
 to balance each other, neither can be allowed to tell its true story 
 on its face, and, in the end, the scenic effect is the one thing that 
 seems to be thought of This is not convenient building, and is 
 consequently not good art, and the cases in which it can be ventured 
 on must always be rare and exceptional in their opportunities. 
 
 The next rule is that the design should be suitable for the 
 material which has to be used. This is a practical rule which 
 involves the wise adjustment of the means to the end. No architect 
 should ever quarrel with his materials as long as he can ensure their 
 being the best of their kind. His sole business is to take care that 
 his design is suitable to the material, and, as a general rule, to that 
 which is nearest to his hand. AMiere means are unlimited, or the 
 
340 APPENDIX 
 
 object to be attained is one of monumental character, then it is right 
 to go far afield at any cost to obtain the best and most magnificent 
 material ; for the first step to be taken, if a building is to be 
 sumptuous, is to see that the material is worthy of the labour that 
 is to be expended on it. And to some extent the material that is 
 to be used settles the design of the work. A quarry which produces 
 enormous blocks of granite has scant justice done to it if the archi- 
 tect who uses it confines himself to small blocks of stone. It leads 
 almost naturally to the use of great monoliths, than which nothing 
 is more impressive, though there may be no art in the mere magni- 
 ficence of size. Again, a design suitable for a stone country would 
 be wholly unfit for one in which brick alone could be used ; and 
 wherever many marbles could be obtained, the design, to be natural, 
 must be in every respect quite unlike anything that could be built 
 in a country where nothing but a fine and easily worked oolite 
 existed, or in one where the only material was a hard and untract- 
 able limestone. Natural use of his material is, indeed, one of the 
 first aims of a good architect, and this not only in the selection ot 
 the stone to begin with, but equally in the way in which it is worked. 
 If you use a fine marble for the face of a wall, it must be wrought 
 very finely everywhere, and polished for the best part of the work. 
 If, on the other hand, you use a freestone, you may confine your- 
 self to working the elaborated architectural features only, leaving the 
 body of the wall rough ; but you must remember that if your archi- 
 tecture is to be good or elaborate, you must begin by working the 
 face of the wall, so that the whole may be of one harmonious texture. 
 The size of the stones and their jointing is equally to be thought of. 
 As a rule, large stones are only to be used in large buildings, for 
 the apparent scale of a wall depends much on the size of the stones 
 that are used in it. The same is true if the available materials are 
 brick or timber. With either of these the whole structure, every 
 moulding and every detail of ornament, ought to be different from 
 what they are in stone. Every material has its own capabilities, 
 and the architect is bound to use each in its proper fashion. And 
 here, on this point of making the best possible use of common 
 materials, I may give you a quotation from Sir Henry ^Votton, in 
 the conclusion of which I think we may all very heartily agree : — 
 
 " It will, perchance, be said that this doctrine " [which he had 
 been laying down] " touching the five orders were fitter for the 
 quarries of Asia, which yielded 127 columns 60 feet high to the 
 Ephesian Temple, than for the Spirits of England, who must be 
 contented with more ignoble materials. To this I answer that this 
 need not discourage us. Yox I have often at Venice viewed with 
 much pleasure an anti-porch after the Greek manner raised by 
 
II PRIXCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 341 
 
 Andrea Palladio upon eight columns, the Basis of Stone without 
 pedestal, the Shafts of meer brick foot and half thick and conse- 
 quently thirty-five foot high, than which mine eye hath never seen 
 more stately of stone or marble." 
 
 He then describes how the bricks were made, and concludes : 
 "Which short description I could not omit, that thereby it may 
 appear how in truth we want rather art than stuff to satisfy our 
 greatest fancies." 
 
 Finally, the architect must avail himself of the best as well as of 
 the latest discoveries and inventions in construction. It cannot be 
 right to build one day with arches everywhere throughout his work, 
 and on the next to assume that no such convenient servant as the 
 arch had ever been discovered. Nor is it reasonable to say, " I 
 will use a round arch because I like it ; but though I know that a 
 pointed arch is more convenient, and, in some positions, far stronger, 
 I dislike it so much that nothing shall persuade me ever to adopt 
 it " — a sentiment expressed with the honest frankness of his time 
 by the old writer just quoted, in the following passage : — 
 
 " As for those arches which our artisans call of the third and 
 fourth point, I say these, both for the natural imbecility of the sharp 
 angle itself, and likewise for their very uncomeliness, ought to be 
 exiled from judicious eyes, and left to their first inventors, the Goths 
 or Lumbards, amongst other reliques of that barbarous age." 
 
 The Pompeian architect who carried the entablature above his 
 columns on a concealed log of timber was trying to imitate the work 
 of men who had been dealing with blocks of stone large enough to 
 bridge the space from column to column, and there was laudable 
 ingenuity in the Pompeian's device, who, having no stone to use, 
 invented a substitute for it. But to us who know that such a sub- 
 stitute is not permanent in its nature, and that there is now a mode 
 of carrying the wall above by arches over such spaces which may be 
 absolutely permanent, there is no justification whatever for the imi- 
 tation of the Pompeian mode of building. 
 
 In modern buildings the greater part of the construction is con- 
 cealed, and there is a consequent temptation — only too often ac- 
 quiesced in — to make it subservient entirely to supposed convenience. 
 A common instance of this is the free use of iron as a concealed 
 support in place of masonry. Our forefathers knew nothing of such 
 aids to easy planning. When they made the plan of one floor they 
 involved themselves in accepting the same plan for the floors above 
 and below. Walls came above walls, and no little skill was required, 
 therefore, so to plan the various floors as to make all the arrange- 
 ments convenient, and yet subject to good and sound structural 
 conditions. In our own time the temptation to carry walls on iron 
 
342 APPENDIX 
 
 girders over voids is too often accepted as a matter of course ; the 
 ingenuity exercised in planning is diminished, and the structure is 
 less permanent, for a flaw in the iron, its decay, or the accident of a 
 fire, may involve the ruin of a whole building, where, under the old 
 conditions, the walls might have stood unharmed by such catas- 
 trophes. I do not, therefore, recognise such aids to construction as 
 these as being real and genuine. They are rather temptations thnn 
 anything else, and ought only to be adopted when it is clear that 
 their use is not opposed to the principles already laid down. The 
 architect who attempts by concealed construction to imitate a wholly 
 different sort of work must inevitably fail, for sincerity is of the 
 essence of good art, and the detection of insincerity is certain. 
 Even untutored men will surely perceive that a deception has been 
 practi-sed, and will resent it. If you have such magnificent material 
 that you can obtain it in masses of sufficient bulk, I can conceive 
 no reason for objecting to the employment of trabeated systems of 
 architecture. The vast bulk of the horizontal block or lintel is in 
 itself impressive ; and if it rests upon blocks of corresponding mag- 
 nificence, in the shape of monolithic columns, there are few modes 
 by which the imagination can be more surely excited. But the 
 same sort of design, executed with small stones or with bricks 
 covered with plaster, never impresses us in the same way, because 
 the slightest attention discloses the fact that some unseen mode of 
 holding the work together has been adopted, without which the 
 whole must certainly at once collapse. The mediaeval architect was, 
 like the Greek, a frank and sincere constructor. There was no dis- 
 guise about his work. In his hands each stone may be said to have 
 had its office and to have performed its duty. And there are few 
 examples more illustrative of his feeling than those monuments and 
 open porches which are so common a feature in Italian buildings. 
 Here there are four arches carried on four single shafts — a sort of 
 construction which is really impossible. The architect frankly an- 
 nounces the fact that it is so by the exhibition of an iron tie across 
 the base of the arch which ties the whole together, and makes the 
 whole work not only possible, but secure. The modern mode of 
 doing the same thing would be to continue the columns up above 
 the caps to support concealed girders. In this way the evidence of 
 the tie is got rid of, and the eye is distracted by a feat of construc- 
 tion which, to those who are not in the secret, is wholly incompre- 
 hensible. In good work the external form is always a translation of 
 the internal structure, a building, if it is perfect, being as complete 
 an organism as the human frame. 
 
 So far I think you will see that the principles which are neces- 
 sary in all good architecture are almost beyond dispute. It may 
 be said by some of you that they are mere truisms. AVould 
 
II PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 343 
 
 that they were always so accepted and acted on ! It is not too 
 much to say that if they were absolutely accepted and always acted 
 on little more would need to be taught. The man who never con- 
 sented to break one of them would, depend upon it, have so much 
 character as to make it certain that the ornaments of his construc- 
 tion, which convert building into architecture, would at least have 
 that great force which comes from simplicity and fitness for their 
 place and work. His ornament would be that of the construction, 
 and would not be merely applied in front of it and without reference 
 to it. His work would be so complete in itself and in its details 
 that even as a ruin it would be beautiful. The ruins of the consum- 
 mate works of the Greek architects are hardly less beautiful in their 
 decay than they were in their perfection. Two thousand years of 
 neglect have left the Temple of Neptune at Ptestum as grand and 
 dignified, and wellnigh as beautiful, as on the day of its completion, 
 whilst the Gothic ruin is equally worth studying, and just as provo- 
 cative of admiration as the Greek. Every part of its construction 
 was useful as well as ornamental, and the destruction or decay of 
 parts still leaves what remains instinct with power and beauty. How 
 different may the case be ! In a Roman building you may too 
 often remove the whole applique face of the architecture, and the 
 building will still stand, but in such a guise as to give you no sense 
 of permanent beauty ; whilst in a modern building it is sufficient to 
 let it fall into decay to see how loathsome it has been from the first, 
 for that "calm decay" which seems to give so many added charms 
 to the Greek or Gothic fragment, discloses in it nothing whatever 
 that is good, or pleasant to the eye, or in any sense venerable. 
 
 We have next to consider how far, out of the vast array of facts 
 which the student finds in the history of his art, some may be 
 selected which involve the establishment of abstract truths. And 
 to accomplish this we must examine the works of all times rather 
 than of one period only, confident of this, that as all good develop- 
 ments in art have proceeded from the realisation of good principles 
 dormant before, so the more these practices are traced home to the 
 causes or theories out of which they rose, the more likely are we to 
 perceive their true bearing. 
 
 The first essential of a building is, as we have seen, that it shall 
 be well built. This is not architecture. Architecture is the art of 
 giving " style " to building, and, after this, some or all of the other 
 abstract qualities of rhythm, breadth, scale, light and shade, mystery, re- 
 pose. ^V'hat, you may ask, is "style '? I will answer you in the words 
 of one of the most distinguished of my brethren (M. Viollet-le-Duc) : — 
 
 " Style resides in distinction of form, and is one of the elements 
 of beauty, though it does not itself constitute beauty. Our sense of 
 
344 APPENDIX 
 
 style is instinctive. In the midst of an assembly you distinguish 
 one man among all others. It is not beauty which attracts you in 
 him, and yet, moved by a mysterious influence, your eyes follow 
 him. If you have any power of observation, you find yourself arriv- 
 ing at some sort of explanation of the power he exercises. It is 
 something in his frame, as well as in his contour, in his movements, 
 and the rapport which exists between them and his features and 
 expressions. By degrees you have fixed ideas as to his habits, his 
 tastes, his character. It is the first time you have ever seen him, 
 and you know him not ; but you build upon what you see a whole 
 romance. It is only those who possess style who exercise this 
 singular fascination. Mankind is so spoilt by false education, by 
 infirmities moral and physical, that it is not common to find any 
 who really have this quality. But look at animals, and you will 
 find that they all possess it. There is never a false gesture, never a 
 movement which does not follow on a want, a desire, or a fear. 
 Animals are never affected, mannered, vulgar. Whether plain or 
 handsome, they have style, because they have none but simple senti- 
 ments, and seek their ends by the simplest and most direct means. 
 Man, and above all the most civilised man, being a very complicated 
 animal, transformed by an education which teaches him to fight 
 against his instincts, it is almost necessary for him to get out of 
 himself, so to speak, in order to find ' style.' " 
 
 Style in architecture is the perfect harmony between the means 
 and the end, which is found in all the ideas and desires of the 
 highest type of man. Refinement of detail is indispensable ; large- 
 ness and breadth are its natural forms of expression ; but in certain 
 places it may give greater grace to the most intricate and delicate 
 work. It is this noble quality which is essential in good art, and it 
 is as possible to have it in a building as in a man or a beast. The 
 essential condition, you see, is that your style should be a true and 
 sensible expression of simple and abstract principles or requirements. 
 It has nothing whatever to do with styles of architecture, as we call 
 them, for it is possible that every one of these in succession may 
 afford examples of incontestable style. This, at least, is clear, I 
 suppose, to all of you — that a vast chasm exists between architect- 
 ural designs ; that some are vulgar, affected, mannered ; whilst 
 others are natural, simple, and dignified ; and that whilst the only 
 admiration ever extorted for the former is that ignorant love of a 
 new thing which is so evanescent and so little to be respected, the 
 admiration of the latter increases as they grow older, and year by year 
 becomes more certain and universal. The popular voice, which finds 
 something to praise after an age has passed since the construction 
 of a building, is as certain to be correct as the supposed approval of 
 a new work is fallible, and to be mistrusted. 
 
II PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 345 
 
 The next quality at which we must aim is, Hke the former, one 
 which is common to our own and other arts. The poet cannot 
 afford to neglect style in his work any more than he can venture to 
 trifle with its rhythm, and a perfect building has its rhythm as well 
 as its style. It is a quality very difficult to describe in words, but in 
 architecture it is an art depending on numbers and proportions. 
 Some expression caught up, repeated, balanced, emphasised in 
 succeeding passages, at intervals which are either regular or regu- 
 lated, constitutes usually the rhythmical beauty of a work of archi- 
 tecture. No doubt it is sometimes secured by direct application of 
 geometrical figures, at other times by that instinct for the beautiful 
 which makes a trained eye go so near to the figures or proportions 
 which might be drawn by rule, but to which the charm is added of some- 
 thing w'hich is fresh, human, and suggestive in its very departure from 
 exactness. Take the simplest case conceivable, that of a Greek 
 portico. Arrange the columns with perfect regularity and without 
 any thought, and there is no rhythm ; but arrange them so that a 
 dominant point in the base shall be placed in a certain relation to 
 another, as, e.g. the centre in one of the columns or capitals, or in 
 the pediment, and that the line which connects these two points be 
 one which, if repeated again, connects other marked features, and 
 you at once have a simple and admirable sort of rhythm. Or take 
 another case, to prove the point by a negative. Design a tower, 300 
 feet in height, and divide it into twelve equal stages, and you will 
 have an erection which will have no more rhythm than the empty 
 sheet has before the poet has covered it with his rhythmical lines. 
 Yet such a tower may possess all the qualities which I have up to 
 this point included in the conditions precedent of a good piece of 
 architecture. It may be solid, simple, suitable for its purpose, and 
 may even have a certain style, but not having rhythm, it is not 
 architecture at all in any good sense. If we wish to see how the 
 opposite effect may be produced, let us see how Giotto planned the 
 proportions of his tower or campanile at Florence. My drawing 
 shows you this design in elevation. You will perceive that it is 
 divided into seven principal stages in height. Of these the six lower 
 are grouped in pairs, and so arranged by lines of dark marble and 
 string-courses as to increase in height as they leave the ground. In 
 the two lower stages, the panels, being very near the eye, are of the 
 same height. In the next coupled stages the upper windows are 
 one-seventh larger than those below them ; the fifth and sixth stages 
 are nearly equal, but the upper one has panels marked with an 
 outline of serpentine one-tenth longer than those below. Finally, 
 the single story of the upper stage is equal to two of those below, 
 and crowns with rare grace this succession of coupled stages which 
 have gradually led up to it. The diameter of the tower is the 
 
346 APPENDIX 
 
 dimension which appears to regulate the whole scheme, being one- 
 sixth of the whole height. The gables over the windows are of the 
 angle whose base is as 3 to a perpendicular of 4 and hypotenuse 
 of 5 — according to the ancients the perfect triangle, the square of the 
 hypotenuse being equal to the united squares of the two sides. But 
 the square or circle seems to have been the figure mainly used by 
 Giotto in arranging the lines of his work. In Giotto's tower I have 
 given you an example which shows, I think, how conscious one of 
 the greatest artists was of the use of some definite system of pro- 
 portion. It is not possible to give you an incidental treatise on so 
 large a subject, in the midst of a lecture which has to embrace so 
 much in so short a time. But in a few words I may direct your 
 attention to it, with a view to inducing you to follow the subject up 
 for yourselves as you have the opportunity. I will take one only out 
 of many figures which has been made much of in old times, and this is 
 the equilateral triangle. There can, I think, be but little doubt that 
 the proportions of the Pyramids were decided by it. Take four equi- 
 lateral triangles and incline them to each other to a common centre, 
 and you have, as nearly as may be, the outline of the finest among 
 them. The equilateral triangle has always been one of the most 
 favourite forms, but especially was it so in the Middle Ages. West- 
 minster Abbey and Stone Church are both designed with its aid, and 
 M. Viollet-le-Duc has given several French examples — Notre Dame, 
 Chalons, if I remember rightly, among others. Old writers frequently 
 enlarge on the virtues of this and other such figures to the architect, 
 and though in the use of many of them there seems to be something 
 rather empirical, it is not possible to doubt that they have influenced 
 architects in almost all ages. 
 
 It is obvious that in all systems of proportion, the parts or divi- 
 sions of a building which are treated in relation to each other must 
 be either really connected with each other, or so visible together at 
 one time as to be naturally looked at as united members. There 
 need, therefore, be no connection between the lines which settle the 
 proportions of the interior and exterior of a building. What is 
 intelligible is that there should be a distinct relation or system of 
 proportion between features which the eye is certain to compare 
 together — as, e.g. the height of a column to that of its entablature, 
 the dimensions of a metope to those of a triglyph, and the propor- 
 tions of both to the diameter of the column and the width of the 
 intercolumniation. Another mode of deciding the proportions has 
 been ingeniously formulated by Mr. Watkiss Lloyd in his calculations 
 as to the system of proportion adopted in the Parthenon. It is 
 impossible to deny that his discovery api)ears to be a real, and, if so, 
 an important one, though the system adopted seems on the face of 
 it to be wholly arbitrary. He shows that the proportions are all 
 
11 PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 347 
 
 derived from a system of figures standing in the ratio of i to 6 ; that 
 is, separated by the number five — as, for instance, 1-6, 2-7, 3-8, 4-9, 
 5-10, and so on. Thus the breadth of the top step is to its length 
 as 4 to 9, the height and width of the front as 9 to 14, and the 
 height of the front to the length of the building as 2 to 7, and so on. 
 What is not clear is whether such a system was peculiar to this one 
 building ; and even then I fail to see why it should produce a good 
 result. Vitruvius, speaking of rules for proportion, says that " the 
 ancients have directed these to be observed in all works, but more 
 particularly should they be attended to in the temples of the gods, 
 in which the faults as well as the beauties remain to the end of 
 time." And for the last two centuries or more men have been 
 endeavouring to discover what these rules are. They have succeeded 
 in ascertaining many facts of the highest interest. And there is 
 evidence that in medieval times similar rules were observed to those 
 which Vitruvius laid down. To mention one only, in 152 1 Cesare 
 Cesariano published a book on the subject. Cesariano, in his Com- 
 mentary, gives a plan, section, and elevation of Milan Cathedral, 
 which, after Vitruvius, he calls the " Ichnography," "Orthography," 
 and " Scenography." " A Trigono as Pariquadrato perstructa Ger- 
 manico more^'' and '■''secundum Gtrmanicain Syiiietriai/i." 
 
 Professor Cockerell took much pains, many years ago, to show 
 that William of Wykeham planned the chapels of his colleges at 
 Winchester and Oxford by the aid of geometrical figures, and there 
 is, no doubt, something fascinating in the suggestion of any scheme 
 which shall involve as a certainty a well-proportioned work. Whether 
 laws can be laid down which can be generally applied is open to 
 grave doubt ; but Cockerell's words are, in any case, true, and worth 
 quoting : — 
 
 " The perception of proportion, the fundamental element of the 
 beautiful in architecture, seems to be the last acquirement of the 
 student instead of the first. We begin by admiring ornaments, 
 details, and forms ; but it is at a more advanced stage only that we 
 make all these subordinate to that sense of rhythmical proportion 
 and that harmony of quantities which affect the mind like a mathe- 
 matical truth, and, like a concord of musical sounds on the ear, are 
 perceived and confessed by the eye as obvious and unalterable." 
 
 The only fear in such investigations as these is, that any of you 
 should be led to suppose that any system can stand in place of the 
 genius of an artist. The utmost that you will arrive at by such a 
 process is the avoidance of errors of general proportion, it being very 
 manifest that this is possible. 
 
 But it would be a calamity if you were led to suppose for an 
 instant that the use of a mathematical formula could or ou^ht ever 
 
348 APPENDIX ii 
 
 to be substituted for the cultivation of the eye ; that is, of the 
 natural sense of good proportion or rhythm in architecture. It is by 
 the careful observation of cultivated eyes that some of the most 
 delicate, and at the same time most important, rules have been 
 arrived at for our guidance. A few of these may shortly be referred 
 to here. There is, first, the entasis of the Greek column. The 
 column, first of all, was made to taper, so as to give it the greatest 
 ■ possible appearance of stability, and then it was perceived that there 
 was some appearance of the outer lines being very slightly concave. 
 This is an effect which you will find constantly in absolutely straight 
 lines. A ceiling, the side of a spire, a long line of steps, will all of 
 them, if absolutely straight, appear to be concave. The Greek artist 
 remedied this by the most delicate increase of dimensions, giving his 
 column an almost imperceptibly convex outline, — no more than was 
 enough to correct the ocular deception which the straight line pro- 
 duces. In old examples this entasis appears sometimes to be 
 exaggerated, owing to the decay of the stone or marble at the 
 junction of the column with the capital. And it is important to 
 notice, also, that the entasis was not given where good reason existed 
 for omitting it. Thus, in the two ranges of columns forming the 
 cella, the columns of the upper range are continuations of those 
 below them, with an entablature inserted between them. In this 
 case, if the upper and lower columns had had any entasis, there 
 would have been a disagreeable conflict of curves, and so these 
 columns are all formed with straight outlines. Another practice was 
 to make the columns slope slightly inwards, so as to give a greater 
 appearance of strength ; another, the placing of the outside columns 
 nearer to each other than the rest ; another, the giving a slight curve 
 to the architrave, for the same reason as the entasis was given to the 
 column; and another, the making the whole tread of the line of 
 steps on which the temples were placed slightly higher in the centre 
 than at the ends. In Gothic architecture you will find the same 
 delicate modifications to meet various optical effects. Spires un- 
 doubtedly sometimes had an entasis. It was usually so delicate as 
 not to offend ; and, indeed, it may almost be said that directly the 
 entasis is obvious it is offensive. The spire-lights and pinnacles of 
 spires were also so contrived as to produce the same effect. Then 
 columns were often banded, not in the centre, but slightly above the 
 centre. The reason is that if you band a column in the exact centre 
 the upper half of the column is certain to look longer than the lower 
 half Then just as the Greek column was inclined, so are the walls 
 of many steeples. Good examples of this are seen in some of the 
 best of the beautiful group of Normandy steeples which make the 
 neighbourhood of Caen such delightful ground to an architect. 
 Another delicate adjustment is constantly adopted in old traceries, 
 
II PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 349 
 
 but seldom, I fear, noticed. This is the change in the dimensions 
 of mouldings where the tracery becomes intricate, and where the 
 moulding proper for the large lower lights of a window would, if 
 carried throughout in a mechanical way, entirely block all the smaller 
 lights and spandrels of the tracery and cusps. Another is the stilting 
 of arches slightly, in order to make the curved line sit with sufficient 
 quietness and dignity on the cap ; another, the modification of the 
 curved lines of cusps to give the same effect. These, indeed, were 
 often drawn by hand ; no other way allows of their curves showing 
 such delicate growth. At Lincoln the cusped arcades are all so 
 drawn. In the Italian arched canopies to porches and monuments, 
 where the arches are so constructed as not to be able to stand with- 
 out iron ties at the base, the arch was weighted on the under side 
 with a somewhat heavy trefoil, the effect of which was to give an 
 appearance of stabiHty. These illustrations will be sufficient to show 
 you how universal has been the desire of architects in all ages to 
 adopt the most subtle variations for the sake of securing the best 
 possible effect in their work, and how important it is, therefore, to' 
 remember that the training of the eye is far more necessary to the 
 architect than the closest adherence to the precepts of Vitruvius, and 
 those who have followed in his steps, interesting and valuable 
 though these precepts may often be, and full of suggestions well 
 worth following out. 
 
 The other elements that I have named are what we look for in 
 the best work ; but they are not so indispensable as those already 
 mentioned, and for this reason — they are elements which may be 
 aimed at, more or less, according to the choice of the architect. He 
 may aim, if he chooses, at breadth of effect ; and he will always do 
 well to do so. But he may equally aim at a picturesqueness which 
 sacrifices breadth, and which, if it arises naturally out of the con- 
 ditions of the case, is by no means to be despised. In all cases, 
 also, the treatment of the design with the object of impressing the 
 eye with a real idea of its scale is important. It hardly admits of 
 discussion whether or no the artist is skilful who makes the scale of 
 his building look smaller than it really is, for it requires much skill 
 so to dispose and proportion the various members as to make each 
 appear to be of the right size for its place, and yet to add to, rather 
 than diminish, the apparent size of the whole. But I think all these 
 points will be more easily dealt with if we go on now to consider, as 
 far as time will admit, the evidences we have in ancient buildings 
 of the close attention which was paid by their designers to subtle prin- 
 ciples which it is necessary to master if we are to produce work at all 
 comparable to theirs. 
 
 In one point all ancient work agrees. This is, that all parts of 
 a building must be equally well designed. No good work is ever 
 
350 APPENDIX 
 
 done which is done solely for show. If you really love your work 
 you will make it good all round — as simple as you like ; for it would 
 be absurd to make work which can hardly be seen as elaborate as 
 that which is meant for the delight of the eye of every passer-by, 
 but still good in its proportions, and in its detail wherever any is 
 introduced. To how many buildings of the first half of this century 
 would it be possible to go with this impression of an architectural 
 sifie qua non ? The truth is that only too often men seem to have 
 thought that one elevation of a building would be all that would 
 ever be seen. They have satisfied themselves with handsome 
 geometrical elevations of the principal front, and have assumed that 
 every one would be polite enough not to look at the work in per- 
 spective. So you see grand cornices in front, none at all at the ends ; 
 stone on one side, compo on the other, and other similar mistakes. 
 It must not be thought that the discovery that old architects often 
 indulged in sham fronts to their buildings justifies their erection now. 
 From some point of view the deception is quite sure to be detected, 
 and when found out produces the worst possible effect. Moreover, 
 it is hardly possible to design a sham front which does not at once 
 condemn itself, because it almost always happens that the features, 
 which are used merely because they are pretty, having no corre- 
 sponding structure behind them, have no structural effect, and thus 
 prove themselves to be unnecessary impostors. 
 
 A sham feature is often introduced for the sake of symmetry, 
 and it is worth while to consider how far the symmetry which de- 
 pends on uniformity is a necessary feature. The uniformity which 
 arises from an absolutely similar requirement throughout a building 
 is natural and defensible. Examples of it may be seen in the re- 
 petition of the columns round a Greek temple ; in the uniform de- 
 sign of the outside wall of a Roman amphitheatre, where each bay, 
 having similar requirements, is almost identical with the rest ; and 
 in the bays of a Gothic cathedral nave, all of which are almost of 
 necessity alike, because each follows exactly from the same con- 
 struction. Nevertheless, uniformity may easily ruin the effect of a 
 work in which, in the right place, the principle has been admitted 
 to the full. Imagine, for an instant, such a work as Notre Dame, 
 Paris, altered for uniformity's sake by the erection of a choir exactly 
 like the nave, with two eastern steeples corresponding with the grand 
 examples at the other end, and you will see at once how entirely 
 ruinous this sort of symmetry may be. 
 
 Repetition of similar features where the requirements arc the 
 same seems to me to be the true sort of symmetry to aim at. In 
 this way you gain the required effect without sacrificing convenience 
 or truth. Then, if the site is not symmetrical, or if the building is 
 the result of a series of erections at different periods by way of 
 
II PRIXCirLES OF THE ART OF ARCIilTKCTURF 351 
 
 additions to something older, it is far better to give up the idea 
 altogether, and to let the building tell its storw This is the way 
 in which the Greeks acted on the Acropolis at Athens. Nothing 
 can be more deliberately unsymmetrical than the planning of the 
 matchless buildings on this sacred spot. The temple called the 
 Erechtheium is an example of the most singular interest in this way. 
 The Greek artist not only disdained the attempt to make all the 
 buildings agree with each other, but may rather be said to have been 
 bent on making them all as different as possible. He then placed 
 them at all sorts of angles with each other, knowing that the 
 picturesque effect of which he was so fond would thus be secured, 
 so that, in truth, the whole group may rather be said to be too de- 
 liberately picturesque if it has a fault at all. The houses, temples, 
 forum, and other buildings at Pompeii are examples of precisely 
 the same feeling. They all bear distinctly the marks of their his- 
 tory. Each house had its own character and its own arrangements. 
 There was no pretence anywhere to accommodate the architecture of 
 a whole street to what might be deemed to be the average wants of 
 the inhabitants. And in the street which above all others has archi- 
 tectural character — that of the tombs — you walk now, as men did 
 from the first, between a succession of more or less stately monu- 
 ments and monumental chapels, none of which have been made 
 with any reference to the effect of their neighbours, but solely with 
 reference to the wishes, the pride, or the wealth of the men who 
 put them up. In the same way the forum is regular, but the temples 
 which surround it are quite irregularly arranged, and upon altogether 
 different designs ; and the laying out of the streets not being regular 
 or rectangular, just the same irregularities occur that we find as a 
 result of natural growth in our own old towns. In mediaeval times 
 precisely the same view was taken as by the Greeks. Historical 
 truth and lifelike character in the design were preferred to uniformity 
 as an almost invariable rule. And in all good work you will find, 
 even where there is apparent symmetry, that considerable differences 
 exist. At Notre Dame, Paris, the two western steeples are essentially 
 symmetrical, and were probably erected at the same time ; but there 
 are important differences of detail in them, which give a charm and 
 life to the work which it would not have had if each had been a 
 mere repetition of the other. And in earlier times, in the fagades 
 of St. Mark's at Venice, and of the Cathedral at Pisa, you will find 
 that the apparently corresponding dimensions of doorways and 
 arches do not really tally at all, and have evidently been deliberately 
 varied, in order that the eye might be unconsciously saved from the 
 weariness produced by too great uniformity. 
 
 The mediieval architects have left some most remarkable ex- 
 amples of the extremely small effect that the desire for uniformity 
 
552 APPENDIX 
 
 had upon them. Of this there is, perhaps, no more convincing 
 example than the facade of Chartres Cathedral. This had a west 
 front, flanked by two steeples, one of which only was completed by 
 the end of the twelfth century with a spire, which, for beauty of de- 
 sign, is not far behind the very best of its period. It was no sooner 
 built than the whole church, save the west front, was rebuilt after a 
 fire, and on a grander scale, so that the new nave roof, reaching to 
 the base of the spire, very much spoilt its effect. Then, in the fif- 
 teenth century, one of the greatest men of his time, Jean Texier, 
 was employed to build on the ancient north-west tower a second 
 spire to complete the front. What course do you suppose he 
 adopted? The nineteenth-century answer is, of course, in favour 
 of a steeple exactly hke the first, so that, though both would then 
 be too low for the roof, there might nevertheless be that uniformity 
 which is now usually supposed to be the right thing to strive for. 
 Texier did nothing of the sort. He boldly declined to look at the 
 early spire, and simply set himself to work to build the loveliest 
 spire he could design. And his work is a success from every point 
 of view. It is exquisite in itself, properly proportioned for the 
 height of the church, and, though so unlike it, groups well with the 
 other spire, and the result is that we have the pleasure of seeing two 
 chefs d^oeuvre where otherwise we should have had only one design 
 to admire. 
 
 Some of you may perhaps ask whether, after you have done 
 your best to attend to all the principles which I have been insisting 
 on, your work could be worthy of being called really one of archi- 
 tecture, in the absence of all sculpture and painting. Some writers 
 — and they are men of the greatest authority — deny by implication 
 that it can be. But tliough in my last lecture I told you how 
 strongly I desire to see the three arts employed together, I am not dis- 
 posed to allow this, and I shall insist upon it now, because I think 
 that for young men the habit of designing without the aid of figure 
 sculpture is very important. A drawing of a poor design may some- 
 times be made to pass muster by a daintily drawn representation of 
 sculpture, but this is not what is first wanted. At the same time, 
 though it is necessary to be able to dispense with the aid of the 
 sister arts, it is equally necessary that you should know how to avail 
 yourselves of their assistance. The best work is that, as I have 
 before told you, in which all the arts are combined. And no form 
 of architecture can be pronounced to be contemptible in which 
 these accessory arts have been highly developed. The grandest 
 architecture can, however, exist without such aid. It is not abso- 
 lutely necessary ; and if circumstances compel the architect to dis- 
 pense with it, he is in no degree whatever relieved from the necessity 
 of doing the very best work. Certainly we have only to think of 
 
II PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 353 
 
 some of the buildings which are amongst the noblest works remain- 
 ing to perceive that they never depended entirely upon sculpture for 
 their effect. Little, if any, is left on the remains of Greek art. The 
 sculpture is now in museums, and the architecture, unadorned by it, 
 often still remains. No one can say that the buildings have 
 obviously suffered by its removal, for in some it can hardly be said 
 whether there ever was any sculpture or not ; and yet in such cases, 
 of which the Temple at Bassse and the Temple of Neptune at 
 Psestum are typical examples, it is impossible not to feel impressed 
 in the highest degree by the art exhibited. The same feeling is ex- 
 cited by the monasteries built by the Cistercian order. They were 
 built under a rule which prohibited all use of sculptures or paintings ; 
 and yet, I suppose by common consent, they are among the most 
 precious relics of old times that remain in the world, and their most 
 enduring charm is the delicate grace of all their architectural lines 
 and details. Even in the case of a building such as Chartres 
 Cathedral, in which sculpture and painting play a most important 
 part, it is not in their presence or in thinking of them that the ima- 
 gination is most impressed. It is probably on the exterior, in some 
 general view of the building, that this happens. And in the interior 
 it is when, looking down the mighty nave, we see the great columns, 
 the vast clerestory, and the vaulted roof high above, that we feel 
 the impressiveness of the building, and the power of the man who 
 built it. An impression created in this way is, indeed, one of the 
 advantages which our art possesses. She can satisfy the critical eye 
 with beauty of detail, skill in construction, and harmony of propor- 
 tions, but at the same time she appeals to a much wider world than 
 that of connoisseurs by her abiHty to stir the imagination and touch 
 the feelings of the humblest. The means by which this is accom- 
 plished are the management of masses of light and shade, and the 
 intricacy or mystery of the composition. Each of these may be 
 done in a variety of ways, and the same treatment is not available 
 in all countries alike. In Italy and Greece, for instance, under the 
 influence of a brilliant climate, the wall is to the architect like a 
 canvas to the painter, on which every line may be made to tell with 
 precision, and where even the slightest line has its proper force. In 
 the North it is almost necessary to break this wall in order to pro- 
 duce the shadows. For the same reason, the more you can deal 
 with deeply-cut mouldings the more certain you are in this climate 
 of your effect. The primary use of them is to give the architect 
 the power of manipulating and managing the lines of light and shade. 
 A moulding well designed produces the required effect even when 
 there is no sun to light it up, and it is not a little curious that Eng- 
 land, having less sunshine probably than any other part of Europe, 
 is the country in which the moulding of architectural features has 
 
 2 A 
 
354 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 been carried to the greatest perfection. But one of the results of 
 having to depend on hnes for effect is that with us the hne is every- 
 thing, whereas in Italy the wall is all in all. In the best Greek art 
 the line and the wall surface were equally cared for. The Greek 
 delighted above all things in making his work as distinct and clear 
 as possible. The delicate lines of his fluted columns, the ornamented 
 mouldings, and the clear bold relief of the statuary all show this. 
 But the Egyptian, and after him the Italian in the Middle Ages, 
 were happiest when the sun could play on the long unbroken front 
 of a building as it does on the upper stage of the Ducal Palace at 
 Venice, or on the vast and almost unbroken walls of the greater 
 palaces and town halls in Siena, Verona, Pisa, Florence, or Perugia. 
 
 The mystery which is so dear to the Northern mind has com- 
 paratively little power in the South. But it is a power which the 
 English architect must know how to use. Nowhere is one more 
 visibly impressed by this than in some of our own cathedrals, where 
 the vast length, aided by intricacy of line, variety of detail, and skilful 
 manipulation of light and shade, produce often most exquisite 
 effects. A building in w^hich the light is all equal is that in which 
 the architectural effect is the smallest. That in which the variety 
 of li^ht and shade is greatest, though divided in broad and well- 
 accentuated groups, is that in which it is best, even if its detail is 
 not always perfect. Closely allied to the light and shade is the 
 composition of the outline. As long as this follows a convenience 
 or a necessity in the plan, it is more than merely justifiable ; but 
 the determination to obtain an irregular and picturesque outline at 
 all cost is not to be commended. All good buildings teach us the 
 importance of dominating horizontal lines. . Without them there 
 is no repose. Contrast the effect of the steep roof of a Gothic 
 cathedral with that of a building where pinnacles rise up against the 
 sky, and you will see how superior the former is. Westminster 
 Abbey and Henry VII.'s Chapel are good illustrations of this. In 
 one the vertical lines are strong as they can be ; but they are con- 
 trolled by the quiet horizontal line of the roof, which in the other is 
 not allowed to produce any effect upon the design, 
 
 I have now, I think, touched on most of the principles, strictly 
 so called, by which the good architect is bound. You see that they 
 are many in number, but that they all resolve themselves into an 
 observation and obedience to certain and very few first principles. 
 The best Greek architects and sculptors were the best by universal 
 consent that the world has ever seen, and with a few words upon 
 their work I may well conclude this lecture. Observe, then, that 
 their one object was to secure the utmost refinement, satisfying, at 
 the same time, all the requirements of the best construction. They 
 had the blessing of a sunshine which gave effect to the most delicate 
 
II PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE 355 
 
 lines, and which allowed of their buildings being decorated with a 
 brilliancy of colour almost past belief. Nothing so well proves their 
 extraordinary delicacy of observation as their matchless sculpture of 
 the nude. This was the effect of study of life in active motion by 
 the eye, rather than of simple anatomical knowledge. And all the 
 details of Greek art seem to prove that they result from an extra- 
 ordinarily patient and delicate observation of the influence and effect 
 of light, as well as of the true necessities of construction. If the same 
 men had had to build in Northern Europe, of course they would 
 have modified their style in endless respects to suit so different a 
 climate. But wherever they built, it would have been as worthy of 
 admiration as in Greece, because their work would still have been 
 done with all their heart and all their power ; and because they 
 realised (as all of us must, if we are to be good architects) by their 
 actions, if not consciously, that all noble ornament and all good 
 work are an expression of man's delight in God's work, and that 
 without the refinement which we see everywhere in Nature no work 
 of our hands is worthy to be called a work of art. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE^ 
 
 To-night I propose to speak to you on the development of styles 
 in architecture. It is a subject which every one is bound to study 
 who wishes to know anything at all about the meaning and history, 
 not only of the various orders or styles of architecture, but, one may 
 almost say, of every detail of their ornament. In art, it is true, 
 there are periods of progression and retrogression. We see a style 
 gradually and patiently developed to perfection, and then, after a 
 more or less prolonged reign, we see it deteriorate, either in the 
 hand of the very nation by which it had been perfected, or, more 
 conuiionly, by the influence of another nation, who, by right of 
 conquest, have become masters, and have destroyed or modified the 
 style which they found existing. 
 
 The modes in which styles are developed one out of the other 
 are numerous. There is, first, the gradual progress towards perfec- 
 tion. There is the change caused by transplanting a style invented 
 in one country to another, whose religious, political, and, more than 
 all, whose climatic conditions are different. There is, again, the 
 influence of new processes or new modes of construction, of new 
 materials, or the absence of the materials by the use of which advance 
 has hitherto been secured. There is the potent influence of religion ; 
 the influence, again, of individuals, either of great sovereigns or of 
 skilful architects ; and — greatest of all — that of military conquests, 
 and the intercourse of traders with foreign countries. All these 
 and many minor causes have contributed to the changes which have 
 from time to time occurred in the history of our art, and to under- 
 stand them all thoroughly some acquaintance is required with the 
 history of various countries, with the growth and consolidation of 
 states, and the connection which has existed between them at 
 various periods. But, even without this knowledge, it is possible 
 
 1 Third lecture, delivered on Monday, 2 1st February, to the Students of the 
 Ruyal Academy. 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 357 
 
 to derive great gain from a merely general and summary study of 
 the question, and it is in this that I wish to guide you to some 
 extent to-night. 
 
 For our purpose it will be sufficient to go back so far only as 
 the most perfect period of Greek art. With few and minor modifi- 
 cations, all existing European art may be traced back directly to 
 Cireece. The more ancient civilisations acted upon Greece, and, 
 through Greece, upon Europe. Almost all Greek forms are derived 
 from Assyria and Egypt ; and, great as is the antiquity of Greek art, 
 it is almost to be regarded as modern by the side of that of the 
 East. We begin, therefore, with Grecian art after it had formed 
 itself into a well-defined style, some six or seven centuries before 
 the Christian era. At this date we find the Doric order in so well- 
 defined and perfected a state in, e.g., the Temple of Corinth, that 
 for many centuries the variations from the type then established are 
 only slight alterations from time to time in the proportions of the 
 various parts, with a determined adherence to the general form and 
 design as it was first seen. Some examples, as, for instance, the 
 Lycian tomb in the British Museum, are, beyond all question, 
 imitations of a wooden construction ; but the question whether the 
 design of the Doric order is or is not so also, has always been open 
 to much discussion. The evidence of the entablature with the 
 triglyphs above it is strongly in favour of a wooden origin ; but, on 
 the other hand, it is in the earliest examples that the columns are 
 most clumsy, and as unlike as possible to wooden posts. On the 
 whole, however, this seems a not unlikely fault to have been com- 
 mitted in using a new material, whilst it is at least possible that the 
 original wooden construction was confined to the roof resting upon 
 stone or brick piers. And if the development of wooden construc- 
 tion into stone resulted in some of the grandest buildings for ages, 
 showing the same adherence to the primitive type from first to last, 
 it would be impossible to conceive a more singular survival of 
 features, some of which had nothing whatever to do with the con- 
 struction of the building. The Temple of Corinth, and probably 
 the Temple at Assos in Asia INIinor, date from the seventh century 
 B.C. The Theatre at Girgenti was begun circa 480 B.C., the Temple 
 of Theseus in 469, whilst the Parthenon was finished in 438. In a 
 comparatively short period all the best examples of Doric were 
 erected, but for two hundred years before the Parthenon was built, if 
 not for more, architects had been building in the same way ; whilst 
 for centuries later the style was still persevered in, until we see one 
 of its latest examples in the Forum at Pompeii — probably a work 
 executed under Greek influence — within a few years of the birth 
 of our Lord. 
 
 At the same time, we have the interesting fact that other styles 
 
358 APPENDIX 
 
 coexisted with the Doric during the greater part of the period referred 
 to. The Ionic Erechtheium on the AcropoUs was built in about 
 420 B.C., and is, therefore, as nearly as possible of the same date as 
 the Parthenon. The Corinthian is a later order, and was used 
 generally under Roman influence, but even this coexisted with 
 Doric and Ionic. We have here, therefore, the remarkable fact that 
 in Greece at the same time three styles of architecture were deliber- 
 ately practised, and that the only alterations were modifications of 
 proportion. There was absolutely no development of a new style, 
 no combination of the features of the three styles, and the Doric never, 
 as time went on, underwent any modification or improvement from 
 contact with the Ionic, or the Ionic from the Doric. Indeed, it is 
 probable that architects confined themselves each to one style, even if 
 the adoption of the style did not depend — as it did later, in the times 
 of Guelph and Ghibelline in Italy, and of the Moors and Christians in 
 Spain — upon the politics or the blood and the race of those who built. 
 
 The Greek mode of construction was so dependent upon the use 
 of single blocks of stone, that it was all but impossible to attempt the 
 erection of buildings of vast size. A remarkable evidence of this is 
 afforded by the Temple of Jupiter at Girgenti. Here the dimensions 
 are vastly in excess of anything ordinarily built by them, the height 
 being absolutely more than twice that of the Parthenon, and the 
 architect ventured on the device of building up his columns with small 
 stones and attaching them to the wall in a way which shows how limited 
 the application of the style of architecture was, and with a result which 
 must have been as unpleasing as it was, happily, unusual. But even 
 such an example as this has its interest, showing as it does that among 
 the Greeks there was no such thing as impatience and fretfulness be- 
 cause new things were not perpetually being invented. A beautiful thing 
 once done could not be too often repeated. Men never tired of seeing it. 
 
 The handmaid of Architecture — Sculpture, — in the same way, 
 was just as deliberate, and when a really beautiful work had been 
 done there was no hesitation as to repeating it over and over again. 
 The Venus of Praxiteles is said to have been repeated at least a 
 hundred times ; and the same thing may be said of many of the finest 
 works of the greatest Greek sculptors. 
 
 The great virtue of the Greek artist was his appreciation of 
 refinement of line, and his intense admiration for the noblest possible 
 representations of man and beast. Compare Greek sculpture with 
 Assyrian or Egyptian, and you see the gap which separates a perhaps 
 dignified but always conventional figure from one in which the fire of 
 the living soul is made to light up the well-wrought stone ; and it 
 was this temper which made him — possessor as he was of almost un- 
 matched skill — content to labour on from one century to another in 
 the reproduction of what he had once for all found to be very good. 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 359 
 
 From the Greek ^Ye turn naturally to the Roman, who was in- 
 fluenced by the magnificent remains of the Greek buildings in 
 Southern Italy and in Sicily on the one hand, and by the even older 
 work of the Etruscans on the other. He never realised the necessity 
 of development in architecture, but the introduction of the arch, 
 which he used freely in all his constructions, soon modified, and 
 then completely changed, the whole character of his art. He must 
 be said, I fear, to have spoilt what he borrowed from the Greek, 
 having little of his acute sense of beauty. He never observed that 
 all Greek art was a reasonable adornment of a reasonable construc- 
 tion, and proceeded to treat the orders as mere ornaments to be 
 added to the face of a wall, without any serious consideration of the 
 purposes of the wall itself. He put the three orders one above 
 another, three or four in height ; pierced arches between them — 
 having discovered the value of the arch without discovering how it 
 ought to be used, — and retained to each order and each stage of his 
 building the heavy cornice which had its raison d'etre only in being 
 the finish of a wall. In his larger works it is the brute force of the 
 work, the vast thickness of the walls, the immense span of the arches 
 and vaults, the trusting to size and solidity rather than to refinement 
 or grace for the result to be achieved, that strike us, and not the 
 beauty, imagination, or architectural fitness of the work. The archi- 
 tecture and the building were, to a great extent, wholly independent 
 the one of the other. In some of the vastest Roman works — as, e.g.^ 
 the Basilica of Constantine and the Baths of Caracalla — the archi- 
 tecture has disappeared, and yet the walls remain. The architecture 
 was applique^ like a garment which had little to do with the body it 
 covered, save to follow, in a general way, its outlines. The develop- 
 ment (if it may be so called) which is seen in great orders piled one 
 on another in the Flavian Amphitheatre, may well be compared with 
 the Greek mode of treating a two-storied erection, as we see it in the 
 cella of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum, w^here the upper range of 
 columns is simply a prolongation of those below, without entasis ^ 
 (for that would have been fatal to the continuity which was the 
 essence of the design), and divided not by a cornice aping the top of 
 a wall, but by blocks of stone forming a string-course and binding 
 the whole together — a construction strictly analogous to that of Gothic 
 buildings, and wholly opposed to the Roman succession of orders. 
 
 I have said that the Roman used the arch without showing that 
 he knew at all how it ought to be used. But it is in his capacity as 
 artist, not as constructor, that I mean to make this statement. As a 
 constructor he certainly had advanced far beyond the Greek, but his 
 constructions are remarkable mainly for their vastness, and for the 
 impression they convey of being the work of men who regarded the 
 ^ Cf. p. 348, ante. 
 
36o APPENDIX 
 
 labour of hordes of untutored workmen with as much satisfaction as 
 the work which could only be wrought by skilful hands. Or rather, 
 I should perhaps say, they regarded the two things as entirely 
 distinct — built their walls, their arches, and their vaults first, and 
 then brought their columns, their mouldings, and their statuary to 
 adorn them. So that — to take a good example — the Villa of 
 Hadrian, near Tivoli, is in its ruin a mass of rough brickwork, with 
 hardly one single evidence of art in its design, whilst the museums of 
 Rome have been richly endowed with statues and sculptures which 
 existed in it without being architecturally part of it. The arch was 
 used as a servant to do good work, and no more, for the Roman 
 never perceived that if it were to be a feature in the building it 
 must, almost of necessity, be the chief feature. His one development 
 was to construct his arch in a wall which was divided into panels by 
 imitations, more or less exact, of columns, with their entablatures and 
 cornices. His endeavour was evidently to make it seem still as if 
 the column and the entablature had something to do with the con- 
 struction, though, in point of fact, they were absolutely independent 
 of it, and were decorations of the face of the wall, regulated in their 
 position, and in no other way, by the size of the arch required. 
 Then the column, with all its belongings, being found to be an orna- 
 ment and no more, it was natural to see it at last placed away from 
 the wall, connected with it by a returned plinth and cornice, and at 
 last carrying on its summit a statue or group which, by an after- 
 thought, gave a kind of excuse — and a very lame one it is— for a 
 piece of architectural feebleness which is almost unique. The de- 
 velopment of the Roman upon what the Greek had given him was, 
 therefore, nothing less than the destruction of the whole virtue of the 
 original. That had been accurately constructed and well designed, 
 whilst this was constructed with reference to design, and treated as 
 no good architecture can possibly be — as though the wall and its 
 decoration were two wholly distinct and separable entities. 
 
 For the first three centuries of the Christian era I see no evidence 
 of anything that can properly be called an architectural development, 
 or that even seemed to pave the way for one — with one notable 
 exception. This is the fondness of the Roman builders for circular 
 arrangements either of rooms or of alcoves in angles of rooms, and of 
 alcoves placed dos-a-dos. Of all these, good specimens are seen in 
 the Palace of the Ccesars on the Palatine Hill, and in the double 
 Temple of Venus and Rome hard by, where the two temples are 
 identical in plan, each finishing in an apse placed back to back. In 
 the Pantheon, the enormously thick wall is planned with recesses, 
 some coved and some square on plan, and with detached columns 
 carrying the entablature above them — an arrangement which we 
 shall see somewhat later, distinctly suggesting the design of the 
 
1 1 1 DE VEL OPMENT OF ST YLES OF A RCHITEC TURE 36 1 
 
 circular recesses under the dome of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at 
 Constantinople, and San Vitale at Ravenna ; whilst in the so-called 
 Temple of Minerva Medica, a circular domed central space is sur- 
 rounded by a series of ten recesses, nine of which are circular. The 
 Greeks had shown their sense of the beauty of circular buildings, 
 and the Romans followed in their steps, as we see in this example 
 in the Pantheon at Rome, the Little Temple at Tivoli, and in the 
 Temple of Vesta at Rome. But the necessity for enormous supports 
 to their skilfully constructed domical roofs led the Roman architects 
 to make these recesses in the walls where they could safely be intro- 
 duced, and thus to pave the way for the introduction of buttresses, 
 and of the apsidal terminations and circular chapels around them, 
 which played so large a part in much later developments. 
 
 It was in about 289 a.d. that the great step in advance was 
 made in the building of Diocletian's Palace at Spalato, on the eastern 
 shore of the Adriatic. Here a range of arches was carried — probably 
 for the first time — on the capitals of columns, without the interposi- 
 tion of any sort of entablature. The same sort of construction had, 
 it is true, been suggested long before in such erections as the portico 
 of the Pantheon, where semicircular arches are turned over the 
 lintels above the columns in order to take the whole weight to the 
 capitals instead of on to the entablature. This apparently simple 
 change was one which at once revolutionised all existing architectural 
 laws. The column was no longer a mere ornament. It became at 
 once the most useful, the most conspicuous, and in every way the 
 most important, as it had always been the most beautiful, feature in 
 a building. And from that time forward it was impossible ever again 
 to construct a building as before with the post and lintel only, with- 
 out deliberately ignoring the most useful and convenient discovery 
 which has ever been made in the art of building. From that time 
 the arch became master of the position, just as before the beam had 
 been. The old system had lasteid one can hardly say how many 
 centuries, and it is needless to declare that nothing can ever make 
 the use of the arch, round or pointed, obsolete in the same real 
 sense as the use of the lintel or beam has become. 
 
 The Greeks, who, if they did not invent, at least perfected the 
 orders, never in later times seem to have sympathised at all with the 
 Roman modifications of them, most of which were consequent on 
 the use of the arch. Their Byzantine art owes but little to Rome, It 
 was, in truth, a genuine invention of a style developed out of Greek, 
 but one in which the arch was an essential feature, and in which 
 the cornices and mouldings, the columns and their capitals, were all 
 modified to suit it. Their decoration was almost entirely Eastern, 
 both in its Wi^///"and in its mode of execution. Their development 
 was a radical one ; for in place of the old Roman and old Greek 
 
362 APPENDIX 
 
 construction of plain walls and columns carrying only a dead weight, 
 Byzantine art is remarkable for tlie extent to which it treated con- 
 struction in a new fashion as an affair of weight and counterpoise. 
 This was provided for in the arch and pier, in the dome and its 
 supports. The Roman basilica required no great scientific skill for 
 its erection, whilst the Byzantine buildings dealt with some of the 
 most difficult problems of construction, and really foreshadowed the 
 triumphs achieved in the scientific and delicate constructions of the 
 Middle Ages. During this period, i.e. between the time of Con- 
 stantine and that of Charles the Great, the Roman buildings were 
 not undergoing any development. The long series of popes, from 
 the beginning down to 774, the time of Charles's conquest, had done 
 more in the way of conversion of existing buildings, or reusing 
 old materials, than in attempting to erect new buildings. The 
 basilica, with its long ranges of columns, ending with a throne or an 
 apse, afforded just the accommodation that was needed for Christian 
 worship, and the multitude of old fragments available led for ages 
 to the construction of buildings in which the whole of the details are 
 antique, and in which the general form is founded also on an ancient 
 one. The long ranges of columns of all sizes and sorts are often 
 very imposing, but the interest of the churches is rather archaeologi- 
 cal than architectural. The interest of the fragments of which they 
 are constructed is great. They afford evidence of the slovenly execu- 
 tion of much Roman work, but at the same time of the freedom 
 from all rule as to the exact dimensions, proportions, and decorations 
 of the various orders. It is hardly too much to say that no two 
 capitals in one of these buildings are alike, whilst the remains are, 
 with few exceptions, of Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite, and not of 
 Doric. Not the less were these buildings important links in the 
 chain of development. The long lines of columns ; the simple wall 
 pierced with a clerestory above ; the apse at the east end projected 
 from a cross nave or transept, out of which other and smaller apses 
 were formed on either side of the central one, formed a model 
 which, as we shall see, was one of the principal foundations for the 
 complete Romanesque buildings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
 And the buildings (which still remain substantially on the old lines, 
 as St. Paul without the walls of Rome, San Lorenzo, and St. John 
 Lateran) were repeated with more or less closeness at Ravenna, in 
 the two churches dedicated to St. Apollinare, at Aquileia, in San 
 Miniato, Florence, San Zenone, Verona, and, last of all, in the 
 ground-plan of Pisa. 
 
 But if Rome was thus, as before, uninventive, this cannot be 
 said of the city of Constantinople, where Constantine the Great 
 established the seat of Government in 330 a.d., i.e. about fifty years 
 after the erection of Diocletian's palace. Here the Romans were 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 363 
 
 going back again to the East, and with an architectural result which 
 has been one of the most remarkable in the whole history of develop- 
 ment. Greek art had now for some centuries been all but com- 
 pletely thrust on one side by Roman, after the latter people had 
 become the conquerors, and it was not until the foundation of Con- 
 stantinople that it once more raised its head. The Greeks again 
 exhibited their powers of invention in the Byzantine style, in which 
 we see so many evidences of acquaintance with the architecture of 
 Palestine. The churches (now converted into mosques) still exist- 
 ing in Constantinople are of various dates and of various stages of 
 development. Constantine's first church was a Roman building, 
 like the old Basilica of St. Peter at Rome — a long building, with 
 wooden roofs, an eastern apse, and probably an atrium. All the 
 ornamentation was internal, in place of external. It was burnt 
 down in 531 a.d., in the time of Justinian, and so vigorous was the 
 architect of the new church (Anthemius) that in forty days from the 
 fire he laid the first stone of the new basilica, and completed the 
 whole church in five years and ten months. The cupola is about 
 104 feet across, about a fourth less than the Pantheon; but, then, 
 it is carried on arches instead of on a continuous wall, and in con- 
 structive skill its architect was far before the man who built the 
 Pantheon. At the same time {circa 530 a.d.), SS. Sergius and 
 Bacchus was built, and this has special interest, seeing that San 
 Vitale at Ravenna, consecrated in 547, is on exactly the same plan 
 and design ; whilst in the somewhat late church of St. Theodore 
 we have a plan copied almost exactly in Sta. Fosca Torcello. And 
 here, though it is a little out of place, you must notice how com- 
 pletely Constantinople gave her art to Venice, not only in these 
 early days, but down, at least, to the thirteenth century, when the 
 Venetians attacked and sacked the city, and carried off as spoil 
 most of the exquisite decorative work which we now see there, and, 
 not least among this, the four antique Greek horses which stand 
 over the portico of St. Mark's. Indeed, it is impossible to look at 
 any part of the original work of St. Mark's without realising that 
 scarcely a feature is indigenous, and that all is absolutely and 
 wholly Byzantine in plan, in elevation, in detail, and in coloured 
 ornament and decoration. 
 
 The construction of these Constantinopolitan domes is as in- 
 teresting as their design. The cupolas are ingeniously buttressed 
 and strengthened by semidomes below the tambour, by cross arches 
 and vaults and domes in the enclosing aisle. And the domes, 
 instead of being constructed of heavy stonework, were built usually 
 of hollow pots ; and in the case of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, with 
 eight great vaulting ribs rising from the centres of the arches to the 
 centre of the dome, the spaces between the ribs being filled in with 
 
364 APPENDIX 
 
 waggon-vaulting resting on them. This extreme constructive skill 
 would alone deserve our highest respect, even if the decorative 
 details had not been, as they invariably are, of a very refined char- 
 acter. No merely architectural carving of conventional foliage has 
 ever excelled in effect or in technical skill the best works of this 
 school, in which for some four or five centuries the same detail is 
 very closely adhered to. 
 
 Another parallel stream of art must also be noticed — in Syria. 
 The examples of this, dating from the first to the seventh century of 
 our era, are numerous, very perfect, and of the profoundest interest 
 to the student. You will find a full and admirably illustrated de- 
 scription of them in Count de Vogue's Syrie Centrale, and I advise 
 you to consult it in our library. Here, in part owing to the 
 climate, in part to great solidity of construction, which was wholly 
 of stone, and in part to the absolutely deserted state of most of the 
 sites, time has laid a very gentle hand on the work, and an astonishing 
 number of examples of this most interesting period remain all but 
 perfect in most of their details. The earliest are, as might be ex- 
 pected in a Roman province, generally imitations of Roman work. 
 But by the fourth century the influence of the native Eastern art, 
 closely allied to that which is found in Constantinople soon after, is 
 seen in a well-defined system of design and ornament which pre- 
 vails in a large number of buildings, and which has so much in 
 common Avith much later European work as to make one at first 
 almost incredulous as to their great antiquity. This is, however, 
 indubitable. The most interesting and typical examples for my 
 present purpose are the church at Ezra, the cathedral at Bosra, 
 in the south of Syria, and the vast convent at Kalat Sem'an in the 
 north, between Aleppo and Antioch. An inscription still remaining 
 on the walls of Ezra shows that it was completed in 515 a.d., or 
 about sixteen years before St. Sophia's was begun. Its plan is 
 remarkable, as so many of these Syrian plans are, for its admirable 
 arrangement. It is a square building on the outside and octangular 
 inside, the angles being relieved by semicircular recesses covered 
 with semidomes. A small chancel is projected on one side, and 
 within the octagonal nave eight columns and arches carry a quasi- 
 dome or eight-sided vault of very pointed section, with the important 
 feature of a tambour below it pierced with windows. Here, there- 
 fore, we have, though on a small scale, a construction which suggests, 
 in a very definite way, the most advanced constructions of the 
 European builders some centuries later. The plan, simple as it is, 
 is very beautiful, and shows how extremely skilful these Syrian 
 architects were. Even more striking is the cathedral at Bosra. 
 This is on a far larger scale than the church at Ezra ; but, unhappily, 
 the central dome and the arcades which supported it have dis- 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 365 
 
 appeared, and we are left to conjecture that it was the experience 
 obtained in such works as this that led to the more stable construc- 
 tion of the domes in Constantinople. Here you must notice the 
 remarkable love of the plan of a circle enclosed within a square, 
 with a number of sunk semicircular recesses in the walls. The 
 treatment of these, with columns carrying the wall above them, 
 seems to be the connecting link between the recesses in the walls of 
 the Pantheon, and the management of the semicircular recesses 
 under the tambours of the domes of Sta. Sophia and SS. Sergius 
 and Bacchus. Even more remarkable than these churches is the 
 vast convent at Kalat Sem'an, erected in the fifth century. Here, 
 among a vast number of ruins of buildings attached to it, is still 
 left so much of the grand church as enables us to form a fair idea of 
 its general design. The plan is cruciform, with an octagonal centre, 
 the walls of which are buttressed by cross arches contrived with 
 extreme skill so as to be themselves supported by apsidal chapels in 
 the four angles made by the junction of the four arms of the cross. 
 The central octagon stands on eight arches, and there was no 
 central dome, the church here being, in fact, an hypgethral building, 
 built round the column of St. Simeon Stylites, which stood in the 
 centre of the octagon. There is no building of which the date is 
 more certain. St. Simeon died in 459. The base of the column 
 on which he spent thirty-seven years of his life is still in its position. 
 In 560 Evagrius visited the convent, and has left a most exact 
 account of the building, which had been erected directly on St. 
 Simeon's death, and his account agrees in every detail with the 
 existing building. I can hardly express too strongly my sense of 
 the singular excellence of this plan. Even with the recollections of 
 Arnolfo's work under the dome in the cathedral at Florence, and of 
 our own Alan of Walsingham's octagon at Ely, it is a very open 
 question whether this far earlier treatment of the same problem is 
 not more excellent than either. At Kalat Sem'an there are but few 
 evidences of Roman influence. The long arcades of the four arms 
 of the cross can hardly be said to be certainly derived from the 
 basilica ; and the great entrance at the end of the transept, three 
 grand arches each with its own pediment, has no prototype, and is 
 itself more than likely to have suggested the design of the very best 
 French Romanesque, such as we see at St. Trophime at Aries. 
 Then we find here a very regular system of window decoration, of 
 mouldings well adapted to their exact position ; and outside the 
 central apse we have a design which might almost be pronounced 
 to be a work of the eleventh century, if we saw it on some so-called 
 Lombard church in the north of Italy or on the borders of the 
 Rhine. It is divided on plan into regular bays by attached columns 
 placed one over the other in two tiers, and in height by a cornice 
 
366 APPENDIX 
 
 which is already treated as a mere string-course. At the summit 
 arches, springing from the caps of the columns, support a cornice. 
 These arches are somewhat large, but otherwise there is little to 
 distinguish them from the Lombard corbel tables of Pavia. Nothing 
 more deserves notice than the really beautiful carved stonework of 
 these buildings. It is truly Byzantine in character. The acanthus 
 leaf plays still a large part, but is treated with great variety of 
 arrangement, and is supplemented by many charming designs of 
 running ornaments, carved mouldings, and patterns in low relief, 
 which speak well for the skill and taste of their designers. Not less 
 noticeable is the fact that these buildings are almost wholly of stone. 
 Stones of large size were obtainable, and floors are constructed by 
 throwing arches across at intervals of a few feet, and bridging the 
 spaces by long horizontal blocks of stone exactly fitted together. It 
 is about the most undying mode of construction ever seen in arched 
 buildings. Nor are there any buildings in which the semicircular 
 arch is more freely, more honestly used than it is in these. 
 
 It is not very difficult to connect this school with buildings in 
 other parts of Europe. It is improbable that a flourishing province 
 of the empire should keep entirely to itself such remarkable powers. 
 M. de Vogiie gives some examples of construction with parallel 
 arches covered with flagstones, such as the baths of Diana at 
 Nismes, an arch of the bridge at Narni, and a corridor in the arena 
 of Aries. He asserts also that the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna, 
 built about 500 a.d., is really so akin to them in all its details of 
 ornament and construction, that to him it seemed to be almost a 
 Syrian work. And it certainly seems possible to trace a distinct 
 influence of these Syrian buildings on not a few of the Romanesque 
 buildings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the south of 
 France, throughout the Rhine provinces, and in the east of Spain. 
 The Syrian buildings, dating mainly from the fifth, sixth, and seventh 
 centuries, must at that time have been seen by many in a perfect 
 condition, and were so far in advance of European works of the 
 same age as to make it certain that they would find imitators, who, 
 however, with none but Roman works and traditions before them in 
 their own country, would be likely, as a rule, to graft some of the new 
 features on to their own buildings, rather than to wholly abandon the 
 style of the latter. Doubtless the influence of these Syrian Byzan- 
 tine architects was largely felt in the Holy Land ; and it is incon- 
 testable that the influence of the Holy Land — and particularly of 
 the buildings in Jerusalem — on European art was equally great, 
 and too remarkable to be passed over. It was of a twofold kind. 
 Crusaders and pilgrims visited the holy places, and returned know- 
 ing somewhat of an art different from their own. Then wherever 
 they formed communities or carried on trade in the East, they 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 367 
 
 erected churches and other buildings for their own use and in their 
 own style, modified by that of the country. 
 
 The church of the Holy Sepulchre has been, as I daresay you 
 all know, a subject of much contention. But hardly any one now 
 believes that there is any room for doubt as to its authenticity and 
 antiquity ; and to-night, at any rate, I must speak to you as though 
 there were none. The church, as we now see it, is a collection of 
 additions made from time to time to the original church built by 
 Constantine. This was probably a great basilica, with a long nave 
 and double aisles and transepts ; west of these a circular building, 
 open to the air in the centre — very much as in the church of Kalat 
 Sem'an — where was a shrine over the sepulchre. This central 
 space was divided from the surrounding aisle by a range of piers 
 and columns. In the outer wall of the aisle were three circular 
 projections or chapels. Here we have a most interesting plan, and 
 one of which the outer wall still remains. At the latest the work 
 can hardly be put after the sixth century, but I see no reason 
 for doubting that it is really the work of Constantine ; and though 
 the arrangement is unlike anything that we know of in his time, it 
 is just such a shape as might naturally grow out of the special 
 requirements of the case. Unhappily, in a restoration after a fire 
 in the early part of this century, so much damage was done to 
 this part of the building that it is now a little difficult to realise 
 how venerable it is. The alterations made at various times have 
 been great. First of all the nave was burnt, and in its place was 
 erected, in 11 30 a.d., a choir with an eastern chevet and a dome 
 over the crossing. The western side of the transepts then abutted 
 on the circular church round the sepulchre. The architecture 
 of the whole of this later work was thoroughly European. It was 
 the work either of French or Spanish architects, and it is most in- 
 teresting to see the exterior of its apse giving back to Jerusalem 
 exactly the same outline as had first of all been there devised. 
 The outline is a specially common one in the centre of France — 
 a great circular apse, with three chapels, and spaces between them 
 for windows. 
 
 Close to the church of the Sepulchre are other churches — St. 
 Helena, St. Mary, and St. Mary of the Latins, all of them evidently 
 built by Europeans in the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth 
 centuries. At Bethlehem is a church which is probably also of the 
 date of Constantine, It is a great basilica, with transepts, double 
 aisles, and wooden roofs, above a clerestory. The transepts and 
 choir all end in apses, and may well be compared with the little 
 tri-apsal church at the cemetery of St. Calixtus in Rome, of about 
 the same date. The interest of this church is that it shows us the 
 plan of a Christian church founded upon the Roman basilica before 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 the Greeks had developed the construction of the dome. The 
 Christians, when they had to choose between the form of a basiUca 
 and that of the ancient heathen temples, naturally chose the former. 
 The old cella of the temple was narrow, dark, and meant only for 
 the functions of the priest ; whereas the Christian church had to 
 be large, well lighted, and open to the multitude, and this church 
 at Bethlehem shows so clearly the way in which it was adapted to 
 the purpose as to be well worth study. There is, indeed, a story of 
 the ninth century which attributes the church to Justinian. It goes 
 that when the architect who had been sent by him to build it 
 returned to Constantinople, the emperor was so disgusted with his 
 description of his work that he charged him lirst of all with malver- 
 sation, and then finished by having him decapitated. This punish- 
 ment has been suggested in our own day as a better mode of 
 promoting good art than any other, and perhaps not very unde- 
 servedly. I fear, however, that there is no truth in the Justinian 
 story, which only does credit to the originality of the narrator 
 Eutychius. Justinian's principal works are known by contempo- 
 rary description. They were Sta. Sophia, St. John at Damascus, 
 and the Church of the Presentation at Jerusalem. They were 
 all varied in design. In the first, everything was sacrificed to the 
 dome ; in the second and third, the dome and the basilica had 
 been combined very much in the form in which they are seen 
 throughout Germany and France down to the end of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 I have already told you how much Eastern art affected the art 
 of the rest of Europe. But the Holy Sepulchre buildings had a 
 singular influence. The religious interest in the site and history of 
 the spot led men to wish to copy the elevation of the church, and, 
 accordingly, we find a number of buildings avowedly intended to 
 be repetitions of it. Perhaps the most curious of all these is the 
 group of six churches founded at Bologna in 430, avowedly in 
 imitation of the Holy Sepulchre. They are very small, and it 
 is now difficult to see how they can be called copies, save in the 
 one fact common to both of the cluster of churches in one group. 
 A much closer imitation is the crypt of St. Benigne at Dijon. Here 
 the outline was evidently most closely copied, and there was above 
 it a similarly planned church with a double aisle round the centre, 
 which was open to the sky. The people in the triforium galleries 
 and on the floor were thus able to look down into the crypt, and 
 in this way a vast number of pilgrims were able to be present at one 
 time. 
 
 The various churches of the Templars all over Europe were, in 
 the same way, rough copies of the Holy Sepulchre Church. The 
 Temple Church, and the round churches at Cambridge, Northamp- 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 369 
 
 ton, and Maplestead — all have a round church at the west end, 
 corresponding with Constantine's circular church, and the choir 
 projecting to the east, just as the later choir did at Jerusalem. So 
 also have the Templars' Church at Segovia, and the fine church 
 (not connected with the Templars) of St. Gereon at Koln. In 
 France the church of Neuvy St. Sepulchre, built by Geoffrey, 
 Viscount of Bourges, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is not 
 the only example of the same influence. The destroyed church of 
 the Temple in Paris, with its circular nave and long chancel, was 
 probably the most beautiful there ; though, on the whole, none can 
 be found that excels our own Temple Church in this city, with 
 which I hope all of you are well acquainted. 
 
 In Constantinople, at Jerusalem, and in Syria, we have had the 
 work mainly of the period from the fourth to the eighth century. 
 The next great epoch at which we might pause if time allowed is 
 that which followed the coronation of Charles the Great, in the old 
 and completely Romanesque basilica of St. Peter, in the year 800. 
 But it must suffice to say that constant, though generally hostile and 
 warlike, intercourse with Italy was leading the Northern people to a 
 more thorough realisation of what Roman art was than would have 
 been possible from the study of the works which had been executed 
 during the Roman occupation of their own countries. And it is 
 clear that from this time began that stream of mixed Byzantine and 
 Romanesque art which so steadily flow^ed for some two hundred 
 years from the south northwards, and mainly on the two parallel 
 lines of the Rhone to the centre of France, and the Rhine from the 
 Alps through the centre of Germany. 
 
 The various influences which I have been describing had been 
 gradually forming a style which was well defined, greatly advanced 
 in constructive art, and full of variety. At times, as you will have 
 gathered, it was swayed by the Byzantine influence of Venice and 
 the East, at times by more distinctly Roman influence, and some- 
 times by that of Arab art. But, on the whole, I incline to give 
 much more weight to the Byzantine share in the work than it is 
 usually the fashion to give. Charles the Great evidently copied 
 San Vitale and SS. Sergius and Bacchus in his minster at Aachen, 
 and after its erection there grew up a series of magnificent churches 
 in the Rhine country which had far more connection with the East 
 in their plan and general design than with Rome. In England and 
 in Normandy, on the other hand, the style is more properly called 
 Romanesque than anywhere, for from beginning to end our build- 
 ings of the earliest period show no knowledge whatever of Byzantine 
 art, and when compared with the coeval buildings of Italy, of 
 Germany, or of the south and west of France, they illustrate an 
 entirely different phase of development. It can hardly be denied 
 
 2 B 
 
370 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 that far more skill and science was shown in those days in the 
 South than in the North. We have grand buildings, but their 
 decorations are coarse and their plans rude compared to those which 
 are seen at Aries, at St. Gilles, at Poitiers, and elsewhere in count- 
 less French examples. 
 
 Undoubtedly there was an architectural influence at work in 
 Great Britain which was but little connected with Rome. The 
 early British Church was closely connected with that of Ireland. 
 There we still see remains of extremely early churches or oratories, 
 wholly distinct in style from either English or French Romanesque, 
 and the architectural origin of which it is most difficult to account 
 for. One feature, which is perhaps the most remarkable, is the 
 construction of doors and windows with their jambs inclined towards 
 the head, in classic fashion. This is never seen in England, nor, 
 I believe, in France, and certainly suggests a separate knowledge of 
 Egyptian and Greek detail. It is not a little remarkable that this 
 feature is carried on as late as the thirteenth century, and, as we 
 shall see when we have to discuss our English architecture, it is 
 from Ireland, probably, that we obtained our love for the square-ended 
 churches which are so marked a feature in really English architecture, 
 and so opposed to all the traditions of Roman and Byzantine art. 
 
 There is still something to be said about another potent foreign 
 influence, which is seen in almost all early Italian buildings south 
 of Rome. Few countries are blessed with a sea-coast so extended in 
 proportion to the population ; and it is no matter for wonder, there- 
 fore, if the people were good sailors and good traders. No one 
 can travel in those parts without finding features which are entirely 
 new and unlike those in any other part of Europe. There is so 
 great an infusion of an Arabic, combined with a Greek, element in 
 both design and construction, that it is impossible to class the build- 
 ings with those erected under simply Roman influence. To the 
 present day you may travel among villages and towns in Southern 
 Italy whose houses are all covered with flat roofs, out of which 
 small domes occasionally rise, and when you come to a church you 
 will find that it has features entirely unlike any seen elsewhere in 
 Europe. It may have a central dome adorned with intersecting 
 arcades placed slightly in advance of the face of the wall ; a tower 
 pierced with lofty round-arched windows, with the openings either 
 extremely stilted, or of horseshoe shape ; walls panelled with small 
 pilasters at intervals, with lozenge-shaped panels of ornamental carving 
 or inlaying placed below the arches which connect them. Arches 
 are used for ornament only, as at Sta. Maria Ancona, where the 
 whole facade is covered with arcades whose arches avowedly have 
 nothing to do with the construction. It is difficult to explain in words 
 the bizarre effect of these buildings. Their authors are to be looked 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHLTECTURE 371 
 
 for on the other side of the Mediterranean, but they affected in 
 some respects the whole architecture of Italy, as, to mention one 
 instance, the construction of pointed arches, in vast numbers of 
 which the arch stones or bricks are not made to radiate from the 
 centre of the arch, but are built with the same kind of feeling as in 
 the Moorish arches in Spain, as, e.^. in an arch at the Puerta del 
 Sol, Toledo, which is for the greater part of its extent not an arch at 
 all — a feature which is of constant occurrence in all Spanish buildings 
 erected under Moorish influence. The decoration, which is profuse, 
 is wholly unlike real Romanesque work ; and, as is usual in Arab 
 work, it always has the look of being used simply and solely for the 
 sake of its beauty, and not for its utility, or as an ornament of the 
 construction. Many of these features are found in the Greek 
 churches of the same period, and it is natural, when we regard 
 some passages in the history of the country, that such marks of 
 foreign intercourse and influence should be seen. Down to the 
 eleventh century the Greek Emperor had his lieutenant or capitan 
 at Bari. The country was in turn occupied by Normans, by Sara- 
 cens, and by the German Emperors. But at heart the population 
 seems to have sympathised with Byzantine and Arab art far more 
 than with Roman. 
 
 Down to the twelfth century, and even later, the whole south of 
 Italy, and a considerable portion of Spain, were more or less identi- 
 fied with Arab art, either by reason of conquests by the Arabs or by 
 the importation of Saracen mercenaries. To give an instance. I 
 remember seeing at Lucera a magnificent castle, in which, even so 
 late as 1230 a.d., Frederick II. kept his Saracen soldiers. He was 
 not a very Christian king, for, as his troops wanted a mosque, he 
 converted the cathedral at Lucera into a mosque, turning the bishop 
 out, and installing his Saracen mercenaries in his place ! — a feat 
 which made Dante condemn him to purgatory. 
 
 The influence of the Moors upon the course of art in Spain is as 
 remarkable as, but much better known than, the corresponding effect 
 of the southern side of the Mediterranean on Italy. Here, in the 
 earliest times, it was a point of honour with both Moor and Spaniard 
 to build in his own style. As time wore on, the Spaniard freed 
 himself from the dominion which the Moors had exercised, but 
 the Moorish architects still remained in the country practising their 
 national art until the time of the Inquisition, and each nation influ- 
 enced the other. In the later Moorish work we see constantly a 
 number of completely Gothic details introduced in a very picturesque 
 fashion ; and in the Christian buildings, from the end of the twelfth 
 century, we meet equally frequently with pretty bits of distinctly 
 Moorish detail in the midst of what is otherwise the purest Gothic. 
 And wherever the Spaniards used brick, as they did in a large part 
 
372 APPENDIX 
 
 of the country from Toledo to Guadalajara, Saragoza, Calatayud, 
 and Tarazona, the whole of it is a most interesting mixture of 
 Moorish and Gothic, both in general design and detail. 
 
 Nowhere do we see more instances of the way in which archi- 
 tectural styles spread from one country to another than in the his- 
 tory of the Italian Republics. As an example, take the case of 
 Genoa, which is a typical one, for their politics and trade, foreign 
 conquest, mercenary warfare, and foreign travel, are features which 
 meet us at every turn. The Crusades were utilised by its people for 
 purposes of trade. The Genoese were among the greatest traders to 
 the East from the time of the first Crusade to the fall of Acre in 1 291. 
 They had in many Eastern cities their own streets, their own ware- 
 houses ; and the riches of the East came, to a great extent, through 
 their hands to Europe. They despatched vessels against the Saracens 
 in the Balearic Isles and on the mainland of Spain, and obtained in 
 return not only shiploads of booty, but also an annual Spanish tribute 
 to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. Then, again, they had treaties 
 with, and kept consuls at Narbonne, Montpelier, Aiguemorte, and 
 other ProvenCj-al towns. They went as far north as the great fairs 
 in Champagne, where they exchanged their goods with those of the 
 manufacturers of Ypres, Bruges, and other northern towns ; and they 
 built larger ships expressly that they might carry their goods to the 
 Hanse Towns, and even as far north as that singularly interesting 
 trading depot at Wisby in the Isle of Gothland. In the East they 
 had consuls and warehouses at Trebizond and Kars, in Persia, and, 
 above all, in Constantinople ; and one result of their foreign con- 
 nections is seen in a singular episode of the joint Venetian and 
 Genoese occupation of Eastern cities in the thirteenth century. We 
 are told that two marble columns from St. Sabbas, at Acre, were 
 sent to Venice, and erected in front of St. Mark's in the Piazzetta, 
 after the Venetians, in a hand-to-hand fight with the Genoese in the 
 church, had burnt their warehouses, and compelled them to take 
 refuge in Tyre. Such fighting as this was only too common an 
 incident in Italian history, for, as you know, the Italian republics 
 showed no mercy to each other. Pisa fought with and ruined Amalfi 
 as early as the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century the Genoese, 
 led by Oberto d'Oria, conquered Pisa in the great sea-fight at Mel- 
 oria, and after destroying the chains which guarded the mouth of the 
 Arno, brought them home in triumph, and hung them over their 
 gateways, where, until our own day, they have remained. A hundred 
 years later Venice fought a duel to the death with Genoa, and what 
 little power was left to the latter was ultimately destroyed by the 
 Visconti of Milan. Each one of these contests ended in something 
 added to the artistic possessions or developments of both conquered 
 and conqueror. 
 
II) DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 373 
 
 In France the most fruitful source of development must, no 
 doubt, be looked for in the Crusades, in which she had so large a 
 share. An illustration of the effect of the intercourse which these 
 wars promoted is seen in the case of Eudes de Montreuil, a famous 
 architect of the thirteenth century, who went to the Holy Land with 
 St. Louis, and built the fortifications of Jaffa. Another French archi- 
 tect, Jousselin de Corvault, also went to the East with St. Louis, but 
 the only record of his work there is that he invented divers instru- 
 ments of war. But upon the origin and development of French 
 architecture I shall have so much to say in another lecture, that I 
 need not detain you upon it now. My object has been this evening 
 to show you how possible it is to follow the growth of styles of 
 architecture, and I hope I have also shown you how much interest 
 there is in such investigations. Unless we make them we shall 
 always be ignorant of the real history of old buildings, and unable 
 to follow the course of their developments. 
 
 We have traced the progress of our art in the South and East, 
 where in those days all the progress was being made. We are ready 
 to go more into detail now as regards the rest of Europe, where in its 
 later stages the developments of architecture left the South far behind. 
 We have seen the growth of the art up to the time of Charlemagne. 
 From his time until the fall of the Holy Roman Empire with Fred- 
 erick n. 450 years elapsed, and during all that time Germany and 
 Italy had been practically one country under one sovereign. Hence 
 evidence of their union meets us at every turn in the early churches 
 of the two countries. At Pavia and in Milan we are in presence of 
 the same art as at Mainz, Coblentz, and Koln. One illustration, 
 and this of a singular kind, will suffice. The apse of such a build- 
 ing as the baptistery at Gravidona, close to the southern slopes of 
 the Alps, is distinctly founded on the apse of St. Mark's at Venice. 
 You will see by the plan the ingenious creation of three little apses 
 in the thickness of the wall of the principal apse. To any one who 
 had planned, or seen the plan of such an apse, it might occur that 
 a piercing for a window should be made of the same outline, and 
 just such windows we do find in the early churches on the Rhine. 
 
 The minor changes and varieties in German round-arched build- 
 ings are too many and too great to allow of my mentioning them 
 now, though not so great as they were in the various parts of France. 
 In those days France was formed by a number of provinces, each 
 practically distinct from the other, and consequently we see as many 
 styles as there are provinces. The whole South is fairly uniform, but 
 if you compare Normandy with Poitou, or either with Aquitaine, 
 Alsace, the He de France, Champagne, or Burgundy, you will find, 
 in fact, that the one thing common to all was the round arch, and a 
 perfect freedom of developing whatever was required for convenience, 
 
374 APPENDIX 
 
 for good construction, or for the demands of a different climate. I 
 have left myself no time to show how this last requirement affected 
 art. But when you consider that in the south of Europe a flat roof 
 is the best covering, whilst in the north a steep one is a necessity ; 
 and that in the south a very small window is necessary, whilst in the 
 north it can hardly be too large ; you have two particulars which 
 alone would account for an enormous change in style. The builders 
 of those days proceeded to modify and develop in a mode which was 
 everywhere founded on common sense, and varied, therefore, in its 
 developments in every country. This, indeed, is one of the great ac- 
 complishments in the architects of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 The Greek architect had been, above all things, a worshipper of 
 beauty for its own sake. A lovely line lost none of its loveliness for 
 him by constant repetition. The Roman recognised the skill and 
 taste of the Greek, and tried to copy his orders and his columns, for- 
 getting that they were always the decorated features of a real construc- 
 tion. He treated architecture as an art which had nothing to do with 
 building, and failed conspicuously in leaving anything that was very 
 original, or much that was beautiful, behind him. The Byzantines took 
 up the work, and to a great extent transformed it ; but they inherited 
 the old Greek idea of perfection, and spent ages in developing their 
 designs. And then, in the eleventh century, came this new spirit, 
 which made men suddenly conscious of the exceeding charm of 
 variety, and of the power which the freest use of the arch gave them 
 for securing it. Their art was that of men who were devising every- 
 thing that they did with a reason. They adapted themselves to the 
 requirements of convenience with a novelty of resource and inven- 
 tion which is astonishing the more it is looked into. They tried to 
 build so that their work should last for ever. Mortals themselves, 
 they never dreamt of making any work temporary and weak. By the 
 middle of the twelfth century, therefore, it need not surprise us to find 
 that their work was bearing its proper fruit, and that, after having dis- 
 covered the practical use and convenience of the pointed arch, they 
 soon invented and perfected a new style consequent upon its use, 
 which, in rapidity of development, variety of resource, and real beauty, 
 soon eclipsed all that had gone before. But this style lies outside my 
 proper subject to-night, and in my next lecture I shall hope to show 
 you how it affected Italian art. In that country one of the com- 
 pletest of the round-arched buildings was the cathedral at Pisa. If 
 anywhere Roman influence should be felt, one would have supposed 
 it would be there. But the Pisans were like their contemporaries 
 the men of Genoa, of Amalfi, and of Venice — resolute adventurers, 
 who went far afield — and in 1050 a.d. they had made an expedition 
 to Sicily. They had captured at sea a prize of extraordinary value, 
 and they had taken Palermo from the Saracens who held it. Then, 
 
Ill DEVELOPMENT OF STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE 375 
 
 returning laden with their booty, their first and very pious idea was 
 to build a magnificent cathedral ; and so cosmopolitan were they 
 that they employed a Greek, Boschetto by name, as their architect. 
 He built them a magnificent church certainly. But it was not 
 Roman or Italian. It had the long ranges of columns of the 
 basilica, but it had the Eastern dome ; and in every detail through- 
 out the work it is the Greek whose hand you see, and Byzantine 
 architecture, not Romanesque, with some of the same flavour of 
 Arabian art which we have been noticing in the more southern part 
 of Italy. And it was under the shadow of its arcaded walls that the 
 greatest architect of the thirteenth century was born and educated 
 in his art. 
 
 It has been difficult to say anything like enough on my subject 
 this evening. In all directions lines might be followed out far be- 
 yond what I have been able to attempt. But I am in hopes that I 
 may have said enough to induce some of you at least to follow out 
 these interesting subjects for yourselves. The course of art is like a 
 stream with endless back currents and eddies, w'hich interrupt us on 
 our way. It takes us from Egypt to Greece, from Greece to Rome, 
 thence to Grecian art again at Byzantium, to Syria and the Holy 
 Land. Then it crosses again to Europe, taking possession of the 
 south and west of France, and, joining two streams, one of mixed 
 Byzantine and Roman from Ravenna and Venice, and the other of 
 pure Romanesque from Rome, flows northward to the German Ocean. 
 There these streams of art, rich in their combined developments, find 
 another art establishing itself, founded upon an independent use of 
 Roman work. At the same time. Moor and Christian are fighting 
 for dear life in Spain, and wherever either plants his foot he builds 
 in his own style, either in the most complete Moorish or in the 
 severest Romanesque borrowed from his neighbours on the other 
 side of the Pyrenees, but each showing occasional evidence in some 
 part of the work of the influence of his enemy. In this progress of 
 art it is difficult to say which has done most, the Church or the 
 Sword. There had been a pause before what was supposed to be a 
 fatal date, the year 1000. But when that was passed and the world 
 had not come to an end, men breathed again, and began to build 
 with renewed energy and enthusiasm. The circumstances of the age 
 were all really in favour of the arts. For it is in countries which are 
 establishing themselves, making their laws, cementing their polities, 
 bringing their communities into order, that public spirit is at its 
 highest point, and that art has its greatest opportunities, and exercises 
 the most fascination. In a highly civilised state, where every one is 
 satisfied, and there are no wars or rumours of wars, where life is 
 easy, and men lazy and luxurious, it has a comparatively feeble in- 
 fluence. 
 
376 APPENDIX 
 
 In my succeeding lectures — having brought you, as it were, to 
 the threshold of the thirteenth century — I hope to show you some- 
 what more in detail how the development worked out its course in 
 Italy, in France, and in our own country. If we know so much we 
 shall know almost enough, for in Germany and in Spain the dis- 
 tinctive art of the thirteenth century hardly ever existed. In Germany 
 men were so proud of their early style that they troubled themselves 
 as little as possible about any new one until the magnificence of an 
 Amiens and a Beauvais forced them to an attempt at rivalry, only 
 just completed, at Koln. And in Spain there was much the same 
 enthusiasm for the earlier style, and when it was thought well to 
 follow the new fashion, it was for the most part by the hands of a 
 Frenchman, and not of a Spaniard, that the work was done. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY ^ 
 
 I HAVE brought you so far on the path of development in my last 
 lecture, that we find ourselves at the end of the reign of the round- 
 arched styles. It is natural, even in treating of pointed architecture, 
 to take Italy before any other country, not because the history of 
 Gothic architecture is seen and studied better there than elsewhere, 
 but because it was from that time for many centuries a sort of cen- 
 tral region in all questions of art. We shall find, indeed, as we go 
 into the question, that, so far from taking a leading part in the 
 development of pointed art, Italy was always lagging behind — that 
 she produced no very good or original work, and that for some of 
 her best buildings she was indebted to foreigners. Nevertheless, in 
 few countries is there more to interest us. The state of art was not 
 unlike what it is with us. No one style held undisputed sway. 
 There were foreign influences at work which introduced strange 
 novelties into a large part of the country. The extensive seaboard ; 
 the mercantile character of the people, and their unmatched situa- 
 tion at the centre of all commerce and of the then chief lines of 
 traffic ; the independent and warlike character of the republics — 
 among which Venice, Amalfi, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence were the 
 most active ; the habit inherited from their ancestors of borrowing 
 rather than inventing — all added to the varieties of style seen in 
 their buildings, and to the gradual development of local peculi- 
 arities. 
 
 Just before the period we are dealing with, Italy had been torn 
 and distracted from one end to the other by foreign princes or 
 foreign invaders, by intestine troubles and constant wars. In the 
 eleventh century the Greek Emperor still had his capitan at Bari on 
 the east coast. The country was harassed by Saracen inroads, and 
 was relieved and then occupied by adventurous Normans ; and the 
 German Emperors were ruling a great part of the land. The era 
 
 ^ ^ Fourth lecture, delivered on Thursday, 24th February, to the Students of the 
 Royal Academy. 
 
578 APPENDIX 
 
 itself is as distinguished for the personages it produced as for the 
 troubles among which they led their lives. The Swabian, Frederick 
 II., stands out as a central figure in the history of the times, and is 
 equally prominent as one of the most lavish promoters of building of 
 palaces, of castles, of churches, and even of mosques. And the artists 
 by whom the time was glorified are, as we shall see, innumerable, 
 whilst their status was much more like what it is with us than it was 
 elsewhere at the same time. On all sides from the earliest period we 
 meet with the names of the architects and sculptors whose works still 
 remain, and are able to trace them working, now here, now there. 
 Their names are recorded in countless inscriptions — not only in 
 documents, in which Italy is so rich, but on churches, over their 
 doorways, on pulpits, on friezes, on monuments, on columns, and on 
 baldachins. The architecture, instead of being that of the country 
 or the province, seems, as we study it, to become that rather of the 
 individual architects and their followers. Thus we have at a very 
 early period the Maestri Comacine, freemasons with curious charters 
 and privileges, whose headquarters on the Island of Comacina, on 
 Lake Como, gave them their name ; the Campionesi of Campione, 
 opposite Lugano, who from 1244 — when Anselmo da Campione 
 contracted to work at Modena in pcrpetuo for six lire a day in 
 summer, and five in winter — reigned, as it were, until the fifteenth 
 century, having among them Enrico I. and II., and Giovanni I. and 
 II. ; the Antelami of Parma, one of whom built the baptistery in 1 196 ; 
 the Cosmati family, of Rome, who succeeded each other for about 
 one hundred and fifty years from 1150 a.d. ; and, finally, the clan of 
 Masuccio, of Naples, among whom, as among the Campionesi, we have 
 Masuccio I., II., and III., always spoken of as if they were a sort of 
 succession of monarchs. The personal element, which always adds 
 so much to the interest of artistic studies, is seldom absent, and it 
 is because it is all but entirely so at the same period in most other 
 countries that the study of Italian art in the thirteenth century is so 
 interesting. 
 
 I brought my last lecture to a close with the erection of the 
 Cathedral of Pisa by a Greek architect, Buschetto. His work has 
 been too often talked of as if it were in a true sense Romanesque. 
 It is, in fact, almost exactly what we might expect from a Greek, or 
 from an Italian brought up in Greek traditions, who wished to con- 
 ciliate popular taste by conforming to some extent to Italian customs. 
 His plan is evidently founded upon the early Roman churches ; it 
 is cruciform, has transepts of great projection, and apsidal termina- 
 tions to them as well as to the choir. But with the love of a Greek 
 for the dome, he insists on retaining it, though he is bound by his 
 basilican plan to carry his ranges of columns on from east to west, 
 without any internal mark of the intersection of the transepts. It 
 
IV THIR TEENTH-CENTUR V ARCHITECTURE— FEA L V 379 
 
 is in the plan only that any deference for Roman precedents is seen. 
 His walls are all arcaded externally, the arches in the true Byzantine 
 fashion, very thin and flat, and for ornament only. Under every 
 arch there is a lozenge-shaped panel of coloured stone or marble. 
 The spandrels over the arches are all inlaid with patterns of ex- 
 tremely elaborate character, and the sculpture of the foliage has 
 everywhere the excellence of execution, the conventional symbols, 
 and the variety of design so invariably seen in Byzantine work. 
 This great church was finished at the end of the twelfth century. 
 At the same time, all over the south and east of Italy, the same sort 
 of style, produced by the same Eastern influence, was almost univer- 
 sally adopted. Observe also that it is one of the most singular facts 
 in the story of our art, that over the whole of this district hardly any 
 real or active influence was exercised by the pointed arch. It was 
 used, it is true, but not universally, e.g. at St. Maria, Aquila, in 
 1315 A.D. ; and at Bitonto, so late as 1335, we have buildings 
 mainly constructed with circular arches, a fact hardly to be paralleled 
 in any other part of Europe, though in Southern Italy any number 
 of similar examples exist. 
 
 I have said thus much about Pisan art in the twelfth century 
 because it was in Pisa that one of the central figures of the time was 
 born and trained. This was Niccola Pisano, born about 1205. Not 
 very much is known of him or of his origin ; but that little is some- 
 what wonderful, if we are to credit the statement that already, when 
 he was only about fifteen years old, Frederick II. made him his 
 architect, and took him to Naples, where he was employed on the 
 castle which Frederick was building there. Thence, at twenty-six, 
 we find him going to Padua to build the great church of Sant' 
 Antonio ; then to Arezzo, to build San Domenico. Then we find 
 him developing his skill as a sculptor, executing pulpits for Pisa and 
 Siena, and designing and, with the powerful aid of his son Giovanni, 
 executing the great fountain at Perugia. I might fill in this chronicle 
 of his work with many more details ; but, short though it be, how in- 
 teresting it is to us ! He has been brought up, as we see, in Pisa, 
 in the presence of the Cathedral and of the Baptistery, and of the 
 circular tower begun in 11 74 and completed probably before his 
 eyes. He studies it, and then, after a few years at Naples (where 
 he was surrounded on all sides by art of the same sort, as at Bene- 
 vento, at Salerno, Amalfi, and Caserta Vecchia), he goes to the 
 north of Italy. He visits Venice ; for his first great work, the Church 
 of Sant' Antonio, is evidently founded on a study of St. Mark's. But 
 he is a thoroughly eclectic artist, picking up ideas where he can, and 
 adapting them to his own purpose. He thinks the group of domes 
 at St. Mark's might be improved if they were loftier, and if one was 
 in some way more striking than the rest. Then he recollects the 
 
38o APPENDIX 
 
 great cone which covers the central portion of the circular Baptistery 
 at Pisa, and, with striking effect, places it in the centre of his group 
 of domes. Then he hears, no doubt, of the wonderful effect the 
 French architects were producing by the beautiful plans of their 
 chevets — apses surrounded by aisles and chapels — and determines 
 to imitate them. I say he " hears," for it is inconceivable that, after 
 having seen any of them, he should have planned anything so clumsy 
 and ill-conceived as the chevet of Sant' Antonio, a succession of square 
 chapels as badly designed as they well can be, which, nevertheless, 
 in the following century, seem to have been the model on which the 
 never completed choir of San Petronio, Bologna, was to have been 
 founded. Then, on the exterior, the facade recalls the outlines of 
 the Greek churches in the south with which he was familiar ; whilst 
 on either side of the choir he builds with most picturesque effect 
 octagonal towers or turrets, unlike anything in the south, and sur- 
 passing any of those which had been erected somewhat on the same 
 lines before his time in Lombardy and along the course of the Rhine. 
 The whole effect of this great church is singularly Eastern — more so, 
 even, than that of its prototype. Thus grew this great church — still 
 perfect, but, in spite of all its interest, lacking somewhat of the im- 
 press of a really great architect's hand, and not fit to be compared 
 for an instant with the far more refined and scientific churches which 
 the French architects had been building during the fifty years before 
 its foundation ; but, nevertheless, remarkable for the beautiful group- 
 ing of the external outline — a point seldom regarded by the early 
 Italian architects. It was after the design had been made for this 
 church that his best works as a sculptor were executed. And here, 
 again, we find him distinctly incorporating figures and ideas which 
 he derived from Roman sculptures preserved in Pisa. To these he 
 added, no doubt, so much and such intelligent study from the life 
 as to give great interest and pathos to his work, when compared with 
 most of the Italian work that had immediately preceded it, though 
 I am quite unable to admit that he was so much superior, as is 
 commonly asserted, to the French sculptors of the same time, of 
 whose names, and story, and training we know so little. His two 
 great works, in which he shows us the skill of the architect and 
 sculptor combined, are the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa and the 
 fountain at Perugia ; and of about the same period is the purely 
 architectural work of Santa Caterina at Pisa. 
 
 The Italian pulpits of this century are among the most mag- 
 nificent relics left to us. The examples which led up to Niccola 
 Pisano's work are of the type of Guido da Como's at Pistoia, a square 
 erection supported on columns resting on beasts, and with its sides 
 covered with sculpture. Niccola followed the idea, but improved 
 upon it. He made his pulpit hexagonal, and carried it on trefoiled 
 
IV rHIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 381 
 
 arches resting on shafts supported on hons' backs. In this way he 
 gave far more architectural character to his work than Ciuido da Como 
 had done ; and not only is his sculpture better, but it is the com- 
 bination of the two arts that most strikes us, whilst the delicate taste 
 with whicli coloured marbles are used to enhance the beauty of the 
 design is remarkable. The sculpture itself you can study, I believe, 
 at South Kensington. It shows a sense of the value of grouping, 
 and of the natural treatment of emotions and action, which under 
 his Italian predecessors had been almost wholly neglected or 
 despised. The type of figure which most affected him was not 
 beautiful, and he always greatly exaggerated the size of his heads. 
 But with any such criticisms as these one must admit, nevertheless 
 that his work paved the way for all that was most excellent in the 
 men who came after him. He learnt something, no doubt, from 
 such a man as Giunta da Pisa, who was flourishing when he was 
 young, and Cimabue and his successors were aiding with equal 
 power and zeal the work that he was doing. 
 
 Niccola Pisano died in 1278, and to the six years before his 
 death two of his most exquisite works are to be attributed. At 
 Padua he had erected a great false front to Sant' Antonio, in which 
 he sacrificed everything to breadth of effect. At Santa Caterina, 
 Pisa, in 1272, he has left us a facade which is still false, as being a 
 great gable which has no sort of relation to the shape of the building 
 behind it, but the beauty of which is incontestable. Its simple, 
 unbroken outline gives the breadth of which Niccola was so fond. 
 Its lower stage is very quietly arcaded \ above this is an arcade of 
 trefoiled pointed arches, carried on detached shafts, standing so free 
 from the wall as to give most vigorous light and shade ; and above 
 this again a circular window in the gable, flanked and surmounted 
 by arcades like those below. For an architectural composition, 
 taken by itself, I know few more charming works than this. The 
 steep gable looks like the effort of a man who had seen the steep 
 gables of Northern Gothic, and wished to vie with them in this 
 respect, as well as in the light and shade that northern climates 
 require, but with which Italian architects generally seem not to have 
 concerned themselves. Here, as in other works, we can trace the 
 influence under which he worked. The Leaning Tower stood 
 within a few hundred yards of the spot on which he was building, 
 and his arcaded front is a very simple development of the effect 
 which he admired in the arcaded walls of the Campanile — Niccola's 
 arches being pointed and cusped where those of the Campanile are 
 round, but otherwise being practically of precisely the same order of 
 construction. Niccola's other great and crowning work is the great 
 fountain at Perugia. It is hardly possible to imagine a more charm- 
 ing work in every respect than this. It stands in an irregular piazza, 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 midway between a cathedral of fair architectural interest, and the 
 vastest Gothic palace after the Ducal Palace, Venice, that I know. 
 This, I suppose, was rising about the time that the fountain was 
 erected, and at the same time the cathedral walls were being en- 
 crusted with a gay diaper of coloured marbles. The fountain con- 
 sists of two enormous basins, the upper one supported by an 
 apparently countless group of columns standing in the water which 
 fills the lower one. The capitals and columns are of various shapes. 
 The upper basin has figures at intervals all round, whilst the lower 
 basin has a long series of square panels, separated from each other 
 by clusters of moulded, chevroned, or spiral shafts. Out of the 
 centre of the upper basin rises a smaller one of metal, out of which 
 the fountain plays. The whole of the panels in this elaborate work 
 are square, surrounded by mouldings, and Niccola Pisano showed 
 his sculptor's sense in avoiding the common snare of introducing 
 pointed arches for decoration where none are required. Covered as 
 his work is with elaborate sculpture, what is most felt is the extreme 
 order and simplicity of the whole ; and when you go on to look in 
 detail at the charming sculpture of saints and heroes and tutelars of 
 the Church on the upper basin, and of the labours of the months, 
 the signs of the zodiac, the arts and sciences, Romulus and Remus, 
 and I know not who beside, on the lower basin, and notice how 
 refined are the attitudes of the figures, how delicate the features, and 
 how completely the whole are wrought into one perfect piece of 
 architecture, you must be blind indeed if you do not recognise the 
 grand character of the art of this central figure of the century. It 
 is true that the design is mainly what we owe to, him, and that the 
 execution of most of the sculpture was probably entrusted to his son 
 Giovanni, and some possibly to Arnolfo di Lapo, but not the less 
 is it a crowning work both of his life and of the century that he 
 adorned. 
 
 I cannot leave Niccola Pisano without a few words about his son 
 Giovanni. He, too, was a great artist. To my mind, it is in his 
 work as a sculptor that there is most to admire, but like his father 
 he was both architect and sculptor. His two most important 
 architectural works are the Spina Chapel and the Campo Santo at 
 Pisa ; and I suppose there is little doubt that it was he who, with 
 singular skill, converted the exterior of the Romanesque Baptistery 
 in the same city into a most picturesque and graceful Gothic work 
 by the addition of a crowd of traceries, of pinnacles, and niches all 
 round the base of its sombre dome. I suppose that all of you know 
 the Spina chapel. Before its too wholesale restoration it was im- 
 possible not to love it for its eccentric beauty ; but it was a beauty 
 obtained in defiance of every law that, in my former lectures, I have 
 told you to observe. There is hardly a stone in its exterior that can 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 3S3 
 
 be said to be structurally true. The steepest gables ever seen are 
 put up at the east end of a building, with a roof of very moderate 
 pitch ; behind them are three spires, and then all along the side 
 walls, to conceal the flat roof, a whole range of niches, surmounted 
 by pinnacles of a fashion dear to Italian architects, and very pretty, 
 where a statue is placed between four detached shafts, which carry 
 the crocketed finials of the canopy. In all the w^ork of the Pisani 
 mistakes are made such as are never seen out of Italy. There is a 
 most singular confusion of round and pointed arches. Their traceries, 
 as we see them in the Campo Santo, are by no means well designed. 
 They are indifferent about the subordination of orders in the tracery, 
 and pack circles together as if they were entirely separate parts of 
 the work, instead of combining them as the Northern architects did 
 in perfect order, by means of continuous intersecting mouldings. 
 Then their capitals seem always to be made with hardly any reference 
 to the work they have to do. You have a large capital carrying a 
 shrunken and insignificant archivolt. And this is the more remark- 
 able because elsewhere, at the same time, one of the most marked 
 features is the way in which every capital had its exact and separate 
 function, to which its size was accurately adjusted. In good archi- 
 tecture this must be the case, and I am obliged to sum up the work 
 of the Pisani by saying that, with all their merits as sculptors, they 
 were not equally good architects ; and that in planning, in construc- 
 tion, and in obedience to the prime law of making their ornament 
 grow out of their structure they sinned only too often ; though at 
 the same time the decided way in which Niccola at once threw aside 
 the traditions in which he had been nursed is as remarkable as it is 
 honourable to his artistic zeal and insight. 
 
 I have said so much about the Pisani because they so exactly 
 fill the canvas in this century ; but, widespread as their work was, 
 it would be a mistake to suppose that a description of it has at all 
 exhausted what has to be said on the subject of Italian Gothic. A 
 most remarkable fact, indeed, is that, whilst they were building in 
 the way I have described, there were rising three churches of quite 
 different but most admirable character in every respect, one at 
 Vercelli (1219-22), another at Assisi (1228-53), ''^^d, lastly, Genoa 
 Cathedral, of which the date is not certain. 
 
 Vercelli was built, according to the tradition, by an English 
 architect. I do not quite believe this, though undoubtedly its details 
 suggest a foreign hand, and are admirably good. It is built of brick 
 and stone coursed ; all the sections of piers and mouldings and the 
 details of the vaulting are admirable, and none of the faults are com- 
 mitted of which the Pisani were guilty every day. The ground plan 
 is, in most respects, wholly unlike an Italian architect's work. The 
 vaulting compartments of the aisles are square and those of the nave 
 
3S4 APPENDIX 
 
 oblong, north and south, contrary to the Itahan rule. The choir is 
 square-ended, but the chapels of the transepts are apsidal. The 
 detail of the clustered columns with their capitals and bases, of the 
 groining, of the windows, is all completely like French work, and 
 very admirable, and the Eastern triplet reminds me of England. It 
 is only on the exterior, in fact, that any Italian character is given to 
 the design ; but even here there is far more attempt than is usually 
 made to secure a picturesque tout ensemble. The west front is 
 flanked by two lofty Italian towers or turrets. There is an octagonal 
 central lantern, and, on the south side of the transept, a campanile 
 placed at an eccentric angle with the rest of the work. A fine 
 cloister and a chapter-house make this church very complete. Its 
 builder was a Cardinal Guala, who had been for some years legate 
 in England ; he erected this church on his return, having evidently 
 a wish to emulate some of the work he had learnt to admire in England 
 and France. 
 
 San Francesco, at Assisi, is even more remarkable. The architect 
 here is said to have been a German ; but the evidence of the mould- 
 ings is, on the whole, more in favour of his having been a Frenchman. 
 The singular fact, however, is that, as at Vercelli, this influence did 
 not affect the exterior, which is designed completely in the local 
 style, of which I shall have more to say. 
 
 At Genoa, again, we have a work of extraordinary beauty, and so 
 skilfully planned and designed that it is almost impossible to suppose 
 that it can have been wholly invented by its architect. It is evi- 
 dently a work which is the outcome of a series of developments, and 
 yet not one of the steps which could lead up to such a work are to 
 be found in the neighbourhood or in Italy. It is, again, the work 
 of a man who, if not a French architect, had at least been trained in 
 France, and is so good that it cannot be dismissed without a some- 
 what careful notice. In the first place, it is to be observed that it is 
 entirely built of black and white marble, the black, a limestone from 
 Lavagna, which is well bonded into the wall, and, indeed, forms its 
 substance ; whilst the white is from Carrara, and is used in thin 
 slabs, 2>h inches thick, between the more solid courses of black. 
 The system of using alternate courses of these two materials is 
 carried here to the extremest point. This fashion was obtained, I 
 have no doubt, by the Genoese from the East. You recollect what 
 I told you in my last lecture about their wars and their commerce 
 with Arabia and the East, And there is no fashion more noteworthy 
 among the Arabian architects than this of the use of coloured 
 materials in the way we see adopted at Genoa. Niccola Pisano and 
 his followers had used a different system, and one which to me 
 seems preferable. They used the two materials, but usually the 
 black was in narrow bands on a field of white, placed where it aided 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 385 
 
 by an emphatic line some architectural feature. This plan was 
 adopted at Pisa, Lucca, and Siena. The Genoese adopted the more 
 Eastern system of nearly equal courses of black and white. All 
 their churches are built in this way, and from the simplest designs, 
 such as that of San Matteo, Genoa, up to the extremely elaborate 
 treatment of the detail in the cathedral, all agree in this ; and so 
 prized was the system that in course of time it became an aristocratic 
 privilege in Genoa to build in this fashion, the four great families of 
 the Fieschi, Doria, Spinola, and Grimaldi alone sharing it with the 
 municipality. No doubt the churches were under the protection of 
 some one of them, and the cathedral probably of the governing cor- 
 poration of the city. Cathedrals in those days were sometimes 
 strangely used. At Genoa general assemblies of the people were 
 held in the nave. Questions ot peace and war were there settled by 
 popular vote, and religious and political purposes seem equally to 
 have been served by it. The nave was "renewed" in 1307, as an 
 inscription tells us, but, I have no doubt, on the old lines. The 
 west front and the western arch of the nave, with a groined gallery, 
 are all of the first half of the thirteenth century. The architect — 
 whoever he was — was bound by the black and white system of 
 decorative construction. That, as we have seen, was a point of 
 honour with his clients. He not only adopted the system of con- 
 struction, but carried it on throughout his work by covering all the 
 plain spaces between the shafts of his doorways with black patterns 
 inlaid on white, and white on black, and in his arch mouldings he 
 counterchanges the colours. The design for the front had three 
 doorways, separated by buttresses. In order to show his decoration, 
 the architect makes the jambs of his doorways simple splays, against 
 which are set marble shafts — three large and four small — on each 
 jamb. He leaves a good space between them, and on these spaces 
 inlays an infinity of elaborate patterns. His bases are beautifully 
 moulded with foliage carved under them, and in the carving of the 
 capitals, and of a tree of Jesse on the jamb of the great doorway, we 
 see the hand of a skilful sculptor, whose work is entirely different 
 from anything that the Pisani were doing at the same time. The 
 arch mouldings are all finely drawn, carved, and chevroned, and 
 some of the marble shafts are spiral, and some carved. Above the 
 central doorway there was the invariable Italian feature, a rose window, 
 and the design included apparently the equally characteristic French 
 feature of two western steeples, of which one only was in part built. 
 Had the whole been completed as it was begun, we should have had 
 in it one of the most exquisite works of the century, and interesting, 
 as it seems to me, beyond measure, from the evidence it affords of the 
 natural fusion of two systems of architecture — French and Eastern 
 or Arabian — in a perfectly fine work. Whenever any of you have 
 
 2 C 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 the opportunity of studying this work on the q^ot, I counsel you first 
 of all to make yourselves acquainted with the two earliest doorways 
 in the west front of Rouen Cathedral. There, in the most perfect 
 French work, you will see how the Northern architect, having only 
 one material — and that stone — nevertheless contrived to obtain the 
 same effect of black patterns on a white ground by deeply-cut pat- 
 terns in the stonework. And there is so much analogy between the 
 two works that I am disposed to think that the architect of Genoa 
 had seen the work at Rouen before he designed, in a somewhat 
 similar spirit, his great work at Genoa. I ought to have added that 
 his nave arcades are carried upon circular columns, which, with the 
 arches above, are all built of alternate courses of black and white ; 
 and that a second arcade, opening to the aisle, takes the place of a 
 triforium. Perhaps it is too ingenious to suggest that the architect 
 of the nave of Rouen had adopted the same singular device ; and 
 though his work was later in date than the two doors, it was no 
 doubt earlier than the nave of Genoa. 
 
 Another very decorative front of about the same period, which 
 ought not to be forgotten, for it is equally unique in its way, is that 
 of the cathedral at Ferrara. I have been unable to learn anything 
 as to its history. It is an alteration of and an addition to an older 
 fagade, carried up high above the roofs in three great equal gables, 
 arcaded and enriched with great boldness and beauty on every por- 
 tion. In the central division an elaborate porch of two stages in 
 height projects boldly from the front. This is gabled on three sides, 
 and has a sculpture of the Last Judgment scattered about in its 
 upper compartments. I hardly know any front in Europe on which 
 so much work has been lavished. And though it can hardly be 
 regarded as otherwise than very striking and interesting, it is impos- 
 sible to look upon it as a piece of genuine work or construction. It 
 is a front put on against the church, with no sort of connection with 
 it in outline or design. It depends not on good proportions, but on 
 extraordinary richness of detail for its effect. Its architect was not 
 satisfied to leave a stone unadorned throughout the whole upper part 
 of the building. His windows and arcades are crowded with shafts; 
 the mouldings are rich and effective ; and yet, beautiful as the work 
 is, it has the character of an imported design, and there are no other 
 buildings in the country which lead up naturally to it. 
 
 I hardly like to omit all mention of the cathedral at Ancona. 
 Here, on the very edge of a country almost given up to Byzantine 
 work, Margharitone, of Arezzo, is said to have built the front of the 
 cathedral — a charming composition, with a projecting porch carried 
 on detached shafts, a rose window above, and a very steep gable to 
 the porch and to the front. This is soon seen to be altogether a 
 false arrangement. The design is made to be looked at only in 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY lZ^ 
 
 elevation ; seen in that way it is very beautiful and well-propor- 
 tioned. The gables have all stepped corbel tables, and the whole 
 effect is surprisingly unlike any common Itahan work ; and yet the 
 masonry was done by an Italian hand and no other. The door- 
 way has an array of eight detached shafts set against a splay, as 
 at Genoa. The shafts are alternately large and small ; some of 
 red marble, some of white, some spiral, and some octagonal ; and 
 the base is made of red and white marble and gray granite. The 
 section of this jamb is like that of the west doorway at Genoa. All 
 these works have some features in common which are not usually 
 met with in Italian Gothic. These are the use of clustered columns, 
 as at Vercelli and Genoa ; clustered piers, as in the doorways at 
 Ancona and Genoa, each shaft in which carries on its own capital a 
 well-defined member of the arch ; the use of buttresses, which at 
 Vercelli are of considerable dimensions, and at Genoa are marked 
 features — a rare occurrence, the Italian buttress being usually a mere 
 pilaster round which a heavy cornice at the top of the wall is returned. 
 Finally, the mouldings are good in the sense in which the best 
 French mouldings are good. They are well drawn, have good light 
 and shade, and are accurately fitted to their places. In all these 
 respects these buildings are entirely unlike the work of Niccola 
 Pisano, and in my opinion far more refined than it is. Moreover, 
 there is no flavour whatever of the revived classicalism which was 
 always evident in his work, and the effect of light and shade, which 
 is striven for and obtained, is quite refreshing in the midst of the 
 platitudes (if I may so call them) of the Italians. 
 
 The conclusion at which you may arrive from what I have been 
 saying will be, perhaps, that the less indigenous Gothic architecture 
 is in Italy the more beautiful it is. To a certain extent this is true, 
 but to a certain extent only. There are other effects obtained by 
 the Italians which well deserve admiration, and in every one of the 
 buildings just mentioned it is to a part only, not to the whole, that it 
 is possible to refer in terms of unmixed praise. 
 
 Before saying anything more, it is necessary that I should return 
 again to the country which I referred to when speaking of the so- 
 called " Greek " architect, Buschetto, at Pisa. The architects of the 
 east and south of Italy, of whom he was one, were, in fact, practis- 
 ing an art which, even after their own time, was never really 
 supplanted by Gothic work. And I know few parts of Europe which 
 are more interesting. The work we see there is almost as unlike 
 the contemporary work of France, England, Germany, or the north 
 of Italy, as is that of the Moors executed at the same time in Spain. 
 The churches are usually cruciform in plan, with a central and 
 two smaller apses, all projecting from the east wall of the tran- 
 sept; and in this one respect they appear to owe more to the 
 
388 APPENDIX 
 
 earliest Roman churches than to any others. But the whole of their 
 decoration is wholly unlike Roman or Romanesque work. The 
 arches are constantly used for ornament only, without being in any 
 degree whatever constructional. Santa Maria, Ancona, is a good 
 example of this. Here the whole front is covered with arches one 
 above the other, literally carrying nothing. The intrados and 
 extrados of the arches are commonly struck from different centres. 
 The arches are, indifferently, round and pointed. The walls are 
 divided into panels by small pilasters at short intervals, generally six 
 or eight feet. These have heavy sculptured capitals, which carry 
 arcades ; and these, where there are no windows, are filled in either 
 with circular or lozenge shaped panels of carved or inlaid work. The 
 arches are frequently of horseshoe shape, as in the example shown 
 of a window from Foggia, and some wall arcading from the same 
 church. This is thoroughly Moorish work, and that it should be so 
 is not much to be wondered at, for it is a few miles only from 
 Lucera, where, as I told you in my last lecture, in the thirteenth 
 century Frederick II. built one of the largest castles in Europe for 
 his army of Saracen mercenaries, and gave them the cathedral for 
 use as a mosque — a somewhat strong measure for one for whose 
 character his contemporary, St. Louis, is said to have had great 
 esteem. It is singular that this cathedral at Lucera should have 
 some more than usually Northern features. The nave and transept 
 have pointed arches and a small clerestory. But the three eastern 
 apses are remarkable for having well-designed buttresses and good 
 Gothic windows, with no trace whatever of the usual Eastern influ- 
 ence. The fronts of these South Italian churches are very uniform 
 in arrangement, and their influence is felt all over the north of Italy 
 down to the end of the fourteenth century. They are generally 
 finished with a flat gable in the centre, and all the roofs are of the 
 same pitch when there are aisles. Even those gables which seem to 
 follow the lines of the structure are often false. The windows in the 
 fronts are almost invariably wheel windows, filled with delicate 
 tracery, or sometimes with Moresque patterns, and always surrounded 
 by a moulding or carved member, which seems entirely to separate 
 them from the wall, on which they become ornamental panels. 
 There are usually flat pedimental canopies over the doors. At 
 Aquila there are round-arched doorways, whose joints are covered 
 with Gothic arcades and gabled and crocketed canopies, with three 
 rose windows above and a wall diapered all over. This front was 
 really not finished till 13 15, and yet at first sight it looks like a 
 work of the twelfth century. 
 
 More to the west, and within reach of Naples, we see the same sort 
 of influence rampant at Amalfi, at Minuto, Scala, Scaletta, Ravello, 
 and Salerno. At Ravello, indeed, the Palace of the Rufolo family 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 389 
 
 is a complete Moorish house, with its patio of two stories in height, 
 its great gateway covered with a Moorish dome, and its enclosing 
 walls adorned in true Moorish fashion. And the churches in its 
 neighbourhood, though they are not Moorish in the same frank 
 completeness, are full of evidence of the same influence. The 
 Palazzo Rufolo was, I believe, built in the thirteenth century. The 
 steeple of Amalfi Cathedral is of the same date — 1276. Its lower 
 stages have extremely stilted round-arched openings, and the upper 
 stage is circular, with four circular turrets at the angles, the centre 
 circle and the turrets being all covered with interlacing pointed arches. 
 A central dome, similarly arcaded, rises over the church of Santa 
 Maria, Ravello. The cloisters, which lend such a charm to Amalfi, 
 are all similarly adorned, and you must note that the arcades project 
 slightly from the face of the wall in all cases, so as to advertise the fact 
 that they have nothing to do with its support ; whilst the very design 
 equally shows that most of the apparently arcuated work is false and 
 unnecessary. And they are without mouldings. 
 
 My limits only allow me to speak of one other feature in these 
 churches — the pulpits. I take one of those in the cathedral at 
 Ravello as my text.^ Its date is 1272, written on the marble by the 
 " marmorarius " — as he called himself — of Foggia, who executed it. 
 It is of white marble, inlaid with opus Alexandrinum in the richest 
 possible manner. The six shafts which carry it are spirally moulded 
 and inlaid with mosaic, and rest on lions' backs. The mosaic is all 
 let into panels surrounded with carving of most delicate character. 
 The brilliancy of the marble, the delicacy and bright colours of the 
 endlessly varied patterns of glass mosaic, and the richness of the 
 carving, make this certainly one of the most exquisite works with 
 which I am acquainted. Nor is it less remarkable for some of its 
 sculpture. The approach to it is by a staircase guarded at the foot 
 by a doorway, over which is a bust of a queen, executed with con- 
 siderable technical skill, and of a fair and stately presence. The 
 size of this pulpit is very considerable, and it is one of many. 
 Ravello alone has two others, a second in the cathedral, and one in 
 San Giovanni of earlier date, Salerno two, Benevento two, Sessa one 
 (of 1224 A.D., with round arches), Moscufo one (with horseshoe 
 arches), and there are many more which it is needless to name. 
 Here I must finish this episode. The art of Italy cannot be under- 
 stood unless you realise thoroughly how completely different its 
 history and development are from those of the rest of Europe at the 
 same time. Few books put you au fait with this phase of archi- 
 tectural development, and I advise you to consult the only authority 
 to whom I can send you — Von Quast and Schulz's great German 
 
 ^ For the possible influence 01 this pulpit on Niccola Pisano cf. Appendix I. 
 vol. iii. Symonds's Renaissance in Italy. 
 
390 APPENDIX 
 
 work on the Architecture of South Italy. But it is by sketching and 
 noting the peculiarities of these works for yourselves on the spot 
 that you will alone really understand them. 
 
 From this group I turn now to the North, where at this time many 
 churches were built, conceived much more in the spirit of the early 
 Gothic style than the former were. Of these the best examples 
 for our purpose are those of the Frari and SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 
 Venice, Santa Corona and some others at Vicenza, Santa Anastasia 
 at Verona, and at quite the end of the century the churches of Santa 
 Maria Novella and Santa Croce in Florence. Some Roman ex- 
 amples existed, but these have been so much altered and modified 
 that it is a little difficult to refer to them. The Church of the Ara 
 Cceli and Santa Maria sopra Minerva are the best preserved. In 
 all these the plan is very similar. They have the usual Italian 
 peculiarity of a transept, out of which a large apse in the centre 
 and smaller ones on each side are projected. Their naves are 
 generally divided into bays, which are absolutely square, whilst the 
 aisle compartments are oblong in the direction of the length of the 
 building. This is exactly opposed to the usual French and English 
 system. It gives arches of great span, and columns placed very far 
 apart ; and one of the results of such an arrangement is that the 
 buildings in which it occurs always look smaller than they really are. 
 The columns are usually plain — circular or octagonal — of great size ; 
 there is hardly any moulding on the arches, and the clerestory consists 
 usually of a series of small circular windows, one to each bay. The 
 walls have deep cornices. At Santa Anastasia, Verona, and at the 
 Frari, Venice, the apsidal chapels have the rare peculiarity of being 
 l)lanned with an angle in the centre, with a by no means bad effect. 
 Most of these examples are built of brick, and many have timber roofs 
 to the naves and transepts, and groining to the apses and aisles only. 
 They are thoroughly fine and useful buildings, and though nowhere 
 to be classed in the first rank of architectural works, are yet, I think, 
 the group of buildings which best deserve study of all that I have 
 mentioned. In them as elsewhere I see much to condemn as well 
 as to admire. Their window traceries are seldom agreeable, and 
 never really skilful. Usually they appear to be pieces of tracery 
 wrought in a single stone, and then cut off" to fit the arch under 
 which they are placed. But, on the other hand, there are many 
 features of extreme beauty. Among these are the porches and 
 monuments. These are commonly built with arches springing 
 from single shafts, with flat gables and canopies over them. Of 
 course, such erections could not stand for an hour without assist- 
 ance, and this is at once given by an iron tie-bar connecting the 
 capitals. But, with this assistance, there was still felt to be an air 
 of instability in the arch, and this was ingeniously overcome by the 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 391 
 
 addition of a heavy cusp on the under side of the arch, which gave 
 the required effect by appearing to bring the weight within the line 
 of the columns.^ So much depended on this cusp that it is generally 
 drawn with the greatest care, and this detail shows as much as any 
 the real artistic skill of the architect. Nowhere in Europe is there 
 a more exquisite architectural group than in the little burial-ground 
 of the Scaliger family at Verona. The larger monuments are all 
 of this type, with the addition of a heavy pyramid crowned by a 
 figure on horseback rising from behind the gables. The sculpture 
 which adorns these works is also excellent — very flat, and in low 
 relief, but full of evidence of careful study of natural forms. In 
 almost all of these churches the use of coloured materials is more or 
 less common. Unfortunately, few of the marble fronts with which 
 they were intended to be finished were ever completed. The lower 
 part of Sta. Anastasia, Verona, where the soft and delicate mouldings 
 of the door-jambs are built in alternate courses of red, white, and 
 gray marble, is of exquisite beauty. Such a construction, I need 
 hardly say, brings out with great distinctness the most delicate shades 
 of difference in the mouldings. It led the way naturally, also, to 
 the final example of the most perfect arrangement of colour in 
 construction, seen in such a work as Giotto's tower at Florence, 
 which, it can hardly be doubted, was the result of his acquaintance 
 with this beautiful work at Verona, for only a short time before, in 
 1294, Arnolfo had faced the Baptistery hard by with black and white 
 marble in equal courses, after the fashion of the Genoese builders 
 and of the architect of the tower at Siena. Unfortunately, the 
 custom was to build a blank brick wall at the west ends of the 
 Italian churches, with the idea of completing the work at some 
 future time by the erection of a magnificent marble front, and in 
 a number of instances we find the lower part of this, at the 
 most, existing. The Cathedral and Sta. Croce, Florence, and San 
 Petronio, Bologna, are illustrations of this habit, in addition to the 
 church just mentioned at Verona. 
 
 In all accounts of architectural progress it is the religious archi- 
 tecture of the country that first of all attracts our attention. It is 
 there that we see men's greatest efforts, executed in the most per- 
 manent fashion, and usually the examples of them which are still to 
 be seen are manifold more numerous, and have a history much 
 more accurately recorded, than have the other buildings erected for 
 secular purposes at the same time. But in Italy the life of the 
 people in the cities, with which the land is so richly studded, was 
 so active, so prosperous often, and so self-reliant, that it may almost 
 be said, in many cases, that the secular buildings are of as much 
 
 ^ Cf. what Ruskin says of the monument standing over the small cemetery 
 gate at Sta. Anastasia, Verona, Stones of Venice, vol. i. p. 137 (edit. 1851), 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 importance as the ecclesiastical. Every important city had its 
 public building — Broletto, Palazzo Publico, or Comunale, or della 
 Ragione — in which its affairs were transacted, and where the courts 
 of justice sat. In addition to these there were an infinite number of 
 palaces built by the wealthy citizens whose families formed every- 
 where the aristocracy, and generally went on from century to century 
 in the same city, either governing it or taking an active concern in its 
 affairs. Very many of these buildings are as perfect now as they were 
 when first built ; and in Volterra, Siena, Florence, Perugia, Pisa, 
 Lucca, Orvieto, Piacenza, Bologna, Como, Milan, and above all in 
 Venice (but of a later date), so many remain that we are able to 
 form an accurate and fairly complete idea of what these great build- 
 ings were. Most of them were founded in the thirteenth century, 
 but enlarged and altered greatly in the fourteenth. Volterra has its 
 palace, built between 1208 and 1257 — a large simple unbuttressed 
 building, without any sort of break in its simple outline. It was of 
 four stories in height. Its windows, placed irregularly to suit the 
 rooms, are of trefoiled lights under an enclosing arch, and the lights 
 are divided by a delicate column in place of a mullion. At the 
 back rises a tower intended to carry the city bell. The doorways 
 are simple pointed arches, without any sort of moulding. In this 
 case, as in most buildings of the period, we find a regular series of 
 holes in the wall above and below the windows. There can be no 
 doubt that these were intended for the timber supports of wooden 
 balconies, and that so far from the effect having ever been intended 
 to be what it now is, absolutely without shadow, the building in its 
 original state was as picturesquely varied as was possible by the deep 
 shadows of these balconies, through which the still darker openings of 
 the windows were dimly seen. Not far from Volterra is San Gemi- 
 gnano, where there are not only old houses, but, still standing almost 
 perfect, a group of lofty towers, which gives the city the strangest pos- 
 sible appearance. Each family erected as part of its home one of 
 these towers. They are very lofty, almost without openings, and with 
 no attempt at architectural decoration. Probably this was confined to 
 an overhanging parapet supported on machicolations at the top, and 
 two great coats of arms emblazoned on the parapets or walls. They 
 have but little architectural interest, but as they were universal in 
 Central Italy I cannot omit to mention them. In Florence the 
 most important work of the period is the Palace of the Podesta — a 
 good deal altered, and now turned into a museum. This was built 
 round a courtyard, on the walls of which the Florentines, who were 
 always desperately fond of heraldry, have inserted in all parts their 
 coats of arms. Open arcades are built on three sides of the court. 
 A great uncovered staircase leads up to a corresponding gallery with 
 open arcades on the principal floor, and access is gained to the 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 393 
 
 various halls and chambers from this. The arches used are some- 
 times round, sometimes pointed, and the details are all of the severest 
 and simplest type. Here, as at Volterra, wooden balconies, with 
 roofs on the topmost, were carried along in front of the upper 
 floor, so as to give access independent of that through the rooms 
 themselves. The walls were crowned with an immense overhanging 
 battlement, and a tower rose out of one angle. In the plan, the site 
 being somewhat irregular, no care was shown to make the rooms 
 or corridors or courtyard rectangular. Yet probably not one in a 
 thousand of those who annually go to admire this really splendid 
 building notices the irregularity. 
 
 Of other buildings of the same class and date, I shall mention 
 only two or three. The Palazzo della Ragione, Milan (1228), is 
 one of the best. This has an open arcade on the ground story ; 
 above this a double string-course forming a range of panels with 
 coats of arms, and breaking forward in the centre as a balcony or 
 ringhiera — a common and beautiful feature. The principal floor 
 has also its open arcade on a grand scale, and above this, under the 
 eaves, is a smaller continuous arcade, occupied at intervals by 
 grouped figures in three divisions. The elements of such a com- 
 position are extremely simple ; none, I think, can fail to be charmed 
 with the effect, and it teaches us a lesson as to the results to be 
 obtained by delicately designed elevations, depending entirely upon 
 good proportion and light and shade. Coming from Tuscany to 
 such a building as this, or to the Broletto at Como, one is much 
 struck by the wholly different temper shown in them. The Floren- 
 tines and their neighbours seem always to have built in a severely, 
 almost savagely simple fashion. You feel as if ornament were pro- 
 scribed — as if strong and lofty walls, tall unbroken towers, frowning 
 parapets, sparsely lighted chambers, were required by their laws or 
 their temper. The gateways and walls of Florence were grand 
 examples of a savage sort of simplicity — enormous in size and 
 extent, simple to a degree in detail, but executed with an amount of 
 care and solidity which is very admirable. Sad it is to use the past 
 tense of such works as these. Unhappily Florence for a short 
 period dreamed that she was to be the capital of United Italy, and 
 in order to fit herself for the position set to work to demolish her 
 walls, and to leave her gateways standing out alone in the midst of 
 new boulevards, with the sole result of almost ruining herself finan- 
 cially as well as from an artistic point of view. The works at Milan 
 and Como affect one as do the slightly later arcades of the Ducal 
 palace — one feels that life was meant to be pleasant and enjoyed, 
 and that the architect's first thought was how to make it more and 
 more enjoyable. 
 
 Another important domestic work, begun in 1281, is the Palazzo 
 
394 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Publico of Piacenza. This has its lower stage entirely supported on 
 open arches, giving on to the piazza in front, and to the usual 
 enclosed court in the centre. The whole of the lofty lower stage is 
 of white and red marble, whilst the upper is of red brick, with a 
 marble cornice supporting a Ghibelline battlement. All the detail 
 is extremely elaborate, and the brickwork especially is designed with 
 extreme care. The supporting arches are pointed, the decorative 
 arches semicircular, and all the windows have coupled shafts in 
 place of mullions. Recesses are formed in the wall for paintings, of 
 which traces still remain. The great advantage which the study of 
 these Italian domestic buildings affords to us is that to a very great 
 extent they show us a noble class of work, dignified, grave, and 
 often very beautiful in detail, and in almost all respects capable of 
 being used consistently with our own notions of comfort and con- 
 venience. They are of great extent, and their chambers are lofty 
 and large. The treatment of their windows is particularly worth 
 notice. The stonework is complete in itself, shafts take the place 
 of our mullions, and balconies are often provided in front of the 
 windows. The glass is fixed in a wooden frame set behind the 
 window shafts, so as not to interfere with their effect. In the larger 
 houses there is generally a courtyard, in the centre of which is the 
 well. The ground story is either supported on open arches or 
 appropriated for cellars, stores, etc., and the staircase leads up at 
 once and often from the. courtyard of the house to the Piano Nobile. 
 Here the rooms are of fine dimensions, some of the more important 
 being vaulted ; and, if we picture them to ourselves as they once 
 were, we may imagine no reasonable amount of comfort as wanting. 
 They were the abodes of civilised people, much larger and more 
 stately altogether than we are in the habit of making our homes, 
 and full of suggestiveness for us. On the other hand, there were 
 peculiarities which fortunately we do not want to imitate. The 
 more important houses had towers attached to them, erected for 
 purposes of defence. They have no openings beyond those re- 
 quired for the discharge of missiles. Their battlements were 
 swallow-tailed if the owner belonged to the Ghibelline party, square 
 if to the Guelphs. From their walls were bracketed forward timber 
 platforms, by means of which the approach to the doorway could 
 be commanded. They are almost invariably plain square buildings, 
 without break or buttress of any sort, and though sometimes of 
 great size nearly always extremely simple in design and detail, and 
 really more like large square chimneys than anything else. ^Vould 
 that I could tell you more on this head ! but the time is too short, 
 and I have left much unnoticed that I ought to have touched upon. 
 There are, for instance, those vast Halls of Assembly at Padua and 
 Vicenza, the former no less than 90 feet wide and 280 feet long; 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 395 
 
 the latter smaller, but still 72 feet wide. They have simple arched 
 wooden roofs of dark timber, and the walls at Padua are covered 
 with paintings, which have been well described in the Ajinales 
 Arc/icologiqiies by my friend Mr. William Surges. Then there are 
 the cloisters, which are so numerous and so beautiful. Many of 
 them are of two stages in height, and their long series of arches in 
 each stage are carried on coupled marble shafts. Some of the best 
 are at Verona and Genoa, and of a more elaborate kind are those of 
 St. John Lateran and St. Paul without the walls at Rome. These 
 last are carried on coupled or quadrupled shafts, plain, moulded, or 
 spiral ; their arches are semicircular ; they have rich and rather 
 classical cornices, and are filled in wherever there is a plain space, 
 and round the arches, with lovely decoration in glass mosaic. These 
 were probably executed by one of the Cosmati family, who, in the 
 convent of Sta. Scholastica, at Subiaco, in the wild glen which leads 
 to the mountain sacred to St. Benedict and St. Francis, built a 
 simpler cloister of the same sort, and left his name inscribed on the 
 cornice. Beautiful as many of our Enghsh cloisters are, I think 
 they never quite equal these Italian examples. One is charmed by 
 the grace and simplicity of the design, by the beautiful proportion 
 of the arcades, and by the evident skill of the men who contrived 
 to carry their walls upon such delicate couples or clusters of 
 columns, without any appearance of their being too weak for their 
 work. I ought also to tell you of the baptisteries, beginning with 
 the austere examples at Parma and Lucca, and going on to Pistoia, 
 Cremona, Asti, Florence, and many more. They are almost all 
 polygonal or circular buildings, Lucca being the only exception, and 
 many of them delightful, not only in design, but in the decorations 
 which have been added to them. I ought also to speak to you of 
 the domes of this period, which we see at Ancona, at Sta. Maria, 
 Arezzo, and elsewhere. Not less does the Italian treatment of 
 towers demand notice. They are either entirely without buttresses, 
 or with small pilasters at the angles, and repeated once or twice on 
 each face. Each stage is similarly adorned, and usually they are 
 repetitions one of the other. A good example is the campanile of 
 the cathedral at Viterbo. For some fifty feet in height it is a plain 
 mass of masonry. Above this, four stages of coursed black and 
 white stone, each stage having two two-light windows, and divided 
 from the next by decided string cornices, complete the elevation of 
 the tower, above which is a very low spire, a feature constantly in- 
 troduced. This sort of design is of common occurrence. Evidently 
 it is taken directly from the early Roman campaniles, of which so 
 many still remain. I ought to say much more about these towers, 
 which are so striking a feature of Italian buildings ; but not less 
 ought I to say something as to the monuments which everywhere 
 
396 APPENDIX 
 
 adorn the walls of the cathedrals and churches, both inside and out, 
 and oftentimes the piazza by their side. But time fails me ; I have 
 detained you long, and my only fear is, having had so many things 
 to speak of, that I may not have dwelt long enough or with suffi- 
 cient thoroughness on the many points which I wish to impress on 
 your memory. My hope is that if any of you have not concerned 
 yourselves with the subject hitherto, I may have induced you to 
 take an interest in what really contains matter for study of equal 
 importance to all of you, whether painters, sculptors, or architects. 
 
 To sum up shortly what the study of Italian art teaches us in 
 the thirteenth century, I think it may be said that, unlike the 
 nations of the north of Europe, the Italians never completely or 
 heartily accepted or worked out the changes which came naturally 
 from the use of the pointed arch. They never really realised what 
 its use led to. Their system of groining, for instance, is from first 
 to last simple to a degree. No difficult problems were ever faced 
 or solved in its construction. Ground -plans were never carefully 
 studied ; there is little ingenuity or skill displayed in them, and 
 hardly any improvement on those which the earliest Roman church 
 builders had left them in such churches as St. Paul without the 
 walls or the Basilica at Aquileia. This is the more strange because 
 some of the early Italian plans are extremely good, and the fondness 
 shown for the circular form in so many baptisteries might have been 
 expected to produce the same effect as it certainly did in Rome. 
 The plan for the small baptistery at Albenga, with its alternate 
 circular and square recesses and its central dome, ought naturally to 
 have led to something far better than Niccola Pisano's apse at 
 Padua. And it is very strange, seeing that the Italians almost 
 always used the apsidal east end, that they should so very rarely 
 have built an aisle and chapels round it, though they must have 
 been aware of the singularly fine effects that their neighbours in 
 France were achieving at the same time. Their sole care was, in 
 fact, to make their ornament beautiful. It never occurred to them 
 that the proper work of an architect is first of all to make his plan 
 as beautiful, as economic in its use of material, and as light and 
 elegant, as is consistent with stability. They were extremely care- 
 less about the general outlines of their buildings. On the exterior, 
 sham gables and false constructions of all sorts abound, and the 
 proportions are seldom agreeable ; and any attempt to produce fine 
 effects by combinations of the steeples with the buildings to which 
 they are attached is extremely rare, even if it was ever attempted. 
 The mouldings used are not good in themselves, or drawn with any 
 real feeling for the light and shade to be produced by them ; and 
 when they are used for an archivolt, they are usually set upon the 
 capital which receives them in so careless and ignorant a manner as 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 397 
 
 to produce the worst possible effect. The Italians never seem to 
 have cared much whether they used a pointed or a round arch ; 
 indeed, they hardly realised that one gave them more power than 
 the other, and consequently the sort of constructions to which they 
 confined themselves were nearly always such as could just as well be 
 contrived with a round as with a pointed arch. The feature which 
 more than any other distinguishes true Gothic work — the buttress 
 — is rarely used.^ If it is, this is generally for ornament only, and 
 I do not recollect an instance of a flying buttress. The Italians 
 never discovered that the proper disposal of buttresses, so as to meet 
 thrusts and weights at given points, was far more economical than 
 the persevering use of thick walls without buttresses. Another 
 difference is that almost all real Italian ornament is applied, and 
 does not in the least belong to the structure. An Italian window is 
 ordinarily surrounded by a moulding, which makes a sort of frame 
 for it. The English window of the same age has a moulding above 
 it to throw off rain, but elsewhere its mouldings are really cut in the 
 wall itself, so that the window appears to be what it is — a necessary 
 part of the fabric. In addition to these peculiarities the treatment 
 of windows was never very good. The best examples are the 
 domestic windows in which shafts take the place of monials with 
 very beautiful effect, but these seldom led to the execution of any- 
 thing like our Northern traceries ; the spandrels between the centres 
 of the window lights and the enclosing arches being seldom pierced, 
 and often left with no relief — perfectly plain. The circular windows 
 in the west fronts are innumerable. Their tracery, when it remains, 
 is generally of the fourteenth rather than of the thirteenth century. 
 One of the very best examples of the latter period anywhere is in 
 the west front of the Church of Sta. Maria, Toscanella, in which 
 the doorways, and the arcade between them and the window, are 
 carved profusely with well-executed dog-tooth enrichments. This 
 window is rightly called a wheel. It consists of three circles, each 
 divided into panels by columns, which take the place of spokes, and 
 between these sharply pierced cusped circles give a brilliant effect 
 of light and shade to this beautiful design. One goes to Toscanella 
 to see Etruscan walls and remains, and I confess to a real sensation 
 of delight when in this sad and forlorn old church standing with the 
 cathedral outside the walls, and unused apparently, save by a hermit, 
 who divides his time between them, I came upon so thoroughly 
 charming a feature as this window and front. 
 
 The Italians, as we have seen, were always very open to accept 
 fragments of work from other lands, it mattered not in what style. 
 They employed Greeks, Moors, Frenchmen, Germans, Catalonians, 
 
 ^ Ruskin speaks of the absence of buttresses as being one of the best features 
 of Italian campanili. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 side by side, at the same time. (They are also said to have 
 examples of Norman and Angevine art, but of this I have never 
 seen any evidence whatever.) The architecture of Italy admits 
 less than that of the rest of Europe of regular classification. It 
 was very eclectic. There was no passion for any one style all 
 over the country. The architects rather than architecture ruled ; 
 and each had his own fashion and way of working. Then, again, 
 the architects were usually sculptors ; and as their taste for the 
 sister art increased, they seem to me somewhat to have sacrificed 
 the elder to her younger sister. With so much that is disappoint- 
 ing, uncertain, and unprogressive, there are, however, redeeming 
 features which will always render the study of early Italian art not 
 only most instructive, but, at the same time, most fascinating. The 
 beauty of many of the features in detail is as great as it well can be ; 
 and the taste with which coloured materials are used in construction 
 is far in advance of anything that the rest of Europe can show, 
 either then or afterwards. The Italians inherited an admiration for, 
 and a due sense of the charm of, detached columns. These, being 
 used for their own beauty, were constantly made to taper slightly, 
 and were used frequently to carry heavy weights, though with the 
 closest approach to insecurity. In no country is the use of these 
 delicate shafts brought to such perfection. The shaft is used by 
 itself, coupled with another, and in groups of four and of five. 
 Sometimes a precious block of marble is cut into four shafts, 
 apparently knotted together in the centre. It is spiral, fluted, 
 moulded, and carved. It is used with great constructive skill, an 
 arcade carried on small coupled shafts carrying, as at Genoa, a 
 second cloister above. The arches of these cloisters are as simple 
 as they can be ; but the shafts are so delicate, and their caps and 
 bases so well proportioned, that I doubt whether any cloisters are 
 more beautiful. 
 
 In spite of all such architectural shortcomings, it must be said 
 that in the combination of painting and architecture all other 
 architectural schools were hopelessly distanced by the Italians. 
 All that is beautiful in their work struck root in the thirteenth 
 century ; and it is in the magnificent Church of St. Francis, on the 
 steep lower slopes of the Apennines, that we see already in perfec- 
 tion the combination of the two arts. There are here three churches, 
 one above the other, built round the tomb of St. Francis. One 
 enters the middle church by a pointed doorway between walls 
 panelled with the red marble of Perugia, in a lovely diaper of cusped 
 circles. A dark and sombre collection of chapels, decorated on all 
 sides by the painters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, 
 leads one on to the altar. Here cunningly wrought screens of iron 
 between marble columns guard the sacred central spot, and as the 
 
IV THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— ITALY 399 
 
 eye becomes by degrees accustomed to the half-light, one sees and 
 understands the subjects and colours which Giotto and others have 
 left on vault and pillar and wall. The upper church was meant to 
 be entered by a fine western doorway, but this is seldom open now ; 
 and after drinking in this strange and mystic effect of the crypt, 
 access is gained by a small newel staircase to the upper church. 
 The change is one of the most startling that I know. From the 
 darkest of sanctuaries you find yourself in a minute transferred to 
 the brightest, the most beautiful, the most joyous. The architecture 
 of the upper church is light and graceful, the windows are large, 
 and the walls from the floor to the centre of the vaulted roof are 
 covered with paintings, the Avhole of which are bright in tone, 
 beautiful in arrangement, and, as it seems to me, full of the most 
 exquisite sentiment, if the draughtsmanship is imperfect. Cima- 
 bue commenced his works at Assisi in 1265 a.d. The roof and 
 walls of the nave were then ready for him and entirely undecorated. 
 The former, at least, is either his work or that of his immediate 
 followers. The nave is of four bays in length. He painted the 
 first bay with figures of the Four Doctors of the Church, and the 
 third with the Virgin, St. Francis, and St. John the Baptist. The 
 intermediate bays he covered with mere decorative colour — blue 
 studded with stars — the grounds of the subjects being gorgeous with 
 yellow or gold. Borders of exquisite design and variety follow all 
 the leading lines of the construction. The figures show, it is true, 
 no few traces of Greek or Byzantine teaching and influence, but 
 the simple dignity of their attitudes and draperies, the charm of the 
 general system of colour, and the grand decorative effect produced 
 by the alternated bays of subject and ornament, leave little to be 
 desired. Nowhere, indeed, in the whole realm of art can one put 
 one's hand on a work in which the triumph of the Italian school of 
 the thirteenth century is more certainly seen or more universally 
 acknowledged than it is here. And if I have been critical to-night 
 as to what appear to me to be the shortcomings of Italian architects, 
 you will perceive by the terms in which I conclude that the criticism 
 comes from one who appreciates with enthusiasm what he holds to 
 be the real and undying beauty and interest of this great period in 
 the history of Italian art. 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE ' 
 
 Our subject to-night is one of inexhaustible interest and extent. 
 You have gathered from what I said to you about Italy, in my 
 last lecture, how worthy the art of this age is of our deepest and 
 most reverent study ; and there is no branch of it which is more 
 worthy of respect than that which had so active, and indeed 
 extraordinary a growth in France, from the middle of the twelfth 
 down to the end of the thirteenth century. You are all aware, no 
 doubt, that France, as we now know it, is a country gradually com- 
 pacted out of a number of states or divisions, and that it was in the 
 thirteenth century, under two distinguished sovereigns, the saintly 
 Louis and the warlike Philip Augustus, that the greatest strides 
 were made in welding together the kingdom of which then, as now, 
 the He de France, with Paris as its capital, was both the political 
 and the artistic centre. The various provinces preserved, however, 
 so much of their own traditions and tastes, that each presents its 
 own local variation of style, which was rather intensified than other- 
 wise during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The buildings 
 of Burgundy, of Anjou and Poitou, of Normandy, of Picardy, and 
 of Champagne, are so different in their character, that in the thir- 
 teenth century a man might almost have known where he was by 
 the aspect of the architecture. The same sort of difference that ex- 
 isted between the north and south of Italy is visible in the north 
 and south of France. But in the latter, the art of the north is again 
 separated into a number of divisions answering to the provinces. 
 To attempt in one evening to describe all these variations would be 
 absurd, and I shall confine myself, therefore, merely to the archi- 
 tecture of Paris and its neighbourhood. It is necessary, before I 
 do this, to take you back to the twelfth century, in order that you 
 may see what the state of French art was then, and what promise it 
 
 1 Fifth lecture, delivered on Monday, 28th February, to the Students of the 
 Royal Academy. 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 401 
 
 gave of the fruit which was brought to such great perfection so soon 
 afterwards. 
 
 The great burst of enthusiasm for building which occurred in 
 the eleventh century has left traces in all directions ; and for a 
 century before 1150 the works still remaining are conspicuous for 
 their admirable workmanship, skilful planning, and finished detail. 
 Without dwelling on all these points, it will be sufficient to confine 
 ourselves to a study of their ground -plans. Here there is vast 
 variety ; but the plan which, on the whole, is evidently the most 
 favoured, occurring in various stages of development in almost 
 all ])arts of the country, is worth examining, because it evidently 
 contained the germs of the great thirteenth -century cathedrals. 
 In this the chevet, or east end, is founded on the Roman and 
 Byzantine plans, finishing with a circle around which are set at 
 intervals small circular chapels — thtee, four, or five in number — 
 which give great variety to the plan both inside and out. As an 
 example of these, I may mention a church of the early part of the 
 twelfth century — Notre Dame du Port, Clermont-Ferrand — where 
 the covering of the aisle is a continuous barrel vault ; those of the 
 chapels, semi-domes ; whilst the central portion has a barrel vault 
 finished at the end in a semi-dome. The construction here is ex- 
 tremely ingenious. The builder had resolved that his work should 
 last for ever ; he roofed every part with stone vaults, covered out- 
 side with stone roofs, using no timber whatever in their construction. 
 He accomplished this by giving his aisles quadrant vaults, so as to 
 have a continuous flying buttress supporting the continuous thrust 
 of the central vault. 
 
 What strikes one in these early churches is the resolve of their 
 builders to make them imperishable, and the scientific disposition 
 of their vaulted roofs, which, in the chevet, owing to the combination 
 of the aisle-chapels with the vaulted aisle, is extremely effective in 
 perspective. The outside is mainly remarkable in this case for the 
 use of coloured materials ; but the exteriors do not affect my argu- 
 ment, so I omit all notice of them. One evidence of the scientific 
 character of these buildings is that they are generally designed upon 
 some regular system of proportion. At Notre Dame du Port the height 
 and width of the church are equal ; and if these are divided by four, 
 two parts give the width of the nave, two the height of the main 
 arcades, three that of the triforium arcade, and four the total. From 
 first to last we cannot but be struck by the scientific and regular 
 way in which the work is done. The same plan is seen in a num- 
 ber of examples, most of which — as St. Etienne, Nevers — have the 
 improved arrangement of three chapels to the apse, in place of the 
 four at Notre Dame du Port. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
 is the venerable original of such plans as these, and its example is 
 
 2 D 
 
402 APPENDIX 
 
 of special interest, inasmuch as the eastern part of the church, built 
 by the Crusaders, gives us the Auvergnat plan almost without modi- 
 fication, vis-a-vis to the apse of Constantine, which had precisely 
 the same sort of oudine at the western end of the building. 
 
 This common French plan of the apse is, we have seen, a de- 
 velopment from a Byzantine original. The section of the vaults 
 suggests the use of a flying buttress, and is, indeed, so nearly being 
 one, that it was not a great step to develop a construction which 
 should bring all the weight and thrust to one point, instead of 
 equally along the whole length of the wall. This was done in the 
 quadripartite aisle vaults, and it was only necessary to repeat them 
 in the central vault to make the quadrant vault or continuous flying 
 buttress over the aisles quite unnecessary. And so gloomy is the 
 interior of churches constructed in this way, that the absence of the 
 clerestory, so long used in earlier unvaulted buildings, must have 
 seemed even to the men who were building them a most serious de- 
 fect ; and it is not surprising, therefore, that the combination of this 
 with a stone vault was, above all things, what men soon strove for. 
 At the same time, in the west of France, churches were being built 
 on plans even more obviously derived either directly from the east, 
 or indirectly thence through Venice. Of the latter class the most 
 lemarkable was the well-known example of St. Front, Perigueux. 
 Here, whatever the origin of the design, we have domes carried on 
 pointed arches springing from piers which, at their base, recall com- 
 pletely the planning of St. Mark's, Venice, and Sta. Fosca, Torcello ; 
 and the story of a Venetian colony settled at Perigueux is not re- 
 quired in order to prove that the example, if not of Venice, at any 
 rate of countries from which the Venetians derived St. Mark's, was 
 followed there. 
 
 At Cahors, in a church founded in i loo, we see a nave covered 
 with domes, one to each bay, finished with an apse, and three chapels 
 of the Auvergnat type ; whilst at Angouleme, at the same date, there 
 is a nave covered with three domes, and a choir with four chapels as 
 at Notre Dame du Port, Clermont, though in these two examples 
 there are no aisles, the chapels opening out of the central apse, after 
 the fashion of Constantinople and Venice. 
 
 The churches in which domes or semi-domes may be found in 
 the centre, south, and west of France are numberless. And it is 
 very remarkable that, after having been so popular a feature in the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries, the dome should have been so en- 
 tirely abandoned in all later buildings. The reasons for this are 
 obvious. Admirable as the effect of a dome is, long experience has 
 proved that there is no form of construction which entails so much 
 waste of material, or such massive supports and buttresses. The 
 French architects set themselves the task of making their buildings 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 403 
 
 as light in their construction as was possible, consistently with en- 
 durance. They desired, too, to make them useful for large congre- 
 gations, and they had discovered by experience how difficult it was 
 to control the acoustic ])roperties of a domed building. Even if 
 they confined themselves to a central dome, the points of support 
 were enormous masses of masonry just at the places where their 
 inconvenience was most felt. Their common sense led them to 
 desire the admission of light in their comparatively gloomy climate, 
 in place of the sombre effects which are almost a necessity when the 
 domes are solidly built of stone or brick. 
 
 As regards architectural detail in France at this early period, it 
 is to be noticed that in a great number of buildings it was of extra- 
 ordinary delicacy and beauty of execution. The three western door- 
 ways of Chartres, a doorway in St. Benigne, Dijon, the south door 
 of the nave of Le Mans, and the north and south doorways of 
 Bourges Cathedral, all date from about 1150. They are remarkable 
 not only for the really astounding skill of the mechanics who wrought 
 the curious sculptures with which their columns and other members 
 are covered, but for the remarkable fact that among the branches of 
 foliage, in which the utmost skill of Byzantine artists is rivalled, 
 nude figures and animals are represented, with a feeling for nature 
 which is all the more surprising when compared with the stiff and 
 conventional representations of life-size human figures in the same 
 work. Not long after these works a cathedral was built, evidently 
 by French artists, at Santiago in Spain. It was a close copy of St. 
 Sernin at. Toulouse — a vast church on the same plan as the Auver- 
 gnat examples — and in its south transept doorways are columns 
 carved with just the same desire to represent the nude figure accu- 
 rately as in the case just mentioned, and so well executed that if 
 done before our eyes now, they would extort admiration from all. 
 One other building must also be named as an example of delicacy 
 in purely architectural work, the chapter-house of St. George de 
 Boscherville, near Rouen. Here there is no sculpture of figures, and 
 what is chiefly to be noticed is the beauty of execution, which is quite 
 consummate. The century closes with an example of still greater 
 excellence in the two earliest of the western doorways of Rouen 
 Cathedral, in which the beauty of design and the perfection of the 
 work leave nothing to be desired. I know no detail more worthy 
 of study, and the wonder is that more work conceived in the same 
 spirit was not executed. The only parallel work with which I am 
 acquainted is that of the western doors of Genoa Cathedral, to which 
 I have before referred, and in which the ornamentation is obtained 
 by the use of black and white marble, while, in the Rouen examples, 
 it is produced by deep cuttings in the stone. This, however, is a 
 somewhat later work. The end of the twelfth century sees France, 
 
404 APPENDIX 
 
 then, covered with buildings, mainly churches (though all the others 
 show the same art), built with great skill on well-defined plans, and 
 adorned with details of really exquisite beauty. So far the work had 
 been done with zeal, but under considerable hindrances. At first the 
 grandest buildings were those of the great monasteries. Their de- 
 signers were, no doubt, ecclesiastics, and the laity were comparatively 
 unconcerned. But now there is a great change. The people take 
 the matter out of the hands of the Church. The architects are no 
 longer clergy, and, supported by the suddenly awakened zeal of the 
 people, laymen form themselves at once into a body with the most 
 scientific aims and methods, and are every day found trying some new 
 device for the development and improvement of their work. In a 
 few years they had changed everything ; they had discovered how 
 to utilise the pointed arch, and this discovery seems to have been 
 like a revelation to them. The arch itself was known long before 
 its utility was reahsed. It had been used constantly for some fifty 
 years. The arches which had to carry most weight, and whose 
 thrust it was desirable to limit, were the first to be built in this 
 shape. The French builders had found, no doubt, how easily a 
 round arch becomes weakened, and how serious the results are of 
 the least giving way of the supports. But at first they saw no special 
 beauty in the pointed arch, and adhered to the round arch for beauty 
 and to the pointed for strength. This fact is a good illustration of 
 the very practical character of the French architects. They loved 
 and admired the old form, but in face of a practical advantage it 
 was at once abandoned in favour of the new one. When , once the 
 pointed arch had been well used, and had come to be understood, 
 their eyes were suddenly opened to perceive the powers its use con- 
 ferred on them. In a few years, from being carvers they became 
 sculptors, and at almost a single bound, from being very moderate 
 because very conventional artists, they became the best and most 
 skilful designers and constructors the world has ever seen. And 
 the artist was so careless of everything but the perfection of his 
 work, that it is rare indeed that we know his name, or anything 
 about the way of his life, or the manner in which he set to work at 
 the development of his plans. 
 
 The French architects at this time had emancipated themselves 
 thoroughly and once for all from old traditions. They found that 
 the use of the pointed arch gave them a power in construction such 
 as had never before been wielded. Before their time it was the vast 
 mass of building or of wall, the great size of the single stones which 
 composed it, no less than the art which decorated them, which had 
 impressed the mind. Now it was seen that this was not the best 
 way of securing the desired result. Every day attempts were made 
 to improve the construction by making it more delicate and graceful. 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 405 
 
 _ 
 
 The size of the piers was reduced ; windows were enlarged, and 
 raised high up in the walls ; the construction was of a most per- 
 manent kind, and yet it was all provided for with the least waste ot 
 material, so that the comparison between the voids and the points 
 of support is made always largely to the credit of the Gothic archi- 
 tects, whenever it is made at all between their buildings and the 
 works of the schools which preceded and succeeded them. 
 
 The names of the architects whose works are so familiar to all 
 students are, I repeat, either unknown, or, if we know them, that is 
 usually about all that can be said. In my last lecture we had a 
 great deal of personal matter, for, in Italy, you are able sometimes 
 to follow the architect about from one work to another, and you see 
 him now architect, now sculptor, and sometimes even painter also. 
 In France we know much less of the life of the artist. ^Ve have the 
 names of a good many ; among them of four architects in succession 
 at Amiens — of Robert de Coucy, the architect of Rheims, whose 
 design was faithfully carried out by his four successors ; of Eudes 
 de Montreuil, who went to the Holy Land with St. Louis ; and of 
 many more. But were it not for the fortunate preservation of the 
 sketch-book of one of them — a friend, probably, of Robert de Coucy 
 — we should know but little of their mode of life, or thought, or 
 work. This sketch-book or album was the property of Willars de 
 Honecort, and it brings before us an architect in the early years 
 of the thirteenth century wandering about on business or pleasure, 
 visiting cathedrals, making notes and sketches of them, and evidently 
 studying how best to improve himself. He interests himself in the 
 best way of cutting stones, of lifting them into place, of setting out 
 lines for work, and so forth. He sees a lion, and forthwith sketches 
 him, putting on his sketch (a note which may be freely translated), 
 " Mind you, this lion was alive." He draws figures and designs for 
 sculpture ; he goes to Laon and makes a sketch of one of the western 
 steeples, and writes below it, what most of us who have looked at 
 and sketched it, as he did, would have agreed with : " I have been 
 in many countries, as you may see by this book, but in no place 
 have I seen a tower equal to that of Laon." And then, after a 
 description of its plan, he adds, somewhat oracularly, " jNIeditate 
 upon these things, for if you desire to build such great angle towers 
 you must choose a form of sufficient projection. Proceed carefully, 
 and you will do as a wise and careful man ought to do." Then he 
 goes to see Rheims Cathedral, which is in course of building, and 
 sketches carefully the chapels of the apse, with notes of their details. 
 He evidently thought very well of them, and having about this time 
 to build the cathedral at Cambrai (now unfortunately destroyed), he 
 gives a plan of it, in which he seems to have repeated very closely 
 the plan and design of his favourite apse of Rheims. On another 
 
4o6 APPENDIX 
 
 page he gives a sketch ot a plan of a chevet or apse which he and 
 his friend Peter de Corbie contrived together ; and, strangely enough, 
 of so novel a plan is this apse, surrounded by alternately square and 
 circular chapels, that no example of it exists in France. If he had 
 travelled south he might have seen his suggestions anticipated in the 
 baptistery at Albenga, on the Riviera, whilst at Toledo some French- 
 man did, at about the same time, build the chevet of the largest 
 thirteenth-century church in Europe on precisely this very plan. In 
 another he gives a plan of a square-ended church, almost identical 
 with our own abbeys at Beaulieu and Byland, on which he writes : 
 " This is a square church, which was designed for the Cistercian 
 order." Again, he gives a variety of designs for drawing the human 
 figure enclosed within triangles. He designs foliage, animals, a 
 lectern, a clock-case, and so on. Then he travels, visits Hungary 
 on business, goes to Chartres, to Lausanne, to Meaux, as well as to 
 Laon and Rheims — everywhere note-book in hand, and making 
 sketches of all that strikes him most. Curiously enough, he makes 
 not a single suggestion in any of his sketches of any geometrical 
 mode of arriving at the proportions of the buildings — a very note- 
 worthy fact, seeing that most of those he visited were either just 
 built or in course of being built. 
 
 I have been thus particular in describing this book because it 
 gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of extraordinary interest. We 
 see just how it was that these French buildings grew, multiplied, and 
 developed as they did. The men who -built them were as keen 
 about their art as it was possible to be. They were disputing with 
 each other as to possible new plans, new combinations, and repeat- 
 ing work the effect of which they thought perfect ; and it is this sort 
 of spirit which we see so actively at work in developing the French 
 architecture on all hands, from the point to which it had slowly 
 attained at the end of the twelfth century. 
 
 I believe that in the time at my disposal this evening I cannot 
 do better, first of all, than show you how this improvement and 
 development was effected in the ground-plan of a French church. 
 In most cases a good ground-plan involves the architectural design 
 of a great part of the superstructure. In the best French churches 
 it may almost be said that it involves the whole design. In those 
 days every one gave his building a stone roof if it was possible. 
 And nothing so certainly necessitates a scientific arrangement of 
 the ground-plan as the provision for carrying safely a stone vault. 
 You will observe, then, that the men who had built such a church as 
 that of Notre Dame du Port at Clermont, or as St. Front at Peri- 
 gueux, had succeeded in covering their buildings with stone, but in 
 a way which left much to be desired. And the object of each sub- 
 sequent architect was to make the construction safer, or at least as 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 407 
 
 safe, but with much more lightness of effect, and with much less 
 waste of material. The idea of the early churches had been derived 
 from countries in which the climate required that windows should 
 be neither numerous nor large ; and it was not until the period with 
 which we are dealing that architects began to realise how unreasonable 
 such windows were in their comparatively gloomy and cold climate. 
 The cross vault once introduced soon led to the discovery that the use 
 of a pointed arch was almost essential if vaults were to be strong, and 
 adjusted to other than regular compartments. Even in the simple 
 vault of a building whose plan is a parallelogram, the thrust of a semi- 
 circular vault is too great, and the slightest giving way of the walls 
 on which it rests is fatal. With a pointed vault this is not the case. 
 The thrust outwards is comparatively small, and it was soon found 
 that it might be counteracted not only by a buttress in the form of a 
 pier, but by a section only of the old quadrant vault which held up 
 the continuous vaults of Notre Dame du Port and its class. The 
 flying buttress adopted in this way rendered it comparatively easy to 
 bring all the thrust to one point on the wall, because it was possible 
 so to fortify this point as to make it certain that it would not give 
 way. Then, when this was accomplished, it became quite unneces- 
 sary to erect thick and heavy walls between the piers and buttresses, 
 and in course of time the construction is reduced here to a mere 
 thin screen of tracery, throwing as little weight as need be on the 
 piers, and only sufficient to keep the weather out of the building. 
 In France the whole of the early buildings were, as I have told you, 
 finished with circular east ends. And it is possible almost to count 
 on one's fingers the examples of large churches in the thirteenth 
 century in which a square east end is seen. The most important 
 are the cathedrals at Laon, at Poitiers, at Dol, the church of 
 St. Serge, Angers, and the churches of some religious orders, as, e.g., 
 the Cistercians. Such exceptions emphatically prove the rule. 
 Then, when it became necessary to vault these circular ends, all 
 sorts of problems had to be met, and each man's work presents some 
 mode of solving them different from that of his neighbour or pre- 
 decessor. 
 
 The great difficulty to be overcome arose from the extremely 
 irregular shape of every division or bay of vaulting around a circular 
 building. In the square compartment you have an arrangement in 
 which the arches need not be of the same height, and yet may 
 perfectly well be vaulted with cross ribs, the ridges of the vaulting 
 cells rising or falling to meet the arches, or being level with them. 
 Where a succession of these vaults is required the ribs are usually 
 semicircles, because in this way it was found that the perspective 
 was most continuous and effective. But this was by no means 
 always the case. Sometimes these ribs are made of such curves as 
 
4o8 APPENDIX 
 
 will allow of the filling in of the cells being square with the cross 
 arches ; and sometimes, as in the Angevine and Poitierine churches, 
 these diagonal arches are pointed arches rising high above the 
 centre of the cross arches. In this case the perspective half of 
 each vault is lost behind the cross vault. It is really a most un- 
 satisfactory sort of vaulting, and though it was persevered in for the 
 best part of the century in the districts named, it was rarely adopted 
 in other parts of France, and not at all, I think, in the He de 
 France. In the aisle round an apse the first solution was a con- 
 tinuous barrel vault. This was very easy, but certainly not beauti- 
 ful ; nor was it improved when cross vaulting was introduced 
 corresponding to the openings to the chapels or arcades on either 
 side. But when it was attempted to divide this aisle for vaulting 
 bays the problem was found to be very difficult. Treated like the 
 square bays, with vaulting ribs going straight from angle to angle, 
 the effect is obviously very bad, so the diagonal ribs were usually 
 planned so as to meet in the real centre of the compartment, though 
 this involved a disagreeable broken line in the perspective, and was not 
 so popular as to be accepted without protest. It was probably after 
 seeing such vaults constructed that the chevet of Notre Dame, Paris, 
 was planned. Here, certainly, great ingenuity is shown. The apse 
 is divided from its aisle by five arches, and this again from the outer 
 aisle by ten, and the vaulting compartments are all as nearly as 
 possible equal triangles on plan. You will find this form of vault 
 used alternately with square compartments in the aisle round the 
 circular church at the Temple, where the same problem is solved 
 with even greater skill. In these triangular compartments of Notre 
 Dame there is a continuous ridge of level triangular spaces, and 
 though a single such compartment is deficient in the light and shade 
 of ordinary vaulting, approaching, in truth, too nearly in principle 
 to a cradle or waggon vault, of which half of each compartment is a 
 portion, yet in so intricate a plan as that of Notre Dame no such 
 fault can be found, for the whole plan is full of variety and light and 
 shade. Notre Dame was completed in 1208, but the whole ex- 
 terior of the chevet was greatly modified in 1296 by the addition 
 of a series of chapels between the buttresses. I have myself very 
 little doubt that in Bourges Cathedral we have a chevet which 
 illustrates the probable treatment of the original chapels of Notre 
 Dame, all of which were destroyed in 1296. Here, as at Notre 
 Dame, the outer wall of the second aisle has three compartments 
 for every one in the central apse ; and from the centre division of 
 each of these a small circular chapel projects. This treatment is 
 very beautiful. It retains the windows between the chapels, which 
 was so marked and fine a feature of the early chevets, and relieves 
 what would be the baldness of a chevet consisting, as M. Viollet 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 409 
 
 le Due assumes to have been the case at Notre Dame, Paris, 
 of two aisles, without any excrescences all round the chevet. 
 The architect of Bourges made another important modification. 
 At Notre Dame the plan involved the placing of a column in the 
 second series of columns opposite the centres of the arches of 
 the first series. The Bourges architect, however, abandoned the 
 attempt to make all the vaulting compartments equal, accepted 
 the irregular plan for the first aisle, making his intercolumnia- 
 tions wider than in the apse, and then showed that he knew 
 and appreciated the Notre Dame arrangement by dividing the 
 outer wall into three, and making one bay of quadripartite vault- 
 ing, which is an exact counterpart of that in the first aisle, only 
 reversed, and two bays of triangular shape. Below, in the crypt, 
 the similarity to the Notre Dame vaulting is even greater. At 
 Bourges the chevet is a semicircle divided into five exactly equal 
 portions, and these prolonged by twelve bays westward from the 
 church. The architect, having resolved on immensity of scale, con- 
 fined himself to the simplest possible plan, but gave great originality 
 to his design by raising the intermediate aisle to such a height as to 
 admit of its having a secondary clerestory and triforium. Notre 
 Dame was completed in its first form in 1208; of Bourges the date 
 is uncertain, but it is probably safe to put it at about 1220. And 
 in 1226 the plan of another cathedral, almost the vastest in 
 Christendom, was made, and evidently by a Frenchman, for Toledo. 
 Here the plan of the chevet shows a double aisle, with compart- 
 ments alternately square and triangular in both aisles. In this 
 ■ way all difficulties were overcome. The central column opposite 
 the arches of the apse was avoided. The vaulting has no same- 
 ness, the compartments being alternately triangular and square, and 
 the surrounding chapels are of the Bourges type, i.e. very small, 
 but alternately circular and square. The whole plan is one of the 
 most beautiful ever devised, and it is strange indeed that the most 
 magnificent development of the French plan should be in the 
 ecclesiastical capital of Spain. Here, too, to complete the likeness 
 to Bourges, the intermediate aisles have a triforium and clerestory, 
 and the ungainliness which is certainly the fault of Bourges is 
 exchanged for a design in which the most captious critic can find 
 little to complain of The sketching architect, Willars de Honecort, 
 when he devised a plan for a chevet in company with Peter de Corbie, 
 made, you will remember, one almost identical with that of Toledo. 
 It is impossible to do more than just touch on this branch of 
 my subject to-night. In some future year I may, perhaps, be able 
 to deal with it more exhaustively. The varieties of the modifica- 
 tions of the plan of the chapels round the chevet are very great ; 
 but the main point to be observed is that at the beginning of the 
 
4IO APPENDIX 
 
 century they were all planned on circular lines, and that by the end 
 of it they were all but invariably polygonal. In Robert de Coucy's 
 work at Rheims, we see them begun on the first plan, and finished 
 on the other ; and after his time his example was generally followed. 
 His work was planned in 121 1, Amiens in 1220, Beauvais in 1225, 
 Le Mans in 1230, Clermont in 1248, and then all follow on the 
 lines which he laid down, and which, in a few words, had the effect 
 of abolishing the wall and throwing all the weight on to the buttresses, 
 so as the better to enable them to resist the thrust of the vaults. 
 To know what French architecture was in the thirteenth century, it 
 is, of course, requisite to know a good deal more than the story of 
 the development of the ground -plan, though it is true that, unless 
 you study this part first, you will never understand the rest of your 
 subject. Now no way, I believe, is so good for to-night's purpose 
 as to take some two or three churches for examination, and, so to 
 speak, dissect them. Probably, of all the French churches, there 
 are none in which such dissection is more profitable than it is 
 in the case of Notre Dame, Paris, Rheims Cathedral, Amiens, and 
 Chartres. And if I take the last first, it is mainly because it is so 
 perfect in all its parts, and so completely the work of one period 
 and the effort of one man's skill and genius, that it presents an 
 admirable subject for your study. 
 
 The original cathedral at Chartres was built in the eleventh cen- 
 tury, and a vast crypt still remains of this period. Then, in 11 15, 
 a west front was commenced, and in 1194 the whole church was de- 
 stroyed by fire. The new cathedral was at once commenced, but 
 upon the old foundations. The contrivance of the new architect, 
 who desired to plan a church suitable for the epoch, and therefore 
 did not choose to follow strictly the lines of the early church, is well 
 worth our consideration. At first sight, the church of Chartres has 
 the look of being extremely original. It is, in fact, unlike any 
 other that I know. The chapels round the outer aisle are alter- 
 nately polygonal and segments of circles. This variation seems to 
 me to be in itself very beautiful as well as original ; but when we 
 descend to the crypt we find out at once how it has come to be con- 
 trived, and that it was, in fact, the happy result of a necessity turned 
 to good use. The original church was burnt, but the crypt sus- 
 tained no damage. It extended the whole length of the church, and 
 the architect was compelled, therefore, to build on the old lines. 
 Compare the crypt as it was, and the church as it is, and you will 
 say that the compulsion did not amount to much, so different are 
 the two. But compare the two plans, and you will see how ingeni- 
 ous the adaptation was. Examining the crypt, we see that the old 
 church had an apse, a single aisle round it, and three deep chapels 
 with spaces between them, of the same general outline as those other 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 411 
 
 Early French churches which I have already described. The archi- 
 tect of the church saw that by making a slight corbelling forward 
 from the old base it would be possible to build a choir with two aisles 
 instead of one, with moderate chapels over the old chapels, and 
 shallow ones in the spaces between them. All this could be done, 
 and was done, without any additions to the old foundations, and cer- 
 tainly with the happiest result, and it would be difficult to give any 
 better evidence of the skill of the architect. The groining of the new 
 chevet is somewhat complicated ; the inner aisle is all quadripartite ; 
 the outer one has quadripartite vaults opposite the large chapels, 
 and vaults of five divisions opposite and including the small inter- 
 mediate chapels, whilst the three principal chapels are vaulted sepa- 
 rately from the aisle. In some respects this plan is similar to 
 many of later date, as may be seen at St. Pierre, Bourges, and St. 
 Omer Cathedral ; but I think the plan of Chartres is far finer than 
 either of these, giving as it does a beautifully curved and varied 
 outline to every part of the apse. I am the more particular in 
 claiming this merit for Chartres, because no less an authority than 
 M. A'iollet le Due speaks rather slightingly of it, evidently forgetting 
 that the great merit of the plan is that the conditions were unfavour- 
 able, and that an amazingly good result was obtained in spite of this 
 fact. Nor am I, much as I admire the plan, able to praise every- 
 thing without reserve in this great church. No doubt there were 
 many difficulties to be surmounted ; not only in the plan of the old 
 church, but in the people who had to be employed on the new one. 
 Chartres had a great religious reputation. It had then, I believe, as 
 it has now, a black Virgin, whose power of working miracles was 
 supposed to be extraordinary. It was the epoch of the Crusades. 
 Men w^ere told that to work at Notre Dame, Chartres, was as good 
 as to go to the Holy Land. And from distant places — from Rouen 
 among others — crowds of people of all sorts went to aid the work 
 at Chartres with their hands. Such is the story ; and I am bound 
 to say that there is much in the fabric which seems to confirm it. 
 The whole scheme was a grand one. But the material — a very 
 coarse, calcareous limestone, full of holes — did not admit of any 
 delicate work, and nothing can well be rougher than the workman- 
 ship of all but certain delicate portions, as, e.g., the two transept 
 porches. The stones are put together in a clumsy and unworkman- 
 like manner. Things which are meant to fit do not do so. The 
 cornices and galleries outside are so carelessly planned as to have to 
 be fitted to their places by taking off and curving angles, or filling 
 them up. All the work has the air of having been executed by men 
 who were in a great hurry, who were not used to such work, and 
 who were entirely careless as to the goodness of the execution as 
 long as they could manage just to put it firmly together. This sort 
 
412 APPENDIX V 
 
 of execution happens also to tally with the architectural details of 
 the general design. These are comparatively few, and not too 
 skilful. The main columns are needlessly heavy, being about 8.6 in 
 diameter, though the intercolumniations are only 11.7, The capitals 
 are not well planned to receive the groining piers and main arches. 
 All the members are rude in their section, and the flying buttresses 
 are not only very irregular in their design, but far in excess of what 
 such a vault as they support ought to require. In the columns 
 the very common French plan of four shafts surrounding a central 
 drum is adopted ; but the shafts are all alternately circular and 
 octagonal, and agreeably varied by being made into clusters of 
 small columns both at the crossing and at the responds. It must be 
 noted also that the columns are alternately circular with four octa- 
 gonal, and octagonal with four circular, shafts surrounding them. 
 The mouldings are very few and very simple, and the capitals very 
 plain and rather coarsely carved. The windows, too, are very large 
 and very plain (the great clerestory windows are no less than eight feet 
 five inches wide in the clear, and their only moulding is a chamfer). 
 Finally, there is very little variety. The same design is carried on 
 all round the church, almost without any change. But you must 
 understand that this was all done designedly. The architect had 
 determined to make his work depend for its effect upon a magnificent 
 tout ensemble^ which should be above and beyond all questions of 
 detail. He could not but know what good work was, for the old 
 west end and the south-west steeple had escaped the fire, and each 
 in its way was admirable in design and detail. The three western 
 doorways have seldom been excelled for the finished beauty of their 
 workmanship, and the steeple is a perfect example of delicate planning 
 and design ; and he shows his own sense of what was good, for his 
 w^ork depended for its efTfect partly upon the porches of the north 
 and south transepts, in which he has shown such a mastery over 
 delicate detail as has seldom been seen, and this with an originality 
 of design and a fertility of invention which cannot be too much 
 praised. Both porches are generally similar in outUne, but extremely 
 different in the detail of their planning, which in the case of the 
 northern one is very varied and beautiful. Nowhere can be seen 
 better than here the love of variety which so much marks Gothic 
 work. It is as if the architect had felt himself tied and bound in 
 his scheme for the church, and found himself breathing freely again 
 when he had to complete the porches. There is so charming and 
 endless a variety of canopies, of shafts, of clusters of them, of figures, 
 of subjects, that I am at a loss to find terms warm enough for my 
 sense of their beauty. But this will, I hope, be illustrated more 
 fully if I am ever able, as I hope, to lecture to you on the connection 
 of architecture and sculpture, nowhere better seen than at Chartres. 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 413 
 
 So far I have spoken of this typical cathedral of the thirteenth 
 century without a word about its colour. This was not only internal. 
 There is still evidence in the northern porch that, six centuries ago, 
 the whole was covered with rich colour. Nothing more at variance 
 with our present ideas of what is suitable can be conceived. Yet we 
 must always remember that the thirteenth-century architect agreed 
 herein intuitively with' the Greek before him, and that both felt that 
 the best architecture could not be the best possible until it had been 
 beautifully coloured. But it is the profusion of colour in stained glass 
 which is the most striking feature of the church. It is that by which 
 almost all must be most struck, and by which, after all, they must 
 remember Chartres. Evidently it formed part of the original scheme. 
 The windows are all of vast size ; and, in spite of this, and of their 
 great number, they are absolutely filled with glass of extremely rich 
 and solid colour, all of the same age as the church, and all arranged 
 in a generally uniform scheme, though it is varied in detail in every 
 part. The architectural features of this portion of the work which 
 most deserve to be noted are (i) the general arrangement in the 
 upper windows of large figures under canopies, and in the lower 
 windows of subjects in panels; (2) the beauty of all the drawing of 
 foliage and ornament ; and (3) the fact that all the windows, rich as 
 they are in colour, have their leading lines marked with a white line, 
 so that if you are in the church when light is failing, you find all the 
 openings filled with geometrical figures or tracery. The architect of 
 Chartres was not far from using regular tracery. In the porch he 
 does it in a small degree, and in the great circles over the clerestory 
 he leads the way naturally for similar figures in the glass, and finally 
 he culminates in a magnificent rose window of geometrical tracery in 
 the west front. His work as it stands is perhaps the most perfect 
 and least altered great French work of the period. It was begun, as 
 we have seen, in 1194, and finished in 1260, and there is no 
 evidence anywhere of a change from the first scheme during the long 
 progress of the work. Time has dealt very tenderly with it. Few 
 alterations, and those generally unimportant, have been made since 
 the dedication of the church. The whole scheme was carried out 
 exactly on the lines dictated at the first, and nothing was left for a 
 subsequent age to do. Compared with the puny architectural works 
 of our own time, such an efibrt is simply amazing. During the 
 same period the cathedrals of Paris, Troyes, Soissons, Rheims, 
 Amiens, Auxerre, Mantes, Beauvais, Le Mans, Bourges, Clermont, 
 Limoges, Laon, Bayeux, Coutances, Seez, and Rouen, together with 
 an endless array of abbeys, of castles, of churches, of hospitals, were 
 being built. Each great cathedral must have been built by its own 
 diocese or district, for every diocese was engaged on the same work. 
 Yet at Chartres there is no evidence of economy or straitened means. 
 
414 APPENDIX 
 
 Too great haste, indeed, is the only fault of which I find evidence 
 in the execution of the work. But it was the venial fault of a 
 city which refused to see its cathedral in ruins a day longer than 
 was absolutely necessary. 
 
 At Notre Dame, Paris, we see the work of a very different artist, 
 and are able to trace distinctly the great changes which have been 
 made in the work since its first commencement. I have told you of 
 the ground-plan already. After this, the most interesting feature is 
 the triforium. Here, in order to resist the thrust of the main vault, 
 the first architect constructed it with pointed barrel vaults, at right 
 angles to the length of the church ; and it is difficult to suggest a 
 stronger form of construction. It was in this way that the twelfth- 
 century builders of the cathedral at Tourmes had vaulted their 
 aisles, and their example was copied in one church in England, i.e. 
 by the Cistercians at Fountains. At Notre Dame it was soon 
 destroyed in favour of flying buttresses, but at Mantes Cathedral, 
 said to have been designed by Eudes de Montreuil, not far from 
 Paris, much of the similar construction is still perfect. It was con- 
 venient enough, and very strong in the nave, but singularly incon- 
 venient in its application to the irregular bays of an apse ; it 
 was probably bad for sound, and expensive and troublesome in 
 construction. It is not to be wondered at that it was soon 
 abandoned in favour of cross vaults spanned by light flying but- 
 tresses. There was an immediate temptation also to reduce its 
 strength by making openings between the vaults to a dangerous 
 extent. At Mantes these cross vaults are carried on slight columns, 
 on which a flat lintel is placed, from which the cross vaults spring. 
 The failure of one of these columns might, therefore, involve the 
 ruin of the clerestory which the vaults buttressed. Eudes de Mon- 
 treuil, I suppose, introduced this mode of supporting the central 
 vault ; and if he was also the first architect of Notre Dame, Paris, 
 he combined it there with a second triforium arrangement, the 
 circular windows to light which still remain here and there. This 
 second triforium was almost necessary when the main gallery was 
 used by the congregation, as it still is in Notre Dame. The flying 
 buttresses at Notre Dame are of enormous projection, sloping very 
 slightly on the upper side, and, seen in perspective, give an extremely 
 ungainly outline to this otherwise noble work. At San Remi, 
 Rheims, at a slightly earlier date, the same fault is seen, but it was 
 at once felt to be a fault ; and, as we see, both in Rheims Cathedral 
 and at Amiens, was immediately corrected. At Notre Dame the 
 error committed at Chartres, of making them enormously heavy, was 
 carefully avoided. In many respects Notre Dame affords a singularly 
 good subject for study. It shows us as completely as any one 
 building the vast strides made during the century. The church 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 415 
 
 generally dates from quite the commencement of the century ; the 
 west front from 1214, south transept from 1257, the alteration of 
 the choir by the addition of chapels from 1294. In this period the 
 style had become greatly changed. In the earliest work, as in the 
 columns of the nave, we have a stately simplicity which imparts 
 singular grandeur to the interior. The capitals are very large, and 
 beautifully carved with foliage arranged in architectural forms, but 
 largely composed of natural leafage conventionalised. All the work 
 is admirably executed. If you compare it with Chartres, you will 
 see how admirably. The aisles are still, after the manner of 
 Auvergne, covered with stone pavement for roofs, and the whole 
 work has the air' of being strong enough to last for ever, without 
 being clumsy. There is nothing frittered away or small, and the 
 western towers, each with an array of shafts in the belfry stage of 
 unusual splendour, are, so far as complete, the finest works of the 
 age. The change in the transepts and the chapels round the apse 
 is great. The architect is not one jot less clever ; perhaps he is even 
 more so. His work is beautiful and beautifully executed. But the 
 grand feeling for simplicity which had reigned supreme is no longer 
 so evident. The mouldings have become too fine and delicate ; the 
 carving is too much a mere imitation of natural forms ; and there is 
 a sensible want of substance in the look of all the larger features, as, 
 e.g.., the windows of the transepts, which look too weak to stand. 
 
 The cathedral at Rheims is the next in order of date of those 
 which I can touch upon, and is altogether, for our purpose this 
 evening, of very singular value. Its architect was Robert de Coucy, 
 who began it 121 1 a.d., after a fire had nearly destroyed the older 
 cathedral, leaving only portions of the two transept fronts in such 
 a state as to allow of their being kept in the new work. The 
 new cathedral was consecrated in 1241, but works were in progress 
 during the whole century under a succession of architects, who 
 must have been singularly loyal to the original design. When De 
 Coucy began his work he had before him the great abbey church of 
 San Remi, still standing at the other end of the town very much in the 
 same state as it was then. It is necessary to say something about 
 this great church, for a comparison of it with the cathedral shows 
 extremely well the process by which developments of design are 
 ordinarily achieved. San Remi was consecrated in 1049, and in 
 its original state was of the severest and simplest Romanesque. In 
 plan it had a nave about fifty feet wide, of twelve bays in length, 
 with a clerestory, and over the groined aisles an enormous triforium 
 gallery for the use of worshippers. The nave, doubtless, had a 
 wooden ceiling, and though the plan of the eastern portion had the 
 same general arrangement as the Auvergne churches, with apsidal 
 chapels to the transepts, the whole church seems to me to have 
 
4i6 APPENDIX 
 
 rather more connection with German buildings than with French. 
 Its two western steeples illustrate this, being, in fact, lofty turrets on 
 each side of the west front, Rheims still retains a grand fragment 
 of a Roman gateway. This has three arches, and between them 
 three-quarter engaged columns, fluted. The San Remi builders 
 evidently imitated this work : they regarded the columns as buttresses, 
 and placed similar buttresses to mark the bays of their church, and 
 at the west end they fluted them. At St. Jacques, Rheims, they 
 repeated the same feature, and it is a very interesting example of 
 the way in which Roman buildings on the spot led to mediceval 
 adaptation of their features. In 1182 the east end of San Remi 
 was taken down, rebuilt, and completed in 11 98, on a plan which 
 is nearly identical with that of a church at Chalons-sur-Marne, which 
 was finished fifteen years earlier. An extended choir was built, with 
 five eastern chapels, and outer aisles to the west of them as far as 
 the transepts. The great triforium galleries of the nave were 
 repeated, and lighted with large windows, so as to produce a very 
 fine internal effect. Above the triforium is a simple arcade, which 
 answers to the ordinary Gothic triforium, and above this a clerestory. 
 There are thus four divisions in height, instead of the usual three, 
 though this additional stage is a common feature in this part of 
 France, as we see still at Laon and Soissons, and one which, I have 
 told you, exists at Notre Uame, Paris. By far the most beautiful 
 feature in the building is the plan of the eastern extension, and par- 
 ticularly the way in which the difficulty of the aisle-groining bays in 
 the apse has been surmounted by opening the chapels to the aisle with 
 three arches of unequal width resting on detached shafts. This plan 
 enabled the architect to make the vaulting of the aisle very regular 
 in its arrangement — a square compartment and two triangular ones 
 to each bay, the vaulting of the chapels being octagonal, though the 
 sides of the octagon are not all equal. The columns of the choir 
 are all plain cylinders, with square capitals, very finely carved in a 
 bold development from the lines of a Corinthian capital. The 
 arches are all pointed. The choir, in spite of its vast width, is 
 groined, as, too, are the triforium galleries. The exterior has been 
 a good deal tampered with. But it is doubtful whether it can ever 
 have been a really beautiful work. The proportions are low and 
 ungainly, and the great width of the old church was a stumbling- 
 block to the builder of the new choir. He got over the difficulties 
 ingeniously, and in some respects, especially in the plan, certainly 
 shows the hand of an accomplished architect. 
 
 Robert de Coucy, when he began the cathedral, had this build- 
 ing to study. It had been only finished thirteen years ; and it is 
 extremely interesting to see how much it affected him, and yet how 
 immensely he improved upon it. Evidently he fully realised the 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 417 
 
 beauty of the ground-plan, for his is ahnost an exact repetition of all 
 its general lines — the same number of bays in the choir and apse, 
 the same number of chapels, and the same outer aisles between the 
 chevet and the transepts. But he dismissed at once the triforium 
 galleries, and then gave up the fourfold division in height, and 
 increased immensely the proportions both of the main arcade and 
 of the clerestory ; though, unfortunately, as I think, he repeated the 
 upper triforium arcade of San Remi without much alteration. The 
 only great departure from the original ground-plan was in the arches 
 to the chapels, in which he gave up altogether the beautiful San 
 Remi arrangement. He could not well help himself His dimen- 
 sions in width were the same, those of height more than twice those 
 of San Remi (124 feet as compared with 53 feet), and the three 
 arches, which are well-proportioned in the one case, would have 
 looked absurdly narrow and ill-proportioned in the other. On the 
 exterior his scheme was entirely his own. The buttresses are 
 admirably designed, and, in spite of their magnificent scale do not 
 seem, as too often happens, to overwhelm the whole building. 
 In short, though it is clear, if his work is attentively looked at, 
 that he had carefully studied San Remi, it is equally clear that the 
 alterations which he made in the proportions, in the external eleva- 
 tions, and in the details, were so great that few would ever be likely 
 to discover the underlying evidence of similarity. It is this which 
 seems to me to be so worthy of your notice. The great and accom- 
 plished architect of the cathedral had none of the conceit which 
 prevented his seeing the good in what had been done before ; but 
 rather, with admirable skill, seized on the really fine points of the 
 work before him, and showed how much more splendid the scheme 
 might be made. This is the true spirit for an architect. It is the 
 spirit in which you must work if you want to be regarded in the way 
 in which we all think of Robert de Coucy and his work. This is 
 the real lesson which a study of Rheims Cathedral teaches. To tell 
 you in detail anything about the cathedral would take much time. 
 Its great virtue is its admirable simplicity throughout, save at the 
 west end, where by the end of the century another architect showed 
 in all its glory the latest development of the thirteenth century. 
 Three enormous portals, covered in every portion with sculpture, 
 above them a splendid rose window, and on either side two steeples 
 of rare beauty of design, — these have an interest of the same kind 
 as the rest of the church. The neighbouring cathedral of Laon is 
 still famous for the six steeples of its three fronts, and the exquisite 
 treatment of their angles, which have open arrangements of arcades 
 and shafts, square in some and circular in others. Rheims was to 
 have had six steeples also ; those to the transepts were begun before 
 De Coucy's design was made, and were evidently to have been of the 
 
 2 E 
 
41 8 APPENDIX 
 
 same type as those at Laon. But at the end of the century the 
 architect had come to disUke the Laon system in which the open 
 pinnacles were built up by a succession of columns and arches, piled 
 one on another. He thought long continuous lines of moulding more 
 effective, and though he retained the idea of open pinnacles, he 
 constructed their piers entirely of clusters of mouldings corresponding 
 with those of his belfry windows. I think the architect of Laon has 
 the best of it in the result. But it is impossible not to see the 
 influence he exercised, any more than it is not to admire the beautiful 
 design of the Rheims steeples. As in most great French churches, 
 the mouldings are few and simple. There are two features to which 
 I take exception : these are the absence of a sufficient base mould- 
 ing, and the overwhelming size of the great niches which crown the 
 buttresses of the aisles, and almost conceal the clerestory from the 
 exterior. The solidity of the whole church is much in excess of 
 that of many later buildings ; but its justification is its perfect con- 
 dition structurally, and I may almost say the absence of a crack or 
 settlement throughout its vast extent. I wish to see no finer sight 
 than such an interior, as I saw it only yesterday, hung all round 
 with precious tapestries of the fifteenth century, which set off and 
 adorned its superb and dignified architecture in the very best way. 
 
 Fine as are such churches as Chartres, Notre Dame, Paris, and 
 the cathedral at Rheims, I suppose that Amiens Cathedral is by 
 common consent the greatest achievement of the century. It is 
 difficult to say precisely why ; for, not to mention others, the slightly 
 earlier cathedral which I have just been speaking of, at Rheims, is 
 even more complete and more exactly what its first architect intended 
 it to be. And for perfect beauty of plan and poetical inspiration of 
 design I think Rouen goes near to excelling all. Probably the 
 dimensions and the beautiful proportions of Amiens give it the posi- 
 tion it has. Its columns are about 49 feet from centre to centre 
 across the nave, and its total height is above 140 feet, as against 
 corresponding dimensions at Rheims of 54 feet and 124 feet. It is 
 distinguished for its airy lightness of effect. Its proportions appear 
 to have been regulated by the equilateral triangle. The church was 
 for some time in progress, and the design was much modified during 
 the erection, notably in the triforium and clerestory. What strikes 
 one most here is the supreme constructive skill of the architect. No 
 part of the building appears to be unduly heavy or unduly weighted. 
 All the details are well designed and admirably fitted together. The 
 glazed triforium, which is perhaps first seen here in a large church, 
 is very conspicuous for its beauty and lightness, whilst the flying 
 buttresses and pinnacles are beautiful in their outline, and contrast 
 admirably with the heaviness of those at Chartres, the ungainliness 
 of those at Paris, and the apparently overwhelming size and number 
 
V THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 419 
 
 of those at Le Mans and Koln. The vaulting at Amiens is unHke 
 the common French mode. In order to get as much hght and 
 shade as possible, the horizontal section is everywhere very square, 
 and to secure this, the diagonal vaulting ribs are not semicircles, as 
 is commonly the case in France at this time, but compound curves 
 generated from the transverse arches, and giving a true horizontal 
 line for all the ridges. The lines of such vaults near the eye always, 
 I think, look crippled ; but here, at the enormous height they are 
 above the floor, it is very difficult to follow the lines of these curves, 
 and, therefore, there is no sense of their not being exactly true 
 curves, whilst the best possible effect of light and shade is secured. 
 The effect of the original scheme of the nave has been much spoilt 
 by the addition of chapels between the buttresses of the aisles. The 
 effect of these is to remove the windows so far back between solid 
 walls that in the internal perspective they are not seen at all, and so 
 the lantern-like effect, which was everywhere the aim of the archi- 
 tect, has been lost. At Amiens, as at Chartres, Paris, and Rheims, 
 sculpture has its share in the success of the work. The three great 
 western doorways are covered with it ; and many of the small sub- 
 jects illustrating the labours of the Months and the signs of the 
 Zodiac, as well as subjects from the Bible, are full of interest, though 
 not executed by quite so good a sculptor as those who worked on the 
 porches at Chartres and the doorways at Paris. Here, too, let me say 
 that the whole of the masonry of this great church is finished with 
 a claw tool, which gave it from the first a texture far superior to the 
 smooth surface which we all affect so much now. I mention it to you 
 in order to direct your attention to what may seem, but is not really, 
 a very minor point. At the time Amiens was nearing completion, the 
 effect produced by its magnificent scale and beautiful proportions 
 was remarkable. At Beauvais, not much more than thirty miles 
 distant, the bishop and people were so jealous that they resolved to 
 erect a church the glories of which should completely eclipse those 
 of their rival. Their architect lent himself to the scheme with as 
 much zest as any of us would now. His dimensions were consider- 
 ably in excess of those of Robert de Luzarches at Amiens, but his 
 ambitious schemes were too great for safety, and had to be, to a 
 great extent, altered, after a portion had given way, so that the 
 building, as it now stands, does not fairly represent the impossible 
 lightness of the first scheme. In addition to an imitator at Beau- 
 vais, Amiens undoubtedly gave all his lines and plans to the German 
 architect of Koln Cathedral, as it did to men so far off as the archi- 
 tects of Clermont-Ferrand and Narbonne — perhaps, too, of Leon, 
 in Spain. The later variations of the type are certainly no improve- 
 ment on the original. We see the art gradually losing its freshness 
 and force, and becoming perhaps more scientific, but certainly more 
 
420 APPENDIX 
 
 scholastic, and consequently far less artistic and interesting. The 
 change can nowhere be seen better than at Koln, where, though the 
 architect took his general scheme and his proportions from Amiens, 
 he gave all his details so essentially hard and violent German a 
 character as to destroy to a great extent the evidence of the parent- 
 age, without, I think, improving the effect. 
 
 I must now sum up in a few words the general characteristics 
 of the thirteenth-century architecture of France. It was a style 
 which was going through a most rapid stage of transition and develop- 
 ment. The century begins with vast, noble, and solid erections, 
 heavy in construction, very similar in general plan and design, and 
 ends with works in which, though the construction was still solid, it 
 was so scientific, so delicate in its adaptation to its requirements in 
 every part, that it had become light and airy almost past belief In 
 these respects it has never been excelled before or since. In com- 
 plete works of this period there is always a strict relation in every 
 part of the plan to the work to be done. The thing to be supported 
 dictated absolutely the shape of the support, and the nature of the 
 material decided the character of the design. The details had all 
 been developed and improved ; the windows, from being plain and 
 rude lancets, had become richly moulded and splendidly designed 
 compositions of geometrical traceries, all arranged with careful 
 adaptation to the proper subordination of parts, the mouldings and 
 traceries following each other in their relations to the primary, 
 secondary, and tertiary importance of the parts. The buttresses 
 had come to be treated as the real framework of the building. To 
 them all weights were conveyed, and by them on to the ground. 
 The panels enclosed between them showed no waste of wall. They 
 were reduced to mere screens to keep out the weather, which was 
 indeed their main if not their sole office. The proportions of height 
 to width were much greater and much better adjusted, and the study 
 of perspective effect, both inside and outside, was carried to the 
 greatest perfection. The same attention to what one may fairly term 
 a brilliant beauty of detail was exhibited in every part of the work. 
 In sculpture, the study of Nature and of life had taken the place of a 
 steady respect for ancient and conventional representations. Foliage 
 came to be copied directly from Nature, but with an instinctive sense 
 of the necessity of adapting it to structural purposes which is very 
 remarkable. In a capital, for instance, though the detail was natural, 
 the arrangement of the natural forms was strictly architectural. In 
 a spandrel, where it was simply meant for ornament, an absolute imi- 
 tation of Nature is allowable, and was freely indulged in. A string- 
 course, as we see at Amiens, was made like a garland of gay flowers 
 carried all round a building. In the representation of the human 
 figure still greater progress was made. Compare the west doors of 
 
\- THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— FRANCE 421 
 
 Chartres with the southern doors, and the change is made very clear. 
 The later sculptors evidently studied from the life. They represented 
 men in the fashion of the day, and in their faces, their attitudes, and 
 their grouping, there is a gay and tender sentiment, which seems to 
 me to be absolutely enchanting. You are impressed, whether you 
 will or no, with a sense of an age unlike our own, where there is no 
 misery, no misfortune, nothing to mar the charm of the pleasantest 
 and purest hfe ; and though, of course, some men's work is infinitely 
 in advance of others, a general high level is reached and sustained in 
 a striking manner. Everywhere the work of the sculptor is called in 
 to adorn the work of the architect, and so harmoniously is this done 
 that no one can tell where the office of either began or ended. Then 
 in all the subsidiary arts the same excellence is seen — whether it is 
 in the decoration of a manuscript, the painting of glass, the execution 
 of elaborate work in all the metals, in enamelling, in embroidery — 
 everything was done with careful reference to the requirements of the 
 material and the use to which the article to be manufactured had to 
 be put. And though I am loyal to the art of my own country, I am 
 obliged to admit that of France to be entitled to a sort of supremacy. 
 In the previous century she had given an architect and a design to 
 Canterbury and to Compostella ; in this she covered her own soil, 
 stirred up the Germans to an imitation of her work at Koln, designed 
 the great cathedrals of Toledo and Leon in Spain, and had a con- 
 spicuous influence in Italy at Genoa, Vercelli, and Assisi. In the 
 brief space of a century the French architects had almost shown the 
 limits of what was possible in the way of development, and left com- 
 paratively little, and that matter of detail rather than of principle, to 
 their successors to achieve. They had a grand opportunity, and 
 certainly availed themselves of it in the grandest way. The people 
 seconded their efforts with a supply of means for building so large 
 and extraordinary as to be wellnigh incomprehensible. The draw- 
 backs on their work are, generally, a want of completeness on the 
 exterior, which has at the same time the attractiveness of the unex- 
 pected. If you build a church on the scale of Amiens it is impossible 
 to add steeples to it which shall not either dwarf their mother church 
 or themselves be dwarfed. A central steeple is impossible ; and the 
 examples of such a feature are very rare anywhere in France at this 
 time, and then, generally, as at Coutances, they are an evidence of 
 English influence. A multitude of steeples, two at each front, with 
 a lantern occasionally in the centre, making it six or eight to one 
 church, render it impossible to secure such effective grouping as we 
 see in our English churches. And the enormous height certainly 
 goes far to diminish the apparent length. 
 
 It is fortunate for you students that you are within easy reach 
 of such masterpieces of art as are the monuments of French art. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 The young architect may, indeed, well be advised to study first 
 of all the art of his own country, to which that of Normandy 
 may be considered simply as supplementary, so closely allied is it 
 to English art. But to the sculptor students I appeal with all my 
 strength not to neglect this vast field for study. Far be it from 
 me ever to advise any one merely to copy what has been done 
 before, but not to avail yourselves of it in your studies is blindly to 
 refuse to make use of one of many of the paths which lead to real 
 knowledge and mastery of your art. Remember what Flaxman told 
 you about Wells, and believe me that if, as he said, you may learn 
 much there, it is as nothing to what you may learn in France, where 
 the examples are manifold more numerous, of all dates, and of even 
 greater value. 
 
 This evening I have tried to give you some faint idea of the way 
 in which the thirteenth-century architects regarded and treated their 
 art. This seems to me to be at least as valuable a subject for your 
 study as are mere questions of detail ; for I want to see you all 
 working in the same spirit as those great men, and not merely trying 
 to reproduce exactly what they have already done so well. 
 
LECTURE VI 
 
 THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE- 
 ENGLAND 1 
 
 j\Iy concluding lecture is to be devoted to our own national archi- 
 tecture in one of its very best periods. No educated Englishman 
 can be otherwise than proud when he thinks of the work his country- 
 men did all over England at this time. It was in almost all respects 
 a truly national work, since its developments were distinct from and 
 unlike those of all other countries, and, I think, little, if at all, 
 inferior to the very best of them. We shall find it necessary to 
 review shortly the state of architecture in England before the thir- 
 teenth century, and the changes consequent on the invention of the 
 pointed arch, just as in dealing with Italy and France we had to 
 begin with the earlier phases of their art. You know, probably, 
 that we have in this country a number of buildings (churches) 
 in various parts of England which have such distinct and marked 
 characteristics that they perfectly admit of exact classiiication, and 
 are in almost every particular unlike any of those which we know to 
 have been built since the Norman Conquest. Their plans, with the 
 one exception of the church at Brixworth, have square ends, not 
 apsidal. Brixworth is probably a Roman work, and has all the evi- 
 dences in plan and elevation that might be looked for in such a case, 
 and is not really, therefore, an exception to the rule. These churches 
 generally have masonry with long and short quoins alternately at the 
 angles. Their walls have narrow pilaster strips at intervals. Their 
 doorways are generally enclosed with a narrow projecting line of 
 stone, which rises from the ground and encloses the whole archway. 
 Their towers are generally lofty, and have belfry windows divided by 
 rude baluster-shafts ; but where, as at Earls Barton and Barton-on- 
 Humber, the towers are enriched, it is with a system of arcading or 
 panelling all over the walls, which is like that which I have described 
 
 ^ Concluding lecture, delivered 3d INIarch, to the Students of the Royal 
 Academy. 
 
424 APPENDIX 
 
 to you as existing at Ancona and elsewhere in Southern Italy— a 
 system of unmeaning decorative stonework clapped on against the 
 face of the walls, with no reference of any sort to their construction. 
 I show you side by side a drawing of the arcading of Barton-on- 
 Humber Church, and on the front of Sta. Maria, Ancona ; and you 
 will see at once that the similarity in the system of decoration is so 
 exact as to deserve special notice. In the same way I have made 
 two parallel elevations of a window from St. Mary Bishophill Junior, 
 at York, and from the Cathedral of Ravello, near Amalfi. You will 
 see here, again, that the elements of the design are all but identical. 
 At the same time it is to be observed that in the whole of these 
 buildings there is hardly a trace of distinctly Roman influence on 
 the design. The transept arches of Britford Church, near Salisbury, 
 may perhaps be excepted, though even here, in combination with a 
 singularly good and very perfect decorative panelled arch in stone 
 and tile, the arches have the narrow outside stone border which I 
 have learnt to regard as one of the most distinct marks of Saracenic 
 architecture in the south of Europe, as it is of the pre-Norman archi- 
 tecture of England. One thing at least is clear, viz. that English 
 art at this time owed nothing, or next to nothing, to the Romans. 
 At the same time Ireland was rich in saints and in churches, and had 
 the most intimate connection with the British Church before the 
 coming of St. Augustine from Rome. And in Ireland, as in Eng- 
 land, the churches were small, generally divided into two nearly 
 equal parts, and always finished with square rather than apsidal 
 terminations. In Scotland, under the same influence, we see the 
 same effects — with the solitary exception of the circular church at 
 Orphir, in Orkney, where the special circumstances of the case 
 account for the variation. 
 
 Before the Norman Conquest England was, therefore, provided 
 with churches which had, so far as we can see now, few marks of any 
 sort of connection in style with those of France or Germany. At 
 the time of the invasion, you know, from what I have already told 
 you, that in almost all parts of France the apsidal east end w^as all 
 but universally adopted ; and what happens after the Conquest is 
 equally significant and interesting. The Normans came over, and 
 evidently, as all conquering people do, brought their art and their 
 architects with them. Then our English monasteries had a most in- 
 timate connection with French monasteries, and nothing is more 
 common than to find a monk sent from Cluny, or some other great 
 French convent, to become head of an English house, such as 
 Fountains Abbey, or others of almost equal importance. Each of 
 these men, too, brought the latest fashions, and, as far as the English 
 prejudices would allow, imported them in some degree into the 
 work with which he became connected. In no respect is this 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 425 
 
 more evident than in the substitution by the Norman builders 
 of apsidal east ends for the original English square ones. The 
 examples in which either these apses remain in part or in whole, 
 or in which their foundations have been discovered, are the following 
 among our cathedral churches : Canterbury, an apse with a circular 
 chapel at the east end, built, or rather begun, on very much the 
 same lines as Sens Cathedral, by a French architect, William of 
 Sens ; Winchester, an apse with an aisle and chapels round it ; 
 the cathedral at York, built after the Conquest by its first Norman 
 prelate, Thomas, which had, no doubt, three, or even five, eastern 
 apses, a fragment of the wall of one of these under the transept being 
 still /;/ situ ; Lincoln not only had three apses built by its first Nor- 
 man bishop, Remigius, but, as far as can be made out from the 
 small remains below the stalls and pavement, a second apse erected 
 by St. Hugh, of Avalon, between 1186 and 1200, as well as the still 
 remaining apsidal chapels to the eastern transepts ; Peterborough 
 had an apse and probably aisles finished in the same way ; Glouces- 
 ter, an apse with an aisle round it, three apsidal chapels, and one to 
 each transept, the whole following exactly on the lines of Notre 
 Dame du Port, Clermont-Ferrand, and the numerous similar French 
 chevets ; Worcester, an apse with an aisle around it, and doubtless 
 chapels ; Norwich, an apse with surrounding aisle and chapels, and 
 two to the transepts, on the same lines as Canterbury ; Durham, 
 chapter-house apsidal, and choir in all probabiHty so also ; Chester, 
 a short apsidal choir. With the exception of Canterbury, almost 
 every one of these cathedrals had its eastern end greatly modified 
 or wholly altered in the thirteenth and following centuries ; and 
 everywhere, with the rarest exceptions, the later architects returned 
 to what was the old and well-loved shape of the eastern limb of the 
 cross before the Norman invasion. The apsidal termination to a 
 church in England is, in fact, a distinct mark of foreign influence, 
 and the universal objection to the form — for it is nothing short of 
 this — on the part of the English at subsequent periods is, I believe, 
 entirely due to the reviving national liking for what was consecrated 
 in men's minds as their own national form. This was a perfectly 
 natural thing if you consider for an instant the state of affairs. After 
 the Conquest it is hardly too nmch to say that every bishopric and 
 every abbey had forthwith imposed on it a French or Norman bishop 
 or abbot. These, together with the foreign laymen entrusted with 
 local commands, were the officers who were to keep the country in 
 due order, and to take care that the Norman supremacy was not dis- 
 turbed. Many of the bishops and abbots could not speak English. 
 Everywhere they found the churches I have referred to existing. 
 Usually these were insignificant, or, at any rate, far from magnificent 
 buildings. They had wooden roofs and ceilings. Sometimes they 
 
426 APPENDIX 
 
 were thatched, sometimes built wholly of timber, and sometimes of 
 wicker-work — as in the famous case of the chapel which stood on or 
 close to the site now occupied by St. Joseph's Chapel at Glastonbury 
 — which was a structure of twisted rods or hurdles, covered in the 
 seventh century by Paulinus, Archbishop of York, with boards, on 
 which he laid "lead from the top to the bottom." 
 
 The foreign bishops naturally introduced foreign architecture and 
 foreign architects. Their churches had nothing whatever to do with 
 those which had existed before, for these were a local development 
 from, though with but little evidence of likeness to, the Roman 
 buildings which had been scattered throughout the country during 
 the Roman occupation, or else rude native copies of the basilicas 
 which the British bishops had learnt to admire and venerate in their 
 visits to Rome. The new churches were, in fact, almost complete 
 repetitions of the churches which had come to be built in Normandy 
 as the result of the long course of development in French architecture 
 which had culminated in the art of the eleventh century. 
 
 In course of time the English began again to assert themselves. 
 English bishops, English abbots, were appointed in place of foreigners, 
 and with them English art made its first real mark in our country. 
 Jocelin, Bishop of Wells and founder of the cathedral, and Hugh, 
 the second bishop of the name, of Lincoln, were Englishmen and 
 brothers, and commonly called Jocelin of Wells and Hugh of Wells, 
 after their birthplace. And it was at the end of the twelfth century, 
 when Englishmen were again asserting themselves in their own 
 country, that the invention of the pointed arch enabled them to 
 throw off the architectural yoke of the Normans, and develop a 
 style for themselves, one of the features of which was, in regard to 
 the ground-plan, a return to our own national form of square-ended 
 church. 
 
 ^Vhether I am right or not in my theory, the fact remains that, 
 with one grand exception, the whole of the great English churches 
 of the thirteenth century were square -ended. This exception is, of 
 course, Westminster Abbey. Here the evidence of the building 
 itself seems to be conclusive that the king had resolved to build a 
 church after the model of the great French churches, but employed 
 an English architect to plan it, and he made his plan on lines which 
 are distinct and different from those of any French church. Nothing 
 is a more interesting subject for study than the adaptation of a 
 foreign plan and design by an able Englishman devoted to his 
 national art, but it is somewhat outside my subject to-night. All of us 
 are proud of our beautiful minster ; we all feel it is no dry repetition 
 or copy of another building ; but, at the same time, it is impossible 
 to regard it as being a fair example of a purely English church. 
 Some years ago, I believfe that I proved to demonstration that the 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE—ENGLAND 427 
 
 architect of Westminster built also, and at the same time, the beauti- 
 ful church at Stone, in Kent. The arcades round the eastern portion 
 of both churches, the detail of much of the ornament, and the 
 character of the window tracery and of the clustered columns in the 
 two churches, are to a large extent identical, and where they are not 
 absolutely so, they are so nearly alike as to make it evident that 
 they were designed by the same hand. The proportions of both 
 churches are similarly designed on the equilateral triangle, and the 
 materials used are the same. The interest of this smaller work is 
 great, therefore, as showing that directly the architect of Westminster 
 was free to do as he liked, he built as an Englishman of the strictest 
 kind, with no evidence in any part of his work of foreign leanings, 
 and notably with a square east end in place of his Westminster 
 apse. 
 
 The gradual growth of an English church is nowhere to be 
 studied better than at Canterbury, where we are so fortunate as to 
 have the account of the buildmg ot the cathedral by two monks, 
 Edmer and Gervase, one of whom described the history of the 
 church in 1130, and the other its burning and rebuilding at the end 
 of the century, and this last saw the work absolutely in progress till it 
 became very much as we now have it. What happened at Canter- 
 bury gives us a clear insight into what happened, much in the same 
 way, in other dioceses. The Saxon church was probably one built, 
 as far as outline is concerned, to a considerable extent on the lines 
 of the Basilica of St. Peter's. St. Augustine and his successors were 
 so distinctly identified with Rome that it would have been certain 
 in any case that this would be so, had not Edmer's account led to 
 the same conclusion. Archbishop Lanfranc took this church down 
 and rebuilt it on a larger scale, finishing his work in 11 30. His 
 plan included a nave and aisles, transepts with eastern apsidal 
 chapels, and a short choir, probably finished with three eastern 
 apses. The church was enlarged by another archbishop in order to 
 satisfy the desire for a large choir, which involved in so many cases 
 the destruction of our old cathedral choirs ; and in 1 1 74 the enlarged 
 church had arrived almost at the dimensions which it still has. It 
 had a long choir, an eastern transept, in addition to the ordinary 
 central transept, a great apse with an aisle round it, and apsidal 
 chapels on either side of the main apse, and probably to the east 
 of it also. The columns and arches were low, the aisles were 
 vaulted, but the central portion w-as roofed with a wooden roof 
 ceiled on the under side. This was again burnt in 1 1 74, and the arch- 
 bishop forthwith called in a French architect, William of Sens, who 
 retained but increased the height of the columns and arches, and 
 covered the whole choir with a stone vault above a triforium and 
 clerestorv. His successor, William the Englishman, finished the 
 
428 APPENDIX 
 
 church by the erection of a second apsidal choir, with an aisle round 
 it, which was built to receive the shrine of St. Thomas d Becket, and 
 east of this a circular chapel, or Corona, as it is called. The whole 
 scheme is now one of the most beautiful in Europe. The gradual 
 narrowing of the choir before the junction of the eastern apse with 
 the apse of Ernulf or Anselm is the result of an ingenious utilisa- 
 tion of the older church foundations still existing in the crypt. The 
 same economical considerations affected the builders of many of the 
 enlarged choirs of our cathedrals, as, e.g., Winchester and Glou- 
 cester, where the existence of a semicircular crypt compelled the 
 later architect, who could not afford to destroy the whole of the 
 foundations, to adopt some ingenious system of plan to enable him- 
 self to combine the two. At the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, 
 precisely the same necessity compelled the architect to make the 
 first bay of his choir incline considerably on plan. It is one 
 of the charms of Gothic buildings that wherever such a necessity 
 existed it was honestly met, as a matter of course, by some arrange- 
 ment which, whilst it explained the fact on its face to every one, 
 at the same time added to the picturesqueness and beauty of the 
 design. 
 
 So great a work as this at Canterbury was, so magnificent in its 
 results, would, it might have been supposed, have been followed, if 
 not throughout the whole country, at least in the county and diocese. 
 Strange to say, it had no followers, and seems to have produced no 
 effect. In most dioceses we find the most general and complete 
 architectural influence exercised by the Mother Church. The men 
 who built this either directed or inspired all the work in the district ; 
 so that variations in design which were at first merely personal — the 
 fancies of some one able man — came in course of time to be local 
 peculiarities in which the original personal influence is no longer 
 seen. It is difficult to account for this contrary state of affairs in 
 the case of Canterbury. But probably the insular pride or prejudice 
 — call it which you will — of the English resented the introduction 
 of a style of building which had no connection with and never re- 
 minded them of the ancient traditional form of the English Church. 
 It is clear that the impetus given after the Norman invasion to the 
 adoption of plans copied from or founded on the Norman churches 
 soon ceased to produce effect. The great churches were most of 
 them rebuilt in the new fashion, but not the less was there a deep 
 dislike to the change, and a steady preference for the plan which was 
 gradually felt to be more distinctly connected with the old times 
 before the invasion and conquest. I am disposed also to lay some 
 stress in this matter on the desire of Northern nations to secure the 
 exact orientation not only of their churches, but of their altars also. 
 The French did not feel this, and their altars arranged round a 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 429 
 
 chevet face all ways. In Germany and in England, at any sacrifice 
 almost, altars were made to face west. A singular instance of this I 
 discovered in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where, 
 in spite of the adoption of an apsidal termination to the choir, the 
 three chapels to the east of it are all square-ended, so that all the 
 altars might face the same way ; and in Germany, where an apse is 
 built with a number of altars, you will find that they are placed, 
 without any reference to the slope of the walls of the apse, facing due 
 west. A strong tradition of this sort may easily have been offended 
 by the apsidal form. The subject ought to be gone into more 
 thoroughly than I have ever seen it treated. It is one of extreme 
 interest, and an almost unique example of a national submission 
 to a new type of plan, suddenly changed into a determined return 
 to the older and — with the Conquerors — evidently unpopular plan. 
 Certainly, within one hundred and fifty years of its introduction the 
 use of the apse was abandoned, and almost every church in the 
 thirteenth century in England was built with a square east end. The 
 fact is so important, as bearing on the subsequent progress of English 
 art, that it deserves our careful attention. You will recollect that 
 almost all the problems which the French architects set themselves to 
 solve were connected with the more perfect planning and designing 
 of the chevets of their churches. They have left other magnificent ex- 
 amples of their skill ; but it is to this part of their work that I always 
 find myself most attracted, and in which I am sure that they were 
 themselves most concerned. In England, on the contrary, the pre- 
 judice against the apsidal end left the architects more free to devote 
 themselves to all parts alike, and in the case of small churches, if 
 the English system was less academic and exact than any can be 
 which treats the support of stone vaults as the one great thing to be 
 contrived, at the same time it secured an endless and picturesque 
 variety of plan and design, in this respect excelling, in my judgment, 
 all other countries. Observe, also, that the ingenuity of the French 
 architects was devoted even more and more to the increase of the 
 height and the decrease of the apparent means for supporting their 
 lofty churches, so that by degrees it was of the interior of their 
 churches that they came to think most, leaving the exteriors to some 
 extent to take care of themselves. The English architects, on the 
 other hand, being far less occupied with these particular scientific 
 problems of construction, devoted themselves with all the greater 
 zeal to the developing of the detail of their buildings, and being very 
 practical artists, never lost sight of the importance of making the ex- 
 terior as beautiful as the interior. The vast height of such churches 
 as Amiens, Beauvais, Bourges, or Le ]\fans, makes it impossible that 
 the exterior should be a complete whole, from whatever point it is 
 viewed. 
 
43° 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Canterburjr, Lincoln, Wells, Salisbury, Lichfield, and York, not 
 to name others, are all churches in which the height is insignificant 
 when compared with the French examples just mentioned. But 
 they are all complete and beautiful works on the outside as much 
 as inside. Nowhere else in Europe is so good and strict a propor- 
 tion observed. The moderate height of the roof made it possible 
 to erect towers, or groups of towers, which, without trying to attain 
 impossible dimensions, are nevertheless magnificent works. The 
 towers of the west front of Amiens only look like towers when seen 
 from the west front. AVhen seen from the side in connection with 
 the church, they shrink into mere turrets. Then, English archi- 
 tects had great common sense. They realised that the effect of 
 size is not given by height alone. They knew that the effect of 
 length in an interior was just as impressive ; and by making the 
 height of their buildings moderate, they immensely increased their 
 apparent length. I remember spending a day at Amiens once, 
 wrapt in admiration of its magnificent interior, and only wishing 
 occasionally that the limits of the church allowed me to take in the 
 upper part of the work, the clerestory and vaults, without lifting my 
 head to an inconvenient angle. The next day I was at that loveliest 
 of English fourteenth-century churches — Exeter. I went somewhat 
 in dread of what I should feel. But the modest dimensions of the 
 interior — not much more than a third of those of Amiens in height 
 — I found had been so used by the Englishman as to produce the 
 eftects of infinite length, of size, of mystery, of beauty, to as great a 
 degree as the work of the Frenchman had produced them.^ It is 
 the modest completeness everywhere, the variety and beauty of the 
 detail, and the judicious adaptation of the means at disposal to the 
 end required, that strike me as the great achievement of the English 
 school of architects of the thirteenth century. I hope I have 
 travelled too much, seen too much, and admired too much the great 
 works of other countries to be a prejudiced or unfair judge of the 
 comparative merits of their respective works. But to me it seems 
 matter for real congratulation that the students of our art have around 
 them in this country on all sides buildings which are in almost all 
 respects as well worthy of study as those of any other country, 
 whilst in some of the highest qualities they are, if not unequalled, 
 at any rate unsurpassed. 
 
 The preference for the square plan of the east end of our 
 churches was one only of the marked differences between English 
 and French architects. The next in importance was the indiffer- 
 ence of the former, save in very important works, to the use of 
 
 1 In the Memoir I ha%-e mentioned that my father regretted much the want of 
 height in our English cathedrals. The opinion expressed there was that of his 
 earlier years, modified, as this passage shows, by further consideration. 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 431 
 
 stone-vaulted roofs. This indifference led, no doubt, to far greater 
 facility in the way of changing the form of the ground-plan — and led 
 to a freer and more picturesque if to a less stately and formal mode 
 of design than the French system did. 
 
 But even more important than this difference is that which we 
 find in the treatment of the capital by the two schools. In France, 
 in all early architecture, the upper member or abacus of the capital 
 is square on plan. This is the classical outline. It was modified 
 at the end of the twelfth century by first taking off the angles. 
 Then they were made octagonal, and at the end of the century a 
 variety of angular lines were adopted ; and, save in such churches 
 as Bayeux, Coutances, Norrey, and the Castle of Mont St. Michel, 
 the circular capital is rarely seen. These exceptions prove the 
 rule, for the architecture of Normandy in the thirteenth century ran 
 a parallel course with that of England, and shows very nearly the 
 same sort of developments. Broadly speaking, therefore, it is the 
 fact, then, that the abacus of the capital is in French architecture 
 square, in English circular. The results on the character of the 
 architectural details from this small difference were very remark- 
 able. French architects satisfied themselves with few, simple, and 
 very uniform mouldings. The most common of all is the edge- 
 roll, with a hollow on each side of it — a moulding which at no 
 time has very much beauty, and soon satisfies the artist as to its 
 capabilities. The square outline of the capital seems to necessitate 
 an equally well-defined and sharp outUne for the section of the 
 arch. Broad, strongly-marked lines prevail, and comparatively little 
 care is shown to vary the mouldings which are used. The effect of 
 the employment of the circular capital was curiously different, and 
 equally well marked. The general lines of the stonework of an 
 arch which is fitted either to one or to a succession of round 
 capitals are much softer and less positively defined than the former. 
 The shadows are less strongly marked. With a succession of 
 capitals which have a square abacus you have of necessity a succes- 
 sion of orders in the arch which have sofiits at right angles to the 
 face of the wall, and your mouldings are bound to keep to this out- 
 line. With a succession of circular caps all the angles have to be 
 chamfered off, and the general line of the arch is at an angle of 
 45° to the face of the wall. At first sight this involves much less 
 light and shade, and much less decided effect, and it becomes more 
 than ever necessary to mould the stones in such a way as to produce 
 the decided effects of light and shade which are required to make 
 the effect of the arch perfect. Thus the circular capital leads natur- 
 ally and insensibly, almost, to the development of the art of mould- 
 ing, or (where mouldings have to be eschewed) to the soft and 
 delicate chamfer in place of the strong and vigorous effects of the 
 
432 APPENDIX 
 
 square abacus and square sofifit in the arch. The circular abacus 
 is seen but rarely in Norman work in England. Among the earliest 
 examples that I remember are the cathedral at Gloucester, Tewkes- 
 bury Abbey Church, and the fine crypt under the choir of St. 
 Mary's, Warwick ; and at Canterbury one of William the English- 
 man's first variations from the work of William of Sens was the 
 introduction of circular moulded capitals into his work. After his 
 time it is extremely rare to see anything save the circular or the 
 octagonal cap used. 
 
 Another element in the formation of our English style which 
 has to be borne in mind is the nature of the most available stone. 
 Undoubtedly the Caen stone quarries exercised great influence not 
 only in Normandy, but equally in England, to many parts of which 
 it was cheaper to bring that stone by water than to obtain native 
 stones by land-carriage. And to some extent, at least, the mason 
 follows the stone. In France, Caen stone was by no means so 
 much used. Out of Normandy it is very rarely seen ; for, in truth, 
 there it had to compete with local stones in all parts, and, as the 
 land-carriage was a great difficulty, it was not used at any great 
 distance. The masons who developed a style at Caen had much 
 less eftect, therefore, naturally, in France than they had in England. 
 Their stone was used in London, in Dublin, all along the south and 
 east coast of England, and, in short, wherever water-carriage was 
 available. Its texture allowed of the most delicate workmanship 
 being seen to the greatest perfection, and I think I have never seen 
 or used a stone which seems to appeal so forcibly to the mason to 
 exercise his skill ; wholly unlike the coarse stones which are so 
 common in other parts of France, and which seem to make the best 
 and most polished workmanship to some extent a waste of labour. 
 The thirteenth-century buildings in Normandy, thanks to this stone, 
 are extraordinarily rich in delicate mouldings, undercut with the 
 greatest skill, and producing the most intricate and charming effects 
 of light and shade, and in almost all respects just such as are used 
 in our best English building of the same period. In England not 
 only was Caen stone largely used, as I have said, wherever water- 
 carriage allowed of its being easily landed, but in various districts 
 stone was to be found which admitted of the same kind of work- 
 manship as Caen stone. Each cathedral grew, and the best build- 
 ings were erected, in the neighbourhood of some stone quarry which 
 supplied ample material. Salisbury was built from Chilmark, Wells 
 from Doulting, Peterborough from Barnack, York from Tadcaster, 
 and so on ; and in all these cases the stone was of fine and good 
 quality, and admitted of finished workmanship, nearly equal to that 
 which the masons employed in the Caen district. 
 
 English architecture in the thirteenth century was launched on 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 433 
 
 its course with its own national peculiarities in ground-plan, in the 
 shape of the capital, and in the practice of the art of moulding as 
 one of the main modes of decoration to be made use of, and, at the 
 same time, with what I am almost obliged to call an indifference to 
 the sculptor's art. The examples of thirteenth-century sculpture are 
 not such as one can venture to compare for an instant with those 
 grand arrays of figure and subject with which the French churches 
 were so profusely adorned. The west front of Wells Cathedral is 
 the finest example we have, and the execution and design of the 
 subjects and statues here is, in many respects, admirable, justifying 
 Flaxman's statement that " in parts there is a beautiful simplicity, an 
 irresistible sentiment, and sometimes a grace, excelling some modern 
 productions." Close upon Wells followed Salisbury ; less fortunate, 
 however, in that a larger proportion of the ancient statues have 
 been destroyed or have decayed. But even in these cases the 
 sculpture plays a remarkably subordinate part. It more or less 
 extends over the whole front, and yet it nowhere overwhelms or 
 interferes with the architectural lines. These are as defined as 
 possible from the base to the summit, and are almost as predominant 
 where there is sculpture as where there is none. Crowland Abbey 
 — now, unfortunately, in ruins — the south transept of York, Dun- 
 stable Priory, the west front of Ely, had all of them sculpture intro- 
 duced in the same fashion. Statues standing on corbels under 
 arcades in the walls, and subjects carved in spandrels or in the 
 tympana over archways, as in the north door at Salisbury and the 
 west doorway of Higham Ferrers, are features in the decoration of 
 all these churches. The south doorway of the choir of Lincoln is 
 almost a solitary example of a doorway with sculptured statues on 
 its piers, its jambs, round the orders of the arch, and in the 
 tympanum between the arches of the doors and the enclosing 
 arch. Even here, if you compare it with French work, you will be 
 struck with the modest proportions of the whole, and with the 
 extremely well-defined character of the architectural lines which 
 enclose and keep in due restraint the exuberance of the sculptor. 
 In what is, perhaps, the most poetical conception in England, the 
 west front of Peterborough, it is not until the three magnificent 
 arches are completed, with all their well-ordered and chastely 
 simple array of shafted jamb and moulded arch, that the sculptor 
 has been allowed to fill the gables and the spandrels with an array 
 of statues in niches, capable, possibly, of some religious interpreta- 
 tion, but not near enough to the eye to be criticised as works of art, 
 and only serving for the general decoration of the gables in com- 
 pany with rose windows and arcades and mouldings. If, however, 
 in sculpture used as a decoration of architecture England is some- 
 what wanting, this cannot be said of sculpture as applied to monu- 
 
 2 F 
 
434 APPENDIX 
 
 mental effigies, or of the work of the stone-carver in the humbler 
 decoration, such as foliage of the capitals and other members of our 
 buildings.- In these English buildings are rich, and the refined and 
 delicate beauty which was so evident in them is equally evident in 
 their decorations. The carving of foliage is perfect in the arrange- 
 ment of the masses and in the beauty of form and line which marks 
 every part. It has far greater variety than French work of the 
 same date, and trusts more to perfection of treatment through- 
 out than to the somewhat violent, if vigorous, treatment of the 
 usual French capitals. The detail of foliage develops gradually 
 throughout the century, from the transitional carving of St. Joseph's 
 Chapel, Glastonbury, to the beautiful adaptation, in some cases at 
 Wells and St. David's, of Romanesque outlines, or at Salisbury, Ely, 
 Lincoln, and York, till it culminates in such admirable and truly 
 architectural treatment of natural forms as we see towards the end 
 of the century in stone in the chapter-house at Southwell and the 
 passage to the chapter-house at York, and in wood in the stalls of 
 Winchester Cathedral. 
 
 It is time now to do as I did in speaking of French architecture, 
 and to say something on the way in which the English architects 
 did their work in some two or three typical examples. None, I 
 think, are better for our purpose than Wells and Glastonbury on the 
 one hand, and Salisbury on the other, the two cathedrals being 
 wells of English undefiled, and illustrating two different modes of 
 treatment — decoration of the structure by the shaft and column 
 in the one, and by moulding and masonry in the other. 
 
 At Glastonbury, St. Joseph's Chapel is of supreme interest. In 
 the delicate beauty of its detail it is w'orthy to be compared to the 
 chapter-house of St. George's, Boscherville. The excellence of every 
 portion is quite incontestable in both, and there are some points of 
 similarity in the two works which can rather perhaps be felt than 
 described. The chapter-house was built by Abbot Victor, who was 
 abbot from 1157 to 1211, and its date is therefore somewhat un- 
 certain. The date of St. Joseph's Chapel, on the contrary, is most 
 exactly defined. The wicker church, on the site of which it was built, 
 was burnt down on 25 th May 1 184, and the new chapel was dedicated 
 on nth June 1 1 86. At this period, then, we see a building in which 
 the architectural features are in part detached columns with caps and 
 bases, in part mouldings of masonry continuous round jamb and arch. 
 The great north door illustrates this — two of its orders have shafts, 
 with capitals and bases ; two, continuous lines of carved ornament. 
 The buttresses all have engaged shafts at their angles, i.e. shafts, 
 worked out of the masonry, and not detached nook-shafts. The groin- 
 ing shafts, like those to the buttresses, are all pointed in section, 
 />., they have a sharp line up the centre of the face, and the same 
 
\i THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 435 
 
 feature is repeated in the mouldings on the western turrets. The great 
 abbey church to the east of this chapel is all but destroyed ; but what 
 remains shows that its designers had advanced in style, but had re- 
 tained many of the peculiarities of St. Joseph's Chapel. The engaged 
 shafts in the buttresses, with the sharp centre, and the system of 
 continuous moulded columns instead of detached shafts, is carried 
 still further. What is more singular is that the wall-rib of the groin- 
 ing is carried up from the window-sills, and returned round them also. 
 Thus you will see that the wliole scheme is one of moulded stonework, 
 as opposed to a system of columns or combinations of detached shafts. 
 At Wells the same system is seen. The cathedral was built during the 
 episcopate of Jocelin Trotman, who was consecrated in 1206, and who 
 died in 1242. From 1208 to 1214 he was in France, having been 
 banished for taking the pope's side against the king. Jocelin the 
 Englishman, as he was called, knew all about the French art of the 
 day. He was present at the laying of the first stone of Rheims 
 Cathedral in 121 1, and he saw Notre Dame completed, and no doubt 
 many others of the great French churches in progress. But even if he 
 admired them, his English sense forbade him to use them, or else his 
 English architect must have been as averse as any one could be to 
 mere repetition of anything that he saw, wnth the one doubtful excep- 
 tion that to a certain extent he retained the square capital. The nave 
 piers show us in perfection what we see only in ruins at Glastonbury. 
 They are masses of masonry, built up of eight clusters of triple shafts 
 carrying alternately octagonal and square capitals, and on these arch 
 mouldings of three orders, two of which are planned on the chamfer 
 and one on the square. Above the triforium is a long arcade, three to 
 each bay, of moulded members, continuous round jamb and arch, and 
 above this a clerestory, modernised, it is true, but with no sign of ever 
 having had any inside shafts or any string-course or abacus at the spring 
 of the arches. The groining is carried upon a triple shaft built into 
 the wall. Everywhere the detail of moulding and carving is admirable. 
 And the effect of the modest dimensions of this little church (the nave 
 is only thirty-seven feet wide from centre to centre of the columns, and 
 about sixty-six feet high), insignificant as they are in comparison with 
 those of the great French churches, is nevertheless very beautiful and 
 harmonious in all points of view. The groining is supported by fly- 
 ing buttresses under the roofs of the aisles, but there are none above 
 them. The clerestory wall is, instead, very thick, and only moderately 
 pierced with windows, so that the construction is as unlike that of the 
 examples in France, of which I was speaking in my last lecture, as it 
 well can be. I ought perhaps before this to have said that the north 
 porch and the west front and western steeples are in a wholly different 
 style from the work I have been describing in the nave and tran- 
 septs. The one is probably of earlier, the other of later, date, but 
 
436 APPENDIX 
 
 in both the detached shaft is used as freely as possible in opposition 
 to the style of the nave, where its use may almost be said to have 
 been prohibited. 
 
 The influence of Glastonbury and Wells, or of the Doulting masons 
 and architects — whichever it was — did not end here. Throughout 
 Somersetshire, when you come upon a piece of thirteenth -century 
 work, it is generally in the same style. The same style is con- 
 spicuously visible at Llandaff and at St. David's, and seeing that 
 St. Patrick was buried in Glastonbury, it would not be unreasonable 
 to look for some evidence of its influence in Ireland. But it was 
 the course of conquest more probably than that of pilgrims which led 
 to the introduction of Glastonbury art into Ireland. Strongbow's in- 
 vasion was a South Wales invasion, and everywhere within the Irish 
 Pale we see the architecture suddenly changed from the old Irish 
 style to one which has the most definite evidence everywhere of its 
 Somersetshire origin. In Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, for in- 
 stance, we see the same triple shafts, the same combinations of 
 groups of them to form columns, the same alternation of square and 
 octagonal caps, the same fondness for the engaged column with an 
 arris or edge formed up the centre of its face, the same general pro- 
 portions, the same carving of foliage, and the same love of con- 
 tinuous mouldings. Kilkenny Cathedral, Kildare Cathedral, and 
 others show the same features as Christ Church, Dublin, and at 
 Killaloe, and constantly in Irish examples we see the features seen 
 at Glastonbury and at Wells, and rarely elsewhere — the mouldings 
 of window jambs returned round the sills. 
 
 Interesting on all these grounds as the church at Wells is, I have 
 selected it for notice to-night not only because of its specially English 
 character, and of the influence it exercised, but because it presents in a 
 marvellously perfect condition the whole group of attached buildings 
 which makes up the complete English cathedral establishment, and 
 which are so rarely seen remaining and still in use anywhere on the 
 Continent. Among them are the chapter-house, the cloister, the 
 bishop's palace, all containing considerable portions of the thirteenth 
 century, besides a marvellous collection of later mediaeval buildings. 
 The chapter-house was begun rather late, and its crypt only can cer- 
 tainly be said to be of our period. This is of special interest, as showing 
 that though our English architects liked a square east end, they had no 
 sort of dislike to a circular building, and the plan of the crypt, with 
 its central column under that of the chapter-house, the eight detached 
 shafts which surround it, and the planning of the groining with none 
 but triangular bays, will have much interest for those of you who fol- 
 lowed me in my remarks on the planning of the chevets of the French 
 churches. The bishop's palace is not less interesting. It, too, was 
 built by Bishop Jocelin, and agrees in style with the later shafted work 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND &,yj 
 
 of the west front. Its lower stage is mainly a long groined chamber 
 subdivided by walls and partitions, and above this, on the first floor, 
 a long gallery lighted by windows, which illustrate well a favourite 
 development of the men who built the west front. They not only 
 began to make their windows more decorative by joining lights 
 together, but they gave them cusped internal or rere arches. By 
 cusped arches I mean arches which are formed of a series of curves 
 without any enclosing arch ; these occur frequently in the west front, 
 in a doorway in the cloister, and in various windows in the palace, 
 wherever one meets with the work of this second school of Wells 
 architects. 
 
 From the simple Early Pointed work of the palace one goes on 
 to the slightly later work of the chapel, and thence to the magnifi- 
 cent ruin of the hall, at each step finding the development of the 
 style more advanced, till, in the last, the work of Bishop Burnell, at 
 the end of the century (1274-92), we have the complete change 
 effected to the Middle Pointed style. Nowhere, therefore, can you 
 see better than here the gradual change which the century saw com- 
 pleted. At the beginning we have the work of an architect whose 
 great idea was to make his work solid, and yet as beautiful as pos- 
 sible, by the simple use of well-designed mouldings, of groups of 
 moulded shafts for columns, and by the simplest use of the pointed 
 arch. Then, probably, before the west front was begun, another 
 man came upon the scene. The first man had cared nothing for 
 what was being done at Salisbury. He had been not only English, 
 but Somersetshire to the root. His successor thinks this line a 
 mistaken one. He admires what the Salisbury, the Lincoln, and 
 other English architects were doing, and covers his west front with 
 arcades or arches, all carried on detached shafts, and enclosing the 
 figures and statuary of which all Englishmen are or ought to be 
 so proud. His influence is evident also in the bishop's palace, and 
 to a less degree in the great dining-hall, where the windows have 
 still internal jamb-shafts ; but in the end the early system is practi- 
 cally accepted again, and almost all over England in the fourteenth 
 century the system of moulded and clustered solid shafts, and con- 
 tinuous lines of arch and jamb moulding, which had been first 
 brought to perfection in ^^'ells, was accepted as the best and 
 universal rule. 
 
 Something must now be said of one of the great examples of the 
 other system, and we can hardly do better than see the effect it pro- 
 duced, where, as at Salisbury, it is carried all through a building, 
 instead of being, as at Wells, confined only to one front. Salisbury 
 Cathedral was built from the ground on a site never before occupied. 
 The first stones were laid on 28th April 1220. In 1225 some altars 
 were consecrated, and in 1229 Bishop Poore, the founder, died, and 
 
438 APPENDIX 
 
 in 1258 the cathedral was consecrated. By this time, after thirty- 
 eight years' work, we may assume that the church was practically 
 complete. It was later in its foundation, probably, by some half- 
 dozen years than Wells. Bishop Poore and his architect — Elias of 
 Dereham, probably — had no sympathy with the system of design 
 pursued in the nave of Wells. The Isle of Purbeck was in the 
 diocese, and there was every reason, therefore, for indulging as 
 much as possible in the use of its beautiful marble. The introduc- 
 tion of detached shafts wherever possible, and which follows naturally 
 from the use of marble, wholly changes the character of the archi- 
 tecture. The effect is admirable ; but, on the other hand, the risk 
 in construction was great. The variety in the plans of the clustered 
 columns at Salisbury was very great. In the nave the common 
 French section of a circular column surrounded by four smaller 
 shafts is adopted, but here the shafts are detached froi'ii the centre 
 column. In the choir the columns are surrounded by eight detached 
 shafts. In the doorways and windows shafts are placed in various 
 ways — in clusters and one behind another — so as to produce very 
 deep effects of light and shade, with the advantage that, all the lines 
 being curved, the transition from light to dark is never too abrupt. 
 In the lady chapel this system culminates. The width is subdivided 
 into three aisles, and the vaults are carried — one is almost tempted 
 to say appear to be carried — on shafts so long, and so delicate and 
 frail, as to have required the very highest skill to ensure their stand- 
 ing, even during their construction, let alone standing, as they do, 
 650 years after their erection. The architect throughout the cathe- 
 dral dispensed, as did the architect of Wells, with visible flying 
 buttresses ; he used th^em only under the roofs of the aisles, but in 
 order to make the thrust on the walls less, he built his vaults with 
 stone ribs, filling in the spaces between them with concrete made of 
 a very light calcareous tufa. He used an unnecessary thickness of 
 this material, but as it was extraordinarily light, his construction was 
 generally perfectly secure, as in two or three places only has it been 
 found necessary in later times to add flying buttresses above the 
 aisle roofs. Beautiful as the detail of the cathedral is, there is 
 generally some sense of disappointment in its interior. Unfortun 
 ately it is a church full of windows, and the grisaille with which 
 these were filled is almost all destroyed. Its roofs and its walls 
 were richly coloured, and the only portion which remained has been 
 restored, and is no longer at all like the old in its effect. The 
 painters, as at Chartres, painted the outside work in places, as, e.g., 
 in the west porch and the porch to the chapter-house. In other 
 places, as, e.g.., on the concrete groining of the porch and of the 
 nave and on the walls of the cloister, they coloured the walls and 
 then marked them out in imitation masonry lines of red colour. 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 439 
 
 The ground-i)lan of this great church is one of extreme beauty. It 
 has not only the usual transept with an eastern aisle, but to the east 
 of this a second and shorter transept, devised evidently in emulation 
 of the eastern transept of Canterbury, which itself was no doubt 
 derived from the great Benedictine abbey church of Cluny, now 
 destroyed, and before its destruction the only church in France in 
 which this beautiful arrangement was seen. This eastern transept 
 has also its aisle on the east, and is of less width and proportion 
 than the great transept. East of the choir are three lower chapels, 
 in which are the delicate arrangements of clustered and single 
 marble shafts which I have already referred to ; and it was in the 
 side walls of the central of these three chapels that, before Wyatt's 
 so-called restoration, there remained an arcade which for perfection 
 of design and execution has never, I am bold to say, been surpassed 
 anywhere in Europe. It is now built into the west wall of the 
 eastern transept, and will ere long, I believe, be seen again in its 
 old place. If it is possible to say so much of the interior, what 
 may we not say of the exterior ? With one exception — the destruc- 
 tion of the detached bell-tower which stood in the churchyard till 
 Wyatt's time — the church is now more beautiful than it was when 
 it left its builder's hands. Elias of Dereham might well deplore 
 the changes which men have made in the colour of his interior. 
 But could he see it again, he would be amazed with the beauty 
 which time has given to the exterior. There is, so far as I know, 
 no building in Christendom on so grand a scale, which is so com- 
 plete, so uniform in style, so good in the proportions of the various 
 parts to the whole, and altogether, and from every point of view, so 
 thoroughly beautiful, as this grand and most English church. Its 
 surroundings are as beautiful. The quiet close — unknown out of 
 England — surrounded by deanery and prebendal houses, by a 
 bishop's palace founded at the same time as the cathedral, the 
 whole group surrounded by its ancient wall, and entered by its old 
 gateways, is in itself a sight for an architect ; but out of the green- 
 sward which surrounds it on all sides the matchless church rises, 
 with its beautiful cloisters, its splendid polygonal chapter-house, its 
 octagonal vestry on its southern side, in such completeness of grace 
 and beauty as leaves nothing to be desired. 
 
 Like Wells, Salisbury is a cathedral well w^orthy of a young 
 architect's study above most others. For not only will he find there 
 the work of the mason in all its varieties; he will find, too, wood- 
 work of all sorts, moulded, carved, and plain, — roofs, doors, chests, 
 tables, choir stalls, even the great wooden wheel which was used to 
 raise the stone for the steeple ; and in every portion he will find 
 evidence of the same sense of the necessity for completeness, which 
 is the true mark of a good architect at all times. The detail every- 
 
440 APPENDIX 
 
 where is admirable. The carving of foHage is very different from, 
 though in my opinion generally inferior to, that at Wells, and there 
 is one very singular feature which is seldom seen in England. The 
 arcades of the parapets, and in many other places, are carried on 
 quite regardless of the buttresses which intersect and stop them. So 
 that, e.g.^ in the front of the transepts, there are arcades not regularly 
 divided, but quite accidentally arranged with half or a third of an 
 arch abutting against a buttress, so as to give the appearance of the 
 buttress being an afterthought put on against the arcade. 
 
 I should have liked to take you on to the other great thirteenth- 
 century churches, to talk to you about Archbishop \Valter Grey's 
 magnificent work, the transept of York, and to compare this with 
 his work at Southwell. I should have liked to show what St. 
 Hugh, and, after him, Jocelin of Wells's brother, Hugh of Wells, 
 Bishop of Lincoln, did so exquisitely in their glorious minster, and, 
 above all, to have seen what that great Yorkshireman, Henry Mur- 
 dac, once monk of Clairvaux, then abbot of Vauclair, then of Foun- 
 tains, and afterwards Archbishop of York, did in the magnificent 
 abbey, so much of which still remains in the beautiful valley of the 
 Skell ; how at Fountains he built at first in a French style, and how, 
 as elsewhere, gradually the English art reasserted itself. But, after 
 all, the story is much the same everywhere, and the superlative 
 interest of such an abbey as Fountains is the insight that it gives us 
 into the domestic architecture of the period. The more one sees 
 of it the more does one discover that in those good days there was 
 no such distinction between domestic architecture and ecclesiastical 
 as has sometimes been supposed to exist. The same details that 
 were applied to one were thought suitable to the other ; it was the 
 best construction and the most suitable arrangement, the most 
 beautiful proportion, the most delicate moulding of stonework, the 
 truest system of carving of fohage, that were everywhere seen, 
 whether the work to be done was for a house or a church, for 
 a monastery or for a castle. The work in the great hall of the 
 castle at Winchester is as good as that of Bishop de Lucy at the 
 same time in the cathedral. The castle at Chepstow is as good, 
 and in the same style, as the abbey at Tintern, and the hall for 
 the layman at Acton Burnell is on the same lines as the hall 
 which Bishop Burnell built at the end of the thirteenth century in 
 the palace at Wells. No more pernicious doctrine has ever been 
 inculcated than that which supposes one sort of art to be sacred and 
 unfit for use for secular purposes. The best art is that which is 
 fittest for the first purpose, and I suppose we all agree that we 
 should, if it were possible, like to have it for the other also. This is 
 the lesson of the thirteenth century, on which so much remains to 
 be said that I am distressed to think how inadequately I have 
 
VI THIRTEENTH-CENT. ARCHITECTURE— ENGLAND 441 
 
 been able to say what, with more time, I hope I might have said 
 in detail on the subject. It was impossible in an hour all could 
 be said that might be ; and it seemed to me that there would be 
 more chance of saying something new to you if I took a some- 
 what similar line on the development of styles in the best periods 
 in Italy, France, and England, than if I tried to show you exactly 
 how they differed one from another in each detail of their work, 
 and exactly what those details were. It is my fault if I have failed 
 to show you how interesting the study may be made if you pursue 
 it with something beyond the mere daily drudgery of attention to 
 business. The other arts hardly afford the young student a tithe of 
 the pleasure or the profit from such studies which everywhere through- 
 out the civilised world attend the earnest student of architecture, 
 and my last words to you for this year are, that you should regard 
 the addresses which I have given as being entirely meant to be sug- 
 gestive of further lines of study and investigation by yourselves. 
 And I end, as I began, by impressing on you that no one can be- 
 come a good architect who does not earnestly study what men have 
 done before, who has not enthusiasm for his art to make him long 
 and resolve to do nothing but what is good in its practice, and who 
 is not ready to show that he has enthusiasm by the industry which 
 surely attends it, and without which no study, no lectures, and no 
 schools can be of any real service. 
 
 THE END 
 
 2 G 
 
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinlnirgh . 
 
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MR. M URR AY S LIST. 
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