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perfect adaptations; that thus small leaden panes to windows are fitly displaced by large sheets of plate glass; that iron in some instances may more efficiently serve the uses of timber; that ornamental tiles, decorated terra cotta, and marbles, native or brought by commerce from distant countries, may throw colour and cheerfulness into the sometimes neutral monotony of a northern sky and climate. Thus in many ways does architecture, in skilful hands, and with originating power, admit in the present day of novel and untried developments. Upon this branch of the subject, Mr Scott, before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1858, expresses himself as follows. Mr Beresford Hope, the Chairman of the Committee, puts the question: "I observe that you have selected a different style for your design from what the first and the second prize-men have selected; may I ask what your reason was for doing so?" Mr Scott replies: "In the first place, I have long thought that the vernacular styles of the present day are almost worn out, and that it is incumbent upon architects to try to strike out something a little novel; and I have long been endeavouring to do so, on the foundation of Gothic architecture." "Do you conceive," continues Mr Hope, "that it is easier to endeavour to strike out something novel on the foundation of Gothic than on the foundation of Italian-you might unvernacularise, so to speak, any style?" Individually," answers Mr Scott, "I think so. I think so strongly individually; but I should be very glad to see attempts to strike out new styles founded on other bases." We may remark that, in our opinion, the attempts made in Munich to strike out new styles have been attended with indifferent success. They have proved but abortions of the old orders. Nevertheless it is the special function of genius to create; and it is desirable that architecture should henceforth, at any rate, take

rank as one of the progressive arts. We have now, as briefly as our space permits, endeavoured to indicate the position assumed by Gothic architects in the secular revival which, at the present time, has found such zealous advocacy. We again express our regret that Mr Scott's design for the Foreign Office-a design which, by common consent, worthily represents the new school of Gothic for the laity— should have been rejected. It is true that Gothic has been tried in the Houses of Parliament, and found wanting. But we are told this failure in adaptation to utility was incident to the inexperience of infancy. The Gothic revival has now grown to years of discretion.

But whatever difficulties may beset the application of Gothic to mundane concerns, there can, at all events, be but little question, that for ecclesiastical purposes, that for churches and abbeys, and incidentally for parsonages and schools, the pointed style is admirably fitted. We think there is no inconsiderable advantage in keeping a somewhat exclusive architecture for sacred services, an architecture which shall stand separate and apart from secular employment, As there is a language for poetry, a stately prose for our vernacular Scriptures, so may it be found expedient that there should be reserved for our churches, forms of arches, modes of construction and decoration, towers, spires, and pinnacles, which have not become daily defiled by the common uses of life. It is seemly that the house of God should be hallowed, that on entering the door with bowed and uncovered head, we should feel that the building is fitly framed together into a holy temple, the type and symbol of the spiritual mansion. We gladly think that this sentiment has become, in the English mind, intimately associated with Gothic architecture. In the cathedrals of England, we find the Gothic arch springing among the trees of our homesteads; Gothic tracery and ornament entwine them

selves with our earliest and dearest associations; and the Gothic tower and spire, in whatever portion of the British Isles we live, adorn the rural landscape, and serve, as it were, for landmarks to our faith. Beaten by the surges of a tempesttost world, we come upon the quiet precincts of a cathedral close-a shore, it may be, upon which wrecks of former ages lie strewn, yet a shelter sacred to hopes which die not, a haven of that ocean which breaks upon eternity. Gothic architecture, indeed, bears upon its front the impress of two worlds: other national edifices pertain to the living, take their part as actors in the busy present world; but cathedrals and churches are temples for the living and homes likewise for the dead; they are hushed in the sleep of the grave; they are hoary in dust and ashes; they are hallowed in the shadow cast by ages; they are eloquent in thousand memories-hopes deferred, ambition frustrated, or rather life honoured and blessed, pointing to a faith beyond. Moreover, it is, we think, a specialty in Gothic architecture, that it can tell an eventful story with thrilling detail and incident. An Egyptian pyramid is just one solitary thought, and no more. A Grecian or Roman temple has symmetry, beauty, and fitness, yet the number of ideas expressed in each single fane must, after all, have been somewhat limited. But in a Gothic church or cathedral, what a multitude of thoughts seem enshrined within the stone-work, what a busy throbbing narrative from lowest crypt to highest tower, succeeding styles lying like successive strata, which the floods of flowing or ebbing faith, the forms of ever-varying civilisation, have thrown and built together! It has often been said that a

Gothic church is but the Christian religion transmuted into stone, with her faith, her beauty, and her hope: that Gothic architecture, plastic to mould itself, can imitate nature, symbolise spiritual states, and adapt itself to the conditions of the Chris

tian life. At any rate our own cathedrals are in their varied style a medley, and yet a catholicity. They are like life and the world everywhere, a mixing together of all sorts and conditions of men; a mingling of rich and poor, of youth and age, of beauty and deformity, of religion and depravity; and Gothic architecture adapts itself to all, and is thus readily built into a church designed not less for reclaiming the sinner than for enshrining the saint. In the country village-church it is simple and humble as the peasant's cot; in the city cathedral choir and tower as stately and ornate as the prince's palace. In its more shadowed gloom it is a veil to our seclusion, a refuge for our sorrow; in its airy lightness, and the imaginative flight of tapering and aspiring arch, it is bright as hope, sportive as youth and joy, and triumphant as faith. The door opens, we enter on the threshold. What magnitude and magnificence! Clustered columns invite to shadowed retreat and quiet contemplation. Spacious and profound gloom inspires with mysterious awe; the amazing height impresses with a sense of our own insignificance, and we feel abashed as in the presence of the sublime. This, surely, is the architecture subservient and sacred to religion. As an outré but eloquent statement of the creed-from which, however, in its extreme form, we dissent-the following curtailed extract from Pugin's Contrasts may be read with advantage :—

"Pointed or Christian architecture," says Mr Pugin, "has far higher claims on our admiration than mere beauty or antiquity: the former may be regarded as a matter of opinion; the latter, in the abstract, is no proof of excellence, but in it alone we find the faith of Christianity embodied, and its practices illustrated."

"The three great doctrines-of the redemption of man by the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross, the three equal Persons united in one Godhead, and the resurrection from the dead-are the foundation of Christian architecture."

The first, by the cross; the second, by triangular arches and traceries.

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"The vertical principle being an acknowledged emblem of the resurrection, we may readily account for the adoption of the pointed arch by the Christians. "But do not all the features and details of the churches erected during the middle ages set forth their origin, and at the same time exhibit the triumphs of Christian truth? Like the religion itself, their foundations are in the cross, and they rise from it in majesty and glory. The lofty nave and choir, with still loftier towers, crowned by clusters of pinnacles and spires, all directed towards heaven, beautiful emblems of the Christian's brightest hope, the shame of the pagan; the cross, raised on high in glory, a token of mercy and forgiveness, crowning the sacred edifice, and placed between the anger of God and the sins of the city."

"The images of holy martyrs, each bearing the instruments of the cruel death by which pagan foolishness hoped to exterminate with their lives the truths they witnessed, fill every niche that line the arched recesses of the doorways. Above them are forms of cherubims and the heavenly host, mingled with patriarchs and prophets. Over the great entrance is the final judgment, the Divine Majesty, the joys of the blessed spirits, the despair of the condemned. What subjects for contemplation do not these majestic portals present to the Christian as he approaches to the house of prayer! and well are they calculated to awaken those sentiments of reverence and devotion suited to the holy place. But if the exterior of the temple be so soul-stirring, what a burst of glory meets the eye on entering a long majestic line of pillars, rising into lofty and fretted vaulting! The eye is lost in the intricacies of the aisles and lateral chapels; each window beams with sacred instructions, and sparkles with glowing and sacred tints; the pavement is a rich enamel, interspersed with brass memorials of departed souls; every capital and base are fashioned to represent some holy mystery."PUGIN'S Contrasts.

The above we give as eloquent words written by the chief among Gothic revivalists. They serve, as we have said, for an outré statement of the creed devoutly held by "Christian" or Catholic" architects. Like most forms of error,

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these opinions are based at least on partial truth; and so far, notwithstanding their extravagance, they remain worthy of attention. And now, coming to the conclusion of this necessarily discursive article, we would wish the more precisely to define the principles inculcated in the preceding pages by the statement of the following propositions.

The advantages claimed by one style over another have not, upon full inquiry, been always established. After careful investigation, the Parliamentary Committee of 1858 reported, that for cheapness of construction, convenience of arrangement, and facility for lighting and ventilation, Italian and Gothic architectures are equal and alike.

No one style has positive claims to an English nationality. The architecture of our country, like our language, is derived from many sources, and compounded of varied elements.

No style is exclusively "picturesque.'

A perfect building, rightly placed, is good for a picture as for use; and when timeworn and ruined, whatever the architecture, it becomes picturesque, whether the edifice be temples of Pæstum, the Acropolis of Athens, the Abbey of Tintern, or the Castle of Kenilworth.

No style is exclusively Christian, and no architecture, which is true and good in art, can be Antichristian. The religion of art is essentially one with the religion of nature, arising in immutable principles of the true, the beautiful, and the good.

As Christianity is catholic, so should Christian art be universal, rejoicing in a wide toleration which can embrace the Italian-built Basilica of St Peter's, our own Cathedral of St Paul, no less than the grand Gothic churches of Cologne, Milan, and Westminster.

Christianity should not refuse to ally herself with every style that is true and lovely, yet is she found in peculiar sympathy with Gothic aspiration, symbolism, and solemnity.

This symbolism, when true to the

essential correspondence subsisting between outward nature and in- ward state, is a language which speaks to the understanding and warms the heart; but when, as often, merely conventional and ecclesiastical, it sinks to superstition.

The classic styles of Greece and Rome have been successfully reproduced in several great buildings of modern Europe. The style of the Italian Renaissance is specially fitted for palaces, grand public buildings, and private domestic dwellings.

Thus each architectural system has its proper individual sphere, its specific beauty, and its appropriate

use.

Underlying, however, this diversity of form and difference of ends, there probably subsist a unity of origin and an essential oneness of æsthetic principle. As the varying dialects in the great Indo-Germanic languages may probably be reduced to one common root, as the manifold species in organic nature may possibly fall into one and the same animal kingdom, so do historic research and philosophic criticism tend to resolve the several schools and styles of architectures, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Italian, into one grand cosmopolitan family or group.

Thus apparent antagonisms found in remote contrasts are reconciled and brought together by connecting historic links, and a law of progressive development is established, which at last binds conflicting varieties into harmony.

The battle of the styles, therefore, when more than mutual rivalry, when other than friendly and generous competition for highest excellence, is just as unreasonable as civil warfare waged among neighbouring states and kindred peoples.

In conclusion, then, we would proclaim terms of peace. Jealousy among sister arts should have an end. Diversity of gifts there may be, but the parentage is one. Differences of administration may subsist among neighbouring provinces

of a great empire, but the entire world owns the same Creator making of one flesh all the dwellers upon earth. And thus the varied realms of art, however widely severed, owe obedience to the same simple fundamental laws, and merge at last into one great commonwealth. The principles of truth, of beauty, and of goodness, have laid for every style of architecture the same foundation:-truth to the necessities of construction, to the forms of nature, and to the functions of the human mind; beauty, as a deep need of the imagination-the adorning as with flowers-the lily of the field arraying the glory of Solomon, and crowning the columns of his temple; and, lastly, goodness for a benediction over all, as when the evening and the morning closed creation's work, and all was good. We have stood upon Mars Hill, and looked upon the Acropolis, when sunset robed the sky of the Egean Sea, or when the moon rode high, the queen of night; and we have known how great, and withal how good, were those classic arts which enshrined the gods of Greece. We have stood beneath the dome of St Peter's, dazzling with gold, and rich with coloured marbles. We have paused in the majestic nave of Milan Cathedral, solemn in Gothic shadow, and have bowed the head and bent the knee before the surpassing glory of those arts which witnessed to the faith of Christendom. We have rowed along canals of Venice, and sailed on Italian lakes, palaces and villas rising from out the waters, bright as sunny sky and laughing landscape; and we longed to linger, and so to live that poetry of existence to which the domestic arts and architecture of Italy so subtilely minister - terrace-walks, and orange-groves, and cool retreats of halls and corridors. Blessings be upon all these forms of beauty; peace and blessedness from a heart made grateful. Let strife and battle cease, and to the harmony of nature's ways may we conform the concord of the arts.

CAXTONIANA:

A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.

By the Author of "The Caxton Family."

PART II.

NO. III.-ON MONOTONY IN OCCUPATION AS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS.

FOR things to be distinctly remembered, it is not enough that they should delight the senses and captivate the fancy. They must have a certain measured duration, in harmony with the previous impressions on the mind. Thus the airs of the Æolian harp, ravishing though they are, cannot be committed to memory, because no time is observed in their music.

When we look back over a lengthened series of years, we seldom find that remembrance clings fondly to moments in which the mind has been the most agitated, the passions most active, but rather to the intervals in which hour stole on hour with the same quiet tread. The transitory fever of the senses it is only a diseased imagination that ponders over and recalls; the triumphs which flatter our selfesteem look pale and obsolete from the distance of years, as arches of lath and plaster, thrown up in haste for the march of a conqueror, seem frail and tawdry when we see them, in after time, spanning the solid thoroughfares with columns already mouldering, and stripped of the banners and the garlands that had clad them in the bravery of an hour.

Howsoever varied the courses of our life, whatsoever the phases of pleasure and ambition through which it has swept along, still, when in memory we would revive the times that were comparatively the happiest, those times will be found to have been the calmest.

regularity in habits, and will even reconcile itself to habits not in themselves best fitted for longevity, with less injury to the system than it can endure abrupt changes to the training by which athletes attain their vigour-so the mind for health needs a certain clockwork of routine; we like to look forward with a tranquil sentiment of security; when we pause from the occupation of to-day, which custom has made dear to us, there is a charm in the mechanical confidence with which we think that the same occupation will be renewed at the same hour to-morrow. And thus monotony itself is a cause and element of happiness which, amidst the shifting tumults of the world, we are apt to ignore. Plutarch, indeed, says truly* that "the shoe takes the form of the foot, not the foot the form of the shoe," meaning thereby that "man's life is moulded by the disposition of his soul." But new shoes chafe the foot, new customs the soul. The stoutest pedestrian would flag on a long walk if he put on new shoes at every second mile.

It is with a sentiment of misplaced pity, perhaps of contempt still more irrational, that the busy man, whose existence is loud and noisy, views another who seems to him less to live than to vegetate. The traveller, whirled from capital to capital, stops for a night's lodging at some convent rising lone amidst unfrequented hills. He witnesses the discipline of the monastic life drilled into unvarying PLUTARCH, On the Tranquillity of the Soul.

As the body for health needs

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