bard, and the Norman styles; and if these buildings be compared together it will be found that, although they resemble each other in the use of the semicircular arch as the principle of support and some other Roman elements, and hence may be classed together under the general term Romanesque, they are nevertheless exceedingly unlike in their general effect. Though they all employed substantially the same elements of construction, the round arch supported by columns fashioned in their proportions and ornaments after the classical architecture, pilasters, cornices, and entablatures borrowed from the remains of Roman art, openings in the wall whether for doors or windows that were small, comparatively few in number and subordinate to the wall, vaulted ceilings, and domes: yet as these constructive elements were subject to no law, bound together by no one principle which assigned to each its place and function, and formed them into one organic whole, it was inevitable that they should be mingled together in different combinations and proportions according to the capricious fancy of each builder. Hence each country had, with some general resemblance to others, its own peculiar style of building; and no one style was capable of transcending provincial limits, and giving law to the world, because no one rested upon any general principle of beauty or truth.

No sooner, however, did the Gothic Architecture appear than it diffused itself through all lands where Christian churches were built. This rapid and universal diffusion, however it may be historically accounted for, must find its ultimate explanation in the palpable truth of this style of architecture. Instead of being like the styles which preceded it, an aggregation of materials and forms of construction, associated and arranged upon no higher principle than that of building a commodious, shapely and convenient edifice, the Gothic style was a connected and organic whole, possessed of a vital principle which rejected everything that was heterogeneous, and assimilated all that it embraced. Hence its power and its popularity.

After prevailing for a period of about three centuries, this style was displaced by the revived classical architecture of the Italian school. Then came the days in which such men as Sir Henry Wotton stigmatized the glorious fanes which had been erected in this style as Gothic or barbarous, and Evelyn condemned it as a "certain fantastical and licentious mode of building," and the son and biographer of Sir Christopher Wren sneered at the inimitable ceiling of Henry VII.th's Chapel, as "lace and other cut work, and crinkle crankle." The architecture nicknamed the Gothic and ever since designated by that term, was then despised and cast out as whimsical, lawless, and absurd, and men began to build after a fashion that was deemed the method of the ancients. This classical Architecture had its consummation as in the cathedrals of St. Paul's at London and St. Peter's at Rome. It is distinguished, even beyond the Romanesque architecture, by the want of any general principle of unity. The Greek pediment

or something which was intended to imitate that chief and crowning feature of the Greek temple, together with columnar ordinances fitted to receive and sustain vertical thrusts, is found in connexion with round arches, domes, vaulted ceilings, cupolas and spires. That this style was capable, in the hands of such men as Sir Christopher Wren and Michael Angelo, of producing an imposing interior effect by the expansive dome hung high over head, and by the picturesque combination of the other interior elements of an immense structure, we have sufficient evidence in St. Paul's and St. Peter's; but that it was utterly incapable of producing the higher effects of architectural excellence will be equally evident to any one who will take the several parts of either of those structures, and attempt to establish the relation of unity between them. This attempt will inevitably lead to the conclusion that the different parts of the building have no mutual bond of coherence. They are held together by the law of gravitation, they are cemented by mortar, but there are no mutual relations which make them coalesce. The effects which they produce are due, in chief part, to the purely sensuous phenomena of immense magnitude, and picturesqueness of combination and arrangement. The moment that we attempt to discover that unity without which no work of art can fill and satisfy the mind, we find only discrepan

cies and contradictions.

The age that rejected the Gothic architecture showed thus its incompetency either to condemn or to approve. Had their censure of the Gothic been founded upon any principles truly applicable as a criterion of excellence, we should have been compelled to admit that this style of architecture expressed something that was peculiar to the three centuries within which it originated and died. The fact of its death, if it could not be shown that it was inflicted in one of those freaks of fancy which whole communities and generations of men sometimes exhibit, would of course show that however fitted it may have been to give outward expression to the mind of Europe during the three centuries of its prevalence, it embodied no universal principles. But when we examine the reasons assigned for its condemnation, we find that they rest upon conventional and affected stands of judgment; and when we look at the buildings which were thought worthy to supplant the Gothic, we see that they are in every respect, whether of constructive art or ideal perfection, immeasurably inferior to their predecessors. We feel warranted, therefore, in drawing the conclusion that the displacement of the Gothic architecture was perfectly analogous to those changes which literature has sometimes undergone, when partial and contracted hypotheses have for a season supplanted with their technical canons of criticism, a true and universal method.

It is a remarkable fact that the revival of the Gothic was contemporaneous with the restoration of the true principles of the Greek architecture; and that they both date from the period in which the re-action in the public mind from the mechanical philo.

sophy and sceptical spirit of the last century begins to be distinctly marked. No sooner was the true spirit of the wonderful remains of Athenian art comprehended, than men began to turn to the cathedrals and other structures of the Middle Ages, and find in them a transcendent beauty and power. It is now universally admitted by those who have taken the pains to acquaint themselves with the matter, that

"In those rich cathedral fanes
(Gothic ill-named) a harmony results
From disunited parts; and shapes minute,
At once distinct and blended, boldly form
One vast majestic whole."

As each plant in the vegetable world has its principle of unity, and this principle has its signature in the root, the stem, the leaf, the flower, and the fruit, so has the Gothic architecture its vital principle infused into every part of the structure from the foundation stone to the summit of its towers and spires. The foliations of the arches, the tracery of the windows, and the scooped cells of the branched roof, are efflorescences of the same germinating principle which casts out the massive buttress, and throws up the towering pinnacle.

But it is one thing to see and feel that the Gothic architecture possesses vitality, and a very different thing to define its principle of life. It is not our purpose, on the present occasion, to attempt any exposition of this matter. All that we desire, for the end we have in view, is that it should be admitted, on the grounds that we have assigned, or through faith in those who have studied the subject, that there is a true art developed in the Gothic architecture. This being admitted, we wish to show that Puseyism displays some of its most marked characteristics in its attempts to comprehend and practise this art.

A great impulse has been given from Oxford to the study of Gothic architecture. A society has been established there for promoting its study, and a number of works on the subject have emanated from the Oxford press. Some of these are curiosities in their way. But without dwelling on the peculiarities of any, we wish to point attention to that which is common to them all.

They exhibit, as might have been anticipated, an exclusive, narrow-minded bigotry, in favour of one particular style of architecture, in connexion with utter ignorance of every other. The author of the Glossary, which is an elaborate, and in many respects, a valuable work, professes to explain the terms used in Grecian and Roman as well as Gothic architecture; but he seldom ventures beyond his beloved Gothic without betraying the most surprising and often ludicrous ignorance. We refer, for illustration, to his definition of the term cymatium, in which no less than seven applications of this term are given, every one of which is not only wrong, but so absurdly wrong that it is impossible to read them

with a grave face. What is still more unpardonable than this, he confounds the echinus, the only curved moulding that entered into the structure of the Parthenon, with the tasteless ovolo of the Romans, and then confounds both of these with the egg and dart sculpture with which they were sometimes ornamented. Nor have we been able to find a single article in the book upon any subject connected with Grecian architecture, which is not either grossly erroneous, or so defective as to be worthless, while upon all the details of the Gothic, it is full, clear, and for the most part, correct. The same character runs through the other works which we have placed at the head of our article. They are all one-sided. We have no right to expect that treatises on English Church Architecture, like that of Mr. Barr, should contain an exposition of the principles of Greek architecture, but we have a right to expect that in their allusions to it they would not betray such ignorance as to satisfy us that their devotion to the Gothic is a blind and unintelligent preference. He who commends to the world any particular style of architecture, and while in the act of doing so, shows that he has never appreciated the spirit of beauty that dwells. in the temples of the Athenians, can scarcely hope to win the public confidenee as an arbiter of taste. The exclusiveness which confines the attention of the architectural bigot to one style, mus of course prevent him from fully comprehending even that one. Art is jealous of her secrets, and they can be won from her only by a fearless and catholic confidence. The man whose mind is narrowed down to the interests of a party or a sect must be content to remain ignorant of them. He who despises the Parthenon, or looks upon it with cold indifference, can be nothing but a worshipper of stones in York Minster.

Hence we should expect to find, as is the actual fact, that these works betray an inadequate comprehension of the true meaning and spirit of Gothic Architecture. In describing the separate parts of a Gothic edifice and the actual construction of English cathedrals and churches they are sufficiently accurate, but it is evident that they have failed to seize fully the law which makes the parts members of a whole. The traditional authority of the fathers of English architecture is their source of information and their ultimate bar of appeal. Thus Mr. Barr says, "when designing a church, it is by no means sufficient that we borrow the details of an old building, unless we likewise preserve its general proportions and canonical distribution." He does not here nor elsewhere venture to raise the inquiry whether the "old building" may not itself be faulty in some of its proportions; he nowhere hints at the possibility of our obtaining such an idea of the interior law of the Gothic architecture in which its essence is comprised, as may enable us to discriminate between different old buildings, and, without copying servilely any one, combine the excellences of several, or even originate a design in independence of them all. He who begs thus pusillanimously from the mighty masters of old,

no matter how magnificent may be the gifts he receives, will show his beggarly nature through them all. It is not by copying the proportions of old buildings that we can hope to rival them, but by drinking in the spirit of those proportions until a wellspring of living beauty is opened within us.

The faithfulness with which the appeal to traditional authority is carried out in these works, is truly remarkable. They talk in good set terms often of the Gothic style, and yet always return with undeviating uniformity to the authority of the fathers. Whether they recommend any particular disposition of the chief architectural members of the structure, or the use, among its minor adornments, of " the Cross, the Holy Name, the emblems of the Blessed Trinity, and other mystical devices," the reason given is not that these things flow out naturally from the great idea which governs the structure, but they "adorned our old ecclesiastical edifices."

In describing the appropriate doorway of a Gothic church, Mr. Barr says, "In England the doorways of the cathedrals and other great churches are seldom features of that magnitude and importance which they are in the same class of ecclesiastical structures on the continent, and it is always advisable to preserve as much as possible the distinctive peculiarities of Anglican church architecture." This is a fair sample of the whole. The end aimed at is not to cultivate a true and vital architecture, but to preserve the peculiarities of English architecture. The true question at issue, in the case stated, was not, what was the practice of English architects, but what would best harmonize with, and assist in carrying out the general idea of the Gothic style. In France and Germany the doorways are of such an imposing height and magnitude, that they constitute a very important feature of the west front; in England, on the contrary, they are comparatively diminutive and insignificant. Which of these two different characters ought to be given to the doorway of a modern Gothic church in England or elsewhere? If the question is to be decided by the obvious impression on the feelings, let any man compare the west front of York Minster, or Salisbury Cathedral, with that of the Amiens or Rheims Cathedral, and he will not hesitate a moment to decide in favour of the latter. But the only adequate method of deciding such a question, is to ascertain what there is common to al these structures that differ from each other in some of their details; what is it which, notwithstanding their circumstant al disagreements, gives to them all a sameness of expression; what is there in them that may be taken away, and what that may not be taken away without destroying their character. When these questions have been satisfactorily answered we shall be possessed not of English, French, or German architecture, but of the essence of them all, and we shall then be at no loss to decide between the comparative merits of those features in which