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THE 
 
 OXFORD MUSEUM. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENEY W, ACLAND, I.D., 
 
 BEGIUS PKOFESSOR OF MEDICINE, 
 AND 
 
 JOHN EUSKIN, M.A., 
 
 HONORARY STUDENTS OF CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 OXFORD : J. H. AND J. PARKER. 
 
 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 1 
 
 Lecture before a Meeting of Architectural So- 
 cieties at Oxford, 1858. Br Dr. Acland . 11 
 
 Letter from Mr. Ruskin, No. 1 44 
 
 No. 2 60 
 
 Appendices : — 
 
 A. — Letter from Professor Phillips . . 93 
 
 B. — Contributors to the Sculptures in the 
 
 Museum . . 103 
 
 C. — Statues yet required Ill 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 Fern Capital in Central Area . . (Frontispiece) 
 Plan of Ground Floor of the Museum, facing , 32 
 Spandril of Roof 89 
 
PEE PACE. 
 
 The following pages contain the substance of a 
 Lecture which was given, at their request, to 
 the members of the Architectural Societies 
 that met in Oxford in the summer of last year. 
 Pressing duties have hindered me till now from 
 committing to paper, as nearly as my memory 
 serves me, the matter of what was then said. 
 ■ I am induced, however, thus tardily to comply 
 with a request made by various persons, that 
 these remarks should be printed, because 
 visitors in Oxford frequently seek information 
 similar to that which it was my aim then to 
 furnish. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 It is, moreover, imperative on me to give 
 the utmost publicity I can to the letters which 
 Mr. Ruskin has addressed to me, the first in 
 June last, and the second in January of this 
 year, when I informed him I was about to 
 print the Lecture. It may seem presumptuous 
 that I should couple my own name with his 
 in a question which is partly one of Art; 
 but we both feel pleasure in recording that, 
 when fellow undergraduates at Christ Church, 
 we sketched together; and, that after a lapse 
 of twenty years, we received on the same day 
 the high distinction of an Honorary Student- 
 ship ; because, though following divergent 
 paths, we have honestly and laboriously culti- 
 vated the Arts which we respectively profess. 
 To the intercourse on Art, and many kin- 
 dred subjects, which for more than twenty 
 years I have had with the present Dean of 
 Christ Church, with John Ruskin, Charles 
 Newton, and George Richmond, I owe many 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 s 
 
 happy hours of rest in the midst of happy 
 labour, and am little disposed to forego the 
 right to seek recreation in this or any other 
 reasonable manner, because I am a Physician. 
 On the contrary, I here declare that, though 
 a man may be seduced from his duty, to his 
 after misery, by any other absorbing interest, 
 I yet believe that frequent intercourse with 
 men engaged in other intellectual pursuits, is, 
 in my profession at least, almost necessary to 
 form a complete professional mind. I appeal 
 to History in confirmation. 
 
 But, on the other side, I should be deeply 
 pained, if in consequence of the interest I 
 profess in the Art of the Oxford Museum, it 
 were supposed by any whose opinion I value, 
 either that I consider Art a subject on which 
 amateurs can have perfect judgment, or that 
 it is a matter which a Physician can seriously 
 pursue. Yet I am of opinion that it is the 
 duty of all persons who can help true- 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 hearted and earnest Artists in these days, to 
 aid in protecting them against unjust depre- 
 ciation in efforts which, from many causes in 
 this century and in our country, are neces- 
 sarily, among the best men, tentative. Many 
 have yet to learn the apparently simple truth, 
 that to an Artist his Art is his means of proba- 
 tion in this life ; and that, whatever it may 
 have of frivolity to us, to him it is as the two 
 or the five talents, to be accounted for here- 
 after. I might say much on this point, for 
 the full scope of the word Art seems by some 
 to be even now unrecognised. Before the 
 period of printing, Art was the largest mode 
 of permanently recording human thought; it 
 was spoken in every epoch, in all countries, 
 and delivered in almost every material. In 
 buildings, on medals and coins; in porcelain 
 and earthenware, on wood, ivory, parchment, 
 paper and canvas, the graver or the pencil 
 has recorded the ideas of every form of society, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 b 
 
 of every variety of race and of every character. 
 What wonder that the Artist is jealous of his 
 craft, and proud of his brotherhood? But 
 as I hope that the time draws nigh when 
 the professorial staff of Oxford will include 
 a Professor of Art, I had better desist, and 
 leave the matter in his hands. With the 
 Art of this building, at all events, I have 
 nothing whatever to do, except earnestly to 
 aid in giving fair play and full opportunity to 
 the eminently skilful persons, Deane and 
 Woodward, who are now executing the work. 
 For me and my fellow-teachers there, it is a 
 place of other work altogether ; and were it not 
 that, as a Professor, I owe duty in this thing 
 to the University, as a Physician, I might regret 
 every moment I had ever expended in aiding 
 the architects in the Art part of their under- 
 taking. In the department of Natural Science 
 and of Medicine there is far too much yet to 
 be done in this place, to allow any one, who 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 is connected with them and has a choice in the 
 matter, either time or energy for other occu- 
 pations, unless by change they bring him the 
 rest he needs. Like all other ancient things, 
 Medicine is undergoing a stern cross-exami- 
 nation ; it is learning more and more that, 
 without depending wholly on positive science 
 for its practical Art, — a thing which never can 
 be, — it can no longer go on without every aid 
 that science can afford ; and therefore its dis- 
 ciples will all welcome such a building as is 
 the subject of this Lecture, because it bids 
 fair in a few years to disseminate widely, 
 among a class of influential persons not hitherto 
 reached, a knowledge of physiological truth 
 and the truths of nature in general : because 
 also it will help to keep before many of our 
 most cultivated minds, and our most influential 
 thinkers, the principles of sanitary knowledge 
 in all its branches. I may not here dilate on 
 this great national question ; but they who look 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 7 
 
 ahead will see, without aid from my pen, what 
 mutual benefits will accrue from a closer union 
 of the Sciences at the root of Medicine with 
 the old Universities ; and will further perceive 
 that for the well-being of those very Sciences, 
 the Practical Art which is in one sense their 
 highest goal, must live, and make itself heard 
 in its own peculiar notes, and strange, un- 
 written speech. 
 
 I must not, however, allow myself now to 
 describe the full scope and prospects of an edu- 
 cational institution, such as this Museum ; and 
 yet I cannot bring to a close a preface already 
 too long for a description which is too short, 
 without repeating words which I ventured to 
 use ten years ago * on this subject : — 
 
 " With respect to the proposal to add some 
 study of the fundamental arrangements of the 
 
 * See page 39 of " Eemarks on the Extension of Educa- 
 tion in the University of Oxford." Oxford : J. H. Parker. 
 1848. 
 
8 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 natural world to the general education of the 
 place, I fear that if we do not add it, we may 
 live to see, what would be a great national 
 evil, such knowledge substituted for our pre- 
 sent system." 
 
 The addition has been made ; the substitution 
 is, I hope, averted. The further my obser- 
 vation has extended, the more satisfied I am 
 that no knowledge of things will supply the 
 place of the early study of Letters — "literse 
 humaniores." Recent changes in the French 
 universities fully confirm this opinion. I do 
 not doubt the value of any honest mental 
 labour. Indeed, since the material working 
 of the Creator has been so far displayed to 
 our gaze, it is both dangerous and full of 
 impiety to resist its ennobling influence, even 
 on the ground that His moral work is greater. 
 But notwithstanding this, the study of lan- 
 guage, of history, and of the thoughts of great 
 men, which they exhibit, seems to be almost 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 9 
 
 necessary (as far as learning is necessary at 
 all) for disciplining the heart, for elevating the 
 soul, and for preparing the way for the growth 
 in the young, of their personal spiritual life: 
 while, on the other side, the best corrective 
 to pedantry in scholarship, and to conceit in 
 mental philosophy, is the study of the facts and 
 laws exhibited by Natural Science. 
 
 H. W. A. 
 
 Oxford, Feb. 1, 1859. 
 
 I 
 
THE OXFOBD MUSEUM. 
 
 When a critic in Art approaches an architectural 
 edifice, he asks, first, to what uses is this 
 building destined ? — next, how far does it in a 
 skilful manner interweave beauty with conve- 
 nience of arrangement ? — and how far, subjected 
 to the imposed conditions of climate, site, and 
 accessibility of materials, does it express the 
 object for which it was intended ? 
 
 You, therefore, who come as critics, ask 
 three things, and in answer, I will endeavour 
 to state : — 
 
 1st. The circumstances which in the history 
 of Oxford made this effort for enlarging her 
 means of education necessary. 
 
12 NECESSITY FOE EXTENDED EDUCATION. 
 
 2ndly. The objects which those members of 
 the University who for many years advocated 
 this design have steadily kept in view. 
 
 3rdly. The way in which the Architects have 
 performed the task assigned to them. 
 
 In other words, it is my duty to relate why 
 extension of our buildings was necessary ; 
 what is the object of that extension ; and 
 what the spirit in which the required building 
 has been erected. 
 
 First, then, as to the causes which called 
 for extension of the national education at 
 Oxford in the direction of Natural Science. 
 These must be briefly stated. 
 
 The great tide of human thought had set 
 for centuries, and down even to the close of 
 the Middle Ages, chiefly in the direction of 
 speculative reasoning, poetry, or history. Many 
 circumstances in the condition of our globe 
 tended to repress the outbreak of inquiring 
 and eager interest in external Nature, which 
 
NAEKOW-MINDEDNESS IN STUDIES. 13 
 
 about the time of the discovery of the New 
 World dawned upon all the educated part of 
 mankind. It is not other than both remarkable 
 and humiliating, that some of those who studied 
 and taught the mental science of Aristotle, or 
 the speculative dogmas of the schoolmen, should 
 have wholly forgotten the successful energy 
 which Aristotle and Galen, in the very dawn 
 of literature, had expended on investigating 
 the laws of organic life. It is probable, indeed, 
 that the very condition of the Church in the 
 Middle Ages, which led men to study the 
 Bible less and value then own fancies more, 
 did, in fact, close their eyes to the astonishing 
 revelations of the unwritten as well as of 
 the written Word of God. 
 
 Oxford, is the ancient seat of learning," was 
 not exempt from this intellectual one-sided- 
 ness. It chiefly cultivated classic lore, and 
 pursued the metaphysical notions of the school- 
 men ; even these were not always taught 
 
14 GROWTH AND PROGRESS 
 
 in the far-seeing spirit of true philosophy. It 
 has taken some centuries from the epoch of 
 Roger Bacon, followed here by Boyle, Harvey, 
 Linacre, and Sydenham, besides nearly 200 
 years of unbroken publication of the Royal 
 Society's transactions, to persuade this great 
 English university to engraft, as a substan- 
 tive part of the education of her youth, 
 any knowledge of the great material design 
 of which the Supreme Master- Worker has 
 made us a constituent part. 
 
 (e The study of mankind," indeed, was 
 a Man ;" but it was Man viewed apart from all 
 those external circumstances and conditions by 
 which his probation on earth was made by his 
 Maker possible, and through whose agency, 
 for good or evil, his life here, and preparation 
 for life hereafter, were ordained. Seeing, then, 
 all these things, many here in Oxford, not so 
 much by concert, as by that strange unanimity 
 which comes to some subjects in the fulness of 
 
OF MATERIAL KNOWLEDGE. 15 
 
 their time, felt as by an instinct, that they 
 might not rest nntil means for rightly studying 
 what is vouchsafed for man to know of this 
 universe were accorded to the youth com- 
 mitted to their care, and to themselves. From 
 such causes, and from so deep convictions, has 
 arisen the Oxford Museum. 
 
 Nor was the present an inappropriate or 
 unexpected time for a work conceived in this 
 temper. Oxford possessed more than the 
 current knowledge of the day ; and the light 
 which had been brought so multifariously 
 to bear on Nature, by many great minds in 
 Europe, from Bacon to Cuvier, had been spe- 
 cially imparted to us in the first half of this 
 century ; partly by oral instruction from Kidd, 
 Buckland, Daubeny, Walker, the two Duncans, 
 and many others, both in their several lecture- 
 rooms, and within the walls of old Elias Ash- 
 mole: and partly, I must add, by the various 
 enlightened acts and wise expenditure of the 
 
16 
 
 CARE FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 Radcliffe Trustees, who not only many years 
 since devoted their library entirely to works on 
 Medicine and Natural History, expending large 
 sums, restricted only by the little fruit they 
 bore ; but have also, by the development of a 
 first-class Observatory, and especially through 
 the labours of Manuel Johnson, added new 
 lustre to the University of Halley, and Bradley, 
 and Gregory. 
 
 To enlarge, however, on all the details of this 
 progress would be now of little interest. We 
 look more to the future than to the past. 
 Thankful for the benefits we have inherited, 
 and jealous of the honour of our fathers, 
 we, as practical men, take still deeper interest 
 in the destiny of our children — desiring that 
 we leave them not worse provided in the gifts 
 of their age, than by God's mercy and the 
 foreseeing nobleness of our forefathers, we 
 found ourselves in those of our own. 
 
 We ask, in the second place, What objects 
 
WHAT IS NATUEAL HISTORY? 
 
 17 
 
 have the promoters of the Museum kept in view 
 while advocating its erection? 
 
 " There are two books," says Sir T. Browne, 
 " from whence I collect my divinity ; besides 
 that written one of God, another of His ser- 
 vant, Nature, — that universal and public manu- 
 script that lies expansed unto the eyes of all." 
 In this term " Nature" are, of course, included 
 every known and observed form of matter by 
 which our world and its inhabitants were either 
 made or are maintained, and whatever laws of 
 their construction or for their maintenance 
 have by reason been inferred. No less signi- 
 fication of the word Nature will in the present 
 day be accepted ; the limitation of the term 
 History of Nature to a small portion of the 
 biological sciences is not now, of course, 
 admitted. But even this explanation does 
 not adequately express the idea of the word 
 Nature; the word implies not only the facts 
 and the laws that have been noted in the 
 
 c 
 
1 8 DIVISIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY STUDIES. 
 
 structure and peopling of the globe, but still 
 more, the relation which all those facts and 
 laws bear to each other, in one harmonious 
 whole; and yet one step further, in some 
 limited instances, — the first glimpses of unut- 
 tered ideas, traces (as we believe), though 
 we see them darkly as in a mirror, of unex- 
 pressed Art of the great Artificer. 
 
 To state the divisions which have been found 
 necessary or convenient for the purpose of 
 student or teacher in this vast inquiry, is to 
 enumerate the principal sciences belonging to 
 the History of Nature, and therefore the depart- 
 ments to which, in the Museum, places are 
 assigned. In these departments there are many 
 sub-divisions ; some of which are themselves 
 already erected into great and comprehensive 
 subjects. They cannot all be separately repre- 
 sented here ; for this educational institution is 
 not the effort of a great government, nor the 
 exhibition of the scientific collections of a 
 
THE STABS, THE EABTH. 
 
 19 
 
 nation, but an abstract, as it were, fitted for 
 the grasp of a single person, — or a standing- 
 point, from whence the intelligent learner may 
 take a general survey of a great field of know- 
 ledge, which, be his powers what they may, in 
 his lifetime he can never completely investigate. 
 
 Our object, then, is — 1st, to give the learner 
 a general view of the planet on which he lives, 
 of its constituent parts, and of the relations 
 which it occupies as a world among worlds : 
 and 2ndly, to enable him to study, in the most 
 complete scientific manner, and for any purpose, 
 any detailed portion which his powers qualify 
 him to grasp. 
 
 The Astronomer, with Ins apparatus, may here 
 introduce the student to the phenomena ob- 
 served in that space of which we occupy an 
 infinitesimal portion, and may explain the means 
 and the powers by which these phenomena have 
 been observed and can be predicted. The Pro- 
 fessor of Geometry will be able to aid the fur- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE GENERAL LAWS OF NATUEE. 
 
 ther explanation of those abstruse calculations, 
 bringing his knowledge to bear upon terrestrial 
 as well as cosmical instances. In the depart- 
 ment of Experimental Physics, the student will, 
 guided by his teacher, as far as they obey the 
 hand or bend to the skill of man, submit to ex- 
 periment the most general agents and powers, 
 which are either diffused through space, — such as 
 light ; or are daily but universally needed in the 
 organic or inorganic changes of our earth, — as 
 water and air. The Higher Mathematical truths 
 upon which the theories of Experimental Physics 
 depend, can be pursued by him in the Class- 
 Room of the Professor of Natural Philosophy. 
 Scarcely removed from these departments, he 
 may next examine in the Chemical laboratories 
 those endless changes, which nature in her 
 ordinary course, or the skill of man by con- 
 trived combinations, may bring about in the 
 matter of which this earth is composed, — a 
 department which has severed from itself, more 
 
LITE ON THE EARTH. 
 
 21 
 
 for convenience than by reason, its special 
 school of Mineralogy. So, insensibly, but well 
 prepared, he will approach, in the Geological 
 collections and afterwards among the rocks 
 themselves, the study of the development of the 
 earth, the history of the convulsions by which 
 it has attained its present form, the way in 
 which its surface is disposed, and, by necessity, 
 the characters, structure, life, origin, and decay, 
 of its past and present inhabitants. 
 
 Without the Geologist on one side, and the 
 Anatomist and Physiologist on the other, 
 Zoology is not worthy of its name. The 
 student of life, bearing in mind the more 
 general laws which in the several departments 
 above named he will have sought to appre- 
 ciate, will find in the collections of Zoology, 
 combined with the Geological specimens and 
 the dissections of the Anatomist, a boundless 
 field of interest and of inquiry, to which 
 almost every other science lends its aid: from 
 
22. RELATIONS OF LIVING BEINGS. 
 
 each Science lie borrows a special light to 
 guide him through the ranges of extinct and 
 existing animal forms, from the lowest up to 
 the highest type, which, last and most perfect, 
 but pre-shadowed in previous ages, is seen 
 in Man. By the aid of physiological illus- 
 trations he begins to understand how hard to 
 unravel are the complex mechanisms and pre- 
 scient intentions of the Maker of all ; and he 
 slowly learns to appreciate what exquisite care 
 is needed for discover ing the real action of 
 even an apparently comprehended machine. 
 And so at last, almost bewildered, but not 
 cast down, he attempts to scrutinise, in the 
 rooms devoted to Medicine, the various inju- 
 ries which man is doomed to undergo in his 
 progress towards death; he begins to revere 
 the beneficent contrivances which shine forth 
 in the midst of suffering and disease, and to 
 veil his face before the mysterious alterations 
 of structure, to which there seem attached 
 
DISEASE. 
 
 2:\ 
 
 pain, with scarce relief, and a steady advance, 
 without a check, to death. He will look, and 
 as he looks, will cherish hope, not unmixed 
 with prayer, that the great Art of Healing 
 may by all these things advance, and that by 
 the progress of profounder science, by the 
 spread among the people of the resultant prac- 
 tical knowledge, by stricter obedience to 
 physiological laws, by a consequent more 
 self-denying spirit, some disorders may at a 
 future day be cured, which cannot be pre- 
 vented, and some, perhaps, prevented, which 
 never can be cured. 
 
 These, then, are the departments to which we 
 assign, for mutual aid, and easy interchange 
 of reference and comparison, a common habi- 
 tation under one roof : Astronomy, Geometry, 
 Experimental Physics, with their Mathematics; 
 Chemistry, Mineralogy, Geology, Zoology, 
 Anatomy, Physiology, Medicine. 
 
 In the third place, we must consider the 
 
24 
 
 COST OF THE OXFORD MUSEUM. 
 
 way in which the Architects have provided for 
 these wants. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to describe more 
 particularly the steps by which we obtained 
 the design which you have come to criticise, 
 and which is here brought to a practical 
 result, than by saying generally, that the 
 Professors of the subjects which I have 
 named, having decided on the space which 
 each required for satisfying (I am bound to 
 say in the most limited manner consistent 
 with efficiency) their several wants, the 
 University decided on allowing a grant of 
 30,000Z. for the shell of the building, leaving 
 o future determination its interior fittings 
 and various incidental expenses, such as warm- 
 ing, lighting, draining, planting, fencing, and 
 the like. In the competition, scarce any 
 limitation was imposed, and to style none. 
 Thirty-two designs by anonymous contributors 
 were sent in ; the majority of the judges, 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE ARCHITECTS. 25 
 
 after a thoroughly English battle, in which 
 some professed advocates of Gothic architec- 
 ture deprecated the application of Gothic 
 Art to secular purposes, — thereby denying to 
 their own style that malleability which is, 
 perhaps, its highest prerogative, — the design, 
 "Nisi Dominus cedificaverit domum" was ac- 
 cepted. Having been openly one of its 
 warmest advocates, I have seen no reason to 
 regret the decision of the University. 
 
 It is but just to the Architect and to the 
 University, to say to you at once, that the task 
 has been a difficult one. The University 
 granted a sum, which was perhaps the most it 
 could, in justice to other departments, afford for 
 the proposed purpose ; the sum was well known 
 to be barely sufficient to raise a building of the 
 cubical contents which the Professors required 
 for their several departments ; and therefore it 
 must be admitted at once, that, without blame 
 to either party, there is on all sides evidence, 
 
26 THE ARCHITECT'S SCRUPULOUS CARE. 
 
 both in material and design, of a rigorously 
 restrained expenditure, just as in respect of 
 material and finish the direct contrary may 
 be noticed in another great structure, recently 
 built for the University by my esteemed friend 
 Mr. Cockerell — the Taylor Institution. 
 
 Once for all on the subject of cost, — a 
 consideration of the utmost importance in 
 the relation between employers and employed 
 in the matter of building, — I am happy here 
 to record that it is within my personal know- 
 ledge that extraordinary and unsparing pains 
 have been taken by Deane and Woodward, 
 to produce, often with great additional labour 
 to themselves, the almost impossible combina- 
 tion of artistic effect and complete convenience, 
 with most limited means. 
 
 You who bring critical faculties and a 
 knowledge of building to bear on the sub- 
 ject, need scarcely be told what is here stated. 
 It is only to be greatly regretted that a con- 
 
ADAPTATIONS OF GOTHIC. 27 
 
 trary opinion should have been expressed, 
 due in part to ignorance of facts, and in 
 part, more unfortunately still, to one or two 
 singular miscalculations in constructing some 
 estimates for extra work, as well as to an 
 error in the calculated elasticity of wrought 
 iron supports to the roof. 
 
 No Physician will probably be heard on the 
 subject of Art, so that it were waste of time, 
 both to you and to me, to express, even if I 
 hold them, many opinions on this matter ; but 
 still, as one of those appointed by the University 
 to select a design, it was my duty to satisfy 
 myself on certain salient principles, of which 
 I will state two. 
 
 First, That in the selection of a style for a 
 scientific building, the first consideratien with 
 me was its practical fitness for its purpose ; 
 that, in this respect of capacity of adaptation to 
 any given wants, Gothic has no superior in 
 any known form of Art, of any period or 
 
28 
 
 LAWS OF GOTHIC. 
 
 country; that this being so, it is, upon the 
 whole, the best suited to the general architec- 
 tural character of mediaeval Oxford. 
 
 Secondly, That supposing Gothic to be 
 adopted, it must in all respects adapt itself 
 to the necessities of the departments; in no 
 way impose its Art to the hindrance of our 
 convenience; it must confine its ornaments 
 to subjects more or less connected with the 
 objects of the building, as the Middle Age 
 architects confined their ecclesiastical decora- 
 tions in sacred edifices ; it must be willing 
 to use whatever material the skill of modern 
 ages has placed at the disposal of the builder ; 
 and the arrangements of various kinds should 
 not, on account of Gothic associations, be infe- 
 rior in mechanical skill or other convenience, 
 to the forms or methods now in general use. 
 
 Believing in these principles, I think the 
 University was right in adopting our present 
 design. I will not indulge myself further on 
 
ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BUILDING. 29 
 
 this topic, nor detain you with speculations 
 on Gothic Art; an old college friend, and a 
 very different hand, will presently do this in 
 the letter which I shall read to you. 
 
 It remains only, therefore, to describe the 
 general plan by which the union has been 
 effected between the professorial demands and 
 financial conditions on the one hand, and on the 
 other, the requirements of Gothic Architecture, 
 as interpreted by a refined and almost fastidious 
 artist. 
 
 A few words will explain the principles 
 which determined the kind of accommodation. 
 
 For the illustration of Nature the student 
 requires four things : first, the work-room, 
 where he may practically see and work for 
 himself; secondly, the lecture -room, where 
 he may see and be taught that which by 
 himself he can neither see nor learn, and, 
 as . an adjunct to these, a room for more 
 private study for each ; thirdly, general space 
 
30 CONSTRUCTION OF CENTRAL COURT. 
 
 for the common display of any illustrative spe- 
 cimens capable of preservation, — so placed, in 
 relation to the rest of the building, as to be con- 
 venient for reference and comparison between 
 all the different branches ; and, lastly, a library, 
 in which whatever has been done, or is now 
 doing, in the science of this and other periods 
 and countries, may be conveniently ascertained. 
 
 The centre of the edifice, which is to con- 
 tain the Collections, consists of a quadrangle. 
 This large area will be covered by a glass roof, 
 supported on cast iron columns. The ornaments 
 (due to the admirable skill and taste of Mr. 
 Skidmore, of Coventry,) are in wrought iron. 
 This is as it should be. The rigid (cast) mate- 
 rial supports the vertical pressure; the malleable 
 (wrought) iron is employed for the ornament, 
 and is chiefly hand-wrought. The present is 
 the second roof that has been erected; for it 
 had been believed that a departure could be 
 safely made from the original designs of Deane 
 
IRONWORK. 
 
 31 
 
 and Woodward for the sake of lightness of 
 form ; and that for the same reason the sup- 
 ports might he made of wrought iron tubes. 
 This experiment failed, and* a structure on 
 the principle of the original design has replaced 
 the first attempt. 
 
 The wrought iron ornaments represent, in 
 the large spandrils that occupy the interspaces 
 between the arches of the principal aisles, 
 large interwoven branches, with leaf and 
 flower and fruit, of lime, chesnut, sycamore, 
 walnut, palm, and other trees and shrubs, of 
 native or of exotic growth ; and in various 
 parts of the lesser decorations, in the capitals, 
 and nestled in the trefoils of the girders, 
 leaves of elm, briar, water-lily, passion-flower, 
 ivy, holly, and many others, which hereafter 
 a catalogue will enumerate. 
 
 The central court is surrounded by an open 
 arcade of two stories. This arcade furnishes 
 ready means of communication between the 
 
32 ARCADES ROUND THE COURT. 
 
 several departments and their collections in 
 the area. The roof springs from above the 
 upper arcade, so that the arcades on both floors 
 are open to the covered court. 
 
 The arcade on the ground floor is entered 
 from the centre of each side of the court, and 
 ready communication is made from it to every 
 part of the collection. In each of the arcades 
 are seven piers forming eight openings, and 
 carrying eight discharging arches, within which 
 are two lesser arches, resting on their outer 
 sides on the piers, and at their junction with 
 each other on a shaft with a capital and base. 
 
 On the upper story there is a similar arrange- 
 ment, excepting only that the piers and shafts 
 are of less height, though the piers are of the 
 same number ; on this account, in the same 
 horizontal space between each pier, four arches 
 are supported by three shafts in the upper 
 arcade, instead of as below, two arches sup- 
 ported at their union by one shaft. 
 
OXFORD. VNIVERSITY. MVSEVM. 
 
 REFERENCE. 
 
 CHEMISTRY - 
 
 /\ Entrance Hall. 
 B Porter. 
 C Sitting Rooms. 
 D Apparatus Room. 
 E JFor* floom. 
 F Lecture Room. 
 
 Dissecting Room. 
 H Laboratory. 
 I Principal Staircase. 
 K Passage. 
 
 L Students' Sitting Room. 
 M Professors' Work Room. 
 
 N Staircase for Anatomical and Zoological Depart ment. 
 O Covered Way. 
 P Macerating Room. 
 
 S Prinafe -Stairs <o Anatomy Lecture Room. 
 T Store Rooms. 
 
 U PrceUctor's Laboratory {Mineralogy). 
 
 V Balance Rooms. 
 X Furnace Room. 
 
 Y £arjre Laboratory. 
 Z Lavatories. 
 a IK. C. 
 
 SCALE 
 
 10 5 10 20 30 40 
 
 Lu,LJ 1 1 1 L 
 
 PUBLISHED BY SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 05, CORNHILL, LONDON; AND J. H. AND J. PARKER, OXFORD. 1830. 
 
GEOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 33 
 
 There are, on the ground floor, thirty-three 
 piers and thirty shafts — on the upper floor, 
 thirty-three piers and ninety-five shafts. Thus 
 one hundred and twenty-five shafts surround 
 the court ; and if we include the capitals and 
 bases of the piers, there are one hundred and 
 ninety-one capitals and bases.* 
 
 The shafts have been carefully selected, under 
 the direction of the Professor of Geology, from 
 quarries which furnish examples of many of 
 the most important rocks of the British Islands. 
 On the lower arcade, are placed, on the west 
 side, the granitic series ; on the east, the 
 metamorphic ; on the north, calcareous rocks, 
 chiefly from Ireland ; on the south, the marbles 
 of England. In the upper floor, as far as may 
 be, an analogous distribution is adopted, f 
 
 * The number of shafts and piers on the side by -which 
 you enter, differs from the other three sides : hence the 
 uneven numbers. 
 
 ■f Further particulars of these shafts, and of the arrange- 
 ments of the plants represented in the capitals, will be 
 given in the Appendix. See the admirable letter from 
 Professor Phillips there given. D 
 
34 SCULPTUEES OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 
 
 The capitals and bases will represent various 
 groups of plants and animals, illustrating dif- 
 ferent climates and various epochs. They are 
 mainly arranged according to their natural 
 orders, and are the more required to repre- 
 sent the vegetable creation, as the botanical 
 collections will remain, very properly^ at the 
 Botanical Gardens. 
 
 On massive corbels, projecting from the 
 fronts of the piers, it is hoped, that there 
 may be placed the statues of great men who 
 first discovered, or first brought to important 
 results, the several branches of knowledge 
 which the edifice is intended to promote. 
 In the mathematical department, Archimedes, 
 Leibnitz, Newton ; in astronomy, Hipparchus, 
 Galileo ; in geology, Cuvier ; in chemistry, 
 Lavoisier, Cavendish, Davy ; in biology, Aris- 
 totle, Linnaeus, John Hunter ; in medicine, 
 Hippocrates, Sydenham, Harvey ; and on 
 special, but very different grounds, as bene- 
 factors to the human race, Bacon, Volta, Oer- 
 
STATUES OF GREAT DISCOVERERS. 35 
 
 sted, Watt, and Stephenson, will be among the 
 first whose statues ft is proposed to place here 
 for the contemplation and example of all who 
 may hereafter enter, with various purpose, this 
 place of study and of work. 
 
 Here I must not omit to record that the 
 expression in the architecture, by this simple 
 and happy method, of the intentions of the 
 building, was engrafted upon it as the work 
 went on, and was not ( I need hardly say) 
 included in the first design, or in the original 
 estimate. All this has since been added by the 
 zealous munificence of many friends of our 
 undertaking.* 
 
 I may be excused for repeating a public 
 fact. Her Majesty Queen . Yictoma was made 
 acquainted with the circumstance that these 
 statues were to be gifts ; and a hope was ex- 
 pressed that if Her Majesty thought fit to set 
 
 * In an Appendix will be found the names of the donors 
 of these statues, and of other contributors to the orna- 
 mentation of the building. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 HER MAJESTY'S GIFTS. 
 
 an example to contributors, she would choose 
 as her donation the first of the modern school, 
 himself an Englishman, Francis Lord Bacon. 
 In reply, the royal, and, more also, the kindly 
 announcement — reached the University, that 
 not Bacon only, but the four great names that 
 followed next on the proposed list of discoverers, 
 should be executed by Her Majesty's command 
 and at her own costs. And I know not but 
 that this gracious act was enhanced in value, 
 when it was made known by the Chancellor on 
 the same occasion on which the Queen's gift 
 was publicly announced, that the Undergra- 
 duates had offered to erect the monuments 
 of Aristotle and Cuvier. 
 
 Several offers have been made to place 
 inscriptions in carving or in colour on the 
 walls of the corridors, in the libraries, or in 
 the several departments. How curiously in- 
 
 i 
 
 structive some of these might be ! Take two 
 for example, in the Medical Department — this, 
 
INSTRUCTIVE INSCRIPTIONS. 37 
 
 quaint saying and pregnant rebuke recorded 
 by Stobseus : 
 
 " Tp6<j>i\og iarpbg ipu>rrfteig, rig dv yevoiro reXeiog iarpog' 
 'O rd Sward, t<pt), Kal rd jii) Sward Swd/xevog SiayiyvuxTKeiv." 
 
 " Tropliilus the physician being asked who is a perfect 
 physician, gave answer, f He who distinguishes between 
 what can, and what cannot be done.' " 
 
 Then the weighty, but half-known words 
 with which Hippocrates solemnly begins his 
 instructions — 
 
 " '0 /3to£ fipaxvg, i) St r't%vr\ fiaicpr), 6 Ss Katpog 6%vg, i) Se 
 nilpa atyaXepi), r/ Si Kpimg xaXtirf)." 
 
 " Life is short; 
 but 
 Art long; 
 
 Opportunities fleeting; 
 Experience deceitful; 
 True judgment difficult." 
 
 Or in yet more lofty strain, the words of 
 Sir Thomas Browne — 
 
 "Nature is the Art of God." 
 
 And who cannot add, from the best bene- 
 factors of mankind, similar terse greetings for 
 
38 EXTENSION PKOVIDED EOR. 
 
 the tliresliold of every avenue to natural know- 
 ledge ? 
 
 Round the arcade is ranged upon three sides 
 the main hlock of the building. The east is 
 wisely left unencumbered by rooms, to afford 
 ready means for future extension : land has been 
 purchased, which will admit of such extension 
 whenever it is required. I may not describe 
 the main block in detail; you can visit such 
 departments as you think fit. The most com- 
 plete and largest is that of Chemistry, because 
 the practical work of that extensive subject 
 is likely to be here most extensively carried 
 on. To every department is attached a lecture- 
 room, a private room, and, wherever required, 
 work-rooms and laboratories. 
 
 Beyond or outside the main block, to the 
 north, because the coolest side, are an open yard 
 for the Anatomical and Zoological departments, 
 and beyond it, Dissecting-rooms. On the south 
 side, are the rooms which require special 
 
LECTUEE-EOOMS, LABOEATOEIES, ETC. 39 
 
 arrangements for experiments or light ; a 
 yard for purposes connected with Chemistry 
 and Experimental Physics; and further still, 
 out-buildings, containing workshops, furnace- 
 rooms, weighing-rooms, and laboratories. Thus 
 all noxious operations are removed from the 
 principal pile, but joined with much con- 
 venience to the lecture-rooms, and communi- 
 cating easily with the Central Court, common 
 to all the departments. 
 
 The laboratory for the chemical students 
 is the large detached building seen at the 
 south-west angle of the Museum. The Abbot's 
 kitchen at Glastonbury will be recognised by 
 you as the prototype. There can be no more 
 successful adaptation of an ancient example 
 to modern wants, inasmuch as no more con- 
 venient nor more airy laboratory could be 
 contrived, and certainly no bolder or more 
 picturesque design. 
 
 On the upper floor are a large lecture-room 
 
40 LIBRARY AND LITERATURE. 
 
 for 600 persons intended for occasional use ; 
 the Entomological collections of Mr. Hope ; and 
 along the front, the Library and Reading rooms, 
 together 200 feet in length. 
 
 Concerning the libraries, to the honour of 
 the Radcliffe Trustees (the Earl Bathurst, 
 W. S. Dugdale, Esq., the Right Hon. S. 
 Herbert, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 
 and the Right Hon. T. H. Sotheron Estcourt), 
 it must be said, that they have seriously before 
 them the question whether they may not 
 transfer their collections of Scientific Books to 
 the new Scientific Institution. Here is not the 
 place to enter into the arguments which are 
 involved in the proposition; it is sufficient to 
 say, that close by the Scientific Collections, 
 some library of Scientific Literature is neces- 
 sary. Wherever the Collections are, the students 
 will be. The memory of the great physician 
 will be doubly honoured, should the noble pile 
 that bears his name, bear it still as the Radcliffe 
 
THE CUEATOR'S RESIDENCE. 41 
 
 Library; but marching as it were with the 
 new wants of a new age, supply a splendid 
 reading-room to the over-crowded Bodleian 
 Library ; while his funds and his literary 
 stores begin a new life at the Museum. The 
 Trustees will not probably be foiled in their 
 endeavour to serve the best interests, both of 
 their founders and of the University. Should 
 they be so, however, there will be long and 
 costly labour before the Museum is supplied 
 with such a collection of illustrated works on 
 all scientific subjects, of periodicals, and trans- 
 actions; or endowed with so liberal funds for 
 the maintenance of a library. 
 
 Lastly, I will but mention the graceful 
 building which at the south-east angle gives a 
 residence to the Curator. The elegance of its 
 form, and the beauty of its many details, will 
 long tell the tale, that the soul of one man, at 
 least, did in this century answer to the subtle 
 requirements of Gothic Art; and will say, in 
 
42 MESS-ROOM FOE THE WORKMEN. 
 
 unmistakeable terms, what that man might 
 have accomplished, had ample means been ever 
 placed at his command. 
 
 Here, then, I must stop, — but not before I 
 have added, that while this building has been 
 in progress, we have not been wholly un- 
 mindful of the hardy hands that worked for 
 its erection. Alas! we can do little for each 
 other, to ease the daily toil, and sweeten the 
 hard-earned bread. But with the laying the 
 foundation-stone we also erected a humble mess- 
 room by its side, where the workmen bave daily 
 met for their stated meals, have begun each day 
 with simple prayers from willing hearts, have 
 had various volumes placed for their use, and 
 have received frequent instruction and aid 
 from the chief officer in the building, Mr. Bram- 
 well, our olerk of the works. 
 
 The temper of the Architect has reached 
 the men. In their work they have had 
 pleasure. The capitals are partly designed by 
 
DESIGNS BY THE WORKMEN. 43 
 
 the men themselves, and especially by the 
 family of O'Shea, who bring wit and alacrity 
 from the Emerald Isle to their cheerful task. 
 The carving of the capitals and the decoration 
 of the windows, limited, very limited, as our 
 means have been, have raised ever living inte- 
 rest ; and as strangers walk in the streets, ever 
 and anon they hear the theme discussed by the 
 workers who pass by. 
 
 May the work prosper ! — and in many suc- 
 ceeding generations, when we are long for- 
 gotten, may young minds be here freshly 
 learning and warmly loving the things which 
 they may be allowed to perceive as in a mirror, 
 dimly ; but which we, by the ineffable grace 
 of God, may, in ways at present unconceived, 
 be then beholding, and knowing them then as 
 they are known. 
 
 I have purposely avoided the expression of 
 my sentiments on many points which interest 
 
44 MR. BUSKIN'S LETTEB. 
 
 me, lest I be, as perhaps I already am, tedious 
 to you. I delay, therefore, no longer to read 
 a letter which has just reached me from 
 Mr. Ruskin. 
 
 " Dear Acland, 
 
 " I have been very anxious, since I last 
 heard from you, respecting the progress of the 
 works at the Museum, as I thought I could 
 trace in your expressions some doubt of an 
 entirely satisfactory issue. 
 
 " Entirely satisfactory very few issues are 
 or can be ; and when the enterprise, as in this 
 instance, involves the development of many new 
 and progressive principles, we must always be 
 prepared for a due measure of disappointment — 
 due partly to human weakness, and partly to 
 what the ancients would have called fate — and 
 we may, perhaps, most wisely call the law of 
 trial, which forbids any great good being 
 usually accomplished without various compen- 
 
GOTHIC FIT FOR SECULAR BUILDINGS. 45 
 
 sations and deductions, probably not a little 
 humiliating. 
 
 " Perhaps in writing to you what seems to 
 me to be the bearing of matters respecting your 
 Museum, I may be answering a few of the 
 doubts of others, as well as fears of your own. 
 
 " I am quite sure that when you first used 
 your influence to advocate the claims of a 
 Gothic design, you did so under the conviction, 
 shared by all the seriously purposed defenders 
 of the Gothic style, that the essence and power 
 of Gothic, properly so called, lay in its adapt- 
 ability to all need; in that perfect and unlimited 
 flexibility which would enable the architect to 
 provide all that was required, in the simplest 
 and most convenient way ; and to give you the 
 best offices, the best lecture-rooms, laboratories, 
 and museums, which could be provided with the 
 sum of money at his disposal. 
 
 " So far as the architect has failed in doing 
 this ; so far as you find yourself, with the other 
 
46 MR. BUSKIN'S letter. 
 
 professors, in anywise inconvenienced by forms 
 of architecture ; so far as pillars or piers come 
 in your way, when you have to point, or vaults 
 in the way of your voice, when you have to 
 speak, or mullions in the way of your light, 
 when you want to see ; — -just so far the archi- 
 tect has failed in expressing his own principles, 
 or those of pure Gothic art. I do not suppose 
 that such failure has taken place to any con- 
 siderable extent ; but so far as it has taken 
 place, it cannot in justice be laid to the score of 
 the style, since precedent has shown sufficiently, 
 that very uncomfortable and useless rooms may 
 be provided in all other styles as well as in 
 Grothic ; and I think if, in a building arranged 
 for many objects of various kinds, at a time 
 when the practice of architecture has been 
 somewhat confused by the inventions of modern 
 science, and is hardly yet organized completely 
 with respect to the new means at his disposal ; 
 if, under such circumstances, and with some- 
 
DECORATION DIFFICULT. 47 
 
 what limited fends, you have yet obtained a 
 building in all main points properly fulfilling its 
 requirements, you have, I think, as much as 
 could be hoped from the adoption of any style 
 whatsoever. 
 
 "But I am much more anxious about the 
 decoration of the building; for I fear that it 
 will be hurried in completion, and that, partly 
 in haste and partly in mistimed economy, a 
 great opportunity may be lost of advancing 
 the best interest of architectural, and in that, 
 of all other arts. For the principles of 
 Gothic decoration, in themselves as simple and 
 beautiful as those of Gothic construction, are 
 far less understood, as yet, by the English 
 public, and it is little likely that any effective 
 measures can be taken to carry them out. 
 You know, as well as I, what those principles 
 are : yet it may be convenient to you that I 
 should here state them briefly as I accept them 
 myself, and have reason to suppose they are 
 
48 
 
 MR. BUSKIN'S LETTER. 
 
 accepted by the principal promoters of the 
 Gothic revival. 
 
 " I. The first principle of Gothic decoration 
 is that a given quantity of good art will he 
 more generally useful when exhibited on a 
 large scale, and forming part of a connected 
 system, than when it is small and separated. 
 That is to say, a piece of sculpture or painting 
 of a certain allowed merit, will be more useful 
 when seen on the front of a building, or at 
 the end of a room, and, therefore, by many 
 persons, than if it be so small as to be only 
 capable of being seen by one or two at a 
 time; and it will be more useful when so 
 combined with other work as to produce that 
 kind of impression usually termed ( sublime ' — 
 as it is felt on looking at any great series of 
 fixed paintings, or at the front of a cathedral — 
 than if it be so separated as to excite only a 
 special wonder or admiration, such as we feel 
 for a jewel in a cabinet. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF DECORATION. 49 
 
 " The paintings by Meissonier in the French 
 Exhibition of this year were bought, I believe, 
 before the Exhibition opened, for 250 guineas 
 each. They each represented one figure, about 
 6 inches high — one, a student reading; the 
 other, a courtier standing in a dress-coat. 
 Neither of these paintings conveyed any infor- 
 mation, or produced any emotion whatever, 
 except that of surprise at their minute and 
 dextrous execution. They will be placed by 
 their possessors on the walls of small private 
 apartments, where they will probably, once or 
 twice a week, form the subject of five minutes' 
 conversation while people drink their coffee 
 after dinner. The sum expended on these toys 
 would have been amply sufficient to cover a 
 large building with noble frescoes, appealing; 
 to every passer by, and representing a large 
 portion of the history of any given period. 
 But the general tendency of the European 
 patrons of art is to grudge all sums spent in 
 
 E 
 
50 MB. RUSRTN'S LETTER. 
 
 a way thus calculated to confer benefit on the 
 public, and to grudge none for minute treasures 
 of which the principal advantage is that a lock 
 and key can always render them invisible. 
 
 " I have no hesitation in saying that an 
 acquisitive selfishness, rejoicing somewhat even 
 in the sensation of possessing what can not be 
 seen by others, is at the root of this art- 
 patronage. It is, of course, coupled with a 
 sense of securer and more convenient invest- 
 ment in what may be easily protected and 
 easily carried from place to place, than in 
 large and immoveable works; and also with 
 a vulgar delight in the minute curiosities of 
 productive art, rather than in the exercise of 
 inventive genius, or the expression of great 
 facts or emotions. 
 
 ** The first aim of the Gothic Revivalists is 
 to counteract, as far as possible, this feeling on 
 all its three grounds. We desire (A) to make 
 art large and publicly beneficial, instead of small 
 
GOTHIC REVIVALISTS. 51 
 
 and privately engrossed or secluded; (B) to 
 make art fixed instead of portable, associating 
 it with local character and historical memory ; 
 (C) to make art expressive instead of curious, 
 valuable for its suggestions and teachings, more 
 than for the mode of its manufacture. 
 
 • II. The second great principle of the Gothic 
 Revivalists is that all art employed in decora- 
 tion should be informative, conveying truthful 
 statements about natural facts, if it conveys any 
 statement. It may sometimes merely compose 
 its decorations of mosaics, chequers, bosses, or 
 other meaningless ornaments : but if it repre- 
 sents organic form (and in all important places 
 it will represent it), it will give that form truth- 
 fully, with as much resemblance to nature as 
 the necessary treatment of the piece of orna- 
 ment in question will admit of. 
 
 " This principle is more disputed than the 
 first among the Gothic Revivalists themselves. 
 I, however, hold it simply and entirely, believ- 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 MR. BUSKIN'S LETTEB. 
 
 ing that ornamentation is always, ceteris paribus, 
 most valuable and beautiful when it is founded 
 on the most extended knowledge of natural 
 forms, and continually conveys such knowledge 
 to the spectator.* 
 
 <c III. The third great principle of the Gothic 
 revival is that all architectural ornamentation 
 should be executed by the men who design it, 
 and should be of various degrees of excellence, 
 admitting, and therefore exciting, the intelli- 
 gent co-operation of various classes of work- 
 men ; and that a great public edifice should be, 
 in sculpture and painting, somewhat the same 
 as a great chorus in music, in which, while, 
 perhaps, there may be only one or two voices 
 perfectly trained, and of perfect sweetness (the 
 rest being in various degrees weaker and less 
 cultivated), yet all being ruled in harmony, 
 and each sustaining a part consistent with its 
 
 * A more detailed statement of this principle is given in 
 a following letter. 
 
THREE PRINCIPLES ILLUSTRATED. 53 
 
 strength, the body of sound is sublime, in spite 
 of individual weaknesses. 
 
 " The Museum at Oxford was, I know, in- 
 tended by its designer to exhibit in its decoration 
 the working of these three principles"; but in 
 the very fact of its doing so, it becomes exposed 
 to chances of occasional failure, or even to 
 serious discomfitures, such as would not at all 
 have attended the adoption of an established 
 mode of modern work. It is easy to carve 
 capitals on models known for four thousand 
 years, and impossible to fail in the application 
 of mechanical methods and formalised rules. 
 But it is not possible to appeal vigorously to 
 new canons of judgment without the chance 
 of giving offence ; nor to summon into service 
 the various phases of human temper and intel- 
 ligence, without occasionally finding the tempers 
 rough and the intelligence feeble. The Oxford 
 Museum is, I believe, the first building in 
 this country which has had its ornamentation, 
 
54 
 
 ME. BUSKIN'S LETTER. 
 
 in any telling parts, trusted to the invention of 
 the workman : the result is highly satisfactory, 
 the projecting windows of the staircases heing 
 as beautiful in effect as anything I know 
 in civil Gothic : but far more may be accom- 
 plished for the building if the completion of its 
 carving be not hastened ; many men of high 
 artistic power might be brought to take an 
 interest in it, and various lessons and sugges- 
 tions given to the workmen which would 
 materially advantage the final decoration of 
 leading features. No very great Gothic build- 
 ing, so far as I know, was ever yet completed 
 without some of this wise deliberation and 
 fruitful patience. 
 
 "I was in hopes from the beginning that 
 the sculpture might have been rendered typi- 
 cally illustrative of the English Flora: how 
 far this idea has been as yet carried out I 
 do not know; but I know that it cannot 
 be properly carried out without a careful 
 
SCULPTURES OF FLORA. 55 
 
 examination of the available character of the 
 principal genera, such as architects have not 
 hitherto undertaken. The proposal which I 
 heard advanced the other day, of adding a bold 
 entrance-porch to the facade, appeared to me 
 every way full of advantage, the blankness of 
 the facade having been, to my mind, from the 
 first, a serious fault in the design. If a sub- 
 scription were opened for the purpose of erect- 
 ing one, I should think there were few persons 
 interested in modern art who would not be glad 
 to join in forwarding such an object. 
 
 " I think I could answer for some portions 
 of the design being superintended by the best 
 of our modern sculptors and painters; and I 
 believe that, if so superintended, the porch 
 might and would become the crowning beauty 
 of the building, and make all the difference 
 between its being only a satisfactory and 
 meritorious work, or a most lovely and 
 impressive one. 
 
56 LET GOTHIC OBSERVE ITS LAWS. 
 
 " The interior decoration is a matter of 
 much greater difficulty; perhaps you will 
 allow me to defer the few words I have to 
 say about it till I have time for another letter : 
 which, however, I hope to find speedily. 
 " Believe me, my dear Acland, 
 " Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 " J. RUSKIN." 
 
 The principles thus clearly enumerated by 
 Mr. Ruskin are, on the main, those that animate 
 'the earnest student of Gothic. It is not for me 
 especially to advocate Gothic Art, but only to 
 urge, that if called into life, it should be in con- 
 formity to its own proper laws of vitality. If, 
 week after week, in my youth, with fresh senses 
 and a docile spirit, I have drunk in each golden 
 glow that is poured by a Mediterranean sun 
 from over the blue iEgean upon the Athe- 
 nian Parthenon — if, day by day, sitting 
 on Mars' Hill, I have watched each purple 
 shadow, as the temple darkened in majesty 
 
LESSON OF THE PARTHENON. 57 
 
 against the evening sky — if so, it has been to 
 teach me, as the alphabet of all Art, to love all 
 truth and to hate all falsehood, and to kiss the 
 hand of every Master who has brought down, 
 under whatever circumstance, and in whatever 
 age, one spark of true light from the Beauty 
 and the subtle Law which stamp the meanest 
 work of the Everliving, Everworking, Artist 
 
 So, at least, here we have sought to hinder 
 all ornament, unless that ornament be free from 
 vicious carelessness ; and to stop all professing 
 transcript of Nature, unless it be painstaking, 
 sagacious, and honest. Herein, we owe just 
 debt of gratitude to the young school of Artists, 
 called, half in jest, Pre-RafFaelites. Genuine 
 Pre-Raffaelites lived but once. The yearning, 
 half-graceless simplicity which made RafFaelle 
 what he was, and which RafFaelle lived himself 
 to lose, is, nevertheless, no simplicity after 
 RafFaelle died. But faithful love of the Nature 
 of God, and power to select by our reason, and 
 
58 PRE-KAFFAELITES LIVED BUT ONCE. 
 
 by a cultivated mind, that which is fit for 
 human work, and which human skill can ac- 
 complish, is of all time — of our times, as well as 
 of the days of Giotto, or of the almost matchless 
 hand and heart of Van Eyck. Woe to us in 
 the judgment of posterity, if, knowingly, because 
 we care not, or unknowingly, because we see 
 not, we either will not work faithfully in our 
 Art ourselves, or cannot let others work who 
 will. Rather do as we have done — carve one 
 capital as well as we can, though that be feebly, 
 — and so cheer one human heart, that his love 
 in his daily work may be stamped on our and 
 his behalf for centuries, rather than varnish the 
 whole surface with endless design, which is too 
 coarse to be an imitation of natural objects, and 
 too mean and too often repeated, to be counted 
 within the range of Art. 
 
 This, then, we have desired in our area ; to 
 represent some natural objects as our best 
 workmen feel them ; to do a few well ; and to 
 
BE NOT HASTY TO FINISH. 59 
 
 wait for completion to a future day, when the 
 hewn blocks may be carved by the imagination, 
 or in the reality, as our children will. 
 
 I must now, for the present, bid you and the 
 Building farewell. With no wish to deprecate, 
 but rather earnestly desiring your thorough 
 criticism and your every counsel, I may still 
 remind you that though, perhaps, not fully 
 aware of the difficulties through which the 
 Museum has become what it is, you cannot 
 be more convinced of the imperfections which 
 partly circumstances, partly our common nature, 
 have stamped upon it, than are those who, for 
 many years, trod each step towards its erection, 
 before its Art was discussed, or even its Artist 
 named. 
 
30 
 
 SECOND LETTER FROM MR. RUSKIN. 
 
 My DEAR ACLAND, January 20, 1859. 
 
 I was not able to write, as I had hoped, 
 from Switzerland, for I found it impossible to 
 lay down any principles respecting the decora- 
 tion of the Museum which did not in one way 
 or other involve disputed points, too many, and 
 too subtle, to be discussed in a letter. Nor do 
 I feel the difficulty less in writing to you now, 
 so far as regards the question occurring in 
 our late conversations, respecting the best 
 mode of completing these interior decorations. 
 Yet I must write, if only to ask that I may 
 
NEED OP NEW KNOWLEDGE. 61 
 
 be in some way associated with you in what 
 you are now doing to bring the Museum more 
 definitely before the public mind — that I 
 may be associated at least in the expression 
 of my deep sense of the noble purpose of the 
 building — of the noble sincerity of effort in 
 its architect — of the endless good which the 
 teachings to which it will be devoted must, 
 in their ultimate issue, accomplish for man- 
 kind. How vast the range of that issue, you 
 have shown in the lecture which I have just 
 read, in which you have so admirably traced 
 the chain of the physical sciences as it en- 
 compasses the great concords of this visible 
 universe. But how deep the workings of 
 these new springs of knowledge are to be — 
 and how great our need of them — and how 
 far the brightness and the beneficence of them 
 are to reach among all the best interests of 
 men — perhaps none of us can yet conceive, 
 far less know or say. For, much as I reve- 
 
62 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 rence physical science as a means of mental 
 education (and you know how I have con- 
 tended for it, as such, now these twenty 
 years, from the sunny afternoon of spring 
 when Ehrenberg, and you, and I, went hunt- 
 ing for infusoria in Christclmrch meadow 
 streams, to the hour when the prize offered 
 by Sir Walter Trevelyan and yourself for 
 the best essay on the Fauna of that meadow, 
 marked the opening of a new era in English 
 education) — much, I say, as I reverence 
 physical science in this function, I reve- 
 rence it, at this moment, more as the source 
 of utmost human practical power, and the 
 means by which the far distant races of the 
 world, who now sit in darkness and the 
 shadow of death, are to be reached and 
 regenerated. At home or* far away — the call 
 is equally instant — here, for want of more 
 extended physical science, there is plague in 
 our streets, famine in our fields; the pest 
 
PRACTICAL POWER OF SCIENCE. 63 
 
 strikes root and fruit over a hemisphere of 
 the earth, we know not why; the voices of 
 our children fade away into silence of veno- 
 mous death, we know not why ; the population 
 of this most civilized country resists every 
 effort to lead it into purity of habit and 
 habitation, — to give it genuineness of nourish- 
 ment, and wholesomeness of air, as a new 
 interference with its liberty ; and insists voci- 
 ferously on its right to helpless death. All 
 this is terrible ; but it is more terrible yet 
 that dim, phosphorescent, frightful superstitions 
 still hold their own over two-thirds of the 
 inhabited globe; and that all the phenomena 
 of nature which were intended by the Creator 
 to enforce His eternal laws of love 'and judg- 
 ment, and which, rightly understood, enforce 
 them more strongly by their patient benefi- 
 cence, and their salutary destructiveness, than 
 the miraculous dew on Gideon's fleece, or 
 the restrained lightnings of Horeb — that all 
 
64 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 these legends of God's daily^ dealing with his 
 creatures remain unread, or are read back- 
 wards, into blind, hundred -armed horror of 
 idol cosmogony. 
 
 How strange it seems that physical science 
 should ever have been thought adverse to 
 religion. The pride of physical science is, 
 indeed, adverse, like every other pride, both 
 to religion and to truth ; but sincerity of 
 science, so far from being hostile, is the path- 
 maker among the mountains for the feet of 
 those who publish peace. 
 
 Now, therefore, and now only, it seems to 
 me, the University has become complete in her 
 function as a teacher of the youth of the 
 nation to which every hour gives wider 
 authority over distant lands ; and from which 
 every rood of extended dominion demands 
 new, various, and variously applicable know- 
 ledge of the laws which govern the constitu- 
 tion of the globe, and must finally regulate the 
 
NOBLE SCOPE OF THE MUSEUM. 
 
 65 
 
 industry, no less than discipline the intellect 
 of the human race. I can hardly turn my 
 mind from these deep causes of exultation to 
 the minor difficulties which beset or restrict 
 your undertaking. The great work is accom- 
 plished; the immediate impression made by it 
 is of little importance; and as for my own 
 special subjects of thought or aim, though 
 many of them are closely involved in what has 
 been done, and some principles which I believe 
 to be, in their way, of great importance, are 
 awkwardly compromised in what has been im- 
 perfectly done, — all these I am tempted to 
 waive, or content to compromise, when only I 
 know that the building is in main points fit for 
 its mighty work. Yet you will not think that 
 it was matter of indifference to me when I saw, 
 as I went over Professor Brodie's chemical labo- 
 ratories the other day, how closely this success 
 of adaptation was connected with the choice 
 of the style. It was very touching and won- 
 
66 MK. RUSKLN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 derful to me. Here was the architecture 
 which I had learned to know and love in pen- 
 sive ruins, deserted by the hopes and efforts 
 of men, or in dismantled fortress-fragments 
 recording only their cruelty; — here was this 
 very architecture lending itself, as if created 
 only for these, to the foremost activities of 
 human discovery, and the tenderest functions 
 of human mercy. No other architecture, as I 
 felt in an instant, could have thus adapted 
 itself to a new and strange office. No fixed 
 arrangements of frieze and pillar, nor accepted 
 proportions of wall and roof, nor practised 
 refinements of classical decoration, could have 
 otherwise than absurdly and fantastically 
 yielded its bed to the crucible, and its blast 
 to the furnace; but these old vaultings and 
 strong buttresses — ready always to do service 
 to man, whatever his bidding — to shake the 
 waves of war back from his seats of rock, or 
 prolong through faint twilights of sanctuary, 
 
GOTHIC ADAPTS ITSELF TO ALL PURPOSES. 67 
 
 the sighs of his superstition — he had but to ask 
 it of them, and they entered at once into the 
 lowliest ministries of the arts of healing, and 
 the sternest and clearest offices in the service 
 of science. 
 
 And the longer I examined the Museum 
 arrangements, the more I felt that it could be 
 only some accidental delay in the recognition 
 of this efficiency for its work, which had 
 caused any feeling adverse to its progress 
 among the members of the University. The 
 general idea about the Museum has perhaps 
 been, hitherto, that it is a forced endeavour 
 to bring decorative forms of architecture into 
 uncongenial uses — whereas, the real fact 
 is, as far as I can discern it, that no 
 other architecture would, under the required 
 circumstances, have been possible; and that 
 any effort to introduce classical types of form 
 into these laboratories and museums must 
 have ended in ludicrous discomfiture. But the 
 
 F 2 
 
68 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 building has now reached a point of crisis, 
 and it depends upon the treatment which its 
 rooms now receive in completion, whether the 
 facts of their propriety and utility be acknow- 
 ledged by the public, or lost sight of in the 
 distraction of their attention to matters wholly 
 external. 
 
 So strongly I feel this, that whatever means 
 of decoration had been at your disposal, I 
 should have been inclined to recommend an 
 exceeding reserve in that matter. Perhaps, I 
 should even have desired such reserve on 
 abstract grounds of feeling. The study of 
 Natural History is one eminently addressed to 
 the active energies of body and mind. Nothing 
 is to be got out of it by dreaming, not always 
 much by thinking — everything by seeking and 
 seeing. It is work for the hills and fields — 
 work of foot and hand, knife and hammer — so 
 far as it is to be afterwards carried on in the 
 house, the more active and workmanlike our 
 
GOTHIC ART, DIFFICULT ART. 69 
 
 proceedings the better, fresh air blowing in 
 from the windows, and nothing interfering with 
 the free space for our shelves and instruments 
 on the walls. I am not sure that much interior 
 imagery or colour, or other exciting address to 
 any of the observant faculties, would be desir- 
 able under such circumstances. You know 
 best ; but I should no more think of painting in 
 bright colours beside you, while you were dis- 
 secting or analysing, than of entertaining you 
 by a concert of fifes and cymbals. 
 
 But farther — do you suppose Gothic decora- 
 tion is an easy thing, or that it is to be carried 
 out with a certainty of success at the first trial 
 under new and difficult conditions ? The sys- 
 tem of the Gothic decorations took eight 
 hundred years to mature, gathering its power 
 by undivided inheritance of traditional method, 
 and unbroken accession of systematic power ; 
 from its culminating point in the Sainte 
 Chapelle, it faded through four hundred years 
 
70 ME,. EUSKTN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 of splendid decline ; now for two centuries it 
 has lain dead — and more than so — buried ; and 
 more than so, forgotten, as a dead man out of 
 mind ; do you expect to revive it out of those 
 retorts and furnaces of yours, as the cloud- 
 spirit of the Arabian sea rose from beneath 
 the seals of Solomon? Perhaps I have been 
 myself faultfully answerable for this too eager 
 hope in your mind (as well as in that of 
 others) by what I have urged so often re- 
 specting the duty of bringing out the power 
 of subordinate workmen in decorative design. 
 But do you think I meant workmen trained 
 (or untrained) in the way that ours have 
 been until lately, and then cast loose on a 
 sudden, into unassisted contention with un- 
 known elements of style? I meant the pre- 
 cise contrary of this ; I meant workmen as we 
 have yet to create them: men inheriting the 
 instincts of their craft through many genera- 
 tions, rigidly trained in every mechanical 
 
WORKMEN TO BE TRAINED. 
 
 71 
 
 art that bears on their materials, and fami- 
 liarised from infancy with every condition of 
 their beautiful and perfect treatment ; informed 
 and refined in manhood, by constant observa- 
 tion of all natural fact and form ; then classed, 
 according to their proved capacities, in ordered 
 companies, in which every man shall know his 
 part, and take it calmly, and without effort or 
 doubt — indisputably well — unaccusably accom- 
 plished — mailed and weaponed cap-a-pie for his 
 place and function. Can you lay your hand 
 on such men ? or do you think that mere 
 natural good-will and good-feeling can at 
 once supply their place? Not so — and the 
 more faithful and earnest the minds you have 
 to deal with, the more careful you should be 
 not to urge them towards fields of effort, in 
 which, too early committed, they can only be 
 put to unserviceable defeat. 
 
 Nor can you hope to accomplish, by rule or 
 system, what cannot be done by individual 
 
72 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 taste. The laws of colour are definable, up to 
 certain limits, but they are not yet defined. 
 So far are they from definition, that the last, 
 and, on the whole, best work on the subject 
 (Sir Gardner Wilkinson's) declares the " colour 
 concords " of preceding authors to be discords ; 
 and vice versa. 
 
 Much, therefore, as I love colour decoration 
 when it is rightly given, and essential as it has 
 been felt by the great architects of all periods 
 to the completion of their work, I would not, in 
 your place, endeavour to carry out such deco- 
 ration at present, in any elaborate degree, in 
 the interior of the Museum. Leave it for 
 future thought : above all, try no experiments. 
 Let small drawings be made of the proposed 
 arrangements of colour in every room ; have 
 them altered on the paper till you feel they are 
 right ; then carry them out firmly and simply ; 
 but, observe, with as delicate execution as 
 possible. Rough work is good in its place, 
 
ECONOMY UNFORTUNATE. 
 
 73 
 
 three hundred feet above the eye, on a cathe- 
 dral front, but not in the interior of rooms, 
 devoted to studies in which everything de- 
 pends upon accuracy of touch and keenness 
 of sight. 
 
 With respect to this finishing, by the last 
 touches bestowed on the sculpture of the 
 building, I feel painfully the harmfulness 
 of any ill-advised parsimony at this moment. 
 For it may, perhaps, be alleged by the ad- 
 vocates of retrenchment, that so long as the 
 building is fit for its uses (and your report 
 is conclusive as to its being so), economy 
 in treatment of external feature is perfectly 
 allowable, and will in no wise diminish the 
 serviceableness of the building in the great 
 objects which its designs regarded. To a cer- 
 tain extent this is true. You have comfortable 
 rooms, I hope sufficient apparatus ; and it now 
 depends much more on the professors than 
 on the ornaments of the building, whether or 
 
74 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 not it is to become a bright or obscure centre 
 of public instruction. Yet there are other 
 points to be considered. As the building 
 stands at present, there is a discouraging 
 aspect of parsimony about it. One sees that 
 the architect has done the utmost he could 
 with the means at his disposal, and that just 
 at the point of reaching what was right, he 
 has been stopped for want of funds. This 
 is visible in almost every stone of the edifice. 
 It separates it with broad distinctiveness from 
 all the other buildings in the University. It 
 may be seen at once that our other public insti- 
 tutions, and all our colleges — though some of 
 them simply designed — are yet richly built, 
 never pinchingly. Pieces of princely cost- 
 liness, every here and there, mingle among 
 the simplicities or severities of the student's 
 life. What practical need, for instance, have 
 we at Christchurch of the beautiful fan-vaulting 
 under which we ascend to dine ? We might 
 
RICHNESS OF WORK A SIGN OF REGARD. 75 
 
 have as easily achieved the eminence of our 
 banquets under a plain vault. What need 
 have the readers in the Bodleian of the ribbed 
 traceries which decorate its external walls ? 
 Yet, which of those readers would not think 
 that learning was insulted by their removal? 
 And are there any of the students of Balliol 
 devoid of gratitude for the kindly munificence 
 of the man who gave them the beautiful sculp- 
 tured brackets of their oriel window, when 
 three massy projecting stones would have 
 answered the purpose just as well? In these 
 and all other regarded and pleasant portions 
 of our colleges, we find always a wealthy and 
 worthy completion of all appointed features, 
 which I believe is not without strong, though 
 untraced effect, on the minds of the younger 
 scholars, giving them respect for the branches 
 of learning which these buildings are intended 
 to honour, and increasing, in a certain degree, 
 that sense of the value of delicacy and accu- 
 
76 ME. EUSKIN'S SECOND LETTEE. 
 
 racy which is the first conditon of advance in 
 those branches of learning themselves. 
 
 Your Museum, if you now bring it to 
 hurried completion, will convey an impression 
 directly the reverse of this. It will have the 
 look of a place, not where a revered system of 
 instruction is established, but where an unad- 
 vised experiment is being disadvantageously 
 attempted. It is yet in your power to avoid 
 this, and to make the edifice as noble in aspect 
 as in function. Whatever chance there may be 
 of failure in interior work, rich ornamentation 
 may be given, without any chance of failure, 
 to just that portion of the exterior which will 
 give pleasure to every passer-by, and express 
 the meaning of the building best to the eyes 
 of strangers. There is, I repeat, no chance of 
 serious failure in this external decoration, 
 because your architect has at his command the 
 aid of men, such as worked with the architects 7 
 of past times. Not only has the art of Gothic 
 
SCULPTURE OUR BEST ORNAMENT. 77 
 
 sculpture in part remained, though that of 
 Gothic colour has been long lost, but the 
 unselfish — and I regret to say, in part self- 
 sacrificing — zeal of two first-rate sculptors, 
 Mr. Munro and Mr. Woolner, which has 
 already given you a series of noble statues, 
 is still at your disposal to head and systematise 
 the efforts of inferior workmen. 
 
 I do not know if you will attribute it to a 
 higher estimate than yours of the genius of 
 the O'Shea family, or to a lower estimate of 
 what they have as yet accomplished, that I 
 believe they will, as they proceed, produce 
 much better ornamental sculpture than any at 
 present completed in the Museum. It is also 
 to be remembered that sculptors are able to 
 work for us with a directness of meaning which 
 none of our painters could bring to their task, 
 even were they disposed to help us. A painter 
 is scarcely excited to his strength, but by sub- 
 jects full of circumstance, such as it would 
 
78 MR. ruskln's second letter. 
 
 be difficult to suggest appropriately in the 
 present building; but a sculptor lias room 
 enough for his full power, in the portrait 
 statues, which are necessarily the leading- 
 features of good Gothic decoration. Let me 
 pray you, therefore, so far as you have influ- 
 ence with the delegacy, to entreat their favour- 
 able consideration of the project stated in Mr. 
 Greswell's appeal, the enrichment of the door- 
 way, and the completion of the sculpture of 
 the West Front. There is a reason for 
 desiring such a plan to be carried out, of 
 wider reach than any bearing on the interests 
 of the Museum itself. I believe that the eleva- 
 tion of all arts in England to their true dignity, 
 depends principally on our recovering that 
 unity of purpose in sculptors and architects, 
 which characterised the designers of all great 
 Christian buildings. Sculpture, separated from 
 architecture, always degenerates into effemi- 
 nacies and conceits ; architecture, stripped of 
 
COMMEMORATIVE STATUES. 79 
 
 sculpture, is at best a convenient arrangement j 
 of dead walls ; associated, they not only adorn, 
 but reciprocally exalt each other, and give to 
 all the arts of the country in winch they thus 
 exist, a correspondent tone of majesty. 
 
 But I would plead for the enrichment of 
 this doorway by portrait sculpture, not so 
 much even on any of these important grounds, 
 as because it would be the first example in 
 modern English architecture of the real value 
 and right place of commemorative statues. 
 We seem never to know at present where to 
 put such statues. In the midst of the blighted 
 trees of desolate squares, or at the crossings of 
 confused streets, or balanced on the pinnacles 
 of pillars, or riding across the tops of triumphal 
 arches, or blocking up the aisles of cathedrals, 
 in none of these positions, I think, does the 
 portrait statue answer its purpose. It may be 
 a question whether the erection of such statues 
 is honourable to the erectors, but assuredly it is 
 
80 MR. EUSKIN'S SECOND LETTEE. 
 
 not honourable to the persons whom it pretends 
 to commemorate; nor is it anywise matter of 
 exultation to a man who has deserved well of 
 his country, to reflect that his effigy may one 
 day encumber a crossing, or disfigure a park 
 gate. But there is no man of worth or heart, 
 who would not feel it a high and priceless 
 reward that his statue should be placed where 
 it might remind the youth of England of what 
 had been* exemplary in his life, or useful in his 
 labours, and might be regarded with no empty 
 reverence, no fruitless pensiveness, but with 
 the emulative, eager, unstinted passionateness 
 of honour, which youth pays to the dead leaders 
 of the cause it loves, or discoverers of the light 
 by which it lives. To be buried under weight 
 of marble, or with splendour of ceremonial, is 
 still no more than burial ; but to be remem- 
 bered daily, with profitable tenderness, by the 
 activest intelligences of the nation we have 
 served, and to have power granted even to the 
 
PORTRAITURE OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 81 
 
 shadows of tlie poor features, sunk into dust, 
 still to warn, to animate, to command, as the 
 father's brow rules and exalts the toil of his 
 children. This is not burial, but immor- 
 tality. 
 
 There is, however, another kind of portrai- 
 ture, already richly introduced in the works of 
 the Museum ; the portraiture, namely, of flowers 
 and animals, respecting which I must ask you 
 to let me say a few selfish, no less than congra- 
 tulatory words : — selfish, inasmuch as they bear 
 on this visible exposition of a principle which 
 it has long been one of my most earnest aims 
 to maintain. We English call ourselves a prac- 
 tical people; but, nevertheless, there are some 
 of our best and most general instincts which 
 it takes us half-centuries to put into practice. 
 Probably no educated Englishman or English- 
 woman has ever, for the last forty years, 
 visited Scotland, with leisure on their hands, 
 without making a pilgrimage to Melrose ; nor 
 
 a 
 
82 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 have they ever, I suppose, accomplished the 
 pilgrimage without singing to themselves the 
 burden of Scott's description of the Abbey. 
 Nor in that description (may it not also be 
 conjectured ?) do they usually feel any couplets 
 more deeply than the — 
 
 " Spreading herbs and flowerets bright 
 Glistened with the dew of night. 
 No herb nor floweret glistened there 
 But was carved in the cloister arches as fair." 
 
 And yet, though we are raising every year in 
 England new examples of every kind of costly 
 and variously intended buildings — ecclesias- 
 tical, civil, and domestic — none of us, through 
 all that period, had boldness enough to put 
 the pretty couplets into simple practice. We 
 went on, even in the best Gothic work we 
 attempted, clumsily copying the rudest orna- 
 ments of previous buildings ; we never so 
 much as dreamed of learning from the monks 
 of Melrose, and seeking for help beneath the 
 
MONKS OF MELROSE. 
 
 83 
 
 dew that sparkled on their " gude kail " 
 garden.* 
 
 Your Museum at Oxford is literally the first 
 building raised in England since the close of 
 the fifteenth century, which has fearlessly put 
 to new trial this old faith in nature, and in the 
 genius of the unassisted workman, who gathered 
 out of nature the materials he needed. I am 
 entirely glad, therefore, that you have decided 
 on engraving for publication one of O'Shea's 
 capitals ; f it will be a complete type of the 
 whole work, in its inner meaning, and far 
 better to show one of them in its completeness, 
 than to give any reduced sketch of the build- 
 
 * " The monks of Melrose made good kail 
 On Friday, when they fasted." 
 
 The kail leaf is the one principally employed in the 
 decorations of the abhey. 
 
 f See vignette title-page. The capital represents the 
 following ferns : — 
 
 Scolopendrium vulgare, 
 Blechnum boreale. 
 Filix mas. 
 
84 MR. RUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 ing. Nevertheless, beautiful as that capital is, 
 and as all the rest of O'Shea's work is likely to 
 be, it is not yet perfect Gothic sculpture ; and 
 it might give rise to dangerous error, if the 
 admiration given to these carvings were unqua- 
 lified. 
 
 I cannot, of course, enter in this letter into 
 any discussion of the question, more and more 
 vexed among us daily, respecting the due 
 meaning and scope of conventionalism in treat- 
 ment of natural form ; but I may state briefly 
 what, I trust, will be the conclusion to which 
 all this "vexing" will at last lead our best 
 architects. 
 
 The highest art in all kinds is that which 
 conveys the most truth, and the best ornamen- 
 tation possible would be the painting of interior 
 walls with frescoes by Titian, representing per- 
 fect Humanity in colour ; and the sculpture of 
 exterior walls by Phidias, representing perfect 
 Humanity in form. Titian and Phidias are 
 
NATURALISM AND CONVENTIONALISM. 85 
 
 precisely alike in their conception and treat- 
 ment of nature — everlasting standards of the 
 right. 
 
 Beneath ornamentation, such as men like 
 these could bestow, falls in various rank, ac- 
 cording to its subordination to vulgar uses or 
 inferior places, what is commonly conceived as 
 ornamental art. The lower its office, and the 
 less tractable its material, the less of nature it 
 should contain, until a zig-zag becomes the best 
 ornament for the hem of a robe, and a mosaic 
 of bits of glass, the best design for a coloured 
 window. But all these forms of lower art are 
 to be conventional only because they are 
 subordinate : — not because conventionalism is 
 in itself a good or desirable thing. All right 
 conventionalism is a wise acceptance of, and 
 compliance with, conditions of restraint or infe- 
 riority ; — it may be inferiority of our know- 
 ledge or power — as in the art of a semi-savage 
 nation; or restraint l>y reason of material — as 
 
86 MR. RUSKLN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 in the way the glass painter should restrict 
 himself to transparent hue, and a sculptor 
 deny himself the eyelash and the film of 
 flowing hair, which he cannot cut in marble ; — 
 but in all cases whatever, right convention- 
 alism is either a wise acceptance of an inferior 
 place, or a noble display of power under 
 accepted limitation : it is not an improvement 
 of natural form into something better or purer 
 than Nature herself. 
 
 Now this great and most precious principle 
 may be compromised in two quite opposite 
 ways. It is compromised on one side, when 
 men suppose that the degradation of a natural 
 form which fits it for some subordinate place is 
 an improvement of it ; and that a black profile 
 on a red ground, because it is proper on a 
 water -jug, is therefore an idealization of 
 Humanity, and nobler art than a picture of 
 Titian. And it is compromised equally gravely 
 on the opposite side, when men refuse to sub- 
 
GOTHIC KEVIVAL STILL INCOMPLETE. 87 
 
 mit to the limitation of material and the fitnesses 
 of office ; — when they try to produce finished 
 pictures in coloured glass, or substitute the in- 
 considerate imitation of natural objects for the 
 perfectness of adapted and disciplined design. 
 
 There is a tendency in the work of the 
 Oxford Museum to err on this last side; un- 
 avoidable, indeed, in the present state of our 
 art-knowledge — and less to be regretted in a 
 building devoted to natural science than in any 
 other : nevertheless, I cannot close this letter 
 without pointing it out, and warning the general 
 reader against supposing that the ornamentation 
 of the Museum is, or can be as yet, a repre- 
 sentation of what Gothic work will be, when its 
 revival is complete. Far more severe, yet more 
 perfect and lovely, that work will involve, 
 under sterner conventional restraint, the expres- 
 sion not only of natural form, but of all vital 
 and noble natural law. For the truth of 
 decoration is never to be measured by its imi- 
 
88 MR. BUSKIN'S SECOND LETTEE. ■ 
 
 tative power, but by its suggestive and infor- 
 mative power. In the annexed spandril of the 
 iron-work of our roof, for instance, the horse- 
 chesnut leaf and nut are used as the principal 
 elements of form : they are not ill-arranged, 
 and produce a more agreeable effect than con- 
 volutions of the iron could have given, unhelped 
 by any reference to natural objects. Neverthe- 
 less, I do not call it an absolutely good design ; 
 for it would have been possible, with far severer 
 conventional treatment of the iron bars, and 
 stronger constructive arrangement of them, to 
 have given vigorous expression, not of the shapes 
 of leaves and nuts only, but of their peculiar 
 radiant or fanned expansion, and other condi- 
 tions of group and growth in the tree; which 
 would have been just the more beautiful and 
 interesting, as they would have arisen from 
 deeper research into nature, and more adaptive 
 modifying power in the designer's mind, than 
 the mere leaf termination of a rivetted scroll. 
 
90 ME. EUSKIN'S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 I am compelled to name these deficiencies, in 
 order to prevent misconception of the principles 
 we are endeavouring to enforce ; but I do not 
 name them as at present to be avoided, or even 
 much to be regretted. They are not chargeable 
 either on the architect, or on the subordinate 
 workmen ; but only on the system winch has for 
 three centuries withheld all of us from healthy 
 study ; and although I doubt not that lovelier 
 and juster expressions of the Gothic principle 
 will be ultimately arrived at by us, than any 
 which are possible in the Oxford Museum, its 
 builders will never lose their claim to our chief 
 gratitude, as the first guides in a right direc- 
 tion ; and the building itself — the first exponent 
 of the recovered truth — will only be the more 
 venerated the more it is excelled. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Acland, 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 J. RlTSKIN. 
 
93 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 LETTER FROM PROFESSOR PHILLIPS. 
 My DEAR ACLAND, Oxford, Jan. 21, 1859. 
 
 I lose no time in stating very concisely 
 the purpose we had in view, when it was pro- 
 posed to place shafts of British marbles in the 
 corridors of the Museum, and to crown them 
 with capitals of natural objects. A few 
 words are appended to show in what degree 
 we are able to effect the object, and the 
 method on which we proceed. 
 
 The British marbles are still only partially 
 known. Including in the term marbles some- 
 thing more than the " marmora" of our early 
 mineralogists, and including granitic rocks, 
 serpentines, &c, we desired to obtain specimens 
 of all the more important kinds — important 
 
94 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 on grounds of scientific interest, as well as 
 for their commercial value and architectural 
 utility. Here and there our efforts failed ; we 
 could not "for love or money" get the stone 
 we wanted ; but on the whole our success is 
 much beyond any previous example in this, 
 and, I believe, in any country. 
 
 In the arrangement of the many valuable 
 and curious examples of polishable stones, 
 which the liberality of our friends has enabled 
 us to bring together, we have always desired to 
 employ so much of system as to make these 
 ornamental parts of the fabric really and 
 obviously useful, as a part of the exhibition 
 of natural objects. Regarding the rocks as 
 of aqueous or igneous origin, and of unequal 
 geological date, we wished to exhibit these 
 relations in our building, by giving to each 
 group an appropriate place. It was found, 
 after great efforts, possible to accomplish this 
 to a considerable extent, but not quite so 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR PHILLIPS. 95 
 
 perfectly as was hoped. The principal reason 
 is that we could not obtain certain marbles 
 known 150 and more years since, to complete 
 our series of mesozoic limestones. 
 
 If now you will stand in the centre of 
 the great court, and turn your eyes to the 
 west, " solis ad occasum" you will see, in the 
 lower range of shafts, six fine examples of 
 granite and its twin brother syenite. First, 
 on the left, Aberdeen gray granite, sur- 
 mounted by the sculptured capital of Alis- 
 maceous plants ; next, Aberdeen red granite, 
 crowned by the Butomaceae ; then the largely 
 porphyritic gray granite of Lamorna, with a 
 capital of the date palm. On the other side 
 of the entrance, 5 stands my special column of 
 syenite from Charnwood Forest, with the 
 cocoa-palm for its crown ; then the beautiful 
 mottled granite of Cruachan, elaborated for us 
 by the Marquis of Breadalbane, the capital 
 being Pontederaceoe ; and finally, the red granite 
 
96 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 of Ross in Mull, the gift of the Duke of Argyll, 
 whose capital is Liliaceous. 
 
 I don't at all intend to lead you so slowly 
 round the remainder of the quadrangle. On 
 the north you see eight shafts, all from Ireland 
 or Devonshire, all belonging to palaeozoic, 
 stratified, or metamorphic rocks. At the ex- 
 treme are the beautiful marbles of Torquay 
 and Marychurch — between them the green 
 serpentinous marbles of Gal way, and red and 
 black tinted limestones of Cork, Limerick, &c. 
 The capitals will be Acotyledonous — (see the 
 splendid fern sculpture above Marychurch 
 shaft) — or Monocotyledonous, as Grammese, 
 Acoracese, &c. 
 
 Now turn to the east, and behold a second 
 set of igneous and metamorphic rocks, to face 
 the old granites and porphyries. Here, on 
 the left (next to Marychurch column) you see 
 your own Killerton rock (ancient — how 
 ancient !) lava, crowned with Zamiacese, from 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR PHILLIPS. 97 
 
 which peeps the Didelphys ; next the Rock of 
 Trerice, its capital will be a thorny Zamia ; 
 then Roche gives a shaft to be capped by 
 Cupressinse ; next are two serpentines with 
 capitals of Abietinse and Araucarinse ; Inverara 
 porphyry follows, and supports sculptured 
 branches of Taxacea?. St. Leven's porphyry 
 and black serpentine complete this series, and 
 are to bear on their heads plants of the orders 
 Smilacese and Dioscoracese. 
 
 On the south, you have a beautiful and 
 pretty well known series of English and Welsh 
 marbles, mostly of the carboniferous limestone, 
 but including what are less commonly seen, 
 the breccia of Mendip and the gypsum of 
 Chellaston. The plants destined to furnish 
 capitals for these are the Monocotyledonous 
 orders, as Orchidaceae, Musacese, Iridaceae, &c. 
 
 Thus have we thirty shafts of the larger 
 size placed, with their thirty capitals executed 
 or planned. Besides the thirty capitals we 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 have to provide sixty corbels, and are doing 
 this so as to add to each capital a neighbour 
 bearing some natural affinity to it. Only in 
 one instance has this been departed from ; it 
 is in the corbel of the Malvaceae close by the 
 Filices — a case of two quite different groups 
 wonderfully executed, and looking at each other 
 with mutual admiration ! 
 
 Now, ascend to the upper corridor, and 
 survey the smaller shafts, to the number of 
 ninety-six, which appear on its four sides. As 
 yet no capitals are carved on them. Beginning 
 on the west side, and following the same order 
 as for the shafts below, you find the whole 
 corridor (twenty -four shafts) occupied by 
 granite, porphyry, serpentine, &c. Among 
 them are granites of Aberdeen, Criffel, and 
 Cornwall — porphyritic granites of remarkable 
 richness (often called porphyry), elvans, por- 
 phyries, and various quartzose compounds. 
 
 The capitals for these shafts will be all 
 
LETTER PROM PROFESSOR PHILLIPS. 99 
 
 selected from the Corolliflorous division of 
 Dicotyledonous plants. 
 
 The northern upper corridor is wholly filled 
 with marbles from the carboniferous limestone 
 and older rocks of Ireland, including the ser- 
 pentine of Galway. The capitals will exem- 
 plify Monochlamydeous plants and Rhizanths. 
 
 On the western side the series of shafts is 
 varied. It was not found possible to obtain 
 for this side all the marbles formerly known 
 and used in the Oolitic and Wealden districts 
 of England ; and some of the bays have been 
 filled with other rocks which it was desirable 
 to exhibit. At the extremities we have from 
 Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Somerset- 
 shire, specimens of the Permian limestones, 
 triassic breccia, and gypsum — in the centre are 
 granites of Jersey and Cornwall — flanked by 
 columns of slate and shafts of lias, blue and 
 white ; marbles of Purbeck, Stamford, and 
 Buckingham. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 The capitals of these shafts will be designed 
 from the Thalamiflorous division of the Dicoty- 
 ledonous plants. 
 
 Lastly, on the south side is a series of the 
 finest rocks belonging to the carboniferous and 
 Devonian limestones of England and Wales, 
 including the crinoidal marble of Dent (the 
 birthplace of Sedgwick, who gives the shaft), 
 the various marbles of Durham, Derbyshire, 
 Plymouth, Torquay, Anglesea, and South 
 Wales. It will be interesting to compare 
 these with the coeval rocks of Ireland, which 
 stand opposite to them. The capitals of these 
 will be ornamented by Calyciflorous Dicoty- 
 ledons. 
 
 Thus, as far as possible, the representations 
 of plants (varied here and there by animals 
 geographically and naturally associated with 
 them), will be placed, with so much of system 
 as to help the memory, and will be sculptured 
 with so much attention to their natural habit, 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR PHILLIPS. 101 
 
 as to satisfy the botanist as well as the artist, 
 neither of whom can expect the most skilful 
 human hand to express in rough stone, by means 
 of hard steel, all the delicacy and grace which, 
 with finer materials and by finer processes, the 
 Gkeat Artificer moulds the lilies of the field 
 and the leaves of the forest, 
 
 I need not remind you that with this view of 
 the utility and meaning of the arrangement of 
 our subjects, the architects (who have been very 
 zealous in their efforts to make the whole suc- 
 cessful) have been always able to combine what 
 is due to the building as a work of art ; nor am 
 I aware that their opinions and ours have been 
 in the least degree difficult to reconcile. We 
 must not forget the sculptors, who have worked 
 with singular zeal and ability. Finally, this 
 is not a haphazard collection of pretty stones 
 crowned by pretty flowers, but a selection of 
 marbles and sculptures, intended to illustrate 
 points of some interest and importance in 
 
102 APPENDIX A. 
 
 science and art. Upon the whole, you will 
 probably not regret to have given so much 
 time and attention to this matter ; all that is 
 told me confirms my own opinion that it was 
 well worth while to make this trial to combine 
 grace with utility, and that the result will not 
 be disappointing to those who have given us 
 money for our work, and, what is more pre- 
 cious, their full confidence that we should use 
 it with liberality and prudence. 
 
 Ever yours truly, 
 
 John Phillips. 
 
103 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 CONTRIBUTORS TO THE SCULPTURES IN THE 
 MUSEUM. 
 
 1. Statues Presented. 
 
 Statues — 1: 
 
 £70 to £100 each. Donors - 
 Bacon Her Majesty the Queen. 
 
 Galileo Ditto. 
 
 Newton Ditto. 
 
 Leibnitz Ditto. 
 
 Oersted , Ditto. 
 
 Aristotle Bachelors and Undergraduates 
 
 of the University. 
 
 Hippocrates J. Buskin, Esq., Senior. 
 
 Cuvier Bachelors and Undergraduates 
 
 of the University. 
 
 Davy Marquis of Lothian, M.A. 
 
 Linnaeus The Rev. F. W. Hope, D.C.L., 
 
 F.R.S. 
 
 Watt M. P. W. Boulton, Esq. 
 
104 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 2. Donors of Shafts costing £5 and upwards. 
 
 Acland, Sir Thomas D., Bart., M.A., D.C.L. 
 Acland, H. W., M.D., F.R.S., Eegius Professor of 
 
 Medicine. 
 Architects of the Building. 
 Argyll, his Grace the Duke of, F.R.S. 
 Breadalbane, the most Hon. the Marquis of. 
 Brodie, Sir B., Bart., D.C.L., F.R.S. 
 Butler, Rev. George, M.A. 
 
 Chase, Rev. D. P., M.A., Principal of St. Mary 
 Hall. 
 
 Cotton, William, Esq., F.R.S., D.C.L. 
 
 Daubeny, G. C. B.,M.D., Professor of Botany, F.R.S. 
 
 Davy, James, Esq. 
 
 Deane, Lady. 
 
 Emlyn, Viscount. 
 
 Gladstone, Mrs. W. E. 
 
 Glynne, Sir S., Bart. 
 
 Gordon, Rev. O., B.D. 
 
 Greswell, Rev. R., B.D. 
 
 Lemon, Sir Charles, Bart., F.R.S. 
 
 LyeU, Sir Charles, D.C.L., F.R.S. 
 
 Murchison, Sir R. I., D.C.L., F.R.S. 
 
 Nelson, Rev. G. M., B.D. 
 
 Phillips, John, M.A., F.R.S., Pres. Geol. S., Reader 
 in Geology, Keeper of the Museum. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 105 
 
 Plumptre, Rev. F. C, D.D., Master of University 
 College. 
 
 Price, Eev. B., M.A., F.R.S., Sedleian Reader in 
 
 Natural Philosophy. 
 Prout, Rev. T. S., M.A., F.G.S. 
 Richmond, T., Esq. 
 Sedgwick, Rev. Professor, F.R.S. 
 Shirley, Rev. W. W., M.A. 
 Spiers, Mr. Alderman. 
 Stokes, Rev. E., M.A. 
 
 Storey-Maskelyne, H. M. N., M.A., Reader in 
 
 Mineralogy. 
 Trevelyan, Sir W. C, Bart., M.A. 
 Tyrwhitt, Rev. R. St. J., M.A. 
 Valletort, Viscount. 
 Vivian, Edward, Esq. 
 
 Walker, Rev. R., M.A., F.R.S., Reader in Experi- 
 mental Philosophy. 
 Wall, Rev. M. S., M.A. 
 
 Wellesley, Rev. H., D.D., Principal of New-Inn Hall. 
 Williams, Rev. D., D.C.L., Warden of New College. 
 Williams, Penry, Esq. 
 Wilson, E. T., Esq. 
 Wingfield, Mrs., Oxford. 
 Wood, Rev. H. H., M.A., F.G.S. 
 
106 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 3. Donors of Capitals, £5 to £10 each. 
 
 Acland, T. D., Esq., M.A., D.C.L. 
 Acland, H. W., M.D., 
 Architects of the Building. 
 
 Buckland, the Very Rev. W., D.D., Dean of West- 
 minster. 
 Butler, Eev. G., M,A. 
 Chambers, T. K., M.D. 
 Christ Church, the Chaplains of. 
 Cotton, W., Esq. D.C.L. 
 Daubeny, C. G. B., M.D., F.R.S. 
 Gladstone, Mrs. W. E. 
 Glynne, Rev. H. 
 Greswell, Rev. R., B.D. 
 Nelson, Rev. G. M., B.D. 
 Simpson, Rev. S. 
 Spiers, Mrs. R. J., Oxford. 
 Stokes, Rev. E., M.A. 
 Trevelyan, Sir W. C, Bart., M.A. 
 Trevelyan, Lady, Wallington. 
 Wood, Rev. H. H., M.A., F.G.S. 
 O'Shea, James, workman in the Building. 
 
 4. Donors of other Decorations. 
 
 (a) Windows. 
 John Ruskin, Esq., M.A., £300 towards carving the 
 windows of the Front. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 107 
 
 (J) Inscriptions, £2 2s. each. 
 
 Dr. Acland. 
 
 Christ Church, the Chaplains of. 
 
 Pusey, Rev. E. B., D.D., Eegius Professor of Hebrew. 
 
 Troyte, A. H., Esq., M.A. 
 
 Wingfield, Mrs., Oxford. 
 
 (c) Completing the Doorway and the Sculptures 
 of the West Front. 
 
 The Rev. the Vice-Chancellor. 
 
 The Rev. the Warden of New College. 
 
 The Very Rev. the Dean of Christ Church. 
 
 The Rev. the Master of University. 
 
 The Rev. the Principal of B. N. C. 
 
 Dr. Daubeny. 
 
 Dr. Acland. 
 
 Professor Brodie. 
 
 J. H. Langston, Esq., M.P., Sarsden. 
 John Ruskin, Esq., Christ Church. 
 Rev. Richard Greswell. 
 George Gilbert Scott, Esq. 
 Mrs. William White, Oxford. 
 Mrs. Wingfield, Oxford. 
 Frederick J. Morrell, Esq., Oxford. 
 J. O. Westwood, Esq. , Oxford. 
 J. H. Parker, Esq., Oxford. 
 H. J. S. Smith, Esq., Balliol. 
 
108 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 The Eev. Professor Price. 
 
 Jame3 Saunders, Esq. 
 
 "William Turner, Esq., Oxford. 
 
 Eev. W. Chambers, "Worcester College. 
 
 The Architects. 
 
 Sir W. C. Trevelyan. 
 
 Lady Trevelyan. 
 
 Godfrey Lushington, Esq., M.A., All Souls'. 
 Vernon Lushington, Esq., Trin. Coll., Cambridge. 
 
 5. Subscribers of sums to be placed at the 
 disposal of the Sub-Delegacy, for the Orna- 
 mentation of the Building. 
 
 Derby, the Earl of, Chancellor of the University. 
 Agar, Hon. G. C, Christ Church. 
 Alcock, Rev. C, Adderbury Vicarage, Oxfordshire. 
 Bandon, the Earl of. 
 
 Barrow, Eev. J., D.D., Prin. of St. Edmund Hall. 
 Benson, Mrs., Teddington Manor. 
 Blatch, Eev. J. 
 
 Branthwaite, Eev. J., Queen's College. 
 
 Brydges, Sir H. J. J., Bart. 
 
 Church, Eev. E. W., Wbatley, Frome. 
 
 Conybeare, Eev. C. E., Itchen Stoke, Hants. 
 
 Downes, Eev. E., Sunden, near Luton, Bedfordshire. 
 
 Duncan, P. B., Esq., Bath. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 109 
 
 Estcourt, T. G. B., Esq. 
 Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., M.P. 
 Harrison, Rev. Michael, Langford Steeple, Wiltshire. 
 Harrowby, the Earl of, F.R.S. 
 Heathcote, Sir W., Bart., D.C.L., M.P. 
 Inglis, the Right Hon. Sir Robert H, Bart., D.C.L., 
 F.R.S. 
 
 James, Rev. John, Queen's College. 
 
 Jesus College, Members of. 
 
 Jones, W., Esq., Pembroke College. 
 
 Lloyd, Rev. H, D.C.L., F.R.S., Dublin. 
 
 Marriott, Rev. C, Oriel College. 
 
 Marshall, Rev. G., Pyrton, Tetsworth. 
 
 Martyn, Rev. F., Ludger shall Rectory, Thame. 
 
 Merton College, Undergraduates of. 
 
 Muir, Dr. 
 
 Murley, Rev. C, Hilperton, Wiltshire. 
 
 Ormerod, W., Esq. 
 
 Palmer, Rev. E., Balliol College. 
 
 Pullen, C. W., Esq., Youngsbury, Ware. 
 
 Robinson, Sir John, D.C.L. 
 
 Rothwell, R. R., Esq., M.A., Brasenose College. 
 
 Sclater, P. L., Esq., M.A., Corpus Christi College. 
 
 Shann, Rev. T., York. 
 
 Skrine, Rev. H, Sunbury, Middlesex. 
 
 Smith, Rev. H. R., Brasenose College. 
 
 Smith, W. P., Esq. 
 
110 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Staniforth, Rev. T., Bolton-by-Bolland, Yorkshire. 
 Sutherland, A. J., M.D., 6, Richmond-terrace, 
 
 Whitehall. 
 Symonds, Frederick, Esq., Oxford. 
 Tate, Rev. F., Vicarage, Axminster, Devon. 
 Traherne, Rev. J. M., Coedriglan, Glamorganshire. 
 Tucker, Rev. J., West Hendred, Berks. 
 Tweed, Rev. J. P., Exeter College. 
 Williams, R., Esq., Bridehead, Dorchester. 
 Wilson, Rev. H. B., Great Staughton Vicarage, 
 
 Hunts. 
 Acland, Rev. Leopold. 
 Beale, Professor, F.R.S. 
 Blencowe, Robert, Esq. 
 Bull, Rev. Dr., Ch. Ch. 
 Cavendish, H. G., Esq. 
 Ellerton, Rev. Dr., Magdalen College. 
 Hawkins, Rev. Dr., Provost of Oriel College. 
 Herbert, W. Esq., Oxford. 
 
 Jacobson, Rev. Dr., Ch. Ch., Regius Professor of 
 Divinity. 
 
 Macbride, Dr., Principal of Magdalen Hall. 
 Queen's College, Members of. 
 Thomson, Guy, Esq., Oxford. 
 
Ill 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 SOME OF THE STATUES STILL REQUIRED. 
 Ancients. 
 
 Archimedes Euclid Hipparchus 
 
 Pliny. 
 
 Moderns. 
 
 Copernicus, Franklin, Fresnel, Herschel, Huygens, 
 Kepler, Lagrange, Laplace, Volta. 
 
 Black, Cavendish, Dalton, Lavoisier, Priestley, 
 Stephenson. 
 
 Bell, Haller, Harvey, Hunter, Jussieu, Ray, 
 Sydenham. 
 
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