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 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
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 1883 
 
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I 
 
THE 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS 
 
 OF 
 
 ARCH ITECTURE. 
 
Plate IX 
 
 IRACERY FROM THf: CA M RAN 1 LE OF GIOTTO , 
 al y-lorencf 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/sevenlampsofarchrusk 
 
THE 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS 
 
 OF 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND 
 
 HONORARY FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN, 
 
 - SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 
 
 1883. 
 
CHISWICK FHESb :— C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COUKT, 
 CHANCERY LANE. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 I find that, by grotesque mischance, the new preface takes 
 no notice of my reason for printing some passages in the book 
 in a larger type, and numbering them as "aphorisms." If 
 the reader will attend to them, he will find their serviceableness 
 and security justify this preference ; and, these being first well 
 understood, the rest of the book will become also lucid and 
 cogent : — else it might be taken for a mere mist of fine words, 
 and read — practically — in vain. 
 
 Brantwood, Coniston. 
 May 26ili, 1880. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE EDITION OF iSSo. 
 
 I NEVER intended to have republished this book, which has be- 
 come the most useless I ever wrote ; the buildingfs it describes 
 with so much delight being now either knocked down, or scraped 
 and patched up into smugness and smoothness more tragic than 
 uttermost ruin. 
 
 But I find the public still like the book — and will read it, when 
 they won't look at what would be really useful and helpful to 
 them ; — and as the germ of what I have since written is indeed 
 here, — however overlaid with gilding, and overshot, too splashily 
 and cascade-fashion, with gushing of words, — here it is given 
 again in the old form ; all but some pieces of rabid and utterly 
 false Protestantism, which are cut out from text and appendix 
 alike, and may serve still to give the old editions some value 
 yet, in the eyes of book collectors and persons studious (as the 
 modern reviewing mind mostly is — to its large profit) of mistakes 
 in general. 
 
 The quite first edition, with the original plates, will always, I 
 venture to say, bear a high price in the market ; for its etchings 
 were not only, every line of them, by my own hand, but bitten 
 
VI PREFACE TO 
 
 also, (the last of them in my washhand basin at " La Cloche" of 
 Dijon,) by myself, with savage carelessness (I being then, as now, 
 utterly scornful of all sorts of art dependent on blotch, or burr, 
 or any other " process " than that of steady hand and true line) : — 
 out of which disdain, nevertheless, some of the plates came into 
 effects both right and good for their purpose, and will, as I say, 
 be always hereafter valuable. 
 
 The copies of them, made for the second edition by Mr. Cuff, 
 and here reprinted, are quite as good for all practical illustration, 
 and much more admirable as pieces of careful and singular en- 
 graver's skill. For the original method of etching was not easily 
 imitated by straitforward engraving. When I use the needle- 
 point directly on the steel, I never allow any burr or mystery of 
 texture ; — (see the plates by my own hand in " Modern 
 Painters" ; — ) but, in these architectural notes of shadow, I wanted 
 mere spaces of gloom got easily ; and so used a process shown 
 me, (I think, by a German engraver — my memory fails me about 
 it now — ) in which, the ground being laid very soft, a piece of 
 tissue-paper is spread over it, on which one draws with a hard 
 pencil — seeing, when the paper is lifted, approximately what one 
 has got of shadow. The pressure of the point removes the wax 
 which sticks to the tissue-paper, and leaves the surface of the plate 
 in that degree open to the acid. The effect thus obtained is a 
 kind of mixture of mezzotint — etching — and lithograph ; and, 
 except by such skill as Mr. Cuff possessed in a peculiar degree, 
 not to be imitated in any other manner. The vignette frontispiece 
 is also an excellent piece of work by Mr. Armytage, to whose 
 skill the best illustrations of "Modern Painters "owe not only 
 their extreme delicacy but their permanence. Some of his plates, 
 which I am about to re-issue with portions of the book sepa- 
 rately, arranged according to their subjects, show scarcely -any 
 loss of brightness for any use hitherto made of them. 
 
 But, having now all my plates in my own possession, I will 
 
THE EDITION OF 1880. vii 
 
 take care that none are used past the time they will properly 
 last ; and even the present editions of these old books can never 
 become cheap — though they will be, I trust, in time, all suffi- 
 ciently accessible. 
 
 Some short notes are added to the text of " The Seven Lamps," 
 now reprinted ; but the text itself (the passages above mentioned 
 being alone omitted,) is given word for word, and stop for stop : — 
 it may confirm the reader's assurance on that matter, to know 
 that I have not even revised the proofs, but left all toil of that 
 kind to my good publisher, Mr. Allen, and his helpful children, 
 who have every claim, for what good the reader may get of the 
 book, to his thanks no less than to mine. 
 
 Brantwood, 
 Fd'nuiiy 25///, 1S80. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 The memoranda which form the basis of the following Essay 
 have been thrown together during the preparation of one of the 
 sections of the third volume of "Modern Painters."* I once 
 thought of giving them a more expanded form ; but their utility, 
 such as it may be, would probably be diminished by farther 
 delay in their publication, more than it would be increased by 
 greater care in their arrangement. Obtained in every case by 
 personal observation, there may be among them some details 
 valuable even to the experienced architect ; but with respect to 
 the opinions founded upon them I must be prepared to bear the 
 charge of impertinence which can hardly but attach to the writer 
 who assumes a dogmatical tone in speaking of an art he has 
 
 * The inordinate delay in the appearance of that supplementary volume has, 
 indeed, been chiefly owing to the necessity under which the writer felt himself, 
 of obtaining as many memoranda as possible of medijeval buildings in Italy and 
 Normandy, now in process of destruction, before that destruction should be con- 
 summated by the Restorer, or Revolutionist. His whole time has been lately 
 occupied in taking drawings from one side of buildings, of which masons were 
 knocking down the other; nor can he yet pledge himself to any time for the 
 publication of the conclusion of " Modern Painters ;" he can only promise that 
 its delay shall not be o\ving to any indolence on his part. 
 
X PREFACE TO • 
 
 never practised. There are, however, cases in which men feel 
 too keenly to be silent, and perhaps too strongly to be wrong ; 
 I have been forced into this impertinence ; and have suffered 
 too much from the destruction or neglect of the architecture I 
 best loved, and from the erection of that which I cannot love, 
 to reason cautiously respecting the modesty of my opposition 
 to the principles which have induced the scorn of the one, or 
 directed the design of the other. And I have been the less 
 careful to modify the confidence of my statements of principles, 
 because, in the midst of the opposition and uncertainty of our 
 architectural systems, it seems to me that there is something 
 grateful in any positive opinion, though in many points wrong, 
 as even weeds are useful that grow on a bank of sand. 
 
 Every apology is, however, due to the reader for the hasty 
 and imperfect execution of the plates. Having much more 
 serious work in hand, and desiring merely to render them illus- 
 trative of my meaning, I have sometimes very completely 
 failed even of that humble aim ; and the text, being generally 
 written before the illustration was completed, sometimes naively 
 describes as sublime or beautiful, features which the plate repre- 
 sents by a blot. I shall be grateful if the reader will in such 
 cases refer the expressions of praise to the Architecture, and not 
 to the illustration. 
 
 So far, however, as their coarseness and rudeness admit, the 
 plates are valuable ; being either copies of memoranda made 
 upon the spot, or (Plates IX. and XI.) enlarged and adapted 
 from Daguerreotypes, taken under my own superintendence. 
 Unfortunately, the great distance from the ground of the window 
 which is the subject of Plate IX. renders even the Daguerreotype 
 indistinct ; and I cannot answer for the accuracy of any of the 
 mosaic details, more especially of those surrounding the window, 
 which I rather imagine, in the original, to be sculptured in 
 relief. The general proportions are, however, studiously pre- 
 
THE FIRST EDITION". XI 
 
 served ; the spirals of the shafts are counted, and the effect of 
 the whole is as near that of the thing itself, as is necessary 
 for the purposes of illustration for which the plate is given. 
 For the accuracy of the rest I can answer, even to the cracks 
 in the stones, and the number of them ; and though the 
 looseness of the drawing, and the picturesque character which 
 is necessarily given by an endeavour to draw old buildings as 
 they actually appear, may perhaps diminish their credit for 
 architectural veracity, they will do so unjustly. 
 
 The system of lettering adopted in the few instances in which 
 sections have been given, appears somewhat obscure in the re- 
 ferences, but it is convenient upon the whole. The line which 
 marks the direction of any section is noted, if the section be 
 symmetrical, by a single letter, as a ; and the section itself by 
 the same letter with a line over it, — a. But if the section be 
 unsymmetrical, its direction is noted by two letters, a. a„ at 
 its extremities ; and the actual section by the same letters with 
 lines over them, a. «,, at the correspondent extremities. 
 
 The reader will perhaps be surprised by the small number of 
 buildings to which reference has been made. But it is to be 
 remembered that the following chapters pretend only to be a 
 statement of principles, illustrated each by one or two examples ; 
 not an Essay on European architecture ; and those examples I 
 have generally taken either from the buildings which I love best, 
 or from the schools of architecture which, it appeared to me, have 
 been less carefully described than they deserved. I could as fully, 
 though not with the accuracy and certainty derived from personal 
 observation, have illustrated the principles subsequentlyadvanced, 
 from the architecture of Egypt, India, or Spain, as from that 
 to which the reader will find his attention chiefly directed, the 
 Italian Romanesque and Gothic. But my affections, as well as 
 my experience, led me to that line of richly varied and mag- 
 nificently intellectual schools, which reaches, like a high watershed 
 
Xll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 of Christian architecture, from the Adriatic to the Northumbrian 
 seas, bordered by the impure schools of Spain on the one hand, 
 and of Germany on the other : and as culminating points and 
 centres of this chain, I have considered, first, the cities of the Val 
 d'Arno, as representing the Italian Romanesque and pure Italian 
 Gothic ; Venice and Verona as representing the Italian Gothic 
 coloured by Byzantine elements ; and Rouen, with the associated 
 Norman cities, Caen, Bayeux, and Coutances, as representing the 
 entire range of Northern architecture from the Romanesque to 
 Flamboyant. 
 
 I could have wished to have given more examples from our 
 early English Gothic ; but I have always found it impossible to 
 work in the cold interiors of our cathedrals ; while the daily 
 services, lamps, and fumigation of those upon the Continent, 
 render them perfectly safe. In the course of last summer I 
 undertook a pilgrimage to the English Shrines, and began with 
 Salisbury, where the consequence of a few days' work was a state 
 of weakened health, which I may be permitted to name among 
 the causes of the slightness and imperfection of the present 
 Essay. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory . . . . • i 
 
 Chapter I. The Lamp of Sacrifice 8 
 
 II. The Lamp of Truth ........ 29 
 
 III. The Lamp of Power 70 
 
 IV. The Lamp of Beauty . . . . . . . • 1 03 
 
 V. The Lamp of Life 14S 
 
 VI. The Lamp of Memory ........ 176 
 
 VII. The Lamp of Obedience 199 
 
 Appendix I 215 
 
 II 218 
 
 III 219 
 
 IV. ............ 220 
 
 V. . . . . . . . . . . . .221 
 
LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 I. Ornaments from Rouen, St. Lo, and Venice . . to face page 27 
 
 II. Part of the Cathedral of St. Lo, Normandy . . . . -53 
 
 III. Traceries from Caen, Bayeux, Rouen, and Beauvais ... 59 
 
 IV. Intersectional Mouldings . 66 
 
 V. Capital from the Lower Arcade of the Doge's Palace, Venice . . 89 
 
 VI. Arch from the Facade of the Church of San Michele at Lucca . 92 
 
 VII. Pierced Ornaments from Lisieux, Bayeux, Verona, and Padua . 95 
 
 VIII. Window from the Ca' Foscari, Venice ...... 97 
 
 IX. Tracery from the Campanile of Giotto, at Florence . . Title page 
 
 X. Traceries and ^Mouldings from Rouen and Salisbury . . page 126 
 
 XI. Balcony in the Campo St. Benedetto, Venice . . . .136 
 
 XII. Fragments from Abbeville, Lucca, Venice, and Pisa . . • iS5 
 
 XIII. Portions of an Arcade on the South Side of the Cathedral of Ferrara 168 
 
 XIV. Sculptures from the Cathedral of Rouen 173 
 
THE 
 
 SEVEN LAMPS 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Some years ago, in conversation with an artist ' whose works, 
 perhaps, alone, in the present day, unite perfection of drawing 
 with resplendence of colour, the writer made some inquiry re- 
 specting the general means by which this latter quality was most 
 easily to be attained. The reply was as concise as it was com- 
 prehensive — " Know what you have to do, and do it" — compre- 
 hensive, not only as regarded the branch of art to which it tem- 
 porarily applied, but as expressing the great princijole of success 
 in every direction of human effort ; for I believe that failure 
 is less frequently attributable to either insufficiency of means or 
 impatience of labour, than to a confused understanding of the 
 thing actually to be done ; and therefore, while it is properly a 
 subject of ridicule, and sometimes of blame, that men propose to 
 themselves a perfection of any kind, which reason, temperately 
 consulted, might have shown to be impossible with the means at 
 their command, it is a more dangerous error to permit the con- 
 sideration of means to interfere with our conception, or, as is 
 not impossible, even hinder our acknowledgment of goodness and 
 perfection in themselves. And this is the more cautiously to be 
 
 ' Mulready. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Aphorism i. remembered ; because, while a man's sense and con- 
 wemayai- scicnce, aided by Revelation, are always enough, if 
 
 ways know 
 
 what is light; earnestly directed, to enable him to discover what is 
 
 but not always ■' ^ 
 
 sibfe.'^^"'" right, neither his sense, nor conscience, nor feeling, is 
 ever enough, because they are not intended, to deter- 
 mine for him what is possible. He knows neither his 
 own strength nor that of his fellows, neither the exact 
 dependence to be placed on his allies nor resistance to 
 be expected from his opponents. These are questions 
 respecting which passion may warp his conclusions, 
 and ignorance must limit them ; but it is his own fault 
 if either interfere with the apprehension of duty, or 
 the acknowledgment of right. And, as far as I have 
 taken cognizance of the causes of the many failures to 
 which the efforts of intelligent men are liable, more 
 especially in matters political, they seem to me more 
 largely to spring from this single error than from all 
 others, that the inquiry into the doubtful, and in some 
 sort inexplicable, relations of capability, chance, resis- 
 tance, and inconvenience, invariably precedes, even if 
 it do not altogether supersede, the determination of 
 what is absolutely desirable and just. Nor is it any 
 wonder that sometimes the too cold calculation of our 
 powers should reconcile us too easily to cur short 
 comings, and even lead us into the fatal error of sup- 
 posing that our conjectural utmost is in itself well, or, 
 in other words, that the necessity of offences renders 
 them inoffensive. 
 
 What is true of human polity seems to me not less so of the 
 distinctively political art of Architecture. I have lonor felt con- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 vinced of the necessity, in order to its progress, of some determined 
 effort to extricate from the confused mass of partial traditions 
 and doQ-mata with Avhicli it has become encumbered during 
 imperfect or restricted practice, those large principles of right 
 which are applicable to every stage and style of it. Uniting the 
 technical and imaginative elements as essentially as humanity 
 does soul and body, it shows the same infirmly balanced liability 
 to the prevalence of the lower part over the higher, to the 
 interference of the constructive, with the purity and simplicity 
 of the reflective, element. This tendency, like every other form 
 of materialism, is increasing with the advance of the age ; and 
 the only laws which resist it, based upon partial precedents, and 
 already regarded with disrespect as decrepit, if not with defiance 
 as tyrannical, are evidently inapplicable to the new forms and 
 functions of the art, which the necessities of the day demand. 
 How many these necessities may become, cannot be conjectured ; 
 they rise, strange and impatient, out of every modern shadow 
 of change. How far it may be possible to meet them without a 
 sacrifice of the essential characters of architectural art, cannot 
 be determined by specific calculation or observance. There is 
 no law, no principle, based on past practice, which may not be 
 overthrown in a moment, by the arising of a new condition, or 
 the invention of a new material ; and the most rational, if not the 
 only, mode of averting the danger of an utter dissolution of all 
 that is systematic and consistent in our practice, or of ancient 
 authority in our judgment, is to cease, for a little while, our 
 endeavours to deal wath the multiplying host of particular abuses, 
 restraints, or requirements ; and endeavour to determine, as the 
 guides of every effort, some constant, general, and irrefragable 
 laws of right — laws, which based upon man's nature, not upon 
 his knowledge, may possess so far the unchangeableness of the 
 one, as that neither the increase nor imperfection of the other 
 may be able to assault or invalidate them. 
 
 There are, perhaps, no such laws peculiar to any one art. Their 
 range necessarily includes the entire horizon of man's action. 
 But they have modified forms and operations belonging to each 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 of his pursuits, and the extent of their authority cannot surely 
 be considered as a diminution of its weight. Those peculiar 
 aspects of them which belong to the first of the arts, I have 
 endeavoured to trace in the following pages ; and since, if truly 
 stated, they must necessarily be, not only safeguards against 
 every form of error, but sources of every measure of success, I 
 do not think that I claim too much for them in calling them the 
 Lamps of Architecture,'' nor that it is indolence, in endeavouring 
 to ascertain the true nature and nobility of their fire, to refuse 
 to enter into any curious or special questioning of the innu- 
 merable hindrances by which their light has been too often 
 distorted or overpowered. 
 
 Had this farther examination been attempted, the work would 
 have become certainly more invidious, and perhaps less useful, as 
 liable to errors which are avoided by the present simplicity of its 
 plan. Simple though it be, its extent is too great to admit of any 
 adequate accomplishment, unless by a devotion of time which the 
 writer did not feel justified in withdrawing from branches of 
 inquiry in which the prosecution of works already undertaken 
 has engaged him. Both arrangement and nomenclature are those 
 of convenience rather than of system ; the one is arbitrary and 
 the other illogical ; nor is it pretended that all, or even the 
 greater number of, the principles necessary to the well being 
 of the art, are included in the inquiry. Many, however, of 
 considerable importance will be found to develope themselves 
 incidentally from those more specially brought forward. 
 
 Graver apology is necessary for an apparently graver fault. 
 
 Aphorism 2. It has been just Said, that there is no branch of human 
 All practical wofk whosc constant laws have not close analogy with 
 
 laws are llie 
 
 moral o"'es°^ thosc which govcm every other mode of man's exertion. 
 But, more than this, exactly as we reduce to greater 
 simplicity and surety any one group of these practical 
 
 2 " The Law is light." 
 " Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet." 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 laws, we shall find them passing the mere condition of 
 connection or analogy, and becoming the actual expres- 
 sion of some ultimate nerve or fibre of the mighty laws 
 which govern the moral world. However mean or in- 
 considerable the act, there is something in the well 
 doing of it, which has fellowship with the noblest 
 forms of manly virtue ; and the truth, decision, and 
 temperance, which we reverently regard as honourable 
 conditions of the spiritual being, have a representative 
 or derivative influence over the works of the hand, 
 the movements of the frame, and the action of the 
 intellect. 
 
 And as thus every action, down even to the drawing of a Hne 
 or utterance of a syllable, is capable of a peculiar dignity in the 
 manner of it, which we sometimes express by saying it is truly 
 done (as a line or tone is true), so also it is capable of dignity 
 still higher in the motive of it. For there is no action so slight, 
 nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled 
 therefore ; nor is any purpose so great but that slight actions 
 may help it, and may be so done as to help it much, most 
 especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of God. Hence 
 George Herbert^ — 
 
 " A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws. 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 Therefore, in the pressing or recommending of any act or 
 manner of acting, we have choice of two separate lines of 
 argument : one based on representation of the expediency or 
 
 " George Herbert was too much of an Englishman (and of an Elizabethan 
 tempered Englishman) to conceive that drudgery could ever be divine in its 
 own nature, and sometimes, more divine if forced than voluntar)-, e.g. John 
 Knox's labour as a galley slave. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Aphorism 3. 
 
 The arts of 
 our day must 
 not be luxu- 
 rious, nor its 
 metaphysics 
 idle. 
 
 inherent value of the work, which is often small, and always 
 disputable ; the other based on proofs of its relations to the 
 higher orders of human virtue, and of its acceptableness, so far 
 as it goes, to Him who is the origin of virtue. The former is 
 commonly the more persuasive method, the latter assuredly the 
 more conclusive ; only it is liable to give offence, as if there were 
 irreverence in adducing considerations so weighty in treating sub- 
 jects of small temporal importance. I believe, however, that no 
 error is more thoughtless than this. We treat God with irreverence 
 by banishing Him from our thoughts, not by referring to His will 
 on slight occasions. His is not the finite authority or intelligence 
 which cannot be troubled with small things. There is nothing 
 so small but that we may honour God by asking His guidance of it, 
 or insult Him by taking it into our own hands ; and what is true 
 of the Deity is equally true of His Revelation. We use it most 
 reverently when most habitually : our insolence is in ever acting 
 without reference to it, our true honouring of it is in its universal 
 application. I have been blamed for the familiar introduction of 
 its sacred words. I am grieved to have given pain by so doing ; 
 but my excuse must be my wish that those words were made the 
 ground of every argument and the test of every action. We 
 have them not often enough on our lips, nor deeply enough in 
 our memories, nor loyally enough in our lives. The snow, the 
 vapour, and the stormy wind fulfil His word. Are our acts and 
 thouehts lighter and wilder than these — that we should forget it ? 
 I have therefore ventured, at the risk of giving to some passages 
 the appearance of irreverence, to take the higher line of argument 
 wherever it appeared clearly traceable : and this, I would ask the 
 reader especially to observe, not merely because I think it the 
 best mode of reaching ultimate truth, still less because I think 
 the subject of more importance than many others ; but because 
 every subject should surely, at a period like the present, be taken 
 
 up in this spirit, or not at all. The aspect of the 'years 
 
 that approach us is as solemn as it is full of mystery ; 
 
 and the weight of evil against which we have to con- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. ' 7 
 
 tend, is increasing like the letting out of water. It is 
 no time for the idleness of metaphysics, or the enter- 
 tainment of the arts. The blasphemies of the earth 
 are sounding louder, and its miseries heaped heavier 
 every day ; and if, in the midst of the exertion which 
 every good man is called upon to put forth for their 
 repression or relief, it is lawful to ask for a thought, for 
 a moment, for a lifting of the finger, in any direction 
 but that of the immediate and overwhelming need, it 
 is at least incumbent upon us to approach the ques- 
 tions in which we would engage him, in the spirit 
 which has become the habit of his mind, and in the 
 hope that neither his zeal nor his usefulness may be 
 checked by the withdrawal of an hour, which has 
 shown him how even those things which seemed 
 mechanical, indifferent, or contemptible, depend for 
 their perfection upon the acknowledgment of the 
 sacred principles of faith, truth, and obedience, for 
 which it has become the occupation of his life to 
 contend. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 Aphorism 4. 
 
 All architec- 
 ture proposes 
 an effect on 
 the human 
 mind, not 
 merely a ser- 
 vice to the 
 human frame. 
 
 I. Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns 
 the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that 
 the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, 
 power, and pleasure. 
 
 It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry, to distinguish 
 carefully between Architecture and Building.* 
 
 To build, — literally, to confirm, — is by common understanding 
 to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or 
 receptacle of a considerable size. Thus we have church building, 
 house building, ship building, and coach building. That one 
 edifice stands, another floats, and another is suspended on iron 
 springs, makes no difference in the nature of the art, if so it may 
 be called, of building or edification. The persons who profess 
 that art, are severally builders, ecclesiastical, naval, or of whatever 
 other name their work may justify : but building does not become 
 architecture merely by the stability of what it erects ; and it is 
 no more architecture which raises a church, or which fits it to 
 receive and contain with comfort a required number of persons 
 occupied in certain religious offices, than it is architecture which 
 makes a carriage commodious, or a ship swift. I do not, of course, 
 mean that the word is not often, or even may not be legitimately, 
 applied in such a sense (as we speak of naval architecture) ; but 
 in that sense architecture ceases to be one of the fine arts, and it 
 is therefore better not to run the risk, by loose nomenclature, of 
 
 * This distinction is a little stiff and awkward in terms, but not in thought. 
 And it is perfectly accurate, though stiff, even in terms. It is the addition of 
 the mental ajoi^i) — in the sense in which Plato uses that word in the " Laws " — 
 which separates architecture from a wasp's nest, a rat hole, or a railway station. 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 9 
 
 the confusion which would arise, and has often arisen, from 
 extending principles which belong altogether to building, into 
 the sphere of architecture proper. 
 
 Let us, therefore, at once confine the name to that art which, 
 taking up and admitting, as conditions of its working, the neces- 
 sities and common uses of the building, impresses on its form 
 certain characters venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unneces- 
 sary. Thus, I suppose, no one would call the laws architectural 
 which determine the height of a breastwork or the position of a 
 bastion. But If to the stone facing of that bastion be added an 
 unnecessary feature, as a cable moulding, that is Architecture. It 
 would be similarly unreasonable to call battlements or machi- 
 colations architectural features, so long as they consist only of an 
 advanced gallery supported on projecting masses, with open 
 intervals beneath for offence. But if these projecting masses be 
 carved beneath into rounded courses, which are useless, and if the 
 headings of the intervals be arched and trefoiled, which is useless, 
 that is Architecture. It may not be always easy to draw the line 
 so sharply, because there are few buildings which have not some 
 pretence or colour of being architectural; neither' can there be 
 any architecture which is not based on building, nor any good 
 architecture which is not based on good building ; but it Is per- 
 fectly easy, and very necessary, to keep the ideas distinct, and to 
 understand fully that Architecture concerns itself only with those 
 characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common 
 use. I say common ; because a building raised to the honour of 
 God, or in memory of men, has surely a use to which Its architec- 
 tural adornment fits it ; but not a use which limits, by any 
 inevitable necessities, its plan or details. 
 
 II. Architecture proper, then, naturally arranges itself under 
 five heads :— 
 
 Devotional ; including all buildings raised for God's service or 
 honour. 
 
 Memorial ; including both monuments and tombs. 
 
 Civil ; including every edifice raised by nations or societies, for 
 purposes of common business or pleasure. 
 
 c 
 
lO THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 Military ; including all private and public architecture of 
 defence. 
 
 Domestic ; including every rank and kind of dwelling-place. 
 Now, of the principles which I would endeavour to develope, 
 while all must be, as I have said, applicable to every stage 
 and style of the art, some, and especially those which are ex- 
 citino- rather than directing, have necessarily fuller reference to 
 one kind of building than another ; and among these I would 
 place first that spirit which, having influence in all, has 
 nevertheless such especial reference to devotional and memorial 
 architecture — the spirit which offers for such work precious things, 
 simply because they are precious ; not as being necessary to the 
 building, but as an offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of what 
 is to ourselves desirable. It seems to me, not only that this 
 feeling is in most cases wholly wanting in those who forward the 
 devotional buildings of the present day^ ; but that it would even 
 be regarded as a dangerous, or perhaps criminal, principle by 
 many among us. I have not space to enter into dispute of all 
 the various objections which may be urged against it — they are 
 many and specious ; but I may, perhaps, ask the reader's patience 
 while I set down those simple reasons which cause me to believe 
 it a good and just feeling, and as well-pleasing to God and 
 honourable in men, as it is beyond all dispute necessary to the 
 production of any great work in the kind with which we are at 
 present concerned. 
 
 III. Now, first, to define this Lamp, or Spirit, of Sacrifice, 
 clearly. I have said that it prompts us to the offering of precious 
 things, merely because they are precious, not because they are 
 useful or necessary. It is a spirit, for instance, which of two 
 marbles, equally beautiful, applicable and durable, would choose 
 the more costly, because it was so, and of two kinds of decoration, 
 equally effective, would choose the more elaborate because it was 
 
 ° The peculiar manner of selfish and impious ostentation, provoked by the 
 glassmakers, for a stimulus to trade, of putting up painted windows to be records 
 of private affection, instead of universal religion, is one of the worst, because 
 most plausible and proud, hypocrisies of our day. 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. I I 
 
 SO, in order that it might in the same compass present more cost 
 and more thought. It is therefore most unreasoning and enthu- 
 siastic, and perhaps best negatively defined, as the opposite of 
 the prevalent feeling of modern times, which desires to produce 
 the largest results at the least cost. 
 
 Of this feeling, then, there are two distinct forms : the first, 
 the wish to exercise self-denial for the sake of self-discipline 
 merely, a wish acted upon in the abandonment of things loved or 
 desired, there being no direct call or purpose to be answered by 
 so doing ; and the second, the desire to honour or please some one 
 else by the costliness of the sacrifice. The practice is, in the 
 first case, either private or public ; but most frequently, and 
 perhaps most properly, private ; while, in the latter case, the act 
 is commonly, and with greatest advantage, jDublic. Now, it cannot 
 but at first appear futile to assert the exj^ediency of self-denial for 
 its own sake, when, for so many sakes, it is every day necessary 
 to a far greater degree than any of us practise it. But I believe 
 it is just because we do not enough acknowledge or contemplate 
 it as a good in itself that we are apt to fail in its duties when 
 they become imperative, and to calculate, with some partiality, 
 whether the good proposed to others measures or warrants the 
 amount of grievance to ourselves, instead of accepting with 
 gladness the opportunity of sacrifice as a personal advantage. 
 Be this as it may, it is not necessary to insist upon the matter 
 here ; since there are always higher and more useful channels of 
 self-sacrifice, for those who choose to practise it, than any 
 connected with the arts. 
 
 While in its second branch, that which is especially concerned 
 with the arts, the justice of the feeling is still more doubtful ; it 
 depends on our answer to the broad question, Can the Deity be 
 indeed honoured by the presentation to Him of any material 
 objects of value, or by any direction of zeal or wisdom which 
 is not immediately beneficial to men ? 
 
 For, observe, it is not now the question whether the fairness 
 and majesty of a building may or may not answer any moral 
 purpose ; it is not the result of labour in any sort of which we 
 
12 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 are speaking, but the bare and mere costliness — the substance 
 and labour and time themselves : are these, we ask, independently 
 of their result, acceptable offerings to God, and considered by 
 Him as doing Him honour ? So long as we refer this question to 
 the decision of feeling, or of conscience, or of reason merely, it 
 Avill be contradictorily or imperfectly answered ; it admits of 
 entire answer only when we have met another and a far different 
 question, whether the Bible be indeed one book or two, and 
 whether the character of God revealed in the Old Testament be 
 other than His character revealed in the New. 
 
 IV. Now, it is a most secure truth, that, although the particular 
 ordinances divinely appointed for special purposes at any given 
 period of man's history, may be by the same divine authority 
 abrogated, at another, it is impossible that any character of God, 
 appealed to or described in any ordinance past or present, can 
 ever be changed, or understood as changed, by the abrogation of 
 that ordinance. God is one and the same, and is pleased or 
 displeased by the same things for ever, although one part of His 
 pleasure may be expressed at one time rather than another, and 
 although the mode in which His pleasure is to be consulted may 
 be by Him graciously modified to the circumstances of men. 
 Thus, for instance, it was necessary that, in order to the under- 
 standing by man of the scheme of Redemption, that scheme should 
 be foreshown from the beginning by the type of bloody sacrifice. 
 But God had no more pleasure in such sacrifice in the time 
 of Moses than He has now ; He never accepted, as a propitiation 
 for sin, any sacrifice but the single one in prospective : and that 
 we may not entertain any shadow of doubt on this subject, the 
 worthlessness of all other sacrifice than this is proclaimed at the 
 very time when typical sacrifice was most imperatively demanded. 
 God was a spirit, and could be worshipped only in spirit and in 
 truth, as singly and exclusively when every day brought its 
 claim of typical and material service or offering, as nmv when 
 He asks for none but that of the heart. 
 
 So, therefore, it is a most safe and sure principle that, if in 
 the manner of performing any rite at any time, circumstances 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 1 3 
 
 can be traced which we are either told or may legitimately 
 conclude, pleased God at that time, those same circumstances 
 will please Him at all times, in the performance of all rites or 
 offices to which they may be attached in like manner ; unless 
 it has been afterwards revealed that, for some special purpose, 
 it is now His will that such circumstances should be withdrawn. 
 And this argument will have all the more force if it can be 
 shown that such conditions were not essential to the completeness 
 of the rite in its human uses and bearings, and only were added 
 to it as being in themselves pleasing to God. 
 
 V. Now, was it necessary to the completeness, as a type, of the 
 Levitical sacrifice, or to its utility as an explanation of divine 
 purposes, that it should cost any thing to the person in whose 
 behalf it was offered ? On the contrar}', the sacrifice which it 
 foreshowed, was to be God's free gift ; and the cost of, or 
 difficulty of obtaining, the sacrificial type, could only render that 
 type in a measure obscure, and less expressive of the offering 
 which God would in the end provide for all men. Yet this 
 costliness was generally a condition of the acceptableness of the 
 sacrifice. " Neither will I offer unto the Lord my God of that 
 which doth cost me nothing."* That costliness, therefore, must 
 be an acceptable condition in all human offerings at all times ; 
 for if it was pleasing to God once, it must please Him always, 
 unless directly forbidden by Him afterwards, which it has never 
 been. 
 
 Again, was it necessary to the typical perfection of the Levitical 
 offering, that it should be the best of the flock ? Doubtless, the 
 spotlessness of the sacrifice renders it more expressive to the 
 Christian mind ; but was it because so expressive that it was 
 actually, and in so many words, demanded by God ? Not at all. 
 It was demanded by Him expressly on the same grounds on 
 which an earthly governour would demand it, as a testimony of 
 respect. " Ofter it now unto thy governour." f And the less 
 valuable offering was rejected, not because it did not image 
 
 * 2 Sam. xxiv. 24. Deut. xvi. 16, 17. 
 t Mai. i. S. 
 
14 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 Christ, nor fulfil the purposes of sacrifice, but because it indicated 
 a feeling that would grudge the best of its possessions to Him 
 who gave them ; and because it was a bold dishonouring of God 
 in the sight of man. Whence it may be infallibly concluded, 
 that in whatever offerings we may now see reason to present 
 unto God (I say not what these may be), a condition of their 
 acceptableness will be now, as it was then, that they should be 
 the best of their kind. 
 
 VI. But farther, was it necessary to the carrying out of the 
 Mosaical system, that there should be either art or splendour 
 in the form or services of the tabernacle or temple ? Was it 
 necessary to the perfection of any one of their typical offices, that 
 there should be that hanging of blue, and purple, and scarlet .'' 
 those taches of brass and sockets of silver ? that working in cedar 
 and overlaying with gold ? One thing at least is evident : there 
 was a deep and awful danger in it ; a danger that the God whom 
 they so worshipped, might be associated in the minds of the 
 serfs of Egypt with the gods to whom they had seen similar 
 gifts offered and similar honours paid. The probability, in our 
 times, of fellowship with the feelings of the idolatrous Ro- 
 manist is absolutely as nothing, compared with the danger to 
 the Israelite of a sympathy with the idolatrous Egyptian ; no 
 speculative, no unproved danger ; but proved fatally by their fall 
 during a month's abandonment to their own will ; a fall into the 
 most servile idolatry ; yet marked by such offerings to their 
 idol as their leader was, in the close sequel, instructed to bid 
 them offer to God. This danger was imminent, perpetual, and 
 of the most awful kind : it was the one against which God 
 made provision, not only by commandments, by threatenings, by 
 promises, the most urgent, repeated, and impressive ; but by 
 temporary ordinances of a severity so terrible as almost to dim 
 for a time, in the eyes of His people. His attribute of mercy. 
 The principal object of every instituted law of that Theocracy, 
 of every judgment sent forth in its vindication, was to mark 
 to the people His hatred of idolatry; a hatred written under 
 their advancing steps, in the blood of the Canaanite, and more 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 1 5 
 
 Sternly still in the darkness of their own desolation, when the 
 children and the sucklings swooned in the streets of Jerusalem, 
 and the lion tracked his prey in the desert of Samaria.* Yet, 
 against this mortal danger, provision was not made in one way, 
 (to man's thoughts the simplest, the most natural, the most 
 effective,) by withdrawing from the worship of the Divine Being 
 whatever could delight the sense, or shape the imagination, 
 or limit the idea of Deity to place. This one way God refused, 
 demanding for Himself such honours, and accepting for Himself 
 such local dwelling, as had been paid and dedicated to idol 
 gods by heathen worshippers. And for what reason ? Was the 
 glory of the tabernacle necessary to set forth or image His divine 
 glory to the minds of His people ? What ! purple or scarlet 
 necessary, to the people who had seen the great river of Egypt 
 run scarlet to the sea, under His condemnation ? What ! golden 
 lamp and cherub necessary, for those who had seen the fires 
 of heaven falling like a mantle on Mount Sinai, and its golden 
 courts opened to receive their mortal lawgiver ? What ! silver 
 clasp and fillet necessary, when they had seen the silver waves 
 of the Red Sea clasp in their arched hollows the corpses of 
 the horse and his rider ? Nay — not so.^ There was but one 
 reason, and that an eternal one ; that as the covenant that He 
 made with men was accompanied with some external sign of 
 its continuance, and of His remembrance of it, so the acceptance 
 of that covenant might be marked and signified by men, in 
 some external sign of their love and obedience, and surrender of 
 themselves and theirs to His will ; and that their gratitude to 
 Him and continual remembrance of Him, might have at once 
 their expression, and their enduring testimony, in the presenta- 
 tion to Him, not only of the firstlings of the herd and fold, 
 not only of the fruits of the earth and the tithe of time, 
 but of all treasures of wisdom and beauty ; of the thought that 
 
 * Lam. ii. ii. 2 Kings xvii. 25. 
 
 ^ Yes, — very much so. The impression of all temporary vision wears off next 
 day in the minds of the common people. Continual splendour is necessary and 
 wholesome for them : and the sacrifices required by Heaven were never useless. 
 
1 6 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 invents, and the hand that labours ; of wealth of wood, and weight 
 of stone ; of the strength of iron, and the light of gold. 
 
 And let us not now lose sisrht of this broad and unabrogated 
 principle — I might say, incapable of being abrogated, so long 
 as men shall receive earthly gifts from God. Of all that they 
 have. His tithe must be rendered to Him, or in so far and in so 
 much He is forgotten : of the skill and of the treasure, of the 
 strength and of the mind, of the time and of the toil, offering 
 must be made reverently; and if there be any difference between 
 the Levitical and the Christian offering, it is that the latter may 
 be just so much the wider in its range as it is less typical 
 in its meaning, as it is thankful instead of sacrificial. There 
 can be no excuse accepted because the Deity does not now 
 visibly dwell in His temple ; if He is invisible it is only through 
 our failing faith : nor any excuse because other calls are more 
 immediate or more sacred ; this ought to be done, and not the 
 other left undone. Yet this objection, as frequent as feeble, 
 must be more specifically answered. 
 
 Vn. It has been said — it ought always to be said, for it is true, 
 — that a better and more honourable offering is made to our Master 
 in ministry to the poor, in extending the knowledge of His name, 
 in the practice of the virtues by which that name is hallowed, 
 than in material presents to His temple. Assuredly it is so : woe 
 to all who think that any other kind or manner of offering may 
 in any wise take the place of these ! Do the people need place to 
 pray, and calls to hear His word ? Then it is no time for smooth- 
 ing pillars or carving pulpits ; let us have enough first of walls 
 and roofs. Do the people need teaching from house to house, 
 and bread from day to day ? Then they are deacons and ministers 
 we want, not architects. I insist on this, I plead for this ; but 
 let us examine ourselves, and see if this be indeed the reason for 
 our backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not be- 
 tween God's house and His poor: it is not between God's house 
 and His Gospel. It is between God's house and ours. Have we 
 no tesselated colours on our floors ? no frescoed fancies on our 
 roofs ? no niched statuary in our corridors ? no gilded furniture 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 1 7 
 
 in our chambers ? no costly stones in our cabinets ? Has even 
 the tithe of these been offered ? They are, or they ought to be, 
 the signs that enough has been devoted to the great purposes of 
 human stewardship, and that there remains to us what we can 
 spend in luxury ; but there is a greater and prouder luxury than 
 this selfish one — that of bringing a portion of such things as these 
 into sacred service, and presenting them for a memorial* that our 
 pleasure as well as our toil has been hallowed by the remem- 
 brance of Him who sfave both the strength and the reward. 
 And until this has been done, I do not see how such possessions 
 can be retained in happiness. I do not understand the feeling 
 which would arch our own gates and pave our own thresholds, 
 and leave the church with its narrow door and foot-worn sill ; the 
 feeling which enriches our own chambers with all manner of cost- 
 liness, and endures the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. 
 There is seldom even so severe a choice to be made, seldom so 
 much self-denial to be exercised. There are isolated cases, in 
 which men's happiness and mental activity depend upon a certain 
 degree of luxury in their houses ; but then this is true luxury, 
 felt and tasted, and profited by. In the plurality of instances 
 nothing of the kind is attempted, nor can be enjoyed ; men's 
 average resources cannot reach it ; and that which they can reach, 
 gives them no pleasure, and might be spared. It will be seen, aphorism 5. 
 in the course of the following chapters, that I am no Domestic 
 
 ^ luxury is to 
 
 advocate for meanness of private habitation. I would tonationa^'' 
 fain introduce into it all magnificence, care, and beauty, 
 where they are possible ; but I would not have that 
 useless expense in unnoticed fineries or formalities; 
 cornicing of ceilings and graining of doors, and fringing 
 of curtains, and thousands such ; things which have 
 become foolishly and apathetically habitual — things on 
 whose common appliance hang whole trades, to which 
 
 * Num. xxxi. 54. Psa. Ixxvi. 11. 
 D 
 
 masznilicence. 
 
15 THE LAMP OF SACPIFICE. 
 
 there never yet belonged the blessing of giving one ray 
 of real pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most 
 contemptible use — things which cause half the expense 
 of life, and destroy more than half its comfort, man- 
 liness, respectability, freshness, and facility. I speak 
 from experience : I know what it is to live in a cottage 
 with a deal floor and roof, and a hearth of mica slate ; 
 and I know it to be in many respects healthier and 
 happier than living between a Turkey carpet and 
 gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fender. 
 I do not say that such things have not their place and 
 propriety; but I say this, emphatically, that the tenth 
 part of the expense which is sacrificed in domestic 
 vanities, if not absolutely and meaninglessly lost in 
 domestic discomforts and incumbrances, would, if col- 
 lectively offered and wisely employed, build a marble 
 church for every town in England ; such a church as it 
 should be a joy and a blessing even to pass near in our 
 daily ways and walks, and as it would bring the light 
 into the eyes to see from afar, lifting its fair height 
 above the purple crowd of humble roofs. 
 
 VIII. I have said for every town: I do not want a marble 
 
 church for every village ; nay, I do not want marble churches at 
 
 all for their own sake, but for the sake of the spirit that would 
 
 build them. The church has no need of any visible splendours ; 
 
 her power is independent of them, her purity is in some degree 
 
 opposed to them. The simplicity of a pastoral sanctuary is 
 
 lovelier than the majesty of an urban temple ; and it may be more 
 
 than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has ever 
 
 been the source of any increase of effective piety ' : but to the 
 
 ' Yes, it may be more than questioned ; it may be angrily — or sorrowfully- 
 denied : but never by entirely humble and thoughtful persons. The subject was 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 1 9 
 
 builders it has been, and must ever be. It is not the church we 
 want, but the sacrifice ; not the emotion of admiration, but the 
 act of adoration ; not the gift, but the giving. And see how much 
 more charity the full understanding of this might admit, among 
 classes of men of naturally opposite feelings ; and how much more 
 nobleness in the work. There is no need to offend by importu- 
 nate, self-proclaimant splendour. Your gift may be given in an 
 unpresuming way. Cut one or two shafts out of a porphyry whose 
 preciousness those only would know who would desire it to be so 
 used ; add another month's labour to the under-cutting of a few 
 capitals, whose delicacy will not be seen nor loved by one beholder 
 of ten thousand ; see that the simplest masonry of the edifice be 
 perfect and substantial ; and to those who regard such things, their 
 witness will be clear and impressive ; to those who regard them 
 not, all will at least be inoffensive. But do not think the feeline 
 itself a folly, or the act itself useless. Of what use was that dearly 
 bought water of the well of Bethlehem with which the king of 
 Israel slaked the dust of Adullam ? yet was it not thus better 
 than if he had drunk it } Of what use was that passionate act of 
 Christian sacrifice, against which, first uttered by the false tongue, 
 the very objection we would now conquer took a sullen tone for 
 ever ? * So also let us not ask of what use our offering is to the 
 
 o 
 
 church : it is at least better for us than if it had been retained 
 for ourselves. It may be better for others also : there is, at any 
 rate, a chance of this ; though we must always fearfully and widely 
 shun the thought that the magnificence of the temple can mate- 
 rially add to the efficiency of the worship or to the power of the 
 ministry. Whatever we do, or whatever we offer, let it not inter- 
 fere with the simplicity of the one, or abate, as if replacing, the 
 zeal of the other.* 
 
 IX. While, however, I would especially deprecate the imputa- 
 
 first placed by me, without any remains of Presbyterian prejudice, in the aspect 
 which it must take on purely rational grounds, in my second Oxford inaugural 
 lecture. 
 
 * John xii. 5. 
 
 ' Thirteen lines of vulgar attack on Roman-Catholicism are here — with much 
 gain to the chapter's grace, and purification of its truth — omitted. 
 
20 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 tion of any other acceptableness or usefulness to the gift itself than 
 that which it receives from the spirit of its presentation, it may be 
 well to observe, that there is a lower advantage which never fails 
 to accompany a dutiful observance of any right abstract principle. 
 While the first fruits of his possessions were required from the 
 Israelite as a testimony of fidelity, the payment of those first 
 fruits was nevertheless rewarded, and that connectedly and speci- 
 fically, by the increase of those possessions. Wealth, and length 
 of days, and peace, were the promised and experienced rewards of 
 his offering, though they were not to be the objects of it. The 
 tithe paid into the storehouse, was the express condition of the 
 blessinof which there should not be room enough to receive. And 
 it will be thus always : God never forgets any work or labour of 
 love ; and whatever it may be of which the first and best portions 
 or powers have been presented to Him, He will multiply and in- 
 crease sevenfold. Therefore, though it may not be necessarily the 
 interest of religion to admit the service of the arts, the arts will 
 never flourish until they have been primarily devoted to that ser- 
 vice — devoted, both by architect and employer ; by the one in 
 scrupulous, earnest, affectionate design ; by the other in expendi- 
 ture at least more frank, at least less calculating, than that which 
 he would admit in the indulgence of his own private feelings. 
 Let this principle be but once fairly acknowledged among us ; 
 and however it may be chilled and repressed in practice, however 
 feeble may be its real influence, however the sacredness of it may 
 be diminished by counter-workings of vanity and self-interest, yet 
 its mere acknowledgment would bring a reward ; and with our 
 present accumulation of means and of intellect, there would be 
 such an impulse and vitality given to art as it has not felt since 
 the thirteenth century. And I do not assert this as other than a 
 natural consequence : I should, indeed, expect a larger measure of 
 every great and spiritual faculty to be always given where those 
 faculties had been wisely and religiously employed; but'the im- 
 pulse to which I refer, would be, humanly speaking, certain ; and 
 would naturally result from obedience to the two great conditions 
 enforced by the Spirit of Sacrifice, first, that we should in every 
 
can. 
 
 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 21 
 
 thing do our best ; and, secondly, that we should consider in- 
 crease of apparent labour as an increase of beauty in the building. 
 A few practical deductions from these two conditions, and I 
 have done. 
 
 X. For the first : it is alone enough to secure success, and it 
 is for want of observing it that we continually fail. We are aphorism 6. 
 none of us so good architects as to be able to work tuudt^are 
 habitually beneath our strength ; and yet there is not a nX^'^nd 
 
 ,.,j. , Ti ri 1 • don't even do 
 
 building that I know of, lately raised, wherein it is not the uttie they 
 sufficiently evident that neither architect nor builder 
 has done his best. It is the especial characteristic of 
 modern work. All old work nearly has been hard 
 work. It may be the hard work of children, of bar- 
 barians, of rustics ; but it is always their utmost. 
 Ours has as constantly the look of money's worth, of 
 a stopping short wherever and whenever we can, of 
 a lazy compliance with low conditions ; never of a fair 
 putting forth of our strength. Let us have done with 
 this kind of work at once : cast off every temptation 
 to it : do not let us degrade ourselves voluntarily, and 
 then mutter and mourn over our short comings ; let us 
 confess our poverty or our parsimony, but not belie 
 our human intellect. It is not even a question of how much 
 
 we are to do, but of how it is to be done ; it is not a question 
 of doing more, but of doing better. Do not let us boss our 
 roofs with wretched, half-worked, blunt-edged rosettes ; do not 
 let us flank our gates with rigid imitations of mediaeval statuary. 
 Such things are mere insults to common sense, and only unfit us 
 for feeling the nobility of their prototypes. We have so much, 
 suppose, to be spent in decoration ; let us go to the Flaxman of his 
 time, whoever he may be ; and bid him carve for us a single statue, 
 frieze, or capital, or as many as we can afford, compelling upon 
 
2 2 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 him the one condition, that they shall be the best he can do ; place 
 them where they will be of the most value, and be content. Our 
 other capitals may be mere blocks, and our other niches empty. 
 No matter : better our work unfinished than all bad. It may be 
 that we do not desire ornament of so high an order : choose, then, 
 a less developed style, as also, if )'ou will, rougher material ; the 
 law which we are enforcing requires only that what we pretend 
 to do and to give, shall both be the best of their kind ; choose, 
 therefore, the Norman hatchet work, instead of the Flaxman frieze 
 and statue, but let it be the best hatchet work ; and if you cannot 
 afford marble, use Caen stone, but from the best bed ; and if not 
 stone, brick, but the best brick ; preferring always what is good 
 of a lower order of work or material, to what is bad of a higher ; 
 for this is not only the way to improve every kind of work, and 
 to put every kind of material to better use ; but it is more honest 
 and unpretending, and is in harmony with other just, upright, 
 and manly principles, whose range we shall have presently to 
 take into consideration. 
 
 XI. The other condition which we had to notice, was the value 
 of the appearance of labour upon architecture. I have spoken of 
 this before * ; and it is, indeed, one of the most frequent sources of 
 pleasure which belong to the art, always, however, within certain 
 somewhat remarkable limits. For it does not at first appear 
 easily to be explained why labour, as represented by materials of 
 value, should, without sense of wrong or error, bear being Avasted ; 
 while the waste of actual workmanship is always painful, so soon 
 as it is apparent. But so it is, that, while precious materials may, 
 with a certain profusion and negligence, be employed for the 
 magnificence of what is seldom seen, the work of man cannot 
 be carelessly and idly bestowed, without an immediate sense of 
 wrong ; as if the strength of the living creature were never 
 intended by its Maker to be sacrificed In vain, though it is well 
 for us sometimes to part with what we esteem precious of sub- 
 stance, as showing that in such service it becomes but dross and 
 dust. And in the nice balance between the straitening of effort 
 * "Mod. Painters," Part I. Sec. i. Chap. 3. 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 23 
 
 or enthusiasm on the one hand, and vainly casting it away upon 
 the other, there are more questions than can be met by any but 
 very just and watchful feeling. In general it is less the mere 
 loss of labour that offends us, than the lack of judgment implied 
 by such loss ; so that if men confessedly work for work's sake,^ and 
 it does not appear that they are ignorant where or how to make 
 their labour tell, we shall not be grossly offended. On the con- 
 trary, we shall be pleased if the work be lost in carrying out a 
 princiiDle, or in avoidinga deception. It, indeed, is a law properly 
 belonging to another part of our subject, but it may be allowably 
 stated here, that, whenever, by the construction of a building, 
 some parts of it are hidden from the eye which are the continua- 
 tion of others bearing some consistent ornament, it is not well 
 that the ornament should cease in the parts concealed ; credit is 
 given for it, and it should not be deceptively withdrawn : as, 
 for instance, in the sculpture of the backs of the statues of a 
 temple pediment ; never, perhaps, to be seen, but yet not lawfully 
 to be left unfinished. And so in the working out of ornaments 
 in dark or concealed places, in which it is best to err on the side 
 of completion ; and in the carrying round of string courses, and 
 other such continuous work ; not but that they may stop some- 
 times, on the point of going into some palpably impenetrable 
 recess, but then let them stop boldly and markedly, on some 
 distinct terminal ornament, and never be supposed to exist where 
 they do not. The arches of the towers w^hich flank the transepts 
 of Rouen Cathedral have rosette ornaments on their spandrils, on 
 the three visible sides ; none on the side towards the roof. The 
 right of this is rather a nice point for question. 
 
 XII. Visibility, however, we must remember, depends, not only 
 on situation, but on distance ; and there is no way in which work is 
 more painfully and unwisely lost than in its over delicacy on parts 
 
 " Obscurely expressed. I meant, if they worked to show their respect for what 
 they are doing, and gladness in doing all they can — not in the idea of producing 
 impossible effects, or impressing the spectator with a quantity of bad, when they 
 can do nothing that's good. " Sacrificed," in the next sentence, would have been 
 a better word than " lost." 
 
24 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 distant from the eye. Here, again, the principle of honesty must 
 govern our treatment : we must not work any kind of ornament 
 which is, perliaps, to cover the whole building (or at least to occur 
 on all parts of it) delicately where it is near the eye, and rudely 
 where it is removed from it. That is trickery and dishonesty.'" 
 Consider, first, what kinds of ornaments will tell in the distance 
 and what near, and so distribute them, keeping such as by their 
 nature are delicate, down near the eye, and throwing the bold and 
 rough kinds of work to the top ; and if there be any kind which 
 is to be both near and far off, take care that it be as boldly and 
 rudely wrought where it is well seen as where it is distant, so 
 that the spectator may know exactly what it is, and what it is 
 worth. Thus chequered patterns, and in general such ornaments 
 as common workmen can execute, may extend over the whole 
 building ; but bas-reliefs, and fine niches and capitals, should be 
 kept down ; and the common sense of this will always give a build- 
 ing dignity, even though there be some abruptness or awkward- 
 ness in the resulting arrangements. Thus at San Zeno at Verona, 
 the bas-reliefs, full of incident and interest, are confined to a 
 parallelogram of the front, reaching to the height of the capitals 
 of the columns of the porch. Above these, we find a simple, though 
 most lovely, little arcade ; and above that, only blank wall, with 
 square face shafts. The whole effect is tenfold grander and better 
 than if the entire fa9ade had been covered with bad work, and 
 may serve for an exam.ple of the way to place little where we 
 cannot afford much. So, again, the transept gates of Rouen * are 
 covered with delicate bas-reliefs (of which I shall speak at greater 
 length presently) up to about once and a half a man's height ; and 
 
 '" There is too much stress laid, throughout this volume, on probity in pic- 
 turesque treatment, and not enough on probity in material construction. No 
 rascal mil ever build a pretty building, — but the common sense, which is the root 
 of virtue, will have more to say in a strong man's design than his finer sentiments. 
 In the fulfilment of his contract honourably, there will be more test of his higher 
 feelings than in his modes of sculpture. But the concluding sentences of the 
 chapter from this point forward are all quite right, and can't be much better put. 
 
 * Henceforward, for the sake of convenience, when I name any cathedral town 
 in this manner, let me be understood to speak of its cathedral church. 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 2$ 
 
 above that come the usual and more visible statues and niches. 
 So in the campanile at Florence, the circuit of bas-reliefs is on its 
 lowest story ; above that come its statues ; and above them all is 
 pattern mosaic, and twisted columns, exquisitely finished, like all 
 Italian work of the time, but still, in the eye of the Florentine, 
 rough and commonplace by comparison with the bas-reliefs. So 
 generally the most delicate niche work and best mouldings of the 
 French Gothic are in gates and low windows well within sight ; 
 although, it being the very spirit of that style to trust to its 
 exuberance for effect, there is occasionally a burst upwards and 
 blossoming unrestrainably to the sky, as in the pediment of the 
 west front of Rouen, and in the recess of the rose window behind 
 it, where there are some most elaborate flower-mouldings, all but 
 invisible from below, and only adding a general enrichment to the 
 deep shadows that relieve the shafts of the advanced pediment. 
 It is observable, however, that this very work is bad flamboyant, 
 and has corrupt renaissance characters in its detail as well as use ; 
 while in the earlier and grander north and south gates, there 
 is a very noble proportioning of the work to the distance, the 
 niches and statues which crown the northern one, at a height 
 of about one hundred feet from the ground, being alike colossal 
 and simple ; visibly so from below, so as to induce no deception, 
 and yet honestly and well finished above, and all that they are 
 expected to be ; the features very beautiful, full of expression, 
 and as delicately wrought as any work of the period. 
 
 XIII. It is to be remembered, however, that while the orna- 
 ments in every fine ancient building, without exception so far as I 
 am aware, are most delicate at the base, they are often in greater 
 effective quaiitity on the upper parts. In high towers this is 
 perfectly natural and right, the solidity of the foundation being as 
 necessary as the division and penetration of the superstructure ; 
 hence the lighter work and richly pierced crowns of late Gothic 
 towers. The campanile of Giotto at Florence, already alluded to, 
 is an exquisite instance of the union of the two principles, delicate 
 bas-reliefs adorning its massy foundation, while the open tracery 
 of the upper windows attracts the eye by its slender intricacy, 
 
 E 
 
26 ' THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 and a rich cornice crowns the whole. In such truly fine cases 
 of this disposition the upper work is effective by its quantity and 
 intricacy only, as the lower portions by delicacy ; so also in the 
 Tour de Beurre at Rouen, where, however, the detail is massy 
 throughout, subdividing into rich meshes as it ascends. In the 
 bodies of buildings the principle is less safe, but its discussion 
 is not connected with our present subject. 
 
 XIV. Finally, work may be wasted by being too good for its 
 material, or too fine to bear exposure ; and this, generally a 
 characteristic of late, especially of renaissance, work, is perhaps 
 the worst fault of all. I do not know anything more painful 
 or pitiful than the kind of ivory carving with which the Certosa 
 of Pavia, and part of the Colleone sepulchral chapel at Bergamo, 
 and other such buildings, are incrusted, of which it is not pos- 
 sible so much as to think without exhaustion ; and a heavy 
 sense of the misery it would be, to be forced to look at it all. 
 And this is not from the quantity of it, nor because it is bad 
 work — much of it is inventive and able ; but because it looks 
 as if it were only fit to be put in inlaid cabinets and velveted 
 caskets, and as if it could not bear one drifting shower or 
 gnawing frost. We are afraid for it, anxious about it, and 
 tormented by it ; and we feel that a massy shaft and a bold 
 shadow would be worth it all. Nevertheless, even in cases like 
 these, much depends on the accomplishment of the great ends 
 of decoration. If the ornament does its duty — if it is ornament, 
 and its points of shade and light tell in the general effect, we 
 shall not be offended by finding that the sculptor in his fulness 
 of fancy has chosen to give much more than these mere points 
 of light, and has composed them of groups of figures. But 
 if the ornament does not answer its purpose, if it have no distant, 
 no truly decorative povv^er ; if, generally seen, it be a mere in- 
 crustation and meaningless roughness, we shall only be cha- 
 grined by finding when we look close, that the incrustation 
 has cost years of labour, and has millions of figures and histories 
 in it ; and would be the better of being seen through a Stanhope 
 lens. Hence the greatness of the northern Gothic as contrasted 
 
THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 27 
 
 with the latest ItaHan. It reaches nearly the same extreme of 
 detail ; but it never loses sight of its architectural purpose, never 
 fails in its decorative power ; not a leaflet in it but speaks, and 
 speaks far off too ; and so long as this be the case, there is no 
 limit to the luxuriance in which such work may legitimately and 
 nobly be bestowed. 
 
 XV. No limit: it is one of the affectations of architects to speak 
 of overcharged ornament. Ornament cannot be overcharged if it 
 be good, and is always overcharged when it is bad. I have given, 
 on the opposite page (fig. i.), one of the smallest niches of the 
 central gate of Rouen. That gate I suppose to be the most ex- 
 quisite piece of pure flamboyant work existing ; for though I have 
 spoken of the upper portions, especially the receding window, as 
 degenerate, the gate itself is of a purer period, and has hardly any 
 renaissance taint. There are four strings of these niches (each 
 with two figures beneath it) round the porch, from the ground 
 to the top of the arch, with three intermediate rows of larger 
 niches, far more elaborate ; besides the six principal canopies of 
 each outer pier. The total number of the subordinate niches 
 alone, each worked like that in the plate, and each with a dif- 
 ferent pattern of traceries in each compartment,* is one hundred 
 and seventy-six. Yet in all this ornament there is not one 
 cusp, one finial, that is useless — not a stroke of the chisel is in 
 vain ; the grace and luxuriance of it all are visible — sensible 
 rather — even to the uninquiring eye ; and all its minuteness does 
 not diminish the majesty, while it increases the mystery, of the 
 noble and unbroken vault. It is not less the boast of some 
 styles that they can bear ornament, than of others that they can 
 do without it ; but we do not often enough reflect that those 
 very styles, of so haughty simplicity, owe part of their pleasura- 
 bleness' to contrast, and would be wearisome if universal. They 
 are but the rests and monotones of the art; it is to its far 
 happier, far higher, exaltation that we owe those fair fronts of 
 variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies and dark hosts of 
 imagery, thicker and quainter than ever filled the depth of mid- 
 
 * See Appendix II. 
 
28 THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 summer dream ; those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves ; 
 those window-labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light; 
 those misty masses of multitudinous pinnacle and diademed 
 tower ; the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith 
 and fear of nations. All else for which the builders sacrificed, 
 has passed away — all their living interests, and aims, and 
 achievements. We know not for what they laboured, and we 
 see no evidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, authority, 
 happiness — all have departed, though bought by many a bitter 
 sacrifice. But of them, and their life and their toil upon the 
 earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those gray heaps 
 of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave 
 their powers, their honours, and their errors ; but they have left 
 us their adoration. 
 
29 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 I. There is a marked likeness between the virtue of man and 
 the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits — the same diminishing 
 gradation in vigour up to the limits of their domains, the same 
 essential separation from their contraries — the same twilight at 
 the meeting of the two : a something wider belt than the line 
 where the world rolls into night, that strang-e twilight of the 
 virtues'; that dusky debateable land, wherein zeal becomes im- 
 patience, and temperance becomes severity, and justice becomes 
 cruelty, and faith superstition, and each and all vanish into 
 gloom. 
 
 Nevertheless, with the greater number of them, though their 
 dimness increases gradually, we may mark the moment of their 
 sunset ; and, happily, may turn the shadow back by the way by 
 which it had gone down : but for one, the line of the horizon is 
 irregular and undefined ; and this, too, the very equator and 
 girdle of them all — Truth ; that only one of which there are no 
 degrees, but breaks and rents continually ; that pillar of the earth, 
 yet a cloudy pillar ; that golden and narrow line, which the very 
 powers and virtues that lean upon it bend, which policy and pru- 
 dence conceal, which kindness and courtesy modify, which courage 
 overshadows with his shield_, imagination covers with her wings, 
 and charity dims with her tears. How difficult must the mainte- 
 nance of that authority be, which, while it has to restrain the hos- 
 tility of all the worst principles of man, has also to restrain the 
 disorders of his best — which is continually assaulted by the one 
 and betrayed by the other, and which regards with the same seve- 
 rity the lightest and the boldest violations of its law ! There are 
 some faults slight in the sight of love, some errors slight in the 
 
30 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 estimate of wisdom ; but truth forgives no insult, and endures no 
 stain. 
 
 We do not enough consider this ; nor enough dread the slight 
 
 Aphorism 7. and continual occasions of offence against her. We are too 
 
 Jildifamof much in the habit of looking at falsehood in its dark- 
 amiable and .. ,, ,.« 1 r ■ . 
 
 well meant cst associations, and through the colour of its worst 
 
 lying. 
 
 purposes. That indignation which we profess to feel 
 at deceit absolute, is indeed only at deceit malicious. 
 "We resent calumny, hypocrisy, and treachery, because 
 they harm us, not because they are untrue. Take the 
 detraction and the mischief from the untruth, and we 
 are little offended by it ; turn it into praise, and we 
 may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny 
 nor treachery that do " the largest sum of mischief in 
 the world ; they are continually crushed, and are felt 
 only in being conquered. But it is the glistening and 
 softly spoken lie ; the amiable fallacy ; the patriotic lie 
 of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the 
 zealous lie of the partizan, the merciful lie of the 
 friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, 
 that cast that black mystery over humanity, through 
 which we thank any man who pierces, as we would 
 thank one who dug a well in a desert; happy, that the 
 thirst for truth still remains with us, even when we 
 have wilfully left the fountains of it. 
 
 " " Do," — in the old edition, more grammatically, " does," — but, as I get old, 
 I like to make my own grammar at home. The sentence following, " they are 
 continually crushed, and are felt only in being conquered," must be missed out 
 of the aphorism. I did not know the world, when I wTote it, as well as Sandro 
 Botticelli ; but the entire substance of the aphorism is sound, nevertheless, and 
 most useful. Calumny is, indeed, more invincible than praise : but, at its worst, 
 less mischievous than (ying praise, and that by a long way. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 3 1 
 
 It would be well if moralists less frequently confused the 
 greatness of a sin with its unpardonableness. The two characters 
 are altogether distinct. The greatness of a fault depends pardy 
 on the nature of the person against whom it is committed, partly 
 upon the extent of its consequences. Its pardonableness depends, 
 humanly speaking, on the degree of temptation to it. One 
 class of circumstances determines the weieht of the attaching 
 punishment; the other, the claim to remission of punishment : and 
 since it is not always easy for men to estimate the relative weight, 
 nor always possible for them to know the relative consequences, 
 of crime, it is usually wise in them to quit the care of such nice 
 measurements, and to look to the other and clearer condition of 
 culpability, esteeming those faults worst which are committed 
 under least temptation. I do not mean to diminish the blame 
 of the injurious and malicious sin, of the selfish and deliberate 
 falsity ; yet it seems to me, that the shortest way to check the 
 darker forms of deceit is to set watch more scrupulous against 
 those which have mingled unregarded and unchastised, with the 
 current of our life. Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of 
 one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as 
 unintended. Cast them all aside : they may be light and accidental ; 
 but they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, for all that ; 
 and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean of them, 
 without over care as to which is largest or blackest. Speaking 
 truth is like writing fair, and comes only by practice ; it is less 
 a matter of will than of habit, and I doubt if any occasion can 
 be trivial which permits the practice and formation of such a 
 
 habit. To speak and act truth with constancy and aphorism s. 
 
 precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as merito- 3"™*':'"'"°' 
 
 *■ ■' '^ '^ be persisted 
 
 rious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty ; p"ins*bu\ is 
 
 - . . , i i , 1 1 uorth them. 
 
 and It IS a strange thought hov^ many men there are, 
 as I trust, who would hold to it at the cost of fortune 
 or life, for one who would hold to it at the cost of a 
 little daily trouble. And seeing that of all sin there is, 
 
32 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 perhaps, no one more flatly opposite to the Almighty, 
 no one more " wanting the good of virtue and of being," 
 than this of lying, it is surely a strange insolence to fall 
 into the foulness of it on light or on no temptation, and 
 surely becoming an honourable man to resolve, that, 
 whatever semblances or fallacies the necessary course 
 of his life may compel him to bear or to believe, none 
 shall disturb the serenity of his voluntary actions, nor 
 diminish the reality of his chosen delights. 
 
 II. If this be just and wise for truth's sake, much more is it 
 necessary for the sake of the delights over which she has influence. 
 For, as I advocated the expression of the Spirit of Sacrifice in 
 the acts and pleasures of men, not as if thereby those acts could 
 further the cause of religion, but because most assuredly they 
 might therein be infinitely ennobled themselves, so I would 
 have the Spirit or Lamp of Truth clear in the hearts of our 
 artists and handicraftsmen, not as if the truthful practice of 
 handicrafts could far advance the cause of truth, but because I 
 would fain see the handicrafts themselves urged by the spurs 
 of chivalry : and it is, indeed, marvellous to see what power and 
 universality there are in this single principle, and how in the 
 consulting or forgetting of it lies half the dignity or decline of 
 every art and act of man. I have before endeavoured to show 
 its range and power in painting ; and I believe a volume, instead 
 of a chapter, might be written on its authority over all that is 
 great in architecture. But I must be content with the force 
 of few and familiar instances, believing that the occasions of its 
 manifestation may be more easily discovered by a desire to be 
 true, than embraced by an analysis of truth. 
 
 Only it is very necessary in the outset to mark clearly wherein 
 consists the essence of fallacy, as distinguished from fancy." 
 
 '^ "Fancy;" before, "supposition," — which was a curiously imperfect word. 
 "Fancy," short for "fantasy," now must be taken as including not only great 
 imaginations, but fond ones, or even foolish and diseased ones— which are never- 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 33 
 
 III. For it might be at first thought that the whole aphorism 9. 
 kingdom of imagination was one of deception also. Jn'ddigi'i'ity 
 Not so : the action of the imagmation is a voluntary uon. 
 summoning of the conceptions of things absent or 
 impossible ; and the pleasure and nobility of the ima- 
 gination partly consist in its knowledge and contem- 
 plation of them as such, ?>. in the knowledge of their 
 actual absence or impossibility at the moment of their 
 apparent presence or reality. When the imagination 
 deceives, it becomes madness. It is a noble faculty so 
 long as it confesses its own ideality; when it ceases to 
 confess this, it is insanity. All the difference lies in 
 the fact of the confession, in there being 710 deception. 
 It is necessary to our rank as spiritual creatures, that 
 we should be able to invent and to behold what is not ; 
 and to our rank as moral creatures, that we should 
 know and confess at the same time that it is not. 
 
 IV. Again, it might be thought, and has been thought, that 
 
 the whole art of painting is nothing else than an endeavour to 
 
 deceive. Not so : it is, on the contrary, a statement of certain 
 
 facts, in the clearest possible way. For instance : I desire to 
 
 give an account of a mountain or of a rock ; I begin by telling 
 
 its shape. But words will not do this distinctly, and I draw its 
 
 shape, and say, " This was its shape." Next : I would fain 
 
 represent its colour : but words will not do this either, and I dye 
 
 the paper, and say, " This was its colour." Such a process may 
 
 be carried on until the scene appears to exist, and a high pleasure 
 
 maybe taken in its apparent existence. This is a communicated 
 
 act of imagination, but no lie. The lie can consist onlj' in an 
 
 assertion of its existence (which is never for one instant made, 
 
 theless as true as the healthiest, so long as we know them to be diseased. A 
 dream is as real a fact, as a vision of reality : deceptive only if we do not recog- 
 nise it as a dream. 
 
34 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 implied, or believe), or else in false statements of forms and 
 colours (which are, indeed, made and believed to our great loss, 
 continually). And observe, also, that so degrading a thing is 
 deception in even the approach and appearance of it, that all 
 painting which even reaches the mark of apparent realisation is 
 degraded in so doing. I have enough insisted on this point in 
 another place. 
 
 V. The violations of truth, which dishonour poetry and 
 painting, are thus for the most part confined to the treatment of 
 their subjects. But in architecture another and a less subtle, 
 more contemptible, violation of truth is possible ; a direct falsity 
 of assertion respecting the nature of material, or the quantity 
 of labour. And this is, in the full sense of the word, wrong ; 
 it is as truly deserving of reprobation as any other moral 
 delinquency ; it is unworthy alike of architects and of nations ; 
 and it has been a sign, wherever it has widely and with toleration 
 existed, of a singular debasement of the arts ; that it is not a 
 sign of worse than this, of a general want of severe probity, can 
 be accounted for only by our knowledge of the strange separation 
 which has for some centuries existed between the arts and all 
 other subjects of human intellect, as matters of conscience. This 
 withdrawal of conscientiousness from among the faculties con- 
 cerned with art, while it has destroyed the a.rts themselves, has 
 also rendered in a measure nugatory the evidence which other- 
 wise they might have presented respecting the character of the 
 respective nations among whom they have been cultivated ; 
 otherwise, it might appear more than strange that a nation so 
 distinguished for its general uprightness and faith as the English, 
 should admit in their architecture more of pretence, concealment, 
 and deceit, than any other of this or of past time. 
 
 They are admitted in thoughtlessness, but with fatal effect upon 
 the art in which they are practised. If there were no other causes 
 for the failures which of late have marked every great occasion 
 for architectural exertion, these petty dishonesties would be 
 enough to account for all. It is the first step, and not the least, 
 towards greatness, to do away with these ; the first, because 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 35 
 
 SO evidently and easily in our power. We may not be able to 
 command good, or beautiful, or inventive, architecture ; but we 
 can command an honest architecture : the meagreness of poverty 
 may be pardoned, the sternness of utility respected ; but what is 
 there but scorn for the meanness of deception ? 
 
 VI. Architectural Deceits are broadly to be considered under 
 three heads : — 
 
 1st. The suggestion of a mode of structure or support, other 
 than the true one ; as in pendants of late Gothic roofs. 
 
 2nd. The painting of surfaces to represent some other material 
 than that of which they actually consist (as in the marbling of 
 wood), or the deceptive representation of sculptured ornament 
 upon them. 
 
 3rd. The use of cast or machine-made ornaments of any kind. 
 
 Now, it may be broadly stated, that architecture will be noble 
 exactly in the degree in which all these false expedients are 
 avoided. Nevertheless, there are certain degrees of them, which, 
 owing to their frequent usage, or to other causes, have so far 
 lost the nature of deceit as to be admissible ; as, for instance, 
 gilding, which is in architecture no deceit, because it is therein 
 not understood for gold ; while in jewellery it is a deceit, because 
 it is so understood, and therefore altogether to be reprehended. 
 So that there arise, in the application of the strict rules of 
 right, many exceptions and niceties of conscience ; which let us 
 as briefly as possible examine. 
 
 VII. 1st. Structural Deceits.'^ I have limited these to the 
 determined and purposed suggestion of a mode of support other 
 than the true one. The architect is not bound to exhibit 
 structure ; nor are we to complain of him for concealing it, any 
 more than we should regret that the outer surfaces of the human 
 frame conceal much of its anatomy ; nevertheless, that building 
 will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent eye discovers 
 the great secrets of its structure, as an animal form does, al- 
 though from a careless observer they may be concealed. In 
 
 " Aesthetic deceits, to the eye and mind, being all that are considered in this 
 chapter — not practical roguery. See note 10, p. 24. 
 
36 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 the vaulting of a Gothic roof it is no deceit to throw the strength 
 into the ribs of it, and make the intermediate vault a mere 
 shell. Such a structure would be presumed by an intelligent 
 observer, the first time he saw such a roof ; and the beauty of its 
 traceries would be enhanced to him if they confessed and followed 
 the lines of its main strength. If, however, the intermediate 
 shell were made of wood instead of stone, and whitewashed to 
 look like the rest, — this would, of course, be direct deceit, and 
 altogether unpardonable. 
 
 There is, however, a certain deception necessarily occurring in 
 Gothic architecture, which relates, not to the points, but to the 
 manner, of support. The resemblance in its shafts and ribs to 
 the external relations of stems and branches, which has been the 
 ground of so much foolish speculation, necessarily induces in the 
 mind of the spectator a sense or belief of a correspondent internal 
 structure ; that is to say, of a fibrous and continuous strength 
 from the root into the limbs, and an elasticity communicated 
 upwards, sufficient for the support of the ramified portions. The 
 idea of the real conditions, of a great weight of ceiling thrown 
 upon certain narrow, jointed lines, which have a tendency partly 
 to be crushed, and partly to separate and be pushed outwards, is 
 with difficulty received ; and the more so when the pillars would 
 be, if unassisted, too slight for the weight, and are supported by 
 external flying buttresses, as in the apse of Beauvais, and other 
 such achievements of the bolder Gothic. Now, there is a nice 
 question of conscience in this, which we shall hardly settle but by 
 considering that, when the mind is informed beyond the possibility 
 of mistake as to the true nature of things, the aftecting it with a 
 contrary impression, however distinct, is no dishonesty, but, on 
 the contrary, a legitimate appeal to the imagination. For instance, 
 the greater part of the happiness which we have in contemplating 
 clouds, results from the impression of their having massive, 
 luminous, warm, and mountain-like surfaces ; and our delight in 
 the sky frequently depends upon our considering it as a blue 
 vault. But, if we choose, we may know the contrary, in both 
 instances ; and easily ascertain the cloud to be a damp fog, or a 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 37 
 
 drift of snow-flakes ; and the sky to be a lightless abyss. There 
 is, therefore, no dishonesty, while there is much delight, in the 
 irresistibly contrary impression. In the same way, so long as we 
 see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the points 
 of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than 
 regret the dexterous artifices which compel us to feel as if there 
 were fibre in its shafts and life in its branches. Nor is even the 
 concealment of the support of the external buttress reprehensible, 
 so long as the pillars are not sensibly inadequate to their duty. 
 For the weight of a roof is a circumstance of which the spectator 
 generally has no idea, and the provisions for it, consequently, cir- 
 cumstances whose necessity or adaptation he could not under- 
 stand. It is no deceit, therefore, when the weight to be borne 
 is necessarily unknown, to conceal also the means of bearing it, 
 leaving only to be perceived so much of the support as is indeed 
 adequate to the weight supposed. For the shafts do, indeed, 
 bear as much as they are ever imagined to bear, and the system 
 of added support is no more, as a matter of conscience, to be 
 exhibited, than, in the human or any other form, mechanical 
 provisions for those functions which are themselves unperceived. 
 
 But the moment that the conditions of weight are compre- 
 hended, both truth and feeling require that the conditions of 
 support should be also comprehended. Nothing can be worse, 
 either as judged by the taste or the conscience, than affectedly 
 inadequate supports — suspensions in air, and other such tricks 
 and vanities." 
 
 VIII. With deceptive concealments of structure are to be 
 classed, though still more blameable, deceptive assumptions of it, 
 ^the introduction of members which should have, or profess to 
 have, a duty, and have none. One of the most general instances 
 of this will be found in the form of the flying buttress in late 
 
 " Four lines are here suppressed, of attack by Mr. Hope on St. Sophia, which 
 I do not now choose to ratify, because I have never seen St. Sophia ; and of 
 attack by myself on King's College Chapel, at Cambridge, — which took no account 
 of the many charming qualities possessed through its faults, nor of its superiority 
 to everything else in its style. 
 
38 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 Gothic. The use of that member is, of course, to convey support 
 from one pier to another when the plan of the building renders 
 it necessary or desirable that the supporting masses should be 
 divided into groups ; the most frequent necessity of this kind 
 arising from the intermediate range of chapels or aisles between 
 the nave or choir walls and their supporting piers. The natural, 
 healthy, and beautiful arrangement is that of a steeply sloping 
 bar of stone, sustained by an arch with its spandril carried 
 farthest down on the lowest side, and dying into the vertical 
 of the outer pier ; that pier being, of course, not square, but 
 rather a piece of wall set at right angles to the supported walls, 
 and, if need be, crowned by a pinnacle to give it greater weight. 
 The whole arrangement is exquisitely carried out in the choir of 
 Beauvais. In later Gothic the pinnacle became gradually a 
 decorative member, and was used in all places merely for the 
 sake of its beauty. There is no objection to this ; it is just as 
 lawful to build a pinnacle for its beauty as a tower ; but also the 
 buttress became a decorative member ; and was used, first, where 
 it was not wanted, and, secondly, in forms in which it could be of 
 no use, becoming a mere tie, not between the pier and wall, but 
 between the wall and the top of the decorative pinnacle, thus 
 attaching itself to the very point where its thrust, if it made 
 any, could not be resisted. The most flagrant instance of this 
 barbarism that I remember, (though it prevails partially in all the 
 spires of the Netherlands,) is the lantern of St. Ouen at Rouen, 
 where the pierced buttress, having an ogee curve, looks about 
 as much calculated to bear a thrust as a switch of willow ; and 
 the pinnacles, huge and richly decorated, have evidently no work 
 to do whatsoever, but stand round the central tower, like four 
 idle servants, as they are — heraldic supporters, that central tower 
 being merely a hollow crown, which needs no more buttressing 
 than a basket does. In fact, I do not know any thing more 
 strange or unwise than the praise lavished upon this lantern ; it 
 is one of the basest pieces of Gothic in Europe ; its flamboyant 
 traceries beings of the last and most degraded forms * : and its 
 
 * See Appendix 11. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 39 
 
 entire plan and decoration resembling, and deserving little more 
 credit than, the burnt sugar ornaments of elaborate confectionery. 
 There are hardly any of the magnificent and serene methods of 
 construction in the early Gothic, which have not, in the course of 
 time, been gradually thinned and pared away into these skele- 
 tons, which sometimes indeed, when their lines truly follow the 
 structure of the original masses, have an interest like that of 
 the fibrous framework of leaves from which the substance has 
 been dissolved, but which are usually distorted as well as ema- 
 ciated, and remain but the sickly phantoms and mockeries of 
 things that were ; they are to true architecture what the Greek 
 ghost was to the armed and living frame ; and the very winds 
 that whistle through the threads of them, are to the diapasoned 
 echoes of the ancient walls, as to the voice of the man was the 
 pining of the spectre. 
 
 IX. Perhaps the most fruitful source of these kings of corrup- 
 tion which we have to guard against in recent times, is one 
 which, nevertheless, comes in a " questionable shape," and of 
 which it is not easy to determine the proper laws and limits; I 
 mean the use of iron. The definition of the art of architecture, 
 given in the first Chapter, is independent of its materials. 
 Nevertheless, that art having been, up to the beginning of the 
 present century, practised for the most part in clay, stone, or 
 wood, it has resulted that the sense of proportion and the laws of 
 structure have been based, the one altogether, the other in great 
 part, on the necessities consequent on the employment of those 
 materials ; and that the entire or principal employment of metallic 
 framework would, therefore, be generally felt as a departure from 
 the first principles of the art. Abstractedly there appears no 
 reason why iron should not be used as well as wood ; and the 
 time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws 
 will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction. 
 But I believe that the tendency of all present '^ sympathy and 
 
 " " Present " {i.e. of the day in which I wrote), as opposed to the ferruginous 
 temper which I saw rapidly developing itself, and which, since that day, has 
 changed our merry England into the Man in the Iron Mask. 
 
40 
 
 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 Aphorism io. 
 
 The proper 
 structural 
 use of iron. 
 
 association is to limit the idea of architecture to non-metallic 
 work ; and that not without reason. For architecture beine in 
 its perfection the earliest, as in its elements it is necessarily the 
 first, of arts, will always precede, in any barbarous nation, the 
 possession of the science necessary either for the obtaining or 
 the management of iron. Its first existence and its earliest laws 
 must, therefore, depend upon the use of materials accessible in 
 quantity, and on the surface of the earth ; that is to say, clay, 
 wood, or stone : and as I think it cannot but be generally felt 
 that one of the chief dignities of architecture is its historical use, 
 and since the latter is partly dependent on consistency of style, 
 it will be felt right to retain as far as may be, even in periods of 
 more advanced science, the materials and principles of earlier 
 ages. 
 
 X. But whether this be granted me or not, the fact is, that 
 every idea respecting size, proportion, decoration, or construction, 
 on which we are at present in the habit of acting or judging, 
 depends on presupposition of such materials : and as I both feel 
 myself unable to escape the influence of these prejudices, and 
 believe that my readers will be equally so, it may be perhaps 
 permitted to me to assume that true architecture does not admit 
 iron as a constructive material, and that such works as the cast- 
 iron central spire of Rouen Cathedral, or the iron roofs and 
 pillars of our railway stations, and of some of our churches, are 
 not architecture at all. Yet it is evident that metals may, and 
 sometimes must, enter into the construction to a certain extent, 
 as nails in wooden architecture, and therefore, as legitimately, 
 rivets and solderings in stone ; neither can we well deny to the 
 Gothic architect the power of supporting statues, pinnacles, or 
 traceries by iron bars ; and if we grant this, I do not see how we 
 can help allowing Brunelleschi his iron chain around the dome of 
 Florence, or the builders of Salisbury their elaborate iron binding 
 of the central tower. If, however, we would not fall into the 
 old sophistry of the grains of corn and the heap, we must find 
 
 a rule which may enable us to stop somewhere. This rule is, 
 
 I think, that metals may be used as a cement, but not 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 4 1 
 
 as a support. For as cements of other kinds are often 
 so strong that the stones may easier be broken than 
 separated, and the wall becomes a solid mass, without 
 for that reason losing the character of architecture, 
 there is no reason why, when a nation has obtained 
 the knowledge and practice of iron work, metal rods 
 or rivets should not be used in the place of cement, 
 and establish the same or a greater strength and adhe- 
 rence, without in any wise inducing departure from the 
 types and system of architecture before established ; 
 nor does it make any difference, except as to sight- 
 liness, whether the metal bands or rods so employed 
 be in the body of the wall or on its exterior, or set as 
 stays and cross-bands ; so only that the use of them 
 be always and distinctly one which might be super- 
 seded by mere strength of cement ; as for instance if a 
 pinnacle or mullion be propped or tied by an iron band, 
 it is evident that the iron only prevents the separation 
 of the stones by lateral force, which the cement would 
 have done, had it been strong enough. But the 
 moment that the iron in the least degree takes the 
 place of the stone, and acts by its resistance to crush- 
 ing, and bears superincumbent weight, or if it acts by 
 its own weight as a counterpoise, and so supersedes 
 the use of pinnacles or buttresses in resisting a lateral 
 thrust, or if, in the form of a rod or girder, it is used to 
 do what wooden beams would have done as well, that 
 instant the building ceases, so far as such applications 
 of metal extend, to be true architecture."^ 
 
 "* Again the word " architecture," used as implying perfect op\i;, or authority 
 
 G 
 
42 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 XI. The limit, however, thus determined, is an ultimate one, 
 and it is well in all things to be cautious how we approach the 
 utmost limit of lawfulness ; so that, although the employment of 
 metal within this limit cannot be considered as destroying the 
 very being and nature of architecture, it will, if extravagant and 
 frequent, derogate from the dignity of the work, as well as (which 
 is especially to our present point) from its honesty. For although 
 the spectator is not informed as to the quantity or strength of the 
 cement employed, he will generally conceive the stones of the 
 building to be separable ; and his estimate of the skill of the 
 architect will be based in great measure on the supposition of this 
 condition, and of the difficulties attendant upon it : so that it is 
 always more honourable, and it has a tendency to render the 
 style of architecture both more masculine and more scientific, to 
 employ stone and mortar simply as such, and to do as much 
 as possible with their mere weight and strength, and rather 
 sometimes to forego a grace, or to confess a weakness, than 
 attain the one, or conceal the other, by means verging upon 
 dishonesty. 
 
 Nevertheless, where the design is of such delicacy and slight- 
 ness as, in some parts of very fair and finished edifices, it is 
 desirable that it should be ; and where both its completion and 
 security are in a measure dependent on the use of metal, let not 
 such use be reprehended ; so only that as much is done as may be, 
 by good mortar and good masonry ; and no slovenly workmanship 
 admitted through confidence in the iron helps ; for it is in this 
 license as in that of wine, a man may use it for his infirmities, 
 but not for his nourishment. 
 
 XII. And, in order to avoid an over use of this liberty, it 
 would be well to consider what application may be conveniently 
 
 over materials. No builder has true command over the changes in the crystalline 
 structure of iron, or over its modes of decay. The definition of iron by the 
 Delphic oracle, "calamity upon calamity" (meaning iron on the anvil), has only 
 been in these last days entirely interpreted : and from the sinking of the " Van- 
 guard " and " London " to the breaking Woolwich Pier into splinters — two days 
 before I vnhe this note, — the " anarchy of iron " is the most notable fact con- 
 cerning it. See Appendix III. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 43 
 
 made of the dovetailing and various adjusting of stones ; for vvlien 
 any artifice is necessary to help the mortar, certainly this ought 
 to come before the use of metal, for it is both safer and more honest. 
 I cannot see that any objection can be made to the fitting of the 
 stones in any shapes the architect pleases ; for although it would 
 not be desirable to see buildings put together like Chinese puzzles, 
 there must always be a check upon such an abuse of the practice 
 in its difficulty ; nor is it necessary that it should be always ex- 
 hibited, so that it be understood by the spectator as an admitted 
 help, and that no principal stones are introduced in positions 
 apparently impossible for them to retain, although a riddle here 
 and there, in unimportant features, may sometimes serve to draw 
 the eye to the masonry, and make it interesting, as well as to 
 give a delightful sense of a kind of necromantic power in the 
 architect. There is a pretty one in the lintel of the lateral door 
 of the cathedral of Prato (Plate IV. fig. 4) ; where the mainte- 
 nance of the visibly separate stones, alternate marble and serpen- 
 tine, cannot be understood until their cross-cutting is seen below. 
 Each block is, of course, of the form given in fig. 5. 
 
 XIII. Lastly, before leaving the subject of structural deceits, 
 I would remind the architect who thinks that I am unnecessarily 
 and narrowly limiting his resources or his art, that the highest Aphorism n. 
 greatness and the highest wisdom are shown, the first The invioia- 
 
 bility of Di- 
 
 by a noble submission to, the second by a thoughtful of"neJ;ssity°' 
 providence for, certain voluntarily admitted restraints, nand""^ ' 
 Nothing is more evident than this, in that supreme 
 government which is the example, as it is the centre, 
 of all others. The Divine Wisdom is, and can be, 
 shown to us only in its meeting and contending with 
 the difficulties which are voluntarily, and for the sake 
 of that contest, admitted by the Divine Omnipotence : 
 and these difficulties, observe, occur in the form of 
 natural laws or ordinances, which might, at many 
 
44 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 times and in countless ways, be infringed with appa- 
 rent advantage, but which are never infringed, what- 
 ever costly arrangements or adaptations their obser- 
 vance may necessitate for the accomplishment of given 
 purposes. The example most apposite to our present 
 subject is the structure of the bones of animals. No 
 reason can be given, I believe, why the system of the 
 higher animals should not have been made capable, as 
 that of the Infusoria is, of secreting flint, instead of 
 phosphate of lime, or, more naturally still, carbon ; so 
 framing the bones of adamant at once. The elephant 
 or rhinoceros, had the earthy part of their bones been 
 made of diamond, might have been as agile and light 
 as grasshoppers, and other animals might have been 
 framed, far more magnificently colossal than any that 
 walk the earth. In other worlds we may, perhaps, see 
 such creations ; a creation for every element, and 
 elements infinite. But the architecture of animals 
 here is appointed by God to be a marble architecture, 
 not a flint nor adamant architecture; and all manner 
 of expedients are adopted to attain the utmost degree 
 of strength and size possible under that great limita- 
 tion. The jaw of the ichthyosaurus is pieced and 
 riveted, the leg of the megatherium is a foot thick, and 
 the head of the myodon has a double skull ; we, in our 
 wisdom, should, doubtless, have given the lizard a steel 
 jaw, and the myodon a cast-iron headpiece, and for- 
 gotten the great principle to which all creation bears 
 witness, that order and system are nobler things than 
 power. But God shows us in Himself, strange as it 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 45 
 
 may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even 
 the perfection of Obedience — an obedience to His own 
 laws: and in the cumbrous movement of those un- 
 wieldiest of His creatures, we are reminded, even in 
 His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in 
 the human creature ; " that sweareth to his own hurt, 
 and changeth not." 
 
 XIV. 2nd. Surface Deceits.' These may be generally defined 
 as the inducing the supposition of some form of material which 
 does not actually exist ; as commonly in the painting of wood 
 to represent marble, or in the painting of ornaments in decep- 
 tive relief, &c. But we must be careful to observe, that the evil 
 of them consists always in definitely attempted deception, and 
 that it is a matter of some nicety to mark the point where 
 deception begins or ends. 
 
 Thus, for instance, the roof of Milan Cathedral is seemingly 
 covered with elaborate fan tracery, forcibly enough painted to 
 enable it, in its dark and removed position, to deceive a careless 
 observer. This is, of course, gross degradation ; it destroys much 
 of the dignity even of the rest of the building, and is in the very 
 strongest terms to be reprehended. 
 
 The roof of the Sistine Chapel has much architectural design in 
 grisaille mingled with the figures of its frescoes ; and the effect 
 is increase of dignity. 
 
 In what lies the distinctive character ? 
 
 In two points, principally : — The first, that the architecture is 
 so closely associated with the figures, and has so grand fellowship 
 with them in its forms and cast shadows, that both are at once 
 felt to be of a piece ; and as the figures must necessarily be 
 painted, the architecture is known to be so too. There is thus 
 no deception. 
 
 The second, that so great a painter as Michael Angelo aphorism 12. 
 w^ould always stop short, in such minor parts of his Great painting 
 
 ■' * '■ neverdeceives. 
 
 design, of the degree of vulgar force which would be SdXthiJ'"'^ 
 
46 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 aphorism as neccssary to induce the supposition of their reality; 
 
 part of it, the 
 
 fourth para- and, Strangely as it may sound, would never paint 
 
 graph of this ' o y j ^ f 
 
 ciiapter. badly enough to deceive. 
 
 But though right and wrong are thus found broadly 
 opposed in works severally so mean and so mighty as 
 the roof of Milan and that of the Sistine, there are 
 works neither so great nor so mean, in which the limits 
 of right are vaguely defined, and will need some care 
 to determine ; care only, however, to apply accurately 
 the broad principle with which we set out, that no form 
 nor material is to be deceptively represented. 
 
 XV. Evidently, then, painting, confessedly such, is no decep- 
 tion ; it does not assert any material whatever. Whether it be 
 on wood or on stone, or, as naturally will be supposed, on plaster, 
 does not matter. Whatever the material, good painting makes it 
 more precious ; nor can it ever be said to deceive respecting the 
 ground of which it gives us no information. To cover brick with 
 plaster, and this plaster with fresco, is, therefore, perfectly legiti- 
 mate ; and as desirable a mode of decoration, as it is constant in 
 the great periods. Verona and Venice are now seen deprived of 
 more than half their former splendour ; it depended far more on 
 their frescoes than their marbles. The plaster, in this case, is to be 
 considered as the gesso ground on panel or canvas. But to cover 
 brick with cement, and to divide this cement with joints that it 
 may look like stone, is to tell a falsehood ; and is just as con- 
 temptible a procedure as the other is noble. 
 
 It being lawful to paint then, is it lawful to paint everything ? 
 So long as the painting is confessed — yes ; but if, even in the 
 slightest degree, the sense of it be lost, and the thing painted be 
 supposed real — no. Let us take a few instances. In the Campo 
 Santo at Pisa, each fresco is surrounded with a border composed 
 of flat coloured patterns of great elegance — no part of it in at- 
 tempted relief. The certainty of flat surface being thus secured, 
 the figures, though the size of life, do not deceive, and the artist 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 47 
 
 thenceforward is at liberty to put forth his whole power, and to 
 lead us through fields, and groves, and depths of pleasant land- 
 scape, and soothe us with the sweet clearness of far off sky, and 
 yet never lose the severity of his primal purpose of architectural 
 decoration. 
 
 In the Camera di Correggio of San Lodovico at Parma, the 
 trellises of vine shadow the walls, as if with an actual arbour ; 
 and the groups of children, peeping through the oval openings, 
 luscious in colour and faint in light, may well be expected every 
 instant to break through, or hide behind the covert. The grace 
 of their attitudes, and the evident greatness of the whole work, 
 mark that it is painting, and barely redeem it from the charge 
 of falsehood ; but even so saved, it is utterly unworthy to take 
 a place among noble or legitimate architectural decoration. 
 
 In the cupola of the duomo of Parma the same painter has 
 represented the Assumption with so much deceptive power, that 
 he has made a dome of some thirty feet diameter look like a 
 cloud-wrapt opening in the seventh heaven, crowded with a rush- 
 ing sea of angels. Is this wrong ? Not so : for the subject at once 
 precludes the possibility of deception. We might have taken the 
 vines for a veritable pergola, and the children for its haunting 
 ragazzi ; but we know the stayed cloud and moveless angels 
 must be man's work ; let him put his utmost strength to it, and 
 welcome ; he can enchant us, but cannot betray. 
 
 We may thus apply the rule to the highest, as well as the 
 art of daily occurrence, always remembering that more is to be 
 forgiven to the great painter than to the mere decorative work- 
 man ; and this especially, because the former, even in deceptive 
 portions, will not trick us so grossly ; as we have just seen in 
 Correggio, where a worse painter would have made the thing look 
 like life at once. There is, however, in room, villa, or garden 
 decoration, some fitting admission of trickeries of this kind, as 
 of pictured landscapes at the extremities of alleys and arcades, 
 and ceilings like skies, or painted with prolongations upwards of 
 the architecture of the walls, which things have sometimes a 
 certain luxury and pleasureableness in places meant for idleness, 
 
48 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 and are innocent enough as long as they are regarded as mere 
 toys. 
 
 XVI. Touching the false representation of material, the ques- 
 tion is infinitely more simple, and the law more sweeping ; all 
 such imitations are utterly base and inadmissible. It is melan- 
 choly to think of the time and expense lost in marbling the shop 
 fronts of London alone, and of the waste of our resources in abso- 
 lute vanities, in things about which no mortal cares, by which no 
 eye is ever arrested, unless painfully, and which do not add one 
 whit to comfort, or cleanliness, or even to that great object of 
 commercial art — conspicuousness. But in architecture of a higher 
 rank, how much more is it to be condemned ! I have made it a 
 rule in the present work not to blame specifically ; but I may, 
 perhaps, be permitted, while I express my sincere admiration of 
 the very noble entrance and general architecture of the British 
 Museum, to express also my regret that the noble granite foun- 
 dation of the staircase should be mocked at its landing by an 
 imitation, the more blameable because tolerably successful. The 
 only effect of it is to cast a suspicion upon the true stones below, 
 and upon every bit of granite afterwards encountered. One feels 
 a doubt, after it, of the honesty of Memnon himself. But even 
 this, however derogatory to the noble architecture around it, is 
 less painful than the want of feeling with which, in our cheap 
 modern churches, we suffer the wall decorator to erect about the 
 altar frameworks and pediments daubed with mottled colour, and 
 to dye in the same fashion such skeletons or caricatures of columns 
 as may emerge above the pews : this is not merely bad taste ; it 
 is no unimportant or excusable error which brings even these 
 shadows of vanity and falsehood into the house of prayer. The 
 first condition which just feeling requires in church furniture is, 
 that it should be simple and unaffected, not fictitious nor tawdry. 
 It may not be in our power to make it beautiful, but let it at least 
 be pure ; and if we cannot permit much to the architect, do not 
 let us permit anything to the upholsterer ; if we keep to solid 
 stone and solid wood, whitewashed, if we like, for cleanliness' 
 sake, (for whitewash has so often been used as the dress of noble 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 49 
 
 things that it has thence received a kind of nobility itself,) it 
 must be a bad design indeed, which is grossly offensive. I re- 
 collect no instance of a want of sacred character, or of any marked 
 and painful ugliness, in the simplest or the most awkwardly built 
 village church, where stone and wood were roughly and nakedly 
 used, and the windows latticed with white glass. But the 
 smoothly stuccoed walls, the flat roofs with ventilator ornaments, 
 the barred windows with jaundiced borders and dead ground 
 square panes, the gilded or bronzed wood, the painted iron, the 
 wretched upholstery of curtains and cushions, and pew heads, and 
 altar railings, and Birmingham metal candlesticks, and, above all, 
 the green and yellow sickness of the false marble — disguises all, 
 observe ; falsehoods all — who are they who like these things ? 
 who defend them ? who do them ? I have never spoken to any 
 one who did like them, though to many who thought them matters 
 of no consequence. Perhaps not to religion ; (though I cannot 
 but believe that there are many to whom, as to myself such 
 things are serious obstacles to the repose of mind and temper 
 which should precede devotional exercises;) but to the general 
 tone of our judgment and feeling — yes ; for assuredly we shall 
 regard, with tolerance, if not with affection, whatever forms of 
 material things we have been in the habit of associating with our 
 worship, and be little prepared to detect or blame hypocrisy, 
 meanness, and disguise in other kinds of decoration, when we 
 suffer objects belonging to the most solemn of all services to be 
 tricked out in a fashion so fictitious and unseemly. 
 
 XVII. Painting, however, is not the only mode in which ma- 
 terial may be concealed, or rather simulated ; for merely to conceal 
 is, as we have seen, no wrong. Whitewash, for instance, though 
 often (by no means always) to be regretted as a concealment, is 
 not to be blamed as a falsity. It shows itself for what it is, 
 and asserts nothing of what is beneath it. Gilding has become, 
 from its frequent use, equally innocent. It is understood for 
 what it is, a film merely, and is, therefore, allowable to any 
 extent : I do not say expedient : it is one of the most abused 
 means of magnificence we possess, and I much doubt whether 
 
 H 
 
50 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 any use we ever make of it, balances that loss of pleasure, which, 
 from the frequent sight and perpetual suspicion of it, we suffer 
 in the contemplation of any thing that is verily of gold. I think 
 gold was meant to be seldom seen, and to be admired as a 
 precious thing ; and I sometimes wish that truth should so far 
 literally prevail as that all should be gold that glittered, or rather 
 that nothing should o-Htter that was not eold. Nevertheless, 
 Nature herself does not dispense with such semblance, but uses 
 light for it ; and I have too great a love for old and saintly art to 
 part with its burnished field, or radiant nimbus ; only it should be 
 used with respect, and to express magnificence, or sacredness, 
 and not in lavish vanity, or in sign painting. Of its expedience, 
 however, any more than that of colour, it is not here the place to 
 speak ; we are endeavouring to determine what is lawful, not what 
 is desirable. Of other and less common modes of disguising 
 surface, as of powder of lapis lazuli, or mosaic imitations of 
 coloured stones, I need hardly speak. The rule will apply to all 
 alike, that whatever is pretended, is wrong ; commonly enforced 
 also by the exceeding ugliness and insufficient appearance of such 
 methods, as lately in the style of renovation by which half the 
 houses in Venice have been defaced, the brick covered first with 
 stucco, and this painted with zigzag veins in imitation of alabaster. 
 But there is one more form of architectural fiction, which is so 
 constant in the great periods that it needs respectful judgment. 
 I mean the facing of brick with precious stone. 
 
 APHORISM13. XVIII. It is well known, that what is meant by a 
 
 (Expanded chufch's being built of marble is, in nearly all cases, 
 
 afterwards in 
 
 vel'ice^")"^ only that a veneering of marble has been fastened on 
 bricJvvUh the rough brick wall, built with certain projections to 
 
 marble is only , . 
 
 a great form reccivc it ; and that what appear to be massy stones, 
 
 of Mosaic, 
 
 and perfectly arc nothing more than external slabs. 
 
 aamissible. 
 
 Now, it is evident, that, in this case, the question of 
 right is on the same ground as in that of gilding. If it 
 be clearly understood that a marble facing does not 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 5 1 
 
 pretend or imply a marble wall, there is no harm in 
 it; and as it is also evident that, when very precious 
 stones are used, as jaspers and serpentines, it must 
 become, not only an extravagant and vain increase of 
 expense, but sometimes an actual impossibility, to 
 obtain mass of them enough to build with, there is no 
 resource but this of veneering; nor is there any thing 
 to be alleged against it on the head of durability, such 
 work having been by experience found to last as long, 
 and in as perfect condition, as any kind of masonry. 
 It is, therefore, to be considered as simply an art of 
 mosaic on a large scale, the ground being of brick, or 
 any other material ; and when lovely stones are to be 
 obtained, it is a manner which should be thoroughly 
 understood, and often practised. Nevertheless, as we 
 esteem the shaft of a column more highly for its being 
 of a single block, and as w^e do not regret the loss of 
 substance and value which there is in things of solid 
 gold, silver, agate, or ivory; so I think that walls them- 
 selves may be regarded with a more just complacency 
 if they are known to be all of noble substance ; and 
 that rightly weighing the demands of the two prin- 
 ciples of which we have hitherto spoken — Sacrifice 
 and Truth, — we should sometimes rather spare external 
 ornament than diminish the unseen value and con- 
 sistency of what we do ; and I believe that a better 
 manner of design, and a more careful and studious, 
 if less abundant, decoration would follow, upon the 
 consciousness of thoroughness in the substance. And, 
 indeed, this is to be remembered, with respect to all the points 
 
52 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 we have examined ; that while we have traced the limits of 
 license, we have not fixed those of that high rectitude which 
 refuses license. It is thus true that there is no falsity, and much 
 beauty, in the use of external colour, and that it is lawful to 
 paint either pictures or patterns on whatever surfaces may seem 
 to need enrichment. But it is not less true, that such practices 
 are essentially unarchitectural ; and while we cannot say that 
 there is actual danger in an over use of them, seeing that 
 they have been always used most lavishly in the times of most 
 noble art, yet they divide the work into two parts and kinds, 
 one of less durability than the other, which dies away from it 
 in process of ages, and leaves it, unless it have noble qualities 
 of its own, naked and bare. That enduring noblesse I should, 
 therefore, call truly architectural ; and it is not until this has been 
 secured, that the accessory power of painting may be called in, 
 for the delight of the immediate time ; nor this, as I think, until 
 
 Aphorism 14. every resource of a more stable kind has been exhausted. The 
 
 The proper \t:vl& coloufs of architecture are those of natural stone, 
 
 colours of 
 
 fre'^ti'iose'o? ^^d I would fain see these taken advantage of to the 
 
 natural stones. -,-t-> • <-i r in 1 
 
 full. Every variety of hue, from pale yellow to purple, 
 passing through orange, red, and brown, is entirely at 
 our command; nearly every kind of green and grey is 
 also attainable ; and with these, and pure white, what 
 harmonies might we not achieve ? Of stained and 
 variegated stone, the quantity is unlimited, the kinds 
 innumerable ; where brighter colours are required, let 
 glass, and gold protected by glass, be used in mosaic — 
 a kind of work as durable as the solid stone, and 
 incapable of losing its lustre by time — and let the 
 painter's work be reserved for the shadowed loggia 
 and inner chamber. This is the true and faithful way 
 of building; w^here this cannot be, the device of ex- 
 ternal colouring may, indeed, be employed without 
 
Pialf. JI 
 
THF, LAMP OF TRUTH. 53 
 
 dishonour; but it must be with the warning reflection, 
 that a time will come when such aids must pass away, 
 and when the building will be judged in its lifelessness, 
 dying the death of the dolphin. Better the less bright, 
 more enduring fabric. The transparent alabasters of 
 San Miniato, and the mosaics of St. Mark's, are more 
 warmly filled, and more brightly touched, by every 
 return of morning and evening rays ; while the hues of 
 our cathedrals have died like the iris out of the cloud ; 
 and the temples whose azure and purple once flamed 
 above the Grecian promontories, stand in their faded 
 w^hiteness, like snows which the sunset has left cold. 
 
 XI X. The last form of fallacy which it will be remembered we 
 had to deprecate, was the substitution of cast or machine work 
 for that of the hand, generally expressible as Operative Deceit. 
 
 There are two reasons, both weighty, against this practice : 
 one, that all cast and machine work is bad, as work ; the other, 
 that it is dishonest. Of its badness I shall speak in another place, 
 that being evidently no efficient reason against its use when other 
 cannot be had. Its dishonesty, however, which, to my mind, is 
 of the grossest kind, is, I think, a sufficient reason to determine 
 absolute and unconditional rejection of it. 
 
 Ornament, as I have often before observed, has two entirely 
 distinct sources of agreeableness : one, that of the abstract beauty 
 of its forms, which, for the present, we will suppose to be the same 
 whether they come from the hand or the machine ; the other, the 
 sense of human labour and care spent upon it. How great this 
 latter influence we may perhaps judge, by considering that there 
 is not a cluster of weeds growing in any cranny of ruin^' which 
 has not a beauty in all respects nearly equal, and, in some, Immea- 
 
 1' I do not see any reference to the intention of the opposite plate. It is a 
 piece of pencil sketch from an old church at St. Lo. (I beUeve the original 
 drawing is now in America, belonging to my dear friend, Charles Eliot Norton), 
 and it was meant to show the greater beauty of the natural weeds than of the 
 
54 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 surably superior, to that of the most elaborate sculpture of its 
 stones : and that all our interest in the carved work, our sense of 
 its richness, though it Is tenfold less rich than the knots of grass 
 beside it ; of its delicacy, though it is a thousandfold less delicate ; 
 of its admirableness, though a millionfold less admirable ; results 
 from our consciousness of its being the work of poor, clumsy, 
 toilsome man. Its true delightfulness depends on our discover- 
 ing in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart- 
 breakings — of recoveries and joyfulnesses of success : all this can 
 be traced by a practised eye ; but, granting it even obscure, it is 
 presumed or understood; and in that is the worth'* of the thing, 
 just as much as the worth of any thing else we call precious. The 
 worth of a diamond is simply the understanding of the time it 
 must take to look for it before it is found ; and the worth of an 
 ornament is the time it must take before it can be cut. It has 
 an intrinsic value besides, which the diamond has not ; (for a 
 diamond has no more real beauty than a piece of glass ;) but I do 
 not speak of that at present ; I place the two on the same ground ; 
 and I suppose that hand-wrought ornament can no more be 
 generally known from machine work, than a diamond can be 
 known from paste ; nay, that the latter may deceive, for a moment, 
 the mason's, as the other the jeweller's, eye ; and that it can be 
 detected only by the closest examination. Yet exactly as a 
 woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so would a builder 
 of honour disdain false ornaments. The using of them is just as 
 downright and inexcusable a lie. You use that which pretends 
 to a worth which it has not ; which pretends to have cost, and 
 to be, what it did not, and is not ; it is an imposition, a 
 vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin. Down with it to the 
 ground, grind it to powder, leave its ragged place upon the wall, 
 rather ; you have not paid for it, you have no business with 
 it, you do not want it. Nobody wants ornaments in this world, 
 
 carved crockets, and the tender harmony of both. Some farther notice is taken 
 of this plate in the eighteenth paragraph of Chap. V. 
 
 " Worth is, of course, used here in the vulgar economists' sense, " cost of pro- 
 duction," intrinsic value being distinguished from it in the next sentence. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 55 
 
 but everybody wants integrity. All the fair devices that ever 
 were fancied, are not worth a lie. Leave your walls as bare as 
 a planed board, or build them of baked mud and chopped straw, 
 if need be ; but do not rough-cast them with falsehood. 
 
 This, then, being our general law, and I hold it for a more 
 imperative one than any other I have asserted ; and this kind of 
 dishonesty the meanest, as the least necessary'''' ; for ornament is 
 an extravagant and inessential thing ; and therefore, if fallacious, 
 utterly base — this, I say, being our general law, there are, never- 
 theless, certain exceptions respecting particular substances and 
 their uses. 
 
 XX. Thus in the use of brick : since that is known to be 
 originally moulded, there is no reason why it should not be 
 moulded into diverse forms. It will never be supposed to have 
 been cut, and, therefore, will cause no deception ; it will have 
 only the credit it deserves. In flat countries, far from any quarry 
 of stone, cast brick may be legitimately, and most successfully, 
 used in decoration, and that elaborate, and even refined. The 
 brick mouldings of the Palazzo Pepoli at Bologna, and those 
 which run round the market-place of Vercelli, are among the 
 richest in Italy. So also, tile and porcelain work, of which the 
 former is grotesquely, but successfully, employed in the domestic 
 architecture of France, coloured tiles being inserted in the 
 diamond spaces between the crossing timbers ; and the latter 
 admirably in Tuscany, in external bas-reliefs, by the Robbia 
 family, in which works, while we cannot but sometimes regret 
 the useless and ill-arranged colours, we would by no means blame 
 the employment of a material which, whatever its defects, excels 
 every other in permanence, and, perhaps, requires even greater 
 skill in its management than marble. For it is not the material, 
 but the absence of the human labour, which makes the thing 
 
 ^ Again too much fuss and metaphysics about a perfectly simple matter; 
 inconclusive besides, for the dishonesty of machine work would cease, as soon as it 
 became universally practised, of which universality there seems every likelihood 
 in these days. The subject was better treated subsequently in my address to the 
 art-students of Mansfield, now reprinted in Vol. XL of my " Works " series (" A 
 Joy for Ever"). 
 
56 • THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 worthless ; and a piece of terra cotta, or of plaster of Paris, which 
 has been wrought by the human hand, is worth all the stone in 
 Carrara, cut by machinery. It is, indeed, possible, and even 
 usual, for men to sink into machines themselves, so that even 
 hand-work has all the characters of mechanism ; of the difference 
 between living and dead hand-work I shall speak presently ; all 
 that I ask at present is, what it is always in our power to secure 
 — the confession of what we have done, and what we have given ; 
 so that when we use stone at all,^° (since all stone is naturally sup- 
 posed to be carved by hand,) we must not carve it by machinery : 
 neither must we use any artificial stone cast into shape, nor any 
 stucco ornaments of the colour of stone, or which might in any 
 wise be mistaken for it, as the stucco mouldings in the cortile of 
 the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, which cast a shame and 
 suspicion over every part of the building. But for ductile and 
 fusible materials, as clay, iron, and bronze, since these will usually 
 be supposed to have been cast or stamped, it is at our pleasure 
 to employ them as we will ; remembering that they become 
 precious, or otherwise, just in proportion to the hand-work upon 
 them, or to the clearness of their reception of the hand-work of 
 
 Aphorism 15. their mould. But I bclicve no cause to have been more 
 
 Cast-iron activc in the degradation of our national feeling for 
 
 ornamentation *-* 
 
 barbarous. beauty than the constant use of cast-iron ornaments. 
 The common iron work of the middle ages w^as as 
 simple as it was effective, composed of leafage cut flat 
 out of sheet iron, and twisted at the workman's will. 
 No ornaments, on the contrary, are so cold, clumsy, 
 and vulgar, so essentially incapable of a fine line or 
 shadow, as those of cast-iron; and while, on the score 
 of truth, we can hardly allege any thing against them, 
 since they are always distinguishable, at a glance, from 
 
 ™ The sentence now put in a parenthesis is the false assumption which destroys 
 all the force of the arguments in the last couple of pages. The conclusion given 
 in Aphorism 15 is, however, wide-based enough, and thoroughly sound. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 57 
 
 wrought and hammered work, and stand only for what 
 they are, yet I feel very strongly that there is no hope 
 of the progress of the arts of any nation which indulges 
 in these vulgar and cheap substitutes for real decora- 
 tion. Their inefficiency and paltriness I shall endea- 
 vour to show more conclusively in another place ; 
 enforcing only, at present, the general conclusion that, 
 if even honest or allowable, they are things in which 
 we can never take just pride or pleasure, and must 
 never be employed in any place wherein they might 
 either themselves obtain the credit of being other 
 and better than they are, or be associated with the 
 thoroughly downright work to which it would be a 
 disgrace to be found in their company. 
 
 Such are, I believe, the three principal kinds of fallacy by which 
 architecture is liable to be corrupted ; there are, however, other 
 and more subtle forms of it, against which it is less easy to guard 
 by definite law, than by the watchfulness of a manly and unaf- 
 fected spirit. For, as it has been above noticed, there are certain 
 kinds of deception which extend to impressions and ideas only ; 
 of which some are, indeed, of a noble use, as that above referred 
 to, the arborescent look of lofty Gothic aisles ; but of which the 
 most part have so much of legerdemain and trickery about them, 
 that they will lower any style in which they considerably prevail ; 
 and they are likely to prevail when once they are admitted, being 
 apt to catch the fancy alike of uninventive architects and feeling- 
 less spectators ; just as mean and shallow minds are, in other 
 matters, delighted with the sense of over-reaching, or tickled 
 with the conceit of detecting the intention to over-reach : and 
 when subtleties of this kind are accompanied by the display of 
 such dexterous stone-cutting, or architectural sleight of hand, as 
 may become, even by itself, a subject of admiration, it is a great 
 chance if the pursuit of them do not gradually draw us away 
 
58 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 from all regard and care for the nobler character of the art, and 
 end in its total paralysis or extinction. And against this there 
 is no guarding, but by stern disdain of all display of dexterity 
 and ingenious device, and by putting the whole force of our fancy 
 into the arrang-ement of masses and forms, carina no more how 
 these masses and forms are wrought out, than a great painter 
 cares which way his pencil strikes.'^' It would be easy to give 
 many instances of the danger of these tricks and vanities ; but I 
 shall confine myself to the examination of one which has, as I 
 think, been the cause of the fall of Gothic architecture throughout 
 Europe. I mean the system of intersectional mouldings, which, 
 on account of its great importance, and for the sake of the general 
 reader, I may, perhaps, be pardoned for explaining elementarily. 
 XXI. I must, in the first place, however, refer to Professor 
 Willis's account of the origin of tracery, given in the sixth chap- 
 ter of his " Architecture of the Middle Ages ; " since the pub- 
 lication of which I have been not a little amazed to hear of any 
 attempts made to resuscitate the inexcusably absurd theory of 
 its derivation from imitated vegetable form — inexcusably, I say, 
 because the smallest acquaintance with early Gothic architecture 
 would have informed the supporters of that theory of the simple 
 fact, that, exactly in proportion to the antiquity of the work, the 
 imitation of such organic forms is less, and in the earliest examples 
 does not exist at all. There cannot be the shadow of a question, 
 in the mind of a person familiarised with any single series of con- 
 secutive examples, that tracery arose from the gradual enlarge- 
 ment of the penetrations of the shield of stone which, usually 
 supported by a central pillar, occupied the head of early windows. 
 Professor Willis, perhaps, confines his observations somewhat too 
 absolutely to the double sub-arch. I have given, in Plate VII. fig. 
 2., an interesting case of rude penetration of a high and simply 
 trefoiled shield, from the church of the Eremitani at Padua. But 
 the more frequent and typical form is that of the double. sub-arch, 
 
 "' A great painter does care very nruch, however, which way his pencil strikes ; 
 and a good sculptor which way his mallet: but in neither of them is the care that 
 their action may be admired, but that it may be just. 
 
P! -1 t r^ f ! f 
 
 F CuiY, sc 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 59 
 
 decorated with various piercings of the space between it and the 
 superior arch ; with a simple trefoil under a round arch, in the 
 Abbaye aux Hommes, Caen (Plate III. fig. i.) ; with a very 
 beautifully proportioned quatrefoil, in the triforium of Eu, and 
 that of the choir of Lisieux ; with quatrefoils, sixfoils, and sept- 
 foils, in the transept towers of Rouen, (Plate III. fig. 2.) ; with a 
 trefoil awkwardly, and very small quatrefoil above, at Coutances 
 (Plate III. fig. 3.) : then, with multiplications of the same 
 figures, pointed or round, giving very clumsy shapes of the inter- 
 mediate stone, (fig. 4., from one of the nave chapels of Rouen, 
 fig. 5., from one of the nave chapels of Bayeux,) and finally, by 
 thinning out the stony ribs, reaching conditions like that of the 
 glorious typical form of the clerestory of the apse of Beauvais, 
 (fig. 6.). 
 
 XXII. Now, it will be noticed that, during the whole of this 
 process, the attention is kept fixed on the forms of the penetrations, 
 that is to say, of the lights as seen from the interior, not of the 
 intermediate stone. All the grace of the window is in the outline 
 of its light ; and I have drawn all these traceries as seen from 
 within, in order to show the effect of the light thus treated, at 
 first in far off and separate stars, and then gradually enlarging, 
 approaching, until they come and stand over us, as it were, 
 filling the whole space with their effulgence. And it is in this 
 pause of the star, that we have the great, pure, and perfect form 
 of French Gothic ; it was at the instant when the rudeness of 
 the intermediate space had been finally conquered, when the 
 light had expanded to its fullest, and yet had not lost its radiant 
 unity, principality, and visible first causing of the whole, that 
 we have the most exquisite feeling and most faultless judgments 
 in the management alike of the tracery and decorations. I have 
 given, in Plate X., an exquisite example of it, from a panel deco- 
 ration of the buttresses of the north door of Rouen ; and in order 
 that the reader may understand what truly fine Gothic w'ork is, 
 and how nobly it unites fantasy and law, as well as for our imme- 
 diate purpose, it will be well that he should examine its sections 
 and mouldings in detail (they are described in the fourth Chapter, 
 
6o THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 § xxvii.), and that the more carefully, because this design belongs 
 to a period in which the most important change took place in 
 the spirit of Gothic architecture, which, perhaps, ever resulted from 
 the natural progress of any art. That tracery marks a pause 
 between the laying aside of one great ruling principle, and the 
 taking up of another ; a pause as marked, as clear, as con- 
 spicuous to the distant view of after times, as to the distant 
 glance of the traveller is the culminating ridge of the mountain 
 chain over which he has passed. It was the great watershed of 
 Gothic art. Before it, all had been ascent ; after it, all was 
 decline ; both, indeed, by winding paths and varied slopes ; both 
 interrupted, like the gradual rise and fall of the passes of the 
 Alps, by great mountain outliers, isolated or branching from the 
 central chain, and by retrograde or parallel directions of the 
 valleys of access. But the track of the human mind is traceable 
 up to that glorious ridge, in a continuous line, and thence down- 
 wards. Like a silver zone — 
 
 " Flung about carelessly, it shines afar. 
 Catching the eye in many a broken link, 
 In many a turn and traverse, as it glides. 
 And oft above, and oft belovi' appears — 
 * * * * to him who journeys up, 
 As though it were another." 
 
 And at that point, and that instant, reaching the place that was 
 nearest heaven, the builders looked back, for the last time, to the 
 way by which they had come, and the scenes through which their 
 early course had passed. They turned away from them and their 
 morning light, and descended towards a new horizon, for a time 
 in the warmth of western sun, but plunging with every forward 
 step into more cold and melancholy shade. 
 
 XXIII. The change of which I speak, is expressible in few 
 words ; but one more important, more radically influential, could 
 not be. It was the substitution of the line for the mass, as the 
 element of decoration." 
 
 '^ So completely was this the case, that M. Violet le Due, in his article on 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 6 1 
 
 We have seen the mode in which the openings or penetration 
 of the window expanded, until what were, at first, awkward forms 
 of intermediate stone, became deHcate lines of tracery ; and I 
 have been careful in pointing out the peculiar attention bestowed 
 on the proportion and decoration of the mouldings of the window 
 at Rouen, in Plate X., as compared with earlier mouldings, be- 
 cause that beauty and care are singularly significant. They mark 
 that the traceries had caught the eye of the architect. Up to that 
 time, up to the very last instant in which the reduction and 
 thinning of the intervening stone was consummated, his eye had 
 been on the openings only, on the stars of light. He did not 
 care about the stone ; a rude border of moulding was all he 
 needed, it was the penetrating shape which he was watching. 
 But when that shape had received its last possible expansion, 
 and when the stone-work became an arrangement of graceful 
 and parallel lines, that arrangement, like some form in a picture, 
 unseen and accidentally developed, struck suddenly, inevitably, 
 on the sight. It had literally not been seen before. It flashed 
 out in an instant, as an independent form. It became a feature 
 of the work. The architect took it under his care, thought over 
 it, and distributed its members as we see. 
 
 Now, the great pause was at the moment when the space and 
 the dividing stone-work were both equally considered. It did 
 not last fifty years. The forms of the tracery were seized with 
 a childish delight in the novel source of beauty ; and the inter- 
 vening space was cast aside, as an element of decoration, for 
 ever. I have confined myself, in following this change, to the 
 window, as the feature in which it is clearest. But the transition 
 is the same in every member of architecture ; and its importance 
 can hardly be understood, unless we take the pains to trace it in 
 the universality, of which illustrations, irrelevant to our present 
 purpose, will be found in the third Chapter. I pursue here the 
 question of truth, relating to the treatment of the mouldings. 
 
 tracery in the "Dictionnaire d' Architecture, "has confined his attention exclusively 
 to the modifications of the tracery bar. The subject is examined exhaustively in 
 my sixth lecture in " Val d'Arno." 
 
62 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 Aphorism i6. XXIV. The reader will observe that, up to the last 
 Tracery must expansioH of the penetratlons, the stone-work was 
 
 never be con- 
 sidered or necessarily considered, as it actually is, stiff, and un- 
 
 imagined as •' 
 
 flexible. yielding. It was so, also, during the pause of which I 
 
 have spoken, when the forms of the tracery were still 
 severe and pure ; delicate indeed, but perfectly firm. 
 
 At the close of the period of pause, the first sign of 
 serious change was like a low breeze, passing through 
 the emaciated tracery, and making it tremble. It began 
 to undulate like the threads of a cobweb lifted by the 
 wind. It lost its essence as a structure of stone. Re- 
 duced to the slenderness of threads, it began to be 
 considered as possessing also their flexibility. The 
 architect was pleased with this his new fancy, and set 
 himself to carry it out ; and in a little time, the bars of 
 tracery were caused to appear to the eye as if they had 
 been woven together like a net. This was a change 
 which sacrificed a great principle of truth ; it sacrificed 
 the expression of the qualities of the material; and, 
 however delightful its results in their first develop- 
 ments, it was ultimately ruinous. 
 
 For, observe the difference between the supposition 
 of ductility, and that of elastic structure noticed above 
 in the resemblance to tree form. That resemblance 
 was not sought, but necessary ; it resulted from the 
 natural conditions of strength in the pier or trunk, 
 and slenderness in the ribs or branches, while many of 
 the other suggested conditions of resemblance were 
 perfectly true. A tree branch, though in a certain 
 sense flexible, is not ductile; it is as firm in its own 
 
THE LAMT OF TRUTH. 63 
 
 form as the rib of stone ; both of them will yield up to 
 
 certain limits, both of them breaking when those limits 
 
 are exceeded ; while the tree trunk will bend no more 
 
 than the stone pillar. But when the tracery is assumed 
 
 to be as yielding as a silken cord ; when the whole 
 
 fragility, elasticity, and weight of the material are to 
 
 the eye, if not in terms, denied ; when all the art of the 
 
 architect is applied to disprove the first conditions of 
 
 his working, and the first attributes of his materials ; 
 
 this is a deliberate treachery, only redeemed from the 
 
 charge of direct falsehood by the visibility of the stone 
 
 surface, and degrading all the traceries it affects exactly 
 
 in the degree of its presence."^ 
 
 XXV. But the declining and morbid taste of the later architects 
 was not satisfied with thus much deception. They were delighted 
 with the subtle charm they had created, and thought only of 
 increasing its power. The next step was to consider and represent 
 the tracery, as not only ductile, but penetrable ; and when two 
 mouldings met each other, to manage their intersection, so that 
 one should appear to pass through the other, retaining its 
 independence ; or when two ran parallel to each other, to re- 
 present the one as partly contained within the other, and partly 
 apparent above it. This form of falsity was that which crushed 
 the art. The flexible traceries were often beautiful, though they 
 were ignoble ; but the penetrated traceries, rendered, as they 
 finally were, merely the means of exhibiting the dexterity of the 
 stone-cutter, annihilated both the beauty and dignity of the 
 
 " I beg that gVave note be taken of this just condemnation of the essential 
 character — " the flamboyant "ness — of the architecture which up to this time I 
 had chiefly, and most affectionately, studied. It is an instance of breaking 
 through prejudice by reason, of which I have a right to be proud, and which 
 it is fitting that I should point out, for justification of the trust I constantly 
 expect from the reader. 
 
64 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 Gothic types. A system so momentous in its consequences 
 deserves some detailed examination. 
 
 XXVI. In the drawing of the shafts of the door at Lisieux, 
 under the spandril, in Plate VII., the reader will see the mode 
 of manaeinsf the intersection of similar mouldings, which was 
 universal in the great periods. They melted into each other, 
 and became one at point of the crossing, or of contact ; and even 
 the suggestion of so sharp intersection as this of Lisieux is usually 
 avoided, (this design being, of course, only a pointed form of the 
 earlier Norman arcade, in which the arches are interlaced, and 
 lie each over the preceding, and under the following one, as in 
 Anselm's tower at Canterbury,) since, in the plurality of designs, 
 when mouldings meet each other, they coincide through some con- 
 siderable portion of their curves, meeting by contact, rather than 
 by intersection ; and at the point of coincidence the section of 
 each separate moulding becomes common to the two thus melted 
 into each other. Thus, in the junction of the circles of the 
 window of the Palazzo Foscari, Plate VIII., given accurately in 
 fig. 8. Plate IV., the section across the line s, is exactly the same 
 as that across any break of the separated moulding above, as J. It 
 sometimes, however, happens, that two different mouldings meet 
 each other. This was seldom permitted in the great periods, 
 and, when it took place, was most awkwardly managed. Fig. i. 
 Plate IV. gives the junction of the mouldings of the gable and 
 vertical, in the window of the spire of Salisbury. That of the 
 gable is composed of a single, and that of the vertical, of a 
 double cavetto, decorated with ball flowers ; and the larger single 
 moulding swallows up one of the double ones, and pushes 
 forward among the smaller balls with the most blundering and 
 clumsy simplicity. In comparing the sections it is to be observed 
 that, in the upper one, the line a b represents an actual vertical 
 in the plane of the window ; while, in the lower one, the line e d 
 represents the horizontal, in the plane of the window, indicated 
 by the perspective line d e. 
 
 XXVII. The very awkwardness with which such occurrences 
 of difficulty are met by the earlier builder, marks his dislike of the 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 65 
 
 system, and unwillingness to attract the eye to such arrangements. 
 There is another very clumsy one, in the junction of the upper 
 and sub-arches of the triforium of Salisbury ; but it is kept in 
 the shade, and all the prominent junctions are of mouldings like 
 each other, and managed with perfect simplicity. But so soon 
 as the attention of the builders became, as we have just seen, 
 fixed upon the lines of mouldings instead of the enclosed spaces, 
 those lines began to preserve an independent existence wherever 
 they met ; and different mouldings were studiously associated, 
 in order to obtain variety of intersectional line. We must, how 
 ever, do the late builders the justice to note that, in one case, 
 the habit grew out of a feeling of proportion, more refined than 
 that of earlier workmen. It shows itself first in the bases of 
 divided pillars, or arch mouldings, whose smaller shafts had 
 originally bases formed by the continued base of the central, or 
 other larger, columns with which they were grouped ; but it being 
 felt, when the eye of the architect became fastidious, that the 
 dimension of mouldinsf which was rig-ht for the base of a large 
 shaft, was wrong for that of a small one, each shaft had an inde- 
 pendent base ; at first, those of the smaller died simply down on 
 that of the larger ; but when the vertical sections of both became 
 complicated, the bases of the smaller shafts were considered to 
 exist within those of the larger, and the places of their emergence, 
 on this supposition, were calculated with the utmost nicety, and 
 cut with singular precision ; so that an elaborate late base of a 
 divided column, as, for instance, of those in the nave of Abbeville, 
 looks exactly as if its smaller shafts had all been finished to the 
 ground first, each with its complete and intricate base, and then 
 the comprehending base of the central pier had been moulded 
 over them in clay, leaving their points and angles sticking out 
 here and there, like the edges of sharp crystals out of a nodule 
 of earth. The exhibition of technical dexterity in work of this 
 kind, is often marvellous, the strangest possible shapes of sections 
 being calculated to a hair's breadth, and the occurrence of the 
 under and emergent forms being rendered, even in places where 
 they are so slight that they can hardly be detected but by the 
 
 K 
 
66 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 touch. It is impossible to render a very elaborate example of 
 this kind intelligible, without some fifty measured sections ; but 
 fig. 6. Plate IV. is a very interesting and simple one, from the 
 west gate of Rouen."* It is part of the base of one of the narrow 
 piers between its principal niches. The square column k, having 
 a base with the profile^ r, is supposed to contain within itself 
 another similar one, set diagonally, and lifted so far above the 
 inclosing one, as that the recessed part of its profile p r shall fall 
 behind the projecting part of the outer one. The angle of its 
 upper portion exactly meets the plane of the side of the upper 
 inclosing shaft 4, and would, therefore, not be seen, unless two 
 vertical cuts were made to exhibit it, which form two dark lines 
 the whole way up the shaft. Two small pilasters are run, like 
 fastening stitches, through the junction, on the front of the shafts. 
 The sections^, «, taken respectively at the levels /(', n, will explain 
 the hypothetical construction of the whole. Fig. 7. is a base, or 
 joint rather, (for passages of this form occur again and again, on 
 the shafts of flamboyant work,) of one of the smallest piers of the 
 pedestals which supported the lost statues of the porch ; its 
 section below would be the same as «, and its construction, 
 after what has been said of the other base, will be at once 
 perceived." 
 
 XXVIII. There was, however, in this kind of involution, 
 much to be admired as well as reprehended ; the proportions of 
 
 ^* Professor Willis was, I believe, the first modem who observ^ed and ascer- 
 tained the lost structural principles of Gothic architecture. His book above re- 
 ferred to (§ 21) taught me all my grammar of central Gothic, but this grammar of 
 the flamboyant I worked out for myself, and wTote it here, supposing the state- 
 ments new : all had, however, been done previously by Professor Willis, as he 
 afterwards pointed out to me, in his work " On the Characteristic Interpenetra- 
 tions of the Flamboyant Style." 
 
 " I cannot understand how, in the subsequent illustrations of the principle I 
 had, during the arrangement of this volume, most prominently in my mind, on 
 the founding of all beautiful design on natural fomi, I omitted so forcible a 
 point as the e.xact correspondence of these mouldings to the structure of involved 
 crystals. Perhaps it was because I knew the builders had never looked at, or 
 thought of, a crj'stal ; but then I ought to have said so. The omission is the 
 more strange because I caught the resemblance in the Pisan Gothic — see below, 
 Chap. IV., § 7 — where it is not half so distinct ! 
 
Plato IV 
 
 "\- r "-tj::! . 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 67 
 
 quantities were always as beautiful as they were intricate ; and, 
 though the lines of intersection were harsh, they were exquisitely 
 opposed to the flower-work of the interposing mouldings. But 
 the fancy did not stop here ; it rose from the bases into the 
 arches ; and there, not findinsf room enou^rh for its exhibition, it 
 withdrew the capitals from the heads even of cylindrical shafts, 
 (we cannot but admire, while we regret, the boldness of the men 
 who could defy the authority and custom of all the nations of the 
 earth for a space of some three thousand years,) in order that 
 the arch mouldings might appear to emerge from the pillar, as at 
 its base they had been lost in it, and not to terminate on the 
 abacus of the capital ; then they ran the mouldings across and 
 through each other, at the point of the arch ; and finally, not 
 finding their natural directions enough to furnish as many occa- 
 sions of intersection as they wished, bent them hither and thither, 
 and cut off their ends short, when they had passed the point of 
 intersection. Fig. 2. Plate IV., is part of a flying buttress from 
 the apse of St. Gervais at Falaise, in which the moulding whose 
 section is rudely given above at / (taken vertically through the 
 pointy^) is carried thrice through itself in the cross-bar and two 
 arches ; and the flat fillet is cut oft' sharp at the end of the cross- 
 bar, for the mere pleasure of the truncation. Fig. 3. is half of 
 the head of a door in the Stadthaus of Sursee, in which the shaded 
 part of the section of the joint, _c^_^, is that of the arch mould- 
 ing, which is three times reduplicated, and six times intersected 
 by itself the ends being cut off when they became unmanageable. 
 This style is, indeed, earlier exaggerated in Switzerland and Ger- 
 many, owing to the imitation in stone of the dovetailing of wood, 
 particularly of the intersecting of beams at the angles of chalets ; 
 but it only furnishes the more plain instance of the danger of the 
 fallacious system which, from the beginning, repressed the 
 German, and, in the end, ruined the French, Gothic. It would 
 be too painful a task to follow further the caricatures of form 
 and eccentricities of treatment, which grew out of this single 
 abuse — the flattened arch, the shrunken pillar, the lifeless orna- 
 ment, the liny moulding, the distorted and extravagant foliation, 
 
68 THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 
 
 until the time came when, over these wrecks and remnants, 
 deprived of all unity and principle, rose the foul torrent of the 
 renaissance, and swept them all away. 
 
 So fell the great dynasty of mediaeval architecture.^® It was 
 because it had lost its own strength, and disobeyed its own laws 
 — because its order, and consistency, and organisation, had been 
 broken through — that it could oppose no resistance to the rush of 
 overwhelming innovation. And this, observe, all because it had 
 sacrificed a single truth. From that one surrender of its integrity, 
 from that one endeavour to assume thesemblance of what it was 
 not, arose the multitudinous forms of disease and decrepitude, 
 which rotted away the pillars of its supremacy. It was not 
 because its time was come ; it was not because it was 
 scorned by the classical Romanist, or dreaded by the faithful 
 Protestant. That scorn and that fear it might have sur- 
 vived, and lived ; it would have stood forth in stern comparison 
 with the enervated sensuality of the renaissance ; it would have 
 risen in renewed and purified honour, and with a new soul, from 
 the ashes into which it sank, giving up its glory, as it had 
 received it, for the honour of God — but its own truth was gone, 
 and it sank for ever. There was no wisdom nor strength left in 
 it, to raise it from the dust ; and the error of zeal, and the soft- 
 ness of luxur)', smote it down and dissolved it away. It is good 
 for us to remember this, as we tread upon the bare ground of its 
 foundations, and stumble over its scattered stones. Those rent 
 skeletons of pierced wall, through which our sea-winds moan and 
 murmur, strewing them joint by joint, and bone by bone, along 
 the bleak promontories on which the Pharos lights came once 
 from houses of prayer — those grey arches and quiet aisles 
 under which the sheep of our valleys feed and rest on the turf 
 that has buried their altars — those shapeless heaps, that are not 
 
 '" The closing paragraph is very pretty — but, unfortunately — nonsense. The 
 want of truth was only a part, and by no means an influential one, of general 
 disease. All possible shades of human folly and licentiousness meet in late 
 Gothic and renaissance architecture, and corrupt, in all directions at once, the arts 
 which are their exponents. 
 
THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 69 
 
 of the Earth, which lift our fields into strange and sudden banks 
 of flowers, and stay our mountain streams with stones that are 
 not their own, have other thoughts to ask from us than those of 
 mourning for the rage that despoiled, or the fear that forsook 
 them. It was not the robber, not the fanatic, not the blasphemer, 
 who sealed the destruction that they had wrought ; the war, the 
 wrath, the terror, might have worked their worst, and the strong 
 walls would have risen, and the slight pillars would have started 
 again, from under the hand of the destroyer. But they could 
 not rise out of the ruins of their own violated truth. 
 
CHAP. III. 
 
 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 I. In recalling the impressions we have received from the works 
 of man, after a lapse of time long enough to involve in obscurity 
 all but the most vivid, it often happens that we find a strange 
 pre-eminence and durability in many upon whose strength we 
 had little calculated, and that points of character which had 
 escaped the detection of the judgment, become developed under 
 the waste of memory ; as veins of harder rock, whose places could 
 not at first have been discovered by the eye, are left salient under 
 the action of frosts and streams. The traveller who desires to 
 correct the errors of his judgment, necessitated by inequalities of 
 temper, infelicities of circumstance, and accidents of association, 
 has no other resource than to wait for the calm verdict of inter- 
 posing years ; and to watch for the new arrangements of eminence 
 and shape in the images which remain latest in his memory ; as 
 in the ebbing of a mountain lake, he would watch the varying 
 outline of its successive shore, and trace, in the form of its 
 departing waters, the true direction of the forces which had cleft, 
 or the currents which had excavated, the deepest recesses of its 
 primal bed. 
 
 In thus revertinofto the memories of those works of architecture 
 by which we have been most pleasurably impressed, it will gene- 
 rally happen that they fall into two broad classes : the one 
 characterised by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy, to which 
 we recur with a sense of affectionate admiration ; and the other 
 by a severe, and, in many cases mysterious, majesty, which we 
 remember mth an undiminished awe, like that felt at the presence 
 and operation of some great Spiritual Power. From about these 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 7 1 
 
 two groups,' more or less harmonised by intermediate examples, 
 but always distinctively marked by features of beauty or of 
 power, there will be swept away, in multitudes, the memories of 
 buildings, perhaps, in their first address to our minds, of no in- 
 ferior pretension, but owing their impressiv^eness to characters of 
 less enduring nobility — to value of material, accumulation of 
 ornament, or ingenuity of mechanical construction. Especial 
 interest may, indeed, have been awakened by such circumstances, 
 and the memory may have been, consequently, rendered tenacious 
 of particular parts or effects of the structure ; but it will recall 
 even these only by an active effort, and then without emotion ; 
 while in passive moments and with thrilling influence, the images 
 of purer beauty, and of more spiritual power, will return in a fair 
 and solemn company ; and while the pride of many a stately 
 palace, and the wealth of many a jewelled shrine, perish from our 
 thoughts in a dust of gold, there will rise, through their dimness, 
 the white image of some secluded marble chapel, by river or 
 forest side, with the fretted flower-work shrinking under its 
 arches, as if under vaults of late-fallen snow ; or the vast weari- 
 ness of some shadowy wall whose separate stones are like moun- 
 tain foundations, and yet numberless. 
 
 II. Now, the difference betw^een these two orders of aphorism 17. 
 building is not merely that which there is in nature ^'/iecV™i'° 
 between things beautiful and sublime. It is, also, the ArchTtectare, 
 
 J • rr 1 1 • 1 • • 1 • ■ 1 • veneration 
 
 ditierence between what is derivative and original in anddomimon. 
 man's work ; for whatever is in architecture fair or 
 beautiful, is imitated from natural forms ; and what is 
 not so derived, but depends for its dignity upon ar- 
 rangement and government received from human mind, 
 becomes the expression of the power of that mind, and 
 receives a sublimity high in proportion to the power 
 expressed. All building, therefore, shows man either 
 as gathering or governing; and the secrets of his 
 success are his knowing what to gather, and how to 
 
72 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 rule. These are the two great intellectual Lamps of 
 Architecture ; the one consisting in a just and humble 
 veneration for the works of God upon the earth, and 
 the other in an understanding of the dominion over 
 those works which has been vested in man. 
 
 III. Besides this expression of living authority and power, 
 there is, however, a sympathy in the forms of noble building, 
 with what is most sublime in natural things ; and it is the 
 governing Power directed by this sympathy, whose operation I 
 shall at present endeavour to trace, abandoning all inquiry into 
 the more abstract fields of Invention : for this latter faculty, and 
 the questions of proportion and arrangement connected with its 
 discussion, can only be rightly examined in a general view of all 
 the arts ; but its sympathy, in architecture, with the vast con- 
 trolling powers of Nature herself, is special, and may shortly be 
 considered ; and that with the more advantage, that it has, of 
 late, been little felt or regarded by architects. I have seen, in 
 recent efforts, much contest between two schools, one affecting 
 originality, and the other legality — many attempts at beauty of 
 design — many ingenious adaptations of construction ; but I have 
 never seen any aim at the expression of abstract power ; never 
 any appearance of a consciousness that, in this primal art of man, 
 there is room for the marking of his relations with the mightiest, 
 as well as the fairest, works of God ; and that those works them- 
 selves have been permitted, by their Master and his, to receive 
 an added glory from their association with earnest efforts of 
 human thought. In the edifices of Man there should be found 
 reverent worship and following, not only of the spirit which 
 rounds the pillars of the forest, and arches the vault of the 
 avenue — which gives veining to the leaf, and polish to the shell, 
 and grace to every pulse that agitates animal organisation, — but 
 of that also which reproves the pillars of the earth, and builds up 
 her barren precipices into the coldness of the clouds, and lifts her 
 shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale arch of the sky; 
 for these, and other glories more than these, refuse not to connect 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 73 
 
 themselves, in his thoughts, with the work of his own hand ; the 
 grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some 
 Cyclopean waste of mural stone ; the pinnacles of the rocky 
 promontory arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic 
 semblances of fortress towers ; and even the awful cone of the 
 far-off mountain has a melancholy mixed with that of its own 
 solitude, which is cast from the images of nameless tumuli on 
 white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy clay, into which 
 chambered cities melt in their mortalitv. 
 
 IV. Let us, then, see what is this power and majesty, which 
 Nature herself does not disdain to accept from the works of 
 man ; and what that sublimity in the masses built up by his 
 coralline-like energy, which is honourable, even when transferred 
 by association to the dateless hills, which it needed earthquakes 
 to lift, and deluges to mould. 
 
 And, first, of mere size : It might not be thought possible to 
 emulate the sublimity of natural objects in this respect ; nor would 
 it be, if the architect contended with them in pitched battle. It 
 would not be well to build pyramids in the valley of Chamouni ; 
 and St. Peter's, among its many other errors, counts for not the 
 least injurious its position on the slope of an inconsiderable hill. 
 But imagine it placed on the plain of Marengo, or like the 
 Superga of Turin, or like La Salute at Venice ! The fact is, 
 that the apprehension of the size of natural objects, as well as of 
 architecture, depends more on fortunate excitement of the ima- 
 gination than on measurements by the eye ; and the architect has 
 a peculiar advantage in being able to press close upon the sight 
 such magnitude as he can command. There are few rocks, even 
 among the Alps, that have a clear vertical fall as high as the choir 
 of Beauvais ; and if we secure a good precipice of wall, or a sheer 
 and unbroken flank of tower, and place them where there are no 
 enormous natural features to oppose them, we shall feel in them 
 no want of sublimity of size. And it may be matter of encourage- 
 ment in this respect, though one also of regret, to observe how 
 much oftener man destroys natural sublimity, than nature crushes 
 human power. It does not need much to humiliate a mountain. 
 
 L 
 
74 THE LAMP OF TOWER. 
 
 A hut will sometimes do it ; I never look up to the Col de Balme 
 from Chamouni, without a violent feeling of provocation against 
 its hospitable little cabin, whose bright white walls form a visibly 
 four-square spot on the green ridge, and entirely destroy all idea 
 of its elevation. A single villa will often mar a whole landscape, 
 and dethrone a dynasty of hills ; and the acropolis of Athens, 
 Parthenon and all, has, I believe, been dwarfed into a model by 
 the palace lately built beneath it. The fact is, that hills are not 
 so high as we fancy them, and, when to the actual impression of 
 no mean comparative size, is added the sense of the toil of manly 
 hand and thought, a sublimity is reached, which nothing but 
 gross error in arrangement of its parts can destroy. 
 
 V. While, therefore, it is not to be supposed that mere size 
 will ennoble a mean design, yet every increase of magnitude will 
 bestow upon it a certain degree of nobleness : so that it is well 
 to determine at first, whether the building is to be markedly 
 beautiful, or markedly sublime ; and if the latter, not to be with- 
 held by respect to smaller parts from reaching largeness of scale ; 
 provided only, that it be evidently in the architect's power to 
 reach at least that deeree of maenitude which is the lowest at 
 
 o o 
 
 which sublimity begins, rudely definable as that which will make 
 a living figure look less than life beside it. It is the misfortune 
 of most of our modern buildino-s that we would fain have an 
 universal excellence in them ; and so part of the funds must go in 
 painting, part in gilding, part in fitting up, part in painted 
 windows, part in small steeples, part in ornaments here and there ; 
 and neither the windows, nor the steeple, nor the ornaments, are 
 worth their materials. For there is a crust about the impressible 
 part of men's minds, which must be pierced through before they 
 can be touched to the quick ; and though we may prick at it and 
 scratch it in a thousand separate places, we might as well have 
 let it alone if we do not come through somewhere with a deep 
 thrust : and if we can give such a thrust anywhere, there is no 
 need of another ; it need not be even so " wide as a church door," 
 so that it be enough. And mere weight will do this ; it is a 
 clumsy way of doing it, but an effectual one, too ; and the apathy 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 75 
 
 which cannot be pierced through by a small steeple, nor shone 
 through by a small window, can be broken through in a moment 
 by the mere weight of a great wall. Let, therefore, the architect 
 who has not large resources, choose his point of attack first, and, 
 if he choose size, let him abandon decoration ; for, unless they are 
 concentrated, and numerous enough to make their concentration 
 conspicuous, all his ornaments together will not be worth one 
 huge stone. And the choice must be a decided one, without com- 
 promise. It must be no question whether his capitals would not 
 look better with a little carvino- — let him leave them huee as 
 blocks ; or whether his arches should not have richer architraves 
 ■ — let him throw them a foot higher, if he can ; a yard more 
 across the nave will be worth more to him than a tesselated 
 pavement ; and another fathom of outer wall, than an army of 
 pinnacles." The limitation of size must be only in the uses of 
 the building, or in the ground at his disposal. 
 
 VI. That limitation, however, being by such circumstances 
 determined, by what means, it is to be next asked, may the actual 
 magnitude be best displayed ; since it is seldom, perhaps never, 
 that a building of any pretension to size looks so large as it is. 
 The appearance of a figure in any distant, more especially in any 
 upper, parts of it will almost always prove that we have under- 
 estimated the magnitude of those parts. 
 
 It has often been observed that a building, in order to show its 
 magnitude, must be seen all at once ; — it would, perhaps, be better 
 to say, must be bounded as much as possible by continuous lines, 
 and that its extreme points should be seen all at once ; or we may 
 state, in simpler terms still, that it must have one visible bounding 
 line from top to bottom, and from end to end. This bounding 
 line from top to bottom may either be inclined inwards, and the 
 mass therefore, pyramidical ; or vertical, and the mass form one 
 grand cliff; or inclined outwards, as in the advancing fronts of 
 
 ^' I admire the simplicity with which all this good advice was tendered to a 
 body of men whose occupation for the next fifty years would be the knocking 
 down every beautiful building they could lay hands on ; and building the largest 
 quantities of rotten brick wall they could get contracts for. 
 
76 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 old houses, and, in a sort, in the Greek temple, and in all build- 
 ings with heavy cornices or heads. Now, in all these cases, if the 
 bounding line be violently broken ; if the cornice project, or the 
 upper portion of the pyramid recede, too violently, majesty will 
 be lost ; not because the building cannot be seen all at once, — for 
 in the case of a heavy cornice no part of it is necessarily concealed 
 ■ — but because the continuity of its terminal line is broken, and the 
 length of that Ihie, therefore, cannot be estimated. But the error 
 is, of course, more fatal when much of the building is also con- 
 cealed ; as in the well-known case of the recession of the dome of 
 St. Peter's, and from the greater number of points of view, in 
 churches whose highest portions, whether dome or tower, are 
 over their cross. Thus there is only one point from which the 
 size of the Cathedral of Florence is felt ; and that is from the 
 corner of the Via de' Balestrieri, opposite the south-east angle, 
 where it happens that the dome is seen rising instantly above the 
 apse and transepts. In all cases in which the tower is over the 
 cross, the grandeur and height of the tower itself are lost, because 
 there is but one line down which the eye can trace the whole 
 height, and that is in the inner angle of the cross, not easily dis- 
 cerned. Hence, while, in symmetry and feeling, such designs 
 may often have pre-eminence, yet, where the height of the tower 
 itself is to be made apparent, it must be at the west end, or, better 
 still, detached as a campanile. Imagine the loss to the Lombard 
 churches if their campaniles were carried only to their present 
 height over their crosses ; or to the Cathedral of Rouen, if the 
 Tour de Beurre were made central, in the place of its present 
 debased spire ! 
 
 VII. Whether, therefore, we have to do with tower or wall, 
 there must be one bounding line from base to coping ; and I am 
 much inclined, myself, to love the true vertical, or the vertical, 
 with a solemn frown of projection, (not a scowl,) as in the Palazzo 
 Vecchio of Florence. This character is always given to rocks by 
 the poets ; with slight foundation indeed, real rocks being little 
 given to overhanging — but with excellent judgment ; for the 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. "]"] 
 
 sense of threatening conveyed by this form is a nobler character 
 than that of mere size. And, in buildings, this threatening 
 should be somewhat carried down into their mass. A mere pro- 
 jecting shelf is not enough ; the whole wall must, Jupiter like, 
 nod as well as frown. Hence, I think the propped machicolations 
 of the Palazzo Vecchio and Duomo of Florence far grander 
 headings than any form of Greek cornice. Sometimes the pro- 
 jection may be thrown lower, as in the Doge's palace of Venice, 
 where the chief appearance of it is above the second arcade ; or it 
 may become a grand swell from the ground, as the head of a ship 
 of the line rises from the sea. This is very nobly attained by the 
 projection of the niches in the third story of the Tour de Beurre 
 at Rouen. 
 
 VIII. What is needful in the settinsf forth of mao-nitude in 
 heig-ht, is rio-ht also in the markino; it in area — let it be g-athered 
 well together. It is especially to be noted with respect to the 
 Palazzo Vecchio and other mighty buildings of its order, how 
 mistakenly it has been stated that dimension, in order to become 
 impressive, should be expanded either in height or length, but 
 not equally : whereas, rather it will be found that those buildings 
 seem on the whole the vastest which have been gathered up into 
 a mighty square, and which look as if they had been measured 
 by the angel's rod, " the length, and the breadth, and the height 
 of it are equal ;" and herein something is to be taken notice of, 
 which I believe not to be sufficiently, if at all, considered amoncr 
 our architects. 
 
 Of the many broad divisions under which architecture may be 
 considered, none appear to me more significant than that into 
 buildings whose interest is in their walls, and those whose inte- 
 rest is in the lines dividing their walls. In the Greek temple the 
 wall is as nothing ; the entire interest is in the detached columns 
 and the frieze they bear ; in French Flamboyant, and in our de- 
 testable Perpendicular, the object is to get rid of the wall surface, 
 and keep the eye altogether on tracery of line : in Romanesque 
 work and Egyptian, the wall is a confessed and honoured mem- 
 
78 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 ber, and the light is often allowed to fall on large areas of it, vari- 
 ously decorated. Now, both these principles are admitted by 
 Nature, the one in her woods and thickets, the other in her plains, 
 and cliffs, and waters ; but the latter is pre-eminently the principle 
 of power, and, in some sense, of beauty also. For, whatever 
 infinity of fair form there may be in the maze of the forest, there 
 is a fairer, as I think, in the surface of the quiet lake ; and I 
 hardly know that association of shaft or tracery, for which I would 
 exchange the warm sleep of sunshine on some smooth, broad, 
 human-like front of marble. Nevertheless, if breadth is to be 
 beautiful, its substance must in some sort be beautiful ; and we 
 must not hastily condemn the e.xclusive resting of the northern 
 architects in divided lines, until at least we have remembered 
 the difference between a blank surface of Caen stone, and one 
 mixed from Genoa and Carrara, of serpentine with snow : but 
 as regards abstract power and awfulness, there is no question ; 
 without breadth of surface it is in vain to seek them, and it 
 matters little, so that the surface be wide, bold, and unbroken, 
 whether it be of brick or of jasper ; the light of heaven upon it, 
 and the weight of earth in it, are all we need : for it is singular 
 how forgetful the mind may become both of material and work- 
 manship, if only it have space enough over which to range, and 
 to remind it, however feebly, of the joy that it has in contem- 
 plating the flatness and sweep of great plains and broad seas. 
 And it is a noble thing for men to do this with their cut stone 
 or moulded clay, and to make the face of a wall look infinite, and 
 its edge against the sky like an horizon : or even if less than 
 this be reached, it is still delightful to mark the play of passing 
 lio-ht on its broad surface, and to see by how many artifices and 
 o-radations of tintin"- and shadow, time and storm will set their 
 wild sio-natures upon it ; and how in the rising or declining of the 
 day the unbroken twilight rests long and luridly on its high 
 lineless forehead, and fades away untraceably down its tiers of 
 confused and countless stone. 
 
 IX. This, then, being, as I think, one of the peculiar elements 
 of sublime architecture, it may be easily seen how necessarily 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 79 
 
 consequent upon the love of it"" will be the choice of a form 
 approaching to the square for the main outHne. 
 
 For, in whatever direction the building is contracted, in that 
 direction the eye will be drawn to its terminal lines ; and the 
 sense of surface will only be at its fullest when those lines are 
 removed, in every direction, as far as possible. Thus the square 
 and circle are pre-eminently the areas of power among those 
 bounded by purely straight or curved lines ; and these, with 
 their relative solids, the cube and sphere, and relative solids of 
 progression, (as in the investigation of the laws of proportion 
 I shall call those masses which are generated by the progression 
 of an area of given form along a line in a given direction,) the 
 square and cylindrical column, are the elements of utmost power 
 in all architectural arrangements. On the other hand, grace 
 and perfect proportion require an elongation in some one direc- 
 tion : and a sense of power may be communicated to this form 
 of magnitude by a continuous series of any marked features, 
 such as the eye may be unable to number ; while yet we feel, 
 from their boldness, decision, and simplicity, that it is indeed 
 their multitude which has embarrassed us, not any confusion or 
 indistinctness of form. This expedient of continued series 
 forms the sublimity of arcades and aisles, of all ranges of 
 columns, and, on a smaller scale, of those Greek mouldings, 
 of which, repeated as they now are in all the meanest and most 
 familiar forms of our furniture. It is impossible altogether to 
 weary. Now, it is evident that the architect has choice of two 
 types of form, each properly associated with its own kind of 
 interest or decoration : the square, or greatest area, to be chosen 
 especially when the surface is to be the subject of thought ; and 
 the elongated area, when the divisions of the surface are to be 
 subjects of thought. Both these orders of form, as I think nearly 
 every other source of power and beauty, are marvellously united 
 in that building which I fear to weary the reader by bringing 
 
 '" Yes — I daresay ! but how are you first to get the love of it ? To love sub- 
 lime architecture is one thing ; to love a sublime dividend or a sublime percen- 
 tage is another — and to love a large smoking room or billiard room, yet another. 
 
8o THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 forward too frequently, as a model of all perfection — the Doge's 
 palace at Venice : its general arrangement, a hollow square ; its 
 principal fa9ade, an oblong, elongated to the eye by a range of 
 thirty-four small arches, and thirty-five columns, while it is sepa- 
 rated by a richly canopied window in the centre, into two massive 
 divisions, whose height and length are nearly as four to five ; the 
 arcades which ^ive it leng-th being: confined to the lower stories, 
 and the upper, between its broad windows, left a mighty surface 
 of smooth marble, chequered with blocks of alternate rose-colour 
 and white. It would be impossible, I believe, to invent a more 
 magnificent arrangement of all that is in building most dignified 
 and most fair. 
 
 X. In the Lombard Romanesque, the two principles are more 
 fused into each other, as most characteristically in the cathedral 
 of Pisa : length of proportion, exhibited by an arcade of twenty- 
 one arches above, and fifteen below, at the side of the nave ; bold 
 square proportion in the front ; that front divided into arcades, 
 placed one above the other, the lowest with its pillars engaged, 
 of seven arches, the four uppermost thrown out boldly from the 
 receding wall, and casting deep shadows ; the first, above the 
 basement, of nineteen arches ; the second, of twenty-one ; the third 
 and fourth of eight each ; sixty-three arches in all ; all circular 
 headed, all with cylindrical shafts, and the lowest with square 
 panellings, set diagonally under their semicircles, an universal 
 ornament in this style (Plate XII. fig. 7.) ; the apse a semicircle, 
 with a semidome for its roof, and three ranges of circular arches 
 for its exterior ornament ; in the interior of the nave, a range of 
 circular arches below a circular-arched triforium, and a vast flat 
 surface, observe, of wall decorated with striped marble above ; the 
 whole arrangement (not a peculiar one, but characteristic of 
 every church of the period ; and, to my feeling, the most 
 majestic ; not perhaps the fairest, but the mightiest type of form 
 which the mind of man has ever conceived'") based exclusively 
 on associations of the circle and the square. 
 
 ^ I have never for a moment changed from this judgment, but I have since 
 seen a mightier type of the same form, — St. Paul's, outside the walls, at Rome. It 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 8 1 
 
 I am now, however, trenching upon ground which I desire to 
 reserve for more careful examination, in connection with other 
 aesthetic questions : but I beHeve the examples I have given will 
 justify my vindication of the square form from the reprobation 
 which has been lightly thrown upon it ; nor might this be done 
 for it only as a ruling outline, but as occurring constantly in the 
 best mosaics, and in a thousand forms of minor decoration, which 
 I cannot now examine ; my chief assertion of its majesty being 
 always as it is an exponent of space and surface, and therefore 
 to be chosen, either to rule in their outlines, or to adorn by masses 
 of light and shade those portions of buildings in which surface 
 is to be rendered precious or honourable. 
 
 XI. Thus far, then, of general forms, and of the modes in 
 which the scale of architecture is best to be exhibited. Let us 
 next consider the manifestations of power which belong to its 
 details and lesser divisions. 
 
 The first division we have to regard, is the inevitable one of 
 masonry. It is true that this division may, by great art, be 
 concealed ; but I think it unwise (as well as dishonest) to do so ; 
 for this reason, that there is a very noble character always to be 
 obtained by the opposition of large stones to divided masonry, 
 as by shafts and columns of one piece, or massy lintels and 
 architraves, to wall work of bricks or smaller stones ; and there 
 is a certain organisation in the management of such parts, like 
 that of the continuous bones of the skeleton, opposed to the 
 vertebrae, which it is not well to surrender. I hold, therefore, 
 that for this and other reasons, the masonry of a building is to 
 be shown : and also that, with certain rare exceptions, (as in the 
 cases of chapels and shrines of most finished workmanship,) the 
 smaller the building, the more necessary it is that its masonry 
 should be bold, and vice versa. For if a building be under the 
 mark of average magnitude, it is not in our power to increase its 
 apparent size (too easily measurable) by any proportionate dimi- 
 nution in the scale of its masonry. But it may be often in our 
 
 is a restored building, but nobly and faithfully done ; and, so far as I know, the 
 grandest interior in Europe. 
 
 M 
 
82 THE LAMP OF POW'ER. 
 
 power to give it a certain nobility by building it of massy stones, 
 or, at all events, introducing such Into its make. Thus it is im- 
 possible that there should ever be majesty in a cottage built of 
 brick ; but there is a marked element of sublimity in the rude and 
 irregular piling of the rocky walls of the mountain cottages of 
 Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland. Their size is not one whit 
 diminished, though four or five stones reach at their angles from 
 the ground to the eaves, or though a native rock happen to pro- 
 ject conveniently, and to be built into the framework of the wall. 
 On the other hand, after a building has once reached the mark 
 of majestic size, it matters, indeed, comparatively little whether 
 its masonry be large or small, but if it be altogether large, it 
 will sometimes diminish the magnitude for want of a measure ; 
 if altogether small, it will suggest ideas of poverty in material, 
 or deficiency in mechanical resource, besides interfering in many 
 cases with the lines of the design, and delicacy of the workman- 
 ship. A very unhappy instance of such interference exists in 
 the facade of the church of St. Madeleine at Paris, where the 
 columns, being built of very small stones of nearly equal size 
 with visible joints, look as if they were covered with a close 
 trellis. So, then, that masonry will be generally the most mag- 
 nificent which, without the use of materials systematically small 
 or large, accommodates itself, naturally and frankly, to the con- 
 ditions and structure of its work, and displays alike its power of 
 dealing with the vastest masses, and of accomplishing its purpose 
 with the smallest, sometimes heaping rock upon rock with Titanic 
 commandment, and anon binding the dusty remnants and edgy 
 splinters into springing vaults and swelling domes. And if the 
 nobility of this confessed and natural masonry were more com- 
 monly felt, we should not lose the dignity of it by smoothing 
 surfaces and fitting joints. The sums which we waste in chiselling 
 and polishing stones which would have been better left as they 
 came from the quarry, would often raise a building a story 
 higher. Only in this there is to be a certain respect for material 
 also : for if we build in marble, or in any limestone, the known 
 ease of the workmanship will make its absence seem slovenly ; 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 03 
 
 it will be well to take advantage of the stone's softness, and to 
 make the design delicate and dependent upon smoothness of 
 chiselled surfaces : but if we build in granite or lava, it is a folly, 
 in most cases, to cast away the labour necessary to smooth it ; it 
 is wiser to make the design granitic itself, and to leave the 
 blocks rudely squared. I do not deny a certain splendour and 
 sense of power in the smoothing of granite, and in the entire 
 subduing of its iron resistance to the human supremacy. But 
 in most cases, I believe, the labour and time necessary to do this 
 would be better spent in another way ; and that to raise a building 
 to a height of a hundred feet with rough blocks, is better than 
 to raise it to seventy with smooth ones. There is also a magni- 
 ficence in the natural cleavage of the stone to which the art 
 must indeed be great that pretends to be equivalent ; and a stern 
 expression of brotherhood with the mountain heart from which 
 it has been rent, ill-exchanged for a glistering obedience to the 
 rule and measure of men. His eye must be delicate indeed, who 
 would desire to see the Pitti palace polished. 
 
 XII. Next to those of the masonry, we have to consider the 
 divisions of the design itself. Those divisions are, necessarily, 
 either into masses of light and shade, or else by traced lines ; 
 which latter must be, indeed, themselves produced by incisions 
 or projections which, in some lights, cast a certain breadth of 
 shade, but which may, nevertheless, if finely enough cut, be 
 always true lines, in distant effect. I call, for instance, such 
 panelling as that of Henry the Seventh's chapel, pure linear 
 division. 
 
 Now, it does not seem to me sufficiently recollected, that a wall 
 surface is to an architect simply what a white canvas is to a 
 painter, with this only difference, that the wall has already a 
 sublimity in its height, substance, and other characters already 
 considered, on which it is more dangerous to break than to touch 
 with shade the canvas surface. And, for my own part, I think 
 a smooth, broad, freshly laid surface of gesso a fairer thing than 
 most pictures I see painted on it ; much more, a noble surface of 
 stone than most architectural features which it is caused to 
 
84 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 assume. But however this may be, the canvas and wall are 
 supposed to be given, and it is our craft to divide them. 
 
 And the principles on which this division is to be made, are, 
 as regards relation of quantities, the same in architecture as in 
 painting, or indeed in any other art whatsoever, only the painter 
 is by his varied subject partly permitted, partly compelled, to 
 dispense with the symmetry of architectural light and shade, and 
 to adopt arrangements apparently free and accidental. So that 
 in modes of grouping there is much difference (though no oppo- 
 sition) between the two arts ; but in rules of quantity, both are 
 alike, so far forth as their commands of means are alike. For 
 the architect not being able to secure always the same depth or 
 decision of shadow, nor to add to its sadness by colour, (because 
 even when colour is employed, it cannot follow the moving 
 shade,) is compelled to make many allowances, and avail himself 
 of many contrivances, which the painter needs neither consider 
 nor employ. 
 
 XIII. Of these limitations the first consequence is, that positive 
 shade is a more necessary and more sublime thing in an architect's 
 hands than in a painter's. For the latter being able to temper his 
 light with an under tone throughout, and to make it delightful 
 with sweet colour, or awful with lurid colour, and to represent dis- 
 tance, and air, and sun, by the depth of it, and fill its whole space 
 with expression, can deal with an enormous, nay, almost with an 
 universal, extent of it, and the best painters most delight in such 
 extent ; but as light, with the architect, is nearly always liable to 
 become full and untempered sunshine seen upon solid surface, 
 his only rests, and his chief means of sublimity, are definite shades. 
 So that, after size and weight, the Power of architecture may be 
 said to depend on the quantity (whether measured in space or 
 intenseness) of its shadow ; and it seems to me, that the reality of 
 its works, and the use and influence they have in the daily life of 
 men, (as opposed to those works of art with which we have nothing 
 to do but in times of rest or of pleasure,) require of it that it 
 should express a kind of human sympathy, by a measure of dark- 
 ness as great as there is in human life : and that as the great poem 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 85 
 
 and great fiction generally affect us most by the majesty of their 
 masses of shade, and cannot take hold upon us if they affect a 
 continuance of lyric sprightliness, but must be often serious, and 
 sometimes melancholy, else they do not express the truth of this 
 wild world of ours ; so there must be, in this magnificently human 
 art of architecture, some equivalent expression for the trouble and 
 wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery : and this it can only 
 give by depth or diffusion of gloom, by the frown upon its front, 
 and the shadow of its recess. So that Rembrandtism is a noble 
 manner in architecture, though a false one in painting ; and I do 
 not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had 
 mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its 
 surface. And among the first habits that a young architect should 
 learn, is that of thinking in shadow, not looking at a design in its 
 miserable liny skeleton ; but conceiving it as it will be when the 
 dawn lights it, and the dusk leaves it ; when its stones will be 
 hot, and its crannies cool ; when the lizards will bask on the one, 
 and the birds build in the other. Let him design^" with the sense 
 of cold and heat upon him ; let him cut out the shadows, as men 
 dig wells in unwatered plains ; and lead along the lights, as a 
 founder does his hot metal ; let him keep the full command of both, 
 and see that he knows how they fall, and where they fade. His 
 paper lines and proportions are of no value : all that he has to do 
 must be done by spaces of light and darkness ; and his business is 
 to see that the one is broad and bold enough not to be swallowed 
 up by twilight, and the other deep enough not to be dried like a 
 shallow pool by a noon-day sun. 
 
 And, that this may be, the first necessity is that the quantities 
 of shade or light, whatever they may be, shall be thrown into 
 masses, either of something like equal weight, or else large masses 
 of the one relieved with small of the other ; but masses of one or 
 other kind there must be. No design that is divided at all, and 
 
 ^'' " Let him — let him." All very fine ; but all the while, there wasn't one of 
 the architects for whom this was written — -nor is there one alive now — who could, 
 or can, so much as shade an egg, or a tallow candle j how much less an egg- 
 mouldinsr or a shaft ! 
 
86 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 yet not divided into masses, can ever be of the smallest value : 
 this great law respecting breadth, precisely the same in archi- 
 tecture and painting, is so important, that the examination of its 
 two principal applications will include most of the conditions of 
 majestic design on which I would at present insist 
 
 XIV. Painters are in the habit of speaking loosely of masses 
 of light and shade, meaning thereby any large spaces of either. 
 Nevertheless, it is convenient sometimes to restrict the term 
 "mass" to the portions to which proper form belongs, and to 
 call the field on which such forms are traced, interval. Thus, in 
 foliage with projecting boughs or stems, we have masses of light, 
 with intervals of shade ; and, in light skies with dark clouds upon 
 them, masses of shade, with intervals of light. 
 
 This distinction is, in architecture, still more necessary ; for 
 there are two marked styles dependent upon it : one in which the 
 forms are drawn with light upon darkness, as in Greek sculpture 
 and pillars ; the other in which they are drawn with darkness 
 upon light, as in early Gothic foliation. Now, it is not in the 
 designer's power determinately to vary degrees and places of 
 darkness, but it is altogether in his power to vary in determined 
 directions his degrees of Vnrht. Hence the use of the dark mass 
 characterises, generally, a trenchant style of design, in which the 
 darks and lights are both flat, and terminated by sharp edges '> 
 while the use of the light mass is in the same way associated with 
 a softened and full manner of design, in which the darks are much 
 warmed by reflected lights, and the lights are rounded and melt 
 into them. The term applied by Milton to Doric bas-relief — 
 " bossy," is, as is generally the case with Milton's epithets, the 
 most comprehensive and expressive of this manner, which the 
 English language contains ; while the term which specifically de- 
 scribes the chief member of early Gothic decoration, feuille, foil 
 or leaf, is equally significative of a flat space of shade. 
 
 XV. We shall shortly consider the actual modes in Avhich these 
 two kinds of mass have been treated. And, first, of the light, or 
 rounded, mass. The modes in which relief was secured for the 
 more projecting forms of bas-relief, by the Greeks, have been too 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 87 
 
 well described by Sir Charles Eastlake * to need recapitulation ; 
 the conclusion which forces itself upon us from the facts he has 
 remarked, being one on which I shall have occasion farther to 
 insist presently, that the Greek workman cared for shadow only 
 as a dark field wherefrom his Ii<rht ficrure or desio;^n micrht be in- 
 telligibly detached : his attention was concentrated on the one 
 aim at readableness and clearness of accent ; and all composition, 
 all harmony, nay, the very vitality and energy of separate groups 
 were, when necessary, sacrificed to plain speaking. Nor was 
 there any predilection for one kind of form rather than another. 
 Rounded forms were, in the columns and principal decorative 
 members, adopted, not for their own sake, but as characteristic of 
 the things represented. They were beautifully rounded, because 
 the Greek habitually did well what he had to do, not because he 
 loved roundness more than squareness ; severely rectilinear forms 
 were associated with the curved ones in the cornice and triglyph, 
 and the mass of the pillar was divided by a fluting, which, in 
 distant effect, destroyed much of its breadth. What power of 
 light these primal arrangements left, was diminished in successive 
 refinements and additions of ornament ; and continued to diminish 
 through Roman work, until the confirmation of the circular arch 
 as a decorative feature. Its lovely and simple line taught the 
 eye to ask for a similar boundary of solid form ; the dome 
 followed, and necessarily the decorative masses were thencefor- 
 ward managed with reference to, and in sympathy with, the chief 
 feature of the building. Hence arose, among the Byzantine 
 architects, a system of ornament, entirely restrained within the 
 superficies of curvilinear masses, on which the light fell with as 
 unbroken gradation as on a dome or column, while the illumined 
 surface was nevertheless cut into details of singular and most 
 ingenious intricacy. Something is, of course, to be allowed for 
 the less dexterity of the workmen ; it being easier to cut down 
 into a solid block, than to arrange the projecting portions of leaf 
 on the Greek capital : such leafy capitals are nevertheless exe- 
 cuted by the Byzantines with skill enough to show that their pre- 
 * " Literature of the Fine Arts." — Essay on Bas-relief. 
 
88 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 ference of the massive form was by no means compulsory, nor can 
 I think it unwise. On the contrary, while the arrangements of 
 line are far more artful in the Greek capital, the Byzantine light 
 and shade are as incontestably more grand and masculine, based 
 on that quality of pure gradation, which nearly all natural objects 
 possess, and the attainment of which is, in fact, the first and 
 most palpable purpose in natural arrangements of grand form. 
 Aphorism i8. The rolling heap of the thunder-cloud, divided by rents, 
 The religious g^^d multiplied by wreaths, yet gathering them all into 
 
 nobleness of '^ ■' ./>-><-> 
 
 rrchuecture. its broad, torrld, and towering zone, and its midnight 
 darkness opposite ; the scarcely less majestic heave of 
 the mountain side, all torn and traversed by depth of 
 defile and ridge of rock, yet never losing the unity of its 
 illumined swell and shadowy decline ; and the head of 
 every mighty tree, rich with tracery of leaf and bough, 
 yet terminated against the sky by a true line, and 
 rounded by a green horizon, which, multiplied in the 
 distant forest, makes it look bossy from above ; all 
 these mark, for a great and honoured law, that diffusion 
 of light for which the Byzantine ornaments were de- 
 signed ; and show us that those builders had truer 
 sympathy with what God made majestic, than the self- 
 contemplating and self-contented Greek. I know that 
 they are barbaric in comparison ; but there is a power 
 in their barbarism of sterner tone, a power not sophis- 
 tic nor penetrative, but embracing and mysterious ; a 
 power faithful more than thoughtful, which conceived 
 and felt more than it created ; a power that neither 
 comprehended nor ruled itself, but worked and wan- 
 dered as it listed, like mountain streams and winds ; 
 and which could not rest in the expression or seizure 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 89 
 
 of finite form. It could not bury itself in acanthus 
 
 leaves. Its imagery was taken from the shadows of 
 
 the storms and hills, and had fellowship with the night 
 
 and day of the earth itself 
 
 XVI. I have endeavoured to give some idea of one of the 
 hollow balls of stone which, surrounded by flowing leafage, occur 
 in varied succession on the architrave of the central gate of St. 
 Mark's at Venice, in Plate I. fig. 3. It seems to me singularly 
 beautiful in its unity of lightness, and delicacy of detail, with 
 breadth of light. It looks as if its leaves had been sensitive, and 
 had risen and shut themselves into a bud at some sudden touch, 
 and would presently fall back again into their wild flow. The 
 cornices of San Michele of Lucca, seen above and below the arch, 
 in Plate VI., show the effect of heavy leafage and thick stems 
 arranged on a surface whose curve is a simple quadrant, the 
 light dying from off" them as it turns. It would be difficult, as I 
 think, to invent any thing more noble : and I insist on the broad 
 character of their arrangement the more earnestly, because, after- 
 wards modified by greater skill in its management, it became 
 characteristic of the richest pieces of Gothic design. The capital, 
 given in Plate V., is of the noblest period of the Venetian 
 Gothic ; and it is interesting to see the play of leafage so luxu- 
 riant, absolutely subordinated to the breadth of two masses of 
 light and shade. What is done by the Venetian architect, with 
 a power as irresistible as that of the waves of his surroundino- 
 sea, is done by the masters of the Cis-Alpine Gothic, more 
 timidly, and with a manner somewhat cramped and cold, but 
 not less expressing their assent to the same great law. The 
 
 3' This estimate of Byzantine architecture had been previously formed by Lord 
 Lindsay — and, I think, by him only ; — and it remains, though entirely true, his and 
 mine only, in written statement, though shared with us by all persons who have 
 an eye for colour, and sympathy enough with Christianity to care for its fullest 
 interpretation by Art only : in this sentence of mine, the bit about self-contented 
 Greeks must be omitted. A noble Greek was as little content without God, as 
 George Herbert, or St. Francis ; and a Byzantine was nothing else than a Greek, — 
 recognizing Christ for Zeus. 
 
 N 
 
go THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 ice spiculse of the North, and its broken sunshine, seem to have 
 image in, and influence on, the work ; and the leaves which, 
 under the Italian's hand, roll, and flow, and bow down over 
 their black shadows, as in the weariness of noon-day heat, are, 
 in the North, crisped and frost-bitten, wrinkled on the edges, 
 and sparkling as if with dew. But the rounding of the ruling 
 form is not less sought and felt. In the lower part of Plate I. 
 is the finial of the pediment given in Plate II., from the cathe- 
 dral of St. Lo. It is exactly similar in feeling to the Byzantine 
 capital, being rounded under the abacus by four branches of 
 thistle-leaves, whose stems, springing from the angles, bend out- 
 wards and fall back to the head, throwing their jaggy spines down 
 upon the full light, forming two sharp quatrefoils. I could not get 
 near enough to this finial to see with what degree of delicacy the 
 spines were cut ; but I have sketched a natural group of thistle- 
 leaves beside it, that the reader may compare the types, and see with 
 what mastery they are subjected to the broad form of the whole. 
 The small capital from Coutances, Plate XIII. fig. 4., w-hich is of 
 earlier date, is of simpler elements, and exhibits the principle still 
 more clearly ; but the St. Lo finial is only one of a thousand in- 
 stances which might be gathered even from the fully developed 
 flamboyant, the feeling of breadth being retained in minor orna- 
 rnents, long after it had been lost in the main design, and some- 
 times capriciously renewing itself throughout, as in the cylindri- 
 cal niches and pedestals which enrich the porches of Caudebec 
 and Rouen. Fig. i. Plate I. is the simplest of those of Rouen ; 
 in the more elaborate there are four projecting sides, divided by 
 buttresses into eight rounded compartments of tracer)' ; even the 
 whole bulk of the outer pier is treated with the same feeling ; and 
 though composed partly of concave recesses, partly of square 
 shafts, partly of statues and tabernacle work, arranges itself as a 
 whole into one richly rounded tower. 
 
 XVII. I cannot here enter into the curious questions con- 
 nected with the management of larger curved surfaces ; into the 
 causes of the difference in proportion necessary to be observed 
 between round and square towers ; nor into the reasons why a 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 9 1 
 
 column or ball may be richly ornamented, while surface decoration 
 would be inexpedient on masses like the Castle of St. Angelo, the 
 tomb of Cecilia Metella, or the dome of St. Peter's. But what 
 has been above said of the desirableness of serenity in plane sur- 
 faces, applies still more forcibly to those which are curved ; and it 
 is to be remembered that we are, at present, considering how this 
 serenity and power may be carried into minor divisions, not how 
 the ornamental character of the lower form may, upon occasion, 
 be permitted to fret the calmness of the higher. Nor, though 
 the instances we have examined are of globular or cylindrical 
 masses chiefly, is it to be thought that breadth can only be 
 secured by such alone : many of the noblest forms are of subdued 
 curvature, sometimes hardly visible ; but curvature of some de- 
 gree there must be, in order to secure any measure of grandeur 
 in a small mass of lig-ht. One of the most marked distinctions 
 between one artist and another, in the point of skill, will be 
 found in their relative delicacy of perception of rounded surface ; 
 the full power of expressing the perspective, foreshortening, and 
 various undulation of such surface is, perhaps, the last and most 
 difficult attainment of the hand and eye. For instance : there is, 
 perhaps, no tree which has baffled the landscape painter more 
 than the common black spruce fir. It is rare that we see any 
 representation of it other than caricature. It is conceived as 
 if it grew in one plane, or as a section of a tree, with a set of 
 boughs symmetrically dependent on opposite sides. It is thought 
 formal, unmanageable, and ugly. It would be so, if it grew as 
 it is drawn. But the Power of the tree is not in that chandelier- 
 like section. It is in the dark, flat, solid tables of leafage, which 
 it holds out on its strong arms, curved slightly over them like 
 shields, and spreading towards the extremity like a hand. It is 
 vain to endeavour to paint the sharp, grassy, intricate leafage, 
 until this ruling form has been secured ; and in the boughs that 
 approach the spectator, the foreshortening of it is like that of 
 a wide hill country, ridge just rising over ridge in successive 
 distances ; and the finger-like extremities, foreshortened to ab- 
 solute bluntness, require a delicacy in the rendering of them like 
 
92 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 that of the drawing of the hand of the Magdalene upon the vase 
 in Mr. Rogers's Titian. Get but the back of that foliage, and 
 you have the tree ; but I cannot name the artist who has 
 thoroughly felt it. So, in all drawing and sculpture, it is the 
 power of rounding, softly and perfectly, every inferior mass which 
 preserves the serenity, as it follows the truth, of Nature, and which 
 demands the highest knowledge and skill from the workman. A 
 noble design may always be told by the back of a single leaf, and 
 it was the sacrifice of this breadth and refinement of surface for 
 sharp edges and extravagant undercutting, which destroyed the 
 Gothic mouldings, as the substitution of the line for the light 
 destroyed the Gothic tracery. This change, however, we shall 
 better comprehend after we have glanced at the chief conditions 
 of arrangement of the second kind of mass ; that which is flat, 
 and of shadow only. 
 
 XVIII. We have noted above how the wall surface, composed 
 of rich materials, and covered with costly work, in modes which 
 we shall examine in the ne.xt Chapter, became a subject of pecu- 
 liar interest to the Christian architects. Its broad flat lights could 
 only be made valuable by points or masses of energetic shadow, 
 which were obtained by the Romanesque architect by means of 
 ranges of recessed arcade, in the management of which, however, 
 though all the effect depends upon the shadow so obtained, the 
 eye is still, as in classical architecture, caused to dwell upon the 
 projecting columns, capitals, and wall, as in Plate VI. But with 
 the enlargement of the window, which, in the Lombard and 
 Romanesque churches, is usually little more than an arched slit, 
 came the conception of the simpler mode of decoration, by pene- 
 trations which, seen from within, are forms of light, and, from 
 without, are forms of shade. In Italian traceries the eye is 
 exclusively fixed upon the dark forms of the penetrations, and 
 the whole proportion and power of the design are caused to 
 depend upon them. The intermediate spaces are, indeed, in the 
 most perfect early examples, filled with elaborate ornament ; but 
 this ornament was so subdued as never to disturb the simplicity 
 and force of the dark masses ; and in many instances is entirely 
 
Plate VJ , 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 93 
 
 wanting. The composition of the whole depends on the propor- 
 tioning and shaping of the darks ; and it is impossible that any- 
 thing can be more exquisite than their placing in the head window 
 of the Giotto campanile, Plate IX., or the Church of Or San 
 Michele. So entirely does the effect depend upon them, that it 
 is quite useless to draw Italian tracery in outline ; if with any 
 intention of rendering its effect, it is better to mark the black 
 spots, and let the rest alone. Of course, when it is desired to 
 obtain an accurate rendering of the design, its lines and mould- 
 ings are enough ; but it often happens that works on architecture 
 are of Httle use, because they afford the reader no means of 
 judging of the effective intention of the arrangements which they 
 state. No person, looking at an architectural drawing of the 
 richly foliaged cusps and intervals of Or San Michele, would 
 understand that all this sculpture was extraneous, was a mere 
 added grace, and had nothing to do with the real anatomy of the 
 work, and that by a few bold cuttings through a slab of stone he 
 might reach the main effect of it all, at once. I have, therefore, 
 in the plate of the design of Giotto, endeavoured especially to 
 mark these points ol ptcrpose ; there, as in every other instance, 
 black shadows of a graceful form lying on the white surface of 
 the stone, like dark leaves laid upon snow. Hence, as before 
 observed, the universal name of foil applied to such ornaments. 
 
 XIX. In order to the obtaining their full effect, it is evident 
 that much caution is necessary in the management of the glass. 
 In the finest instances, the traceries are open lights, either in 
 towers, as in this design of Giotto's, or in external arcades like 
 that of the Campo Santo at Pisa or the Doge's Palace at Venice ; 
 and it is thus only that their full beauty is shown. In domestic 
 buildings, or in windows of churches necessarily glazed, the glass 
 was usually withdrawn entirely behind the traceries. Those of 
 the Cathedral of Florence stand quite clear of it, casting their 
 shadows in well detached lines, so as in most lights to give the 
 appearance of a double tracery. In those few instances in which 
 the glass was set in the tracery itself, as in Or San Michele, the 
 effect of the latter is half destroyed : perhaps the especial atten- 
 
94 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 tion paid by Orcagna to his surface ornament, was connected 
 witli the intention of so glazing them. It is singular to see, in 
 late architecture, the glass, which tormented the bolder architects, 
 considered as a valuable means of making the lines of tracery 
 more slender ; as in the smallest intervals of the windows of 
 Merton College, Oxford, where the glass is advanced about two 
 inches from the centre of the tracery bar, (that in the larger 
 spaces being in the middle, as usual,) in order to prevent the 
 depth of shadow from farther diminishing the apparent interval. ^^ 
 Much of the lightness of the effect of the traceries is owingr to 
 this seemingly unimportant arrangement. But, generally speak- 
 ing, glass spoils all traceries ; and it is much to be wished that it 
 should be kept well within them, when it cannot be dispensed 
 with, and that the most careful and beautiful designs should be 
 reserved for situations where no glass would be needed.'' 
 
 XX. The method of decoration by shadow was, as far as we 
 have hitherto traced it, common to the northern and southern 
 Gothic. But in the carrying out of the system they instantly 
 diverged. Having marble at his command, and classical decora- 
 tion in his sight, the southern architect was able to carve the 
 intermediate spaces with exquisite leafage, or to vary his wall 
 surface with inlaid stones. The northern architect neither knew 
 the ancient work, nor possessed the delicate material ; and he 
 had no resource but to cover his walls with holes, cut into foiled 
 shapes like those of the windows. This he did, often with great 
 clumsiness, but always with a vigorous sense of composition, and 
 always, observe, depending on the shadows for effect. ■ Where the 
 wall was thick and could not be cut through, and the foilings 
 
 " Well noticed ; and, I think, at that time by me only. I do net think this 
 question of the advance or retreat of the glass has been touched even in M. 
 Violet-le-Duc's long article on tracery, and I am more pertinacious now in showing 
 what I have really seen and said, because it has all been so useless. Had it 
 been acted on, I need not have vindicated my guidance — now, I can only 
 say — " I showed you the right way, though you would not walk in it." See the 
 following note. 
 
 " Cloisters, for instance. The only fruit I have seen of this exhortation is the 
 multiplication of the stupidest traceries that can be cut cheapest, as in the cloisters 
 of the missionary school at Canterbury. 
 
■*• 
 
PbHtP \"IT 
 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 95 
 
 were large, those shadows did not fill the entire space ; but the 
 form was, nevertheless, drawn on the eye by means of them, and 
 when it was possible, they were cut clear through, as in raised 
 screens of pediment, like those of the west front of Bayeux : cut 
 so deep in every case, as to secure, in all but a direct low front 
 light, great breadth of shadow. 
 
 The spandril, given at the top of Plate VII., is from the south- 
 western entrance of the Cathedral of Lisieux ; one of the most 
 quaint and interesting doors in Normandy, probably soon to be 
 lost for ever, by the continuance of the masonic operations which 
 have already destroyed the northern tower. Its work is alto- 
 gether rude, but full of spirit ; the opposite spandrils have 
 different, though balanced, ornaments very inaccurately adjusted, 
 each rosette or star (as the five-rayed figure, now quite defaced, 
 in the upper portion appears to have been) cut on its own block 
 of stone and fitted in with small nicety, especially illustrating the 
 point I have above insisted upon — the architect's utter neglect of 
 the forms of intermediate stone, at this early period. 
 
 The arcade, of which a single arch and shaft are given on the 
 left, forms the flank of the door ; three outer shafts bearing three 
 orders within the spandril which I have drawn, and each of these 
 shafts carried over an inner arcade, decorated above with quatre- 
 foils, cut concave and filled with leaves, the whole disposition 
 exquisitely picturesque and full of strange play of light and shade. 
 
 For some time the penetrative ornaments, if so they may be 
 for convenience called, maintained their bold and independent 
 character. Then they multiplied and enlarged, becoming shal- 
 lower as they did so ; then they began to run together, one 
 swallowing up, or hanging on to, another, like bubbles in expiring 
 foam — fig. 4. from a spandril at Bayeux, looks as if it had been 
 blown from a pipe ; finally, they lost their individual character 
 altogether, and the eye was made to rest on the separating lines 
 of tracery, as we saw before in the window ; and then came the 
 great change and the fall of the Gothic power. 
 
 XXI. Figs. 2. and 3., the one a quadrant of the star window 
 of the little chapel close to St. Anastasia at Verona, and the 
 
96 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 Other a very singular example from the church of the Eremitani 
 at Padua, compared with fig. 5., one of the ornaments of the tran- 
 sept towers of Rouen, show the closely correspondent conditions 
 of the early Northern and Southern Gothic. But, as we have 
 said, the Italian architects, not being embarrassed for decoration 
 of wall surface, and not being obliged, like the Northmen, to 
 multiply their penetrations, held to the system for some time 
 longer ; and while they increased the refinement of the ornament, 
 kept the purity of the plan. That refinement of ornament was 
 their weak point however, and opened the way for the renais- 
 sance attack. They fell, like the old Romans, by their luxury, 
 except in the separate instance of the magnificent school of 
 Venice. That architecture began with the luxuriance in which 
 all others expired : it founded itself on the Byzantine mosaic and 
 fretwork ; and laying aside its ornaments, one by one, while it 
 fixed its forms by laws more and more severe, stood forth, at 
 last, a model of domestic Gothic, so grand, so complete, so nobly 
 systematised, that, to my mind, there never existed an architec- 
 ture with so stern a claim to our reverence. ^^ I do not except 
 
 " I have written many passages that are one-sided or incomplete; and which 
 therefoit are misleading if read without their contexts or development. But I 
 know of no other paragraph in any of my books so definitely false as this. I did 
 not know the history of Venice when I wrote it ; and mistook the expression of 
 the conspiring pride of her later aristocracy, for the temper of the whole nation. 
 The real strength of Venice was in the twelfth, not the fourteenth century : and 
 the abandonment of her Byzantine architecture meant her ruin. ■ See the notes 
 on the destruction of the Ziani Palace in the " Stones of Venice." Farther, al- 
 though rendering all this respect to what I suppose to be the self-restraint of 
 Venetian-Gothic, I had carefully guarded the reader from too high an estimate of 
 it, in relation to originally purer styles. The followng passage, from the preface 
 to the second edition, has been much too carelessly overlooked by the general 
 reader : — " I must here also deprecate an idea which is often taken up by hasty 
 readers of the ' Stones of Venice ' ; namely, that I suppose Venetian architecture 
 the most noble of the schools of Gothic. I have great respect for Venetian 
 Gothic, but only as one among many early schools. My reason for devoting so 
 much time to Venice, was not that her architecture is the best in existence, but 
 that it exemplifies, in the smallest compass, the most interesting fact's of architec- 
 tural history. The Gothic of Verona is far nobler than that of Venice ; and that 
 of Florence nobler than that of Verona. For our own immediate purposes that 
 of Notre Dame of Paris is noblest of all." 
 
I-'l-ll,-. \'III 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 97 
 
 even the Greek Doric : the Doric had cast nothing away ; the 
 fourteenth century Venetian had cast away, one by one, for a 
 succession of centuries, every splendour that art and wealth 
 could give it. It had laid down its crown and its jewels, its gold 
 and its colour, like a king disrobing ; it had resigned its exertion, 
 like an athlete reposing ; once capricious and fantastic, it had 
 bound itself by laws inviolable and serene as those of Nature 
 herself It retained nothing but its beauty and its power; both 
 the highest, but both restrained. The Doric flutings were of 
 irregular number — the Venetian mouldinCTS were unchangeable. 
 The Doric manner of ornament admitted no temptation ; it w-as 
 the fasting of an anchorite — the Venetian ornament embraced, 
 while it governed, all vegetable and animal forms ; it was the 
 temperance of a man, the command of Adam over creation. I 
 do not know so magnificent a marking of human authority as the 
 iron grasp of the Venetian over his own exuberance of imagina- 
 tion ; the calm and solemn restraint with which, his mind filled 
 with thoughts of flowing leafage and fiery life, he gives those 
 thoughts expression for an instant, and then withdraws w-ithin 
 those massy bars and levelled cusps of stone.* 
 
 And his power to do this depended altogether on his retaining 
 the forms of the shadows in his sight. Far from carrying the 
 eye to the ornaments, upon the stone, he abandoned these latter 
 one by one ; and while his mouldings received the most shapely 
 order and symmetry, closely correspondent with that of the 
 Rouen tracery, (compare Plates IV. and VIII.,) he kept the cusps 
 within them perfectly flat, decorated, if at all, wath a trefoil 
 (Palazzo Foscari), or fillet (Doge's Palace), just traceable and no 
 more, so that the quatrefoil, cut as sharply through them as if it 
 had been struck out by a stamp, told upon the eye, with all its 
 four black leaves, miles away. No knots of flowerwork, no 
 ornaments of any kind, were suffered to interfere with the purity 
 of its form : the cusp is usually quite sharp ; but slightly trun- 
 cated in the Palazzo Foscari, and charged with a simjDle ball in 
 that of the Doge ; and the glass of the window, where there was 
 
 * See Appendix IV. 
 O 
 
g8 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 any, was, as we have seen, thrown back behind the stone-work, 
 that no flashes of light might interfere with its depth. Corrupted 
 forms, Hke those of the Casa d'Oro and Palazzo Pisani, and 
 several others, only serve to show the majesty of the common 
 design. 
 
 XXII. Such are the principal circumstances traceable in the 
 treatment of the two kinds of masses of light and darkness, in the 
 hands of the earlier architects ; gradation in the one, flatness in 
 the other, and breadth in both, being the qualities sought and 
 exhibited by every possible expedient, up to the period when, as 
 we have before stated, the line was substituted for the mass, as 
 the means of division of surface. Enough has been said to 
 illustrate this, as regards tracery ; but a word or two is still 
 necessary respecting the mouldings. 
 
 Those of the earlier times were, in the plurality of instances, 
 composed of alternate square and cylindrical shafts, variously 
 associated and proportioned. Where concave cuttings occur, as in 
 the beautiful west doors of Bayeux, they are between cylindrical 
 shafts, which they throw out into broad light. The eye in all 
 cases dwells on broad surfaces, and commonly upon few. In 
 course of time, a low ridgy process is seen emerging along 
 the outer edge of the cylindrical shaft, forming a line of light 
 upon it and destroying its gradation. Hardly traceable at 
 first, (as on the alternate rolls of the north door of Rouen,) 
 it grows and pushes out as gradually as a budding plant : sharp 
 at first on the edge ; but, becoming prominent, it receives a 
 truncation, and becomes a definite fillet on the face of the roll. 
 Not yet to be checked, it pushes forward until the roll itself 
 becomes subordinate to it, and is finally lost in a slight swell 
 upon its sides, while the concavities have all the time been 
 deepening and enlarging behind it, until, from a succession of 
 square or cylindrical masses, the whole moulding has become a 
 series of concavities edged by delicate fillets, upon which, (sharp 
 lines of light, observe,) the eye exclusively rests. While this 
 has been taking place, a similar, though less total, change has 
 affected the flowerwork itself In Plate I. fig. 2. {a), I have given 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. 99 
 
 two from the transepts of Rouen. It will be observed how abso- 
 lutely the eye rests on the forms of the leaves, and on the three 
 berries in the angle, being in light exactly what the trefoil is in 
 darkness. These mouldings nearly adhere to the stone ; and are 
 very slightly, though sharply, undercut. In process of time, the 
 attention of the architect, instead of resting on the leaves, 
 went to the stalks. These latter were elongated {b, from the 
 south door of St. Lo ;) and to exhibit them better, the deep con- 
 cavity was cut behind, so as to throw them out in lines of light. 
 The system was carried out into continually increasing intricacy, 
 until, in the transepts of Beauvais, we have brackets and flam- 
 boyant traceries, composed of twigs without any leaves at all. 
 This, however, is a partial, though a sufficiently characteristic, 
 caprice, the leaf being never generally banished, and in the 
 mouldings round those same doors, beautifully managed, but 
 itself rendered liny by bold marking of its ribs and veins, and 
 by turning up, and crisping its edges, large intermediate spaces 
 being always left to be occupied by intertwining stems, (c, 
 from Caudebec). The trefoil of light formed by berries or acorns, 
 though diminished in value, was never lost up to the last period 
 of living Gothic. 
 
 XXIII. It is interesting to follow into its many ramifications, 
 the influence of the corrupting principle ; but we have seen enough 
 of it to enable us to draw our practical conclusion — a conclusion 
 a thousand times felt and reiterated in the experience and advice 
 of every practised artist, but never often enough repeated, never 
 profoundly enough felt. Of composition and invention much has 
 been written, it seems to me vainly, for men cannot be taught to 
 compose or to invent ; of these, the highest elements of Power in 
 architecture, I do not, therefore, speak ; nor, here, of that peculiar 
 restraint in the imitation of natural forms, which constitutes the 
 dignity of even the most luxuriant work of the great periods. 
 Of this restraint, I shall say a word or two in the next 
 Chapter ; pressing now only the conclusion, as practically useful 
 as it is certain, that the relative majesty of buildings depends 
 more on the weight and vigour of their masses, than on any 
 
lOO THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 Other attribute of their design : mass of everything, of bulk, 
 of Hght, of darkness, of colour, not mere sum of any of these, but 
 breadth of them ; not broken light, nor scattered darkness, nor 
 divided weight, but solid stone, broad sunshine, starless shade. 
 Time would fail me altogether, if I attempted to follow out the 
 range of the principle ; there is not a feature, however apparently 
 trifling, to which it cannot give power. The wooden fillings of 
 belfry lights, necessary to protect their interiors from rain, are 
 in England usually divided into a number of neatly executed 
 cross-bars, like those of Venetian blinds, which, of course, become 
 as conspicuous in their sharpness as they are uninteresting in 
 their precise carpentry, multiplying, moreover, the horizontal lines 
 which directly contradict those of the architecture. Abroad, 
 such necessities are met by three or four downright penthouse 
 roofs, reaching each from within the window to the outside shafts 
 of its mouldings ; instead of the horrible row of ruled lines, the 
 space is thus divided into four or five grand masses of shadow, 
 with grey slopes of roof above, bent or yielding into all kinds of 
 delicious swells and curves, and covered with warm tones of 
 moss and lichen. Very often the thing is more delightful than 
 the stone-work itself, and all because it is broad, dark, and simple. 
 It matters not how clumsy, how common, the means are, that 
 get weight and shadow — sloping roof, jutting porch, projecting 
 balcony, hollow niche, massy gargoyle, frowning parapet ; get 
 but gloom and simplicity, and all good things will follow in their 
 place and time ; do but design with the owl's eyes first, and you 
 will gain the falcon's afterwards. 
 
 XXIV. I am grieved to have to insist upon what seems so 
 simple : it looks trite and common-place when it is written, but 
 pardon me this : for it is anything but an accepted or understood 
 principle in practice, and the less excusably forgotten, because 
 it is, of all the great and true laws of art, the easiest to obey. 
 The executive facility of complying with its demands cannot be 
 too earnestly, too frankly, asserted. There are not five men in 
 the kingdom who could compose, not twenty who could cut, the 
 foliage with which the windows of Or San Michele are adorned ; 
 
THE LAMP OF POWER. lOf 
 
 but there is many a village clergyman who could invent and 
 dispose its black openings, and not a village mason who could 
 not cut them. Lay a few clover or woodroof leaves on white 
 paper, and a little alteration in their positions will suggest 
 figures which, cut boldly through a slab of marble, would be 
 worth more window traceries than an architect could draw in a 
 summer's day. But I know not how it is, unless that our English 
 hearts have more oak than stone in them, and have more filial 
 sympathy with acorns than Alps ; but all that we do is small and 
 mean, if not worse — thin, and wasted, and unsubstantial. It is 
 not modern work only; we have built like frogs and mice since 
 the thirteenth century (except only in our castles). What a 
 contrast between the pitiful little pigeon-holes which stand for 
 doors in the east front of Salisbury, looking like the entrances to 
 a beehive or a wasp's nest, and the soaring arches and kingly 
 crowning of the gates of Abbeville, Rouen, and Rheims, or the 
 rock-hewn piers of Chartres, or the dark and vaulted porches and 
 writhed pillars of Verona ! Of domestic architecture what need 
 is there to speak ? How small, how cramped, how poor, how 
 miserable in its petty neatness is our best ! how beneath the mark 
 of attack, and the level of contempt, that which is common with 
 us ! What a strange sense of formalised deformity, of shrivelled 
 precision, of starved accuracy, of minute misanthropy have we, 
 as we leave even the rude streets of Picardy for the market towns 
 of Kent ! Until that street architecture of ours is bettered, 
 until we give it some size and boldness, until we give our 
 windows recess, and our walls thickness, I know not how we 
 can blame our architects for their feebleness in more important 
 work ; their eyes are inured to narrowness and slightness : can 
 we expect them at a word to conceive and deal with breadth 
 and solidity ? They ought not to live in our cities ; there is that 
 in their miserable walls which bricks up to death men's imagina- 
 tions, as surely as ever perished forsworn nun. An architect 
 should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our 
 hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a 
 buttress, and what by a dome. There was something in the old 
 
I02 THE LAMP OF POWER. 
 
 power of architecture, which it had from the recluse more than 
 from the citizen. The buildings of which I have spoken with 
 chief praise, rose, indeed, out of the war of the piazza, and above 
 the fury of the populace : and Heaven forbid that for such cause 
 we should ever have to lay a larger stone, or rivet a firmer bar, 
 in our England ! But we have other sources of power, in the 
 imagery of our iron coasts and azure hills ; of power more pure, 
 nor less serene, than that of the hermit spirit which once lighted 
 with white lines of cloisters the glades of the Alpine pine, and 
 raised into ordered spires the wild rocks of the Norman sea ; 
 which gave to the temple gate the depth and darkness of 
 Elijah's Horeb cave ; and lifted, out of the populous city, grey 
 cliffs of lonely stone, into the midst of sailing birds and silent 
 air. 
 
I03 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 I. It was stated, in the outset of the preceding Chapter, that the 
 value of architecture depended on two distinct characters : the 
 one, the impression it receives from human power ; the other, the 
 image it bears of the natural creation. I have endeavoured to 
 show in what manner its majesty was attributable to a sympathy 
 with the effort and trouble of human life" (a sympathy as distinctly 
 perceived in the gloom and mystery of form, as it is in the 
 melancholy tones of sounds). I desire now to trace that happier 
 element of its excellence, consisting in a noble rendering of images 
 of Beauty, derived chiefly from the external appearances of organic 
 nature. 
 
 It is irrelevant to our present purpose to enter into any in- 
 quiry respecting the essential causes of impressions of beauty. I 
 have partly expressed my thoughts on this matter in a previous 
 work, and I hope to develope them hereafter. But since all such 
 inquiries can only be founded on the ordinary understanding of 
 what is meant by the term Beauty, and since they presume that 
 the feeling of mankind on this subject is universal and instinc- 
 tive, I shall base my present investigation on this assumption ; 
 
 " Yes, but that is not what is meant in the 17th- Aphorism, by " Dominion" 
 or Government : though, on the embossed cover of the book, I partly implied 
 it to be, in substituting "Auctoritas" for "Potestas." The intellectual "Do- 
 minion " of Architecture is treated of partly in the course of the present 
 chapter, under the heads of Proportion and Abstraction ; and partly in the fifth 
 chapter, (of which see the opening paragraph, Aphorism 23), — a confusion induced 
 partly by haste and mismanagement, and partly by excess of management, and 
 the difficulty I have before confessed, (though I forget where,) of keeping my 
 Seven Lamps from becoming Eight — or Nine — or even quite a vulgar row of 
 foot-lights. 
 
I04 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 and only asserting that to be beautiful which I believe will be 
 granted me to be so without dispute, I would endeavour shortly 
 to trace the manner in which this element of delight is to be best 
 engrafted upon architectural design, what are the purest sources 
 from which it is to be derived, and what the errors to be avoided 
 in its pursuit. 
 
 II. It will be thought that I have somewhat rashly limited 
 the elements of architectural beauty to imitative forms. I do 
 not mean to assert that every happy arrangement of line is 
 directly suggested by a natural object ; but that all beautiful 
 lines are adaptations of those which are commonest in the 
 external creation ; that, in proportion to the richness of their 
 association, the resemblance to natural work, as a type and help, 
 must be more closely attempted, and more clearly seen ; and that 
 beyond a certain point, and that a very low one, man cannot 
 advance in the invention of beauty, without directly imitating 
 natural form. Thus, in the Doric temple the triglyph and 
 cornice are unimitative ; or imitative only of artificial cuttings 
 of wood. No one would call these members beautiful. Their 
 influence over us is in their severity and simplicity. The fluting 
 of the column, which I doubt not was the Greek symbol of the 
 bark of the tree, was imitative in its origin, and feebly resembled 
 many canaliculated organic structures. Beauty is instantly felt 
 in it, but of a low order. The decoration proper was sought in 
 the true forms of organic life, and those chiefly human. Again : 
 the Doric capital was unimitative ; but all the beauty it had was 
 dependent on the precision of its ovolo, a natural curve of the 
 most frequent occurrence. The Ionic capital (to my mind, as 
 an architectural invention, exceedingly base,) nevertheless de- 
 pended for all the beauty that it had on its adoption of a spiral 
 line, perhaps the commonest of all that characterise the inferior 
 orders of animal organism and habitation. Farther progress could 
 not be made without a direct imitation of the acanthus. leaf. 
 
 Again : the Romanesque arch is beautiful as an abstract line. 
 Its type is always before us in that of the apparent vault of 
 heaven, and horizon of the earth. The cylindrical pillar is 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. IO5 
 
 always beautiful, for God has so moulded the stem of every tree 
 that is pleasant to the eyes. The pointed arch is beautiful ; it 
 is the termination of every leaf that shakes in summer wind, and 
 its most fortunate associations are directly borrowed from the 
 trefoiled grass of the field, or from the stars of its flowers. 
 Farther than this, man's invention could not reach without frank 
 imitation. His ne.xt step was to gather the flowers themselves, 
 and wreathe them in his capitals. 
 
 III. Now, I would insist especially on the fact, of 
 which I doubt not that farther illustrations will occur aphorism 19. 
 to the mind of every reader, that all most lovely forms au beauty is 
 
 •' ■' lounden on 
 
 and thoughts are directly taken from natural objects; ^amraTfomis. 
 because I would fain be allowed to assume also the 
 converse of this, namely, that forms which are 7W^ 
 taken from natural objects nmsi be ugly.^® I know this 
 
 is a bold assumption ; but as I have not space to reason out the 
 points wherein essential beauty of form consists, that being far 
 too serious a work to be undertaken in a bye way, I have no 
 other resource than to use this accidental mark or test of beauty, 
 of whose truth the considerations which I hope hereafter to lay 
 before the reader may assure him. I say an accidental mark, 
 since forms are not beautiful becmisc they are copied from Nature ; 
 only it is out of the power of man to conceive beauty without her 
 aid. I believe the reader will grant me this, even from the 
 examples above advanced ; the degree of confidence with which 
 it is granted must attach also to his acceptance of the conclusions 
 which will follow from it ; but if it be granted frankly, it will 
 enable me to determine a matter of very essential importance, 
 namely, what is or is not ornament. For there are many forms 
 of so called decoration in architecture, habitual, and received, 
 therefore, with approval, or at all events without any venture at 
 expression of dislike, which I have no hesitation in asserting to 
 
 ^° The Aphorism is wholly true : but the following application of it, often 
 trivial or false. See the subsequent notes. 
 
 P 
 
I06 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 be not ornament at all, but to be ugly things, the expense of 
 which ought in truth to be set down in the architect's contract, as 
 " For Monstrification." I believe that we regard these customary 
 deformities with a savage complacency, as an Indian does his 
 flesh patterns and paint (all nations being in certain degrees and 
 senses savage). I believe that I can prove them to be monstrous, 
 and I hope hereafter to do so conclusively ; but, meantime, I can 
 allege in defence of my persuasion nothing but this fact of their 
 being unnatural, to which the reader must attach such weight as 
 he thinks it deserves. There is, however, a peculiar difficulty in 
 using this proof; it requires the writer to assume, very imperti- 
 nently, that nothing is natural but what he has seen or supposes 
 to exist. I would not do this ; for I suppose there is no con- 
 ceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of the 
 universe an example of it may be found. But I think I am 
 Aphorism 20. justified in Considering those forms to be 7nost natural 
 Thritismost which atc most frequent ; or, rather, that on the shapes 
 
 "natural 
 
 ^sUy and"°" which in the every-day w^orld are familiar to the eyes 
 seen?"'^ of men, God has stamped those characters of beauty 
 which He has made it man's nature to love ; while in 
 certain exceptional forms He has shown that the adop- 
 tion of the others was not a matter of necessity, but 
 part of the adjusted harmony of creation. I believe 
 that thus we may reason from Frequency to Beauty, 
 and vice versa ; that, knowing a thing to be frequent, we 
 may assume it to be beautiful ; and assume that which 
 is most frequent to be most beautiful : I mean, of 
 course, visibly frequent ; for the forms of things which 
 are hidden in caverns of the earth, or in the anatomy 
 of animal frames, are evidently not intended by their 
 Maker to bear the habitual gaze of man.^' And, again, 
 
 " This is an excellent aphorism ; and I am proud of having so early seen the 
 danger of anatomical study, so often dwelt on in my later works. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. IO7 
 
 by frequency I mean that limited and isolated frequency which 
 is characteristic of all perfection ; not mere multitude : as a rose 
 is a common flower, but yet there are not so many roses on the 
 tree as there are leaves. In this respect Nature is sparing of 
 her highest, and lavish of her less, beauty ; but I call the flower 
 as frequent as the leaf, because, each in its allotted quantity, 
 where the one is, there will ordinarily be the other. 
 
 IV. The first so-called ornament, then, which I would attack 
 is that Greek fret, now, I believe, usually known by the Italian 
 name Guilloche, which is exactly a case in point. It so happens 
 that in crystals of bismuth, formed by the unagitated cooling of 
 the melted metal, there occurs a natural resemblance of it almost 
 perfect. But crystals of bismuth not only are of unusual occur- 
 rence in every-day life, but their form is, as far as I know, unique 
 among minerals ; and not only unique, but only attainable by an 
 artificial process, the metal itself never being found pure. I do 
 not remember any other substance or arrangement which pre- 
 sents a resemblance to this Greek ornament ; and I think that I 
 may trust my remembrance as including most of the arrange- 
 ments which occur in the outward forms of common and familiar 
 things. On this ground, then, I allege that ornament to be 
 ugly ; or, in the literal sense of the word, monstrous ; different 
 from anything which it is the nature of man to admire : and I 
 think an uncarved fillet or plinth infinitely preferable to one 
 covered with this vile concatenation of straight lines : ^' unless 
 indeed it be employed as a foil to a true ornament, which it 
 may, perhaps, sometimes with advantage ; or excessively small, 
 as it occurs on coins, the harshness of its arrangement being less 
 perceived. 
 
 V. Often in association with this horrible design we find, in 
 Greek works, one which is as beautiful as this is painful — -that 
 egg and dart moulding, whose perfection, in its place and way, 
 
 '" All this is true ; but I had not enough observed when I wrote, the use of the 
 Greek fret in contrast to curved forms ; as especially on vases, and in the borders 
 of drapery itself. The use of it large, as on the base of Sanmicheli's otherwise very 
 noble design of the Casa Grimani, is always a sign of failing instinct for beauty. 
 
I08 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 has never been surpassed. And why is this ? Simply because 
 the form of which it is chiefly composed is one not only familiar 
 to us in the soft housing of the bird's nest, but happens to be 
 that of nearly every pebble that rolls and murmurs under the 
 surf of the sea, on all its endless shore. And that with a peculiar 
 accuracy ; for the mass which bears the light in this moulding is 
 not in good Greek work, as in the frieze of the Erechtheum, 
 merely of the shape of an egg. It \?, flattened on the upper sur- 
 face, with a delicacy and keen sense of variety ia the curve which 
 it is impossible too highly to praise, attaining exactly that flat- 
 tened, imperfect oval, which, in nine cases out of ten, will be the 
 form of the pebble lifted at random from the rolled beach. Leave 
 out this flatness, and the moulding is vulgar instantly. It is 
 singular also that the insertion of this rounded form in the hoi- 
 lowed recess has a painted type in the plumage of the Argus 
 pheasant, the eyes of whose feathers are so shaded as exactly to 
 represent an oval form placed in a hollow. 
 
 VI. It will evidently follow, upon our application of this test 
 of natural resemblance, that we shall at once conclude that all 
 perfectly beautiful forms must be composed of curves ; since 
 there is hardly any common natural form in which it is possible 
 to discover a straight line. Nevertheless, Architecture, having 
 necessarily to deal with straight lines essential to its purposes in 
 many instances and to the expression of its power in others, 
 must frequently be content with that measure of beauty which is 
 consistent with such primal forms ; and we may presume that 
 utmost measure of beauty to have been attained when the 
 arrangements of such lines are consistent with the most frequent 
 natural groupings of them we can discover, although, to find 
 right lines in nature at all, we may be compelled to do violence 
 to her finished work, break through the sculptured and coloured 
 surfaces of her crags, and examine the processes of their crystal- 
 lisation. 
 
 VII. I have just convicted the Greek fret of ugliness, because 
 it has no precedent to allege for its arrangement except an arti- 
 ficial form of a rare metal. Let us bring into court an ornament 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. IO9 
 
 of the Lombard architects, Plate XII. fig. 7., as exclusively com- 
 posed of right lines as the other, only, observe, with the noble 
 element of shadow added. This ornament, taken from the front 
 of the Cathedral of Pisa, is universal throughout the Lombard 
 churches of Pisa, Lucca, Pistoja, and Florence ; and it will be a 
 grave stain upon them if it cannot be defended. Its first apology 
 for itself, made in a hurry, sounds marvellously like the Greek 
 one, and highly dubious. It says that its terminal contour is the 
 very image of a carefully prepared artificial crystal of common 
 salt. Salt being, however, a substance considerably more fami- 
 liar to us than bismuth, the chances are somewhat in favour of 
 the accused Lombard ornament already. But it has more to say 
 for itself, and more to the purpose ; namely, that its main outline 
 is one not only of natural crystallisation, but among the very first 
 and commonest of crystalline forms, being the primal condition 
 of the occurrence of the oxides of iron, copper, and tin, of the 
 sulphurets of iron and lead, of fluor spar, &c. ; and that those 
 projecting forms in its surface represent the conditions of struc- 
 ture which effect the change into another relative and equally 
 common crystalline form, the cube. This is quite enough. We 
 may rest assured it is as good a combination of such simple right 
 lines as can be put together, and gracefully fitted for every place 
 in which such lines are necessary. 
 
 VIII. The next ornament whose cause I would try is that of 
 our Tudor work, the portcullis. Reticulation is common enough 
 in natural form, and very beautiful ; but it is either of the most 
 delicate and gauzy texture, or of variously sized meshes and un- 
 dulating lines. There is no family relation between portcullis 
 and cobwebs or beetles' wings ; something like it, perhaps, may 
 be found in some kinds of crocodile armour and on the backs of 
 the Northern divers, but always beautifully varied in size of 
 mesh. There is a dignity in the thing itself, if its size were ex- 
 hibited, and the shade given through its bars ; but even these 
 merits are taken away in the Tudor diminution of it, set on a 
 solid surface. It has not a single syllable, I believe, to say in its 
 defence. It is another monster, absolutely and unmitigatedly 
 
I lO THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 frightful. All that carving on Henry the Seventh's Chapel 
 simply deforms the stones of it.^' 
 
 In the same clause with the portcullis, we may condemn all 
 heraldic decoration, so far as beauty is its object. Its pride and 
 significance have their proper place, fitly occurring in prominent 
 parts of the building, as over its gates ; and allowably in places 
 where its legendry may be plainly read, as in painted windows, 
 bosses of ceilings, &c. And sometimes, of course, the forms 
 which it presents may be beautiful, as of animals, or simple 
 symbols like the fleur-de-lis ; but, for the most part, heraldic 
 similitudes and arrangements are so professedly and pointedly 
 unnatural, that it would be difficult to invent anything uglier ; 
 and the use of them as a repeated decoration will utterly destroy 
 both the power and beauty of any building. Common sense and 
 courtesy also forbid their repetition. It is right to tell those who 
 enter your doors that you are such a one, and of such a rank ; 
 but to tell it to them again and again, wherever they turn, 
 becomes soon impertinence, and at last folly. Let, therefore, the 
 entire bearings occur in few places, and these not considered as 
 an ornament, but as an inscription ; and for frequent appliance, 
 let any single and fair symbol be chosen out of them. Thus we 
 may multiply as much as we choose the French or the Florentine 
 lily, or the English rose ; but we must not multiply a King's arms.^" 
 
 IX. It will also follow, from these considerations, that if any 
 one part of heraldic decoration be worse than another, it is the 
 motto ; since, of all things unlike nature, the forms of letters 
 are, perhaps, the most so. Even graphic tellurium and felspar 
 look, at their clearest, anything but legible. All letters are 
 therefore, to be considered as frightful things, and to be endured 
 
 '^ True, again ; but a very small matter in comparison with the main faults of 
 Tudor architecture : and the difference between the rigid bars of the portcullis 
 and the flexible filaments of Byzantine network is not enough explained. 
 
 ■"' This paragraph is wholly false, and curiously so, for I had seen and loved 
 good heraldic decoration in Italy before writing it ; but let ray detestation of our 
 Houses of Parliament carry me too far, and without noticing where. Enough 
 is said in praise of heraldry in my later books to atone for this piece of 
 nonsense. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I I I 
 
 only upon one occasion ; that is to say, in places where the sense of 
 the inscription is of more importance than external ornament. 
 Inscriptions in churches, in rooms, and on pictures, are often 
 desirable, but they are not to be considered as architectural or 
 pictorial ornaments : they are, on the contrary, obstinate offences 
 to the eye, not to be suffered except when their intellectual office 
 introduces them. Place them, therefore, where they will be 
 read, and there only ; and let them be plainly written, and not 
 turned upside down, nor wrong end first. It is an ill sacrifice 
 to beauty to make that illegible whose only merit is in its sense. 
 Write it as you would speak it, simply ; and do not draw the eye 
 to it when it would fain rest elsewhere, nor recommend your 
 sentence by anything but a little openness of place and architec- 
 tural silence about it. Write the Commandments on the church 
 walls where they may be plainly seen, but do not put a dash and 
 a tail to every letter ; and remember that you are an architect, 
 not a writing master."*' 
 
 X. Inscriptions appear sometimes to be introduced for the sake 
 of the scroll on which they are written ; and in late and modern 
 painted glass, as well as in architecture, these scrolls are 
 flourished and turned hither and thither as if they were orna- 
 mental. Ribands occur frequently in arabesques, — in some of a 
 high order, too, — tying up flowers, or flitting in and out among 
 the fixed forms. Is there anything like ribands in nature ? It 
 might be thought that grass and seaweed afforded apologetic 
 types. They do not. There is a wide difference between their 
 structure and that of a riband. They have a skeleton, an anatomy, a 
 central rib, or fibre, or framework of some kind or another, which 
 has a beginning and an end, a root and head, and whose make 
 and strength affect ever)^ direction of their motion, and every line 
 of their form. The loosest weed that drifts and waves under the 
 
 *' All this ninth paragraph is again extremely and extraordinarily wrong : and 
 it is curious to me, in reviewing the progress of my own mind, to see that while 
 everybody thought me imaginative and enthusiastic, my only fatal errors were 
 in over-driving conditions of common sense ! These two paragraphs about 
 heraldry and WTiting might have been Mr. Cobden's mistakes — or Mr. John 
 Bright's. 
 
I I 2 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 heaving of the sea, or hangs heavily on the brown and slippery 
 shore, has a marked strength, structure, elasticity, gradation of 
 substance ; its extremities are more finely fibred than its centre, 
 its centre than its root : every fork of its ramification is measured 
 and proportioned ; every wave of its languid lines is lovely. It has 
 its allotted size, and place, and function ; it is a specific creature. 
 What is there like this in a riband ? It has no structure : it is a 
 succession of cut threads all alike ; it has no skeleton, no make, 
 no form, no size, no will of its own. You cut it and crush it into 
 what you will. It has no strength, no languor. It cannot fall 
 into a single graceful form. It cannot wave, in the true sense, 
 but only flutter : it cannot bend, in the true sense, but only turn 
 and be wrinkled. It is a vile thing ; it spoils all that is near its 
 wretched film of an existence. Never use it. Let the flowers 
 come loose if they cannot keep together without being tied ; 
 leave the sentence unwritten if you cannot write it on a tablet or 
 book, or plain roll of paper. I know what authority there is 
 against me. I remember the scrolls of Perugino's angels, and 
 the ribands of Raphael's arabesques and of Ghiberti's glorious 
 bronze flowers : no matter ; they are every one of them vices and 
 uglinesses. Raphael usually felt this, and used an honest and 
 rational tablet, as in the Madonna di Fuligno. I do not say 
 there is any type of such tablets in nature, but all the difference 
 lies in the fact that the tablet is not considered as an ornament, 
 and the riband, or flying scroll, is. The tablet, as in Albert 
 Durer's Adam and Eve, is introduced for the sake of the writing, 
 understood and allowed as an ugly but necessary interruption. 
 The scroll is extended as an ornamental form, which it is not, nor 
 ever can be.*^ 
 
 XI. But it will be said that all this want of organisation and 
 form might be affirmed of drapery also, and that this latter is a 
 noble subject of sculpture. By no means. When was drapery a 
 subject of sculpture by itself, except in the form of a handker- 
 
 " I had never, at this period, seen any of Sandro Botticelli's scroll work: 
 but even in him, its use is part of the affectations of his day, — affectation itself 
 becoming lovely in him, without justifying it in his neighbours. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. II3 
 
 chief on urns in the seventeenth century and in some of the> baser 
 scenic Italian decorations ? Drapery, as such, is always ignoble ; 
 it becomes a subject of interest only by the colours it bears, and 
 the impressions which it receives from some foreign form or force. 
 All noble draperies, either in painting or sculpture (colour and 
 texture being at present out of our consideration), have, so far as 
 they are anything more than necessities, one of two great func- 
 tions : they are the exponents of motion and of gravitation. 
 They are the most valuable means of expressing past as well as 
 present motion in the figure, and they are almost the only means 
 of indicating to the eye the force of gravity which resists such 
 motion. The Greeks used drapery in sculpture for the most 
 part as an ugly necessity, but availed themselves of it gladly in 
 all representation of action, exaggerating the arrangements of 
 it which express lightness in the material, and follow gesture 
 in the person. The Christian Sculptors, caring little for the 
 body, or disliking it, and depending exclusively on the counte- 
 nance, received drapery at first contentedly as a veil, but soon 
 perceived a capacity of expression in it which the Greek had not 
 seen or had despised. The principal element of this expression 
 was the entire removal of agitation from what was so pre- 
 eminently capable of being agitated. It fell from their human 
 forms plumb down) sweeping the ground heavily, and concealing 
 the feet ; while the Greek drapery was often blown away from 
 the thigh. The thick and coarse stuffs of the monkish dresses, 
 so absolutely opposed to the thin and gauzy web of antique 
 material, suggested simplicity of division as well as weight of 
 fall. There was no crushing- nor subdividing them. And thus 
 the drapery gradually came to represent the spirit of repose as it 
 before had of motion, repose saintly and severe. The wind had 
 no power upon the garment, as the passion none upon the soul ; 
 and the motion of the figure only bent into a softer line the still- 
 ness of the falling veil, followed by it like a slow cloud by droop- 
 ing rain : only in links of lighter undulation it followed the 
 dances of the angels. 
 
 Thus treated, drapery is indeed noble ; but it is as an exponent 
 
 Q 
 
114 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 of othjpr and higher things. As that of gravitation, it has especial 
 majesty, being literally the only means we have of fully repre- 
 senting this mysterious natural force of earth (for falling water 
 is less passive and less defined in its lines). So, again, in sails it 
 Is beautiful because it receives the forms of solid curved surface, 
 and expresses the force of another Invisible element. But 
 drapery trusted to its own merits, and given for Its own sake,- — 
 drapery like that of Carlo Dolci and the Caraccis, — is always base. 
 
 XII. Closely connected with the abuse of scrolls and bands, is 
 that of garlands and festoons of flowers as an architectural decora- 
 tion, for unnatural arrangements are just as ugly as unnatural 
 forms ; and architecture, in borrowing the objects of Nature, is 
 bound to place them, as far as may be in her power, in such asso- 
 ciations as may befit and express their origin. She is not to 
 imitate directly the natural arrangement ; she is not to carve 
 irregular stems of ivy up her columns to account for the leaves at 
 the top, but she Is nevertheless to place her most exuberant vege- 
 table ornament just where Nature would have placed it, and to 
 give some Indication of that radical and connected structure 
 which Nature would have given it. Thus the Corinthian capital 
 is beautiful, because it expands under the abacus just as Nature 
 would have e.xpanded it ; and because it looks as if the leaves 
 had one root, though that root is. unseen. And the flamboyant leaf 
 mouldings are beautiful, because they nestle and run up the 
 hollows, and fill the angles, and clasp the shafts which natural 
 leaves would have delighted to fill and to clasp. They are no 
 mere cast of natural leaves : they are counted, orderly, and archi- 
 tectural : but they are naturally, and therefore beautifully, placed. 
 
 XIII. Now I do not mean to say that Nature never uses 
 festoons : she loves them, and uses them lavishly ; and though 
 she does so only in those places of excessive luxuriance wherein 
 it seems to me that architectural types should seldom be sought, 
 yet a falling tendril or pendent bough might, if managed with 
 freedom and gfrace, be well introduced into luxuriant decoration 
 (or if not, it is not their want of beauty, but of architectural fitness, 
 which incapacitates them for such uses). But what resemblance 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. II5 
 
 to such example can we trace in a mass of all manner of fruit and 
 flowers, tied heavily into a long bunch, thickest in the middle, and 
 pinned up by both ends against a dead wall ? For it is strange 
 that the wildest and most fanciful of the builders of truly luxuriant 
 architecture never ventured, so far as I know, even a pendent 
 tendril; while the severest masters of the revived Greek permitted 
 this extraordinary piece of luscious ugliness to be fastened in the 
 middle of their blank surfaces. So surely as this arrangement is 
 adopted, the whole value of the flowerwork is lost. Who among 
 the crowds that gaze upon the building ever pause to admire the 
 flowerwork of St. Paul's ? It is as careful and as rich as it can 
 be, yet it adds no delightfulness to the edifice. It is no part of 
 it. It is an ugly excrescence. We always conceive the building 
 without it, and should be happier if our conception were not dis- 
 turbed by its presence. It makes the rest of the architecture 
 look poverty-stricken, instead of sublime ; and yet it is never 
 enjoyed itself. Had it been put, where it ought, into the capitals, 
 it would have been beheld with never-ceasing delight. I do not 
 mean that it could have been so in the present building, for such 
 kind of architecture has no business with rich ornament in any 
 place ; but that if those groups of flowers had been put into 
 natural places in an edifice of another style, their value would 
 have been felt as vividly as now their uselessness. What applies 
 to festoons is still more sternly true of garlands. A garland is 
 meant to be seen upon a head. There it is beautiful, because 
 we suppose it newly gathered and joyfully worn. But it is not 
 meant to be hung upon a wall. If you want a circular ornament, 
 put a flat circle of coloured marble, as in the Casa Dario and 
 other such palaces at Venice ; or put a star, or a medallion, or if 
 you want a ring, put a solid one, but do not carve the images of 
 garlands, looking as if they had been used in the last procession, 
 and been hung up to dry and serve next time withered. Why 
 not also carve pegs, and hats upon them .'' 
 
 XIV, One of the worst enemies of modern Gothic architecture, 
 though seemingly an unimportant feature, is an excrescence, as 
 oftensive by its poverty as the garland by its profusion, the 
 
Il6 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 dripstone in the shape of the handle of a chest of drawers, which 
 is used over the square-headed windows of what we call Eliza- 
 bethan buildings. In the last Chapter, it will be remembered 
 that the square form was shown to be that of pre-eminent Power, 
 and to be properly adapted and limited to the exhibition of space 
 or surface. Hence, when the window is to be an exponent of 
 power, as for instance in those by M. Angelo in the lower story 
 of the Palazzo Ricardi at Florence, the square head is the most 
 noble form they can assume ; but then either their space must be 
 unbroken, and their associated mouldings the most severe, or else 
 the square must be used as a final outline, and is chiefly to be 
 associated with forms of tracery, in which the relative form of 
 power, the circle, is predominant, as in Venetian, and Floren- 
 tine, and Pisan Gothic. But if you break upon your terminal 
 square, or if you cut its lines off at the top and turn them out- 
 wards, you have lost its unity and space. It is an including form 
 no longer, but an added, isolated line, and the ugliest possible. 
 Look abroad into the landscape, and see if you can discover any 
 one so bent and fragmentary as that of this strange windlass- 
 looking dripstone. You cannot. It is a monster. It unites 
 every element of ugliness, its line is harshly broken in itself, and 
 unconnected with every other ; it has no harmony either with 
 structure or decoration, it has no architectural support, it looks 
 glued to the wall, and the only pleasant property it has, is the 
 appearance of some likelihood of its dropping off. 
 
 I might proceed, but the task is a weary one, and I think I 
 have named those false forms of decoration which are most dan- 
 gerous in our modern architecture as being legal and accepted. 
 The barbarisms of individual fancy are as countless as they are 
 contemptible ; they neither admit attack nor are worth it ; but 
 these above named are countenanced, some by the practice of 
 antiquity, all by high authority : they have depressed the proudest, 
 and contaminated the purest schools, and are so established in 
 recent practice that I write rather for the barren satisfaction of 
 bearing witness against them, than with hope of inducing any 
 serious convictions to their prejudice. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 I 7 
 
 XV. Thus far of what is not ornament. What ornament is, 
 will without difficulty be determined by the application of the 
 same test. It must consist of such studious arrangements of 
 form as are imitative or sucrfjestive of those which are com- 
 monest among natural existences, that being of course the noblest 
 ornament which represents the highest orders of existence. 
 I mitated flowers are nobler than imitated stones ; imitated animals, 
 than flowers ; imitated human form, of all animal forms the noblest. 
 But all are combined in the richest ornamental work ; and the 
 rock, the fountain, the flowing river with its pebbled bed, the sea, 
 the clouds of Heaven, the herb of the field, the fruit-tree bearing 
 fruit, the creeping thing, the bird, the beast, the man, and the 
 angel, mingle their fair forms on the bronze of Ghiberti. 
 
 Everything being then ornamental that is imitative, I would 
 ask the reader's attention to a few general considerations, all 
 that can here be offered relating to so vast a subject ; which, for 
 convenience sake, may be classed under the three heads of in- 
 quiry : — What is the right place for architectural ornament ? 
 What is the peculiar treatment of ornament which renders it 
 architectural ? and what is the right use of colour as associated 
 with architectural imitative form ? 
 
 XVI. What is the place for ornament? Consider first that 
 the characters of natural objects which the architect can represent 
 are few and abstract. The greater part of those delights by 
 which Nature recommends herself to man at all times, cannot be 
 conveyed by him into his imitative work. He cannot make his 
 grass green and cool and good to rest upon, which in nature is 
 its chief use to man ; nor can he make his flowers tender and full 
 of colour and of scent, which in nature are their chief powers of 
 giving joy. Those qualities which alone he can secure are certain 
 severe characters of form, such as men only see in nature on 
 deliberate examination, and by the full and set appliance of sight 
 and thought : a man must lie down on the bank of grass on his 
 breast and set himself to watch and penetrate the intertwining of 
 it, before he finds that which is good to be gathered by the 
 architect. So then while Nature is at all times pleasant to us. 
 
Il8 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 and while the sight and sense of her work may mingle happily 
 with all our thoughts, and labours, and times of existence, that 
 image of her which the architect carries away represents what we 
 can only perceive in her by direct intellectual exertion, and 
 demands from us, wherever it appears, an intellectual exertion of 
 a similar kind in order to understand it and feel it. It is the 
 written or sealed impression of a thing sought out, it is the shaped 
 result of inquiry and bodily expression of thought. 
 
 XVII. Now let us consider for an instant what would be the 
 effect of continually repeating an expression of a beautiful thought 
 to any other of the senses at times when the mind could not 
 address that sense to the understanding of it. Suppose that in 
 time of serious occupation, of stern business, a companion should 
 repeat in our ears continually some favourite passage of poetry, 
 over and over again all day long. We should not only soon be 
 utterly sick and weary of the sound of it, but that sound would 
 at the end of the day have so sunk into the habit of the ear that 
 the entire meaning of the passage would be dead to us, and it 
 would ever thenceforward require some effort to fix and recover 
 it. The music of it would not meanwhile have aided the business 
 in hand, while its own delightfulness would thenceforward be in 
 a measure destroyed. It is the same with every other form of 
 definite thought. If you violently present its expression to the 
 senses, at times when the mind is otherwise engaged, that expres- 
 sion will be ineffective at the time, and will have its sharpness 
 and clearness destroyed for ever. Much more if you present it 
 to the mind at times when it is painfully affected or disturbed, 
 or if you associate the expression of pleasant thought with incon- 
 gruous circumstances, you will affect that expression thencefor- 
 ward with a painful colour for ever. 
 
 XVIII. Apply this to expressions of thought received by the 
 eye. Remember that the eye is at your mercy more than the ear. 
 "The eye, it cannot choose but see." Its nerve is not so easily 
 numbed as that of the ear, and it is often busied in tracing and 
 watching forms when the ear is at rest. Now if you present 
 lovely forms to it when it cannot call the mind to help it in its 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. II9 
 
 work, and among objects of vulgar use and unhappy position, you 
 will neither please the eye nor elevate the vulgar object. But 
 you will fill and weary the eye with the beautiful form, and you 
 will infect that form itself with the vulgarity of the thing to 
 which you have violently attached it. It will never be of much 
 use to you any more ; you have killed, or defiled it ; its fresh- 
 ness and purity are gone. You will have to pass it through the 
 fire of much thought before you will cleanse it, and warm it with 
 much love before it will revive. 
 
 XIX. Hence then a general law, of singular importance in the 
 present day, a law of simple common sense, — not to decorate 
 things belonging to purposes of active and occupied life. Wher- 
 ever you can rest, there decorate ; where rest is forbidden, so is 
 beauty. You must not mix ornament with business, any more 
 than you may mix play. Work first, and then rest. Work first, 
 and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind 
 ledgers in enamel. Do not thrash with sculptured flails :^^ nor 
 put bas-reliefs on millstones. What ! it will be asked, are we in 
 the habit of doing so ? Even so ; always and everywhere. The 
 most familiar position of Greek mouldings is in these days on 
 shop fronts. There is not a tradesman's sign nor shelf nor 
 counter in all the streets of all our cities, which has not upon it 
 ornaments which were invented to adorn temples and beautify 
 kings' palaces. There is not the smallest advantage in them 
 where they are. Absolutely valueless — utterly without the power 
 of giving pleasure, they only satiate the eye, and vulgarise their 
 own forms. Many of these are in themselves thoroucrhlv Sfood 
 copies of fine things, which things themselves we shall never, in 
 consequence, enjoy any more. Many a pretty beading and grace- 
 ful bracket there is in wood or stucco above our grocers' and 
 cheesemongers' and hosiers' shops : how is it that the tradesmen 
 
 " "Nor fight with jewelled swords" should have been added. The principle 
 is partial and doubtful, however. One of the most beautiful bits of ironwork I 
 ever' saw was an apothecary's pestle and mortar (of the fourteenth century) at 
 Messina : and a day may come when we shall wisely decorate the stilt of the 
 plough. The error, however, — observe, — is again on the side of common sense ! 
 See 41st and 44th notes. 
 
I20 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 cannot understand that custom is to be had only by selling good 
 tea and cheese and cloth, and that people come to them for their 
 honesty, and their readiness, and their right wares, and not because 
 they have Greek cornices over their windows, or their names in 
 large gilt letters on their house fronts ? How pleasurable it would 
 be to have the power of going through the streets of London, 
 pulling down those brackets and friezes and large names, restoring 
 to the tradesmen the capital they had spent in architecture, and 
 putting them on honest and equal terms, each with his name in 
 black letters over his door, not shouted down the street from the 
 upper stories, and each with a plain wooden shop casement, with 
 small panes in it that people would not think of breaking in order 
 to be sent to prison ! How much better for them would it be — 
 how much happier, how much wiser, to put their trust upon their 
 own truth and industry, and not on the idiocy of their customers. 
 It is curious, and it says little for our national probity on the one 
 hand, or prudence on the other, to see the whole system of our 
 street decoration based on the idea that people must be baited to 
 a shop as moths are to a candle. 
 
 XX. But it will be said that much of the best wooden decora- 
 tion of the middle ages was in shop fronts. No ; it was in house 
 fronts, of which the shop was a part, and received its natural and 
 consistent portion of the ornament. In those days men lived, and 
 intended to live dy their shops, and over them, all their days. 
 They were contented with them and happy in them : they were 
 their palaces and castles. They gave them therefore such decora- 
 tion as made themselves happy in their own habitation, and they 
 gave it for their own sake. The upper stories were always the 
 richest, and the shop was decorated chiefly about the door, which 
 beloncjed to the house more than to it. And when our tradesmen 
 settle to their shops in the same way, and form no plans respect- 
 ing future villa architecture, let their whole houses be decorated, 
 and their shops too, but with a national and domestic decoration. 
 (I shall speak more of this point in the sixth Chapter.) However, 
 our cities are for the most part too large to admit of contented 
 dwelling in them throughout life ; and I do not say there is harm 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 121 
 
 in our present system of separating the shop from the dwelHng- 
 house ; only where they are so separated, let us remember that 
 the only reason for shop decoration is removed, and see that the 
 decoration be removed also. 
 
 XXI. Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the present 
 day is to the decoration of the railroad station." Now, if there be 
 any place in the world in which people are deprived of that 
 portion of temper and discretion which are necessary to the con- 
 templation of beauty, it is there. It is the very temple of dis- 
 comfort, and the only charity that the builder can extend to us 
 is to show us, plainly as may be, how soonest to escape from it. 
 The whole system of railroad travelling is addressed to people 
 who, being in a hurry, are therefore, for the time being, miser- 
 able. No one would travel in that manner who could help it — 
 who had time to go leisurely over hills and between hedges, in- 
 stead of through tunnels and between banks : at least those who 
 would, have no sense of beauty so acute as that we need consult 
 it at the station. The railroad is in all its relations a matter of 
 earnest business, to be got through as soon as possible. It trans- 
 mutes a man from a traveller into a living parcel. For the time 
 he has parted with the nobler characteristics of his humanity for 
 the sake of a planetary power of locomotion. Do not ask him to 
 admire anything. You might as well ask the wind. Carry him 
 safely, dismiss him soon : he will thank you for nothing else. 
 All attempts to please him in any other way are mere mockery, 
 and insults to the things by which you endeavour to do so. 
 There never was more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the 
 smallest portion of ornament in anything concerned with rail- 
 roads or near them. Keep them out of the way, take them 
 through the ugliest country you can find, confess them the miser- 
 able things they are, and spend nothing upon them but for safety 
 and speed. Give large salaries to efficient servants, large prices 
 to eood manufacturers, laro-e wagres to able workmen ; let the 
 
 " Common sense still ! — and, this time, indisputable. Well had it been, for 
 many a company, and many a traveller, had this 121st page of the "Seven 
 Lamps " been taken for a railway signal. 
 
 R 
 
122 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 iron be tough, and the brickwork soHd and the carriages strong. 
 The time is perhaps not distant when these first necessities may 
 not be easily met : and to increase expense in any other direction 
 is madness. Better bury gold in the embankments, than put 
 it in ornaments on the stations. Will a single traveller be 
 willing to pay an increased fare on the South Western, because 
 the columns of the terminus are covered with patterns from 
 Nineveh ? — he will only care less for the Ninevite ivories in the 
 British Museum : or on the North Western, because there are old 
 English-looking spandrils to the roof of the station at Crewe ? 
 - — he will only have less pleasure in their prototypes at Crewe 
 House. Railroad architecture has, or would have, a dignity of its 
 own if it were only left to its work. You would not put rings on 
 the fingers of a smith at his anvil. 
 
 XXII. It is not however only in these marked situations that 
 the abuse of which I speak takes place. There is hardly, at 
 present, an application of ornamental work, which is not in some 
 sort liable to blame of the same kind. We have a bad habit of 
 trying to disguise disagreeable necessities by some form of sudden 
 decoration, which is, in all other places, associated with such 
 necessities. I will name only one instance, that to which I have 
 alluded before — the roses which conceal the ventilators in the 
 flat roofs of our chapels. Many of those roses are of very 
 beautiful design, borrowed from fine works : all their grace and 
 finish are invisible when they are so placed, but their general 
 form is afterwards associated with the ugly buildings in which they 
 constantly occur ; and all the beautiful roses of the early French 
 and English Gothic, especially such elaborate ones as those of the 
 triforium of Coutances, are in consequence deprived of their plea- 
 surable influence : and this without our having accomplished the 
 smallest good by the use we have made of the dishonoured form. 
 Not a single person in the congregation ever receives one ray 
 of pleasure from those roof roses ; they are regarded with mere 
 indifference, or lost in the general impression of harsh emptiness. 
 
 XXIII. Must not beauty, then, it will be asked, be sought for 
 in the forms which we associate with our every-day life ? Yes, if 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 23 
 
 you do it consistently, and in places where it can be calmly seen ; 
 but not if you use the beautiful form only as a mask and cover- 
 ing of the proper conditions and uses of things, nor if you thrust 
 it into the places set apart for toil. Put it in the drawing-room, 
 not into the workshop ; put it upon domestic furniture, not upon 
 tools of handicraft. All men have sense of what is right in this 
 matter, if they would only use and apply that sense ; every man 
 knows where and how beauty gives him pleasure, if he would 
 only ask for it when it does so, and not allow it to be forced 
 upon him when he does not want it. Ask any one of the pas- 
 senorers over London Bridgre at this instant whether he cares 
 aboui the forms of the bronze leaves on its lamps, and he will tell 
 you, No. Modify these forms of leaves to a less scale, and put 
 them on his milk-jug at breakfast, and ask him whether he 
 likes them, and he will tell you, Yes. People have no need of 
 teaching if they could only think and speak truth, and ask for 
 what they like and want, and for nothing else : nor can a right 
 disposition of beauty be ever arrived at except by this common 
 sense, and allowance for the circumstances of the time and place. 
 It does not follow, because bronze leafage is in bad taste on the 
 lamps of London Bridge, that it would be so on those of the 
 Ponte della Trinita ; nor, because it would be a folly to decorate 
 the house fronts of Gracechurch Street, that it would be equally 
 so to adorn those of some quiet provincial town. The question 
 of greatest external or internal decoration depends entirely on 
 the conditions of probable repose. It was a wise feeling which 
 made the streets of Venice so rich in external ornament, for there 
 is no couch of rest like the gondola. So, again, there is no sub- 
 ject of street ornament so wisely chosen as the fountain, where 
 it is a fountain of use ; for it is just there that perhaps the 
 happiest pause takes place in the labour of the day, when the 
 pitcher is rested on the edge of it, and the breath of the bearer 
 is drawn deeply, and the hair swept from the forehead, and the 
 uprightness of the form declined against the marble ledge, and 
 the sound of the kind word or light laugh mixes with the trickle 
 of the falling water, heard shriller and shriller as the pitcher fills. 
 
124 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 What pause is so sweet as that — so full of the depth of ancient 
 days, so softened with the calm of pastoral solitude ? 
 
 XXIV. II. Thus far, then, of the place for beauty. We were 
 next to inquire into the characters which fitted it peculiarly for 
 architectural appliance, and into the principles of choice and of 
 arrangement '*'" which best regulate the imitation of natural forms 
 in which it consists. The full answering of these questions 
 would be a treatise on the art of design : I intend only to say a 
 few words respecting the two conditions of that art which are 
 essentially architectural, — Proportion and Abstraction. Neither 
 of these qualities is necessary, to the same extent, in other fields 
 of design. The sense of proportion is, by the landscape painter, 
 frequently sacrificed to character and accident ; the power of 
 abstraction to that of complete realisation. The flowers of his 
 foreground must often be unmeasured in their quantity, loose in 
 their arrangement : what is calculated, either in quantity or dis- 
 position, must be artfully concealed. That calculation is by the 
 architect to be prominently exhibited. So the abstraction of few 
 characteristics out of many, is shown only in the painter's sketch ; 
 in his finished work it is concealed or lost in completion. Archi- 
 tecture, on the contrary, delights in Abstraction and fears to 
 complete her forms. Proportion and Abstraction, then, are the 
 two especial marks of architectural design as distinguished from 
 all other. Sculpture must have them in inferior degrees ; leaning, 
 on the one hand, to an architectural manner, when it is usually 
 greatest (becoming, indeed, a part of Architecture), and, on the 
 other, to a pictorial manner, when it is apt to lose its dignity, and 
 sink into mere ingenious carving. 
 
 XXV. Now, of Proportion so much has been written, that I 
 believe the only facts which are of practical use have been over- 
 whelmed and kept out of sight by vain accumulations of particular 
 instances and estimates. Proportions are as infinite (and that in 
 all kinds of things, as severally in colours, lines, shades, lights, 
 and forms) as possible airs in music : and it is just as rational an 
 
 " Choice, and arrangement; — the " dominion " of the 17th Aphorism. See 
 above, note 35. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 25 
 
 attempt to teach a young architect how to proportion truly and 
 well by calculating for him the proportions of fine works, as it 
 would be to teach him to compose melodies by calculating the 
 mathematical relations of the notes in Beethoven's " Adelaide " or 
 Mozart's " Requiem." The man who has eye and intellect will 
 invent beautiful proportions, and cannot help it ; but he can no 
 more tell us how to do it than Wordsworth could tell us how to 
 write a sonnet, or than Scott could have told us how to plan a 
 romance. But there are one or two general laws which can be 
 told : they are of no use, indeed, except as preventives of gross 
 mistakes, but they are so far worth telling and remembering ; and 
 the more so because, in the discussion of the subtle laws of Pro- 
 portion (which will never be either numbered or known), archi- 
 tects are perpetually forgetting and transgressing the very 
 simplest of its necessities. 
 
 XXVI. Of which the first is, that wherever Proportion exists 
 at all, one member of the composition must be either larger than, 
 or in some way supreme over, the rest. There is no proportion 
 between equal things. They can have symmetry only, and 
 symmetry without proportion is not composition. It is necessary 
 to perfect beauty, but it is the least necessary of its elements, nor 
 of course is there any difficulty in obtaining it. Any succession 
 of equal things is agreeable ; but to compose is to arrange 
 unequal things, and the first thing to be done in beginning a 
 composition is to determine which is to be the principal thing. 
 I believe that all that has been written and taught about propor- 
 tion, put together, is not to the architect worth the single rule, 
 well enforced, " Have one large thing and several smaller things, 
 or one principal thing and several inferior things, and bind them 
 well together." Sometimes there may be a regular gradation, as 
 between the heights of stories in good designs for houses ; some- 
 times a monarch with a lowly train, as in the spire with its 
 pinnacles : the varieties of arrangement are infinite, but the law 
 is universal — have one thing above the rest, either by size, or 
 office, or interest. Don't put the pinnacles without the spire. 
 What a host of ugly church towers have we in England, with 
 
126 , THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 pinnacles at the corners, and none in the middle ! How many- 
 buildings like King's College Chapel at Cambridge, looking like 
 tables upside down, with their four legs in the air ! What ! it 
 will be said, have not beasts four legs ? Yes, but legs of different 
 shapes, and with a head between them. So they have a pair of 
 ears : and perhaps a pair of horns : but not at both ends. Knock 
 down a couple of pinnacles at either end in King's College 
 Chapel, and you will have a kind of proportion instantly. So in 
 a cathedral you may have one tower in the centre, and two at 
 the west end ; or two at the west end only, though a worse 
 arrangement : but you must not have two at the west and two at 
 the east end, unless you have some central member to connect 
 them ; and even then, buildings are generally bad which have 
 large balancing features at the extremities, and small connecting 
 ones in the centre, because it is not easy then to make the centre 
 dominant. The bird or moth may indeed have wide wings, be- 
 cause the size of the wing does not give supremacy to the wing. 
 The head and life are the mighty things, and the plumes, how- 
 ever wide, are subordinate. In fine west fronts with a pediment 
 and two towers, the centre is always the principal mass, both in 
 bulk and interest (as having the main gateway), and the towers 
 are subordinated to it, as an animal's horns are to its head. The 
 moment the towers rise so high as to overpower the body and 
 centre, and become themselves the principal masses, they will 
 destroy the proportion, unless they are made unequal, and one 
 of them the leading feature of the cathedral, as at Antwerp and 
 Strasburg. But the purer method is to keep them down in due 
 relation to the centre, and to throw up the pediment into a steep 
 connecting mass, drawing the eye to it by rich tracery. This is 
 nobly done in St. Wulfran of Abbeville, and attempted partly at 
 Rouen, though that west front is made up of so many unfinished 
 and supervening designs that it is impossible to guess the real 
 intention of any one of its builders. 
 
 XXVII. This rule of supremacy applies to the smallest as 
 well as to leading features : it is interestingly seen in the arrange- 
 ment of all good mouldings. I have given one, on the opposite 
 
ate X . 
 
 I Jk 
 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 12/ 
 
 page, from Rouen Cathedral ; that of the tracery before distin- 
 guished as a type of the noblest manner of Northern Gothic 
 (Chap. II. §XXn.). It is a tracery of three orders, of which 
 the first is divided into a leaf moulding, fig. 4. and b in the sec- 
 tion, and a plain roll, also seen in fig. 4. c in the section ; these 
 two divisions surround the entire window or panelling, and are 
 carried by two-face shafts of corresponding sections. The second 
 and third orders are plain rolls following the line of the tracery ; 
 four divisions of moulding in all : of these four, the leaf moulding 
 is, as seen in the sections, much the largest ; next to it the outer 
 roll ; then, by an exquisite alternation, the innermost roll {e), in 
 order that it may not be lost in the recess, and the intermediate 
 (d), the smallest. Each roll has its own shaft and capital ; and 
 the two smaller, which in effect upon the eye, owing to the retire- 
 ment of the innermost, are nearly equal, have smaller capitals 
 than the two larger, lifted a little to bring them to the same level. 
 The wall in the trefoiled lights is curved, as from ^ to y' in the 
 section ; but in the quatrefoil it is flat, only thrown back to the 
 full depth of the recess below so as to get a sharp shadow 
 instead of a soft one, the mouldings falling back to it in nearly a 
 vertical curve behind the roll e. This could not, however, be 
 managed with the simpler mouldings of the smaller quatrefoil 
 above, whose half section is given from_^ to^^ ; but the architect 
 was evidently fretted by the heavy look of its circular foils as 
 opposed to the light spring of the arches below : so he threw its 
 cusps obliquely clear from the wall, as seen in fig. 2., attached 
 to it where they meet the circle, but with their finials 
 pushed out from their natural level (//, in the section) to that of 
 the first order {g^, and supported by stone props behind, as seen 
 in the profile, fig. 2., which I got from the correspondent panel 
 on the buttress face (fig. i. being on its side), and of which the 
 lower cusps, being broken away, show the remnant of one of 
 their props projecting from the wall. The oblique curve thus 
 obtained in the profile is of singular grace. Take it all in all, I 
 have never met with a more exquisite piece of varied,' yet severe, 
 proportion and general arrangement (though all the windows of 
 
128 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 the period are fine, and especially delightful in the subordinate 
 proportioning of the smaller capitals to the smaller shafts). The 
 only fault it has is the inevitable misarrangement of the central 
 shafts ; for the enlargement of the inner roll, though beautiful in 
 the group of four divisions at the side, causes, in the triple central 
 shaft, the very awkwardness of heavy lateral members which has 
 just been in most instances condemned. In the windows of the 
 choir, and in most of the period, this difficulty is avoided by 
 making the fourth order a fillet which only follows the foliation, 
 while the three outermost are nearly in arithmetical progres- 
 sion of size, and the central triple shaft has of course the 
 largest roll in front. The moulding of the Palazzo Foscari 
 (Plate VIII., and Plate IV. fig. 8.) is, for so simple a group, 
 the grandest in effect I have ever seen : it is composed of a 
 large roll with two subordinates. 
 
 XXVIII. It is of course impossible to enter into details of 
 instances belonging to so intricate a division of our subject, in the 
 compass of a general essay. I can but rapidly name the chief 
 conditions of right. Another of these is the connection of Sym- 
 metry with horizontal, and of Proportion with vertical, division. 
 Evidently there is in symmetry a sense not merely of equality, but 
 of balance : now a thing cannot be balanced by another on the 
 top of it, though it may by one at the side of it. Hence, while 
 it is not only allowable, but often necessary, to divide buildings, 
 or parts of them, horizontally into halves, thirds, or other equal 
 parts, all vertical divisions of this kind are utterly wrong ; worst 
 into half next worst in the regular numbers which more betray 
 the equality. I should have thought this almost the first prin- 
 ciple of proportion which a young architect was aught : and yet 
 I remember an important building, recently erected in England, 
 in which the columns are cut in half by the projecting architraves 
 of the central windows ; and it is quite usual to see the spires of 
 modern Gothic churches divided by a band of ornament halfway 
 up. In all fine spires there are two bands and three parts, as at 
 Salisbury. The ornamented portion of the tower is there cut in 
 half, and allowably, because the spire forms the third mass to 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I 29 
 
 which the other two are subordinate : two stories are also equal 
 in Giotto's campanile, but dominant over smaller divisions below, 
 and subordinated to the noble third above. Even this arrange- 
 ment is difficult to treat ; and it is usually safer to increase or 
 diminish the height of the divisions regularly as they rise, as in 
 the Doge's Palace, whose three divisions are in a bold geometrical 
 progression ; or, in towers, to get an alternate proportion between 
 the body, the belfry, and the crown, as in the campanile of St. 
 Mark's. But, at all events, get rid of equality ; leave that to 
 children and their card houses : the laws of nature and the 
 reason of man are alike against it, in arts, as in politics. There 
 is but one thoroughly ugly tower in Italy that I know of, and that 
 is so because it is divided into vertical equal parts : — the tower 
 of Pisa. 
 
 XXIX. One more principle of Proportion I have to name, 
 equally simple, equally neglected. Proportion is between three 
 terms at least. Hence, as the pinnacles are not enough without 
 the spire, so neither the spire without the pinnacles. All men 
 feel this, and usually express their feeling by saying that the 
 pinnacles conceal the junction of the spire and tower. This is 
 one reason ; but a more influential one is, that the pinnacles 
 furnish the third term to the spire and tower. So that it is not 
 enough, in order to secure proportion, to divide a building un- 
 equally ; it must be divided into at least three parts ; it may be 
 into more (and in details with advantage), but on a large scale I 
 find three is about the best number of parts in elevation, and five 
 in horizontal extent, with freedom of increase to five in the one 
 case and seven in the other ; but not to more without confusion 
 (in architecture, that is to say ; for in organic structure the num- 
 bers cannot be limited). I purpose, in the course of works which 
 are in preparation, to give copious illustrations of this subject, 
 but I will take at present only one instance of vertical proportion, 
 from the flower stem of the common water plantain, Alisina 
 Plantago. Fig. 5. Plate XII. is a reduced profile of one side of 
 a plant gathered at random ; it is seen to have five masts, of 
 which, however, the uppermost is a mere shoot, and we can con- 
 
 s 
 
130 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 sider only their relations up to the fourth. Their lengths are 
 measured on the line A B, which is the actual length of the 
 lowest mast a d, A C = 6 c, A D c d, = and A E =: rf ^. If the 
 reader will take the trouble to measure these lengths and compare 
 them he will find that, within half a line, the uppermost, A E i::: f 
 of A D, A D =: ^ of A C, and A C =: ^ of A B ; a most subtle 
 diminishing proportion. From each of the joints spring three 
 major and three minor branches, each between each ; but the 
 major branches, at any joint, are placed over the minor branches 
 at the joint below, by the curious arrangement of the joint itself 
 — the stem is bluntly triangular ; fig. 6. shows the section of any 
 joint. The outer darkened triangle is the section of the lower 
 stem ; the inner, left light, of the upper stem ; and the three 
 main branches spring from the ledges left by the recession. Thus 
 the stems diminish in diameter just as they diminish in height. 
 The main branches (falsely placed in the profile over each other 
 to show their relations) have respectively seven, six, five, four, 
 and three arm-bones, like the masts of the stem ; these divisions 
 being proportioned in the same subtle manner. From the joints 
 of these, it seems to be the p /an of the plant that three major and 
 three minor branches should again spring, bearing the flowers : 
 but, in these infinitely complicated members, vegetative nature 
 admits much variety ; in the plant from which these measures 
 were taken, the full complement appeared only at one of the 
 secondary joints. 
 
 The leaf of this plant has five ribs on each side, as its flower 
 generally five masts, arranged with the most exquisite grace of 
 curve ; but of lateral proportion I shall rather take illustrations 
 from architecture : the reader will find several in the accounts of 
 the Duomo of Pisa and St. Mark's at Venice, in Chap. V. §§ XIV. 
 — XVI. I give these arrangements merely as illustrations, not 
 as precedents : all beautiful proportions are unique, they are not 
 general formulae. 
 
 XXX. The other condition of architectural treatnient Avhich 
 we proposed to notice was the abstraction of imitated form. 
 But there is a peculiar difficulty in touching within these narrow 
 
THE LA'SW OF BEAUTY. I3I 
 
 limits on such a subject as this, because the abstraction of which 
 we find examples in existing art, is partly involuntary ; and it is 
 a matter of much nicety to determine where it begins to be 
 purposed. In the progress of national as well as of individual 
 mind, the first attempts at imatation are always abstract and 
 incomplete. Greater completion marks the progress of art, abso- 
 lute completion usually its decline ; whence absolute completion 
 of imitative form is often supposed to be in itself wrong. But 
 it is not wrong always, only dangerous. Let us endeavour 
 briefly to ascertain wherein its danger consists, and wherein its 
 dignity. 
 
 XXXI. I have said that all art is abstract in its beginnings ; 
 that is to say, it expresses only a small number of the qualities 
 of the thing represented. Curved and complex lines are repre- 
 sented by straight and simple ones ; interior markings of forms 
 are few, and much is symbolical and conventional. There is a 
 resemblance between the work of a great nation, in this phase, 
 and the work of childhood and ignorance, which, in the mind of 
 a careless observer, might attach something like ridicule to it. 
 The form of a tree on the Ninevite sculptures is much like that 
 which, some twenty years ago, was familiar upon samplers ; and 
 the types of the face and figure in early Italian art are susceptible 
 of easy caricature. On the signs which separate the infancy of 
 magnificent manhood from every other, I do not pause to insist 
 (they consist entirely in the choice of the symbol and of the fea- 
 tures abstracted) ; but I pass to the next stage of art, a condition 
 of strength in which the abstraction which was begun in incapa- 
 bility is continued in free will. This is the case, however, in pure 
 sculpture and painting, as well as in architecture ; and we have 
 nothing to do but with that greater severity of manner which fits 
 either to be associated with the more realist art. I believe it 
 properly consists only in a due expression of their subordination, 
 an expression varying according to their place and office. The 
 question is first to be clearly determined whether the architecture 
 is a frame for the sculpture, or the sculpture an ornament of the 
 architecture. If the latter, then the first office of that sculpture 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 Aphorism 21 
 
 Symmetry is 
 not abstrac- 
 tion. 
 
 is not to represent the things it imitates, but to gather out of them 
 those arrangements of form which shall be pleasing to the eye in 
 their intended places. So soon as agreeable lines and points of 
 shade have been added to the mouldings which were meagre, or 
 to the lights which were unrelieved, the architectural work of 
 the imitation is accomplished ; and how far it shall be wrought 
 towards completeness or not, will depend upon its place, and upon 
 other various circumstances. If, in its particular use or position, it 
 is symmetrically arranged, there is, of course, an instant indication 
 of architectural subjection. But symmetry is not abstrac- 
 tion. Leaves may be carved in the most regular order, 
 and yet be meanly imitative ; or, on the other hand, 
 they may be thrown wild and loose, and yet be highly 
 architectural in their separate treatment.^'' Nothing can 
 be less symmetrical than the group of leaves which joins the two 
 columns in Plate XIII. ; yet, since nothing of the leaf character 
 is given but what is necessary for the bare suggestion of its 
 imaee and the attainment of the lines desired, their treatment is 
 highly abstract. It shows that the workman only wanted so 
 much of the leaf as he supposed good for his architecture, and 
 w^ould allow no more ; and how much is to be supposed good, 
 depends, as I have said, much more on place and circumstance 
 than on general laws. I know that this is not usually thought, 
 and that many good architects would insist on abstraction in all 
 cases : the question is so wide and so difficult that I express my 
 opinion upon it most diffidently ; but my own feeling is, that a 
 purely abstract manner, like that of our earliest English work, 
 does not afford room for the perfection of beautiful form, and that 
 its severity is wearisome after the eye has been long accustomed 
 to it. I have not done justice to the Salisbury dog-tooth mould- 
 ing, of which the effect is sketched in fig. 5., Plate X., but I have 
 done more justice to it nevertheless than to the beautiful French 
 one above it ; and I do not think that any candid reader would 
 
 This short Aphorism is one of the most important in the book. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 33 
 
 deny that, piquant and spirited as is that from Salisbury, the 
 Rouen moulding is, in every respect, nobler. It will be observed 
 that its symmetry is more complicated, the leafage being divided 
 into double groups of two lobes each, each lobe of different 
 structure. With exquisite feeling, one of these double groups is 
 alternately omitted on the other side of the moulding (not seen 
 in the Plate, but occupying the cavetto of the section), thus 
 giving a playful lightness to the whole ; and if the reader will 
 allow for a beauty in the flow of the curved outlines (espe- 
 cially on the angle), of which he cannot in the least judge 
 from my rude drawing, he will not, I think, expect easily to 
 find a nobler instance of decoration adapted to the severest 
 mouldings. 
 
 Now it will be observed, that there is in its treatment a high 
 degree of abstraction, though not so conventional as that of 
 Salisbury : that is to say, the leaves have little more than their 
 flow and outline represented ; they are hardly undercut, but their 
 edges are connected by a gentle and most studied curve with the 
 stone behind ; they have no serrations, no veinings, no rib or 
 stalk on the angle, only an incision gracefully made towards their 
 extremities, indicative of the central rib and depression. The 
 whole style of the abstraction shows that the architect could, if 
 he had chosen, have carried the imitation much farther, but stayed 
 at this point of his own free will ; and what he has done is also 
 so perfect in its kind, that I feel disposed to accept his authority 
 W'ithout question, so far as I can gather it from his works, on 
 the whole subject of abstraction. 
 
 XXXII. Happily, his opinion is frankly expressed. This 
 moulding is on the lateral buttress, and on a level with the top 
 of the north gate : it cannot therefore be closely seen except from 
 the wooden stairs of the belfry ; it is not intended to be so seen, 
 but calculated for a distance of, at least, forty to fifty feet from the 
 eye. In the vault of the gate itself half as near again, there are 
 three rows of mouldings, as I think, by the same designer, at all 
 events part of the same plan. One of them is given in Plate I. 
 fig. 2. a. It will be seen that the abstraction is here infinitely 
 
134 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 less ; the ivy leaves have stalks and associated fruit, and a rib 
 for each lobe, and are so far undercut as to detach their forms 
 from the stone ; while in the vine-leaf moulding above, of the 
 same period, from the south gate, serration appears added to other 
 purely imitative characters. Finally, in the animals which form 
 the ornaments of the portion of the gate which is close to the 
 eye; abstraction nearly vanishes into perfect sculpture. 
 
 XXXIII. Nearness to the eye, however, is not the only cir- 
 cumstance which influences architectural abstraction. These 
 very animals are not merely better cut because close to the eye ; 
 they are put close to the eye that they may, without indiscretion, 
 be better cut, on the noble principle, first, I think, clearly enun- 
 ciated by Sir Charles Eastlake, that the closest imitation shall be 
 of the noblest object. Farther, since the wildness and manner of 
 growth of vegetation render a bond fide imitation of it impossible 
 in sculpture — since its members must be reduced in number, 
 ordered in direction, and cut away from their roots, even under the 
 most earnestly imitative treatment, — it becomes a point, as I think, 
 of good judgment, to proportion the completeness of execution 
 of parts to the formality of the whole ; and since five or six leaves 
 must stand for a tree, to let also five or six touches stand for a 
 leaf. But since the animal generally admits of perfect outline — 
 since its form is detached, and may be fully represented, its 
 sculpture may be more complete and faithful in all its parts. 
 And this principle will be actually found, I believe, to guide the 
 old workmen. If the animal form be in a gargoyle, incomplete, 
 and coming out of a block of stone, or if a head only, as for a 
 boss or other such partial use, its sculpture will be highly ab- 
 stract. But if it be an entire animal, as a lizard, or a bird, or a 
 squirrel, peeping among leafage, its sculpture will be much farther 
 carried, and I think, if small, near the eye, and worked in a fine 
 material, may rightly be carried to the utmost possible completion. 
 Surely we cannot wish a less finish bestowed on those which 
 animate the mouldings of the South door of the cathedral of 
 Florence ; nor desire that the birds in the capitals of the Doge's 
 palace should be stripped of a single plume. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I 35 
 
 XXXIV. Under these limitations, then, I think that aphorism 22. 
 perfect sculpture may be'*" made a part of the severest Perfect scuip- 
 
 ^ ^ J ^ ture should 
 
 architecture ; but this perfection was said in the outset I'hVsrverest 
 to be dangerous. It is so in the highest degree ; for the 
 moment the architect allows himself to dwell on the 
 imitated portions, there is a chance of his losing sight 
 of the duty of his ornament, of its business as a part 
 of the composition, and sacrificing its points of shade 
 and effect to the delight of delicate carving. And then 
 he is lost. His architecture has become a mere frame- 
 work for the setting of delicate sculpture, which had 
 better be all taken down and put into cabinets. It is 
 well, therefore, that the young architect should be 
 taught to think of imitative ornament as of the extreme 
 of grace in language ; not to be regarded at first, not to 
 be obtained at the cost of purpose, meaning, force or 
 conciseness, yet, indeed, a perfection — the least of all 
 perfections, and yet the crowning one of all — one which 
 by itself, and regarded in itself, is an architectural 
 coxcombry,'** but is yet the sign of the most highly- 
 trained mind and power when it is associated with 
 others. It is a safe manner, as I think, to design all 
 things at first in severe abstraction, and to be prepared, 
 if need were, to carry them out in that form ; then to 
 mark the parts where high finish would be admissible, 
 to complete these always with stern reference to their 
 
 " I have \\Titten, it will be observed, " should be," in the marginal definition of 
 the Aphorism, and I ought to have written it in the text. See the ne.xt note. 
 
 " By no means. I much understated the truth in this matter, and should now 
 say that sculpture should precede and govern all else. The pediment of yEgina 
 determines the right — and ends controversy. 
 
136 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 general effect, and then connect them by a graduated 
 scale of abstraction with the rest. And there is one 
 safeguard against danger in this process on which I 
 would finally insist. Never imitate anything but na- 
 tural forms, and those the noblest, in the completed 
 parts. The degradation of the cinque cento manner of 
 decoration was not owing to its naturalism, to its faith- 
 fulness of imitation, but to its imitation of ugly, i.e. 
 unnatural things. So long as it restrained itself to 
 sculpture of animals and flowers, it remained noble. 
 The balcony, on the opposite page (Plate XL), from a 
 house in the Campo St. Benedetto at Venice, shows one 
 of the earliest occurrences of the cinque cento ara- 
 besque, and a fragment of the pattern is given in Plate 
 XII. fig. 8. It is but the arresting upon the stone work 
 of a stem or two of the living flowers, which are rarely 
 wanting in the window above (and which, by the by, 
 the French and Italian peasantry often trellis with 
 exquisite taste about their casements). This arabesque, 
 relieved as it is in darkness from the white stone by 
 the stain of time, is surely both beautiful and pure; 
 and as long as the renaissance ornament remained in 
 such forms it may be beheld with unreserved admira- 
 tion. But the moment that unnatural objects were 
 associated with these, and armour, and musical instru- 
 ments, and wild meaningless scrolls and curled shields, 
 and other such fancies, became principal in its subjects, 
 its doom was sealed, and with it that of the architec- 
 ture of the world. 
 
 XXXV. III. Our final inquiry was to be into the use of 
 colour as associated with architectural ornament. 
 
Plate 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 137 
 
 I do not feel able to speak with any confidence respecting the 
 touching of sc7dpt2ire with colour. I would only note one point, 
 that sculpture is the representation of an idea, while architecture 
 is itself a real thing. The idea may, as I think, be left colourless, 
 and coloured by the beholder's mind : but a reality ought to 
 have reality in all its attributes : its colour should be as fixed as 
 its form. I cannot, therefore, consider architecture as in any- 
 wise perfect without colour. Farther, as I have above noticed, I 
 think the colours of architecture should be those of natural stones ; 
 partly because more durable, but also because more perfect and 
 graceful. For to conquer the harshness and deadness of tones 
 laid upon stone or on gesso, needs the management and discre- 
 tion of a true painter ; and on this co-operation we must not 
 calculate in laying down rules for general practice. If Tintoret or 
 Giorgione are at hand, and ask us for a wall to paint, Ave will alter 
 our whole design for their sake, and become their servants ; but 
 we must, as architects, expect the aid of the common workman 
 only ; and the laying of colour by a mechanical hand, and its 
 toning under a vulgar eye, are far more offensive than rudeness 
 in cutting the stone. The latter is imperfection only ; the former 
 deadness or discordance. At the best, such colour is so inferior 
 to the lovely and mellow hues of the natural stone, that it is 
 wise to sacrifice some of the intricacy of design, if by so doing 
 we may employ the nobler material. And if, as we looked to 
 Nature for instruction respecting form, we look to her also to 
 learn the management of colour, we shall, perhaps, find that this 
 sacrifice of intricacy is for other causes expedient. 
 
 XXXVI. First, then, I think that in making this reference we 
 are to consider our building; as a kind of org-anised creature ; in 
 colouring which we must look to the single and separately 
 organised creatures of Nature, not to her landscape combinations. 
 Our building, if it is well composed, is one thing, and is to be 
 coloured as Nature would colour one thing — a shell, a flower, or 
 an animal ; not as she colours groups of things. 
 
 And the first broad conclusion we shall deduce from observance 
 of natural colour in such cases will be, that it never follows 
 
 T 
 
138 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 form, but is arranged on an entirely separate system. What 
 mysterious connection there may be between the shape of the 
 spots on an animal's skin and its anatomical system, I do not know, 
 nor even if such a connection has in anywise been traced : but to 
 the eye the systems are entirely separate, and in many cases that 
 of colour is accidentally variable. The stripes of a zebra do not 
 follow the lines of its body or limbs, still less the spots of a 
 leopard. In the plumage of birds, each feather bears a part of the 
 pattern which is arbitrarily carried over the body, having indeed 
 certain graceful harmonies with the form, diminishing or enlarging 
 in directions which sometimes follow, but also not unfrequently 
 oppose, the directions of its muscular lines. Whatever harmonies 
 there may be, are distinctly like those of two separate musical 
 parts, coinciding here and there only — never discordant, but 
 essentially different. I hold this, then, for the first great principle 
 of architectural colour. Let it be visibly independent of form. 
 Never paint a column with vertical lines, but always cross it. 
 Never give separate mouldings separate colours (I know this is 
 heresy, but I never shrink from any conclusions, however con- 
 trary to human authority, to which I am led by observance of 
 natural principles) ; and in sculptured ornaments do not paint the 
 leaves or figures (I cannot help the Elgin frieze) of one colour and 
 their ground of another, but vary both the ground and the figures 
 with the same harmony. Notice how Nature does it in a variegated 
 flower ; not one leaf red and another white, but a point of red and 
 a zone of white, or whatever it maybe, to each. In certain places 
 you may run your two systems closer, and here and there let 
 them be parallel for a note or two, but see that the colours and the 
 forms coincide only as two orders of mouldings do ; the same for 
 an instant, but each holding its own course. So single members 
 may sometimes have single colours : as a bird's head is sometimes 
 of one colour and its shoulders another, you may make your 
 capital one colour and your shaft another ; but in general the 
 best place for colour is on broad surfaces, not on the' points of 
 interest in form. An animal is mottled on its breast and back, 
 rarely on its paws or about its eyes ; so put your variegation 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 139 
 
 boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft, but be shy of it in the 
 capital and moulding ; in all cases it is a safe rule to simplify 
 colour when form is rich, and vice versa ; and I think it would be 
 well in general to carve all capitals and graceful ornaments in 
 white marble, and so leave them. 
 
 XXXVII. Independence then being first secured, what kind 
 of limiting outlines shall we adopt for the system of colour 
 itself ? 
 
 I am quite sure that any person familiar with natural objects 
 will never be surprised at any appearance of care or finish in 
 them. That is the condition of the Universe. But there is cause 
 both for surprise and inquiry whenever we see anything like 
 carelessness or incompletion : that is not a common condition ; it 
 must be one appointed for some singular purpose. I believe that 
 such surprise will be forcibly felt by any one who, after studying 
 carefully the lines of some variegated organic form, will set him- 
 self to copy with similar diligence those of its colours. The 
 boundaries of the forms he will assuredly, whatever the object, 
 have found drawn with a delicacy and precision which no human 
 hand can follow. Those of its colours he will find in many 
 cases, though governed always by a certain rude symmetry, yet 
 irregular, blotched, imperfect, liable to all kinds of accidents and 
 awkwardnesses. Look at the tracery of the lines on a camp 
 shell, and see how oddly and awkwardly its tents are pitched. It 
 is not indeed always so : there is occasionally, as in the eye of the 
 peacock's plume, an apparent precision, but still a precision far 
 inferior to that of the drawing of the filaments which bear that 
 lovely stain ; and in the plurality of cases a degree of looseness 
 and variation, and, still more singularly, of harshness and violence 
 in arrangement, is admitted in colour which would be monstrous 
 in form. Observe the difference in the precision of a fish's scales 
 and of the spots on them. 
 
 XXXVIII. Now, why it should be that colour is best seen 
 under these circumstances I will not here endeavour to deter- 
 mine ; nor whether the lesson we are to learn from it be that it 
 is God's will that all manner of delights should never be com- 
 
140 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 bined in one thing. But the fact is certain, that colour is always 
 by Him arranged in these simple or rude forms, and as certain 
 that, therefore, it must be best seen in them, and that we shall 
 never mend by refining its arrangements. Experience teaches 
 us the same thing. Infinite nonsense has been written about the 
 union of perfect colour with perfect form. They never will, never 
 can be united. Colour, to be perfect, must have a soft outline or a 
 simple one : (it cannot have a refined one \f and you will never 
 produce a good painted window with good figure-drawing in it. 
 You will lose perfection of colour as you give perfection of line. 
 Try to put in order and form the colours of a piece of opal. 
 
 XXXIX. I conclude, then, that all arrangements of colour, for 
 its own sake, in graceful forms, are barbarous ; and that, to paint 
 a colour pattern with the lovely hues of a Greek leaf moulding, is 
 an utterly savage procedure. I cannot find anything in natural 
 colour like this : it is not in the bond. I find it in all natural 
 form — never in natural colour. If then, our architectural colour 
 is to be beautiful as its form was, by being imitative, we are 
 limited to these conditions — to simple masses of it, to zones, as in 
 the rainbow and the zebra ; cloudings and flamings, as in marble 
 shells and plumage, or spots of various shapes and dimensions. 
 All these conditions are susceptible of various degrees of sharp- 
 ness and delicacy, and of complication in arrangement. The zone 
 may become a delicate line, and arrange itself in chequers and zig- 
 zags. The flaming may be more or less defined, as on a tulip 
 leaf and may at last be represented by a triangle of colour, and 
 arrange itself in stars or other shapes ; the spot may be also gra- 
 duated into a stain, or defined into a square or circle. The most 
 exquisite harmonies may be composed of these simple elements : 
 some soft and full of flushed and melting spaces of colour ; others 
 piquant and sparkling, or deep and rich, formed of close groups 
 of the fiery fragments : perfect and lovely proportion may be ex- 
 
 " Omit the sentence in parenthesis. I meant, a sharp or tiffined (not refined) 
 edge ; but even so understanding it, great part of the thirty-eighth and thirty- 
 ninth paragraphs must be received under much exception and protest, and might 
 be omitted wholly with no harm to the book. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I4I 
 
 hibited in the relation of their quantities, infinite invention in their 
 disposition : but, in all cases, their shape will be effective only as 
 it determines their quantity, and regulates their operation on each 
 other ; points or edges of one being introduced between breadths 
 of others, and so on. Triangular and barred forms are therefore 
 convenient, or others the simplest possible ; leaving the pleasure 
 of the spectator to be taken in the colour, and in that only. 
 Curved outlines, especially if refined, deaden the colour, and con- 
 fuse the mind. Even in figure painting the greatest colourists have 
 either melted their outline away, as often Correggio and Rubens ; 
 or purposely made their masses of ungainly shape, as Titian ; or 
 placed their brightest hues in costume, where they could get quaint 
 patterns, as Veronese, and especially Angelico, with whom, how- 
 ever, the absolute virtue of colour is secondary to grace of line. 
 Hence, he never uses the blended hues of Correggio, like those 
 on the wing of the little Cupid, in the " Venus and Mercury," 
 but always the severest type — the peacock plume. Any of these 
 men would have looked with infinite disgust upon the leafage and 
 scroll-work which form the ground of colour in our modern 
 painted windows, and yet all whom I have named w^ere much 
 infected with the love of renaissance designs. We must also 
 allow for the freedom of the painter's subject, and looseness of 
 his associated lines ; a pattern being severe in a picture, which is 
 over luxurious upon a building. I believe, therefore, that it is 
 impossible to be over quaint or angular in architectural colour- 
 ing ; and thus many dispositions which I have had occasion to 
 reprobate in form, are, in colour, the best that can be invented. 
 I have always, for instance, spoken with contempt of the Tudor 
 style, for this reason, that, having surrendered all pretence to 
 spaciousness and breadth, — having divided its surfaces by an in- 
 finite number of lines, it yet sacrifices the only characters which 
 can make lines beautiful ; sacrifices all the variety and grace 
 which long atoned for the caprice of the Flamboyant, and adopts, 
 for its leading feature, an entanglement of cross bars and verti- 
 cals, showing about as much invention or skill of design as the 
 reticulation of the bricklayer's sieve. Yet this very reticulation 
 
142 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 would in colour be highly beautiful ; and all the heraldry, and 
 other features which, in form, are monstrous, may be delightful 
 as themes of colour (so long as there are no fluttering or over- 
 twisted lines in them) ; and this, observe, because, when coloured, 
 they take the place of a mere pattern, and the resemblance to 
 nature, which could not be found in their sculptured forms, is 
 found in their piquant variegation of other surfaces. There is a 
 beautiful and bright bit of wall painting behind the Duomo of 
 Verona, composed of coats of arms, whose bearings are balls of 
 gold set in bars of green (altered blue ?) and white, with cardinals' 
 hats in alternate squares. This is of course, however, fit only for 
 domestic work. The front of the Doge's palace at Venice is the 
 purest and most chaste model that I can name (but one) of the 
 fit application of colour to public buildings. The sculpture and 
 mouldings are all white ; but the wall surface is chequered with 
 marble blocks of pale rose, the chequers being in no wise har- 
 monized, or fitted to the forms of the windows ; but looking as if 
 the surface had been completed first, and the windows cut out of 
 it. In Plate XII. fig. 2, the reader will see two of the patterns 
 used in gfreen and white, on the columns of San Michele of 
 Lucca ; every column having a different design. Both are beau- 
 tiful, but the upper one certainly the best. Yet in sculpture its 
 lines would have been perfectly barbarous, and those even of the 
 lower not enough refined. 
 
 XL. Restraining ourselves, therefore, to the use of such simple 
 patterns, so far forth as our colour is subordinate either to archi- 
 tectural structure, or sculptural form, we have )'et one more 
 manner of ornamentation to add to our general means of effect, — 
 monochrom design, the intermediate condition between colouring 
 and carving. The relations of the entire system of architectural 
 decoration may then be thus expressed : 
 
 I. Organic form dominant. True, independent sculpture, and 
 alto-relievo: rich capitals, and mouldings; to be elaborate 
 in completion of form, not abstract, and either to be left in 
 pure white marble, or most cautiously touched with colour 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I43 
 
 in points and borders only, in a system not concurrent with 
 their forms. 
 
 2. Organic form sub-dominant. Basso-relievo or intaglio. To 
 
 be more abstract in proportion to the reduction of depth ; 
 to be also more rigid and simple in contour ; to be touched 
 with colour more boldly and in an increased degree, exactly 
 in proportion to the reduced depth and fulness of form, but 
 still in a system non-concurrent with their forms. 
 
 3. Organic form abstracted to outline. Monochrom design, still 
 
 farther reduced to simplicity of contour, and therefore 
 admitting for the first time the colour to be concurrent 
 with its outlines ; that is to say, as its name imports, the 
 entire figrure to be detached in one colour from a ground of 
 another. 
 
 4. Organic forms entirely lost. Geometrical patterns or variable 
 
 cloudiness in the most vivid colour. 
 
 On the opposite side of this scale, ascending from the colour 
 pattern, I would place the various forms of painting which may 
 be associated with architecture : primarily, and as most fit for 
 such purpose, the mosaic, highly abstract in treatment, and intro- 
 ducing brilliant colour in masses ; the Madonna of Torcello being, 
 as I think, the noblest type of the manner, and the Baptistery of 
 Parma the richest : next, the purely decorative fresco, like that 
 of the Arena Chapel ; finally, the fresco becoming principal, as in 
 the Vatican and Sistine. But I cannot, with any safety, follow 
 the principles of abstraction in this pictorial ornament ; since the 
 noblest examples of it appear to me to owe their architectural 
 applicability to their archaic manner ; and I think that the 
 abstraction and admirable simplicity which render them fit media 
 of the most splendid colouring, cannot be recovered by a volun- 
 tary condescension. The Byzantines themselves would not, I 
 think, if they could have drawn the figure better, have used it for 
 a colour decoration ; and that use, as peculiar to a condition of 
 childhood, however noble and full of promise, cannot be included 
 amonsf those modes of adornment which are now legitimate or 
 
144 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 even possible. There is a difficulty in the management of the 
 painted window for the same reason, which has not yet been met, 
 and we must conquer that first, before we can venture to consider 
 the wall as a painted window on a large scale. Pictorial subject, 
 without such abstraction, becomes necessarily principal, or, at all 
 events, ceases to be the architect's concern ; its plan must be left 
 to the painter after the completion of the building, as in the works 
 of Veronese and Giorgione on the palaces of Venice. 
 
 XLI. Pure architectural decoration, then, may be considered 
 as limited to the four kinds above specified ; of which each glides 
 almost imperceptibly into the other. Thus, the Elgin frieze is a 
 monochrom ^" in a state of transition to sculpture, retaining, as I 
 think, the half-cast skin too long. Of pure monochrom, I have 
 given an example in Plate VI ., from the noble front of San Michele 
 of Lucca. It contains forty such arches, all covered with equally 
 elaborate ornaments, entirely drawn by cutting out their ground 
 to about the depth of an inch in the flat white marble, and filling 
 the spaces with pieces of green serpentine ; a most elaborate mode 
 of sculpture, requiring excessive care and precision in the fitting 
 of the edges, and of course double work, the same line needing 
 to be cut both in the marble and serpentine. The excessive sim- 
 plicity of the forms will be at once perceived ; the eyes of the 
 ficrures or animals, for instance, being indicated only by a round 
 dot, formed by a little inlet circle of serpentine, about half an 
 inch over : but, though simple, they admit often much grace of 
 curvature, as in the neck of the bird seen above the right-hand 
 pillar. The pieces of serpentine have fallen out in many places, 
 giving the black shadows, as seen under the horseman's arm and 
 bird's neck, and in the semi-circular line round the arch, once filled 
 with some pattern. It would have illustrated my point better 
 to have restored the lost portions, but I always draw a thing 
 exactly as it is, hating restoration of any kind ; and I would 
 especially direct the reader's attention to the completion of the 
 forms in the sailpturcd ornament of the marble cornices, as 
 opposed to the abstraction of the monochrom figures, of the ball 
 ''" Rather, dichrom or dichroit — flesh colour on blue. 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I45 
 
 and cross patterns between the arches, and of the triangular 
 ornament round the arch on the left. 
 
 XLII. I haveaninten.se love for these monochrom figures, 
 owing to their wonderful life and spirit in all the works on which 
 I have found them ; nevertheless, I believe that the excessive 
 degree of abstraction which they imply necessitates our placing 
 them in the rank of a progressive or imperfect art, and that a 
 perfect building should rather be composed of the highest sculp- 
 ture, (organic form dominant and sub-dominant,) associated with 
 pattern colours on the flat or broad surfaces. And we find, in 
 fact, that the cathedral of Pisa, which is a higher type than that 
 of Lucca, exactly follows this condition, the colour being put 
 in geometrical patterns on its surfaces, and animal forms and 
 lovely leafage used in the sculptured cornices and pillars. And 
 I think that the grace of the carved forms is best seen when it 
 is thus boldly opposed to severe traceries of colour, while the 
 colour itself is, as we have seen, always most piquant when it is 
 put into sharp and angular arrangements. Thus the sculpture is 
 approved and set off" by the colour, and the colour seen to the 
 best advantage in its opposition both to the whiteness and the 
 grace of the carved marble. 
 
 XLII I. In the course of this and the preceding Chapters, I 
 have now separately enumerated most of the conditions of Power 
 and Beauty, which, in the outset, I stated to be the grounds of 
 the deepest impressions with which architecture could affect the 
 human mind; but I would ask permission to recapitulate them, 
 in order to see if there be any building which I may offer as an 
 example of the unison, in such manner as is possible, of them all. 
 Glancing back, then, to the beginning of the third Chapter, and 
 introducing in their place the conditions incidentally determined 
 in the two previous sections, we shall have the following list of 
 noble characters : 
 
 Considerable size, exhibited by simple terminal lines (Chap. 
 III. § 6.). Projection towards the top (§ 7.). Breadth of fiat 
 surface (§ 8.). Square compartments of that surface (§ 9.). Varied 
 and visible masonry (§ i i.). Vigorous depth of shadow (§ 13.), 
 
 u 
 
146 THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 
 
 exhibited especially by pierced traceries (§ 18.). Varied propor- 
 tion in ascent (Chap. IV. § 28.). Lateral symmetry (§ 28.). 
 Sculpture most delicate at the base (Chap. I. § 12.). Enriched 
 quantity of ornament at the top (§ 13.). Sculpture abstract in 
 inferior ornaments and mouldings (Chap. IV. § 31.), complete 
 in animal forms (§ 33.). Both to be executed in white marble 
 (§ 40.). Vivid colour introduced in flat geometrical patterns 
 (§ 39-)' ^^^ obtained by the use of naturally coloured stone (§ 35.). 
 These characteristics occur more or less in different buildings, 
 some in one and some in another. But all together, and all in 
 their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I 
 know, only in one building in the world, the Campanile of Giotto 
 at Florence. The drawing of the tracery of its upper story, 
 which heads this chapter, rude as it is, will nevertheless give the 
 reader some better conception of that tower's magnificence than 
 the thin outlines in which it is usually pourtrayed. In its first 
 appeal to the stranger's eye there is something unpleasing ; a 
 mingling, as it seems to him, of over severity with over minute- 
 ness. But let him give it time, as he should to all other con- 
 summate art. I remember well how, when a boy, I used to 
 despise that Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. 
 But I have since lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon 
 it from my windows by sunlight and moonlight, and I shall not 
 soon forget how profound and gloomy appeared to me the savage- 
 ness of the Northern Gothic, when I afterwards stood, for the 
 first time, beneath the front of Salisbury. The contrast is indeed 
 strange, if it could be quickly felt, between the rising of those 
 grey walls out of their quiet swarded space, like dark and barren 
 rocks out of a green lake, with their rude, mouldering, rough- 
 grained shafts, and triple lights, without tracery or other orna- 
 ment than the martins' nests in the height of them, and that 
 bright, smooth, sunny surface of glowingjasper, those spiral shatts 
 and fairy traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight 
 shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pallor of the Eastern 
 sky, that serene height of mountain alabaster, coloured like a 
 morning cloud, and chased like a sea shell. And if this be, as I 
 
THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 147 
 
 believe it, the model and mirror of perfect architecture, is there 
 not something to be learned by looking back to the early life of 
 him who raised it ? I said that the Power of human mind had 
 its growth in the Wilderness ; much more must the love and the 
 conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have 
 seen to be, at the best, a faded image of God's daily work, and 
 an arrested ray of some star of creation, be given chiefly in the 
 places which He has gladdened by planting there the fir tree and 
 the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among the far 
 away fields of her lilies, was the child trained who was to raise 
 that headstone of Beauty above her towers of watch and war. 
 Remember all that he became ; count the sacred thoughts with 
 which he filled the heart of Italy ; ask those who followed him 
 what they learned at his feet ; and when you have numbered his 
 labours, and received their testimony, if it seem to you that God 
 had verily poured out upon this His servant no common nor 
 restrained portion of His Spirit, and that he was indeed a king 
 among the children of men, remember also that the legend upon 
 his crown was that of David's : — " I took thee from the sheep- 
 cote, and from following the sheep." 
 
148 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 their fulness 
 of Life. 
 
 I. Among the countless analogies by which the nature and rela- 
 tions of the human soul are illustrated in the material creation, 
 none are more striking than the impressions inseparably con- 
 nected with the active and dormant states of matter. I have 
 elsewhere endeavoured to show, that no inconsiderable part of 
 the essential characters of Beauty depended on the expression 
 of vital energy in organic things, or on the subjection to such 
 energy, of things naturally passive and powerless. I need not 
 here repeat, of what was then advanced, more than the state- 
 
 ArHORisM23. ment which I believe will meet with general acceptance, that 
 
 All things are thlngs in othcr respects alike, as in their substance, or 
 
 noble in pro- 
 
 t^he'h-Mness uscs, or outward forms, are noble or ignoble in propor- 
 tion to the fulness of the life which either they them- 
 selves enjoy, or of whose action they bear the evidence, 
 as sea sands are made beautiful by their bearing the 
 seal of the motion of the waters. And this is especially 
 true of all objects which bear upon them the impress of 
 the highest order of creative life, that is to say, of the 
 mind of man : they become noble or ignoble in propor- 
 tion to the amount of the energy of that mind which 
 has visibly been employed upon them. But most pecu- 
 liarly and imperatively does the rule hold with respect 
 to the creations of Architecture, which being properly 
 capable of no other life than this, and being not essen- 
 tially composed of things pleasant in themselves, — as 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 49 
 
 music of sweet sounds, or painting of fair colours, but 
 of inert substance, — depend, for their dignity and plea- 
 surableness in the utmost degree, upon the vivid 
 expression of the intellectual life which has been con- 
 cerned in their production.* 
 
 II. Now in all other kind of energies except that of man's 
 mind, there is no question as to what is life, and what is not. 
 Vital sensibility, whether vegetable or animal, may, indeed, be 
 reduced to so great feebleness, as to render its existence a matter 
 of question, but when it is evident at all, it is evident as such : 
 there is no mistaking any imitation or pretence of it for the life 
 itself ; no mechanism nor galvanism can take its place ; nor is any 
 resemblance of it so striking as to involve even hesitation in the 
 judgment ; although many occur which the human imagination 
 takes pleasure in exalting, without for an instant losing sight of 
 the real nature of the dead things it animates ; but rejoicing 
 rather in its own excessive life, which puts gesture into clouds, 
 and joy Into waves, and voices into rocks. 
 
 III. But when we begin to be concerned with the energies 
 of man, we find ourselves instantly dealing with a double 
 creature. Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious 
 counterpart, which It is at his peril If he do not cast off and deny. 
 Thus he has a true and false (otherwise called a living and dead, 
 or a feigned or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a false hope, 
 a true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a false life. His 
 true life Is like that of lower organic beings, the independent 
 force by which he moulds and governs external things ; It is a 
 force of assimilation which converts everything around him into 
 food, or into instruments ; and which, however humbly or 
 obediently It may listen to or follow the guidance of superior 
 intelligence, never forfeits its own authority as a judging principle, 
 as a will capable either of obeying or rebelling. His false life is, 
 indeed, but one of the conditions of death*' or stupor, but It acts, 
 
 * See note 35. 
 
 " Yes ; and therefore had been much better called so simply, without all this 
 
150 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 even when it cannot be said to animate, and is not always easily 
 known from the true. It is that life of custom and accident in 
 which many of us pass much of our time in the world ; that life 
 in which we do what we have not proposed, and speak what 
 we do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand ; 
 that life which is overlaid by the weight of things external 
 to it, and is moulded by them, instead of assimilating them ; that, 
 which instead of growing and blossoming under any wholesome 
 dew, is crystallised over with it, as with hoar-frost, and becomes 
 to the true life what an arborescence is to a tree, a candied 
 agglomeration of thoughts and habits foreign to it, brittle, obsti- 
 nate, and icy, which can neither bend nor grow, but must be 
 crushed and broken to bits, if it stand in our way. All men are 
 liable to be in some degree frost-bitten in this sort ; all are partly 
 encumbered and crusted over with idle matter ; only, if they have 
 real life in them, they are always breaking this bark away in 
 noble rents, until it becomes, like the black strips upon the 
 birch tree, only a witness of their own inward strength. But, 
 with all the efforts that the best men make, much of their beine 
 passes in a kind of dream, in which they indeed move, and 
 play their parts sufficiently, to the eyes of their fellow dreamers, 
 but have no clear consciousness of what is around them, 
 or within them ; blind to the one, insensible to the other, 
 v(i}6poi. I would not press the definition into its darker application 
 to the dull heart and heavy ear ; I have to do with it only as it 
 refers to the too frequent condition of natural existence, whether 
 of nations or individuals, settling commonly upon them in pro- 
 portion to their age. The life of a nation is usually, like the flow 
 of a lava stream, first bright and fierce, then languid and covered, 
 at last advancing only by the tumbling over and over of its 
 frozen blocks. And that last condition is a sad one to look 
 upon. All the steps are marked most clearly in the arts, and in 
 
 metaphor and inaccurate metaphysics. What we carelessly call False hope, or 
 False charity, is only mistaken hope and mistaken charity. The real question 
 is only — are we dead or alive? — for, if dead at heart and having only a name to 
 live in all our actions, we are sowing seeds of death. 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. I5I 
 
 Architecture more tliaii in any other; for it, being especially 
 dependent, as we have just said, on the warmth of the true life, 
 is also peculiarly sensible of the hemlock cold of the false : and I 
 do not know anything more oppressive, when the mind is once 
 awakened to its characteristics, than the aspect of a dead archi- 
 tecture. The feebleness of childhood is full of promise and of 
 interest, — the struggle of imperfect knowledge full of energy and 
 continuity, — but to see impotence and rigidity settling upon the 
 form of the developed man ; to see the types which once had 
 the die of thought struck fresh upon them, worn flat by over 
 use ; to see the shell of the living creature in its adult form, 
 when its colours are faded, and its inhabitant perished, — this is 
 a sight more humiliating, more melancholy, than the vanishing 
 of all knowledge, and the return to confessed and helpless infancy. 
 
 Nay, it is to be wished that such return were always possible. 
 There would be hope if we could change palsy into puerility ; but 
 I know not how far we can become children again, and renew 
 our lost life. The stirring which has taken place in our architec- 
 tural aims and interests within these few years, is thought by 
 many to be full of promise : I trust it is, but it has a sickly 
 look to me.^* I cannot tell whether it be indeed a springing of 
 seed or a shaking among bones ; and I do not think the time 
 will be lost which I ask the reader to spend in the inquiry, how 
 far all that we have hitherto ascertained or conjectured to be 
 best in principle, may be formally practised without the spirit or 
 the vitality which alone could give it influence, value, or delight- 
 fulness. 
 
 IV. Now, in the first place — and this is rather an important 
 point — it is no sign of deadness in a present art that it borrows 
 or imitates, but only if it borrows without paying interest, or if 
 
 " I am glad to see I had so much sense, thus early ; — if only I had had just a 
 little more, and stopped talking, how much life — of the vividest — I might have 
 saved from expending itself in useless sputter, and kept for careful pencil work ! 
 I might have had every bit of St. Mark's and Ravenna drawn by this time. 
 What good this wretched rant of a book can do still, since people ask for it, let 
 them make of it ; but / don't see what it's to be. The only living art now left in 
 England is Bill-sticking. 
 
152 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 it imitates without choice. The art of a great nation, which is 
 developed without any acquaintance with nobler examples than 
 its own early efforts furnish, exhibits always the most consistent 
 and comprehensible growth, and perhaps is regarded usually as 
 peculiarly venerable in its self-origination. But there is some- 
 thing to my mind more majestic yet in the life of an architecture 
 like that of the Lombards, rude and infantine in itself, and sur- 
 rounded by fragments of a nobler art of which it is quick in 
 admiration and ready in imitation, and yet so strong in its own 
 new instincts that it re-constructs and re-arranges every frag- 
 ment that it copies or borrows into harmony with its own 
 thoughts, — a harmony at first disjointed and awkward, but com- 
 pleted in the end, and fused into perfect organisation ; all the 
 borrowed elements being subordinated to its own primal, un- 
 changed, life. I do not know any sensation more exquisite than 
 the discovering of the evidence of this magnificent strueele into 
 independent existence ; the detection of the borrowed thoughts, 
 nay, the finding of the actual blocks and stones carved by other 
 hands and in other ages, wrought into the new walls, with a new 
 expression and purpose given to them, like the blocks of unsub- 
 dued rocks (to go back to our former simile) which we find in 
 the heart of the lava current, great witnesses to the power which 
 has fused all but those calcined fragments into the mass of its 
 homogeneous fire. 
 
 V. It will be asked. How is imitation to be rendered healthy 
 and vital ? Unhappily, while it is easy to enumerate the signs of 
 life, it is impossible to define or to communicate life ; and while 
 every intelligent writer on Art has insisted on the difference be- 
 tween the copying found in an advancing or recedent period, none 
 have been able to communicate, in the slightest degree, the force 
 of vitality to the copyist over whom they might have influence. 
 Yet it is at least interesting, if not profitable, to note that two 
 very distinguishing characters of vital imitation are, its Frankness 
 and its Audacity : its Frankness is especially singular ; there is 
 never any effort to conceal the degree of the sources of its 
 borrowing. Raffaelle carries off a whole figure from Masaccio, or 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 53 
 
 borrows an entire composition from Perugino, with as much tran- 
 quillity and simplicityof innocence as a young Spartan pickpocket ; 
 and the architect of a Romanesque basihca gathered his cohimns 
 and capitals where he could find them, as an ant picks up sticks. 
 There is at least a presumption, when we find this frank accept- 
 ance, that there is a sense within the mind of power capable of 
 transforming and renewing whatever it adopts ; and too conscious, 
 too exalted, to fear the accusation of plagiarism, — too certain 
 that it can prove, and has proved, its independence, to be afraid 
 of expressing its homage to what it admires in the most open and 
 indubitable way ; and the necessary consequence of this sense of 
 power is the other sign I have named — the Audacity of treatment 
 when it finds treatment necessary, the unhesitating and sweeping 
 sacrifice of precedent where precedent becomes inconvenient. 
 For instance, in the characteristic forms of Italian Romanesque, 
 in which the hj'paethral portion of the heathen temple was 
 replaced by the towering nave, and where, in consequence, the 
 pediment of the west front became divided into three portions, of 
 which the central one, like the apex of a ridge of sloping strata 
 lifted by a sudden fault, was broken away from and raised above 
 the wings ; there remained at the extremities of the aisles two 
 triangular fragments of pediment, which could not now be filled 
 by any of the modes of decoration adapted for the unbroken 
 space ; and the difficulty became greater, when the central por- 
 tion of the front was occupied by columnar ranges, which could 
 not, without painful abruptness, terminate short of the extremities 
 of the wings. I know not what expedient would have been 
 adopted by architects who had much respect for precedent, under 
 such circumstances, but it certainly would not have been that of 
 the Pisan, — to continue the range of columns into the pedimental 
 space, shortening them to its extremity until the shaft of the last 
 column vanished altogether, and there remained only its capital 
 resting in the angle on its basic plinth. I raise no question at 
 present whether this arrangement be graceful or otherwise ; I 
 allege it only as an instance of a boldness almost without a 
 parallel, casting aside every received principle that stood in its 
 
 X 
 
154 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 way, and struggling through every discordance and difficulty to 
 the fulfilment of its own instincts. 
 
 VI. Frankness, however, is in itself no excuse for repetition, 
 nor Audacity for innovation, when the one is indolent and the 
 other unwise. Nobler and surer signs of vitality must be sought, 
 — signs independent alike of the decorative or original character 
 of the style, and constant in every style that is determinedly 
 progressive. 
 
 Of these, one of the most important I believe to be a certain 
 neglect or contempt of refinement in execution, or, at all events, 
 a visible subordination of execution to conception, commonly 
 involuntary, but not unfrequently intentional. This is a point, 
 however, on which, while I speak confidently, I must at the 
 same time speak reservedly and carefully, as there would other- 
 wise be much chance of my being dangerously misunderstood. 
 
 APHORISM24. It has been truly observed, and w^ell stated, by Lord 
 
 Perfect finish Lindsay, that the best designers of Italy v^/ere also the 
 
 characterizes •' ° •' 
 
 aldiltecuire"' Hiost carcful in their workmanship; and that the 
 painting. Stability and finish of their masonry, mosaic, or other 
 w^ork whatsoever, were always perfect in proportion to 
 the apparent improbability of the great designers con- 
 descending to the care of details among us so despised. 
 Not only do I fully admit and re-assert this most im- 
 portant fact, but I would insist upon perfect and most 
 delicate finish in its right place, as a characteristic of 
 all the highest schools of architecture, as much as it is 
 of those of painting. But on the other hand, as perfect 
 finish belongs to the perfected art, a progressive finish 
 belongs to progressive art ; and I do not think that any 
 more fatal sign of a stupor or numbness settling upon 
 that undeveloped art could possibly be detected, than 
 that it had been taken aback by its own execution, and 
 that the workmanship had gone ahead of the design; 
 
Plate XII 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 55 
 
 while, even in my admission of absolute finish in the 
 right place, as an attribute of the perfected school, I 
 must reserve to myself the right of answering in my 
 own way the two very important questions — what is 
 finish ? and what is its right place ? 
 
 VII. But in illustrating either of these points, we must re- 
 member that the correspondence of workmanship with thought is, 
 in existent examples, interfered with by the adoption of the designs 
 of an advanced period by the workmen of a rude one. All the 
 beginnings of Christian architecture are of this kind, and the 
 necessary consequence is of course an increase of the visible 
 interval between the power of realisation and the beauty of the 
 idea. We have at first an imitation, almost savage in its rudeness, 
 of a classical design ; as the art advances, the design is modified 
 by a mixture of Gothic grotesqueness, and the execution more 
 complete, until a harmony is established between the two, in 
 which balance they advance to new perfection. Now during the 
 whole period in which the ground is being recovered, there will 
 be found in the living architecture marks, not to be mistaken, of 
 intense impatience ; a struggle towards something unattained, 
 which causes all minor points of handling to be neglected; and a 
 restless disdain of all qualities which appear either to confess 
 contentment, or to require a time and care which might be better 
 spent. And, exactly as a good and earnest student of drawing 
 will not lose time in rulinsf lines or finishinof backorounds 
 about studies which, while they have answered his immediate 
 purpose, he knows to be imperfect and inferior to what he will do 
 hereafter, — so the vigour of a true school of early architecture, 
 which is either working under the influence of high example 
 or which is itself in a state of rapid development, is very 
 curiously traceable, among other signs, in the contempt of exact 
 symmetry and measurement, which in dead architecture are the 
 most painful necessities. 
 
 VIII. In Plate XII. fig. i. I have given a most singular in- 
 stance both of rude execution and defied symmetry, in the little 
 
156 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 pillar and spandril from a panel decoration under the pulpit of 
 St. Mark's at Venice. The imperfection (not merely simplicity, 
 but actual rudeness and ugliness) of the leaf ornament will strike 
 the eye at once : this is general in works of the time, but it is not 
 so common to find a capital which has been so carelessly cut ; its 
 imperfect volutes being pushed up one side far higher than on the 
 other, and contracted on that side, an additional drill hole being 
 put in to fill the space ; besides this, the member a of the mould- 
 ings, is a roll where it follows the arch, and a flat fillet at a ; 
 the one being slurred into the other at the angle b, and finally 
 stopped short altogether at the other side by the most un- 
 courteous and remorseless interference of the outer moulding : 
 and in spite of all this, the grace, proportion, and feeling of the 
 whole arrangement are so great, that, in its place, it leaves nothing 
 to be desired ; all the science and symmetry in the world could 
 not beat it. In fig. 4. I have endeavoured to give some idea of 
 the execution of the subordinate portions of a much higher work, 
 the pulpit of St. Andrea at Pistoja, by Nicolo Pisano. It is 
 covered with figure sculptures, executed with great care and deli- 
 cacy ; but when the sculptor came to the simple arch mouldings, 
 he did not choose to draw the eye to them by over precision of 
 work or over sharpness of shadow. The section adopted, k, in, is 
 peculiarly simple, and so slight and obtuse in its recessions as 
 never to produce a sharp line ; and it is worked with what at first 
 appears slovenliness, but is in fact sculptural sketching ; exactly 
 correspondent to a painter's light execution of a background : the 
 lines appear and disappear again, are sometimes deep, sometimes 
 shallow, sometimes quite broken off; and the recession of the 
 cusp joins that of the external arch at ;;, in the most fearless 
 defiance of all matheryatical laws of curvilinear contact. 
 
 I X. There is something very delightful in this bold expression 
 of the mind of the great master. I do not say that it is the 
 " perfect work " of patience, but I think that impatience is a 
 pflorious character in an advancing school : and I love the 
 Romanesque and early Gothic especially, because they afford so 
 much room for it ; accidental carelessnesses of measurement or of 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 157 
 
 execution being- mingled undistinguishably with the purposed 
 departures from symmetrical regularity, and the luxuriousness of 
 perpetually variable fancy, which are eminently characteristic of 
 both styles. How great, how frequent they are, and how brightly 
 the severity of architectural law is relieved by their grace and 
 suddenness, has not, I think, been enough observed ; still less, the 
 unequal measurements of even important features professing to 
 be absolutely symmetrical. I am not so familiar with modern 
 practice as to speak with confidence respecting its ordinary 
 precision ; but I imagine that the following measures of the 
 western front of the cathedral of Pisa, would be looked upon by 
 present architects as very blundering approximations. That front 
 is divided into seven arched compartments, of which the second, 
 fourth or central, and sixth contain doors ; the seven are in a 
 most subtle alternating proportion ; the central being the largest, 
 next to it the second and sixth, then the first and seventh, lastly 
 the third and fifth. By this arrangement, of course, these 
 three pairs should be equal ; and they are so to the eye, but I 
 found their actual measures to be the following, taken from 
 pillar to pillar, in Italian braccia, palmi (four inches each), and 
 inches : — 
 
 1. Central door . 
 
 2. Northern door "1 
 
 3. Southern door j 
 
 4. Extreme northern space ] 
 
 5. Extreme southern space j 
 
 6. Northern intervals between the doors ~| 
 
 7. Southern intervals between the doors J 
 
 There is thus a difference, severally, between 2, 3 and 4, 5, of 
 five inches and a half in the one case, and five inches in the 
 other. 
 
 X. This, however, may perhaps be partly attributable to some 
 accommodation of the accidental distortions which evidently took 
 place in the walls of the cathedral during their building, as much 
 as in those of the campanile. To my mind, those of the Duomo 
 
 
 
 
 Total in 
 
 accia. 
 
 Falmi. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 = 192 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 H 
 
 = i57i 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 = 163 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 3i 
 
 = i43i 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 Ot 
 
 = i48i 
 
 S 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 = 129 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 It 
 
 = I29f 
 
158 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 are far the more wonderful of the two : I do not believe that 
 a single pillar of its walls is absolutely vertical : the pavement 
 rises and falls to different heights, or rather the plinth of 
 the walls sinks into it continually to different depths, the 
 whole west front literally overhangs, (I have not plumbed it; 
 but the inclination may be seen by the eye, by bringing it into 
 visual contact with the upright pilasters of the Campo Santo :) 
 and a most extraordinary distortion in the masonry of the 
 southern wall shows that this inclination had beo^un when the 
 first story was built. The cornice above the first arcade of that 
 wall touches the tops of eleven out of its fifteen arches ; but it 
 suddenly leaves the tops of the four westernmost ; the arches 
 nodding westward and sinking into the ground, while the cornice 
 rises (or seems to rise), leaving at any rate, whether by the rise 
 of the one or the fall of the other, an interval of more than two 
 feet between it and the top of the western arch, filled by added 
 courses of masonry. There is another very curious evidence of 
 this struggle of the architect with his yielding wall in the 
 columns of the main entrance. (These notices are perhaps some- 
 what irrelevant to our immediate subject, but they appear to me 
 highly interesting ; and they, at all events, prove one of the points 
 on which I would insist, — how much of imperfection and variety 
 in things professing to be symmetrical the eyes of those eager 
 builders could endure : they looked to loveliness in detail, to 
 nobility in the whole, never to petty measurements.) Those 
 columns of the principal entrance are among the loveliest in 
 Italy ; cylindrical, and decorated with a rich arabesque of 
 sculptured foliage, which at the base extends nearly all round 
 them, up to the black pilaster in which they are lightly engaged : 
 but the shield of foliage, bounded by a severe line, narrows to 
 their tops, where it covers their frontal segment only ; thus 
 giving, when laterally seen, a terminal line sloping boldly 
 outwards, which, as I think, was meant to conceal the accidental 
 leaning of the western walls, and, by its exaggerated inclination 
 in the same direction, to throw them by comparison into a seem- 
 ing vertical. 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 59 
 
 XI. There is another very curious instance of distortion above 
 the central door of the west front. All the intervals between the 
 seven arches are filled with black marble, each containing in its 
 centre a white parallelogram filled with animal mosaics, and the 
 whole surmounted by a broad white band, which, generally, does 
 not touch the parallelogram below. But the parallelogram on 
 the north of the central arch has been forced into an oblique 
 position, and touches the white band ; and, as if the architect was 
 determined to show that he did not care whether it did or not, 
 the white band suddenly gets thicker at that place, and remains 
 so over the next two arches. And these differences are the more 
 curious because the workmanship of them all is most finished and 
 masterly, and the distorted stones are fitted with as much neat- 
 ness as if they tallied to a hair's breadth. There is no look of 
 slurring or blundering about it ; it is all coolly filled in, as if the 
 builder had no sense of anything being wrong or extraordinary ; 
 I only wish we had a little of his impudence. 
 
 XII. Still, the reader will say that all these variations are 
 probably dependent more on the bad foundation than on the 
 architect's feeling. Not so the exquisite delicacies of change in 
 the proportions and dimensions of the apparently symmetrical 
 arcades of the west front. It will be remembered that I said 
 the tower of Pisa was the only ugly tower in Italy, because its 
 tiers were equal, or nearly so, in height ; a fault this, so contrary 
 to the spirit of the builders of the time, that it can be considered 
 only as an unlucky caprice. Perhaps the general aspect of the 
 west front of the cathedral may then have occurred to the 
 reader's mind, as seemingly another contradiction of the rule I 
 had advanced. It would not have been so, however, even had 
 its four upper arcades been actually equal ; as they are sub- 
 ordinated to the great seven-arched lower story, in the manner 
 before noticed respecting the spire of Salisbury, and as is 
 actually the case in the Duomo of Lucca and Tower of Pistoja. 
 But the Pisan front is far more subtly proportioned. Not one of 
 its four arcades is of like height with another. The highest is 
 the third, counting upwards ; and they diminish in nearly arith- 
 
l6o THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 metical proportion alternately; in the order 3rd, ist, 2nd, 4th. 
 The inequalities in their arches are not less remarkable : they at 
 first strike the eye as all equal ; but there is a grace about them 
 which equality never obtained : on closer observation, it is per- 
 ceived that in the first row of nineteen arches, eighteen are equal, 
 and the central one larger than the rest ; in the second arcade, 
 the nine central arches stand over the nine below, having, like 
 them, the ninth central one largest. But on their flanks, where 
 is the slope of the shoulder-like pediment, the arches vanish, and 
 a wedge-shaped frieze takes their place, tapering outwards, in 
 order to allow the columns to be carried to the extremity of the 
 pediment ; and here, where the heights of the shafts are so fast 
 shortened, they are set thicker ; five shafts, or rather four and a 
 capital, above, to four of the arcade below, giving tAventy-one 
 intervals instead of nineteen. In the next or third arcade, — which, 
 remember, is the highest, — eight arches, all equal, are given in 
 the space of the nine below, so that there is now a central shaft 
 instead of a central arch, and the span of the arches is increased 
 in proportion to their increased height. Finally, in the upper- 
 most arcade, which is the lowest of all, the arches, the same in 
 number as those below, are narrower than any of the facade ; the 
 whole eight going very nearly above the six below them, while 
 the terminal arches of the lower arcade are surmounted by flank- 
 ing masses of decorated wall with projecting figures. 
 
 XIII. Now I call that Living Architecture. There is sen- 
 sation in every inch of it, and an accommodation to every archi- 
 tectural necessity, with a determined variation in arrangement, 
 which is exactly like the related proportions and provisions in the 
 structure of organic form. I have not space to examine the 
 still lovelier proportioning of the external shafts of the apse 
 of this marvellous building. I prefer, lest the reader should 
 think it a peculiar example, to state the structure of another 
 church, the most graceful and grand piece of Romanesque work, 
 as a fragment, in north Italy, that of San Giovanni Evangelista, 
 at Pistoja. 
 
 The side of that church has three stories of arcade, diminishing 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. l6l 
 
 in height in bold geometrical proportion, while the arches, for the 
 most part, increase in number in arithmetical, i.e. two in the 
 second arcade, and three in the third, to one in the first. Lest, 
 however, this arrangement should be too formal, of the fourteen 
 arches in the lowest series, that which contains the door is made 
 larger than the rest, and is not in the middle, but the sixth from 
 the West, leaving five on one side and eight on the other. 
 Farther : this lowest arcade is terminated by broad flat pilasters, 
 about half the width of its arches ; but the arcade above is con- 
 tinuous ; only the two extreme arches at the west end are made 
 larger than all the rest, and instead of coming, as they should, 
 into the space of the lower extreme arch, take in both it and its 
 broad pilaster. Even this, however, was not out of order enough 
 to satisfy the architect's eye ; for there were still two arches 
 above to each single one below : so, at the east end, where there 
 were more arches, and the eye might be more easily cheated, 
 what does he do but nai^'ow the two extreme lower arches by 
 half a braccio ; while he at the same time slightly enlarged the 
 upper ones, so as to get only seventeen upper to nine lower, in- 
 stead of eighteen to nine. The eye is thus thoroughly confused, 
 and the whole building thrown into one mass, by the curious 
 variations in the adjustments of the superimposed shafts, not one 
 of which is either exacdy in, or positively out of its place ; and, 
 to get this managed the more cunningly, there is from an inch to 
 an inch and a half of gradual gain in the space of the four eastern 
 arches, besides the confessed half braccio. Their measures, 
 counting from the east, I found as follows :— 
 
 Braccia. Palmi. Inches. 
 
 ist . .3 O 1 
 
 2nd ..30 2 
 
 3rd . .3 3 2 
 
 4th . .3 3 i\ 
 
 The upper arcade is managed on the same principle : it looks 
 at first as if there were three arches to each under pair ; but 
 there are, in reality, only thirty-eight (or thirty-seven, I am not 
 
 Y 
 
1 62 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 quite certain of this number) to the twenty-seven below ; and the 
 columns get into all manner of relative positions. Even then, 
 the builder was not satisfied, but must needs carr)' the irregularity 
 into the spring of the arches, and actually, while the general effect 
 is of a symmetrical arcade, there is not one of the arches the 
 same in height as another ; their tops undulate all along the wall 
 like waves along a harbour quay, some nearly touching the string 
 course above, and others falling from it as much as five or six 
 inches. 
 
 XIV. Let us next examine the plan of the west front of St. 
 Mark's at Venice, which, though in many respects imperfect, is 
 in its proportions, and as a piece of rich and fantastic colour, 
 as lovely a dream as ever filled human imagination. It may, 
 perhaps, however, interest the reader to hear one opposite opinion 
 upon this subject ; and after what has been urged in the preceding 
 pages respecting proportion in general, more especially respecting 
 the wrongness of balanced cathedral towers and other regular 
 designs, together with my frequent references to the Doge's palace, 
 and campanile of St. Mark's, as models of perfection, and my 
 praise of the former especially as projecting above its second 
 arcade, the following extracts from the journal of Wood the 
 architect, written on his arrival at Venice, may have a pleasing 
 freshness in them, and may show that I have not been stating 
 principles altogether trite or accepted. 
 
 " The strange looking church, and the great ugly campanile, 
 could not be mistaken. The exterior of this church surprises 
 you by its extreme ugliness, more than by any thing else." 
 
 " The Ducal Palace is even more ugly than any thing I have 
 previously mentioned. Considered in detail, I can imagine no 
 alteration to make it tolerable ; but if this lofty wall had been set 
 back behind the two stories of little arches, it would have been a 
 very noble production." 
 
 After more observations on " a certain justness of proportion," 
 and on the appearance of riches and power in the church, to 
 which he ascribes a pleasing effect, he goes on : " Some persons 
 are of opinion that irregularity is a necessary part of its ex- 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 63 
 
 cellence. I am decidedly of a contrary opinion, and am con- 
 vinced that a regular design of the same sort would be far 
 superior. Let an oblong of good architecture, but not very 
 showy, conduct to a fine cathedral, which should appear between 
 two lofty towers and have two obelisks in front, and on each side 
 of this cathedral let other squares partially open into the first, 
 and one of these extend down to a harbour or sea shore, and 
 you would have a scene which might challenge any thing in 
 existence." 
 
 Why Mr. Wood was unable to enjoy the colour of St. Mark's, 
 or perceive the majesty of the Ducal palace, the reader will see 
 after reading the two following extracts regarding the Caracci 
 and Michael Angelo. 
 
 " The pictures here (Bologna) are to my taste far preferable 
 to those of Venice, for if the Venetian school surpass in colouring 
 and, perhaps, in composition, the Bolognese is decidedly superior 
 in drawing and expression, and the Caraccis shine here like 
 Gods!' 
 
 "What is it that is so much admired in this artist (M. 
 Angelo) .'' Some contend for a grandeur of composition in the 
 lines and disposition of the figures ; this, I confess, I do not com- 
 prehend ; yet, while I acknowledge the beauty of certain forms 
 and proportions in architecture, I cannot consistently deny that 
 similar merits may exist in painting, though I am unfortunately 
 unable to appreciate them." 
 
 I think these passages very valuable, as showing the effect of 
 a contracted knowledge and false taste in painting upon an archi- 
 tect's understanding of his own art ; and especially with what 
 curious notions, or lack of notions, about proportion, that art has 
 been sometimes practised. For Mr. Wood is by no means unintel- 
 ligent in his observations generally, and his criticisms on classical 
 art are often most valuable. But those who love Titian better 
 than the Caracci, and who see something to admire in Michael 
 Angelo, will, perhaps, be willing to proceed with me to a charitable 
 examination of St. Mark's. For, although the present course of 
 European events affords us some chance of seeing the changes 
 
164 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 proposed by Mr. Wood carried into execution, we may still esteem 
 ourselves fortunate in having first known how it was left by the 
 builders of the eleventh century. 
 
 XV. The entire front is composed of an upper and lower series 
 of arches, enclosing spaces of wall decorated with mosaic, and 
 supported on ranges of shafts of which, in the lower series of 
 arches, there is an upper range superimposed on a lower. Thus 
 we have five vertical divisions of the facade ; i.e. two tiers of shafts, 
 and the arched wall they bear, below ; one tier of shafts, and the 
 arched wall they bear, above. In order, however, to bind the two 
 main divisions together, the central lower arch (the main entrance) 
 rises above the level of the gallery and balustrade which crown 
 the lateral arches. 
 
 The proportioning of the columns and walls of the lower story 
 is so lovely and so varied, that it would need pages of description 
 before it could be fully understood ; but it may be generally stated 
 thus : The height of the lower shafts, upper shafts, and wall, being 
 severally expressed by a, b, and c, then a:c::c:b{a being the 
 highest) ; and diameter of shaft b is generally to the diameter of 
 shaft a as height b is to height a, or somethinsf less, allowing- for 
 the large plinth which diminishes the apparent height of the upper 
 shaft : and when this is their proportion of width, one shaft above 
 is put above one below, with sometimes another upper shaft inter- 
 posed : but in the extreme arches a single under shaft bears two 
 upper, proportioned as truly as the boughs of a tree ; that is to 
 say, the diameter of each upper =r \ of lower. There being thus 
 the three terms of proportion gained in the lower story, the upper, 
 while it is only divided into two main members, in order that the 
 whole height may not be divided into an even number, has the 
 third term added in its pinnacles. So far of the vertical division. 
 The lateral is still more subtle. There are seven arches in the 
 lower story ; and, calling the central arch a, and counting to 
 the extremity, they diminish in the alternate order, a, c, b, d. 
 The upper story has five arches, and two added pinnacles ; and 
 these diminish in irgular order, the central being the largest, and 
 the outermost the least. Hence, while one proportion ascends. 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 65 
 
 another descends, like parts in music ; and yet the pyramidal form 
 is secured for the whole, and, which was another great point of 
 attention, none of the shafts of the upper arches stand over those 
 of the lower. 
 
 XVI. It might have been thought that, by this plan, enough 
 variety had been secured, but the builder was not satisfied even 
 thus : for— and this is the point bearing on the present part of 
 our subject — always calling the central arch a, and the lateral 
 ones b and c in succession, the northern b and c are considerably 
 wider than southern b and c, but the southern d is as much wider 
 than the northern d, and lower beneath its cornice besides ; and, 
 more than this, I hardly believe that one of the effectively sym- 
 metrical members of the fagade is actually symmetrical with any 
 other. I regret that I cannot state the actual measures. I gave 
 up the taking them upon the spot, owing to their excessive com- 
 plexity, and the embarrassment caused by the yielding and sub- 
 sidence of the arches. 
 
 Do not let it be supposed that I imagine the Byzantine work- 
 men to have had these various principles in their minds as they 
 built. I believe they built altogether from feeling, and that it 
 was because they did so, that there is this marvellous life, change- 
 fulness, and subtlety running through their ever)' arrangement ; 
 and that we reason upon the lovely building as we should upon 
 some fair growth of the trees of the earth, that know not their 
 own beauty. 
 
 XVII. Perhaps, however, a stranger instance than any I have 
 yet given, of the daring variation of pretended symmetry, is 
 found in the front of the Cathedral of Bayeux. It consists of 
 five arches with steep pediments, the outermost filled, the three 
 central with doors ; and they appear, at first, to diminish in regular 
 proportion from the principal one in the centre. The two lateral 
 doors are very curiously managed. The tympana of their arches 
 are filled with bas-reliefs in four tiers ; in the lowest tier there is 
 in each a little temple or gate containing the principal figure (in 
 that on the right, it is the gate of Hades with Lucifer). This 
 little temple is carried, like a capital, by an isolated shaft which 
 
1 66 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 divides the whole arch at about ^ of its breadth, the larger por- 
 tion outmost ; and in that larger portion is the inner entrance 
 door. This exact correspondence, in the treatment of both 
 gates, might lead us to expect a correspondence in dimension. 
 Not at all. The small inner northern entrance measures, in 
 English feet and inches, 4 ft. 7 in. from jamb to jamb, and the 
 southern, 5 ft. exactly. Five inches in five feet is a considerable 
 variation. The outer northern porch measures, from face shaft 
 to face shaft, 13 ft. 11 in., and the southern, 14 ft. 6 in. ; giving a 
 difference of 7 in. on 14J ft. There are also variations in the 
 pediment decorations not less extraordinary. 
 
 XVIII. I imagine I have given instances enough, though I 
 could multiply them indefinitely, to prove that these variations 
 are not mere blunders, nor carelessnesses, but the result of a fixed 
 scorn, if not dislike, of accuracy in measurements ; and, in most 
 cases, I believe, of a determined resolution to work out an effec- 
 tive symmetry by variations as subtle as those of Nature. To 
 what lengths this principle was sometimes carried, we shall see 
 by the very singular management of the towers of Abbeville. I 
 do not say it is right, still less that it is wrong, but it is a wonder- 
 ful proof of the fearlessness of a living architecture ; for, say what 
 we will of it, that Flamboyant of France, however morbid, was 
 as vivid and intense in its animation as ever any phase of mortal 
 mind ; and it would have lived till now, if it had not taken to 
 telling lies. I have before noticed the general difficulty of 
 managing even lateral division, when it is into two equal parts, 
 unless there be some third reconciling member. I shall give, 
 hereafter, more examples of the modes in which this reconcilia- 
 tion is effected in towers with double lights : the Abbeville 
 architect put his sword to the knot perhaps rather too sharply. 
 Vexed by the want of unity between his two windows, he literally 
 laid their heads together, and so distorted their ogee curves, as 
 to leave only one of the trefoiled panels above, on the inner side, 
 and three on the outer side of each arch. The arrangement is 
 
 o 
 
 given in Plate XII., fig. 3. Associated with the various undula- 
 tion of flamboyant curves below, it is in the real tower hardly 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 67 
 
 observed, while it binds it into one mass in general effect. 
 Granting it, however, to be ugly and wrong, I like sins of the 
 kind, for the sake of the courage it requires to commit them. In 
 Plate II. (part of a small chapel attached to the West front of 
 the Cathedral of St. Lo), the reader will see an instance, from the 
 same architecture, of a violation of its own principles for the sake 
 of a peculiar meaning. If there be any one feature which the 
 flamboyant architect loved to decorate richly, it was the niche — 
 it was what the capital is to the Corinthian order ; yet in the case 
 before us there is an ugly beehive put in the place of the prin- 
 cipal niche of the arch. I am not sure if I am right in my inter- 
 pretation of its meaning, but I have little doubt that two figures 
 below, now broken away, once represented an Annunciation.; 
 and on another part of the same cathedral, I find the descent of 
 the Spirit, encompassed by rays of light, represented very nearly 
 in the form of the niche in question ; which appears, therefore, to 
 be intended for a representation of this effulgence, while at the 
 same time it was made a canopy for the delicate figures below. 
 Whether this was its meaning or not, it is remarkable as a darinsr 
 departure from the common habits of the time. 
 
 XIX. Far more splendid is a license taken with the niche de- 
 coration of the portal of St. Maclou at Rouen. The subject of 
 the tympanum bas-relief is the Last Judgment, and the sculpture 
 of the inferno side is carried out with a degree of power whose 
 fearful grotesqueness I can only describe as a mingling of the 
 minds of Orcagna and Hogarth. The demons are perhaps even 
 more awful than Orcagna's ; and, in some of the expressions of 
 debased humanity in its utmost despair, the English painter is at 
 least equalled. Not less wild is the imagination which gives fury 
 and fear even to the placing of the figures. An evil angel, poised 
 on the wing, drives the condemned troops from before the Judg- 
 ment seat ; with his left hand he drags behind him a cloud, which 
 he is spreading like a winding-sheet over them all ; but they are 
 urged by him so furiously, that they are driven not merely to the 
 extreme limit of that scene, which the sculptor confined elsewhere 
 within the tympanum, but out of the tympanum and into the 
 
1 68 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 niches of the arch ; while the flames that follow them, bent by the 
 blast, as it seems, of the angel's wings, rush into the niches 
 also, and burst up through their tracery, the three lowermost 
 niches being represented as all on fire, while, instead of their 
 usual vaulted and ribbed ceiling, there is a demon in the roof of 
 each, with his wings folded over it, grinning down out of the 
 black shadow. 
 
 XX. I have, however, given enough instances of vitality shown 
 in mere daring, whether wise, as surely in this last instance, or 
 inexpedient; but, as a single example of the Vitality of Assimi- 
 lation, the faculty which turns to its purposes all material that 
 is submitted to it, I would refer the reader to the extraordinary 
 columns of the arcade on the south side of the Cathedral of 
 Ferrara. A single arch of it is given in Plate XIII. on the right. 
 Four such arches forming a group, there are interposed two pairs 
 of columns, as seen on the left of the same plate ; and then come 
 another four arches. It is a long arcade of, I suppose, not less 
 than forty arches, perhaps of many more ; and in the grace and 
 simplicity of its stilted Byzantine curves I hardly know its equal. 
 Its like, in fancy of column, I certainly do not know ; there being 
 hardly two correspondent, and the architect having been ready, 
 as it seems, to adopt ideas and resemblances from any sources 
 whatsoever. The vegetation growing up the two columns is fine, 
 through bizarre ; the distorted pillars beside it suggest images of 
 less agreeable character ; the serpentine arrangements founded on 
 the usual Byzantine double knot are generally graceful ; but I 
 was puzzled to account for the excessively ugly type of the pillar, 
 fig. 3., one of a group of four. It so happened, fortunately for 
 me, that there had been a fair in Ferrara ; and, when I had 
 finished my sketch of the pillar, I had to get out of the way of 
 some merchants of miscellaneous wares, who were removing their 
 stall. It had been shaded by an awning supported by poles, 
 which, in order that the covering might be raised or lowered 
 according to the height of the sun, were composed of two separate 
 pieces, fitted to each other by a rack, in which I beheld the pro- 
 totype of my ugly pillar. It will not be thought, after what I 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 69 
 
 have above said of the inexpedience of imitating anything but 
 natural form, that I advance this architect's practice as altogether 
 exemplary ; yet the humility is instructive, which condescended 
 to such sources for motives of thought, the boldness, which could 
 depart so far from all established types of form, and the life and 
 feeling, which out of an assemblage of such quaint and uncouth 
 materials, could produce an harmonious piece of ecclesiastical 
 architecture. 
 
 XXI. I have dwelt, however, perhaps, too long upon that form 
 of vitality which is known almost as much by its errors as by its 
 atonements for them. We must briefly note the operation of it, 
 which is always right, and always necessary, upon those lesser 
 details, where it can neither be superseded by precedents, nor 
 repressed by proprieties. 
 
 I said, early in this essay, that hand-work might aphorism 25. 
 always be known from machine-work ; observing, how- ^",f te^rT'' 
 
 , . 1 , •. •I.I r i hand- work. 
 
 ever, at the same time, that it was possible tor men to compare §24. 
 turn themselves into machines, and to reduce their 
 labour to the machine level ; but so long as men work 
 as men, putting their heart into what they do, and 
 doing their best, it matters not how bad workmen they 
 may be, there will be that in the handling which is 
 above all price : it will be plainly seen that some places 
 have been delighted in more than others — that there 
 have been a pause, and a care about them ; and then 
 there will come careless bits, and fast bits ; and here 
 the chisel will have struck hard, and there lightly, and 
 anon timidly; and if the man's mind as well as his 
 heart went with his work, all this will be in the right 
 places, and each part will set off the other; and the 
 effect of the whole, as compared with the same design 
 cut by a machine or a lifeless hand, will be like that of 
 
 z 
 
lyo THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 poetry well read and deeply felt to that of the same 
 verses jangled by rote. There are many to whom the 
 difference is imperceptible ; but to those who love 
 poetry it is everything — they had rather not hear it at 
 all, than hear it ill read ; and to those who love Archi- 
 tecture, the life and accent of the hand are everything. 
 They had rather not have ornament at all, than see it 
 ill cut — deadly cut, that is. I cannot too often repeat, 
 it is not coarse cutting, it is not blunt cutting, that is 
 necessarily bad ; but it is ^^/^^ cutting — the look of equal 
 trouble everywhere — the smooth, diffused tranquillity 
 of heartless pains — the regularity of a plough in a level 
 field. The chill is more likely, indeed, to show itself 
 in finished work than in any other — men cool and tire 
 as they complete : and if completeness is thought to 
 be vested in polish, and to be attainable by help of 
 sand paper, we may as well give the work to the engine 
 iathe at once. But right finish is simply the full ren- 
 dering of the intended impression ; and high finish is 
 the rendering of a well intended and vivid impression ; 
 and it is oftener got by rough than fine handling. 
 
 I am not sure whether it is frequently enough observed that 
 sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of any thing in 
 stone ; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true 
 form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself. The 
 sculptor must paint with his chisel : half his touches are not to 
 realize, but to put power into, the form : they are touches of 
 light and shadow ; and raise a ridge, or sink a hollow, not to 
 represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a line of light, 
 or a spot of darkness. In a coarse way, this kind of execution 
 is very marked in old French woodwork ; the irises of the eyes 
 of its chimeric monsters being cut boldly into holes, which, 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. 17I 
 
 variously placed, and always dark, give all kinds of strange and 
 startling expressions, averted and askance, to the fantastic coun- 
 tenances. Perhaps the highest examples of this kind of sculp- 
 ture-painting are the works of Mino da Fiesole ; their best 
 effects being reached by strange angular, and seemingly rude, 
 touches of the chisel. The lips of one of the children on the 
 tombs in the church of the Badia, appear only half finished 
 when they are seen close ; yet the expression is farther carried, 
 and more ineffable, than in any piece of marble I have ever 
 seen, especially considering its delicacy, and the softness of the 
 child-features. In a sterner kind, that of the statues in the 
 sacristy of St. Lorenzo equals it, and there again by incom- 
 pletion. I know no example of work in which the forms are 
 absolutely true and complete where such a result is attained ; 
 (in Greek sculptures it is not even attempted.'') 
 
 XXII. It is evident that, for architectural appliances, such 
 masculine handling, likely as it must be to retain its effectiveness 
 when higher finish would be injured by time, must always be 
 the most expedient ; and as it is impossible, even were it desirable, 
 that the highest finish should be given to the quantity of work 
 which covers a large building, it will be understood how precious 
 the Intelligence must become, which renders incompletion itself a 
 means of additional expression ; and how great must be the differ- 
 ence, when the touches are rude and few, between those of a care- 
 less and those of a regardful mind. It is not easy to retain any- 
 thing of their character in a copy ; yet the reader will find one or 
 two illustrative points in the examples, given in Plate XIV., from 
 the bas-reliefs of the north door of Rouen Cathedral. There are 
 three square pedestals under the three main niches on each side 
 of It, and one in the centre ; each of these being on two sides 
 decorated with five quatrefoiled panels. There are thus seventy 
 quatrefolls in the lower ornament of the gate alone, without 
 counting those of the outer course round it, and of the pedestals 
 
 " The sentence in parenthesis is entirely false ; all the rest of the paragraph 
 true and important. The manner of the Greek in chiselling has since been ex- 
 amined at length in my " Aratra Pentelici." 
 
172 THE LAMP OF UFE. 
 
 outside : each quatrefoil is filled with a bas-relief, the whole 
 reaching to something above a man's height. A modern architect 
 would, of course, have made all the five quatrefoils of each 
 pedestal-side equal : not so the Mediaeval. The general form 
 being apparently a quatrefoil composed of semicircles on the 
 sides of a square, it will be found on examination that none of 
 the arcs are semicircles, and none of the basic figures squares. 
 The latter are rhomboids, having their acute or obtuse angles 
 uppermost according to their larger or smaller size ; and the arcs 
 upon their sides slide into such places as they can get in the 
 angles of the enclosing parallelogram, leaving intervals, at each 
 of the four angles, of various shapes, which are filled each by an 
 animal. The size of the whole panel being thus varied, the lowest 
 two of the five are tall, the next two short, and the uppermost 
 a little higher than the lowest ; while in the course of bas-reliefs 
 which surrounds the gate, calling either of the lowest two (which 
 are equal) «, and either of the next two b, and the fifth and sixth 
 c and d, then d (the largest) : c v. c : a v. a : b. It is won- 
 derful how much of the grace of the whole depends on these 
 variations. 
 
 XXIII. Each of the angles, it was said, is filled by an animal. 
 There are thus 70 x 4 rr 280 animals, all different, in the mere 
 fillings of the intervals of the bas-reliefs. Three of these inter- 
 vals, with their beasts, actual size, the curves being traced upon 
 the stone, I have given in Plate XIV. 
 
 I say nothing of their general design, or of the lines of the 
 wings and scales, which are perhaps, unless in those of the 
 central dragon, not much above the usual commonplaces of good 
 ornamental work ; but there is an evidence in the features of 
 thoughtfulness and fancy which is not common, at least now-a- 
 days. The upper creature on the left is biting something, the 
 form of which is hardly traceable in the defaced stone — but 
 biting he is ; and the reader cannot but recognise in the pecu- 
 liarly reverted eye the expression which is never seen, as I think, 
 but in the eye of a dog gnawing something in jest, and pre- 
 paring to start away with it : the meaning of the glance, so far 
 
I 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. I 73 
 
 as it can be marked by the mere incision of the chisel, will be 
 felt by comparing it with the eye of the couchant figure on the 
 right, in its gloomy and angry brooding. The plan of this head, 
 and the nod of the cap over its brow, are fine ; but there is a 
 little touch above the hand especially well meant : the fellow is 
 vexed and puzzled in his malice ; and his hand is pressed hard on 
 his cheek bone, and the flesh of the cheek is wrinkled under the 
 eye by the pressure. The whole, indeed, looks wretchedly coarse, 
 when it is seen on a scale in which it is naturally compared with 
 delicate figure etchings ; but considering it as a mere filling of 
 an interstice on the outside of a cathedral gate, and as one of 
 more than three hundred (for in my estimate I did not include 
 the outer pedestals), it proves very noble vitality in the art of the 
 time. 
 
 XXIV. I believe the right question to ask, respecting all orna- 
 ment, is simply this : Was it done with enjoyment- — was the 
 carver happy while he was about it ? It may be the hardest work 
 possible, and the harder because so much pleasure was taken in 
 it ; but it must have been happy too, or it will not be living. 
 How much of the stone mason's toil this condition would exclude 
 I hardly venture to consider, but the condition is absolute. 
 There is a Gothic church lately built near Rouen, vile enough, 
 indeed, in its general composition, but excessively rich in detail ; 
 many of the details are designed with taste, and all evidently by 
 a man who has studied old work closely. But it is all as dead as 
 leaves in December ; there is not one tender touch, not one warm 
 stroke, on the whole facade. The men who did it hated it, and 
 were thankful when it was done. And so long as they do so they 
 are merely loading your walls with shapes of clay : the garlands 
 of everlastings in Pere la Chaise are more cheerful ornaments. 
 You cannot get the feeling by paying for it — money will not buy 
 life. I am not sure even that you can get it by watching or 
 waiting for it. It is true that here and there a workman may be 
 found who has it in him, but he does not rest contented in the 
 inferior work — he struggles forward into an Academician ; and 
 from the mass of available handicraftsmen the power is gone — 
 
174 THE LAMP OF LIFE. 
 
 how recoverable I know not : this only I know, that all expense 
 devoted to sculptural ornament, in the present condition of that 
 power, comes literally under the head of Sacrifice for the sacrifice's 
 sake, or worse. I believe the only manner of rich ornament that 
 is open to us is the geometrical colour-mosaic, and that much 
 might result from our strenuously taking up this mode of design. 
 But, at all events, one thing we have in our power — the doing 
 without machine ornament and cast-iron work. All the stamped 
 metals, and artificial stones, and imitation woods and bronzes, over 
 the invention of which we hear daily exultation — all the short, 
 and cheap, and easy ways of doing that whose difficulty is its 
 honour — are just so many new obstacles in our already encumbered 
 road. They will not make one of us happier or wiser — they will 
 extend neither the pride of judgment nor the privilege of enjoy- 
 ment. They will only make us shallower in our understandings, 
 colder in our hearts, and feebler in our wits. And most justly. 
 For we are not sent into this world to do any thing into which we 
 Aphorism 26. cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for 
 t'hyltnd"''''^' our bread, and that is to be done strenuously; other 
 do it with °' work to do for our delight, and that is to be done 
 
 thy might ;" 
 
 and no other heartily: neither is to be done by halves and shifts, 
 
 might. ■' •' 
 
 but with a will ; and what is not worth this effort is 
 not to be done at all. Perhaps all that we have to do 
 is meant for nothing more than an exercise of the heart 
 and of the will, and is useless in itself; but, at all 
 events, the little use it has may well be spared if it is 
 not worth putting our hands and our strength to. It 
 does not become our immortality to take an ease incon- 
 sistent with its authority, nor to suffer any instruments 
 with which it can dispense, to come between it and the 
 things it rules : and he who would form the creations 
 of his own mind by any other instrument than his own 
 hand, would also, if he might, give grinding organs to 
 
THE LAMP OF LIFE. I 75 
 
 Heaven's angels, to make their music easier. There 
 is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sen- 
 suality enough in human existence, without our turning 
 the few glowing moments of it into mechanism ; and 
 since our life must at the best be but a vapour that 
 appears for a little time and then vanishes away, let it 
 at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not 
 as the thick darkness that broods over the blast of the 
 Furnace, and rolling of the Wheel. 
 
176 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 I. Among the hours of his life to which the writer looks back 
 with peculiar gratitude, as having been marked by more than 
 ordinary fulness of joy or clearness of teaching, is one passed, 
 now some years ago, near time of sunset, among the broken 
 masses of pine forest which skirt the course of the Ain, above 
 the village of Champagnole, in the Jura. It is a spot which 
 has all the solemnity, with none of the savageness, of the 
 Alps ; where there is a sense of a great power beginning to be 
 manifested in the earth, and of a deep and majestic concord in 
 the rise of the long low lines of piny hills ; the first utterance of 
 those mighty mountain symphonies, soon to be more loudly lifted 
 and wildly broken along the battlements of the Alps. But their 
 strength is as yet restrained ; and the far reaching ridges of 
 pastoral mountain succeed each other, like the long and sighing 
 swell which moves over quiet waters from some far off stormy sea. 
 And there is a deep tenderness pervading that vast monotony. 
 The destructive forces and the stern expression of the central 
 ranges are alike withdrawn. No frost-ploughed, dust-encumbered 
 paths of ancient glacier fret the soft Jura pastures; no splintered 
 heaps of ruin break the fair ranks of her forest ; no pale, defiled, 
 or furious rivers rend their rude and changeful ways among her 
 rocks. Patiently, eddy by eddy, the clear green streams wind 
 along their well-known beds ; and under the dark quietness of 
 the undisturbed pines, there spring up, year by year, such company 
 of joyful flowers as I know not the like of among all the blessings 
 of the earth. It was spring time, too ; and all were coming forth 
 in clusters crowded for very love ; there was room enough for 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. I 77 
 
 all, but they crushed their leaves into all manner of strange 
 shapes only to be nearer each other. There was the wood 
 anemone, star after star, closing every now and then into nebula; ; 
 and there was the oxalis, troop by troop, like virginal processions 
 of the Mois de Marie, the dark vertical clefts in the limestone 
 choked up with them as with heavy snow, and touched with ivy 
 on the edges — ivy as light and lovely as the vine ; and, ever and 
 anon, a blue gush of violets, and cowslip bells in sunny places ; 
 and in the more open ground, the vetch, and comfrey, and 
 mezereon, and the small sapphire buds of the Polygala Alpina, 
 and the wild strawberry, just a blossom or two, all showered 
 amidst the golden softness of deep, warm, amber-coloured moss. 
 I came out presently on the edge of the ravine : the solemn 
 murmur of its waters rose suddenly from beneath, mixed with the 
 singing of the thrushes among the pine boughs ; and, on the oppo- 
 site side of the valley, walled all along as it was by grey cliffs of 
 limestone, there was a hawk sailing slowly off their brow, touching 
 them nearly with his wings, and with the shadows of the pines 
 flickering upon his plumage from above ; but with a fall of a 
 hundred fathoms under his breast, and the curling pools of the 
 green river gliding and glittering dizzily beneath him, their foam 
 elobes movincf with him as he flew. It would be difficult to 
 conceive a scene less dependent upon any other interest than that 
 ,of its own secluded and serious beauty ; but the writer well 
 remembers the sudden blankness and chill which were cast upon 
 it when he endeavoured, in order more strictly to arrive at the 
 sources of its impressiveness, to imagine it, for a moment, a scene 
 in some aboriginal forest of the New Continent. The flowers in 
 an instant lost their light, the river its music ; the hills became 
 oppressively desolate ; a heaviness in the boughs of the darkened 
 forest showed how much of their former power had been depen- 
 dent upon a life which was not theirs, how much of the glory of 
 the imperishable, or continually renewed, creation is reflected from 
 things more precious In their memories than it, in its renewing. 
 Those ever springing flowers, and ever flowing streams had been 
 dyed by the deep colours of human endurance, valour, and virtue ; 
 
 A A 
 
178 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 and the crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening 
 sky received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell east- 
 ward over the iron wall of Joux, and the four-square keep of 
 Granson. 
 
 II. It is as the centralisation and protectress of this sacred in- 
 fluence, that Architecture is to be regarded by us with the most 
 serious thought. We may live without her, and worship without 
 her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all his- 
 tory, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living 
 nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears ! — how many 
 pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few 
 stones left one upon another! The ambition of the old Babel 
 builders was well directed for this world : there are but two strong 
 conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture ; 
 and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in 
 its reality : it is well to have, not only what men have thought 
 and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength 
 wrought, and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life. The 
 age of Homer is surrounded with darkness, his very personality 
 with doubt. Not so that of Pericles : and the day is coming 
 when we shall confess, that we have learned more of Greece out 
 of the crumbled fragments of her sculpture than even from her 
 
 Aphorism 27. sweet singers or soldier historians. And if indeed there be 
 Architecture any profit in our knowledge of the past, or any joy in 
 
 is to be made 
 
 historical and ^j^g thought of being remembered hereafter, which can 
 
 preserved as ° " 
 
 give strength to present exertion, or patience to present 
 endurance, there are two duties respecting national 
 architecture whose importance it is impossible to over- 
 rate : the first, to render the architecture of the day, 
 historical ; and, the second, to preserve, as the most 
 precious of inheritances, that of past ages. 
 
 III. It is in the first of these two directions that Memory may 
 truly be said to be the Sixth Lamp of Architecture ; for it is 
 in becoming memorial or monumental that a true perfection is 
 
 such. 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1/9 
 
 attained by civil and domestic buildings ; and this partly as they 
 are, with such a view, built in a more stable manner, and pardy 
 as their decorations are consequendy animated by a metaphorical 
 or historical meaning. 
 
 As regards domestic buildings, there must always be a certain 
 limitation to views of this kind in the power, as well as in the 
 hearts, of men ; still I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people 
 when their houses are built to last for one generation only. 
 There is a sanctity in a good man's house which cannot be 
 renewed in every tenement that rises on its ruins : and I believe 
 that good men would generally feel this ; and that having spent 
 their lives happily and honourably, they would be grieved, at the 
 close of them, to think that the place of their earthly abode, 
 which had seen, and seemed almost to sympathise in, all their 
 honour, their gladness, or their suffering, — that this, with all the 
 record it bare of them, and of all material things that they had 
 loved and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon — 
 was to be swept away, as soon as there was room made for them 
 in the grave ; that no respect was to be shown to it, no affection 
 felt for it, no good to be drawn from it by their children ; that 
 though there was a monument in the church, there was no warm 
 monument in the hearth and house to them ; that all that they 
 ever treasured was despised, and the places that had sheltered 
 and comforted them were dragged down to the dust. I say that 
 a good man would fear this ; and that, far more, a good son, 
 a noble descendant, would fear doing it to his father's house. 
 
 I say that if men lived like men indeed, their houses aphorism 28. 
 w^ould be temples — temples which we should hardly The sanctity 
 
 ^ ^ •'of home, for 
 
 dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy g°o<i>"«"- 
 to be permitted to live; and there must be a strange 
 dissolution of natural affection, a strange unthankful- 
 ness for all that homes have given and parents taught, 
 a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful 
 to our fathers' honour, or that our own lives are not 
 
I So THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 such as would make our dwellings sacred to our 
 children, when each man would fain build to himself, 
 and build for the little revolution of his own life only. 
 And I look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and 
 clay which spring up, in mildewed forwardness, out of 
 the kneaded fields about our capital — upon those thin, 
 tottering, foundationless shells of splintered wood and 
 imitated stone — upon those gloomy rows of formalised 
 minuteness, alike without difference and without fel- 
 lowship, as solitary as similar — not merely with the 
 careless disgust of an offended eye, not merely with 
 sorrow for a desecrated landscape, but with a painful 
 foreboding that the roots of our national greatness 
 must be deeply cankered when they are thus loosely 
 struck in their native ground ; that those comfortless 
 and unhonoured dwellings are the signs of a great and 
 spreading spirit of popular discontent ; that they mark 
 the time when every man's aim is to be in some more 
 elevated sphere than his natural one, and every man's 
 past life is his habitual scorn ; when men build in the 
 hope of leaving the places they have built, and live in 
 the hope of forgetting the years that they have lived ; 
 when the comfort, the peace, the religion of home have 
 ceased to be felt ; and the crowded tenements of a 
 struggling and restless population differ only from the 
 tents of the Arab or the Gipsy by their less healthy 
 openness to the air of heaven, and less happy choice 
 of their spot of earth ; by their sacrifice of liberty with- 
 out the gain of rest, and of stability without the luxury 
 of change. 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. l8l 
 
 IV. This is no slight, no consequenceless evil ; it is ominous, 
 infectious, and fecund of other fault and misfortune. When men 
 do not love their hearths, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a 
 sign that they have dishonoured both, and that they have never 
 acknowledged the true universality of that Christian worship 
 which was indeed to supersede the idolatry, but not the piety, of 
 the pagan. Our God is a household God, as well as a heavenly 
 one ; He has an altar in every man's dwelling; let men look to 
 it when they rend it lightly and pour out its ashes. It is not a 
 question of mere ocular delight, it is no question of intellectual 
 pride, or of cultivated and critical fancy, how, and with what 
 aspect of durability and of completeness, the domestic buildings 
 of a nation shall be raised. It is one of those moral duties, not 
 with more impunity to be neglected because the perception of 
 them depends on a finely toned and balanced conscientiousness, 
 to build our dwellings with care, and patience, and fondness, and 
 diligent completion, and with a view to their duration at least for 
 such a period as, in the ordinary course of national revolutions, 
 might be supposed likely to extend to the entire alteration of the 
 direction of local interests. This at the least ; but it would be 
 better if, in every possible instance, men built their own houses 
 on a scale commensurate rather with their condition at the com- 
 mencement, than their attainments at the termination, of their 
 worldly career ; and built them to stand as long as human work 
 at its strongest can be hoped to stand ; recording to their children 
 what they had been, and from what, if so it had been permitted 
 them, they had risen. And when houses are thus built, we may 
 have that true domestic architecture, the beginning of all other, 
 which does not disdain to treat with respect and thoughtfulness 
 the small habitation as well as the large, and which invests with 
 the dignity of contented manhood the narrowness of worldly 
 circumstance. 
 
 V. I look to this spirit of honourable, proud, peaceful self-pos- 
 session, this abiding wisdom of contented life, as probably one 
 of the chief sources of great intellectual power in all ages, and 
 beyond dispute as the very primal source of the great architec- 
 
1 82 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 ture of old Italy and France. To this day, the interest of their 
 fairest cities depends, not on the isolated richness of palaces, but 
 on the cherished and exquisite decoration of even the smallest 
 tenements of their proud periods. The most elaborate piece of 
 architecture in Venice is a small house at the head of the Grand 
 Canal, consisting of a ground floor with two stories above, three 
 windows in the first, and two in the second. Many of the most 
 exquisite buildings are on the narrower canals, and of no larger 
 dimensions. One of the most interesting pieces of fifteenth 
 century architecture in North Italy, is a small house in a back 
 street, behind the market-place of Vicenza; it bears date 1481, 
 and the motto, II .nest .rose .sans .dpine . ; it has also only a 
 ground floor and two stories, with three windows in each, sepa- 
 rated by rich flower-work, and with balconies, supported, the 
 central one by an eagle with open wings, the lateral ones by 
 winged griffins standing on cornucopiee. The idea that a house 
 must be large in order to be well built, is altogether of modern 
 growth, and is parallel with the idea, that no picture can be his- 
 torical, except of a size admitting figures larger than life. 
 
 VI. I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to 
 last, and built to be lovely ; as rich and full of pleasantness as 
 may be, within and without ; with what degree of likeness to 
 each other in style and manner, I will say presently, under 
 another head ; but, at all events, with such differences as might 
 suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly 
 his history. This right over the house, I conceive, belongs to 
 its first builder, and is to be respected by his children ; and it 
 would be well that blank stones should be left in places, to be 
 inscribed with a summary of his life and of its experience, raising 
 thus the habitation into a kind of monument, and developing, 
 into more systematic instructiveness, that good custom which 
 was of old universal, and which still remains among some of the 
 Swiss and Germans, of acknowledging the grace of God's per- 
 mission to build and possess a quiet resting-place, in such sweet 
 words as may well close our speaking of these things. I have 
 taken them from the front of a cottage lately built among the 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 83 
 
 green pastures which descend from the village of Grindelwald 
 to the lower glacier : — 
 
 " Mit herzlichem Vertrauen 
 Hat Johannes Mooter und Maria Rubi 
 Dieses Haus bauen lassen. 
 Der liebe Gott woll uns bewahren 
 Vor allem Ungliick und Gefahren, 
 Und es in Segen lassen stehn 
 Auf der Reise durch diese Jammerzeit 
 Nach dem himmlischen Paradiese, 
 Wo alle Frommen wohnen, 
 Da wird Gott sie belohnen 
 Mit der Friedenskrone 
 Zu alle Ewigkeit." 
 
 VII. In public buildings the historical purpose should be still 
 more definite. It is one of the advantages of Gothic architecture, 
 — I use the word Gothic in the most extended sense as broadly 
 opposed to classical, — that it admits of a richness of record alto- 
 gether unlimited. Its minute and multitudinous sculptural deco- 
 rations aftbrd means of expressing, either sjmboHcally or literally, 
 all that need be known of national feeling or achievement. More 
 decoration will, indeed, be usually required than can take so ele- 
 vated a character ; and much, even in the most thoughtful periods, 
 has been left to the freedom of fancy, or suffered to consist of 
 mere repetitions of some national bearing or symbol. It is, 
 however, generally unwise, even in mere surface ornament, to 
 surrender the power and privilege of variety which the spirit of 
 Gothic architecture admits ; much more in important features — 
 capitals of columns or bosses, and string-courses, as of course in 
 all confessed bas-reliefs. Better the rudest work that tells a 
 story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. There 
 should not be a single ornament put upon great civic buildings, 
 without some intellectual intention. Actual representation of 
 history has in modern times been checked by a difficulty, mean 
 indeed, but steadfast ; that of unmanageable costume : neverthe- 
 less, by a sufficiently bold imaginative treatment, and frank use 
 of symbols, all such obstacles may be vanquished ; not perhaps in 
 
184 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 the degree necessary to produce sculpture in itself satisfactory, 
 but at all events so as to enable it to become a grand and expres- 
 sive element of architectural composition. Take, for example, 
 the management of the capitals of the ducal palace at Venice. 
 History, as such, was indeed entrusted to the painters of its 
 interior, but every capital of its arcades was filled with meaning. 
 The large one, the corner stone of the whole, next the entrance, 
 was devoted to the symbolisation of Abstract Justice; above it 
 is a sculpture of the Judgment of Solomon, remarkable for a 
 beautiful subjection in its treatment to its decorative purpose. 
 The figures, if the subject had been entirely composed of them, 
 would have awkwardly interrupted the line of the angle, and 
 diminished its apparent strength ; and therefore in the midst of 
 them, entirely without relation to them, and indeed actually 
 between the executioner and interceding mother, there rises the 
 ribbed trunk of a massy tree, which supports and continues the 
 shaft of the angle, and whose leaves above overshadow and 
 enrich the whole. The capital below bears among its leafage a 
 throned figure of Justice, Trajan doing justice to the widow, 
 Aristotle " che die legge," and one or two other subjects now 
 unintelligible from decay. The capitals next in order represent 
 the virtues and vices in succession, as preservative or destruc- 
 tive of national peace and jDower, concluding with Faith, with 
 the inscription " Fides optima in Deo est." A figure is seen on 
 the opposite side of the capital, worshipping the sun. After 
 these, one or two capitals are fancifully decorated with birds 
 (Plate v.), and then come a series representing, first the various 
 fruits, then the national costumes, and then the animals of the 
 various countries subject to Venetian rule. 
 
 VIII. Now, not to speak of any more important public build- 
 ing, let us imagine our own India House adorned in this way, by 
 historical or symbolical sculpture : massively built in the first 
 place; then chased with bas-reliefs of our Indian battles, and 
 fretted with carvings of Oriental foliage, or inlaid with Oriental 
 stones ; and the more important members of its decoration com- 
 posed of groups of Indian life and landscape, and prominently 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 85 
 
 expressing the phantasms of Hindoo worship in their subjection 
 to the Cross. Would not one such work be better than a thou- 
 sand histories .-' If, however, we have not the invention neces- 
 sary for such efforts, or if, which is probably one of the most 
 noble excuses we can offer for our deficiency in such matters, we 
 have less pleasure in talking about ourselves, even in marble, 
 than the Continental nations, at least we have no excuse for any 
 want of care in the points which insure the building's endurance. 
 And as this question is one of great interest in its relations to 
 the choice of various modes of decoration, it will be necessary 
 to'enter into it at some length. 
 
 IX. The benevolent regards and purposes of men in masses 
 seldom can be supposed to extend beyond their own generation. 
 They may look to posterity as an audience, may hope for its 
 attention, and labour for its praise : they may trust to its recog- 
 nition of unacknowledged merit, and demand its justice for 
 contemporary wrong. But all this is mere selfishness, and 
 does not involve the slightest regard to, or consideration of, the 
 interest of those by whose numbers we would fain swell the 
 circle of our flatterers, and by whose authority we would gladly 
 
 support our presently disputed claims. The idea of self- aphorism 29. 
 denial for the sake of posterity^ of practising present The earth is 
 
 an entail, not 
 
 economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting com'arer^ 
 forests that our descendants may live under their shade, 
 or of raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, 
 I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recog- 
 nised motives of exertion. Yet these are not the less 
 our duties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the 
 earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate 
 usefulness include, not only the companions but the 
 successors of our pilgrimage. God has lent us the 
 earth for our life ; it is a great entail. It belongs as 
 much to those who are to come after us, and whose 
 
 B B 
 
1 86 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 names are already written in the book of creation, as 
 to us ; and we have no right, by any thing that we do 
 or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, 
 or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power 
 to bequeath. And this the more, because it is one of 
 the appointed conditions of the labour of men that, in 
 proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and 
 the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit ; and that gene- 
 rally, therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and 
 the less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of 
 what we have laboured for, the more wide and rich 
 will be the measure of our success. Men cannot 
 benefit those that are with them as they can benefit 
 those who come after them ; and of all the pulpits from 
 which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none 
 from which it reaches so far as from the grave. 
 
 X. Nor is there, indeed, any present loss, in such respect, for 
 futurity. Every human action gains in honour, in grace, in all 
 true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is 
 the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all 
 other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his 
 Maker ; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may 
 not measure by this test. Therefore, when we build, let us think 
 that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for 
 present use alone ; let it be such work as our descendants will 
 thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a 
 time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because 
 our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look 
 upon the labour and wrought substance of them, " See ! this our 
 
 Aphorism 30. fathers did for us." For, indeed, the greatest glory of a 
 
 building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory 
 
 is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 87 
 
 of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even 
 of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls 
 that have long been washed by the passing waves of 
 humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, 
 in their quiet contrast with the transitional character 
 of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse 
 of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of 
 dynasties, and the changing of the face of the earth, 
 and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured 
 shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten 
 and following ages with each other, and half consti- 
 tutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of 
 nations : it is in that golden stain of time, that we are 
 to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness 
 of architecture ; and it is not until a building has 
 assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with 
 the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its 
 walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars 
 rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, 
 more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects 
 of the world around it, can be gifted with even so 
 much as these possess, of language and of life. 
 
 XI. For that period, then, we must build ; not indeed, refusing 
 to ourselves the delight of present completion, nor hesitating to 
 follow such portions of character as may depend upon delicacy 
 of execution to the highest perfection of which they are capable, 
 even although we may know that in the course of years such 
 details must perish ; but taking care that for work of this kind 
 we sacrifice no enduring quality, and that the building shall not 
 depend for its impressiveness upon any thing that is perishable. 
 This would, indeed, be the law of good composition under any 
 circumstances, the arrangement of the larger masses being always 
 
l88 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 a matter of greater importance than the treatment of the smaller ; 
 but in architecture there is much in that very treatment which 
 is skilful or otherwise in proportion to its just regard to the pro- 
 bable effects of time : and (which is still more to be considered) 
 there is a beauty in those effects themselves, which nothing else 
 can replace, and which it is our wisdom to consult and to desire. 
 For though, hitherto, we have been speaking of the sentiment of 
 age only, there is an actual beauty in the marks of it, such and so 
 great as to have become not unfrequently the subject of especial 
 choice among certain schools of art, and to have impressed upon 
 those schools the character usually and loosely expressed by the 
 term " picturesque." It is of some importance to our present 
 purpose to determine the true meaning of this expression, as it is 
 now generally used ; for there is a principle to be developed from 
 that use which, while it has occultly been the ground of much 
 that is true and just in our judgment of art, has never been so far 
 understood as to become definitely serviceable. Probably no 
 word in the language, (exclusive of theological expressions,) has 
 been the subject of so frequent or so prolonged dispute ; yet 
 none remain more vague in their acceptance, and it seems to me 
 to be a matter of no small interest to investigate the essence of 
 that idea which all feel, and (to appearance) with respect to 
 similar things, and yet which every attempt to define has, as I 
 believe, ended either in mere enumeration of the effects and 
 objects to which the term has been attached, or else in attempts 
 at abstraction more palpably nugatory than any which have dis- 
 graced metaphysical investigation on other subjects. A recent 
 critic on Art, for instance, has gravely advanced the theory that 
 the essence of the picturesque consists in the expression of 
 "universal decay." It would be curious to see the result of an 
 attempt to illustrate this idea of the picturesque, in a painting of 
 dead flowers and decayed fruit ; and equally curious to trace the 
 steps of any reasoning which, on such a theory, should account 
 for the picturesqueness of an ass colt as opposed to a horse foal. 
 But there is much excuse for even the most utter failure in 
 reasonings of this kind, since the subject is, indeed, one of the 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 89 
 
 most obscure of all that may legitimately be submitted to human 
 reason ; and the idea is itself so varied in the minds of different 
 men, according to their subjects of study, that no definition can 
 be expected to embrace more than a certain number of its 
 infinitely multiplied forms. 
 
 XII. That peculiar character, however, which separates the 
 picturesque from the characters of subject belonging to the higher 
 walks of art (and this is all that it is necessary for our present pur- 
 pose to define), may be shortly and decisively expressed. Pic- 
 turesqueness, in this sense, is Parasitical Sublimity. Of course 
 all sublimity, as well as all beauty is, in the simple etymological 
 sense, picturesque, that is to say, fit to become the subject of a 
 picture ; and all sublimity is, even in the peculiar sense which I 
 am endeavouring to develope, picturesque, as opposed to beauty ; 
 that is to say, there is more picturesqueness in the subject of 
 Michael Angelo than of Perugino, in proportion to the prevalence 
 of the sublime element over the beautiful. But that character, of 
 which the extreme pursuit is generally admitted to be degrading 
 to art, IS parasitical sublimity ; i. e., a sublimity dependent on the 
 ^ accidents, or on the least essential characters, of the objects to 
 which it belongs ; and the picturesque is developed distinctively 
 exactly in proportion to the distance fro77i the centre of thoiight of 
 those points of character in which the sublimity is found. Two 
 ideas, therefore, are essential to picturesqueness, — the first, that of 
 sublimity (for pure beauty is not picturesque at all, and becomes 
 so only as the sublime element mixes with it), and the second, 
 the subordinate or parasitical position of that sublimity. Of 
 course, therefore, whatever characters of line or shade or expres- 
 sion are productive of sublimity, will become productive of 
 picturesqueness : what these characters are I shall endeavour 
 hereafter to show at length ; but, among those which are generally 
 acknowledged, I may name angular and broken lines, vigorous 
 oppositions of light and shadow, and grave, deep, or boldly con- 
 trasted colour ; and all these are in a still higher deg-ree effective, 
 when, by resemblance or association, they remind us of objects on 
 which a true and essential sublimity exists, as of rocks or moun- 
 
1 90 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 tains, or stormy clouds or waves. Now if these characters, or 
 any others of a higher and more abstract subhmity, be found in 
 the very heart and substance of what we contemplate, as the sub- 
 limity of Michael Angelo depends on the expression of mental 
 character in his fieures far more than even on the noble lines of 
 their arrangement, the art which represents such characters can- 
 not be properly called picturesque : but, if they be found in the 
 accidental or external qualities, the distinctive picturesque will be 
 the result. 
 
 XIII. Thus, in the treatment of the features of the human face 
 by Francia or Angelico, the shadows are employed only to make 
 the contours of the features thoroughly felt ; and to those features 
 themselves the mind of the observer is exclusively directed (that 
 is to say, to the essential characters of the thing represented). 
 All power and all sublimity rest on these ; the shadows are used 
 only for the sake of the features. On the contrary, by Rembrandt, 
 Salvator, or Caravaggio, the features are usedybr the sake of the 
 shadows; and the attention is directed, and the power of the painter 
 addressed, to characters of accidental light and shade cast across or 
 around those features. In the case of Rembrandt there is often an 
 essential sublimity in invention and expression besides, and always 
 a high degree of it in the light and shade itself ; but it is, for the 
 most part, parasitical or engrafted sublimity as regards the subject 
 of the painting, and, just so far, picturesque. 
 
 XIV. Again, in the management of the sculptures of the 
 Parthenon, shadow is frequently employed as a dark field on 
 which the forms are drawn. This is visibly the case in the 
 metopes, and must have been nearly as much so in the pediment. 
 But the use of that shadow is entirely to show the confines of 
 the figures ; and it is to their lines, and not to the shapes of the 
 shadows behind them, that the art and the eye are addressed. 
 The figures themselves are conceived, as much as possible, in full 
 light, aided by bright reflections ; they are drawn exactly as, on 
 vases, white figures on a dark ground ; and the sculptors have 
 dispensed with, or even struggled to avoid, all shadows which 
 were not absolutely necessary to the explaining of the form. On 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. I9I 
 
 the contrary, in Gothic sculpture, the shadow becomes itself a 
 subject of thought. It is considered as a dark colour, to be 
 arranged in certain agreeable masses ; the figures are very fre- 
 quently made even subordinate to the placing of its divisions : 
 and their costume is enriched at the expense of the forms 
 underneath, in order to increase the complexity and variety of 
 the points of shade. There are thus, both in sculpture and 
 painting, two, in some sort, opposite schools, of which the one 
 follows for its subject the essential forms of things, and the 
 other the accidental lights and shades upon them. There are 
 various degrees of their contrariety : middle steps, as in the 
 works of Correggio, and all degrees of nobility and of degradation 
 in the several manners : but the one is always recognised as the 
 pure, and the other as the picturesque school. Portions of 
 picturesque treatment will be found in Greek work, and of pure 
 and unpicturesque in Gothic ; and in both there are countless 
 instances, as pre-eminently in the works of Michael Angelo, in 
 which shadows become valuable as media of expression, and 
 tjierefore take rank among essential characteristics. Into these 
 multitudinous distinctions and exceptions I cannot now enter, 
 desiring only to prove the broad applicability of the general 
 definition. 
 
 XV. Again, the distinction will be found to exist, not only 
 between forms and shades as subjects of choice, but between 
 essential and inessential forms. One of the chief distinctions 
 between the dramatic and picturesque schools of sculpture is 
 found in the treatment of the hair. By the artists of the time 
 of Pericles it was considered as an excrescence, indicated by 
 few and rude lines, and subordinated, in every particular, to the 
 principality of the features and person. How completely this 
 was an artistical, not a national idea, it is unnecessary to prove. 
 We need but remember the employment of the Lacedsemonians, 
 reported by the Persian spy on the evening before the battle of 
 Thermopylae, or glance at any Homeric description of ideal form, 
 to see how purely sculpttiresq^ic was the law which reduced the 
 markings of the hair, lest, under the necessary disadvantages of 
 
192 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 material, they should interfere with the distinctness of the per- 
 sonal forms. On the contrary, in later sculpture, the hair re- 
 ceives almost the principal care of the workman ; and, while the 
 features and limbs are clumsily and bluntly executed, the hair is 
 curled and twisted, cut into bold and shadowy projections, and 
 arranged in masses elaborately ornamental : there is true sub- 
 limity in the lines and the chiaroscuro of these masses, but it is, as 
 regards the creature represented, parasitical, and therefore pictu- 
 resque. In the same sense we may understand the application of 
 the term to modern animal painting, distinguished as it has been 
 by peculiar attention to the colours, lustre, and texture of skin ; 
 nor is it in art alone that the definition will hold. In animals 
 themselves, when their sublimity depends upon their muscular 
 forms or motions, or necessary and principal attributes, as 
 perhaps more than all others in the horse, we do not call them 
 picturesque, but consider them as peculiarly fit to be associated 
 with pure historical subject. Exactly in proportion as their 
 character'of sublimity passes into excrescences ; — into mane and 
 beard as in the lion, into horns as in the stag, into shaggy hide 
 as in the instance above given of the ass colt, into variegation 
 as in the zebra, or into plumage, — they become picturesque, 
 and are so in art exactly in proportion to the prominence of these 
 excrescential characters. It may be often most expedient that 
 they should be prominent ; often there is in them the highest 
 degree of majesty, as in those of the leopard and boar ; and in 
 the hands of men like Tintoret and Rubens, such attributes 
 become means of deepening the very highest and most ideal im- 
 pressions. But the picturesque direction of their thoughts is 
 always distinctly recognizable, as clinging to the surface, to the 
 less essential character, and as developing out of this a sublimity 
 different from that of the creature itself; a sublimity which is, 
 in a sort, common to all the objects of creation, and the same in 
 its constituent elements, whether it be sought in the clefts and 
 folds of shaggy hair, or in the chasms and rents of rocks, or in the 
 hanging of thickets or hill sides, or in the alternations of gaiety 
 and gloom in the variegation of the shell, the plume, or the cloud. 
 
THE LAMr OF MEMORY. 1 93 
 
 XVI. Now, to return to our immediate subject, it so happens 
 that, in architecture, the superinduced and accidental beauty is 
 most commonly inconsistent with the preservation of original 
 character, and the picturesque is therefore sought in ruin, and 
 supposed to consist in decay. Whereas, even when so sought, it 
 consists in the mere sublimity of the rents, or fractures, or stains, 
 or vegetation, which assimilate the architecture with the work of 
 Nature, and bestow upon it those circumstances of colour and 
 form which are universally beloved by the eye of man. So far 
 as this is done, to the extinction of the true characters of the 
 architecture, it is picturesque, and the artist who looks to the stem 
 of the ivy instead of the shaft of the pillar, is carrying out in more 
 daring freedom the debased sculptor's choice of the hair instead 
 of the countenance. But so far as it can be rendered consistent 
 with the inherent character, the picturesque or extraneous sub- 
 limity of architecture has just this of nobler function in it than 
 that of any other object whatsoever, that it is an exponent of 
 ag^, of that in which, as has been said, the greatest glory of the 
 building consists ; and, therefore, the external signs of this glory, 
 having power and purpose greater than any belonging to their 
 mere sensible beauty, may be considered as taking rank among 
 pure and essential characters ; so essential to my mind, that I 
 think a building cannot be considered as in its prime until four 
 or five centuries have passed over it ; and that the entire choice 
 and arrangement of its details should have reference to their 
 appearance after that period, so that none should be admitted 
 which would suffer material injury either by the weather-staining, 
 or the mechanical degradation which the lapse of such a period 
 would necessitate. 
 
 XVII. It is not my purpose to enter into any of the questions 
 which the application of this principle involves. They are of too 
 great interest and complexity to be even touched upon within my 
 present limits, but this is broadly to be noticed, that those styles 
 of architecture which are picturesque in the sense above ex- 
 plained with respect to sculpture, that is to say, whose decoration 
 depends on the arrangement of points of shade rather than on 
 
 c c 
 
194 
 
 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 Aphorism 31 
 
 Restoration, 
 so called, is 
 the worst 
 manner of 
 Destruction. 
 
 purity of outline, do not suffer, but commonly gain in richness of 
 effect when their details are partly worn away ; hence such styles, 
 pre-eminently that of French Gothic, should always be adopted 
 when the materials to be employed are liable to degradation, as 
 brick, sandstone, or soft limestone ; and styles in any degree 
 dependent on purity of line, as the Italian Gothic, must be prac- 
 tised altogether in hard and undecomposing materials, granite, 
 serpentine, or crystalline marbles. There can be no doubt that 
 the nature of the accessible materials influenced the formation 
 of both styles ; and it should still more authoritatively determine 
 our choice of either. 
 
 XVIII. It does not belong to my present plan to consider at 
 length the second head of duty of which I have above spoken ; 
 the preservation of the architecture we possess : but a few 
 words may be forgiven, as especially necessary' in modern times. 
 
 Neither by the public, nor by those who have the care 
 of public monuments, is the true meaning of the w^ord 
 restoration understood. It means the most total destruc- 
 tion which a building can suffer: a destruction out of 
 which no remnants can be gathered : a destruction 
 accompanied with false description of the thing de- 
 stroyed.^* Do not let us deceive ourselves in this 
 important matter; it is impossible, as impossible as to 
 raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been 
 great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have 
 above insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit 
 which is given only by the hand and eye of the work- 
 man, never can be recalled. Another spirit may be 
 given by another time, and it is then a new building; 
 but the spirit of the dead workman cannot be sum- 
 moned up, and commanded to direct other hands, and 
 
 False, also, in the manner of parody, — the most loathsome manner of false- 
 
 hood. 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 95 
 
 Other thoughts. And as for direct and simple copying, 
 it is palpably impossible. What copying can there be 
 of surfaces that have been worn half an inch down ? 
 The whole finish of the work was in the half inch that 
 is gone; if you attempt to restore that finish, you do it 
 conjecturally ; if you copy what is left, granting fidelity 
 to be possible, (and what care, or watchfulness, or cost 
 can secure it,) how is the new work better than the 
 old ? There was yet in the old some life, some myste- 
 rious suggestion of what it had been, and of what it 
 had lost; some sweetness in the gentle lines which 
 rain and sun had wrought. There can be none in 
 the brute hardness of the new carving. Look at the 
 animals which I have given in Plate 14., as an instance 
 of living work, and suppose the markings of the scales 
 and hair once worn away, or the wrinkles of the brows, 
 and who shall ever restore them ? The first step to 
 restoration, (I have seen it, and that again and again 
 — seen it on the Baptistery of Pisa, seen it on the Casa 
 d' Oro at Venice, seen it on the Cathedral of Lisieux,) 
 is to dash the old work to pieces ; the second is usually 
 to put up the cheapest and basest imitation which can 
 escape detection, but in all cases, however careful, and 
 however laboured, an imitation still, a cold model of 
 such parts as can be modelled, with conjectural supple- 
 ments ; and my experience has as yet furnished me 
 with only one instance, that of the Palais de Justice 
 at Rouen, in which even this, the utmost degree of 
 fidelity which is possible, has been attained, or even 
 attempted. 
 
196 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 XIX. Do not let us talk then of restoration. The 
 thing is a Lie from beginning to end. You may make 
 a model of a building as you may of a corpse, and your 
 model may have the shell of the old walls within it as 
 your cast might have the skeleton, with what advan- 
 tage I neither see nor care : but the old building is 
 destroyed, and that more totally and mercilessly than 
 if it had sunk into a heap of dust, or melted into a 
 mass of clay : more has been gleaned out of desolated 
 Nineveh than ever will be out of re-built Milan. But, 
 it is said, there may come a necessity for restoration ! Granted. 
 Look the necessity full in the face, and understand it on its own 
 terms. It is a necessity for destruction. Accept it as such, pull 
 the buildincr down, throw its stones into neglected corners, make 
 ballast of them, or mortar, if you will ; but do it honestly, and do 
 not set up a Lie in their place. And look that necessity in the 
 face before it comes, and you may prevent it. The principle of 
 modern times, (a principle which, I believe, at least in France, to 
 be systematically acted on by the masons, in order to find them- 
 selves work, as the abbey of St. Ouen was pulled down by the 
 magistrates of the town by way of giving work to some vagrants,) 
 is to neglect buildings first, and restore them afterwards. Take 
 proper care of your monuments, and you will not need to restore 
 them. A few sheets of lead put in time upon a roof, a few 
 dead leaves and sticks swept in time out of a water-course, will 
 save both roof and walls from ruin. Watch an old building with 
 an anxious care ; guard it as best you may, and at any cost, from 
 every influence of dilapidation. Count its stones as you would 
 jewels of a crown ; set watches about it as if at the gates of a 
 besieged city ; bind it together with iron where it loosens ; stay 
 it with timber where it declines ; do not care about the unsight- 
 liness of the aid : better a crutch than a lost limb ; and do this 
 tenderly, and reverently, and continually, and many a generation 
 will still be born and pass away beneath its shadow. Its evil day 
 
THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 97 
 
 must come at last ; but let it come declaredly and openly, and let 
 no dishonouring and false substitute deprive it of the funeral 
 offices of memory. 
 
 XX. Of more wanton or ignorant ravage it is vain to speak ; 
 my words will not reach those who commit them," and yet, be it 
 heard or not, I must not leave the truth unstated, that it is again 
 no question of expediency or feeling whether we shall preserve 
 the buildings of past times or not. JVe have no right whatever 
 to touch them. They are not ours. They belong partly to those 
 who built them, and partly to all the generations of mankind who 
 are to follow us. The dead have still their right in them : that 
 which they laboured for, the praise of achievement or the expres- 
 sion of relimous feelinsf, or whatsoever else it mig^ht be which in 
 those buildings they intended to be permanent, we have no right 
 to obliterate. What we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to 
 throw down ^but what other men gave their strength and wealth 
 and life to accomplish, their right over does not pass away with 
 their death : still less is the right to the use of what they have left 
 vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. It may 
 hereafter be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to millions, 
 that we have consulted our present convenience by casting down 
 such buildings as we choose to dispense with. That sorrow, that 
 loss, we have no rieht to inflict. Did the cathedral of Avranches 
 belong to the mob who destroyed it, any more than it did to us, 
 who walk in sorrow to and fro over its foundation ? Neither does 
 anv buildine whatever belonsf to those mobs who do violence to 
 it. For a mob it is, and must be always ; it matters not whether 
 enraged, or in deliberate folly; whether countless, or sitting in 
 committees ; the people who destroy anything causelessly are a 
 mob, and Architecture is always destroyed causelessly. A fair 
 building is necessarily worth the ground it stands upon, and will 
 be so until Central Africa and America shall have become as 
 populous as Middlesex; nor is any cause whatever valid as a 
 
 " No, indeed ! — any more wasted words than mine throughout life, or bread 
 cast on more bitter waters, I never heard of. This closing paragraph of the 
 sixth chapter is the best, I think, in the book, — and the vainest. 
 
198 THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 
 
 ground for its destruction. If ever valid, certainly not now, 
 when the place both of the past and future is too much usurped 
 in our minds by the restless and discontented present. The very 
 quietness of nature is gradually withdrawn from us ; thousands 
 who once in their necessarily prolonged travel were subjected 
 to an influence, from the silent sky and slumbering fields, more 
 effectual than known or confessed, now bear with them even there 
 the ceaseless fever of their life ; and along the iron veins that 
 traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery 
 pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality 
 is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central 
 cities ; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow 
 bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds 
 upon the city gates. The only influence which can in any wise 
 tha'e take the place of that of the woods and fields, is the power 
 of ancient Architecture. Do not part with it for the sake of the 
 formal square, or of the fenced and planted walk, nor of the 
 goodly street nor opened quay. The pride of a city is not in these. 
 Leave them to the crowd ; but remember that there will surely 
 be some within the circuit of the disquieted walls who would 
 ask for some other spots than these wherein to walk ; for some 
 other forms to meet their sight familiarly : like him who sat so 
 often where the sun struck from the west, to watch the lines of 
 the dome of Florence drawn on the deep sky, or like those, his 
 Hosts, who could bear daily to behold, from their palace chambers, 
 the places where their fathers lay at rest, at the meeting of the 
 dark streets of Verona. 
 
199 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 I. It has been my endeavour to show in the preceding pages how 
 every form of noble architecture is in some sort the embodiment 
 of the Polity, Life, History, and Religious Faith of nations. Once 
 or twice in doing this, I have named a principle to which I would 
 now assign a definite place among those which direct that 
 embodiment ; the la^t place, not only as that to which its own 
 humility would incline, but rather as belonging to it in the aspect 
 of the crowning grace of all the rest : that principle, I mean, to 
 which Polity owes its stability. Life its happiness. Faith its 
 acceptance. Creation its continuance, — Obedience. 
 
 Nor is it the least among the sources of more serious ArHORisM32. 
 satisfaction which I have found in the pursuit of a There is no 
 
 ^ such thing as 
 
 subject that at first appeared to bear but slightly on ^'''"'^' 
 the grave interests of mankind, that the conditions of 
 material perfection which it leads me in conclusion to 
 consider, furnish a strange proof how false is the con- 
 ception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous 
 phantom which men call Liberty : most treacherous, 
 indeed of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason 
 might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but 
 its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in 
 the universe. There can never be. The stars have it 
 not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we 
 men have the mockery and semblance of it only for 
 our heaviest punishment. 
 
200 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 In one of the noblest poems* for its imagery and its music 
 belonging to the recent school of our literature, the writer has 
 sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expression of that 
 Liberty which, having once loved, he had seen among men in its 
 true dyes of darkness. But with what strange fallacy of inter- 
 pretation ! since in one noble line of his invocation he has con- 
 tradicted the assumptions of the rest, and acknowledged the 
 presence of a subjection, surely not less severe because eternal. 
 How could he otherwise ? since if there be any one principle 
 more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more 
 sternly than another imprinted on every atom, of the visible 
 creation, that principle is not Liberty, but Law. 
 
 IL The enthusiast would reply that by Liberty he meant the 
 Law of Liberty. Then why use the single and misunderstood 
 word ? If by liberty you mean chastisement of the passions, dis- 
 cipline of the intellect, subjection of the will ; if you mean the fear 
 of inflicting, the shame of committing, a wrong ; if you mean 
 respect for all who are in authority, and consideration for all 
 who are in dependence ; veneration for the good, mercy to the 
 evil, sympathy with the weak ; if you mean watchfulness over all 
 thoughts, temperance in all pleasures, and perseverance in all 
 toils ; if you mean, in a word, that Service which is defined in 
 the liturgy of the English church to be perfect Freedom, why do 
 you name this by the same word by which the luxurious mean 
 license, and the reckless mean change ; by which the rogue means 
 rapine, and the fool, equality ; by which the proud mean anarchy, 
 and the malignant mean violence ? Call it by any name rather 
 than this, but its best and truest, is Obedience. Obedience is, 
 indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere 
 subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may 
 be more perfect ; and thus, while a measure of license is necessary 
 to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and 
 pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their Restraint. 
 Compare a river that has burst its banks with one that is bound 
 by them, and the clouds that are scattered over the face of the 
 whole heaven with those that are marshalled into ranks and 
 
 * See Appendix V. 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 20I 
 
 orders by its winds. So that though restraint, utter and unre- 
 laxing, can never be comely, this is not because it is in itself an 
 evil, but only because, when too great, it overpowers the nature 
 of the thing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws of which 
 that nature is itself composed. And the balance wherein consists 
 the fairness of creation is between the laws of life and being in 
 the things governed, and the laws of general sway to which they 
 are subjected ; and the suspension or infringement of either kind 
 of law, or, literally, disorder, is equivalent to, and synonymous 
 with, disease ; while the increase of both honour and beauty is 
 habitually on the side of restraint (or the action of superior law) 
 rather than of character (or the action of inherent law). The 
 noblest word in the catalogue of social virtue is " Loyalty," and 
 the sweetest which men have learned in the pastures of the 
 wilderness is " Fold." 
 
 III. Nor is this all; but we may observe, that exactly in 
 proportion to the majesty of things in the scale of being, is the 
 completeness of their obedience to the laws that are set over them. 
 Gravitation is less quietly, less instantly obeyed by a grain of 
 dust than it is by the sun and moon ; and the ocean falls and flows 
 under influences which the lake and river do not recognize. So 
 also in estimating the dignity of any action or occupation of men, 
 there is perhaps no better test than the question " are its laws 
 strait ? " For their severity will probably be commensurate with 
 the greatness of the numbers whose labour it concentrates or 
 whose interest it concerns. 
 
 This severity must be singular, therefore, in the case of that 
 art, above all others, whose productions are the most vast and 
 the most common ; which requires for its practice the co- 
 operation of bodies of men, and for its perfection the perse- 
 verance of successive generations. And, taking into account 
 also what we have before so often observed of Architecture, her 
 continual influence over the emotions of daily life, and her 
 realism, as opposed to the two sister arts which are in comparison 
 but the picturing of stories and of dreams, we might beforehand 
 expect that we should find her healthy state and action dependent 
 
 D D 
 
202 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 on far more severe laws than theirs : that the license which they 
 extend to the workings of individual mind would be withdrawn 
 by her ; and that, in assertion of the relations which she holds with 
 all that is universally important to man, she would set forth, by 
 her own majestic subjection, some likeness of that on which man's 
 social happiness and power depend. We might, therefore, with- 
 out the light of experience, conclude, that Architecture never could 
 flourish except when it was subjected to a national law as strict 
 and as minutely authoritative as the laws which regulate religion, 
 policy, and social relations ; nay, even more authoritative than 
 these, because both capable of more enforcement, as over more 
 passive matter ; and needing more enforcement, as the purest type 
 not of one law nor of another, but of the common authority of all. 
 But in this matter experience speaks more loudly than reason. 
 If there be any one condition which, in watching the progress of 
 architecture, we see distinct and general ; if, amidst the counter- 
 evidence of success attending opposite accidents of character and 
 circumstance, any one conclusion may be constantly and indispu- 
 tably drawn, it is this ; that the architecture of a nation is great 
 only when it is as universal and as established as its language ; and 
 when provincial differences of style are nothing more than so many 
 dialects. Other necessities are matters of doubt : nations have 
 been alike successful in their architecture in times of poverty and 
 of wealth ; in times of war and of peace ; in times of barbarism and 
 of refinement ; under governments the most liberal or the most 
 arbitrary ; but this one condition has been constant, this one 
 requirement clear in all places and at all times, that the work 
 shall be that of a school, that no individual caprice shall dispense 
 with, or materially vary, accepted types and customary decorations; 
 and that from the cottage to the palace, and from the chapel to 
 the basilica, and from the garden fence to the fortress wall, 
 every member and feature of the architecture of the nation shall 
 be as commonly current, as frankly accepted, as its language or 
 its coin. 
 
 IV. A da)'^ never passes without our hearing our English 
 architects called upon to be original, and to invent a new style : 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE, 203 
 
 about as sensible and necessary an exhortation as to ask of a 
 man who has never had rags enough on his back to keep out cold, 
 to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a whole coat 
 first, and let him concern himself about the fashion of it after- 
 wards. We want no new style of architecture. Who wants a 
 new style of painting or sculpture ? But we want some style. 
 It is of marvellously little importance, if we have a code of laws 
 and they be good laws, whether they be new or old, foreign or 
 native, Roman or Saxon, or Norman, or English laws. But it is 
 of considerable importance that we should have a code of laws of 
 one kind or another, and that code accepted and enforced from 
 one side of the island to another, and not one law made ground 
 of judgment at York and another in Exeter. And in like manner 
 it does not matter one marble splinter whether we have an old 
 or new architecture, but it matters everything whether we have 
 an architecture truly so called or not ; that is, whether an archi- 
 tecture whose laws might be taught at our schools from Cornwall 
 to Northumberland, as we teach English spelling and English 
 grammar, or an architecture which is to be invented fresh every 
 time we build a workhouse or a parish school. There seems to 
 me to be a wonderful misunderstanding among the majority of 
 architects of the present day as to the very nature and meaning 
 of Originality, and of all wherein it consists. Originality in 
 expression does not depend on invention of new words ; nor 
 originality in poetry on invention of new measures ; nor, in 
 painting, on invention of new colours, or new modes of using 
 them. The chords of music, the harmonies of colour, the general 
 principles of the arrangement of sculptural masses, have been 
 determined long ago, and, in all probability, cannot be added to 
 any more than they can be altered. Granting that they may be, 
 such additions or alterations are much more the work of time and 
 of multitudes than of individual inventors. We may have one 
 Van Eyck, who will be known as the introducer of a new style 
 once in ten centuries, but he himself will trace his invention to 
 some accidental by-play or pursuit; and the use of that invention 
 will depend altogether on the popular necessities or instincts of 
 
204 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 the period. Originality depends on nothing of the kind. A man 
 who has the gift, will take up any style that is going, the style of 
 his day, and will work in that, and be great in that, and make 
 everything that he does in it look as fresh as if every thought of 
 it had just come down from heaven. I do not say that he will 
 not take liberties with his materials, or with his rules : I do not 
 say that strange changes will not sometimes be wrought by his 
 efforts, or his fancies, in both. But those changes will be instruc- 
 tive, natural, facile, though sometimes marvellous ; they will 
 never be sought after as things necessary to his dignity or to his 
 independence ; and those liberties will be like the liberties that a 
 great speaker takes with the language, not a defiance of its rules 
 for the sake of singularity ; but inevitable, uncalculated, and 
 brilliant consequences of an effort to express what the language, 
 without such infraction, could not. There may be times when, 
 as I have above described, the life of an art is manifested in its 
 changes, and in its refusal of ancient limitations : so there are in 
 the life of an insect ; and there is great interest in the state of 
 both the art and the insect at those periods when, by their natural 
 progress and constitutional power, such changes are about to be 
 wrousfht. But as that would be both an uncomfortable and 
 foolish caterpillar which, instead of being contented with a cater- 
 pillar's life and feeding on caterpillar's food, was always striving 
 to turn itself into a chrysalis ; and as that would be an unhappy 
 chrysalis which should lie awake at night and roll restlessly in its 
 cocoon, in efforts to turn itself prematurely into a moth ; so will 
 that art be unhappy and unprosperous which, instead of support- 
 ing itself on the food, and contenting itself with the customs, 
 which have been enough for the support and guidance of other 
 arts before it and like it, is struo-CTling; and fretting under the 
 natural limitations of its existence, and striving to become some- 
 thing other than it is. And though it is the nobility of the 
 highest creatures to look forward to, and partly to understand 
 the changes which are appointed for them, preparing- for them 
 beforehand ; and if, as is usual with appointed changes, they be 
 into a higher state, even desiring them, and rejoicing in the hope 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 2O5 
 
 of them, yet it is the strength of every creature, be it changeful 
 or not, to rest, for the time being, contented with the conditions 
 of its existence, and striving only to bring about the changes 
 which it desires, by fulfilling to the uttermost the duties for which 
 its present state is appointed and continued. 
 
 V. Neither originality, therefore, nor change, good though 
 both may be, and this is commonly a most merciful and enthu- 
 siastic supposition with respect to either, is ever to be sought in 
 itself, or can ever be healthily obtained by any struggle or rebel- 
 lion against common laws. We want neither the one nor the 
 other. The forms of architecture already known are good 
 enough for us, and for far better than any of us ; and it will be 
 time enough to think of changing them for better when we can 
 use them as they are. But there are some things which we not 
 only want, but cannot do without ; and which all the struggling 
 and raving in the world, nay more, which all the real talent and 
 resolution in England, will never enable us to do without : and 
 these are Obedience, Unity, Fellowship, and Order. And all our 
 schools of design, and committees of taste ; all our academies and 
 lectures, and journalisms, and essays ; all the sacrifices which we 
 are beginning to make, all the truth which there is in our English 
 nature, all the power of our English will, and the life of our 
 English intellect, will in this matter be as useless as efforts and 
 emotions in a dream, unless we are contented to submit archi- 
 tecture and all art, like other things, to English law. 
 
 VI. I say architecture and all art; for I believe architecture 
 must be the beginning of arts, and that the others must follow 
 her in their time and order ; and I think the prosperity of our 
 schools of painting and sculpture, in which no one will deny the 
 life, though many the health, depends upon that of our archi- 
 tecture. I think that all will languish until that takes the lead, 
 and (this I do not think, but I proclaim, as confidently as I would 
 assert the necessity, for the safety of society, of an understood 
 and strongly administered legal government) our architecture 
 will languish, and that in the very dust, until the first principle 
 of common sense be manfully obeyed, and an universal system of 
 
206 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 form and workmanship be everywhere adopted and enforced. It 
 may be said that this is impossible. It may be so — I fear it is 
 so : I have nothing to do with the possibility or impossibility of 
 it ; I simply know and assert the necessity of it. If it be im- 
 possible, English art is impossible. Give it up at once. You 
 are wasting time, and money, and energy upon it, and though you 
 exhaust centuries and treasuries, and break hearts for it, you will 
 never raise it above the merest dilettanteism. Think not of it. 
 It is a dangerous vanity, a mere gulph in which genius after 
 genius will be swallowed up, and it will not close. And so it will 
 continue to be, unless the one bold and broad step be taken at the 
 beginning. We shall not manufacture art out of pottery and 
 printed stuffs : we shall not reason out art by our philosophy ; 
 we shall not stumble upon art by our experiments, nor create it 
 by our fancies : I do not say that we can even build it out of 
 brick and stone ; but there is a chance for us in these, and there 
 is none else; and that chance rests on the bare possibility of 
 obtaining the consent, both of architects and of the | public, to 
 choose a style, and to use it universally. 
 
 VII. How surely its principles ought at first to be limited, we 
 may easily determine by the consideration of the necessary modes 
 of teaching any other branch of general knowledge. When we 
 begin to teach children writing, we force them to absolute 
 copyism, and require absolute accuracy in the formation of the 
 letters ; as they obtain command of the received modes of literal 
 expression, we cannot prevent their falling into such variations 
 as are consistent with their feeling, their circumstances, or their 
 characters. So, when a boy is first taught to write Latin, an 
 authority is required of him for every expression he uses ; as he 
 becomes master of the language he may take a license, and feel 
 his right to do so without any authority, and yet write better 
 Latin than when he borrowed every separate expression. In the 
 same way our architects would have to be taught to write the 
 accepted style. We must first determine what buildings are to 
 be considered Augustan in their authority ; their modes of con- 
 struction and laws of proportion are to be studied with the most 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 20/ 
 
 penetrating care ; then the different forms and uses of their 
 decorations are to be classed and catalogued, as a German 
 grammarian classes the powers of prepositions ; and under this 
 absolute, irrefragable authority, we are to begin to work ; admit- 
 ting not so much as an alteration in the depth of a cavetto, or 
 the breadth of a fillet. Then, when our sight is once accustomed 
 to the grammatical forms and arrangements, and our thoughts 
 familiar with the expression of them all ; when we can speak this 
 dead language naturally, and apply it to whatever ideas we have 
 to render, that is to say, to every practical purpose of life ; then, 
 and not till then, a license might be permitted, and individual 
 authority allowed to change or to add to the received forms, 
 always within certain limits ; the decorations, especially, might 
 be made subjects of variable fancy, and enriched with ideas either 
 original or taken from other schools. And thus, in process of 
 time and by a great national movement, it might come to pass 
 that a new style should arise, as language itself changes ; we 
 might perhaps come to speak Italian instead of Latin, or to speak 
 modern instead of old English ; but this would be a matter of 
 entire indifference, and a matter, besides, which no determination 
 or desire could either hasten or prevent. That alone which it is 
 in our power to obtain, and which it is our duty to desire, is an 
 unanimous style of some kind, and such comprehension and 
 practice of it as would enable us to adapt its features to the pecu- 
 liar character of every several building, large or small, domestic, 
 civil, or ecclesiastical. I have said that it was immaterial what 
 style was adopted, so far as regards the room for originality 
 which its development would admit : it is not so, however, when 
 we take into consideration the far more important questions of 
 the facility of adaptation to general purposes, and of the sym- 
 pathy with which this or that style would be popularly regarded. 
 The choice of Classical or Gothic, again using the latter term in 
 its broadest sense, may be questionable when it regards some 
 single and considerable public building ; but I cannot conceive it 
 questionable, for an instant, when it regards modern uses in 
 general : I cannot conceive any architect insane enough to pro- 
 
208 
 
 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Aphorism 33. 
 
 The glory 
 and use of 
 restraint. 
 
 ject the vulgarization of Greek architecture. Neither can it be 
 rationally questionable whether we should adopt early or late, 
 original or derivative Gothic ; if the latter were chosen, it must 
 be either some impotent and ugly degradation, like our own 
 Tudor, or else a style whose grammatical laws it would be nearly 
 impossible to limit or arrange, like the French Flamboyant. We 
 are equally precluded from adopting styles essentially infantine 
 or barbarous, however Herculean their infancy, or majestic their 
 outlawry, such as our own Norman, or the Lombard Romanesque. 
 The choice would lie I think between four styles : — i. The Pisan 
 Romanesque; 2. The early Gothic of the Western Italian Re- 
 publics, advanced as far and as fast as our art would enable us to 
 the Gothic of Giotto ; 3. The Venetian Gothic in its purest 
 developement ; 4. The English earliest decorated. The most 
 natural, perhaps the safest choice, would be of the last, well 
 fenced from chance of again stiffening into the perpendicular ; 
 and perhaps enriched by some mingling of decorative elements 
 from the exquisite decorated Gothic of France, of which, in 
 such cases, it would be needful to accept some well-known ex- 
 amples, as the North door of Rouen and the church of St. 
 Urbain at Troyes, for final and limiting authorities on the side 
 of decoration. 
 
 VIII. It is almost impossible for us to conceive, in 
 
 our present state of doubt and ignorance, the sudden 
 dawn of intelligence and fancy, the rapidly increasing 
 sense of power and facility, and, in its proper sense, of 
 Freedom, which such wholesome restraint would in- 
 stantly cause throughout the whole circle of the arts. 
 Freed from the agitation and embarrassment of that 
 liberty of choice which is the cause of half the dis- 
 comforts of the world; freed from the accompanying 
 necessity of studying all past, present, or even possible 
 styles ; and enabled, by concentration of individual, 
 and co-operation of multitudinous energy, to penetrate 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 209 
 
 into the uttermost secrets of the adopted style, the 
 architect would find his whole understanding enlarged, 
 his practical knowledge certain and ready to hand, and 
 his imagination playful and vigorous, as a child's would 
 be within a walled garden, who would sit down and 
 shudder if he were left free in a fenceless plain. How 
 many and how bright would be the results in every 
 direction of interest, not to the arts merely, but to 
 national happiness and virtue, it would be as difficult 
 to preconceive as it would seem extravagant to state ; 
 but the first, perhaps the least, of them would be an 
 increased sense of fellowship among ourselves, a ce- 
 menting of every patriotic bond of union, a proud and 
 happy recognition of our affection for and sympathy 
 with each other, and our willingness in all things to 
 submit ourselves to every law that could advance the 
 interest of the community ; a barrier, also, the best 
 conceivable, to the unhappy rivalry of the upper and 
 middle classes, in houses, furniture, and establish- 
 ments; and even a check to much of what is as vain 
 as it is painful in the oppositions of religious parties 
 respecting matters of ritual. These, I say, would be 
 the first consequences. Economy increased tenfold, 
 as it would be by the simplicity of practice ; domestic 
 comforts uninterfered with by the caprice and mistakes 
 of architects ignorant of the capacities of the styles 
 they use, and all the symmetry and sightliness of our 
 harmonized streets and public buildings, are things of 
 slighter account in the catalogue of benefits. But it 
 would be mere enthusiasm to endeavour to trace them 
 
 E E 
 
2IO THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 farther.* I have suffered myself too long to indulge in the 
 
 speculative statement of requirements which perhaps we have 
 more immediate and more serious work than to supply, and of 
 feelings which it may be only contingently in our power to re- 
 cover. I should be unjustly thought unaware of the difficulty of 
 what I have proposed, or of the unimportance of the whole sub- 
 ject as compared with many which are brought home to our 
 interests and fixed upon our consideration by the wild course of 
 the present century. But of difficulty and of importance it is for 
 others to judge. I have limited myself to the simple statement 
 of what, if we desire to have architecture, we must primarily 
 endeavour to feel and do : but then it may not be desirable for 
 us to have architecture at all. There are many who feel it to be 
 so ; many who sacrifice much to that end ; and I am sorry to see 
 their energies wasted and their lives disquieted in vain. I have 
 stated, therefore, the only ways in which that end is attainable, 
 without venturing even to express an opinion as to its real 
 desirableness. I have an opinion, and the zeal with which I 
 have spoken may sometimes have betrayed it, but I hold to it, 
 with no confidence. I know too well the undue importance which 
 the study that every man follows must assume in his own eyes, 
 to trust my own impressions of the dignity of that of Architec- 
 ture ; and yet I think I cannot be utterly mistaken in regarding 
 it as at least useful in the sense of a National employment. I am 
 confirmed in this impression by what I see passing among the 
 states of Europe at this instant. All the horror, distress, and 
 tumult which oppress the foreign nations, are traceable, among 
 the other secondary causes through which God is working out 
 His will upon them, to the simple one of their not having enough 
 to do. I am not blind to the distress among their operatives ; 
 nor do I deny the nearer and visibly active causes of the move- 
 ment : the recklessness of villany in the leaders of revolt, the 
 
 * I am well content to close my thirty-three aphorisms with this most compre- 
 hensive one ; — and my fifty-five notes with this still more comprehensive reduction 
 of them to practice for the modern reader : — Build nothing that you can possibly 
 help, — and letno land on building leases. 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 211 
 
 absence of common moral principle in the upper classes, and of 
 common courage and honesty in the heads of governments. But 
 these causes themselves are ultimately traceable to a deeper and 
 simpler one : the recklessness of the demagogue, the immorality of 
 the middle class, and the effeminacy and treachery of the noble, 
 are traceable in all these nations to the commonest and most 
 fruitful cause of calamity in households — idleness. We think 
 too much in our benevolent efforts, more multiplied and more 
 vain day by day, of bettering men by giving them advice and 
 instruction. There are few who will take either : the chief thing 
 they need is occupation. I do not mean work in the sense of 
 bread, — I mean work in the sense of mental interest ; for those 
 who either are placed above the necessity of labour for their 
 bread, or who will not work although they should. There is a 
 vast quantity of idle energy among European nations at this 
 time, which ought to go into handicrafts ; there are multitudes of 
 idle semi-gentlemen who ought to be shoemakers and carpenters ; 
 but since they will not be these so long as they can help it, the 
 business of the philanthropist is to find them some other em- 
 ployment than disturbing governments. It is of no use to tell 
 them they are fools, and that they will only make themselves 
 miserable in the end as well as others : if they have nothing else 
 to do, they will do mischief ; and the man who will not work, and 
 who has no means of intellectual pleasure, is as sure to become 
 an instrument of evil as if he had sold himself bodily to Satan. I 
 have myself seen enough of the daily life of the young educated 
 men of France and Italy, to account for, as it deserves, the deepest 
 national suffering and degradation ; and though, for the most 
 part, our commerce and our national habits of industry preserve 
 us from a similar paralysis, yet it would be wise to consider 
 whether the forms of employment which we chiefly adopt or pro- 
 mote, are as well calculated as they might be to improve and 
 elevate us. 
 
 We have just spent, for instance, a hundred and fifty millions, 
 with which we have paid men for digging ground from one place 
 and depositing it in another. We have formed a large class of 
 
212 THE LAMP OF OBEDIE^•CE. 
 
 men, the railway navvies, especially reckless, unmanageable, and 
 dangerous. We have maintained besides (let us state the bene- 
 fits as fairly as possible) a number of ironfounders in an unhealthy 
 and painful employment ; we have developed (this is at least 
 good) a very large amount of mechanical ingenuity ; and we 
 have, in fine, attained the power of going fast from one place to 
 another. Meantime we have had no mental interest or concern 
 ourselves in the operations we have set on foot, but have been 
 left to the usual vanities and cares of our existence. Suppose, 
 on the other hand, that we had employed the same sums in 
 buildinof beautiful houses and churches. We should have main- 
 tained the same number of men, not in driving wheelbarrows, 
 but in a distinctly technical, if not intellectual employment ; and 
 those who were more intelligent among them would have been 
 especially happy in that employment, as having room in it for 
 the developement of their fancy, and being directed by it to that 
 observation of beauty which, associated with the pursuit of 
 natural science, at present forms the enjoyment of many of the 
 more intelligent manufacturing operatives. Of mechanical in- 
 genuity, there is, I imagine, at least as much required to build a 
 cathedral as to cut a tunnel or contrive a locomotive : we should, 
 therefore, have developed as much science, while the artistical 
 element of intellect would have been added to the gain. Mean- 
 time we should ourselves have been made happier and wiser by 
 the interest we should have taken in the work with which we 
 were personally concerned ; and when all was done, instead of 
 the very doubtful advantage of the power of going fast from 
 place to place, we should have had the certain advantage of in- 
 creased pleasure in stopping at home. 
 
 IX. There are many other less capacious, but more constant, 
 channels of expenditure, quite as disputable in their beneficial 
 tendency ; and we are, perhaps, hardly enough in the habit of 
 inquiring, with respect to any particular form of luxury or any 
 customary appliance of life, whether the kind of employment it 
 gives to the operative or the dependant be as healthy and fitting 
 an employment as we might otherwise provide for him. It is 
 
THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 213 
 
 not enough to find men absolute subsistence ; we should think of 
 the manner of life which our demands necessitate ; and endeavour, 
 as far as may be, to make all our needs such as may, in the supply 
 of them, raise, as well as feed, the poor. It is far better to give 
 work which is above the men, than to educate the men to be 
 above their work. It may be doubted, for instance, whether the 
 habits of luxury, which necessitate a large train of men servants, 
 be a wholesome form of expenditure ; and more, whether the 
 pursuits which have a tendency to enlarge the class of the jockey 
 and the groom be a philanthropic form of mental occupation. So 
 again, consider the large number of men whose lives are employed 
 by civilized nations in cutting facets upon jewels. There is much 
 dexterity of hand, patience, and ingenuity thus bestowed, which 
 are simply burned out in the blaze of the tiara, without, so far as 
 I see, bestowing any pleasure upon those who wear or who behold, 
 at all compensatory for the loss of life and mental power which 
 are involved in the employment of the workman. He would be 
 far more healthily and happily sustained by being set to carve 
 stone ; certain qualities of his mind, for which there is no room 
 in his present occupation, would develope themselves in the 
 nobler ; and I believe that most women would, in the end, prefer 
 the pleasure of having built a church, or contributed to the 
 adornment of a cathedral, to the pride of bearing a certain quan- 
 tity of adamant on their foreheads. 
 
 X. I could pursue this subject willingly, but I have some 
 strange notions about it which it is perhaps wiser not loosely to 
 set down. I content myself with finally reasserting, what has 
 been throughout the burden of the preceding pages, that what- 
 ever rank, or whatever importance, may be attributed or attached 
 to their immediate subject, there is at least some value in the 
 analogies with which its pursuit has presented us, and some 
 instruction in the frequent reference of its commonest neces- 
 sities to the mighty laws, in the sense and scope of which all 
 men are Builders, whom every hour sees laying the stubble or 
 the stone. 
 
 I have paused, not once nor twice, as I wrote, and often have 
 
214 THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 checked the course of what might otherwise have been impor- 
 tunate persuasion, as the thought has crossed me, how soon all 
 Architecture may be vain, except that which is not made with 
 hands. There is something ominous in the light which has 
 enabled us to look back with disdain upon the ages among whose 
 lovely vestiges we have been wandering. I could smile when 
 I hear the hopeful exultation of many, at the new reach of 
 worldly science, and vigour of worldly effort ; as if we were 
 again at the beginning of days. There is thunder on the hori- 
 zon as well as dawn. The sun was risen upon the earth when 
 Lot entered into Zoar. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 The Four Modes of Admiration. — (This piece of analysis, which 
 I find to be entirely accurate, was given in the preface to the second 
 edition. I now place it, without interference from other topics, at the 
 close of the volume, where it may be read, I hope, with clearer under- 
 standing than it could have been at the beginning, — and to better 
 purpose.) 
 
 I HAVE found, after carefully investigating the character of the emotions 
 which were generally felt by well-educated people respecting various 
 forms of good architecture, that these emotions might be separated into 
 four general heads : — 
 
 1. Sentimental Admiration. — The kind of feeling which most travellers 
 experience on first entering a cathedral by torchlight and hearing a chant 
 from concealed choristers ; or in visiting a ruined abbey by moonlight, or 
 any building with which interesting associations are connected, at any 
 time when they can hardly see it. 
 
 2. Proud Admiration. — The delight which most worldly people take in 
 showy, large, or complete buildings, for the sake of the importance which 
 such buildings confer on themselves, as their possessors, or admirers. 
 
 3. Workmanly Admiration. — The delight of seeing good and neat 
 masonry, together with that belonging to incipient developments of 
 taste ; as, for instance, a perception of proportion in lines, masses, and 
 mouldings. 
 
 4. Artistic and rational Admiration. — The delight taken in reading 
 the sculpture or painting on walls, capitals, friezes, &c. 
 
 Of these four kinds of feeling I found, on farther inquiry, that the first, 
 or sentimental kind, was instinctive and simple ; excitable in nearly all 
 persons, by a certain amount of darkness and slow music in a minor key. 
 That it had good uses and was of a dignified character in some minds ; 
 but that on the whole it was apt to rest in theatrical effect, and to be as 
 well satisfied with the incantation scene in " Robert le Diable," provided 
 there were enough gauze and feux-follets, as by the Cathedra! of Rheims. 
 That it might generally be appealed to with advantage as a judge of the 
 
2l6 APPENDICES. 
 
 relative impressiveness of two styles of art, but was wholly unable to dis- 
 tinguish truth from affectation in the style it preferred. Even in its highest 
 manifestation, in the great mind of Scott, while it indeed led him to lay 
 his scenes in Melrose Abbey and Glasgow Cathedral, rather than in St. 
 Paul's or St. Peter's, it did not enable him to see the difference between 
 true Gothic at Glasgow, and false Gothic at Abbotsford. As a critical 
 faculty, I found it was hardly to be taken into consideration in any 
 reasoning on the higher merits of architecture. 
 
 2. Proud Admiration. — This kind of applause, so far from being courted, 
 I found ought altogether to be deprecated by the noble architect, and 
 that no building could be really admirable which was not admirable to 
 the poor. So that there was an essential baseness in the Renaissance 
 (i. e. the modern Italian and Greek style), and an essential nobleness in 
 the Gothic, consisting simply in the pride of the one, and the humility of 
 the other. I found the love of largeness, and especially oi symmetry, invari- 
 ably associated with vulgarity and narrowness of mind, so that the person 
 most intimately acquainted with the mind of the monarch to whom the 
 Renaissance architecture owed its principal impulse, describing his 
 principles of religion, states that he "was shocked to be told that Jesus 
 Christ spoke the language of the humble and the poor ;" and, describing 
 his taste in architecture, says that he "thought of nothing but grandeur, 
 magnificence, and symmetry."* 
 
 3. Workmanly Admiration. — This, of course, though right within 
 certain limits, is wholly uncritical, beings as easily satisfied with the worst 
 as with the best building, so that the mortar be laid smoothly. As to the 
 feeling with which it is usually united, namely, a delight in the intelligent 
 observance of the proportions of masses, it is good in all the affairs of life, 
 whether regulating the disposition of dishes at a dinner table f, of orna- 
 ments on a dress, or of pillars in a portico. But it no more constitutes 
 the true power of an architect, than the possession of a good ear for metre 
 constitutes a poet ; and every building whose excellence consists merely 
 in the proportion of masses is to be considered as nothing more than an 
 architectural doggrel, or rhyming exercise. 
 
 4. Artistic and rational Admiration. — I found, finally, that this, the 
 only admiration worth having, attached itself w/iol/y to the meaning of 
 the sculpture and colour on the building. That it was very regardless of 
 general form and size ; but intensely observant of the statuary, floral 
 mouldings, mosaics, and other decorations. Upon which, little by little, 
 
 * Madame de Maintenon, quoted in Quarterly Review, March, 1855, pp. 423 — 428. 
 She says, afterwards, " He prefers to endure all the draughts from the doors, in order 
 that they may be opposite one another— _)'i5« must perish in symmetry P 
 
 \ "At the chateau of Madame V., the white-headed butler begged madame to apolo- 
 gise for the central flower-basket on the table : ' He had not had time to study the 
 composition.' " —Mrs. Stowe's " Sunny Memories," lett. 44. 
 
APPENDICES. 2 I 7 
 
 it gradually became manifest to me that the sculpture and painting were, 
 in fact, the all in all of the thing to be done ; that these, which I had long 
 been in the careless habit of thinking subordinate to the architecture, 
 were in fact the entire masters of the architecture ; and that the architect 
 who was not a sculptor or a painter, was nothing better than a frame- 
 maker on a large scale. Having once got this clue to the truth, every 
 question about [architecture immediately settled itself without farther 
 difficulty. I saw that the idea of an independent architectural profession 
 was a mere modern fallacy, the thought of which had never so much as 
 entered the heads of the great nations of earlier times ; but that it had 
 always, till lately, been understood, that in order to have a Parthenon, 
 one had to get a preliminary Phidias ; and to have a Cathedral of 
 Florence, a preliminary Giotto ; and to have even a Saint Peter's at 
 Rome, a preliminary Michael Angelo. And as, with this new light, I 
 examined the nobler examples of our Gothic cathedrals, it became appa- 
 rent to me that the master workman must have been the person who 
 carved the bas-reliefs in the porches ; that to him all others must have 
 been subordinate, and by him all the rest of the cathedral essentially 
 arranged ; but that in fact the whole company of builders, always laro-e, 
 were more or less divided into two great flocks of stone-layers, and 
 sculptors ; and that the number of sculptors was so great, and their 
 average talent so considerable, that it would no more have been thouo-ht 
 necessary to state respecting the master builder that he could carve a 
 statue, than that he could measure an angle, or strike a curve.* 
 
 If the reader will think over this statement carefully he will find that 
 it is indeed true, and a key to many things. The fact is, there are only 
 two fine arts possible to the human race, sculpture and painting. What 
 we call architecture is only the association of these in noble masses, or 
 the placing them in fit places. AH architecture other than this is, in fact, 
 mere building ; and though it may sometimes be graceful, as in the 
 groinings of an abbey roof; or sublime, as in the battlements of a border 
 tower ; there is, in such examples of it, no more exertion of the powers 
 of high art, than in the gracefulness of a well-ordered chamber, or the 
 nobleness of a well-built ship of war. 
 
 All high art consists in the carving or painting natural objects, chiefly 
 figures : it has always subject and meaning, never consisting solely in 
 arrangement of lines, or even of colours. It always paints or carves 
 something that it sees or believes in ; nothing ideal or uncredited. For 
 the most part, it paints and carves the men and things that are visible 
 
 * The name by which the architect of Cologne Cathedral is designated in the con- 
 tracts for the work, is " magister lapicida," the " master stone-cutter ; " and I believe 
 this was the usual Latin term throughout the middle ages. The architect of the four- 
 teenth century portions of Notre-Dame, Paris, is styled in French, merely " premier 
 masson." 
 
 F F 
 
2l8 APPENDICES. 
 
 around it. And as soon as we possess a body of sculptors able, and 
 willing, and having leave from the English public, to carve on the facades 
 of our cathedrals portraits of the living bishops, deans, canons, and 
 choristers, who are to minister in the said cathedrals ; and on the facades 
 of our public buildings, portraits of the men chiefly moving or acting in 
 the same ; and on our buildings, generally, the birds and flowers which 
 are singing and budding in the fields around them, we shall have a school 
 of English architecture. Not till then. 
 
 The greatest service which can at present be rendered to architecture, 
 is the careful delineation of its details from the beginning of the I2th 
 to the close of the 14th century, by means of photography. I would 
 particularly desire to direct the attention of amateur photographers to 
 this task ; earnestly requesting them to bear in mind that while a photo- 
 graph of landscape is merely an amusing toy, one of early architecture is 
 a precious historical document ; and that this architecture should be 
 taken, not merely when it presents itself under picturesque general forms, 
 but stone by stone, and sculpture by sculpture ; seizing every opportunity 
 afforded by scaffolding to approach it closely, and putting the camera in 
 any position that will command the sculpture, wholly without regard to 
 the resultant distortions of the vertical lines ; such distortion can always 
 be allowed for, if once the details are completely obtained. 
 
 It would be still more patriotic in lovers of architecture to obtain casts 
 of the sculptures of the thirteenth century, wherever an opportunity 
 occurs, and to place them where they would be easily accessible to the 
 ordinary workman. The Architectural Museum at Westminster is one 
 of the institutions which it appears to me most desirable to enrich in this 
 manner. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 The following two notes — fourth and fifth in the old edition — are worth 
 preserving. 
 
 P. 27. " IVif/i different pattern of traceries in each." — I have certainly 
 not examined the seven hundred and four traceries (four to each niche) 
 so as to be sure that none are alike ; but they have the aspect of continual 
 variation, and even the roses of tlie pendants of tlie small groined niclic roofs 
 are all of different patterns. (I now italicize this last sentence, — for it is 
 the best illustration in the whole book, of the loving and religious labour 
 on which it so frequently insists.) 
 
 P. 38. " Its flamboyant traceries of the last and most degraded fo^nns." — 
 They are noticed by IVIr. Wheweli as forming the figure of the fleur-de-lis, 
 
APPENDICES. 219 
 
 always a mark, when in tracery bars, of the most debased flamboyant. It 
 occurs in the central tower of Bayeux, very richly in the buttresses of St. 
 Gervais at Falaise, and in the small niches of some of the domestic 
 buildings at Rouen. Nor is it only the tower of St. Ouen which is over- 
 rated. Its nave is a base imitation, in the flamboyant period, of an early 
 Gothic arrangement ; the niches on its piers are barbarisms ; there is a 
 huge square shaft run through the ceiling of the aisles to support the nave 
 piers, the ugliest excrescence I ever saw on a Gothic building; the tra- 
 ceries of the nave are the most insipid and faded flamboyant ; those of the 
 transept clerestory present a singularly distorted condition of perpen- 
 dicular ; even the elaborate door of the south transept is, for its fine 
 period, extravagant and almost grotesque in its foliation and pendants. 
 There is nothing truly fine in the church but the choir, the light triforium, 
 and tall clerestory, the circle of Eastern chapels, the details of sculpture, 
 and the general lightness of proportion ; these merits being seen to the 
 utmost advantage by the freedom of the body of the church from all in- 
 cumbrance. 
 
 A P P E iN D I X III. 
 
 p. 42. " Does not admit iron as a constructive material." — Except in 
 Chaucer's noble temple of Mars. 
 
 In the former editions, a note on the structural use of iron quoted 
 Chaucer's description of the temple of Mars ; but only in the Chaucer 
 EngHsh, which few readers quite understand, and which I certainly do 
 not always myself I re-write it now in as familiar spelling as may be, 
 with a little bit of needful explanation. 
 
 " And downward from a hill under a bent 
 
 There stood the temple of Mars armipotent, 
 
 Wrought all of burned steel ; of which th' entree 
 
 Was long, and strait, and ghastly for to see. 
 5. And thereout came a rage, and such a vise 
 
 That it made all the gates for to rise. 
 
 The Northern light in at the door shone, 
 
 For window on the wall ne was there none, 
 
 Through which men mighten any hght discerne. 
 10. The door was all of adamant eterne, 
 
 Yclenched overthwart and endelong 
 
 With iron tough, and for to make it strong, 
 
 Every pillar, the temple to sustene, 
 14. Was tun-great, of iron bright and sheene." 
 
 {The Knight's Tale, I. 19S3 of The Canterbury Tales.") 
 
220 APPENDICES. 
 
 Line i. "Bent." In glossary, the 'bending,' or declivity, of a hill. 
 Properly, I believe, the hollow cut out by the sweep of a stream. Just 
 the place where they put milldams or chimneys on the streams above 
 Sheffield, for grinding knives or bayonets. 
 
 Line 3. " Burned steel." Twice hardened in the fire. 
 
 Line 5. "Vise." I am not sure what the word means ; but the general 
 sense is, that such a blast came out of the building, that it lifted the gates, 
 underneath, as a portcullis is lifted. 
 
 Line 7. " The Northern light." Flickering, furious, and cheerless — the 
 only light that is ever seen by the soul purposed for war. 
 
 Line 10. "Adamant." Diamond: the jewel which means sable in 
 heraldry. The Northern light is conceived as shining through it. 
 
 Line 14. " Tun-great." As large round as a cask. 
 
 Note, finally, the absolute carelessness of all great poets, whether 
 their images be common or not, — so only they be clear. 
 
 There is, by the bye, an exquisite piece of architectural colour just 
 before : 
 
 " And northward, in a turret on the wall 
 Of alabaster white, and red coral I, 
 An oratorie riche for to see, 
 In worship of Diane of Chastitee." 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 p. 97. " Arid levelled cusps of stone."— The plate represents one of the 
 lateral windows of the third story of the Palazzo Foscari. It was drawn 
 from the opposite side of the Grand Canal, and the lines of its traceries 
 are therefore given as they appear in somewhat distant effect. It shows 
 only segments of the characteristic quatrefoils of the central windows. I 
 found by measurement their construction exceedingly simple. Four 
 circles are drawn in contact within the large circle. Two tangential lines 
 are then drawn to each opposite pair, enclosing the four circles in a hollow 
 cross. An inner circle struck through the intersections of the circles by 
 the tangents, truncates the cusps. 
 
APPENDICES. 22 1 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 p. 200. "/« one of the noblest poems." — Coleridge's Ode to France : — 
 
 " Ye Clouds ! that far above me float and pause, 
 
 Whose pathless march no mortal may control ! » 
 
 Ye Ocean-Waves ! that wheresoe'er ye roll, 
 Yield homage only to eternal laws ! '' 
 Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-birds singing,"^ 
 
 Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,'' 
 Save when your own imperious branches swinging," 
 
 Have made a solemn music of the wind ! 
 Where, like a man beloved of God,' 
 Through glooms, which never woodman trod,s 
 
 How oft, pursuing fancies holy, 
 My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound. 
 
 Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,'' 
 By each iiide shape and wild unconquerable sound ! 
 O ye loud Waves ! and O ye Forests high ! 
 
 And O ye Clouds that far above me soared ! 
 Thou rising Sun I thou blue rejoicing Sky ! "' 
 
 Yea, every thing that is and will be free ! 
 
 Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be. 
 
 With what deep worship I have still adored 
 The spirit of divinest Liberty." 
 
 Noble verse, but erring thought : contrast George Herbert : — 
 
 " Slight those who say amidst their sickly healths. 
 Thou livest by rule. What doth not so but man ? 
 Houses are built by rule, and Commonwealths. 
 Entice the trusty sun, if that you can. 
 From his ecliptic line ; beckon the sky. 
 Who lives by rule then, keeps good company. 
 
 * If controlled by God, are they therefore more free.' 
 
 I" Is the ship they bear less noble in obeying those, and her captain also .'—and docs 
 she gain dignity in disobeying her helm .^ 
 
 ' Pure nonsense. 
 
 ■' Why midway, any more than at the top, or the bottom ? 
 
 •= Is it honourable then to be imperious, but not to be obedient— and what are the 
 branches imperative of ? to what ? 
 
 ' Nonsense again. We are not more like " men beloved of God," when we walk in 
 a wood, than when we walk out of one. 
 
 s Are woodmen naturally profane persons ? 
 
 '' Holiness, and Inspiration of an unguessable height, claimed perhaps too con- 
 fidently, for the fancies of a moonlight walk, among rude shapes and unconquerable 
 noises. 
 
 ' '' The rising sun has not been before noticed ; nor does it appear why the author 
 considers it more " free" in rising than setting. Of all objects in Creation, the sun is 
 the last which any rational person would think of as moving in "the spirit of divinest 
 Liberty," or could wish that it should be permitted to do so. 
 
222 APPENDICES. 
 
 " WTio keeps no guard upon himself is slack, 
 And rots to nothing at the next great thaw ; 
 Man is a shop of rules : a well-truss'd pack 
 Whose ever)' parcel underwrites a law. 
 Lose not thyself, nor give thy humours way ; 
 God gave them to thee under lock and key." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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