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cases he may be supposed to have adopted a horizontal sytem of com- 

 position, in the latter a vertical one ; points again involving the choice 

 of a style : as, if the site be in all respects best suited to horizontal 

 composition, favouring extension of lines parrallel to the horizon, he 

 would be ill-judging, unless strongly influenced by other weighty reasons, 

 to adopt a style whose leading characteristics were opposed to that kind 

 of composition ; and circumstances may occur, as I shall have occasion 

 to show, in which no considerations of site or necessary arrangement as 

 to composition will be sufficient to balance the weight of reasons on the 

 other side. Conversely, should his site be best suited to a vertical com- 

 position, he would be equally injudicious if he adopted one of horizontal 

 character ; and indeed much more so, because — while a horizontal com- 

 position in a style the leading character of which is vertical, is capable, 

 by judicious grouping of parts, of attaining much of that vertical 

 character — a vertical composition in a style characterised by horizontal 

 lines can rarely be given a character in harmony with such lines. As 

 examples of the latter case, I would instance most of Wren's church 

 towers; and, as a noble instance of the former, the new Houses of 

 Parliament. Another point which must greatly influence the choice of 

 a style, and consequently the form which a structure will assume, is the 

 nature of the associations connected with the class to which it may be- 

 long. Such influences should give a preference, in my opinion, for a 

 national style, (if not in itself bad,) for nationl purposes, more especially 

 where religious and social feelings are aff'ected by the long use of any 

 such style for religious or other purposes of great interest, as is the case 

 with our own pointed styles as applied to churches and institutions for 

 purposes of education. Where, however, the uses to which the building 

 is to be applied, are not so associated historically, there can be no 

 ground for strong objection to the adoption of any style harmonizing 

 with those purposes ; and this point I would illustrate by the case of 

 museums of antiquities, which, as institutions of modem origin, and 

 often interesting in great part on account of their exhibiting what we 

 have not much national association with, can scarcely be held of 

 unsuitable architectural style, if that used be simply adapted to the 

 physical necessities of the case. 



"The last point I shall notice under this head is the influence 

 which use so powerfully exerts in the choice of a style, to which is 

 mainly to be traced our general adoption for civil purposes, of styles 

 which are certainly not national. The Italian architecture of the 

 16th century is that of a people much, in social position, resembling 

 our own at present, and while at the time of the greatest splendour 

 of our churches and abbeys, our towns and cities consisted, in great 



