16 



for when a man can have ornament almost endless in stucco and putty, 

 when the painter can imitate for him the rarest and most costly woods, 

 why should he be content with plainly-wrought stone or moulded brick, 

 and why should he believe that plain unvarnished (or varnished) deal is 

 better than sham oak ? Because it is honest and true, and the sham 

 when discovered, as it always is, becomes, to the beholder, of less value 

 than a much inferior reality. To architects this is a point of constant 

 trial, at least I know it is to many, and the man of good architectural 

 taste would, I believe, far rather go down to posterity as the author of 

 one honest, sterling, well-executed, characteristic, though plain unoniate 

 building, than of a score of such elaborate specimens of laborious 

 plaster-work, the constant object of whose existence is to support a 

 deception. 



Material should not be costly beyond the proper character of the 

 work it is used for ; if it is, the idea is conveyed that other portions 

 have been neglected to make it prominent ; but it should not be mean, 

 as whether such be the fact or not, it will appear as if to save cost 

 the work had not been carried through in a manner of equality of 

 excellence. 



The subject of material leads me to speak of a defect in its applica- 

 tion to exotic architecture, which strongly, in my opinion, calls for con- 

 demnation. In Greek architecture the parts of the order were propor- 

 tioned with the nicest care, and their weights and strengths, to the fine 

 cohesive marbles in which their builders wrought. We adopt the style, 

 but not the material, and because our English sandstone will not bear 

 weight in the same degree as Grecian marble, we suffer our buildings to 

 shame us with their broken architraves and gaping joints, sad evidences 

 of following fashion rather than principle. Either let us work in 

 material suited to the proportions we want, or seeking out the principles 

 of our original, re-construct our orders on proportions suited to our 

 materials ; or let us abandon the style at once. Mr. Ruskin, — in his 

 work " The Stones of Venice," which I am glad to be able, in some 

 cases, to refer to, because from its general tenor I entirely dissent, — 

 has some good observations, expressed however in somewhat of his often 

 over-wrought manner, on our modern use of the Greek style and its 

 lack of meaning and vitality in our hands ;* and there are besides reasons 

 which Mr. Ruskin does not allude to, why we can scarcely practise 

 this style with much success, a chief one being that as implied by 



♦ " The Greek system pre-supposes tlie possession of a Phidias: it is ridiculous to talk of 

 building in the Greek manner; you may build a Greek sliell or bo.\, such as the Greek 

 intended to contain sculpture, but you have not the sculpture to put in it. Find your 

 Phidias first," &c., &c. Chap, xxi., § viii. 



