1859.] on Modern Gothic Architecture, 55 



After six years' experience in building at Doncaster, besides a little 

 elsewhere, I am convinced, without meaning thereby any reflection 

 upon architects, that there can be no good building anywhere unless 

 there is somebody constantly, or at any rate very frequently, on the 

 spot, who has what we may call an architectural eye, and the power to 

 stop at once anything which he sees is going to turn out wrong. I 

 know tliat it is one of the common fallacies inculcated by architects, 

 that you cannot tell until things are done whether they will look well 

 or ill. Why not, I should like to know ? Do they expect us to 

 believe that a man sitting in London and drawing an elevation of a 

 pinnacle, or a section of an arch, knows better how it will look in its 

 place, than other men who see it begun upon the spot, and see that it 

 looks wrong already ? I say " already," for there is nothing I am 

 more certain of than that a thing which looks ugly already, is not 

 going to look beautiful when something more is added to it. Old 

 ruins, which are simply incomplete buildings, are not ugly. Of course 

 a man must know how to distinguish between ugliness and incomplete- 

 / ness of proportions ; but supposing that he does, and is generally a 

 person whose judgment of a finished building is likely to be right, 

 then I would rather have his opinion of the promise of a building, or 

 any part of it, long before it is finished, than of the best architect who 

 has never seen it, nor even any correct view of it. For remember, 

 that such a thing as a correct view of a building, as it will look, is 

 never made, or so rarely, that the exceptions are not worth regarding. 

 You have seen what Mr. Garbett says of the artistic or perspective 

 view, which is generally made of an intended building, from what is 

 expected to be the best point of view. But this is not the building 

 plan : it is the captivating picture, which no doubt every honest archi- 

 tect believes will turn out a true one also, at least as far as it extends ; 

 but whether it will or not, depends on whether the sections and eleva- 

 tions made afterwards by himself or his clerks, are really such as would 

 be accurately translated into that perspective ; and generally they are 

 not. Moreover, the greatest part of the details are never designed or 

 drawn at all as they will appear ; I mean in such perspective as they 

 would present, if drawn from actual view in their places. I know it 

 would involve a good deal of trouble to do this ; but so it does to do most 

 things well. In old times, when the people on the spot designed and 

 superintended the details, the absence of accurate drawings, or of any 

 drawings, did not signify. But the case is very different now that 

 nobody with any more knowledge or taste than is required for " setting 

 out work " is allowed (if it can be prevented) to intervene between the 

 architect in London, or his clerks who make his working drawings 

 according to the stereotyped rules of the office, and the masons who 

 turn them into stone. You would be astonished if I were to tell you 

 the number of instances in which working drawings of details were 

 sent down to Doncaster, which it was discovered, sometimes just in 

 time, and sometimes too late, would produce, or had produced a 

 totally different effect from that of the general drawings of the whole, 

 even in points to which particular attention had been directed. Fof 



