52 Mr E. B. Denison, [Feb. 11, 



I am not sure how far these and perhaps other physical defects 

 of modern Gothic architecture are due to the want of anything like 

 architectural criticism : I mean such criticism of individual buildings, 

 completed or in progress, as books and pictures undergo. No doubt a 

 great deal of that criticism is as great rubbish as the majority of the books 

 and pictures themselves ; but not all. And I cannot help thinking it 

 is a misfortune both to the architects and to the public that they can 

 learn absolutely nothing from criticism on architecture, because there 

 is not only no good criticism, but none at all. I know there are plenty 

 of magniloquent descriptions in the newspapers of Mr. So-and-So's 

 beautiful church, consecrated last Wednesday, and of the Halls and 

 Exchanges which the Queen is good-natured enough to open, where 

 everybody lauds everybody, and the architect goes to bed convinced 

 that in his hands at least " architecture is progressive,'* and that " the 

 architecture of the future" is now really on the point of being 

 " inaugurated," as it is always going t© be next year by somebody. 

 But of course everybody understands these exhibitions as mere local 

 glorifications, which the London newspapers are kind enough to publish 

 when they have nothing better to do. I think it was creditable to the 

 people of Doncaster that they took no pains to get up anything of the 

 kind, even on such an unusual event as the simultaneous opening of 

 the two new churches last October. But on the other hand the 

 absence of any notice of such churches in the daily newspapers, which 

 give us now the best criticisms of books and pictures, proves what I 

 was saying, that there is no real criticism of architecture. The two 

 architects' papers prudently abstain from much architectural criticism ; 

 and probably if they did not, those criticisms would generally be traced 

 to some prejudice or partiality which would be well understood in the 

 profession, if not out of it. 



The only publication that I know of, which really claims for itself 

 the rank of a critic on the public works of the year, and this year does 

 so expressly in contradistinction to the two professional journals, is the 

 Companion to the British Almanac. As you test encyclopaedias by 

 looking at what they say of the subject you know most about, I have taken 

 the trouble to read what the Companion has to say about these two 

 churches I have so often mentioned. If you take the same trouble, 

 you will see that, after giving the principal dimensions of the great 

 church, they tell us that the new tower in the geometrical style is cer- 

 tainly superior to the old perpendicular one, fine as that was ; but that 

 they cannot approve of its having been " privately arranged " from the 

 beginning so to change the style, though the arrangement was kept 

 secret for three or four years (which is all a pure invention of their 

 own, or of the critic whom they hire for the occasion, as they might 

 have learnt from any one who knew the facts, or from my lecture 

 on the church, which was published both in the Doncaster Gazette, 

 and in the pamphlet already referred to). Then comes a quantity 

 of nonsense, complaining that, as in many other churches and 

 cathedrals, in which there is not width enough of flat wall, we have 

 not defaced the tower with a clock face, but have given the people 



