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



if they stand at the corner, like that of RedclifFe, or St. John's at 

 Chester, or on the transept, as at Fountain's Abbey. In short, though 

 tower-building was always the glory of architecture in all ages and 

 styles when towers grew at all, this century has hardly produced a 

 single tower or spire whose proportions would not be laughed to 

 scorn by any of the old steeple-builders, except the towers of the 

 Houses of Parliament and of Doncaster church ; the latter of which 

 is 34 feet square where it rises from the roofs, and 170 feet high; 

 and the Victoria tower is the largest in the world, and as it happens, 

 exactly double the height of Doncaster ; the great arches however are 

 only about a yard higher than our central ones. 



There is only one more physical cause of the general failure of 

 modern Gothic architecture which I mean to speak of. And on this 

 one I am glad to say that I can agree with Mr. Ruskin as thoroughly 

 as I differ from him about some others, especially his ornamentation 

 theories. The thing I refer to now however is no theory, but a simple 

 matter of observation so plain and obvious that there is very little to 

 say about it, except to desire people to pay no attention to theories of 

 perfect building, but to use their eyes ; which, however, is generally 

 the last thing we lei.rn to do. Now everybody who does condescend 

 to learn in that way, will see, the first time he really looks at any old 

 Gothic building in good preservation, and at any new one, that the old 

 one is, as a builder would say, shockingly inferior in the execution of 

 the work. He will see no kind of precision about the joints anywhere ; 

 no edge, or arris (as the builders call it), is either quite a straight 

 line if it professes to be generally straight, or quite a regular curve if 

 it is curved. Ornaments of repetition, such as the Norman zigzags or 

 others of that kind, and the early English tooth moulding (which is 

 really four narrow leaves set in a pyramid), and the decorated ball- 

 flower, though alike in a general way, are never exactly alike ; no two 

 of them would fit the same mould, any more than any two of the millions 

 of similar leaves of the same tree will. If you take the trouble to 

 measure the dimensions of corresponding parts, you will find that the 

 old builders were not very particular about them either, so long as they 

 were tolerably near what was intended. In short, you will see what 

 will strike you as a general carelessness about execution ; and usually 

 the inequalities are greater in large work, heavy mouldings, and bold 

 carvings, than in small ; or, as Mr. Ruskin well expresses it, "^the 

 execution is always subordinate to the design." Whereas, the pride of 

 modern work is precision and finish, as the masons and clerks of the 

 works will tell you themselves, and probably call your attention to the 

 excellence of their performance in that way, if you give them a chance. 



Now one of these things must be wrong. You may read Mr. 

 Ruskin's reasons why the precision is wrong and the carelessness right, 

 either in his Seven Lamps, or in the little tract On the nature of 

 Gothic, which he has taken out of the Stones of Venice, and published 

 for sixpence — in my opinion the most valuable part of that overgrown 

 and costly book. I will content myself with asking you, without 

 reference to any reasoning about the matter, which you think looks 



