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



plenty of distinct parts in a building or a window, of any size, and put 

 plenty of stiiges in a buttress, or mouldings in an arch, the eye will be 

 cheated into believing that the building is large, the window a grand 

 one, the buttress high and deep, and the wall thick : precisely the 

 reverse of all which is the fact. The eye is not such a fool: though 

 its owner may not be wise enough to know how he has discovered the 

 cheat, yet he always does discover it — and more ; for by a strange but 

 just retribution, buildings designed on this fraudulent principle 

 generally look even smaller than they are ; and for this reason : the eye 

 soon perceives that everything within its power of measuring is small 

 and paltry, and therefore the mind instinctively concludes that the 

 whole is, whether it is in fact or not. Of the two mistakes, the old 

 foreign one is immeasurably the best ; inasmuch as it is far better that 

 you should find a building to be greater than you thought at first, 

 instead of gradually discovering that the more you see of it the more 

 paltry and mean and good for nothing it is : not that buildings are the 

 only things of which this is true. 



Some persons think, that in the desire to avoid this common fault 

 in St. James's Church at Doncaster, we have run a little into the 

 opposite error of St. Peter's at Rome ; and it certainly is true that its 

 size is not always appreciated at first. But then it is generally seen 

 after the much larger church near it, and is talked of as the small one ; 

 and therefore people are not prepared for an unbroken internal length 

 such as you find in hardly any of the largest London churches. In 

 fact, I doubt if there is any other modern Gothic church with even one 

 continuous roof of 116 feet, much less two ; though there are plenty 

 of old ones longer. Moreover, you must not suppose that I set up this 

 church as the best that could be designed ; but the best that we were 

 able to do for the specific sum of money which was allowed for it ; and 

 it was particularly intended to prove that a church of that size, truly 

 Golhic in construction, and most convenient in arrangement, with 

 nothing mean, or unreal, or pretentious* about it, could be built for a 

 very moderate sum of money, on principles exactly opposite to those 

 which are commonly adopted. In that we have certainly succeeded, 

 for it seems to be generally considered the handsomest building for its 

 cost and size that has been erected in modern times. St. George's 

 Church also, considering its size, is remarkable for the simplicity of its 

 design, and the due magnitude of all its parts ; except that in a few of 

 the windows the work is somewhat too minute ; and their comparative 

 feebleness entirely proves what I said just now, viz., that you do not 

 gain but lose in apparent magnitude by subdivision, as soon as the 

 parts become too small in themselves ; and therefore all such work as 

 that is worse than thrown away. 



I have already alluded to the modern passion for the foreign 

 characteristic of height, and the disposition to sacrifice to it the more 



* Mr. Garbett justly says, that what it is the fashion to designate "an unpre- 

 tending structure," generally means one which is only pretence all over. 



