1859.] on Modem Gothic Architecture, 37 



now, and wliicli may briefly be described by a term borrowed from au 

 enemy of Gothic, as eleemosynary buildings, such as churches built by 

 subscription, schools, parsonages, almshouses, workhouses, and other 

 things of that kind. 



You observe that I say "churches built by subscription ;" because, 

 with a few noble exceptions, such as will readily occur to all of us, 

 there is a striking and surprising difference between the conduct of 

 rich men in building churches which they regard as their own, and in 

 building or helping to build those which they do not so regard. I 

 do not know that I can explain that difference better than by a single 

 example, out of many similar ones, which could soon be put together. 

 Not long ago, when a subscription was got up for rebuilding a large 

 and handsome church, which was intended to cost, and has cost, about 

 £30 a sitting, a certain rich man, who lives near it, said openly 

 that he should give as little as he decently could, because he thought 

 it was a great mistake to spend so much money on it. Well, of 

 course, he had a right to please himself; but he was also pleased 

 to furnish a rather odd cpmmentary on his own, and I am afraid, 

 the popular doctrine about expensive church-building; for within 

 a year afterwards he began to build a small church in a secluded 

 hamlet, not even within sight from his house, which has another church 

 close to it, and he spent upon it very nearly £60 a sitting, and more 

 money on the whole than has been spent on St. James's Church, at 

 Doncaster, which holds about six times the congregation, and has cost 

 only £8 a sitting, including all the incidental expenses ; or speaking 

 roundly, about £l a foot of internal area ; which I am convinced is the 

 least that any church of ordinary size can be built for, if it is to have 

 any real architectural character, except under some unusually favour- 

 able circumstances. 



But these specimens of real extravagance, in what may be called 

 private church-building, are almost always on a small scale ; and there- 

 fore the architects are right in saying that they very seldom indeed 

 have a chance of doing any great ecclesiastical work. Moreover, 

 the prejudice against Gothic among the class of persons who spend 

 their own, or other people's money upon great civil buildings not 

 *' eleemosynary," has hitherto confined Gothic works of this class to a 

 very small number ; and those are almost entirely private houses, in which 

 there is less opportunity for display than in public buildings with large 

 halls and other grand features belonging to them.* Consequently, it is 

 true that much of the difficulty of producing good Gothic architecture, 



* I am aware that a great "Huthority in the religious world has gone a littlie 

 beyond Lord Palmerston and Mr. Tite, and has ascertained that " Gothic architec- 

 ture was invented by the Devil," and accordingly proscribed it for his Tabernacle 

 competition. lie does not reveal which the angelic style is ; but it can hardly 

 be that of St. Paul's Cathedral : for it is remarkable that while the nave of West- 

 minster Abbey, and several other Gothic churches, such as Boston and Coventry, 

 hold from 2000 to 3000 people on the floor, who can all hear any preacher with a 

 good voice, it was necessary to deface St. Paul's with that frightful hoarding to 

 enable the new congregation to hear at all, and that very imperfectly. 



