270 SKETCHES BY A PRACTISING ARCHITECT. 



his architect, in the prostitution of his independent 

 professional duty. That, which has been urged 

 again and again elsewhere, may once more be echoed 

 here, viz. the important truth, that art will effect 

 nothing great, while it seeks for favour in a servile 

 obedience to the no-meaning whimsicalities of indi- 

 vidual patronage. The monarch who truckles to 

 the will of his prime-mistress will be as likely to win 

 the applause of his country at large, as the artist who 

 is influenced by the fal lal of a Sir Anglo, except as 

 a wholesome measure of correction ; for, it is certain, 

 that, in many instances, nothing more justly severe 

 can be devised, than the exact fulfilment of his pro- 

 fessed wishes. Give him a fac-simile of one of his 

 Palladian idols, and see how he '11 rave at the god, 

 which e'en now he worshipped. Then will "even 

 handed justice commend the ingredients of his poi- 

 soned chalice to his own lips." 



Art to succeed must command : but it therefore 

 follows not that she must be imperious. The in- 

 junctions she puts upon her delegates are simply 

 these ; to seem acquiescent, and to be over-ruling. At 

 any rate, be independent; and let the canon of your 

 practice be to that propounded by Mela Britannicus :* 

 — " The criterion of a good architect consists, not so 

 much in treading in the steps of ancient professors of 

 the art, as in the power of feeling the spirit of the age 

 in which he lives, and in considerino, whether or no 

 his plans proposed, square with the ideas of social 

 order current in his time, as well as with those ways 

 of life, which denote a later and more extended civi- 

 hzation." 



* Charles Kelsall, Esq. 



