SKETCHES BY A PRACTISING ARCHITECT. 155 



will have left the republic of free-love for the abso- 

 lute monarchy of prescribed affection. You will no 

 longer admire as your unfettered will has hitherto 

 prompted ; you will only admire what you may. 

 Back to the open wilds of your native ignorance ! 

 Send for your carpenter. Tell him to " knock you 

 up'' a comfortable house after his own fancy, and 

 then innocently comment upon the skill with which 

 he has intermingled principles of every genius, ex- 

 amples of every age, and impossibihties of every 

 description. 



I have thus shewn you, that architectural taste, 

 like that for pickled olives and Havannah cigars, is 

 an acquired tsiste ; and that, as the subjects of my 

 simile induce the expensive habit of drinking, so the 

 subject to which they assimilate induces measures 

 just as intoxicating. I should regret the fatality 

 which has compelled me to adopt the practice of 

 architecture as a means of existence ; but I am in a 

 great measure supported by the consideration that 

 my friend Freiburg sells tobacco, and that I have a 

 cousin who keeps a gin-shop. While we all three 

 complain of the public, we are yet comforted in the 

 companionship of complaint, and the enmity which 

 I should otherwise exhibit towards carpenter-archi- 

 tects is much subdued by the consideration that 

 there are Temperance Societies to counteract the too 

 prominent success of gin and tobacco. 



Nothing more decidedly proves the artificial 

 nature of architectural taste, than the ever continued 

 ignorance of it, as exampled in many eminent paint- 

 ers. In fact, no body of men is more destitute of 

 true architectural feeling than the gentlemen of the 

 brush. This is the more remarkable, because they 

 have often to do with architectural subjects, and 

 might therefore, under the assistance of their " na- 

 tural taste," be expected to become architecturally 

 informed. The case is far otherwise, and so it must 

 remain while they look at columns and buildings, as 

 they do at trees and bushes, unmindful that accuracy 



