288 The Oxford Museum. 



tecture, always degenerates into effeminacies and conceits ; archi- 

 tecture, stripped of sculpture, is at best a convenient arrangement 

 of dead walls; associated, they not only adorn, but reciprocally 

 -exalt each other, and give to all the arts of the country in which 

 they thus exist, a correspondent tone of majesty. But I would 

 plead for the enrichment of this doorway by portrait sculpture, 

 not so much even on any of these important grounds, as because 

 it would be the first example in modern English architecture of the 

 real value and right place of commemorative statues. We seem 

 never to know at present where to put such statues. Iu the midst 

 of the blighted trees of desolate squares, or at the crossing of 

 confused streets, or balanced on the pinnacles of pillars, or riding 

 across the tops of triumphal arches, or blocking up the aisles of 

 cathedrals, in none of these positions, I think, does the portrait 

 statue answ T er its purpose. It may be a question whether the 

 erection of such statues is honorable to the erectors, but assuredly 

 it is not honourable to the persons whom it pretends to comme- 

 morate ; nor is it anywise matter of exultation to a man who has 

 deserved well of his country, to reflect that his effigy may one 

 day encumber a crossing, or disfigure a park gate. But there is 

 no man of worth or heart, who would not feel it a high and 

 priceless reward that his statue should be placed where it might 

 remind the youth of England of what had been exemplary in his 

 life, or useful in his labours, and might be regarded with no empty 

 reverence, no fruitless pensiveness, but with the emulative, eager, 

 unstinted passionateness of honour, which youth pays to the dead 

 leaders of the cause it loves, or discoverers of the light by which 

 it lives. To be buried under weight of marble, or with splendour 

 of ceremonial, is still no more than burial ; but to be remembered 

 daily, with profitable tenderness, by the activest intelligences of 

 the nation we have served, and to have power granted even to 

 the shadows of the poor features, sunk into dust, still to warn, to 

 animate, to command, as the father's brow rules and exalts the 

 toil of his children. This is not burial, but immortality." 



Mr. Ruskin thus sums up the design of the Gothic Revivalists, 

 To make Art expressive rather than curious — fixed rather than 

 portable — publicly beneficial rather than privately engrossed — to 

 convey truthful information of form and promote intelligence 

 among the workmen, has been attempted and carried out in the 

 building. The University, we understand, has not been so parsi- 

 monious as Dr. Aclaud would have us believe, 60,000/., and not 

 S0 ? 000/., having been actually spent on this work. May it speed ! 



