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buildings too often—nay, in a majority, I fear, of cases—fall into 
the hands of men who have neither knowledge nor respect for 
them, while, even amongst those who possess the requisite know- 
ledge, there has too often existed a lack of veneration, a disposition 
to sit in judgment on the works of their teachers, a rage for alter- 
ation.” In 1874, in his opening address to the Royal Institute of 
British Architects, and referring to Mr. Ruskin, Sir G. Scott 
writes :—“ If he (Mr. Ruskin) travels in France, he finds restor- 
ation so rampant that nothing which shows much of the hand of 
time is considered worthy of continued existence, but must be 
re-worked or renewed, cleverly, artistically, and learnedly perhaps, 
but nevertheless it is zew work taking the place of the o/d work, 
or the old work retooled till scarce a vestige of the surface on 
which the old men wrought so lovingly is allowed to remain. If 
he goes into Italy, much the same meets his eye. In his own 
Venice the “Fondaco dei Turchi,” the most venerable secular 
Byzantine work, is rebuilt. At Assisi he would find the works of 
Cimabue and Giotto in the hands of the restorer. In Belgium he 
would find ancient buildings chipped over and made to look like 
new ; or, as is the case with the wonderful church of the Domini- 
cans, at Ghent, deliberately destroyed.” And so forth. Then, in 
1874—four years ago only—Sir Gilbert Scott expressed himself 
thus :—“Taking a review of the results of this sad history, one 
may say that a certain proportion of our churches have been 
carefully dealt with ; another proportion treated with fair intention 
but less success ; but that, as I fear, the majority are almost utterly 
_despoiled, and nine-tenths, if not all, of their interest swept away.” 
And again:—“ We receive, from time to time, appeals to our 
committee for the conservation of ancient monuments against 
vandalisms which one would think incredible ; and only within the 
last few days I have heard of one clergyman selling to a grocer 
one of the old chained-up books which he thought would disfigure 
his ‘restored’ church ; and of another expelling a famous series of 
brasses to secure the uniformity of encaustic tile floor; while one 
hears of noblemen of the highest names who make over the 
nomination of architects for the restoration of the churches on 
