ARCHITECTURAL RESTOEATIONS. 109 



whether it was the work of one or of several periods. 

 Every detail is more or less interesting, as the work of 

 ancient hands, and declaratory of the mode in which our 

 forefathers met the requirements of their age ; to say 

 nothing of a certain innate and inseparable grace which 

 clings to these old structures in every stage of decay and 

 under all circumstances of man's neglect. An ancient 

 edifice is, in one word, a study — a study for the historian, 

 for the divine, the architect, and the artist — for all who 

 love to look back into the vista of the past, either from a 

 desire to escape from, or to bring additional means of 

 enjoyment to, the matter-of-faet vulgarity of the present. 



I cannot, indeed, too warmly insist upon the unap- 

 proachable beauty and pathetic loveliness of the rnajority 

 of ancient structures, and the rieh mine which they pre- 

 sent to modern investigators. Our old churches, for 

 example, and other religious edifices in the several Gothic 

 styles, are modeis of exquisite taste, and of the perfect 

 command over material which their builders possessed. 

 They constitute, accordingly the only real schools for 

 modern disciples in the architectural art. An architect 

 must be imbued with their spirit, and a master of their 

 forms, to be at all worthy of his great name. Not in the 

 studio and over the drawing-table, but amid the walls, and 

 piers, and arches, and Ornaments of the structures them- 

 selves he can drink in the inspiration and catch the magic 

 of their wondrous beauty. It matters not that the hand 

 of Time, or the still more ruthless attack of human aggres- 

 sion, in the shape of centuries of contemptuous neglect, 

 has despoiled them of a portion of what they onee 

 possessed. They have yet abundance to teach, to suggest, 

 to recommend, and to reveal. Every detail has a voiee, 

 every arrangement a lesson, every stone a sermon. And 



