AECHITECTURAL RESTORATIONS. 111 



what has escapecl our aggression is genuine and true. 

 You may be assured of wbat you see, and depend on what 

 we have suffered to remain.' Good and satisfactory. 

 But the "restorers! " — what must they admit, if they be 

 but equally truthful in the account of their labours 1 ? 

 They must confess that they have falsified that which 

 they have touched, and that they have entirely removed 

 from the object its special and peculiar value. They may 

 have made the edifice more commodious and comfoftable, 

 as they call it, and, as they may fancy, more stable and 

 secure, but they have taken from the structure that price- 

 less quality which, when once lost, can never be restored. 

 They have turned truth into falsehood ; they have made 

 that which once could confidently and authoritatively 

 instruct, a vehicle for the transmission and extension of a 

 lie ; they have closed for ever the lips of a witness that 

 could not mislead, and in its stead they have given life 

 to another, whose every word is falsehood, and whose 

 every hint is delusion and deceit. Who would do so in 

 any other department of archajological interest? Who 

 but a madman would, for example, retouch an ancient 

 manuscript, or attempt to bring out into greater relief the 

 precious lines on some inedited coin? Doings similar to 

 these are left to architectural "restorers." And oh! how 

 it makes the hearts of many of us bleed, when, after an 

 absence of years, we revisit some beloved shrine, the idol 

 of youth or early manhood, and find that the well-inten- 

 tioned but ignorant spoiler has been there, and has 

 "restored" our treasure into a false pretender to that 

 which it never really was, whilst he has obliterated the 

 truthful lines and crased the indubitable characteristics 

 which unhesitatingly and clearly revealed its specific 

 pcculiarities and real claims on our regard. "What he has 



