114 PAPER3, ETC. 



reproductions of the styles of mediasval days. A new 

 church in such accomplished hands is sure to have merit, 

 and perhaps transcendant excellence. Need I mention 

 such men as my friends Mr. Ashpitel, Mr. Charles Baily, 

 Mr. Anthony Salvin, and Mr. George Gilbert Scott? They 

 shall build you edifices which faithfully reflect the forms of 

 old, and show that exquisite taste and true artistic feeling 

 have yet among ourselves some hearts in which to dvvell. 

 But the labours of architects must be confined to their 

 proper province. And that province lies not in changing 

 tbe character of our old buildings, but in constructing new 

 ones in which the old spirit is truthfully embodied ; not in 

 erasing from those examples •of our forefathers' skill which 

 have happily descended to our own times the marks which 

 constitute their value, as real examples of ancient art and 

 sources from which its true peculiarities may be learned 

 and understood, but in diligently studying those peculiari- 

 ties, in jealously guarding them, and in truthfully reiter- 

 ating them in the works which they construct. With the 

 precious Originals let them not darc to tamper. Let them, 

 and let us, remember, that no restored monument is an 

 example of ancient art; that henceforth no lessons can be 

 learned from it, no suggestions obtained, no counsels 

 taken ; that, how clever, picturesque, and graceful soever 

 the restoration may be, it is, and it ever will be, a restora- 

 tion only. No pilgrim will ever religiously visit it, or, if 

 he do, will ever draw from it the wisdom that one 

 crumbling fragment of the building which preceded it 

 would never have fiiled to give him. It will hereafter 

 fire no patriot's soul and kindle no poet's eye. Its his- 

 torieal importance, its artistic value, its architectural 

 authority — all aro gone — gone irretrievably — gone for ever. 

 In words which have latclv emanated from the Executive 



