THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 413 



a building."* In these words, the speaker is not merely giv- 

 ing utterance to his own feelings. He is expressing the popu- 

 lar view of the facts, nor that a view merely popular, but one 

 which has been encouraged by nearly all the professors of art 

 of our time. 



It is to this, then, that our Doric and Palladian pride is at 

 last reduced ! We have vaunted the divinity of the Greek 

 ideal we have plumed ourselves on the purity of our Italian 

 taste we have cast our whole souls into the proportions of 

 pillars, and the relations of orders and behold the end ! Our 

 taste, thus exalted and disciplined, is dazzled by the lustre of 

 a few rows of panes of glass ; and the first principles of archi- 

 tectural sublimity, so far sought, are found all the while to 

 have consisted merely in sparkling and in space. 



Let it not be thought that I would depreciate (were it pos- 

 sible to depreciate) the mechanical ingenuity which has been 

 displayed in the erection of the Crystal Palace, or that I un- 

 derrate the effect which its vastness may continue to produce 

 on the popular imagination. But mechanical ingenuity is not 

 the essence either of painting or architecture : and largeness 

 of dimension does not necessarily involve nobleness of design. 

 There is assuredly as much ingenuity required to build a 

 screw frigate, or a tubular bridge, as a hall of glass ; all 

 these are works characteristic of the age ; and all, in their 

 several ways, deserve our highest admiration; but not ad- 

 miration of the kind that is rendered to poetry or to art. We 

 may cover the German Ocean with frigates, and bridge the 

 Bristol Channel with iron, and roof the county of Middlesex 

 with crystal, and yet not possess one Milton, or Michael An- 

 gelo. 



Well, it may be replied, we need our bridges, and have 

 pleasure in our palaces ; but we do not want Miltons, nor 

 Michael Angelos. 



Truly, it seems so ; for, in the year in which the first Crys- 

 tal Palace was built, there died among us a man whose name, 

 in after ages, will stand with those of the great of all time. 

 Dying, he bequeathed to the nation the whole mass of his 

 * See the Times of Monday, June 12th. 



