4:14: THE OPENING OF 



most cherished works : and for these three years, while we 

 have been building this colossal receptable for casts and copies 

 of the art of other nations, these works of our own greatest 

 painter have been left to decay in a dark room near Cavendish 

 Square, under the custody of an aged servant. 



This is quite natural. But it is also memorable. 



There is another interesting fact connected with the his- 

 tory of the Crystal Palace as it bears on that of the art of 

 Europe, namely, that in the year 1851, when all that glitter- 

 ing roof was built, in order to exhibit the petty arts of our 

 fashionable luxury the carved bedsteads of Vienna, and glued 

 toys of Switzerland, and gay jewellery of France in that very 

 year, I say, the greatest pictures of the Venetian masters 

 were rotting at Venice in the rain, for want of roof to cover 

 them, with holes made by cannon shot through their canvas. 



There is another fact, however, more curious than either of 

 these, which will hereafter be connected with the history of 

 the palace now in building ; namely, that at the very period 

 when Europe is congratulated on the invention of a new style 

 of architecture, because fourteen acres of ground have been 

 covered with glass, the greatest examples in existence of true 

 and noble Christian architecture were being resolutely de- 

 stroyed ; and destroyed by the effects of the very interest 

 which was slowly beginning to be excited by them. 



Under the firm and wise government of the third Napoleon, 

 France has entered on a new epoch of prosperity, one of the 

 signs of which is a zealous care for the preservation of her no- 

 ble public buildings. Under the influence of this healthy im- 

 pulse, repairs of the most extensive kind are at this moment 

 proceeding, on the cathedrals of Rheims, Amiens, Rouen, 

 Chartres, and Paris (probably also in many other instances 

 unknown to me). These repairs were, in many cases, neces- 

 sary up to a certain point ; and they have been executed by 

 architects as skilful and learned as at present exist, executed' 

 with noble disregard of expense, and sincere desire on the 

 part of their superintendents that they should be completed 

 in a manner honourable to the country. 



They are nevertheless more fatal to the monuments they 



