TEE CRYSTAL PALACE. 421 



overlooking gay parterres ? If this be indeed our end, yet 

 why must it be so laboriously accomplished ? Are there no 

 new countries on the earth, as yet uncrowned by Thorns of 

 cathedral spires, untormented by the consciousness of a past ? 

 Must this little Europe this corner of our globe, gilded with 

 the blood of old battles, and grey with the temples of old 

 pieties this narrow piece of the world's pavement, worn down 

 by so many pilgrims' feet, be utterly swept and garnished for 

 the masque of the Future ? Is America not wide enough for 

 the elasticities of our humanity ? Asia not rich enough for its 

 pride ? or among the quiet meadow-lands and solitary hills of 

 the old land, is there not yet room enough for the spreadings 

 of power, or the indulgences of magnificence, without found- 

 ing all glory upon ruin, and prefacing all progress with ob- 

 literation ? 



We must answer these questions speedily, or we answer 

 them in vain. The peculiar character of the evil which is 

 being wrought by this age is its utter irreparableness. Ita 

 newly formed schools of art, its extending galleries, and well- 

 ordered museums will assuredly bear some fruit in time, and 

 give once more to the popular mind the power to discern what 

 is great, and the disposition to protect what is precious. But 

 it will be too late. We shall wander through our palaces of 

 crystal, gazing sadly on copies of pictures torn by cannon- 

 shot, and on casts of sculpture dashed to pieces long ago. 

 We shall gradually learn to distinguish originality and sin- 

 cerity from the decrepitudes of imitation and palsies of repe- 

 tition ; but it will be only in hopelessness to recognise the 

 truth, that architecture and painting can be " restored " when 

 the dead can be raised, and not till then. 



Something might yet be done, if it were but possible thor- 

 oughly to awaken and alarm the men whose studies of arch- 

 aeology have enabled them to form an accurate judgment of 

 the importance of the crisis. But it is one of the strange 

 characters of the human mind, necessary indeed to its peace, 

 but infinitely destructive of its power, that we never thor- 

 oughly feel the evils which are not actually set before our 

 eyes. If, suddenly, in the midst of the enjoyments of the 



