either that our neglect of the colonial market is the result of the legislative measures of 1846, or that these measures have not worked well for the bulk of the British community? The enormous importations of corn of which agriculturists complain bring the necessaries of life within the reach of numbers to whom under the old system they were all but denied. And if landowners and farmers suffer, their sufferings ought not to be put in the balance against the increased comforts of the millions, who are able to eat bread in abundance, and to clothe themselves respectably.

Granted. As there is no ill which does not bring some portion of good to counterbalance it, so there is no good which has not its evil consequences too. The consumption of corn and meat is largely increased in this country since 1846, and numbers are made happier thereby. But who are they? Where do they reside? Not in the agricultural districts; for there the labouring man, with his six, seven, or eight shillings a-week, finds it quite as hard a matter to live now as he ever did. His loaf may be cheaper, it is much cheaper than it used to be. But he pays for his cottage the old rent, from four to five pounds; and his shoes still cost him thirteen shillings and sixpence a pair, unless, indeed, he go to the slopshop, where he may get an article for much less, which a fortnight's hard work renders useless. Not in the county towns, such as York, Lincoln, Newcastle, Canterbury, Chelmsford: for there the shopkeepers complain that their business has fallen to nothing. Not in the lanes and alleys of London, for there the poor sempstresses wear their lives out in the vain effort to sustain them. It is in Manchester, Bolton, Leeds, and Preston, that the benefit is felt; and far be it from us to grudge that our operatives should feel it. But are we doing quite right when, for the sake of enabling the operative to purchase a cheap loaf, and affording his employer a fair pretext for lowering his wages in consequence, we doom to inevitable ruin a class which, looking to all its members, as well indirect as direct, outnumbers the operative class by three to one, and drive out of cultivation by the process which effects this no incon

siderable breadth of the soil of the kingdom? And are we wise in throwing overboard entirely those offshoots from our own firesides, which under a different system of management might have eased us of our redundant population, carrying on with us, at the same time, a trade of which the value defies calculation? No. We do not say that the colonies never suffered neglect till 1846. They have been neglected or abused ever since we sent them forth. But the laws of 1846 undoubtedly gave the finishing touch to our wrong; and we are beginning to reap the fruit of it in good earnest. easily, when the minister was revising the tariff, and casting about for new outlets to the industry of Lancashire and Yorkshire, might this have been prevented. How easily might the progress of the calamity be arrested still, could our legislators be persuaded to treat India, Canada, and the rest of our settlements, as British counties, and all the world besides as foreign states, with whom commerce can be fairly conducted only under treaties of reciprocity.

now.

How

There is yet a great deal to be said-more especially on this part of the subject-but the space at our disposal warns us that it cannot be said Enough, however, has been placed on record to satisfy the reader that we are by no means satisfied with the commercial system of 1846; that, though we accept it as an experiment which the course of legislation throughout the quarter of a century preceding had rendered inevitable, we are of opinion that it will result in failure. Whether any attempt will be made to bolster it up by a redistribution of the burdens on the country we shall not venture to predict. Mr. Disraeli has declared himself favourable to this expedient, and we are not unwilling to go along with him in his proposed line of policy. But unless his policy embrace the claims and wants of the colonies, by developing their resources, and cementing thereby the power of the whole empire, we are confident that it will not answer the purpose for which it is intended. We have had too much of class legislation already. The old scheme of corn-laws, so rigid as to keep up prices to a half-famine rate, deserved

to be stigmatised as landlord legislation. The new scheme, which sacrifices landlords, tenants, and labourers, in the hope of extending the trade of Manchester and Leeds, is at least as palpably manufacturing legislation; and the mere shifting of a few burdens from the shoulders of one to those of another will scarcely change its character. But all degrees of class legislation carry with them the seeds of ruin, even for the parties which seem immediately to profit by them. Meanwhile there are multitudes embarked in the retail trade who rise or fall according as they find their best customers in Belgravia, or the vicinity of Peterloo. Of these many are beginning to cry out; and none, we believe, more loudly than booksellers and book

makers. This state of things cannot go on for ever. For though it may have been not only necessary, but desirable that we should have practical experience of what is called the free-trade system, it does not, therefore, follow that we are bound down to it for ever. By no means. In the face of Sir Robert Peel's prediction we venture to hazard an opinion, that either this parliament or some other will return to a system of moderate protection. And as it will take this step only at the deliberate bidding of the great bulk of the nation, so the nation will not again, in its impatience of temporary inconvenience, be prevailed upon to stultify itself for the sake of working out the theory of some popular

orator.

IT has been the lot of the art of

architecture in our times to have a new impulse given to its cultivation by unprofessional writers. “Theo

ries of the origin of the pointed arch' were, for the most part, barren and fanciful. But theories of the meaning and principles of pointed architecture have had an influence upon archæological research, and upon architectural criticism; and have led to important steps in the classification, and therefore in the imitation, of medieval buildings. The theory which derives pointed architecture from the conditions and consequences of cross vaulting, and the theory (of Mr. Willis) which reduces the framework of a building to a series of orders, have been found valuable by architects of no mean pretensions. Even the fanciful speculations which derive the tracery of windows and roofs from platted boughs; or the speculations, often much more fanciful, which determine the form and number of architectural elements by their symbolical import, have their value, if kept in their due places. The architect by profession may find many technical mistakes in the writings of such speculators; but still the modern history of architec

*The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Elder, and Co.

VOL. XLI. NO. CCXLII.

ture proves that they are not worthless. They affect the minds of the whole number of persons who look with interest upon architecture; and if not at first, still at last, they affect the mind of the architect himself, who is often obliged to confess that the amateur has divined the meaning of the combinations which had been produced by a blind tradition.

If we ask why this should be especially the case with regard to the art of architecture, we may reply, that there is, among others, this reason for such a state of things-that architecture, not being in its general forms an art imitative of any object with which man has any sympathy, requires the working of a certain power of imagination to call up, and of a certain power of language to express, the views of relation, connexion, and significance which make it beautiful or sublime. The ancient temple, or the medieval cathedral, lift men's souls to the highest pitch of feeling; yet they are merely a collection of props and beams, piers and arches, doors and windows. How is this? To answer this question is a different thing from being able to build piers and arches, and the like. To say why men's souls are raised,

By John Ruskin. London, 1849. Smith,

a man must have his soul raised. He must be skilful, or if not skilful, fortunate in catching a view, with his mental eye, of the forms which are not merely geometrical combinations; of the shadows, which are not merely privations of light; of the spires, which are not merely one stone piled upon another; of the vaults, which are not mere shelter, but in the vault of heaven another heaven.' He must be able to see that meaning in all these things, by which they speak to the heart of man, and to translate that meaning into the language of men, so that it may pass from heart to heart. The architectural critic who can do this, even if he make mistakes in technical matters, still speaks to the purpose; and we have no doubt our readers will always be glad to hear him.

After Mr. Ruskin's most eloquent and instructive book, Modern Painters, we could have no doubt that he was one of the persons most worthy of being listened to when speaking on such subjects. Accordingly, when his Seven Lamps of Architecture was announced, we looked forwards with great interest to the appearance of the book; and now that it has appeared, we are sure that we shall be doing our readers a service by giving some account of it; and we may add, that this may be of some interest even to those who are not content (and we would not advise any one to be) without reading the book itself. For though Mr. Ruskin's eloquence, or, we might rather say, poetry, is always to the purpose of his doctrines, and always the vehicle of acute thought and profound feeling, yet it is not unlikely that to many readers his views may be rendered more distinct by being presented, in the first place, in a more tranquil form, and without the various accompaniments of example and subdivision with which he has developed them. At least we must confess, that having had to read Mr. Ruskin's book with a special view to such an analysis of it, we conceive that we see many of its doctrines and their value more clearly than we did when, on the first perusal, we were borne along

the stream of its style, surrounded, as it were, by rainbow clouds and sweet strains of music.

We shall then, in the first place, attempt to give the reader a view of Mr. Ruskin's Seven Lamps in a more distinct and simple form than that in which they will appear to most readers, when surrounded by his glowing and picturesque eloquence. His Lamps not unfrequently remind us of the lights which, in some cathedral where the pomp of a gorgeous ceremonial appeals to the senses, are half dilated and half lost among the clouds of incense, so that we see each surrounded by a varying halo, and can hardly tell what is its place, or count them all twice over to the same number. Some of them do not so much give light as splendour. They are not all lamps in the same sense. We will take the liberty of enumerating them, adding other designations, which may convey in a less figurative form a suggestion of the manner in which they throw their light upon architecture.

The Lamp of Sacrifice is the rule of giving our best. In architecture, to make it truly noble, we must use the best materials, shaped by the best work, without too nice a regard whether what we thus offer will be seen and appreciated by mortal eye. There is no limit to legitimate richness. We have already heard this precept applied to architecture.*

Give what thou canst.

rejects the lore

High Heaven

Of nicely calculated less and more.

The Lamp of Truth is the principle that architecture must be what it seems, both in the structure or mode of support; in the materials, all deception by painting or otherwise being excluded; and in the mode of workmanship, cast-iron and the like being rejected.

The Lamp of Power is a theory of the source of impression of power, or majesty in buildings. This, we are taught, arises from size, from simple and continuous forms of outline, from projection towards the top, so as to give a frowning aspect to the edifice, and from depth and breadth of shadow, especially when exhibited

in pierced traceries, as in many Italian buildings.

The Lamp of Beauty is a series of rules as to what kinds of decoration are beautiful; the principles of these rules being derived from the consideration of the imitation of nature, repetition, proportion, and abstraction, with some views as to the mode of applying colour in architecture. These rules will be well worth considering, so far as our space allows.

The Lamp of Life is the remark that architecture exhibits its energy most when it does not restrict itself to rigorous measurements and standard forms, but makes parts unequal which by the symmetry of the building would be equal; and in order to carry out the scheme of decoration, either imitates common models with the utmost frankness, or deviates from them with the utmost audacity.

The Lamp of Memory is the reflection that all architecture, even domestic architecture, must have an enduring and historical character, if it is to possess its highest interest; and associated with this reflection is a very ingenious theory of the picturesque, which is connected with the Lamp of Memory by this tie, that in architecture picturesqueness is the exponent of age. And, resulting from this view, we have the doctrine, that all restoration of old buildings is destruction, falsehood, and wicked

ness.

Finally, The Lamp of Obedience glares upon us with this prophecy— that we can have no architecture in England till our architects agree to adopt one universal standard of style; and as the most suitable for this purpose the early Decorated of England is recommended.

It is no grave defect in these seven lamps that they are neither exactly co-ordinate principles, nor clearly distinguished from each other, nor always quite consistent. Without having this sytematic completeness and logical precision, large principles, arrayed in a certain aspect of system, have often been used by eminent writers as the frame-work, by means of which they have exhibited a series of striking reflections, facts, and criticisms. Of this kind are such works as Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix and Madame de Staël's Alle

magne. That the seven 'Lamps' form a very exact and definite system, probably the author himself would not very resolutely maintain. There are, in the book itself, indications that his views of division and arrangement have changed in the course of his working up his speculations into form. Instead of the seven which we have in the interior of the volume, Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, Obedience, we find, wrought upon the cover of the book, another seven, Religio, Observantia, Auctoritas, Fides, Memoria, Obedientia, Spiritus, of which the last three agree, perhaps, with the last three of the former group; but the parallelism of the other four, if they be parallel, is more hard to trace. And it would not be difficult to find discrepancies, apparent, at least, between the precepts of one part and the praises of another. Thus the Lamp of Sacrifice directs us to bestow the artist's labour without stint upon all parts of the work, even those which will never be seen (p. 23), while the Lamp of Life leads to strong commendation of the rough, coarse execution, of certain specimens of ancient sculpture (p. 158), which appear only half finished when seen close, but are very effective at a distance. It may be said that this kind of bold sketchy sculpture is, for certain situations, the most masterly; and, therefore, really the best. But, not to dwell upon the difficulty of drawing the line in such cases, what can we say of the carelessness, or at any rate, the bad workmanship, arising from whatever cause, by which, as is stated (c. vi. art. 10), the cornice above the arcade in the southern wall of the Duomo at Pisa touches the tops of eleven of the fifteen arches; and then, by the rise of the cornice, or by the descent of the arcade, is at least more than two feet above the top of the western arch, the interval being filled in by courses of masonry? If such an irregularity had occurred in a modern sacred edifice, would not the author have cried out upon it as a grievous indication of the dim burning of the Lamp of Sacrifice in this our day?

But it is by no means our intention to enter into an argument with the writer of this lively, eloquent, and thoughtful book. We would rather, for the benefit of our readers,

point out the manner in which he follows these principles into detail.

Taking, as the first instance, the Lamp of Beauty, we find the first great condition on which the author dwells to be this (ch. iv. art. 2, &c.): that beauty can arise only from imitating natural forms. On this ground our author rejects many customary kinds of decoration, which, he says, 'I have no hesitation in asserting to be not ornament at all, but to be ugly things, the expense of which ought to be set down in the architect's contract as 'For monstrification.'' 'I believe,' he adds, that we regard these customary deformities with a savage complacency, as an Indian does his flesh patterns and paint.' This canon of architectural criticism is very sharply applied to many of the most usual decorative forms, and is made the ground of a rather startling vehemence of condemnation, bestowed upon many kinds of ornament which are almost universally looked upon with satisfaction, and probably, even by the most rigorous judges, have hitherto been deemed inoffensive. Among the forms thus successively swept out of the region of architectural beauty by the critic's unsparing besom, are ancient as well as modern inventions. The rich Greek moulding commonly called the egg and anchor, or egg and dart moulding, is declared to be beautiful; but another moulding, which is frequent in ancient, and copiously borrowed in modern work, the Greek fret,' or 'Guilloche, is declared to be ugly, painful, and monstrous. But the main storm of condemnation falls so as to crush most the ornamental appendages of our later English Gothic. The Tudor portcullis is a monster, absolutely and unmitigatedly frightful. All that carving on Henry the Seventh's Chapel simply deforms the stones of it.' Along with this, all heraldic decoration is condemned; all scrolls which, introduced to contain mottoes, 6 are flourished and turned hither and thither as if they were ornamental.' The square-ended dripstone used over square-headed windows in Elizabethan buildings (sometimes called a label), falls under the same sentence, and is another

monster which unites every element of ugliness. The hearty earnestness with which the author applies his rule, and the curious fertility of thought with which he carries out his censure, may be seen by quoting a few lines in which he employs an absolute blaze of eloquence to wither up a little strip of silk, in which hitherto no one had seen any great harm. What will our female readers think of the following denunciation of a riband? They cannot have been aware, when they tried to make it look becoming, that it was at such an immeasurable and hopeless distance from the realms of the beautiful.

Is there any thing like ribands in nature? It might be thought that grass and sea-weed afforded apologetic types. They do not. There is a wide difference between their structure and that of a riband. They have a skeleton, an anatomy, a central rib, or fibre, or framework of some kind or another, which has a beginning and an end, a root and head, and whose make and strength affect every direction of their motion, and every line of their form. The loosest weed that drifts and waves under the heaving of the sea, or hangs heavily on the brown-and slippery shore, has a marked strength, structure, elasticity, gradation of substance; its extremities are more finely fibred than its centre, its centre than its root every fork of its ramification is measured and proportioned; every wave of its languid lines is lovely. It has its allotted size, and place, and function; it is a specific creature. What is there like this in a riband? It has no structure; it is a succession of cut threads all alike; it has no skeleton, no make, no form, no size, no will of its own. You cut it and crush it into what you will. It has no strength, no languor. It cannot fall into a single graceful form. It cannot wave, in the true sense, but only flutter: it cannot bend, in the true sense, but only turn and be wrinkled. It is a vile thing; it spoils all that is near its wretched film of an existence. Never use it.

We have said that Mr. Ruskin's condemnation falls especially upon the ornaments used by English architects. Italian modes of ornamentation, on the other hand, find especial favour in his eyes, and sometimes his principles appear to be a little hard pressed in order that they may agree with this feeling. Thus he had con