sidered a better deed because he was one of the disciples," she said, in a strong, sad tone, almost coming to tears.

"We will not quarrel when there is a prospect of a long separation before us. I shall be out on Sunday evening. Good-night!" and he kissed her tenderly.

She stood in the dusk for many minutes after he had left her, but not following out her first impulse, which was to weep. For it seemed as if she must gird herself anew now. Down the long future somewhere there would be plenty of time for weeping.

IV.

AUTHORITY OF THE OLD MASTERS IN ARCHITECTURE.

ALTHOUGH We may earnestly deprecate such a condition of things, it does not appear that men have been despised in these days because they have presumed to speak lightly of Jesus Christ. Yet in this country He is popularly regarded as a divine teacher; indeed, herein is the reason that a light treatment of his religion, instead of exciting the horror of the cultivated, meets rather an earnest consideration, because his disciples are of the mass, while skeptics are more frequently of aristocratic mind and social position; but if the same philosopher venture on similar liberties with the name of Michael Angelo, he will meet but sneers from the learned in the fine arts, besides gaining a place on the list of empirics. And this, because he is in feeble opposition to the powers-because of an assumption that he can teach those who are well satisfied they know all; at the most he is, upon this general principle, combating only his peers.

In the face of this not very promising truth, we believe it right; more than this, we believe the corruptions illustrating themselves in the Architecture of to-day absolutely demand that we should inquire concerning the principles on which our art is founded; ask ourselves, if we dare, as to the amount of authority vested in the works of ancient artists, and by which they are held up as models for imitation. This we conceive will be the only point of difference in the

discussion, that, while some critics will claim for these glories of another day the position of precedents to be followed and scrupulously copied when approached, we contend that they are valuable to us only as they embody and illustrate the principles and idea of the beautiful.

Art has best accomplished its mission, when out of the material at hand the greatest benefit has been conferred on mankind. This is not the vulgar doctrine of the Utilitarian, for as 66 man shall not live by bread alone," so benefits have not ceased when he has been fed and clothed. The demands of a cultivated intellect, a refined taste, must be satisfied; the eye must be filled, or there is still a void in the soul.

With this statement of the premises, our object may be well understood. We do not assume to enter the lists against the classic artists; we do not intend a criticism on the Parthenon. We approach Ictenus with reverence, and are glad to sit at the feet of Vitruvius; we are not backward in our homage to the designs of Hermogenes and Callimachus.

But the Parthenon was for Athens and Minerva. While in its noble beauty we find laws that govern the designs of modern architects, should we hesitate to pronounce him a fool who attempted to reproduce that temple in New York or Cincinnati?

In the compositions of Italian artists the horizon is high in the picture, while in German pieces it is low. In our own executions we should hardly place our horizon low or high, because that was the fashion of Leonardo da Vinci or Albrecht Dürer, but because in the piece to be delivered such an arrangement would most effectually present the conception. For the same reason we choose the distance of a picture. We may fall on the choice of Paolo Veronese or Poussin, but that is not what we seek in determining the point.

The ancients are valuable then as teachers, only as they present laws adapted to our uses, whether we regard the science of mechanics in the economy of the structure or the growth of a correct taste.

Now, let us examine one or two elaborate works in New York; say, for instance, the spire of Grace Church. It

is necessary to admire it, because, when erected, our people were in a condition to be astonished and captivated by whatever attempt at the magnificent might be made. Thus we have become accustomed to admire, and thus we dare not withhold our admiration. Yet we venture to believe that no man of noble tastes can look at that spire without a profound feeling of disappointment. When its beauty is analyzed, when we have forgotten or are perhaps ignorant of the accuracy of its detail, we behold in it a caricature of the beautiful in nature and art that no man of genius would perpetrate if he were not in hopeless bondage to the dead.

It is octagonal, decorated after the mode of the latter part of the fourteenth century and beginning of the fifteenth. It springs from within the parapet of the tower, supported by arcs-boutans, and, rising acutely, is finished by an ugly, trifling cross. The sides are covered with diagonal panel-work. The angles are adorned with monstrous crockets of most impossible shapes, the effect of which, except in faint moonlight, is confused and unsatisfying to the eye. The whole impression of majesty is destroyed by the detail of the ornament, which is undignified even to being frivolous. The paneling is the flimsy lattice of any gentleman's garden, while the crockets remind one of the spasmodic efforts of certain larvæ of the Lepidoptera, vulgarly known as inch-worms.

Leaving the spire, we descend to the tower and the main building, the proportions of which are faultless. But in this, as in many of the churches of New York, the finish is tasteless, though correct.

It does seem cruel that any artist should have been willing to force such execrable sculpture as defaces these gables and angles on the daily observation of a hundred thousand intelligent people.

Undoubtedly, these crockets are quite as elegant as any in New York, and the only reason for the infliction is, they are necessary to the perfectness of the specimen. We do not condemn this feature more than any other. What we deprecate is, the attempt to force upon us the taste of another age, demanding, as a test of our culture, that we shall admire the fruits of that taste.

We might point to one more deformity. One common to other "pure specimens " quite as much as to this; we mean the pinnacles, which in this day of liberal outlay are not so beautiful as in the English Gothic of the thirteenth century. On both Grace and Trinity the pinnacles are deformities— bald, square shafts, surmounted by tapering summits, ornamented with crockets. The same fault obtains in the finish of the gables of Grace Church as in the decorations of these pinnacles, which, instead of flowing out of the general design, are loaded upon it; epiphytes independent of the trunk for their life.

These square gaunt shafts, so ill adapted, seem raised for no other purpose than to bear a finial, which, with its accompaniments, are thrust vauntingly forward, not even serving a strategical use by which to disguise the vulgarity of its prominence. The turrets of the thirteenth century were far more beautiful.

Another instance of the same servility is exhibited in the interior of Trinity, where is intruded, for ornament, what to the ancient was a necessity. Immense columns are raised in the midst of the house and serve as barriers, guarding the hearts of many sinners from the power of the Word. These huge columns might well be used, when men, not familiar with the principles of engineering science, were to devise the means of roofing the large spans of cathedrals. That day has passed, and the modern architect, who seizes on the shrewd art of the unscientific, by which he has disguised his ignorance, and, without such need, forces it into service against reason, is certainly open to the charge of having studied history only to find models for imitation; that evidently he has not appreciated the principles of the art. But "the specimen is correct." So, too, for the sake of a "pure example," we have the laws of acoustics violated; and, when science has developed principles for the governance of interior construction, we must submit to the dictum of an antiquarian whose reverence for past time inspires him to raise one of those structures in which years ago a tolerable hearing only was obtained, by placing over the head of the preacher a painfully elaborate illustration of what our Saviour said concerning

a great stone, that "on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."

Is it true that these errors are the mistakes of architects alone? Are they not rather the result of an universal misconception, through which we have come to surrender our right to think—a misconception by which we are taught to regard as unqualified authority the works of past ages, sanctified by the glories of classic learning and poetry, or the genius and devotion of pious bishops.

This mistake assumes that the tastes of certain periods were perfect. That the flood of new discoveries and inventions, the increased number of studies for taste, developed in a more general as well as more profound knowledge of the works of nature, illustrated in the sciences, some of which are newly born-a larger world than ever before known—have failed to develop the genius of man as to his appreciation of the beautiful in the fine arts; that, consequently, modern taste is not authority in architecture unless it is subservient to ancient art. This is the proposition. It is slavishly stated in emphatic tones through the portals of a thousand structures, that are to-day rising from the ground all over this country.

But our object will be not so much to demonstrate the truth of the proposition, as to impress on the mind the fact, that the subject is worthy of serious study.

We shall have accomplished an important end, if we succeed in prevailing on men to think independently.

Though it appear hardly necessary to invite attention to the social condition of past ages, whether of the ancient Greek and Roman schools, or the later builder of medieval periods, with the phenomena of which every scholar is familiar, still, it is believed that much good would result from a careful study with reference to this question. For instance, a glance at the Grecian theater would reveal a condition of things so gross that polite ears might not listen to the recital; this grossness-not constructive, but absolute and positive, as, for instance, in Aristophanes' comedies-betraying a character of mind quite inconsistent with our idea of superior culture. Yet this amusement is classic.