There is no simplicity like that of the Duchess who wears her coronet as if it were a wreath of May. Nothing can be more absurd than to juxtapose the conscious dignity of Greek forms, with the inevitably humble associations of trade and business. We do not hold with Mr. Ruskin, that shops and railway stations ought to be wholly devoid of architectural charms. We believe, on the contrary, that Christian architecture, that is, pre-eminently the northern pointed, is as remarkable for its adaptation to all degrees as Christianity itself. Apart from the constructive principles of pointed Gothic there is a power in the mere form of the pointed arch which has never yet been satisfactorily accounted for. A mere suggestion of it is enough to change the whole character of a building, as may be seen in several of the early Renaissance Italian palaces, in which the outer line of the voussoirs of semi-circular door and window-heads constitutes the pointed arch. If we must copy ancient styles-and there is no help for it so long as we have none of our own-let us copy the best styles, and the best phases of those styles. The modern practice of crowning steeples with what are technically called broach-spires, i.e., spires of which the eaves overhang the wall of the steeple, instead of the subsequently invented spire rising considerably within the wall, and surrounded by a gutter with a parapet and pinnacles, is one of many modern practices which are not more sensible than it would be in the mechanical arts to prefer canal boats to railways. The mistakes which have arisen in architecture during the last five-and-twenty years, merely from want of judgment in choosing the right styles, and the right phases of the right styles, are in number and magnitude something quite appalling to think of. During this period, in London alone, we have raised public buildings, probably more numerous, costly, and magnificent, than any entire nation before us has raised in a century. The Houses of Parliament, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Post-office, the Royal Exchange, the new West-End Club-Houses, and churches innumerable, testify to our unprecedented riches and unprecedented want of consideration. The same money, judiciously expended upon the same and other edifices, in the early "Decorated" for ecclesiastical, and the late "Tudor" for civil purposes, might have transformed London from the least architecturally meritorious of all great cities in Europe, to the most so. It is sad to think, that, as such an opportunity has never before occurred, so probably it will never occur again. There is a certain artistical anachronism involved in the revival of any ancient style of art. There is also a great source of beauty in an original architecture which cannot be renewed in the revival of such an art: we mean the delightful sense of life arising from the growth of one phase of the style into another. During the career of an original architecture, every considerable building constitutes an advance upon its predecessors, and its achievement of some unprecedented beauty makes criticism dumb to its defects. So far have the ancient builders been from entertaining the modern craving for a critical completeness, that there is scarcely a finished Greek temple, or a Gothic cathedral in existence. This is a curious fact, and one which we do not remember to have seen noticed; and it is one which remarkably illustrates the eager life of a new art. How incomparably more attractive are unsuccessful efforts after the highest perfection, than successful attempts at mediocrity! Architecture, in its best times, has always exhibited what, in speaking of a Christian's life, an old divine calls an "incomplete completeness." We do not say that it would be possible or right for us to try to imitate this quality. We have no vital architecture, and yet we must build. Let us, therefore, thoroughly comprehend and adopt the only style that is fit for us. A notion has been gaining ground lately that there may be some hope of an entirely new architecture arising from the employment of a new material, namely, iron-and it seems to us that there are substantial grounds for this hope. We have said that the principal architectures of the world have been indebted for their fundamental expressions to particular references to the laws of gravitation. Every legitimate kind of reference which is capable of being made in stone or brick appears to have been exhausted; but iron is capable of affording two new references of which stone and brick are incapable, namely, suspension and impension of weight. These principles have already been frequently and splendidly employed in the mechanical arts, but no distinctly architectural development of them has ever, to our knowledge, been attempted. There are a few minor, but still very important considerations with respect to iron as an architectural material at which it will be well to glance. The constructive ideas of Gothic and Arabian architectures are such that they can only be fully realized in iron. The fancy is scarcely able to pursue the reality which has become possible for Gothic architecture through the present abundance of iron and glass, and the skill we have attained in working them. A cathedral twice as big as Cologne, with a spire a thousand feet high, would be quite a moderate undertaking compared with the cathedral of Milan, or the Gothic Houses of Parliament. Witness the expense of raising the Great Exhibition! Iron requires painting. Here is a source of decoration which would almost outweigh the impossibility of carving in that mate rial. It is capable of being employed with wonderful advantages in conjunction with slate. Iron is susceptible, as Mr. Pickett has shewn in a pamphlet upon the subject, of a very characteristic and beautiful species of decoration, by what that author calls" interstitial form." The advantages of iron and slate for domestic architecture are numerous; one or two only can be mentioned here: hollow walls, filled with sand to prevent the transmission of sound, would retain warmth better than any other mode of construction; they would also offer immense facilities for artificial warming; a house built of iron would always be worth so much per pound when done with; much space would be saved in towns; and the great modern difficulty of covering large spaces architecturally-a difficulty which is generally but vainly supposed to be got rid of by combining the two utterly diverse ideas of roof and ceiling-would be at once overcome by the properties of the material in question. In conclusion, let us heartily recommend the "Stones of Venice" to the best attention as well of the general reader as of the architectural student. Though we differ from Mr. Ruskin in several significant points, we are compelled to confess that we have learned far more from his books concerning the very essence and heart of architecture, than we have learned from any other works whatever. No one can be indifferent to what he has written upon the subject. Those who do not care for the subject itself, must be delighted and carried along without weariness, by the charms of his way of writing, and will be continually instructed by the wise and witty sayings which are scattered through this and all other of his books; and which are capable of applications as wide as the whole world of art and morals. What Mr. Ruskin says of the conditions of a capacity to enjoy good architecture, is in great measure true of the tone of mind with which one ought to enter upon the perusal of his bold and genial discourses. "It needs some little care to try experiments on yourself; it needs deliberate question and upright answer. But there is no difficulty to be overcome, no abstruse reasoning to be gone into; only a little watchfulness needed, and thoughtfulness, and so much honesty as will enable you to confess to yourself, and to all men, that you enjoy things, though great authorities say you should not. This looks somewhat like pride; but it is true humility, a trust that you have been so created as to enjoy what is fitting for you, and a willingness to be pleased as it was intended that you should be. It is the child's spirit which we are then most happy when we most recover; only wiser than children in that we are ready to think it subject of thankfulness that we can still be pleased with a fair colour or a dancing light." The Five Wounds of the Holy Church. 497 ART. VIII.—1. Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa : trattato dedicato al Clero Cattolico. Di ANTONIO ROSMINI. Perugia, 1849. 2. Discorso Funebre pei Morti di Vienna, recitato il giorno 27 Novembre nella insigne Chiesa di S. Andrea della Valle dal Rmo. P. D. GIOACHIMO VENTURA. Roma, 1848. 3. Lettere Storico-Critiche intorno alle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa del Chiarissimo Sacerdote D. Antonio de Rosmini-Serbati. Dal P. A. THEINER. (Tradotte in Italiano.) Napoli, 1849. 4. Legge Siccardi sull' Abolizione del Foro e delle Immunitá Ecclesiastiche. Tornate del Parlamento Sub-Alpino. Vol. unico. Torino, 1850. 5. L'Italie Rouge, ou Histoire des Révolutions de Rome, Naples, Palerme, Messine, Florence, Parme, Modène, Turin, Milan, Venise; depuis l'avènement du Pape Pie IX., en Juin 1846, jusqu'à sa rentrée dans sa capitale, en Avril 1850. Par le VTE. D'ARLINCOURT. Paris, 1850. 6. Principi della Scuola Rosminiana: da un Prete Bolognese. 2 vol. Milano, 1851. 7. La Civiltà Cattolica. Vol. i.: Napoli, 1850. Vol. ii.-iv.: Roma, 1850-1851. ROME is par excellence the city of ceremonies. Its very religion consists in grand theatrical displays, and its people seem never wearied in "turning out," whether to the blessing of animals on the Festival of St. Anthony, or the Via Crucis in the Flavian Amphitheatre-to the buffoonery of the Carnival, or the solemn mysteries of the Sistine Chapel. On the 27th of November 1848, when the assassination of Count Rossi and the flight of the Pope were still the town-talk, "the great attraction" was the Church of St. Andrea della Valle. The magnificent sanctuary of the Theatines was lighted up for a gorgeous ceremony, and solemn mass was said for the repose of the souls of "the brave" who had fallen in the great insurrection of Vienna. It was not a day to be lost in "wondering after" the Four Evangelists of Domenichino, or in gazing up into the painted glories of Lanfranco's cupola-the most beautiful in Rome: politics were in the ascendant, and a spirit-stirring discourse was expected from the most eloquent of Roman orators. "Consedere duces, vulgique stante corona, Surgit ad hos clypei dominus septemplicis Ajax.” The Very Reverend Father Gioachimo Ventura, Ex-General of the Regular Clergy, Counsellor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Examinator of the Bishops and of the Roman Clergy, mounted the pulpit, and read his text from the Vulgate : "Montes Gelboe, nec ros, nec pluvia veniant super vos: quia ibi abjectus est clypeus fortium. Quomodo ceciderunt fortes in praelio!" 2 Regum i. 21-25. The preacher began:-" At the sight of the pious ceremony, of the sacred expiatory rite performed here to-day for the souls of the brave fallen in the capital of Austria in combat for liberty, the implacable enemies of all political liberty, the malignant detractors of every popular movement will not fail to say that we wish to-day in Rome to absolve rebellion, to legitimate treason, to sanctify anarchy: and with an air of holy indignation and of saintly sorrow, they will exclaim in more places than one, O diabolical abuse of things sacred! O profanation! O scandal! O sacrilege!" After a few sentences he proceeds to announce his divisions after a somewhat peculiar formula : "To the confusion of knaves, to the instruction of the simple, to the encouragement of the generous, to the edification of the pious, I undertake to examine to-day the true causes of the great war which has been lately waged at Vienna and elsewhere: Quomodo ceciderunt fortes in praelio: to conclude from hence that the proud heights of Absolutism, the scene of the slaughter of the brave, have with justice incurred the anathemas which David pronounced on the mountains of Gilboa, and that the heroes who have fallen there have well merited of religion: Montes Gelboe, nec ros, nec pluvia venient super vos, quia ibi abjectus est clypeus fortium. In two words, I shall shew you that the cause of liberty is truly the cause of religion, and therefore that all those who have died fighting for liberty have a right to the suffrage, to the prayers, to the praise of religion. Let us begin." Here was preaching for the million! Father Ventura's principle was, that the clergy, instead of confining themselves to the breviary and to their spiritual duties, should frequent the clubs, mingle with the civic guard, and imitate the French clergy, who at once became republican on the 22d of February, and blessed the trees of liberty in the streets of Paris. St. Bernard and St. Thomas, he argued, were ecclesiastics, but did not abstain from politics. The people were marching towards liberty, civil and religious, and if the Church did not march along with them they would march without her against her. He pleaded for the liberty, fraternity, and equality of the French Republic. "The Christian people should be guided and governed as persons, not ruled as things: Principes gentium dominantur eorum, vos autem non sic. The sovereign is the minister, the servant of his subjects, and command is not a privilege, but a servitude: |