titioned off within into separate rooms, which, although they may be comparatively termed spacious, are utterly inadequate to the purpose of achieving that architectural dignity which would be recognized as a valid authority, and give currency to the style so coined. Without some such generally acknowledged authority, it would be hopeless to look for the establishment of any fixed system; for, however successful some individual attempts might prove in themselves, a very long time indeed must elapse before any thing like a fixed standard test could be derived from them, even for buildings of the same class. In the mean time, taste would be unsettled, fluctuating, and exposed to vagaries and caprices of every kind. Could we, indeed, clear away, expunge, and draw the veil of oblivion over, all former examples, so as to begin entirely de novo, there would be greater chance for our ultimately working out some style for ourselves, marked by beauties which should be congenial both with the materials employed and the construction followed; but, while we already possess, or are acquainted with, so many examples of finished excellence, it is almost impossible that any thing, however meritorious it might be intrinsically, could be at once decidedly unlike any of them, and yet stamped with such matured perfection of design, as to be able to stand a comparison with what have beforehand so many suffrages in their favour. We should point to America, as almost the only country where an entirely new and independent style of architecture could take root and thrive, and where it could freely accommodate itself to all the exigencies of a community who have no violent prejudices and partialities to break through before they could admit it. What would elsewhere be apt to be scouted as extravagant innovation and a dereliction of good taste, would there incur no such danger. Of Gothic architecture America possesses nothing whatever; it has neither cathedrals, nor abbeys; neither castles nor baronial mansions; and what samples it possesses of Greek, Roman, or Italian, are neither so numerous nor so excellent as to cause an abandonment of them as models to be considered presumptuous. There would also be this advantage, that, owing to the absence of Gothic architecture, there would be little danger of borrowing from that style, while departing from the others. At any rate, it must be allowed that, unless it be obstinately bent on rivalling the old world in the architecture it has derived from it, in preference to making any original efforts of its own, that country affords the most favourable opportunities for such efforts and experiments, with the greatest probability of their being attended by ultimate success.

In fact, it is no easy matter to steer entirely clear of one style without coming in contact with some other, so that after having,

as we may imagine, obtained elements sufficiently novel for composing one which shall be unborrowed, we discover that they resolve themselves more or less directly into forms already familiar under another appellation. Or should we be so far fortunate as to hit upon one or two features passably original, a fresh perplexity arises-how to extend the same character to all the rest, in such a manner that the whole shall seem of a piece? or, if we must retain much that we would willingly get rid of, how to blend together the old and new forms, and not only make them perfectly accord, but appear to have been intended from the very first to combine with each other? The Bauschule, or Architectural College at Berlin, offers, upon the whole, one of the most skilful solutions of this exceedingly puzzling problem. While the taste manifested in it with regard to the style of ornament in relief is evidently founded upon the antique, there is nothing whatever in the building itself to recal to mind ever so slightly that of Greece. Equally remote is it from Roman, Byzantine, Lombard, Gothic, Cinquecento, later Italian, or any intermediate variety of those styles. There is no masking, no counterfeiting: the forms are those actually demanded by the purposes of plan and by construction; and the material, while allowed to show itself, is made to conduce to novelty both of character and embellishment, it being throughout of brick and terracotta, and producing variety and richness not by ornament alone, but by opposition of colour likewise. Yet, although the marking peculiarities and characteristics of every preceding style are avoided, many of the qualities belonging to them are here incorporated. Thus we may trace that simplicity of ensemble, that exact symme try, and that successive repetition of parts belonging to classical architecture; that profusion of ornament in relief, disposed in panels, so general in the Cinquecento; that predominancy of windows, as embellished features, which distinguishes the Italian; together with that species of decoration of surface obtained by means of variegated brickwork, and alternating courses of different tint, to be met with in some of our old English buildings and Tudor mansions; yet the resemblance extends no farther, for in no other respect is any trace discernible of the styles mentioned; consequently, it exists only in certain adjective qualities, which may be possessed in common by things altogether dissimilar in themselves.

We have thought fit to refer somewhat particularly to the above example, as affording evidence of what it is possible for a man of taste and genius to accomplish when guided by principles of art alone, without direct assistance from models. At the same time, we must confess it to be with us matter of very great ques

tion whether such a style is capable of that variety of expression which would render it generally applicable. In the opinion of some this may be no great defect, provided it be good as far as it goes; so also may it be urged, that, although unsuitable for buildings required to display solidity, majesty, and grandeur, such a style as would be likely to be produced by the mode of construction and the application recommended by Dr. Ritgen might in itself be very desirable, there being nothing to prevent our availing ourselves of different styles for different purposes, and admiring each for its respective merits. Such kind of compromise in favour of all tastes would certainly help to put an end to much of that idle squabbling and bickering which now take place between rival schools and parties, each of which claims exclusive admiration for its own favourite style, and is loth even to tolerate any other; whereas, were they to succeed in carrying their point and banishing all the rest, they would probably then discover that they had done away with all that, by its contrast, acted as a foil to what they admire; and tended, although unconsciously to themselves, to make manifest its decided superiority even in their own eyes. If heretofore, both in ancient and later times, only a single contemporary style prevailed among a people, that was owing to circumstances which have since altogether changed. We have nearly all previous styles of widely different ages and nations already fashioned to our hands as models; and when, laying aside traditional prejudices, we look at the matter as a plain question of common sense, we can hardly fail to see that, if there be anything preposterous in employing a variety of architectural styles, there are many things analogous to it which we do without scruple, and in which we perceive neither contradiction nor absurdity. It has been said that many of our European cities have no predominating styles of architecture, but rather seem to be " a congress of the representatives of every known style:" this may be a very clever and smart, though somewhat exaggerated comparison, but it is nothing more. A city is not a single piece of architecture, but an assemblage of buildings,—a collection more or less miscellaneous—it may be a jumble. So then are our galleries and museums, where we meet with specimens of all schools, styles, and classes of painting and every variety of subject; ancient and modern art, works of painting and sculpture in all their diversities, brought together; where the productions of some thousands of years ago are placed in juxtaposition with those of yesterday. Is there anything incongruous in all this? anything repugnant to taste or good sense? Does the admirer of one particular school or department of painting affect to proscribe all others as undeserving regard and unworthy of being cultivated? Or is

any one so extravagant a stickler for uniformity as to contend that a gallery of pictures should contain such only as partake nearly of the same character as regards subject and execution? And what else is a city, save a gallery of architecture, containing subjects and designs independent of each other, and each one of which may be contemplated without reference to those around it. Such at least it may, in a great measure, be considered; not that we would therefore recommend an indiscriminate huddling together of all styles, there being no occasion to make them clash disagreeably with each other, even where prominent examples of opposite ones are brought into the same view.

Let us have both Gothic and Grecian: meanwhile we ought not, on that account, to be less earnest in our endeavours to rear up something that may in time deserve to supersede them. One step towards this would be, perhaps, to relax in the excessive scrupulousness with which we restrict ourselves to a species of imitation hardly a degree higher than mere pattern-taking; though, with all this affected preciseness and unnecessary rigour, we in the very same things tolerate deviations from our professed models, far more at variance with the laws of composition observed in them than almost any affecting mere detail could possibly be. To this some will reply-we adhere to the originals— we follow as closely as circumstances will permit, deviating from them only where unavoidably compelled to do so, in consequence of having to provide for purposes never contemplated by them. Such then being the real state of the case, which rather accounts for, than excuses, the defect complained of, would it not be better, since innovation there must be after all, to admit such degree of it in the borrowed features as would reconcile us to that which is inevitable? Do we then advocate rash innovation? -by no means. On the contrary, we would have it be the fruit of deliberate study, and of a taste fertilized by constant intercourse with the best exemplars of the original style. We would have nothing rashly ventured upon, no groping experiment of dubious issue to the architect himself; and surely any one who at all understood effect, would be able to satisfy himself beforehand, by means of adequate drawings and models, as to what would be the actual appearance in execution. We would have such invention displayed in regard to forms, details, and proportions, as, instead of breaking loose from the principles of Grecian design, or those congenial to any other style which might happen to be adopted, should closely incorporate themselves with the original elements, and so increase them. But then, in order to accomplish this effectually, and to do justice to their own ideas, arhitects should boldly bring them forward in works of

some likelihood and magnitude; otherwise, by confining all their essays of the kind-and they are but few-to trifling and unimportant erections, not only do they betray their own mistrust, but stamp them at the very first with a character of triviality, so that even supposing them to be really good in themselves, they become no authority.

There are many natural productions which would afford hints for, and germs of, architectural detail, could but professional men bring themselves to look for fresh embryo rudiments applicable to their art, out of its seeming province. The artist-architects of the middle ages undoubtedly derived many such from the vegetable kingdom, and that to much greater extent than what is obvious in the forms borrowed almost immediately from foliage and flowers. Some curious, not to say fanciful, speculations on this subject, are to be met with in the work of Metzger, the title of which is prefixed to this article. According to him, it was upon the laws of organization observable both in plants and minerals, that the originators of the Gothic style founded their system. A knowledge of these constituted the mystery of the societies of masons or freemasons; and, so long as they were understood and followed, Gothic architecture continued faithful to its original character; but when those fraternities were abolished, the art itself degenerated all at once; and unmeaning, capricious ornament was introduced, which at length nearly effaced all traces of it. As a complete contrast to such organization, springing from an internal vivifying principle, energy, and stamina, which gave expansibility to the style itself, and modified every minuter detail into varied harmony with each other and the whole, we may point to the lumbering, quaint, conceited dulness which stamps that of our first James, or to the equally dull and monotonously capricious, and gaudily pompous mode, if not exactly of architecture, yet of decoration, distinguished with unhappy celebrity by the name of Louis Quatorze. In such fashions-for styles they can hardly be denominated-constructive fitness is altogether disregarded, and mere "gilt gingerbread whimsies" and gimcrackery substituted for art. Although to the ordinary observer Gothic architecture may appear equally capricious,-even still more wild and extravagant in its exuberant and "thick-coming fancies," its richness is not that of factitious, extraneous decoration, but may be likened to the efflorescence of a plant, whose stem derives nourishment from its concealed roots, and throughout the whole of which vegetable life permeates, until it finally manifests itself to the eye ripened into the loveliness of the flower. As respects the precise formation of the pointed style, what was the primitive germ in it from which its whole scheme gradually developed