II. ARCHITECTURE 65

42. Now, according to the orthodox practice in modern architecture, the most delicate and minute pieces of sculpture on that building are at the very top of it, just under its gutter. You cannot see them in a dark day, and perhaps may never, to this hour, have noticed them at all. But there they are: sixty-six finished heads of lions, all exactly the same; and, therefore, I suppose, executed on some noble Greek type, too noble to allow any modest Modern to think of improving upon it. But whether executed on a Greek type or no, it is to be presumed that, as there are sixty-six of them alike, and on so important a building as that which is to contain your school of design, and which is the principal example of the Athenian style in modern Athens, there must be something especially admirable in them, and deserving your most attentive contemplation. In order, therefore, that you might have a fair opportunity of estimating their beauty, I was desirous of getting a sketch of a real lion’s head to compare with them, and my friend Mr. Millais¹ kindly offered to draw both the one and the other for me. You have not, however, at present, a lion in your zoological collection; and it being, as you are probably aware, the first principle of Pre-Raphaelitism, as well as essential to my object in the present instance, that no drawing should be made except from Nature itself, I was obliged to be content with a tiger’s head, which, however, will answer my purpose just as well, in enabling you to compare a piece of true, faithful, and natural work with modern architectural sculpture. Here, in the first place, is Mr. Millais’ drawing from the living beast (fig. 17, Plate IX.). I have not the least fear but that you will at once acknowledge its truth and feel its power. Prepare yourselves next for the Grecian

of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland), of which the north side was finished in 1836; the lions’ heads are on that building. To the south stands the National Gallery, which was “in progress” of building 1850-1854. Fergusson greatly extols the Grecian Doric of the Royal Institution, and pronounces it “one of the most faultless of modern buildings” (History of Modern Architecture, ed. 1891, ii. p. 85). The architect was W. H. Playfair (1789-1857), who designed many other of the classical buildings which have given to Edinburgh the sobriquet of the “Modern Athens.”]

¹ [See above, Introduction, p. xxviii.]

XII. E

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