II. ARCHITECTURE 75

a garret window built by William de Bourgthéroulde in the early part of the sixteenth century.¹ I show it you, first, as a proof of what may be made of the features of domestic buildings we are apt to disdain; and secondly, as another example of a beautiful use of the pointed arch, filled by the solid shield of stone, and enclosing a square casement. It is indeed a peculiarly rich and beautiful instance, but it is a type of which many examples still exist in France, and of which many once existed in your own Scotland, of ruder work indeed, but admirable always in the effect upon the outline of the building.*

53. I do not, however, hope that you will often be able to go as far as this in decoration; in fact I would rather recommend a simpler style to you, founded on earlier examples; but, if possible, aided by colour, introduced in various kinds of naturally coloured stones. I have observed that your Scottish lapidaries have admirable taste and skill in the disposition of the pebbles of your brooches and other ornaments of dress; and I have not the least doubt that the genius of your country would, if directed to this particular style of architecture, produce works as beautiful as they would be thoroughly national. The Gothic of Florence, which owes at least the half of its beauty to the art of inlaying, would furnish you with exquisite examples; its sculpture is indeed the most perfect which was ever produced by the Gothic schools; but, besides this rich sculpture,

* One of the most beautiful instances I know of this kind of window is in the ancient house of the Maxwells, on the estate of Sir John Maxwell of Polloc.2 I had not seen it when I gave this lecture, or I should have preferred it, as an example, to that of Rouen, with reference to modern possibilities of imitation.

¹ [The Hôtel de Bourgthéroulde was constructed in 1506 by William le Roux, Seigneur of Bourgthéroulde.]

² [Now the house of Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, great-nephew of the Sir John Maxwell (d. 1865) whom Ruskin had visited. Ruskin here refers not to the mansion-house of Pollok which was built in 1760 by Adam from designs made about twenty years earlier, but either to a sixteenth-century dower-house, known as Haggs Castle, or to Crookston Castle, the tower of which is even older. Both these buildings are on the Pollok estate, and the reference is probably to Haggs, which has some attic windows of the kind mentioned in the text. At the date when Ruskin wrote, the proprietor was endeavouring to revive the ancient spelling Poloc, or Polloc.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]