II. ARCHITECTURE 77

lay before you views of the sciences they profess, which are either generally received, or incontrovertible. I come before you at a disadvantage; for I cannot conscientiously tell you anything about architecture but what is at variance with all commonly received views upon the subject. I come before you, professedly to speak of things forgotton or things disputed; and I lay before you, not accepted principles, but questions at issue. Of those questions you are to be the judges, and to you I appeal. You must not, when you leave this room, if you feel doubtful of the truth of what I have said, refer yourselves to some architect of established reputation, and ask him whether I am right or not. You might as well, had you lived in the sixteenth century, have asked a Roman Catholic archbishop his opinion of the first reformer. I deny his jurisdiction; I refuse his decision. I call upon you to be Bereans in architecture, as you are in religion,¹ and to search into these things for yourselves. Remember that, however candid a man may be, it is too much to expect of him, when his career in life has been successful, to turn suddenly on the highway, and to declare that all he has learned has been false, and all he has done, worthless; yet nothing less than such a declaration as this must be made by nearly every existing architect, before he admitted the truth of one word

done with a green serpentine which forms the greater part of the coast of Genoa, and of which the effect is indicated in the drawing; but I have no doubt you have good stones enough in Scotland to form as noble a school of colour as ever existed.

“In the third example the whole effect is produced by sculpture; rich moulding of the early French Gothic being used on the arch and cusps, and the shield filled with an ordinary thirteenth-century current ornament. I do not say such a window as this could be executed cheaply-yet it would not be extravagant; all the sculpture here, though rich in effect, is rude in execution-the whole window would not cost so much as a very common piece of plate, and a few such windows as this would produce a marvellous effect on your streets.”

The fourth example is not described in the MS., the lecturer contenting himself with a note: “Lastly, Hotel de Bourgtheroulde and Roof Oriels.” The passage in the MS. about inlaying and its possibilities in Scotland was, it will be seen, used in the printed text.]

¹ [The Bereans, as mentioned in the Acts (xvii. 11), “received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily.” The name was adopted by the followers of the Rev. John Barclay, of Kincardineshire (1773).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]