This is a Cross church, still wanting the centre tower and the western façade; early English in its style; of cathedral dimensions; the nave seventy or eighty feet in height, with an open timber roof; the choir simply but elegantly groined in stone. Behind the altar there is a comparatively small chapel, representing what in cathedrals is called the Lady Chapel. I know of nothing to compare with the delicacy and richness of the arcade or stone-stall work round this, except the similar feature in the celebrated Trinity Chapel at Ely. Upon the whole, I have reason to believe, that this church is, in respect to size, proportion, and delicacy of execution, the greatest work in the Pointed style that has been erected in England since the Reformation, and superior in many respects to any edifice built in the century that preceded that epoch. The other remarkable church is called, I think, Margaret Chapel, and is situated in the vicinity of Cavendish Square. Of this, neither the eastern nor western gable is visible, the south side being flanked at each extremity by buildings of a collegiate character. The dimensions are considerable, though far below that of the church in Gordon Square. The external material is dark red brick, with black bricks laid in diagonal lines. The tone is sombre, the contrast of colours is not striking, and it is satisfactory to think, that it cannot be much injured by the smoke of London. The great peculiarity of this church is its internal ornamentation, and the profusion and variety of colour which is introduced into it— not by paint nor by mosaic, but by the variety of the structural materials employed. The piers of the nave are of red granite, the shafts attached to them are of Cornish serpentine, the great chancel arch is of white Derbyshire spar, and the archevolts of its side arches have for their voassoirs alternate red and green glazed bricks. The interior wall is of

course plastered, and every spandrel and other suitable space is left for the reception of frescos.

It will be seen that this is a great experiment, to show how far Architecture, which we in this country have considered to be, like sculpture, an art having form alone for its object, may be heightened in its effect by the judicious application of colour; and experiments on the same principle have, I understand, been made by some of our sculptors. As St. Margaret's Church is unfinished, it might be rash, even for a more competent judge than I am, to pronounce what will be the effect. My feeling is, that the strong contrasts of colour will withdraw the attention from the harmony of forms, which must always be the great element of architectural beauty; and that the architect who depends for his effects upon colour principally, will be in danger of neglecting the far weightier element of his art.

One other conviction I may mention, and that is, that frescos will never be found effective in our great towns. As I have never been in Italy nor at Munich, I know not their effect there, nor the kind of light in which they are placed. But from what appears in the Houses of Parliament, I would say that frescos require more light than London ever affords; and that when they are brought into competition with richly stained windows, their effect as architectural embellishments is nothing, whatever may be their merits in design and expression.

Out of London, the greatest work in progress is the rebuilding of Doncaster Church. I call it rebuilding, not restoration; because, in fact, the old church was entirely destroyed by fire, and because the church now in progress is very far from being an imitation, much less a fac simile of its predecessor. Now, this fact of the destruction of this church, one of the finest parish churches in the

island, with the repeated calamities of York, and the narrow escape of Westminster Abbey-all in our own day-force upon us the consideration, whether the combination of wood and lead-of an easily combustible material with another requiring the immediate presence of fire in its application- might not be replaced by some safer arrangement. The wonder to me, when I look at the little open furnaces which plumbers employ, is, not that some of our old churches have been burned, but that any have survived so long. Common sense seems to point to iron as the alternative: not to iron concealed as some→ thing to be ashamed of, but to iron manifest and avowed, which it remains for genius to apply in forms of beauty and grandeur; and to use, not because it is cheap, but because it is more suitable and more safe than any other material. I have seen this pithily expressed in a manuscript poem on art

But to return to the rebuilding of the church at Doncaster, of which I am the more inclined to speak, because I have just been reading some very entertaining and instructive lectures delivered upon the subject at Doncaster by Mr. Beckett Denison, a remarkable person, who is at the same time a successfully practising lawyer, one of the most scientific clockmakers of his time, and a learned and acute critic of ecclesiastical architecture. When means are provided for rebuilding a decayed or destroyed church, good taste and modesty generally dictate the adoption of a design as closely as possible resembling what has been lost. But there were good reasons why this should not be done at Doncaster. The church recently burned was

but a refacciamento of another earlier church, which also, I think, in its day had been destroyed by fire, and the restoration had been made in the Perpendicular style, and was no very good specimen of that. The fame of the church rested mainly upon its centre tower, which was really fine, and this, I believe, is to be reproduced in its original style and magnitude. As to the body of the church, the style to be adopted was an open question, and the committee appear to have been very fortunate in having Mr. Scott for their architect, and Mr. Denison as one of their body. A narrative of the considerations and discussions upon this weighty point, forms the most important feature in the lectures to which I have alluded, and in this Mr. Denison gives the clearest and most rational account of the merits and demerits of all the distinct styles of English Architecture of which I have yet met with. The Norman, the Lancet or early English, the Geometrical Decorated, the Flowing Decorated, and the Perpendicular, are all described, and the prize is given to the Geometrical, as standing in the central and culminating point of English ecclesiastical architecture, which advanced up to it and declined from it; and this is the style adopted, and in which the church is now in course of erection. As to any design of a Greek, Roman, Romanesque, or Rennaissance character, Mr. Denison appears to think that its adoption would have been as absurd as for him to have addressed the good people of Doncaster in Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew. The lectures are illustrated by groundplans and perspective views of the old and new churches, and a detail drawing of the new east window, which last gives a fair indication of the style adopted throughout the edifice. I venture to recommend this little work to any architect who may be called upon for designs for a

new church. Not that I imagine it will teach him any thing in his art which he did not know before, but I do think it may enlighten him as to that which it is very desirable he should understand, namely—as to the extension of sound knowledge and a correct taste among those who are not professional architects. It is difficult

to say whether the advancement of art depends more upon the genius and science of artists, or upon the extension of a true feeling for art among the community for which he labours.

I hope, gentlemen, you will not think that I have dwelt at improper length upon the Pointed style of Architecture, and upon its application exclusively to ecclesiastical edifices. Indeed, with the exception of the old halls or banqueting rooms-a class of buildings, so far as I know, exclusively British - I know not to what other purpose the Pointed Architecture can properly be applied. For club-houses, banks, and ornamental street architecture, either some form of Italian, or that which is commonly called Tudor, must be adopted. It is therefore, I think, absurd to vilify styles to which we must have perpetual recourse. Certainly no Italian style is so beautiful as the English Pointed in its best state; and it is equally true, that no street, or club, or bank, or insurance office, or theatre, that I have seen, is so beautiful a work of art as Lincoln Cathedral; but it does not follow that any of these would be improved by putting upon them a mask copied or adapted from any portion of Lincoln. The highest beauty cannot be employed to every purpose; and I do not see that we have much reason to complain, if it should turn out, that the highest beauty can only be satisfactorily employed to the highest purpose.

Of pure Greek Architecture I have said nothing, not because I hold it cheap, for in its best examples it is perfectly