same may be said, not only of the style of design, but of the manner of construction, and the materials of execution. A person with a just taste in architecture, living in a country where stone was chiefly used for walls, would not be at first reconciled to walls of brick, but would be obliged to control his feelings by his reason. Where thatch is the material with which cottages are generally covered, it is difficult to avoid considering slates and tiles as cold and unsuitable for cottage roofs. Many more instances might be given; but enough, we trust, has been said, to show the unavoidable influence of locality in modifying more or less the taste of individuals.

The influence which education may have in giving a bias to architectural taste is so obvious, as hardly to require illustration. An amateur who has had a classical education will prefer the classical architecture of the Greeks and Romans to the Gothic style of the middle ages; a young architect who has been chiefly taught the details of the Grecian style can hardly avoid preferring that style to every other; one who has been taught to consider the Doric as the most perfect of the Grecian orders will have acquired a prejudice in favour of all buildings where that order is made use of; and so of all other styles or orders, or variations of them. As travelling may be considered a part of education, the architect of just taste, who has spent hours in exploring the architecture of caves in Egypt and India, or of tents in China, will look upon Egyptian and Chinese architecture with more favour, than the man, also of just taste, who has viewed them only through the medium of books.

That public opinion, or the prevailing taste of a country, has a considerable influence in biassing our taste, the opposition which is made by the public to innovations of every kind is a sufficient proof. At the present time, in England, the pointed style of architecture is approved every where, and by every body; but, during the time of Charles II., when Roman architecture was universally admired, the pointed style was as universally censured and despised, both by architects and amateurs. Thus, in architecture, as in every thing else, the influence of fashion is continually operating; and not only has public opinion, or the fashion of a whole country, great influence, but even the opinion or fashion of eminent individuals in that country: Thus, almost all pupils of architects have their taste more or less influenced by that of their master; and all courtiers by that of their sovereign. Every one knows that these things happen in all ordinary matters; and a very little reflection must convince them that they will happen also in matters of taste.

The received prejudices of a people or a country, with respect to the application of particular forms of architecture to particular uses, have a strong influence on the taste. There seems

to be no insuperable reason why a spire should not be made an ornament to a gentleman's house in the country; and in many situations, it might be of considerable utility in pointing out the house at a great distance, or in forming the leading feature of a group, containing the different buildings which compose the dwelling-house and offices of a large mansion in the midst of an extensive demesne; but this form, being generally employed in churches, is in some degree considered sacred, and consequently its employment in villas would be too great a shock to our received prejudices. A Christian church built in the Chinese style, every one must feel, would prove offensive.

In this manner we might pursue the subject of what writers on taste call accidental associations, to show how extremely difficult, or rather how impossible, it is, for any individual to have a perfect taste; and, at the same time, to show how numerous the chances are against any two persons thinking, in matters of taste, exactly alike. Independently of the difference in the organisation of individuals, there are, as we have seen, so many other causes operating upon them in different degrees, that it is hardly possible to conceive two individuals, even if they are of similar organisation and education, similarly operated upon by external circumstances. Hence, whenever we find two persons agreeing in taste, we may generally conclude, either that the taste of the one has been formed on that of the other; or, that the one gives way to the other, whenever their sentiments are different.

Every one's taste, therefore, is the natural and unavoidable result of all the different circumstances in which he has been placed; and hence he can no more alter it, on being desired to do so, than he can change any other opinion he has formed on any subject, without tracing back the steps which led to his forming it. Hence, the necessity of charity, or mutual forbearance, in all matters of taste; and the propriety, when we state our approval or disapprobation of any object of taste, of giving the reasons on which our opinion is founded.

In arriving at this conclusion, one object which we have in view is, to suggest what we think ought to be the proper language of criticism in matters of architectural taste. In the first place, the terms good and bad taste, in an absolute sense, should seldom, if ever, be employed: since they must always be either good or bad, relatively to circumstances more or less limited. We would therefore qualify the term good, when so used, by adding another term expressive of the circumstances relatively to which it was considered good: such as, a good taste in Gothic architecture or in the Elizabethan style: or a good or bad taste in street buildings or in villas. We would prefer, however, substituting, for the term good, some term expressive of the kind of goodness: such as, a just taste in architecture generally; a correct taste in

the Grecian style; a refined taste in the Tudor Gothic; a cultivated taste in Italian architecture, &c. In like manner, instead of the term bad taste, we would employ such expressions as servile taste, incorrect taste, crude taste, &c.; and, when speaking of a taste without reference to its being either good or bad, we would use such epithets as, taste of a particular age, master, or style, &c. In this way, when speaking either of the taste or judgment of an architect, or of the expression or construction of a building, we may always employ terms which shall be characteristic of the excellences or defects of the artist or object criticised; and not merely, like the terms good and bad, words conveying no other idea to our readers or hearers, than that of our approbation or dislike.

Since the taste of no individual can be perfect, and since no two individuals are likely to agree in every respect in any matters of taste, what, it may be asked, are the comparative values of a just, a correct, a delicate, an intense, and a refined taste, supposing each to be equally free from accidental influences? Our answer is, that a just or reasoning taste is decidedly the best; since a greater number of persons are likely to understand arguments founded on reason and utility, than to agree in sentiment, or to possess the same degree of imagination.

ART. II. On the comparative Value of Simplicity in Architecture. By E. TROTMAN, Esq., Architect.

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THERE are few operations of the mind more subtle and more fallacious, than is that by which we are led to regard as identical the properties and attributes of objects that are frequently presented to our notice in close association, while they remain essentially distinct from and independent of each other. need not wander, in search of illustrations to this remark, beyond the field which our present subject opens before us. The common recurrence of such descriptive phrases as "simply beautiful," "dignified simplicity," "graceful and chaste simplicity," has unquestionably done much to create in many minds an opinion that simplicity is one with chastity and grace, with dignity and beauty. Nor is it matter of surprise, that, in an age like the present, when all are critics, and all seekers after novelty, we should find many who, from an aversion to the extravagances of a depraved taste, adopt the opposite extreme, and, affecting a false refinement, assert the supreme importance of simplicity, be it only for the paradox which the opinion offers to vulgar minds. This opinion has, indeed, received such support, that some writers have given to simplicity the very highest place among the requisites for architectural composition; making it no less essential to the mass, than is harmony to the proportions, or

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beauty to the details. If, then, such distinction be claimed for this quality in art, it cannot be considered unimportant to examine the validity of such claims, as far as supported by the nature, tendency, and exemplifications of the principle of its observance. This is, indeed, the more necessary, as the principle cannot be said spontaneously to commend itself to the feelings; and therefore, in order to be maintained at all, requires the stronger support of the judgment. It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned at the outset, whether that can be an absolute rule of taste, which approves itself so imperfectly to our natural perceptions: those perceptions which are not inapt in determining upon the existence of the harmony of fitness, and the beauty of ornament: but, without insisting upon this doubt, we may examine the nature of the quality in question under some of its more ordinary applications, and perceive how far it is usually productive of the results attributed to it.

Assuming that simplicity in any work of art consists in the fewness of its component parts, and assuming also that it is the object of art to gratify the imaginative faculties of the mind without offending the judgment, we may, on asking whether such limitation of component parts is calculated to satisfy the demands of the imagination, safely anticipate an answer in the negative. If, too, simplicity be all-important to works of taste in one department, what shall exclude its authority from those in another, the gratification to be attained being derived from the same sources? Is it by rendering the parts of their machinery as few as possible, that the epic poet, the dramatist, the legendary historian, produce their most gratifying illusions? And if one or two able pens of our own times have (though not uniformly) made simplicity the garb of much beauty, has not the easy assumption of the dress tempted their many imitators to conjure up only impersonations of the ridiculous? Were, indeed, the objects of taste and of the fine arts the same with those of the useful and commercial arts, simplicity would be of paramount importance; as, in the latter, the economy of labour demands the employment of the least complex apparatus for the attainment of a given result; in the former case, however, the self-imposed toil of the imagination is its own reward; its real weariness arising from that monotony which it is the ultimate tendency of simplicity to produce.

Much of that which has been urged by many in praise of this quality arises, as we hinted at the commencement, from their having confounded it with other coexistent features in nature and in art. That the simple and the grand frequently stand combined is unquestionable; yet it is equally true that our impressions, in such cases, are produced alone by the grand; and that the grand is the result of size, which becomes effective just

in proportion as the form of the beholder is, by comparison with itself, reduced to insignificance. From what other cause arises the majesty of the ocean, or of the Alpine heights, which, as illustrations from nature of abstract simplicity, do not excel the pond or the hillock? It is true that what would interfere with the simplicity of these objects would interfere likewise with their grandeur: but for this reason, that, by interrupting the effect of continuity, it would destroy also the impression of size. And if simplicity is not to be confounded with dimension, neither is it to be mistaken for grace. How both may be united in the productions of the chisel is known to every one who has seen the Elgin Marbles; but that grace is no inseparable companion to simplicity, is equally obvious to all who have paid any attention to remaining examples of Egyptian sculpture. Were we to pursue the examination of this characteristic in its varied connection with the tastes and refinements of life, it would not be difficult to show to how great an extent it has been mistaken for other and higher qualities. What is more common, for instance, than for the simplicity of a musical air to be considered identical with its sentiment and expression? Yet it cannot be denied that Handel himself has left examples of the manner in which simplicity may be made ridiculous, had we not the daily testimony of our ears to the fact. Nor, in the labours of learning, are the nature, the beauty, the sublimity, of such literary remains of past days as the English Bible and Prayer Book to be confounded with the circumstance of their simplicity of style; matters quite as distinct from each other as, in the history of character, are the oft-sung joys of rustic life from mere clownish ignorance, or the innocence of childhood from the emptiness of the idiot. It may be objected, that in thus viewing simplicity as at once non-essential and liable to excess, we are not doing justice to its claims; and that any quality in art or science may be rendered ridiculous by being overstrained in application. This remark, however, is only true as it regards qualities or excellences that are comparative: it is not correct as to those which are absolute. Absolute excellences can never be carried to an extreme. No work of art was ever too grand, too graceful, too harmonious; since grandeur, grace, and harmony are designations of absolute excellence. While, again, that some works may be too complex and too ornamental is no less certain than that others may be too simple or too poor: these terms being expressive of the extremes of qualities of comparative excellence, those of variety and ornament. The very circumstance, therefore, that simplicity is a quality comparative and indefinite, manifestly invalidates its claim to the place of an essential and absolute excellence in architecture, and in art generally. If any pretension whatever could be sustained for its autho