The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-15 00:00:00

TII, YlRTl'fag OT ARCIIITTLITIRE.

So, then, thew are the two virtues of building . first the
signs of man's own good work : secondly. the rapre..ion of
11.111.• delight in latter work than his own. And these are
'he two virtue. of which I wish my reader. to be able
kly to judge, at !east in wine measure ; to have a deli•
site opinion up to ar. rtain point. Beyond a certain point
he
cannot form 01W. When the intuit of the building is
gnat. gnat .viva., it of course required to taimprebend it ;
and then fore, of ditficult bridges, and lighthouse., and har-
bour
wall., and river dykes, and railway tunnels. an judg-
m. nt can he rapidly fi;rm...l. Ilia of common buildings,
built in coninnin tinnnetaisees, it is very possible for every
man, or woman, or child, to form a jnilinnent both rational
and rapid. Then., nercs.ary, or even posiable, features are
but Go ; the laws of their nmstruetion an, as simple at they
an, ant. riating. The labour of a few hours is enough to
ni. !. r the nailer abutter of their main points ; and front
this ointment he will find in himself a power of judgment
• can neither be escaped nor deceived, and discover
&W.!, !ft of interest where everything had before appeartal
1.,r• •.. For though the laws are few and simple. the
llctlet of oh.-dieue, to them are not so. Every building
I. .at. it. own r. .o,retuents and diAkulties ; and every
1..4 building has peculiar appliances or contrivances to
M.,: them. Understand the law, of structure, and vou
• ; fed the opeial difficult, in every pew building whichV
• sipproach ; and you will know also• or feel in.tinctively
r it has been wisely met or otherwise. And an
" •,mous number of buildings, and of styles of buildings,
a will lie slay to east aside at once, a, at variance with
• , • c!mttant lane of structure, and therefore unnatural
* ! monstrous.

..•
I hen as regards decoration, I want you only to consult
it own natural choice and liking. There is • right and
.nduz in it; but j•lu will assuredly like the right if you
your natural in-tinct to lead you. Half the evils in
r .s world muse from people not knowing what they do
• nut d. liherattly sAting thernselvm to find out what
.y really en!oy. All people enjoy giving away money.
instance; (hi; don't know that—th 9 rather think they

like keeping it; and they do keep it, under this Albs im-
prelPloll, often to their great discomfort. lserybody likes
to do good; but not one w a hundred finds Min out. Mal-
think they like to do esil ; yet no man ever really
enjoy's' doing evil sines Gml male the world.
Jo in this louse matter of ornament, it ards some little
eare to try eeperimente upon 'massif; it needs deliberate
question and upright answer. lint there is no difficulty to
he overcome, nn abstruse reasoning to be gone into; only a
little watchtnlness needed, and thoughtfulness, and so much
honesty se will enalah, you to conk., to yourself, and to all
men,
_that you enjoy things, though great authorities say
you ebould nut.
This boob.. sem( what like pride, but it is true humility,
trust that you hate been so created as to enjoy what is
fitting for you, and • willingness to he pleased, as it was in-
tended you should Ise. It is the child's spirit which we arc
then most happy when we most recover; only wiser than
children in that we are able to think it • subject of thank-
fulness that we can still be pleased with a fair colour or a
dancing light. And, above all, do not try to make all these
pleasures remonahle, nor to connect the delight which you
take in ornament with that which you take in construction
anal mefulnesm They have no eonnexion, and every effort
that you make to argue from one to the other will blunt
your mese of beauty, or confuse it with sensations altogether
inferior to it. You w. re souk for enjoyment, and the
world was tilled with things that you will enjoy, unless you
are two proud tube pleased by them, or too grasping to care
for what you cannot turn to other account then mere
ltenieniber that the most beautiful things in the
world are the most is, dos. peacocks and billies fur instance;
at Iraq, I supper, that this quill 1 hoick in nay baud writes
better than a pewenek's would ; and the peasant. of Vevay,
whose mid, is. s 1 riot time urr as white with !Miss as the
Dent du Midi, with its mow, told me the hay was none the
better for them.

Mr. Ruskin halt hitherto confined himself to the
architectures which have been. Perhaps he will
some day turn his brilliantly suggestive mind to the
consideration of the urehitevture which, by and by,
may be. In the "Seven Lamps" he makes trangnittrile
one of the very first essentials of effective architec-
ture. We were never more convinced of the truth
of this remark than on beholding, for the first time,
the " Crystal Palace'" front the bridge over the Ser-
pentine, ut un hour of the day when the sun's rays
were reflected at such un angle as to deprive the
building of its transparency. It was the finest piece
of architectural effiet we have seen for many a day.
Mr. Ruskin is frequent in his analogies lie-
tween natural and architectural effects. The
gigantic edifice, from the point mentioned, has
the sublime effect of a precipitously bounded table-
land, traversed through the centre by a bold ridge of
rocky hill. When we remember how simply and at
how very small a cost this effect has been (ttained,
we are titreibly reminded of what might he done in
iron and glass, wet magnitude and splendour made
distinct ends, and pursued regardless of cost, instead
of resulting, as now. til•111 accidental necessity, and
under rigid econnmicul limitations.

Mr. Iftakin Raylf of the Glass l'alnee, considered as
an architectural work :
Th.. earth ha: bubbles as the water bath,

And this is of than ;
hut we cannot quite agree with him in the principles
by which he justifies his scorn of all architecture in
which the foundrT and the turning-lathe have
had any part. This, however, is not a ques-
tion upon which we have space to enter at length
enough to confute the reasons alleged by Mr. Ruskin
against the possibility of a true style of architecture
in glum and cast-iron. •
_

in addition to the great and various permanent
interests of the " Stones of Venice," the work will
awaken a lively sew:teflon of a more transitory cha-
racter by the hard and telling side-blows which arc
aimed in it against those who are in anv way aiding
and abetting the growth of popery in V.ngland. A.
.Iftervice of very high importance indeed is rendered
by Mr. Ruskin in the short but brilliant notices
which are given by him of the state of Romanist art
sine the Reformation. A few wholesome words
concerning what young ladies call the ":esthetic
element of the Rennin!' worship will serve as a
diming bonne-bouche to this brief and nmsnarily in-
adequate notice of one of the most remarkable works
un art which have appeared in this century.

Curries snit siicirrraeleitr.
It is of the highest importance, in these days, that Ro-
manism should be deprived of the ntiserable inflame,. whirl'
its pomp and foicture-quenees have given it user the weak
sentimentalism of the English people; I call it a miserable
influence, for, of all motives to sympathy with tlie church
of Rome, this I unhesitatingly class IS the basest; I can, in
some nwasere, respect the other feelings which here been
the beginnings of apo-tat y ; I ran respect the desire for
unity which would reclaim the Romanist by love, anal the
distrust of his own heart, which subject* the proselyte to
priestly power; I say, I can respect these feelings, though
I cannot pardon unprincipled submis.ion to them, nor
tough wonder at the infinite fatuity of the unhappy per-
sona whom they base betrayed. Fatuity, self-in-
dicted, and stubborn, in resistance to Gold's wood and
roan's rel.lllll..—to talk of the authority of the chureh. as
if the church were anything else than the whole
company of Christian man, or were ever spoken of in
Scripture as other than a company tube taught and fed, nut
to teach and feed. Fatuity !to talk of a separation of
church and state, as if a Christian state and every officer
therein were not necessarily a part of the church, and as if
MIT state officer could do his duty without tEltirlMltlfilla JO
rid and promote religion, or any clerical officer do his duty
without seeking fur such nisi anol accepting it. Fatuity! to
I seek for the unity of a living body of truth and trust in
(lad, with a dead hotly of lies and trust in wood, anal
thence to expect anything OW than plasme and consumption
by worms Ulki)iug, for both. Blasphemy- as well as fatuity!
to ask for any better interpreter of God a word than God, or
to expert knowledge of it in any other way than the plainly
ordered way; if any man will Du he shall li Now. But of
all thine fatuities, the bawd is the being lured into the
Romish church by the glitter of it, like larks iota, a trap
by broken glass; to be blown into a change of religion by
the whine of an organ-pipe ; stitched into a new coed by
gold threads on priests' petticoats; jangled into a change of
conscience by the chime* of a belfry. I know nothing in
the shape or error so dark as this, no imbecility SO abso-
lute, no treachery so comtemptible. • • • • • •
• • • • I should have said all that I have barn
say log above, of artistieal lapidary, if Giotto had been
living in Flonnee, and if art were dill doing all that it did
once for Mime. But the gnsonesa of the error heroines in-
comprehensible, as well as unpardonable, when we lank to
what a level of ilegrailation the human intellect has sunk at
tine instant iu Italy. Su far from Rornanism producing
anything great in art, it cannot even preserve what has burn
given to its keeping. I know no abuses of precious
inheritance half so grievous as the alinse of all that is best
in art wherever the Romanist priesthood gets puraescion of
it. It amounts to absolute infatuation. The noblest pieces of
medi.eval sculpture in North Italy, the two gritting at the
central (west) door of the catluelnd of Verona, were daily
permitted to be brought
the autumn of 1849, a washerwoman livingin the Piazza,
who tied her clothes lines to their beaks, and the shafts of
St. Mark's, at Venice, were used by a salesman of common
caricatures to fasten his prints upon ; and this in the face of
the continually passing priests; while the quantity of noble
art annually destroyed in alter-pieces by candle-droppings,
or perishing by pure brutality of neglect, passes all estimate.
I do not know, as I have repeatedly stated, how far the
splendour of architecture, or other art, is compatible with
the honesty and usefulness of religions service. The longer
I live the tuurc I incline to severe judgment in this matter, I
and the leas I trust the sentiments excited by painted glass
&ad coloured tiles. But if there be ibdeed value in such '
things, our plain duty is to direct our strength against the
superstition which has dishonoured them ; there are thou-
sands who might possibly he benefited by them, to whom
they sae now merely an acme, owing to their association
with idolatrous ceremonies. I have but this exhortation
I for all who lose them, not to regulate their creed. by
their taste in colours, but to hold calmly to the right, at
whatever present cost to their imaginative enjoyment ; sure
that they w ill one day final, in heavenly truth, a brighter
charm than in ear** imagery, and striving to gather stones
for the eternal building, whom: walls shall be salvation, mid
' 1 whose gates shall be praise.

A Selection from the Poem. and Dramatic ll'orks of
Theodor Korner. By the trawdator of the " Nibelungen
Treasure." William* and Norgate.
The true fume of banter rests less upon his
writings than upon his life--less upon his life than
upon his death. Of his poems, none could equal the
poetry of his career; of his tragedies, none could
harni;th so sad a catastrophe as his untimely fate.
Korner was one of
The doubly dead, in that he died so young.
He fell near the Elbe. at the age of two-and-twenty—
the age of Gaston de Foix when he fell at Ravenna.
Like Gaston, he died at the moment of victory ; like
Gaston, he was brave; while at the same time he
could boast of greater genius and a better cause.
Like our own Earl of Surrey and Sir Philip Sidney
—who both died young—he adorned, with the poet's
graces. the virtues of the knight. Like Andre
'teenier—who died young, one of the earliest victims
of the French revolution—the patriot in his nature
was inspired by the poet ; and in each case, death,
while it consummated the one character, leg the
other undeveloped. Like Chatterton and Bellini,
Korner "perished in his pride," before his genius
had borne much fruit, but, like those illustrious men,
the fruit which he did produce was of the ripest and
rarest.
Who does not know the famous "" of the '

Song
Swardr—itis last and fined composition—from the
reading of which to a friend, he was called away—
to die. But how few English readers are acquainted