"Of all the Gothic buildings that we have in our country, both of
ancient and modern date, the Houses of Parliament are the best and
most elaborate; the first step of its grandeur is, that it stands
parallel to the majestic stream of the River Thames, and owing
to its proximate distance to the river, there is no thoroughfare
between it and the water; its open situation gives it a sublime
view from the opposite side; but especially from Westminster Bridge
its aspect is grand and magnificent in the extreme. Its superb
tracery glitters in the distance, in the sight of the spectator,
like the yellow autumnal foliage of some picturesque grove, which
beautifies the verdant valleys and bedecks the silvery hills. The
majestic figures in their stately order, encanopied in their
Gothic palaces, bring to our remembrance the noble patriarchs
of old, or the patriots of recent days. Its numerous pinnacles,
turrets, and towers, rise up into the smoky and blue atmosphere
like forest trees, which will stand as an everlasting memento
of the great and noble-minded generation who raised this grand
and magnificent structure, so that after-generations may say,
'Surely our forefathers were great and illustrious men, that they
had reached the climax of human skill, so that we cannot improve
on their superb and princely buildings.'"
These three extracts, though in an extreme degree, are absolutely and
accurately characteristic of the sort of mind, unexampled in any former
ages for its conceit, its hypocrisy, and its sevenfold--or rather
seventy times sevenfold--ignorance, the dregs of corrupted knowledge,
which modern art-teaching, centralized by Kensington, produces in our
workmen and their practical 'guides.' How it is produced, and how the
torturing examinations as to the possible position of the letters
in the word. Chillianwallah, and the collection of costly objects
of art from all quarters of the world, end in these conditions of
paralysed brain and corrupted heart, I will show you at length in a
future letter.