ure, and yet
we rarely ask for a builder's name. The patron at whose cost, the monk
through whose dreaming, the foundation was laid, we remember
occasionally; never the man who verily did the work. Did the reader ever
hear of William of Sens as having had anything to do with Canterbury
Cathedral? or of Pietro Basegio as in anywise connected with the Ducal
Palace of Venice? There is much ingratitude and injustice in this; and
therefore I desire my reader to observe carefully how much of his
pleasure in building is derived, or should be derived, from admiration
of the intellect of men whose names he knows not.

Sec. VI. The two virtues of architecture which we can justly weigh, are,
we said, its strength or good construction, and its beauty or good
decoration. Consider first, therefore, what you mean when you say a
building is well constructed or well built; you do not merely mean that
it answers its purpose,--this is much, and many modern buildings fail of
this much; but if it be verily well built, it must answer this purpose
in the simplest way, and with no over-expenditure of means. We require
of a light-house, for instance, that it shall stand firm and carry a
light; if it do not this, assuredly it has been ill built; but it may do
it to the end of time, and yet not be well built. It may have hundreds
of tons of stone in it more than were needed, and have cost thousands
of pounds more than it ought. To pronounce it well or ill built, we must
know the utmost forces it can have to resist, and the best arrangements
of stone for encountering them, and the quickest ways of effecting such
arrangements: then only, so far as such arrangements have been chosen,
and such methods used, is it well built. Then the knowledge of all
difficulties to be met, and of all means of meeting them, and the quick
and true fancy or invention of the modes of applying the means to the
end, are what we have to admire in the builder, even as he is seen
through this first or inferior part of his work. Mental power, observe:
not muscular nor mechanical, nor technical, nor empirical,--pure,
precious, majestic, massy intellect; not to be had at vulgar price, nor
received without thanks, and without asking from whom.

Sec. VII. Suppose, for instance, we are present at the building of a
bridge: the bricklayers or masons have had their centring erected for
them, and that centring was put together by a carpenter, who had the
line of its curve traced for