was first denied, and then taken advantage of, by modern architects; and
considering how often it has been alleged that I have no _practical_
knowledge of architecture, it cannot but be matter of some triumph to
me, to find "The Builder," of the 21st January, 1854, describing as a
new invention, the successful application to a church in Carlow of the
principle which I laid down in the year 1851.]

No architects have ever attempted seriously to controvert this
proposition. Sometimes, however, they say that "of two ways of doing a
thing, the best and most perfect is not always to be adopted, for there
may be particular reasons for employing an inferior one." This I am
perfectly ready to grant, only let them show their reasons in each
particular case. Sometimes also they say, that there is a charm in the
simple construction which is lost in the scientific one. This I am also
perfectly ready to grant. There is a charm in Stonehenge which there is
not in Amiens Cathedral, and a charm in an Alpine pine bridge which
there is not in the Ponte della Trinita at Florence, and, in general, a
charm in savageness which there is not in science. But do not let it be
said, therefore, that savageness _is_ science.

59. Proposition 2d.--_Ornamentation is the principal part of
architecture._ That is to say, the highest nobility of a building does
not consist in its being well built, but in its being nobly sculptured
or painted.

This is always, and at the first hearing of it, very naturally,
considered one of my most heretical propositions. It is also one of the
most important I have to maintain; and it must be permitted me to
explain it at some length. The first thing to be required of a
building--not, observe, the _highest_ thing, but the first thing--is
that it shall answer its purposes completely, permanently, and at the
smallest expense. If it is a house, it should be just of the size
convenient for its owner, containing exactly the kind and number of
rooms that he wants, with exactly the number of windows he wants, put in
the places that he wants. If it is a church, it should be just large
enough for its congregation, and of such shape and disposition as shall
make them comfortable in it and let them hear well in it. If it be a
public office, it should be so disposed as is most convenient for the
clerks in their daily avocations; and so on; all this being utterly
irrespective of external appearance or aesthetic considerations of a