among the streets, once so bright, and avenues
once so pleasant, of the fairest city in Europe, may surely lead us all
to feel that the skill of Daedalus, set to build impregnable fortresses,
is not so wisely applied as in framing the [Greek: treton ponou]--the
golden honeycomb.

FOOTNOTES:

[135] The closing Lecture, on the religious temper of the Florentine,
though necessary for the complete explanation of the subject to my
class, at the time, introduced new points of inquiry which I do not
choose to lay before the general reader until they can be examined in
fuller sequence. The present volume, therefore, closes with the Sixth
Lecture, and that on Christian art will be given as the first of the
published course on Florentine Sculpture.

[136] These plates of coins are given for future reference and
examination, not merely for the use made of them in this place. The
Lacinian Hera, if a coin could be found unworn in surface, would be very
noble; her hair is thrown free because she is the goddess of the cape of
storms though in her temple, there, the wind never moved the ashes on
its altar. (Livy, xxiv. 3.)

[137] Ancient Cities and Kings, Plate IV. No. 20.

[138] The siege of Paris, at the time of the delivery of this Lecture,
was in one of its most destructive phases.

_THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND._

(_Delivered at the R. A. Institution, Woolwich, December 14, 1869._)

I would fain have left to the frank expression of the moment, but fear I
could not have found clear words--I cannot easily find them, even
deliberately,--to tell you how glad I am, and yet how ashamed, to accept
your permission to speak to you. Ashamed of appearing to think that I
can tell you any truth which you have not more deeply felt than I; but
glad in the thought that my less experience, and way of life sheltered
from the trials, and free from the responsibilities of yours, may have
left me with something of a child's power of help to you; a sureness of
hope, which may perhaps be the one thing that can be helpful to men who
have done too much not to have often failed in doing all that they
desired. And indeed, even the most hopeful of us, cannot but now be in
many things apprehensive. For this at least we all know too well, that
we are on the eve of a great political crisis, if not of political
change. That a struggle is approaching between the newly-risen power of
democracy and the apparently departing power of feudalism; and another