for you, beginning with your own metropolis, some of the
lines of thought in following out which such a task might be most
effectively accomplished.

You observe that I speak of architecture as the chief exponent of
the feelings both of the French and English races. Together with
it, however, most important evidence of character is given by the
illumination of manuscripts, and by some forms of jewellery and
metallurgy: and my purpose in this course of lectures is to illustrate
by all these arts the phases of national character which it is
impossible that historians should estimate, or even observe, with
accuracy, unless they are cognizant of excellence in the aforesaid
modes of structural and ornamental craftsmanship.

In one respect, as indicated by the title chosen for this course, I
have varied the treatment of their subject from that adopted in all
my former books. Hitherto, I have always endeavoured to illustrate the
personal temper and skill of the artist; holding the wishes or taste
of his spectators at small account, and saying of Turner you ought to
like him, and of Salvator, you ought not, etc., etc., without in the
least considering what the genius or instinct of the spectator might
otherwise demand, or approve. But in the now attempted sketch of
Christian history, I have approached every question from the people's
side, and examined the nature, not of the special faculties by which
the work was produced, but of the general instinct by which it was
asked for, and enjoyed. Therefore I thought the proper heading for
these papers should represent them as descriptive of the _Pleasures_
of England, rather than of its _Arts_.

And of these pleasures, necessarily, the leading one was that of
Learning, in the sense of receiving instruction;--a pleasure totally
separate from that of finding out things for yourself,--and an
extremely sweet and sacred pleasure, when you know how to seek it, and
receive.

On which I am the more disposed, and even compelled, here to insist,
because your modern ideas of Development imply that you must all
turn out what you are to be, and find out what you are to know, for
yourselves, by the inevitable operation of your anterior affinities
and inner consciences:--whereas the old idea of education was that the
baby material of you, however accidentally or inevitably born, was
at least to be by external force, and ancestral knowledge, bred; and
treated by its Fathers and Tutors as a pla