of imitation; so that,
by the middle of the sixteenth century, no trace whatever remained of
native feeling in the architecture of its important buildings.

During the progress of this revolution in style, the old medieval habits
of cooperation between master mason and sculptor were slowly being
exchanged for a complete dependence upon a special architect, who was
not necessarily a craftsman himself; but whose designs must be carried
out line for line with the most rigid adherence to measurements.

For a moment in history, the rival spirits of the two great schools of
architecture stand face to face like opposing ideals. The classical one,
recalled from the region of things past and forgotten, again to play a
part on earth with at least the semblance of life; the Gothic spirit,
under notice to quit and betake itself to that oblivion from which its
rival is reemerging.

In the heyday of their power, the first had shown a distinctly
autocratic bearing toward its workmen; offering to its sculptors of
genius opportunities for the exercise of highly trained powers, and to
the subordinate workmen only the more or less mechanical task of
repeating a limited number of prescribed forms. The other, a more genial
spirit, had possessed the largest toleration for rude or untrained
workmanship, provided that in its expression the carver had a meaning
which would be generally understood and appreciated. If skill could be
commanded, either of design or technique, it was welcomed; but it gave
no encouragement to work which was either so distinctive as to be
independent of its surroundings, or of a kind which could have no other
than a mechanical interest in its execution. The abrupt contrasts, the
variety and mystery, characteristic of Gothic architecture, had been a
direct and irresistible invitation to the carver, and the freest
playground for his fancy. The formality of the classical design, on the
other hand, necessarily confined such carving as it permitted to
particular lines and spaces, following a recognized rule; and except in
the case of bas-relief figure subjects and detached statues, demanded no
separate interest in the carvings themselves, further than the esthetic
one of relieving such lines and spaces as were otherwise uncomfortably
bare.

Some modification of this extreme arrogance toward the decorative carver
was only to be expected in the revived style, but the freedom allowed to
the individual carver turned out to