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Architecture of the Middle Ages.
criticism, and have given up their child-
ish theory of their immunity from the
risks that other men run.  We have
probably heard the last of Art being
"a delicate personal vocation," which no
gentleman will interfere with by asking
troublesome questions; and, in good
time, artists who wish to confute the
critics will prefer to do it by painting
good pictures rather than by writing
angry letters to the newspapers. This
state of things is healthy, and is the first
stage of progress. The artist must be
content to work. He must throw him-
self wholly into his vocation, as if
it were a vocation. He must absolutely
refuse to make a trade of it. Only by
an utter refusal to let the question of
money enter into his calculations, can he
sustain the claim of his profession to
sit side by side with the highest minis-
ters to human culture. He must be
content to work for years, if need be,
poor and unknown, nourished by the
faith which is built on a large experi-
ence, that good work, really good work,
is as sure to sell as the air is to be
breathed. Let him accept poverty as
his bride; let him take courage to kiss
the lips of that wrinkled, scarred and
hideous hag, and when the morning
dawns lhe shall see her, in that rosy light,
transformed, at his side, to an immortal
beauty, whose love shall more than pay
him seven-fold for his desolate hours,
his bitter tears.
SONNET.
TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN.
OFT had I heard thy beauty praised, dear flower;
And often sought for thee through field and wood;
Yet could I never find the secret bower
Where thou dost lead, in maiden solitude,
A cloistered life, until, this autumn day,
Beside a tree that shook her golden hair,
And laughed at death, flaunting her rich array,
I found thee, blue as the still depths of air
-Seen, leagues away, between the pine-wood boughs.
Ohl, never yet a gladder sight bath met
These eyes of mine ! Depart, before the snows
Of hastening winter thy fringed garments wet!
Thine azure flowers should never fade nor die
But bloom, exhale and gain their native sky.
ARCHITECTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
" But though we are thus compelled
to disallow several of the claims which
have been put forward in support of the
scientific character of the middle ages,
there are two points in which we may,
I conceive, really trace the progress oi
scientific ideas among them; and which,
therefore, may be considered as the pre-
lude to the period of discovery. I mean
their practical architecture, and their
architectural treatises.
" In a previous chapter of this book,we
have endeavored to explain how the in-
distinctness of ideas, which attended the
decline of the Roman empire, appears in
the forms of their architecture;-in the
1865.1
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C. C,