t, take up, for a little time, the trade
which of all manual trades has been most honored: be for once a
carpenter. Make for yourself a table or a chair, and see if you ever
thought any table or chair so delightful, and what strange beauty there
will be in their crooked limbs.

I have not noticed any other animadversions on the "Seven Lamps" in Mr.
Garbett's volume; but if there be more, I must now leave it to his own
consideration, whether he may not, as in the above instances, have made
them incautiously: I may, perhaps, also be permitted to request other
architects, who may happen to glance at the preceding pages, not
immediately to condemn what may appear to them false in general
principle. I must often be found deficient in technical knowledge; I
may often err in my statements respecting matters of practice or of
special law. But I do not write thoughtlessly respecting principles; and
my statements of these will generally be found worth reconnoitring
before attacking. Architects, no doubt, fancy they have strong grounds
for supposing me wrong when they seek to invalidate my assertions. Let
me assure them, at least, that I mean to be their friend, although they
may not immediately recognise me as such. If I could obtain the public
ear, and the principles I have advocated were carried into general
practice, porphyry and serpentine would be given to them instead of
limestone and brick; instead of tavern and shop-fronts they would have
to build goodly churches and noble dwelling-houses; and for every
stunted Grecism and stucco Romanism, into which they are now forced to
shape their palsied thoughts, and to whose crumbling plagiarisms they
must trust their doubtful fame, they would be asked to raise whole
streets of bold, and rich, and living architecture, with the certainty
in their hearts of doing what was honorable to themselves, and good for
all men.

Before I altogether leave the question of the influence of labor on
architectural effect, the reader may expect from me a word or two
respecting the subject which this year must be interesting to all--the
applicability, namely, of glass and iron to architecture in general, as
in some sort exemplified by the Crystal Palace.

It is thought by many that we shall forthwith have great part of our
architecture in glass and iron, and that new forms of beauty will result
from the studied employment of these materials.

It may be told in a few words how far this is possible