the inscription above is, "Spes optima
in Deo."

Sec. XLVIII. This design, then, is, rudely and with imperfect chiselling,
imitated by the fifteenth century workmen: the Virtues have lost their
hard features and living expression; they have now all got Roman noses,
and have had their hair curled. Their actions and emblems are, however,
preserved until we come to Hope: she is still praying, but she is
praying to the sun only: _The hand of God is gone._

Is not this a curious and striking type of the spirit which had then
become dominant in the world, forgetting to see God's hand in the light
He gave; so that in the issue, when that light opened into the
Reformation, on the one side, and into full knowledge of ancient
literature on the other, the one was arrested and the other perverted?

Sec. XLIX. Such is the nature of the accidental evidence on which I shall
depend for the proof of the inferiority of character in the Renaissance
workmen. But the proof of the inferiority of the work itself is not so
easy, for in this I have to appeal to judgments which the Renaissance
work has itself distorted. I felt this difficulty very forcibly as I
read a slight review of my former work, "The Seven Lamps," in "The
Architect:" the writer noticed my constant praise of St. Mark's: "Mr.
Ruskin thinks it a very beautiful building! We," said the Architect,
"think it a very ugly building." I was not surprised at the difference
of opinion, but at the thing being considered so completely a subject of
opinion. My opponents in matters of painting always assume that there
_is_ such a thing as a law of right, and that I do not understand it:
but my architectural adversaries appeal to no law, they simply set their
opinion against mine; and indeed there is no law at present to which
either they or I can appeal. No man can speak with rational decision of
the merits or demerits of buildings: he may with obstinacy; he may with
resolved adherence to previous prejudices; but never as if the matter
could be otherwise decided than by a majority of votes, or pertinacity
of partizanship. I had always, however, a clear conviction that there
_was_ a law in this matter: that good architecture might be indisputably
discerned and divided from the bad; that the opposition in their very
nature and essence was clearly visible; and that we were all of us just
as unwise in disputing about the matter without reference to principle,
as we should be for debating abou