d to their
theories of restoration, and squire and parson work sad havoc on the
fabrics of old churches when they are doing their best to repair them.
Too often they have decided to entirely demolish the old building, the
most characteristic feature of the English landscape, with its square
grey tower or shapely spire, a tower that is, perhaps, loopholed and
battlemented, and tells of turbulent times when it afforded a secure
asylum and stronghold when hostile bands were roving the countryside.
Within, piscina, ambrey, and rood-loft tell of the ritual of former
days. Some monuments of knights and dames proclaim the achievements of
some great local family. But all this weighs for nothing in the eyes
of the renovating squire and parson. They must have a grand, new,
modern church with much architectural pretension and fine decorations
which can never have the charm which attaches to the old building. It
has no memories, this new structure. It has nothing to connect it with
the historic past. Besides, they decree that it must not cost too
much. The scheme of decoration is stereotyped, the construction
mechanical. There is an entire absence of true feeling and of any real
inspiration of devotional art. The design is conventional, the pattern
uniform. The work is often scamped and hurried, very different from
the old method of building. We note the contrast. The medieval
builders were never in a hurry to finish their work. The old fanes
took centuries to build; each generation doing its share, chancel or
nave, aisle or window, each trying to make the church as perfect as
the art of man could achieve. We shall see how much of this sound and
laborious work has vanished, a prey to restoration and ignorant
renovation. We shall see the house-breaker at work in rural hamlet and
in country town. Vanishing London we shall leave severely alone. Its
story has been already told in a large and comely volume by my friend
Mr. Philip Norman. Besides, is there anything that has not vanished,
having been doomed to destruction by the march of progress, now that
Crosby Hall has gone the way of life in the Great City? A few old
halls of the City companies remain, but most of them have given way to
modern palaces; a few City churches, very few, that escaped the Great
Fire, and every now and again we hear threatenings against the
masterpieces of Wren, and another City church has followed in the wake
of all the other London buildings on which the de