l ages have been examined with scrupulous care, and
imitated with unsparing expenditure. And of all this refinement of
inquiry,--this lofty search after the ideal,--this subtlety of
investigation and sumptuousness of practice,--the great result, the
admirable and long-expected conclusion is, that in the center of the
19th century, we suppose ourselves to have invented a new style of
architecture, when we have magnified a conservatory!

256. In Mr. Laing's speech, at the opening of the palace, he declares
that "_an entirely novel order of architecture_, producing, by means of
unrivaled mechanical ingenuity, the most marvelous and beautiful
effects, sprang into existence to provide a building."[54] In these
words, the speaker is not merely giving utterance to his own feelings.
He is expressing the popular view of the facts, nor that a view merely
popular, but one which has been encouraged by nearly all the professors
of art of our time.

It is to this, then, that our Doric and Palladian pride is at last
reduced! We have vaunted the divinity of the Greek ideal--we have plumed
ourselves on the purity of our Italian taste--we have cast our whole
souls into the proportions of pillars and the relations of orders--and
behold the end! Our taste, thus exalted and disciplined, is dazzled by
the luster of a few rows of panes of glass; and the first principles of
architectural sublimity, so far sought, are found all the while to have
consisted merely in sparkling and in space.

Let it not be thought that I would depreciate (were it possible to
depreciate) the mechanical ingenuity which has been displayed in the
erection of the Crystal Palace, or that I underrate the effect which its
vastness may continue to produce on the popular imagination. But
mechanical ingenuity is _not_ the essence either of painting or
architecture, and largeness of dimension does not necessarily involve
nobleness of design. There is assuredly as much ingenuity required to
build a screw frigate, or a tubular bridge, as a hall of glass;--all
these are works characteristic of the age; and all, in their several
ways, deserve our highest admiration, but not admiration of the kind
that is rendered to poetry or to art. We may cover the German Ocean with
frigates, and bridge the Bristol Channel with iron, and roof the county
of Middlesex with crystal, and yet not possess one Milton, or Michael
Angelo.

257. Well, it may be replied, we need our bridges, and have