Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men,
Unmoved....
Their several memories here
Put on a lowly and a touching grace
Of more distinct humanity.
And not only the buildings, but the other archæological monuments of the University (for so I think I may be permitted to call the pictures and the busts, and the statues, and the tombs, which are the glories of our chapels, our libraries and our halls) teach the same great lessons. They raise up again our own worthies before our very eyes, calling on us to strive to walk as they walked, dead though they be and buried; for their effigies and their sepulchres are ‘with us to this day.’ I must repeat, then, that I am glad that the Disney Professor is not obliged to confine himself to classical archæology, sorry as I should be if he were wholly unable to give lectures on one or more branches of that most interesting department, which has moreover a special connexion with the classical studies of the University. It is manifest that the University intended the Professor to consider no kind of human antiquities as alien from him; and I think this in itself a very great gain. For, if the truth must be confessed, antiquaries above most others have been guilty of the error of despising those branches of study which are not precisely their own. I forbear to adduce proofs of this, though I am not unprovided with them; and even although you would certainly be amused if I were to read them; classicists against gothicists; gothicists against classicists.
I could wish that the learned and meritorious writers on both sides had profited by the judicious remarks of Mr Willson, prefixed to Mr Pugin’s Specimens of Gothic Architecture in England. “The respective beauties and conveniences proper to the Grecian orders in their pure state or as modified by the Romans and their successors in the Palladian school may be fully allowed, without a bigoted exclusion of the style we are accustomed to term Gothic. Nor ought its merits to be asserted to the disadvantage of the classic style. Each has its beauties, each has its proportions[[3]].” One of the most eminent Gothic architects, Mr George Gilbert Scott, expresses himself in a very similar spirit. “It may be asked, what influence do we expect that the present so-called classic styles will exercise upon the result we are imagining, (i.e. the developement of the architecture of the future). Is the work of three centuries to be unfelt in the future developements, and are its monuments to remain among us in a state of isolation, exercising no influence upon future art? It would, I am convinced, be as unphilosophical to wish, as it would be unreasonable to expect this[[4]].” To turn from them to the classicists. “See how much Athens gains,” says Prof. T. L. Donaldson, “upon the affections of every people, of every age, by her Architectural ruins. Not a traveller visits Greece whose chief purpose is not centred in the Acropolis of Minerva.... But in thus rendering the homage due to ancient Art it were unjust to pass without notice those sublime edifices due to the Genius of our Fathers. It is now unnecessary to enter upon the question, whether the first ideas of Gothic Architecture were the result of a casual combination of lines or a felicitous adaptation of form derived immediately from Nature: But graceful proportion, solemnity of effect, variety of plan, playfulness of outline and the profoundest elements of knowledge of construction place these edifices on a par with any of ancient times. Less pure in conception and detail, they excel in extent of plan and of disposition, and yield not in the mysterious effect produced on the feelings of the worshipper. The sculptured presence of the frowning Jove or the chryselephantine statue of Minerva were necessary to awe the Heathen into devotion. But the presence of the Godhead appears, not materially but spiritually, to pervade the whole atmosphere of one of our Gothic Cathedrals[[5]].” The Editor of The Museum of Classical Antiquities, well says, “As antiquity embraces all knowledge, so investigations into it must be distinct and various. Each antiquary labours for his own particular object, and each severally assists the other[[6]].” It should be borne in mind moreover that archæological remains of every kind and sort are really a part of human history; and if all parts of history deserve to be studied, as they most assuredly do, being parts, though not equally important parts, of the Epic unity of our race, it will follow even with mathematical precision that all monuments relating to all parts of that history must be worthy of study also.
[3]. P. xix. London, 1821.
[4]. Scott’s Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, present and future, p. 272. London, 1857.