Fig. 130.—Window, West Gateway, College Green, Gloucester.
| Figs. 131, 132, 133.—From an old building called Canute’s Castle, Southampton. | Fig. 134.—Moyse’s Hall, Bury St. Edmunds. |
It would be hopeless to enter upon the general question of the revival of styles. I will suppose that question to have been disposed of for us, and limit myself to considering what is the most reasonable course to follow in conducting such a revival, or rather in carrying on the development of a style upon a revived basis such as that of the architecture we have been considering.
Fig. 135.—Oakham Castle, Rutlandshire.
Now, such a revival, to begin with, is hardly to be viewed as a deliberate act. A man would scarcely be bold enough to make up his mind, à priori, to revive a style of architecture: circumstances must have gradually led to such a course, and it must have been set about gradually, and almost unconsciously, to give it a chance of success. We may, in looking back upon what has taken place, construct a very good theory for it all; but no such theory really led to it—it came about very much of itself. We may, by thought and by studying our position, do a little in finding good reasons for an existing movement; but the movement itself must have arisen from some more hidden and deep-seated cause, or it would have died away long ago. What, then, does this deep-seated feeling demand, and with what will it be satisfied?
It craves spontaneously after a great style of art, which it sees to have been once the birthright of our race. It demands that we should—I will not say simply revive that style of art, but that we should revivify it: not that it should be reproduced as a splendid pageant, to be re-enacted for the sake of gratifying our romantic or antiquarian predilections, but that we should rekindle its actual life; and having done so, should not only think, and design, and invent in that style, as the living medium for the expression of our artistic aspirations, but that we should cause it to take root, to spring forth, to germinate and ramify—to shape itself to all the demands of our age, and to adapt itself to its materials, its discoveries, its inventions, and its science; in short, to become in every sense a living, a vigorous, a growing art.