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effect produced upon the spectator by their various representations, and that artist will be found to produce most effect upon the spectator whose work shall be found to deviate in certain particulars from direct imitation. It is the nature of that deviation, and the propriety of its uses under various circumstances, which constitute the element of conventionalism; which, to produce perfect results, requires to be superadded to or substituted for direct imitation: and more especially is this the case when the object represented is one partly founded upon existing things, and partly an image which may find its existence only in the mind of the artist. As that distinguished critic, whom I have already quoted, M. Beulé, has well said on this subject "la nature ne doit nous offrir qu'un point de départ, et non pas un but. L'art qui la copie est un art servile."

In architecture the primitive idea of structure is the basis upon which all effects must be calculated. The reason for the existence of such an art is not because by its means an artist desires to imitate any existing thing, but because it is essential for him to provide mankind with permanent shelter, and the idea of rendering that shelter beautiful comes to him at a subsequent stage of mental operation. Having found beauty in imitative art revealed to him in his earliest efforts at Painting and Sculpture, he will lavish upon his structure, firstly, those ornamental adjuncts. The taste for beauty so fed and developed will induce him to see deformities in the simple necessities of structure. It will also lead him to convert forms which might otherwise be gross and voiceless, into others which, while strong may be graceful, and while but ordinary stone, wood, or marble, may yet speak to the admirer's eye a powerful language; realising to a certain extent that source of expression which Mr Fergusson has with so much propriety designated as the "phonetic" element in Art.

Perceiving the desire to imitate existing things, or to