Page:Fineartasketchi01wyatgoog.djvu/91

gave vigour and simplicity of form to those parts of the structure most exposed to the action of the elements, and due protection to the more delicate accessories of the structure. It ensured the spectator s gathering a right impression of the character and purport at once of the building and of its author, on leaving it, as well as upon arriving at it. It ensured harmony between his first and last view of the building; it made him reach it with joy and leave it with regret. It was in fact the application to it of a cultivated and intelligent good sense; the quality of all others which is perhaps most wanting in the majority of our structures of the present day.

The seventh section was no less important than any of the preceding, and there is no term the use of which has been much more abused in our generation; it is that of Economy. Rightly understood, it means as imperatively the supply of all which should be in the structure, as it does the absence of all which should not. We too often use it as an excuse for the absence of what should be present, and we too seldom apply it to restrain the presence of what should be absent. It, perhaps more than any other, represents the sentiment of just criticism. If in any building all the other qualities have been fairly studied and attained, and yet by waste or parsimony the judicious conditions of economy have been neglected, reproach will sooner or later overtake the architect, and judgment will be pronounced upon his work with an almost judicial authority from which there can be no appeal.

One of the most important laws it lays down, which can never be evaded without danger, is that of a necessity for the most rigid simplicity, consistent with the production of the effect aimed at. It cuts off excrescences and impertinences, rejects futility and applies the test and law of fitness to all the architect's labours; it is in fact his best critic and best corrective. Happy it is for him if he can