more, whatever good-hap the world may attain to.

No man who consents to the destruction or the mutilation of an
ancient building has any right to pretend that he cares about art;
or has any excuse to plead in defence of his crime against
civilisation and progress, save sheer brutal ignorance.

But before I leave this subject I must say a word or two about the
curious invention of our own days called Restoration, a method of
dealing with works of bygone days which, though not so degrading in
its spirit as downright destruction, is nevertheless little better
in its results on the condition of those works of art; it is obvious
that I have no time to argue the question out to-night, so I will
only make these assertions:

That ancient buildings, being both works of art and monuments of
history, must obviously be treated with great care and delicacy:
that the imitative art of to-day is not, and cannot be the same
thing as ancient art, and cannot replace it; and that therefore if
we superimpose this work on the old, we destroy it both as art and
as a record of history: lastly, that the natural weathering of the
surface of a building is beautiful, and its loss disastrous.

Now the restorers hold the exact contrary of all this: they think
that any clever architect to-day can deal off-hand successfully with
the ancient work; that while all things else have changed about us
since (say) the thirteenth century, art has not changed, and that
our workmen can turn out work identical with that of the thirteenth
century; and, lastly, that the weather-beaten surface of an ancient
building is worthless, and to be got rid of wherever possible.