Page:Dean Aldrich A Commemoration Speech.djvu/25

 and broad shadows, and had thrown himself into the movement which sent Wren out of Oxford to build St. Paul's. Historical fitness, national development, the true critical instinct—these did not in that time mitigate the odiousness of comparison. 'This is more perfect in itself than that,' men said, 'therefore let us build like this:' though our hearts be gothic and our skies be dull. Hence you might read the Sketch of the History of Architecture in Aldrich's book without even guessing that a different style from the Roman ever existed. There is not a sign, not a hint of the architecture which had built the hall in which he ate, the home in which he lived, the cathedral in which he worshipped. The history passes in one step from Vitruvius, A.D. 31, to Brunelleschi, A.D. 1397, and this is how the interval is explained:—'Tired of the monotony of Perfection, restless Imagination indulged in all the extravagance of Lawless Caprice, and finally triumphed in Absurdity and Confusion.'

The book itself is a complete text-book, showing minute study and appreciation of the intense accuracy with which Palladio had drawn out the rules of the art. Even the practical precepts suffer logical division. Here is one:—'Build your house far from a tallow-chandler, a brewer, a soap-boiler, a butcher; at a distance from the noise of the hammer, the anvil, and the saw; and above all at a distance from bad neighbours.' I fear his great work, Peckwater, has hardly been preserved entirely free from all such noises or inconveniences. The ancient hostel at the south-west corner of the quad, given to St. Frideswide's Priory by Ralph de Pecwater in Henry III's reign, and Vine-hall added at the north-west corner to it in the reign of Henry VIII, had been reduced to a quadrangular pile by Brian