Following this system, not only the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Gothic architects, but even the indolent and half-civilised inhabitants of India, the stolid Tartars of Thibet and China, and the savage Mexicans, succeeded in erecting great and beautiful buildings. No race, however rude or remote, has failed, when working on this system, to produce buildings which are admired by all who behold them, and are well worthy of the most attentive consideration. Indeed, it is almost impossible to indicate one single building in any part of the world, designed during the prevalence of this true form of art, which was not thought beautiful, not alone by those who erected it, but which does not remain a permanent object of admiration and of study even for strangers in all future ages. The result of the other system is widely different from this. It has now been practised in Europe for more than three centuries, and by people who have more knowledge of architectural forms, more constructive skill, and more power of combining science and art in effecting a great object, than any people who ever existed before. Notwithstanding this, from the building of St. Peter’s at Rome to that of our own Parliament Houses, not one building has been produced that is admitted to be entirely satisfactory, or which permanently retains a hold on general admiration. Many are large and stately to an extent almost unknown before, and many are ornamented with a profuseness of which no previous examples exist; but with all this, though they conform with the passing fashions of the day, they soon become antiquated and out of date, and men wonder how such a style could ever have been thought beautiful, just as we wonder how any one could have admired the female costumes of the last century which captivated the hearts of our grandfathers.