In the confusion of ideas and of styles which now prevails, it is satisfactory to be able to contemplate, in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, at least one great building carried out wholly on the principles of Gothic or of any true style of art. No material is used in it which is not the best for its purpose, no constructive expedient employed which was not absolutely essential, and it depends wholly for its effect on the arrangement of its parts and the display of its construction. So essentially is its principle the same which, as we have seen, animated Gothic architecture, that we hardly know even now how much of the design belongs to Sir Joseph Paxton, how much to the contractors, or how much to the subordinate officers employed by the Company. Here, as in a cathedral, every man was set to work in that department which it was supposed he was best qualified to superintend. There was room for every art and for every intellect, and clashing and interference were impossible. This, however, was only the second of the series. The third was entrusted to an Engineer officer, who had no architectural education, and who had never thought twice on the subject before he was set to carry out his very inchoate design for the 1862 Exhibition. He failed of course, for architecture is not a Phonetic art depending on inspiration, but a technic art based on experience. As re-erected on Muswell Hill the building was immensely improved, and far superior to its predecessor, but was burnt down before the public had time to realise its form. As being rebuilt, it probably will be still one step further in advance, and if the series were carried to a hundred, with more leisure and a higher aim, we might perhaps learn to despise many things we now so servilely copy, and might create a style surpassing anything that ever went before. We have certainly more wealth, more constructive skill, and more knowledge than our forefathers; and, living in the same climate and being of the same race, there seems no insuperable difficulty in our doing at least as much if not more than they accomplished.