+THE VICTORIAN GOTHIC.+ Between 1850 and 1870 the striving after archæological correctness gave place to the more rational effort to adapt Gothic principles to modern requirements, instead of merely copying extinct styles. This effort, prosecuted by a number of architects of great intelligence, culture, and earnestness (Sir Gilbert Scott, George Edmund Street, William Burges, and others), resulted in a number of extremely interesting buildings. Chief among these in size and cost stand the +Parliament Houses+ at Westminster, by _Sir Charles Barry_ (begun 1839), in the Perpendicular style. This immense structure (Fig. 215), imposing in its simple masses and refined in its carefully studied detail, is the most successful monument of the Victorian Gothic style. It suffers, however, from the want of proper relation of scale between its decorative elements and the vast proportions of the edifice, which belittle its component elements. It cannot, on the whole, be claimed as a successful vindication of the claims of the promoters of the style as to the adaptability of Gothic forms to structures planned and built after the modern fashion. The +Assize Courts+ at Manchester (Fig. 216), the +New Museum+ at Oxford, the gorgeous +Albert Memorial+ at London, by _Scott_, and the +New Law Courts+ at London, by _Street_, are all conspicuous illustrations of the same truth. They are conscientious, carefully studied designs in good taste, and yet wholly unsuited in style to their purpose. They are like labored and scholarly verse in a foreign tongue, correct in form and language, but lacking the naturalness and charm of true and unfettered inspiration. A later essay of the same sort in a slightly different field is the +Natural History Museum+ at South Kensington, by _Waterhouse_ (1879), an imposing building in a modified Romanesque style (Fig. 217). [Illustration: FIG. 217.--NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON.]