Of course, unless an architect is also partly an artist he cannot be successful; no amount of learning can compensate for this. The two best expositors we ever had of Gothic architecture, Rickman and Britton, were indifferent architects. Perhaps they may be said to have known more than all who went before them or followed after; and both of them were endowed with a thorough love for their profession. There may be something to urge that they were not brought up to it, one being in a mercantile office in Liverpool, and the other a wine-bottler in London. Rickman had a number of opportunities of testing his architectural skill, but they are all dreary, and showed that his hand could not put into practice the principles of the architecture he understood and loved so well. Britton had fewer chances, and was even less successful with his few. Perhaps it might be well to try to answer the question, “What would be the best way to improve the architecture of the most dreary of all classes of buildings, the humbler houses of the middle classes, the houses that are let for about £40 or £50 per annum?” and the best way to answer it is to suppose a case in which the conditions would be the most favourable. Suppose, for example, there were to be a number of gentlemen who were each prepared to spend £800 in a row of houses for their own residences. Well, let them all agree upon an artistic architect, and let them each arrange their own plans to suit their own convenience. This would give the architect not only data, but ideas to work upon. Well, let him then take all these plans, and fit to them an elevation which shall be as broad and uniform as the convenience admits. There will still be plenty of variety, the various requirements of the builders will secure that, or enable the architect to employ it. The Vicar’s Close at Wells, or the collegiate buildings in Oxford or Ely, would afford any number of examples of what he required. In one of the excellent Manuals published for the use of amateur artists by Winsor and Newton, the author has divided his subject into Atmosphere, Keeping, Contrast, and Variety, which, if rightly understood, is only another way of expressing the requirements of Barry in the former part of this chapter. A quotation from this Manual, though it relates to sketching in colour, may be as useful to an architect as to an artist. “First learn how to produce certain effects, and you will not then find it difficult to store them in your memory for use as you require them; you are learning nothing new in the art of painting--thousands have gone through this process before you; you are only seeking to chronicle your own experience. The scenes you commit to paper have, and will have, a peculiar charm for you, and perhaps to your friends if you represent them faithfully. They may be new scenes, but they are not seen under new _effects_. These have been already witnessed again and again; you