Of the architectural treatment of the exterior as a whole little need be said further than that it has no relation to the real form of the building. The masking of the buttress system by the false wall, and the application of orders without any structural use or expression in harmony with the real structure, are entirely in keeping with the spirit the Renaissance. Wren’s other churches exhibit a medley of elements from spurious Gothic to pseudo-classic in manifold irrational combinations, such as can be found in the works of few other architects. These churches with their vaultings of wood and plaster--whether in the form of domes on pendentives, sprung from the entablatures of classic orders, as at St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, or with Welsh vaulting on simulated cross ribs of plaster, as at St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, or with barrel vaulting on an attic, as at St. Peter’s, Cornhill,--it would be superfluous, as well as tiresome, to examine in detail. Nor is it worth while to analyze the spires of these churches. Spires made up of superimposed stories with classic entablatures in telescopic adjustment, like St. Bride’s, or temples of Vesta crowned with flying buttresses holding up neo-classic tabernacles surmounted by obelisks, like St. Mary-le-Bow, are hybrid compositions of utterly barbaric character, notwithstanding the excellent portions for which they have been justly admired. CHAPTER XV CONCLUSION I think it must be clear, in the light of the foregoing considerations, that the architecture of the Renaissance is an art without consistent principles. We have seen that it assumed a great variety of phases at different times and in different localities; but that it was never either really classic or structurally truthful. While professing to aim at restoring the “good ancient manner,” the neo-classic designers rarely conformed to any ancient standards save, at most, in some details of their compositions. They designed for the most part, as we have seen, on a basis of mediæval forms, and overlaid their structures with a facing of details derived, indeed, from classic sources, but altered, mixed, and misapplied in all manner of unclassic ways. Of true classic art, _i.e._ Greek art of the best time of Greek culture, they had, as before remarked (p. 4), no knowledge. By the “good ancient manner” they meant the imperial Roman manner. But even this they did not faithfully follow. The wide departure from ancient modes of design so constantly manifested in the neo-classic architecture has not escaped notice by modern writers, who are wont to speak of it as showing that the revivalists were not servile copyists, but inventive designers adapting the ancient elements to new conditions. But there is no justification for this view. As to essential forms of building there were no new conditions to be met. In seeking to change architecture