It is unnecessary, even were it possible, to give anything like a _catalogue raisonné_ of Bute's less important architectural achievements. For more than thirty years, in the graphic phrase cited by one of the most distinguished members of the profession, "his hands were never out of the mortar-tub." No one familiar with the multitudinous and varied work executed under his immediate supervision during those years could fail to be struck by the catholicity of his taste, as well as by his curious and detailed knowledge of all architectural styles and periods. The feudal massiveness of Cardiff and Castell Coch, of Rothesay Castle and Mochrum, the graceful Gothic of Pluscarden, the Franciscan austerity of Elgin, the rich Renaissance and Jacobean details of Falkland, the Byzantine perfection of Sancta Sophia (copied by him in miniature at Galston)--all these appealed to him, each in its degree, with equal interest and force; and this catholicity of taste was reflected not only in the new buildings which he raised, but in the ancient buildings which he {223} repaired, re-roofed, or restored with such careful reverence. Every detail of such work was personally supervised by himself; and he would be equally at home, and equally absorbed, in working out an heraldic design for the roof of an abbey church,[7] excavating among the almost shapeless ruins of a mediæval cathedral,[8] elaborating a purely Greek scheme of decoration for the oratory of his house in London,[9] or studying the details of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, the upper basilica of Assisi, and the Gothic dome of Zaragoza,[10] in order to reproduce something of their varied beauties in his exquisite private chapel at Mountstuart. The transparent honesty which was part of his character was manifested in such restorations as he undertook at Cardiff, Rothesay, and St. Andrews, where at the cost of some æsthetic sacrifice, and often at much added expense (for the materials had sometimes to be brought from afar), he carried out the work in a stone different in colour from the ancient building, so that there should be no possible future confusion between the old and the new. Altogether it must be said that to Bute's other titles of honour is to be added that of a noble patron of a noble art. He enriched his native land with many splendid edifices, and he probably did more than any man of his generation to preserve and secure for posterity the venerable and priceless relics of his country's' past. _Cor suum dabat in consummationem operum, et vigilia sua ornabat in perfectionem_.[11]