This was received with unlooked-for indulgence by those whose laws it set at nought; but so marked a condonation seemed to have been viewed as an act of emancipation, for, from that time forward, every one began to do that which was right in his own eyes. There was at once a violent revulsion of feeling in favour of the earliest periods; and at the same time the long pent-up feelings of favour to the continental styles, excited by Mr. Ruskin and by foreign travel, were given their full swing, and for a time nothing could be early enough--nothing foreign enough--to satisfy the emancipated cravings. We _all_ felt this, and acted on it in a greater or a less degree, and those who chose the _less_ degree were heartily despised by those who chose the _greater_.[88] As time, however, rolled on, and cool reflection began to assert her sway, we again remembered that we were Englishmen, and that there was an English language in architecture, and we began again also to recollect that the course of Gothic architecture did not cease to create noble productions in the very period of its coming into existence. Some, on awakening to this consciousness, ran at once into the opposite extreme--condemning every lesson they had learned abroad, eschewing the early styles to which they had so recently sworn exclusive allegiance, and despising (according to prescribed custom) all who did not go so far in their new direction as they did themselves; but, on the whole, people now seem likely to settle down into a _via media_, in which I trust that common sense will be found to reside. I would not have gone through this list of peccadilloes but for the purpose of warning you against their repetition. We have, I hope, “sown our wild oats.” Let us now take a steady and sensible course. During the state of chaos which I have alluded to, our revival has suffered seriously from the follies, not so much of its own champions, as of a number of _pretenders_ who had never studied the subject at all, but who, taking advantage of a period of disorder, palmed off upon the public designs, especially in domestic architecture, which--really the offspring of ignorance--were put forward as that of the prevailing taste--as original developments founded on something _very_ early and _very_ foreign; _so_ early, indeed, and _so_ foreign as to have never and nowhere existed. These productions have disfigured our streets and done more than anything to bring discredit on our revival. Let us now consider what is the course which it becomes us to take in the selection of our groundwork.