I have expressed myself pretty fully on the subject elsewhere, and have spoken also about the spirit in which we should undertake such additions to old churches as absolute necessity demands; and I am happy to say that the Institute of British Architects have issued most judicious and strongly-worded codes of suggestions as to the treatment of old buildings, so that I trust the public will at some time be awakened to the monstrous course which is being too generally followed. I go over the ground on this occasion because I suppose myself to be addressing many of those to whose keeping our churches and other old buildings will be at a future time committed. I desire to warn you at the outset against following the steps of those whose misdeeds I have been proclaiming; and I close these lectures with an earnest entreaty that you will enter upon practice with a solemn vow to yourselves to be the determined and consistent protectors and conservators of those precious relics of former days, now consecrated by antiquity, and from which alone you learn the art which I am urging you to study. “It were a pious work, I hear you say, To prop the falling ruin, and to stay The work of desolation. It may be That ye say right: but, oh, _work tenderly_: Beware lest _one_ worn feature ye efface; Seek not to add _one_ touch of modern grace; Handle with reverence each crumbling stone, Respect the very lichens o’er it grown; And bid each ancient monument to stand, Supported e’en as with a filial hand. ’Mid all the light a happier day has brought We work not yet as our forefathers wrought.” END OF VOL. I. FOOTNOTES: [1] I fancy Mr. Freeman, who has perhaps more right than any living author to a dogmatic opinion on this question, would think that I have gone too far in this statement; and that the course of architecture was less broken at this period than I imagined when writing the above. In Italy, I have since come to the opinion, the history of architecture was fairly continuous, in spite of Gothic invasions, etc. Although the architecture at Pavia, etc., called by Mr. T. Hope “Lombardic,” has been proved to be of dates far later than he supposed when giving it that name, I feel convinced that truly Lombard architecture does exist, and that of a type naturally succeeding and carrying on the style of the earlier Basilicæ. At Lucca, for instance, though little attention has been paid by writers on its churches, to anything earlier than the Pisan work of the twelfth century, a careful examination will show that many of them have a nucleus (and some far more) of a much earlier date, reaching back to the time of the Lombard kings (G. G. S. 1878). [2] See note on this subject in the previous lecture. (G. G. S. 1878.) [3] _Ibid._ [4] Mr. Freeman, in vol. v. of his “Norman Conquest,” has treated admirably of the architecture of this period, under the name of “Primitive Romanesque.” (G. G. S. 1878.)