The revived knowledge of the architecture of Greece rudely disturbed the vernacular style derived from Rome, so that by about the year 1830 the old state of things seemed almost hopelessly damaged; and every architect, instead of working on the traditions handed down to him by his predecessors, seemed to do just what was right in his own eyes, though with a special rage for not very practicable reproductions of Greek, coupled with a conviction that Roman and its derivatives were little short of barbarous. All the traditions of the past appeared to be broken up. Our every-day architecture, as exhibited in ordinary houses, had become mean and contemptible in the extreme; and, though things have since greatly mended, it has been from a purely eclectic, and not in the least degree from a traditional, point of view; while the untutored house-builder, left to himself, even now disports himself in reminiscences of these first decades of our century--the halcyon days of Gower Street and Tavistock Place. It was just at this strange juncture that, by some occult influence, the public mind was brought back to view--first with interest, and then with admiration and love--the long-neglected architecture of our own country and our own race (or group of kindred races). At first this was with no intention or thought of revival; it was only interest, admiration, and love. Writers on this subject, whether friendly or hostile, affect to systematise the movement; but it was wholly unsystematic. It arose from the inmost feelings of the heart, and in no degree from premeditation or plan. It is now the fashion to speak contemptuously of revivals; and truly they do seem strange and inconsistent after following the more natural history of art from the dawn of civilisation to the Renaissance. Yet I cannot but agree with Mr. Smirke that the Classic revival was, in the land, at least, of its rise, a natural, spontaneous, and unpremeditated movement of the human mind. That the Gothic Renaissance was so too, I know, for it was my own happy lot to be a humble agent in it, and I am old enough to have watched it, I may say practically, if not literally, from its commencement.