The first time that I went over Rheims cathedral I noted in my diary:--“The exterior roof is a considerable height above the interior vaulting, and is supported by wood-work enough to burn down half-a-dozen cathedrals.” That was written on 30 March 1875, and it disturbed me in September 1914, when I heard that the Germans were bombarding Rheims, and the cathedral was on fire. The exterior roof was burnt and all this wood-work with it, but the vaulting stood the strain. Writers on architecture do not always go to see the buildings they describe. Fergusson gives a plan, section and elevation of the church at Lodi on pages 50 to 52 of his _History of Modern Architecture_; and he describes the church as the earliest and best type of its class, and the only remarkable church now extant which was wholly by Bramante. On the strength of this I took the trouble to go to Lodi, 28 September 1899, in order to see the church. But it did not correspond to the designs in Fergusson. I found out afterwards that Bramante’s designs were never carried out, and the church was by Battagio. I just missed seeing the celebrated crane upon Cologne cathedral. I went there first on 28 August 1868; and it was taken down about three months before that, after standing there on the stump of the spires for about 400 years, waiting for work to be resumed. I looked with admiration on the design for the spires, a fine old Fifteenth Century drawing--the architect sold his soul, and the Devil drew this in his blood. But the Devil had the best of it, as the spires have ruined the cathedral, being out of scale with all the rest. Before the present Law Courts were begun, the rival designs were exhibited in sheds in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I went to see them several times; and, speaking from memory, I should say that every one of the designs was better than what was built. But that was not the architect’s fault: he had to accept suggestions from all manner of people, each thinking only of one thing, and not considering the building as a whole. When the old Law Courts were pulled down, and the exposed side of Westminster Hall received its present screen and buttresses, a committee ruined the whole thing by forbidding the architect to carry up the little towers at the Palace Yard end--an integral part of his design. Once only, so far as I know, has such interference ended in success. Scott designed the Foreign Office block of buildings in the Gothic style; and his design may be seen in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy. Palmerston could not stand Gothic, and Scott converted his Gothic to Palladian. Looking down Downing Street from the further side of Whitehall, one sees that he achieved what Linton and Turner only dreamt, when they painted their ideals of ancient Rome and Carthage.