The classicism of the Classic Revival, on the other hand, was essentially and unalterably rigid in its adherence to the forms of antiquity and the archæological manner of applying those forms. It was not an adaptation, it was, in very truth, a _revival_ of the modes of two thousand years ago, a gigantic exhibition of architectural archæology. The strength of Georgian architecture lay in the freedom and elasticity of its classicism and its ready flexibility to adaptation. The weakness of the architecture of the Classic Revival was in its rigidity and inflexible resistance to efforts to adapt it to varied modern requirements. In the South, it is true, it showed a few traces of freer interpretation, perhaps because in some cases the artisans were incapable of rendering the accurate reproductions executed by better skilled Northern mechanics but, even with this slight allowance, the stamp of rigidity remained indelible. Despite a degree of stiffness and pedantry, however, the architecture of the Classic Revival, in its more felicitous manifestations, displayed not a little real excellence, stateliness and grace. Many truly important structures were built during the period of classic ascendancy and to-day, after years of vicissitude in popular taste, their charm of grace and quiet dignity is still fresh and enduring and constantly reminds us of the courtliness of the generation that wisely planned and achieved them. In its less regulated forms, on the contrary, probably due to the ambitious contractor rather than to even an inferior architect, the architecture of the Classic Revival was often unsuitable in its application, uncomfortable and sometimes ridiculous. In the fore part of the nineteenth century, classicism became an obsession among builders whose sole aim seems to have been to transform each city in the land into a second Athens or Rome. Everywhere could be seen buildings that, if not planned on classic lines in their interior divisions or their side elevations, were at least adorned with Greek and Roman orders. This church or bank was embellished with a portico of Corinthian columns, that one across the street had a corresponding portico of severest Doric character while another, perhaps, around the corner rejoiced in graceful Ionic pillars and, doubtless, just beyond was a house whose owner took a proper pride in the impeccable purity of his Tuscan piazza. Sometimes all the orders got inextricably jumbled together on the same edifice and overrun with a veritable forest of acanthus leaves and anthemia, and yet the effect was not wholly bad, however much it might distress a purist, because the builders, in the exuberance and freshness of their vigour, could not help producing some vitality, although they were trying to be scrupulously accurate while expressing themselves in a medium they did not fully understand. These unseemly mix-ups of architectural botany or botanical architecture,