But even now the triumph was not without alloy. Professional jealousy did not sleep. Perhaps it was inevitable that some soreness should be felt by the unsuccessful competitors for so important a work. It was certainly natural that sharp criticisms should be pronounced on the selected design. But happily few architects have had to encounter such a clamour as was then raised,--a clamour which certainly passed beyond the legitimate province of artistic criticism, venturing to attack the competency and honesty of the judges, and the private character of the successful architect. In the first instance the partisans of classical architecture raised their voices in a somewhat tardy protest against the adoption of the Gothic style. They felt it to be a death-blow to the supremacy which Greek and Roman architecture had hitherto enjoyed. An article in the ‘London and Westminster Review,’ by “B.,” stigmatized Gothic as “a mere ‘ecclesiastical style,’” and advocated a change of site, as a less evil than the local necessity for the adoption of obnoxious Gothicism. W. R. Hamilton’s “Letters to the Earl of Elgin” embodied, in an abler and more elaborate dissertation, the same protest against that which the writer conceived to be an antique and venerable barbarism. The rising Gothic school, of course, would not suffer such artistic blasphemy to pass unnoticed. Col. Jackson, in answer to Mr. Hamilton, took a defensive line, denying a monopoly of beauty to Classical architecture, and putting forward for Gothic the plea of nationality, of picturesque or romantic beauty, and of local associations. But this tone did not content Mr. Pugin; he followed with an article in favour of Gothic, breathing a little of the more aggressive spirit of the present Gothic school. He himself had not appeared among the competitors, although one set of designs was believed to have emanated in great degree from him.[65] It will be obvious to any one who knows his designs or writings, that he must greatly have disapproved of many main principles in Mr. Barry’s designs. But the question at issue was the dignity and value of Gothic architecture generally, and he plunged into it with all the enthusiasm of his character. All this controversy was natural and justifiable; the only objection to the plea of the Classicists was that it came too late, and the whole is interesting, chiefly as marking the important influence which this competition was felt to exercise on the progress of Gothic architecture in this country.