I need hardly say whence the lines are taken: Rogers' "Italy" has, I believe, now a place in the best beloved compartment of all libraries, and will never be removed from it. There is more true expression of the spirit of Venice in the passages devoted to her in that poem, than in all else that has been written of her. [14] At least, such success as they had. Vide Appendix 5, "The Papal Power in Venice." [15] The inconsiderable fortifications of the arsenal are no exception to this statement, as far as it regards the city itself. They are little more than a semblance of precaution against the attack of a foreign enemy. [16] Mémoires de Commynes, liv. vii. ch. xviii. [17] Appendix 6, "Renaissance Ornaments." [18] Appendix 7, "Varieties of the Orders." [19] The reader will find the _weak_ points of Byzantine architecture shrewdly seized, and exquisitely sketched, in the opening chapter of the most delightful book of travels I ever opened,--Curzon's "Monasteries of the Levant." [20] Appendix 8, "The Northern Energy." [21] Appendix 9, "Wooden Churches of the North." [22] Appendix 10, "Church of Alexandria." [23] Appendix 11, "Renaissance Landscape." [24] Selvatico, "Architettura di Venezia," p. 147. [25] Selvatico, p. 221. [26] The older work is of Istrian stone also, but of different quality. [27] Appendix 12, "Romanist Modern Art." CHAPTER II. THE VIRTUES OF ARCHITECTURE. § I. We address ourselves, then, first to the task of determining some law of right which we may apply to the architecture of all the world and of all time; and by help of which, and judgment according to which, we may easily pronounce whether a building is good or noble, as, by applying a plumb-line, whether it be perpendicular. The first question will of course be: What are the possible Virtues of architecture? In the main, we require from buildings, as from men, two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it; which last is itself another form of duty. Then the practical duty divides itself into two branches,--acting and talking:--acting, as to defend us from weather or violence; talking, as the duty of monuments or tombs, to record facts and express feelings; or of churches, temples, public edifices, treated as books of history, to tell such history clearly and forcibly. We have thus, altogether, three great branches of architectural virtue, and we require of any building,-- 1. That it act well, and do the things it was intended to do in the best way. 2. That it speak well, and say the things it was intended to say in the best words. 3. That it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it has to do or say.[28]