It was the Author’s original intention to have proceeded from the cottage and the villa to the higher forms of Architecture; but the Magazine to which he contributed was brought to a close shortly after the completion of his chapters on the villa, and his promise of farther studies was not redeemed until ten years later, by the publication of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and still more completely in The Stones of Venice.

Other papers contributed by Mr. Ruskin to the same Magazine, on Perspective, and on the proposed monument to Sir Walter Scott at Edinburgh, are not included in this volume, as they do not form any part of the series on the Poetry of Architecture.

The text is carefully reprinted from the Architectural Magazine.  A few additional notes are distinguished by square brackets.

A few of the old cuts, necessary to the text, are reproduced, and some are replaced by engravings from sketches by the Author.  Possessors of the Architectural Magazine, vol.  V., will be interested in comparing the wood-cut of the cottage in Val d’Aosta (p. 104 of that volume) with the photogravure from the original pencil drawing, which faces p. 21 of this work.  It is much to be regretted that the original of the Coniston Hall (fig. 8; p. 50 of this work) has disappeared, and that the Author’s youthful record of a scene so familiar to him in later years should be represented only by the harsh lines of Mr. Loudon’s engraver.

THE EDITOR.

INTRODUCTION.

1.  The Science of Architecture, followed out to its full extent, is one of the noblest of those which have reference only to the creations of human minds.  It is not merely a science of the rule and compass, it does not consist only in the observation of just rule, or of fair proportion:  it is, or ought to be, a science of feeling more than of rule, a ministry to the mind, more than to the eye.  If we consider how much less the beauty and majesty of a building depend upon its pleasing certain prejudices of the eye, than upon its rousing certain trains of meditation in the mind, it will show in a moment how many intricate questions of feeling are involved in the raising of an edifice; it will convince us of the truth of a proposition, which might at first have appeared startling, that no man can be an architect, who is not a metaphysician.

2.  To the illustration of the department of this noble science which may be designated the Poetry of Architecture, this and some future articles will be dedicated.  It is this peculiarity of the art which constitutes its nationality; and it will be found as interesting as it is useful, to trace in the distinctive characters of the architecture of nations, not only its adaptation to the situation and climate in which it has arisen, but its strong similarity to, and connection with, the prevailing turn of mind by which the nation who first employed it is distinguished.