Is Architecture A Lost Art?

training these so-called art workmen . He could not get them to understand that breadth of treatment was essential to success in decorative work , and that elaborate and life-like detail was but a sign of ignorance and degradation . Many years have passed since Pugin

set forth the true principles of Gothic sculpture to his astonished " carvers , " and so far as we know the art has not made any very great progress . The architect still designs , while the journeyman copies , and for one man who is able to make his chisel speak his own thoughts we have

a host of workmen who can copy with literal accuracy every leaflet of an elaborate piece of tracery , or every detail of some unmeaning crocket or pinnacle . We are strongly of opinion that we shall never see true and life-like architecture until the function of the master mason is aerain

recognised . But unhappily the whole spirit of the age conspires to prevent anything like a revolution in the greatest art to which the ingenuity of man can be directed . A well educated youth , with constructive or art instincts , would never dream , in these days of gentility , of putting on an

apron and taking to the mallet and chisel . If his tastes lie in the direction of architecture he enters an architect ' s office , and draws plans and elevations , and he fancies he has learned his noble calling when he can successfully copy an ancient building which in all probability was erected by men who could not read . He becomes in fact a mere

copyist and theorist ; he has no true feeling for his profession , and no knowledge of its capabilities . He can tell us accurately the date of an ancient moulding , and he can piece together the various details he has picked up in the course of his studies . But he cannot create , and he cannot

give meaning and dignity to his work . Enthusiasts who have caught some of the spirit of the Ancient Masons sometimes astonish us by their dreams of a " nineteenth century style , " which shall as fully satisfy the requirements of this age as that of the thirteenth satisfied all the requirements

of the past . We may indeed dream of a style of our own , but . it will never be anything else but a dream , while the men who lay the stones , and the men who design the work , are separated by a great and impassable gulf . If we might venture into the region of speculation , we should , with all

diffidence , suggest that our brethren would be carrying out the spirit of the principles upon which Freemasonry is founded , if they were to turn their attention to this subject , and endeavour to make practical masonry once more the

great and living art , which it undoubtedly was in those distant ages , when the members of the Craft were both the builders and the designers of the works upon which they expended their genius .

Masonic Minstrelsy.

MASONIC MINSTRELSY .

IN a former article we offered a few pertinent remarks on the character of Masonic Minstrelsy . We were not , perhaps , as complimentary as we might have been , nor , for reasons that seemed good to us at the time , did we think it worth our while to discuss very critically the productions of Masonic poets . The subject has , however ,

been again brought under our notice , and , partly to make amends for our previous shortcomings , partly with a view to encourage a higher class of song , we now propose laying before our readers a few notes on sundry of the contents of the Masonic Vocal Manual , which we believe is the latest

compilation of Masonic poetry extant . These notes may seem , perhaps , a little disjointed ; this is due to our study of the work having been necessarily somewhat disconnected , owing to the demand upon our time by this and more important matters .

We confessed , in the course of our previous observations , that this Manual is somewhat disappointing . The first song is from the pen of Robert Burns , sometime W . M . of the Tarbolton Lodge . Others there are by such well-known writers as Dibdin and Cunningham . Of the rest , a very

few—such , for example , as No . 69 , by Bro . Noorthouk , and the 1 st Ode , by Bro . Dunckerley—are worthy a place in the same volume with the preceding . But these , alone almost , can properly be described as poetical . The rest

are the veriest rigmarole which human ingenuity ever twisted into the form of verse . Nearly all the songs—and we have had the patience to read some fifty or sixty of them—are the most senseless , and the feeblest twaddle ever written . Nearly all are ungrammatical ; in nearly all

Masonic Minstrelsy.

the most astounding liberties are taken with the Queen ' s English . In place of rhythm , we have mere word-jingling , to which the clatter of tongs , or of marrow-bones and cleavers , would seem to be the most divine music . We wish it were otherwise , but wo should be faithless to our

duty if we did not state boldly that ninety out of every hundred of these songs , odes , and ballads are hardly fit to be thrown into the waste paper basket , while of the rest , only a very , very few are worth preserving and handing down to future generations of the Craft . That we have not overstated the case the following remarks will prove .

We have said the opening song is by Burns , which it were impertinent , perhaps , to criticise . Suffice it that in every line we hear the ring of the true metal . We feel intuitively that we are reading real poetry . But what have

we in No . 3—Air , Demy Botvn—which , be it remarked , seems somewhat of a favourite ? In the first verse the poet invokes the attention of his audience , and describes his theme in these lines : —

All you who love order , attend to my song ; And if you'll bo patient , I ' 11 not keep yon long : 'Tis of Heads and of Bodies I now mean to sing , For a Head without Body ' s a very strange thing . Deny down , & c .

It is customary , no doubt , for a poet to invoke some goddess or the muses to smile kindly on his efforts . But the worst of it is the goddess or the muses often refuse to smile . This has clearly been the case in the instance before us . By a strong effort of the will we may possibly manage to

extract some amusement—we hope our readers will excuse the word-play—from the poem , but the kind of amusement would not be very flattering to the author ' s self-respect . The lines are arranged in the form of a verse ; " long " rhymes to "song , " and " thing" to " sing , " but this is all

we find of poetry in it . Nor is the theme a very appropriate one . We should rather sing of Heads and Bodies in a dissecting room than in a Lodge . Or , perchance , the Head and Body referred to are—the one the froth , the

other the strength , of a flagon of good ale or wine . But we fear the poet was a little too prosy by nature to think of this . We know a pretty ballad , the first stanza of which runs : —

Gin a body meet a body Coming through the rye , Gin a body kiss a body Need a body cry ?

There is a body of sense in this , and of poetry too . But our Masonic friend ' s bodies are very cumbersome and angular . Then , the logic in the second verse is on a par with the poetry of the whole song . We are told : —

If the Master cries " Order ! " no more ' s to be said , Which proves very clearly that he is the Head . In the third line of the fourth verse , the poet ' s unfortunato " head " gets most inconveniently in the way of the sense and the scansion too , so we have given an italic character to the sons of Britain : —

May her sons ride triumphantly 7 ieacZ o er the waves . The writer of No . 17 has also set his words to the Air of Berry Down . This poet has evidently very feeble ideas of rhyming , or , to put it more clearly , he takes great liberties with sound . Thus " ear " rhymes with " care , " " hundred "

with " number'd , " " loads " with " records . " The following extracts will show that this song will most fitly be described as shockingly bad prose gone mad . As for anything like rhythm , the writer has as much idea of it as a bull . He thus describes the building of the Temple : —

Ono hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred Employed for the Temple , we find they were number'd ; With Crafts many thousands , and bearers of loads , And Masters six hundred , say Scripture records . Deny down , & o .

They form'd themselves all into Lodges , they say , Some east and some west , some north and south way : In love and truth still they go happily on , In all well-governed countries under the sun . Deny down , & c .

We believe it was the eccentric Rev . Rowland Hill who had the hymns in his chapel sung to popular tunes , urging as a reason for this unusual practice that he did not see why the Devil should have all the good tunes . In the case of this and other songs in the Masonic Vocal Annual , which are set to popular airs , we think the Devil must