As To A National Museum Of Architecture.

that the collection must rather be one of the details than of large portions of buildings , and that those details must be selected for the beauty of the architectural art which they display . In other words , a National Museum of Architecture must , to a great extent , be a sculpture gallery . It is useless to attempt to evade the truth . If it is admitted , the question passes from abstract to practical

considerations , and it becomes one of expediency . It is accordingly submitted , that the Museum of Architecture properly speaking , should , on 'grounds of expediency , stop short of objects of which , from their moderate size and portability , fine original specimens can and may be displayed elsewhere in London in eshibibitionalmuseums , or which from their peculiar contecture ill admit of being

copied . The first head excludes portable furniture , triptych pictures , small articles of metal work , ivories , textile fabrics , and partially ceramics . III . It follows from the premises already recited that the contents of the museum should rather be whole-size casts of peculiarly meritorious specimens of architectural _ ornamentation , than reduced models of entire

buildings , or of large portions of buildings . The council does not , of course , mean to say that models should be excluded . They have their own great and distinctive value in connection with the casts as keys to the relevancy and position of the details exhibited at large , as well as for the amount of direct teaching which they may convey as to the general character and proportions of the buildings which they portray . Still the position of models ( unless they are made on a large scale , and

with the most extreme accuracy ) in the cycle of syste matic and direct architectural teaching , must always be subordinate : their distinctive and especial valno as guides to the architect and the employer during the actual process of construction . Ib is needless to observe that such models as the one Avhich Wren prepared of his first sketch for St . Paul ' s , now at South

Kensington , have an historical value in themselves which removes them from the merely practical considerations wnich have just been urged . Happily , modern science has intervened to provide , completely and inexpensively , the needful compliment to the collected lvhole-sized casts , by the discovei-y of photograph . Ib is impossible for an Architectural

y Museum to have too many photographs . Cheap and compressible as they are , they are ahvays worth the collecting ; and any fastidiousness as to their acquisition would be misplaced . Plans and measured drawings are also of great value , and no Museum of Architecture would be complete without its ample store of them . As to the objects which may appear in the form

of plaster casts , all ornamentation in stone , whether sculpturesque or not , is admissable , including such statues as are introduced as parts of architectural composition . So are the casts of such specimen woodwork as , in modern parlance , would be termed fixtures , such pannelling , church stalls , & e , and to a certain extent those which reproduce the details of important articles of portable furniture . Similar discriminatii'e principles will describe what objects of metal-work do , and ivhat do not , admit of being cast for the purpose of the

museum . The above suggestions lead up to the direct question of what should be the styles of architecture admissible to the museum . The answer appers to be that all nations and ages should be represented which possessed an architecture based on scientific or artistic principles , but that the largest portion of the museum should

consist of the examples of the styles ivhieh have generally speaking been reproduced in modern architecture . These styles briefly recapitulated are the Greek , the Roman , the Romanesque , the Pointed , and the various forms of Renaissance . An architectural museum confined to any one of these styles would be , as far as it went , valuable : a national collection must represent all if it is intended to be complete , while the limitations which have been

As To A National Museum Of Architecture.

offered as to the selection of examples are equally applicable to all the styles , should the Museum , or should it not comprise specimens of contemporaneous architecture ! ornamentation . The truth appears to be that , ' speakiag abstractedly , contemporaneous architecture must be admitted if the collection is to be accepted by future generations as an adequate

exponent of architectural history . But the difficulty of selection is the obstacle , for a crowd of mediocrities admitted through favour or fashion would be a misfortune to art . On the whole it is best to say generally that contemporaneous architecture is admissible , and at the same time to throw the responsibility of selection upon the managers of the Museum . As to the admission , however ,

of photograps of contemporaneous buildings , there need be no limit , for it will be always possible to store them , and the larger the collection is the more valuable will it be for purposes of reference . There is hardly a new building now undertaken ivhieh is not photographed ab the instance of the architect or of the employer ; and an understanding miht easilbo established that it was

exg y pected that a photograph of every new construction , possessed of any architectural character , should be deposited in the national collection . Tbe National Museum of Architecture has hitherto been treated exclusively in its scolastic aspect , but it ivill posses an exhibitional character as the central place of deposit for the valuable fragments which are let loose

bexcavationdemany y , molition , restoration , sale , or gift . It ivould , however , be a great mistake to make the admission to such antiquities too easy , as such a course might lead to the wholesale mutilation or destruction of monuments ivhieh Avould otherivise have been presei-A-ed intact or placed iu durable repair . Worst of all , the

opening of such asylum might tend to the encouragement of that destructive system of restoration which has become so fashionable France , and which consists in refabricating every portion of every ancient building which has been in the least degree disintegrated by time and weather . If there were a national museum open to receive the original pieces , a strong temptation would be thrown into the way of our own restorers to commit similar enormities . Stillafter all these abatementsthere are

, , many things which ivould be either lost or useless unless they were deposited in some central receptacle , and for them a sufficient space ought to be provided in the national collection . As instances of ivhat is meant may be quoted the Chertsey tiles and Sir Bartle JFrere ' s most interesting series of Hindoo sculptures , both at present in the Architectural Museum . The management of the future museum is a detail wliich

hardly comes within the scope of this report . It may , however , be assumed that no Board will be either efficient in itself or generally acceptable which does not include a large proportion of professional and amateur capacity named on some principle which shall give due representation to educated public opinion . Any importation of bureaucracy would be fatal to tbe popularity and usefulness of the institution .

As to the locale of the National JMuseum of Architecture , it cannot be too strongly urged that its position in London ought to be central rather than suburban . Utility and popularity alike combine in favour of this recommendation ; moreover , it is highly to be desired that the character of the building should be such as to correspond ivith and to enhance the teachings of beautwhich the collection is intended to enforce . The

cony , signment of England's collected masterpieces of architectural art to any structure wliich ill concealed poverty of design and ignorance of proportion , by a superfluity of misapplied ornament , would involve a practical contradiction , alike discreditable to our national character and detrimental to our architectural progress .

Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

MASONIC ! EITES IN 1530 AND 1630 . What was the E . ifce of the followers of the Philosophy of Aristotle , in opposition to that of Christianity or the Rosy Cross , in 1630 ? Hospitalry and other Papal systems , v . Templary disguised . Pludd , speaking of his repudiation of an oath to the first , thus writes : — - " Notwishstanding any , allegiance , which I have by a