tinguish the older public buildings of the town. Nor do they ask any higher pay for the more decorative work upon which they are now engaged. If the present results are more attractive to the eye, the improvement is solely due to an improved method of direction on the lines above indicated. It is a sound maxim of administration, which holds good in small matters as in large, that it is well to trust the people you employ; if you cannot trust a man, do not employ him. An Englishman's function in India is to stimulate enterprize and direct the general course of affairs, but to abstain from interference with the details of execution. No character more lowers the prestige of Government than "the zealous official," who trusts no one but himself even in the pettiest details, for which subordinates are entertained, and who thus loses the broad view which he alone is in a position to command, and which, if he loses it, is lost altogether.
The architectural designs of the new buildings at Bulandshahr do not profess to exhibit any novel features of very remarkable artistic merit. On the contrary, whatever value attaches to them, is to be found in their easy and unconscious adherence to ordinary traditional practice, and in the consequent absence of any exceptionally striking effects. There has been no intentional imitation of older buildings, but, at the same time, there has been no straining after originality. The towers and gateways and arcades of modern Bulandshahr claim to be congruous and picturesque, but only in the same way as the streets of a medieval English town, which could be matched by others of similar character all over the country. Then—as still in India—the influence of the prevalent style was not so much inculcated in the studio as felt in the air. With some few local modifications, in matters of detail, arising chiefly from the ingenious utilization of local materials, such as the cut-flint panelling in Norfolk and Suffolk, and the Purbeck marble shafts of the western counties, the motif of Gothic work at any given period was similar in essentials from the Tweed to the Land's End. Between the sculptured decoration of a Cathedral and that in a village church there may often be a superiority of finish in the former, the result of the more extensive practice acquired by working in the midst of a large community; but this advantage of facile manipulation, with its tendency to stereotype invention, was often outweighed by the greater leisure and unconventionality of the rural artisan. Unless new inspiration and invention come to guide it, the predominance of technical skill in art invariably ends
