ployed, it does not appear to be in its place; nor do I think it necessary to say why.
But in the place where I am now addressing yon, justice, as well as an agreeable inclination, invites me to mention, with willing and hopeful praise, a new material, now successfully applied in the new buildings of the Kensington Museum, and promising to take an important place in our future architectural works. This is terra-cotta, or baked earth; which, formed by an artist with any amount of genius and taste, is hardened by the artificer up to the durability of ancient pottery, and serves at once to make a solid building, and its imperishable ornaments. And, one is sorry to be obliged always to add as a recommendation, it is not expensive.
However, without implying blame, where I have neither the skill, nor the right to judge, and assuming that a certain necessity here, as elsewhere, compels the artist to make the best of the worst materials, I will repeat, that in these various attempts we see the feeling by the feet for a better path, and the stretching of the hands for a higher grasp. By degrees, genius will strike, out of what is merely tentative, something novel and permanent; the temporary larva will drop off, and the graceful and elegant remain, and prosper.
If a new architecture thus arises, and takes its place among the arts of ages, it will soon have its Leone Albertis, its Palladios, its Vignolas; who will give its rules, and true proportions, and show it perhaps to be rhythmical and harmonic, as are the depressed tympanums of the old Doric, and the high-
