scheme would be profitable enough to buy up the property required, and its management sufficiently influential to carry the necessary legislative measures for the purpose. In other words "money value" is the principal, if not the only, estimate for land or house, and many are indifferent whether the site is occupied by a marble portico or by an iron and glass dome.
It is sadly discouraging for an artist of sound and feeling taste to think that he is building on a perishable foundation, on a moving sand; that in a few years his edifice may be wanted, in virtue of an irresistible decree, and for a highly remunerative "consideration," as it is called, for some totally different purpose, "and must be misapplied, or perhaps even removed; that its beautiful and studied proportions will be reduced to classified heaps of rubbish, beginning with "Lot No. 1," and going on in an indefinite series, including cornices and architraves, elaborately carved, in keeping with the whole design. Few men, conscious of the dignity of their art, can labour with any heart for so precarious and so ignoble a futurity.
But there is a reverence for higher objects than even Art. There is a natural reverence for whatever is monumental or historical; and this feeling grows and ripens to religious reverence. Neither of these feelings seems to be much cultivated amongst us. Take the following evidence from the "City Engineer's Report on Public Companies applying for Bills in the present Session of Parliament."
"The Monument at Fish Street Hill, and Temple
