convenient for reticulation. It had naturally placed these outside, because it wanted a smooth surface for the bottom of its nest; and the beauty of the result was much more dependent on the blossoms than the bird.

Nevertheless, I am sure that if you had seen the nest, much more, if you had stood beside the architect at work upon it,-you would have greatly desired to express your admiration to her; and that if Wordsworth, or any other simple and kindly person, could even wish, for a little flower's sake,

"That to this mountain daisy's self were known
The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown
On the smooth surface of this naked stone,”

much more you would have yearned to inform the bright little nest-builder of your sympathy; and to explain to her, on art principles, what a pretty thing she was making.

Does it never occur to you, then, that to some of the best and wisest artists among ourselves, it may not be always possible to explain what pretty things they are making; and that, perhaps, the very perfection of their art is in their knowing so little about it?

Whether it has occurred to you or not, I assure you that it is so. The greatest artists, indeed, will condescend, occasionally, to be scientific;— will labour, somewhat systematically, about what

they are doing, as vulgar persons do; and are privileged, also, to enjoy what they have made more than birds do; yet seldom, observe you, as being beautiful, but very much in the sort of feeling which we may fancy the bullfinch had also, that the thing, whether pretty or ugly, could not have been better done; that they could not have made it otherwise, and are thankful it is no worse. And, assuredly, they have nothing like the delight in their own work which it gives to other people.

But putting the special simplicities of good artists out of question, let me ask you, in the second place, whether it is not possible that the same sort of simplicity might be desirable in the whole race of mankind: and that we ought all to be doing human work which would appear better done to creatures much above us, than it does to ourselves. Why should not our nests be as interesting things to angels, as bullfinches' nests are to us?

You will, probably, both smile at, and shrink from, such a supposition, as an insolent one. But to my thought, it seems, on the contrary, the only modest one. That we should be able to admire the work of angels seems to me the impertinent idea; not, at all, that they should be able to admire ours.

Under existing circumstances, I confess the difficulty. It cannot be imagined that either the

back streets of our manufacturing towns, or the designs of our suburban villas, are things which the angels desire to look into: but it seems to me an inevitably logical conclusion that if we are, indeed, the highest of the brute creation, we should, at least, possess as much unconscious art as the lower brutes; and build nests which shall be, for ourselves, entirely convenient; and may, perhaps, in the eyes of superior beings, appear more beautiful than to our own.-E. N., III., § 48-54.

5. OLD HOUSE AT STRASBOURG, DRAWN BY PROUT.-The carvings of its woodwork are in a style altogether provincial, yet of which the origin is very distant. The delicate Renaissance architecture of Italy was affected, even in its finest periods, by a tendency to throw out convex masses at the bases of its pillars; the woodcarvers of the 16th century adopted this bulged form as their first element of ornamentation, and these windows of Strasbourg are only imitations by the German peasantry of what, in its finest type, you must seek as far away as the Duomo of Bergamo.

But the burgher, or peasant, of Alsace enjoyed his rude imitation-adapted, as it was, boldly and frankly to the size of his house and the grain of the larch logs of which he built it-infinitely more than the refined Italian enjoyed the floral

luxuriance of his marble; and all the treasures of a great exhibition could not have given him the tenth part of the exultation with which he saw the gable of his roof completed over its jutting fret-work; and wrote among the rude intricacies of its sculpture, in flourished black letter, that "He and his wife had built their house with God's help, and prayed Him to let them live long in it, they, and their children."

But it is not only the rustic method of architecture which I wish you to note in this plate; it is the rustic method of drawing also. The manner in which these blunt timber carvings are drawn by Prout is just as provincial as the carving themselves. Born in a far-away district of England, and learning to draw, unhelped, with fishing-boats for his models; making his way instinctively until he had command of his pencil enough to secure a small income by lithographic drawing; and finding picturesque character in buildings from which all the finest lines of their carving had been effaced by time;-possessing also an instinct in the expression of such subjects so peculiar as to win for him a satisfying popularity, and, far better, to enable him to derive perpetual pleasure in the seclusion of country hamlets, and the quiet streets of deserted cities, -Prout had never any motive to acquaint himself with the refinements, or contend with the difficulties, of a more accomplished art. So far from

this, his manner of work was, by its very imperfection, in the most perfect sympathy with the subjects he enjoyed. The broad chalk touches in which he has represented to us this house at Strasbourg are entirely sufficient to give true idea of its effect. To have drawn its ornaments with subtlety of Leonardesque delineation would only have exposed their faults, and mocked their rusticity. The drawing would have become painful to you from the sense of the time which it had taken to represent what was not worth the labour, and to direct your attention to what could only, if closely examined, be matter of offence. But here you have a simple and provincial draughtsman happily and adequately expressing a simple and provincial architecture; nor could either builder or painter have become wiser, but to their loss.

Is it then, you will ask me, seriously to be recommended, and, however recommendable, is it possible, that men should remain contented with attainments which they know to be imperfect? and that now, as in former times, large districts of country, and generations of men, should be enriched or amused by the products of a clumsy ignorance? I do not know how far it is possible, but I know that wherever you desire to have true art, it is necessary. Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance discontented