John Ruskin, Coventry Patmore, and the Nature of GothicAuthor(s): Michael BrooksReviewed work(s):Source: Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Winter, 1979), pp. 130-140Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Research Society for VictorianPeriodicalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20081907 .Accessed: 08/05/2012 14:08

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130

John Ruskin, Coventry Patmore, and

the Nature of Gothic

Michael Brooks

It is well known that John Ruskin provoked, appalled opposition from classicist

architects. It is equally well known that his books were enthusiastically read

by the young men who were serving their apprenticeships under unsympathetic masters and who would soon dominate the profession. There was a third body of

readers, composed of fervent and often scholarly amateurs, who were essential to the spread of Ruskin1s influence but whose reactions axe not easy to trace.

Fortunately, we can gain some insight into their responses by examining a

single representative figure. Coventry Patmore is remembered, today as a poet, but he also wrote extensively on architecture. In 1852 he.,told Edward Moxon that he expected to publish a small volume on the subject. It never appeared, and one reason may be that Ruskin decisively unsettled Patmore1s views.

Between 18^9 and 1854 Patmore wrote over 100,000 words in seven different reviews of Ruskin1s books on architecture. Because periodical writing was

anonymous, reviewers could treat the same title for different journals. Patmore, as Joanne Shattock has pointed out, pursued this opportunity to an astonishing degree. In August of 1849 he reviewed The Seven Lamps for The British Quarterly Review. In 1850 he reviewed it again for The North British Review. In 1851 he reviewed The Seven Lamps and the first volume of The Stones of Venice for the

Edinburgh Review. He also reviewed Volume One of The Stones of Venice for The

North British Review and then he treated it again for The British Quarterly Review. In 1854 he reviewed the second and. third volumes of The Stones of Venice

for The North British Review and the Lectures on Architecture and Painting for The Critic, Even when Patmore was not actually reviewing one of Ruskin1s books?as in his 1852 Eraser's article on "Architects and Architecture" or his

1858 Literary Gazette review of George Gilbert Scott1s^Remarks

on Secular and

Domestic Architecture?he responded to Ruskin1s ideas. Taken together, Patmore1s comments on Ruskin show a progress from opposition to balanced, skepticism to

something very close to outright conversion.

Two quotations will show the distance that at first lay between Patmore1s

intellectual position and Ruskin1s. The first is from Patmore1s 1846 review of

the second volume of Modern Painters. Writing in Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, Patmore drew the strongest possible contrast between Ruskin1s medievalism and his own Hegelian optimism:

Progress is the word written on our banner,?Progress is the article of

our faith, which we cannot resign,?the advocacy of Progress is the

object of this periodical, from which it may not depart?we assume

Progress not as an historical accident but as an essential attribute of

man, without which he does not fulfill the conditions of his being. To

131

all exaltation of the middle ages, with their courage and their piety,? with their atrocity and their superstition, with their virtues and. their

vices,?we axe determined, opponents . .

This is the Crystal Palace spirit breaking out five years before Paxton's building

was even constructed. Patmore never again expressed himself so naively, but the

same faith in progress and advancement underlay his theory of architectural

styles. He saw history in general as a record of the transformation of matter

by spirit and architectural history in particular as a record of man1s gradual

conquest over gravity. In 1850 he told readers of The North British Review:

In fewest words, the general forms of Egyptian architecture are those of

simple weight, and they express gloomy and everlasting material duration;

those of Greek architecture convey the notion of weight competently

supported, and. axe expressive of secure, conscious, and. well-ordered

power; finally, the prevailing forms of Gothic architecture show weight

annihilated; spire and. tower, buttress, clerestory, and pinnacle, rise

to heaven, and indicate the spirituality of the worship to which they are applied.5

Patmore1s enthusiasm for the idea of progress ensures that his view of architectural

history will be significantly different from Ruskin's. Though he had his own

reasons for criticizing Renaissance classicism, Patmore was far from sharing Ruskin1s vision of architectural history as a dramatic fall from a Gothic Eden, and. he proved far more enthusiastic than Ruskin when the growing use of iron

construction indicated new ways at triumphing over gravity.

In spite of these differences, Patmore was an appreciative reviewer. He

thought Ruskin1s prose style unequalled, since the days of Jeremy Taylor and,

ironically in view of his later conversion to Roman Catholicism, he told his

readers at the time of the Papal Aggression of 1851 that Ruskin "takes up the

war-cry rising of late from the lips of every honest Englishman against Romanism, and re-utters it in tones that make us think of the blast of Israel's trumpets before the walls of Jericho". He agreed with Ruskin in tracing a close connection

between morals and. art; he could, as when he compared. Renaissance architecture's

decorative use of the five orders to a ballet girl's combination of beauty and

deceit, sound, like Ruskin at his most dogmatic. Though he could satirize the

spreading craze for Ruskin's books, insisting that he knew a lady very learned

in The Seven Lamps who could not tell a Doric shaft from a flying buttress, Patmore shared. Ruskin's conviction that the influence of amateurs would, revitalize

English architecture. He admired. Ruskin's views on architectural proportions, welcomed his advocacy of colour, and, near the end of his North British article on The Seven Lamps, positively invited. Ruskin's comments on the artistic uses of brick. For all these areas of agreement, however, Patmore and. Ruskin debated, two broad questions: the exact nature of the Gothic style and whether English architects should, pursue a revival of medieval forms or attempt to forge a new

style of architecture.

I

In his 1849 article in The British Quarterly Review, Patmore observed, that although Ruskin's lamps were among the brightest which had yet shone on the

subject of architecture, there were vital aspects of the subject on which Ruskin

said nothing. These were the principles of foliation and aspiration. Patmore

never did persuade Ruskin to adopt the aspiration theory, but on the question of

132

Gothic foliage he was able to claim a victory.

Visitors to Gothic cathedrals had long associated height and verticality with religious feeling. Aware that this triumph of soaring spirit over heavy stone fit in well with his theory of architectural progress, Patmore set out to

transform the poetic sentiment into a full fledged theory. He used his British

Quarterly Review article on The Seven Lamps to explain how every feature?even

horizontal ones?in a Gothic design combined to express religious longing.

Ruskin, he insisted, had overlooked part of the very basis of the style. What

ever the merits of Patmore's argument, he expressed a common perception.

Ironically, many people think it was a perception Ruskin shared. It comes as

a shock to realize that Ruskin was passionately, stubbornly unwilling to admit

that aspiration played any role whatever in shaping Gothic architecture.

The reasons for this are best explained in terms of Ruskin's polemical crusades. He wrote at a time when Gothic was still primarily a church style, associated with Pugin's Catholicism and the elaborate symbolism of the

ecclesiologists but never with the evangelical party to which Ruskin belonged. Not surprisingly, he resisted with all his force the identification of Gothic

with Popish processions and. Puseyite chancels. Moreover, he was eager to

defend the horizontal Gothic of Venetian palaces against a too exclusive admiration

for the vertical Gothic of English and French cathedrals. Neither task would be

possible if heavenward aspiration were the very basis of the style. Accordingly, Ruskin pauses in the first volume of The Stones of Venice for what looks like a

direct reply to Patmore's 1849 article in The British Quarterly. He explains that if northern houses had steep gables and northern cathedrals had soaring

roofs, it was only because their builders had wanted to throw off heavy snowfalls.

Once that necessity had been met, they went on to elaborate this idea of steepness: "with the gradual exaggeration with which every pleasant idea is pursued by the

human mind, Ethe Gothic roof] is raised into all manner of peaks, and points, and ridges, and pinnacle after pinnacle is added on its flanks, and the walls

increased in height in proportion, until we get indeed a very sublime mass, but

one which has no more principle of religious aspiration in it than a child's

tower of cards".7

This disagreement entered a new phase with Patmore's article in the October

1851 issue of the Edinburgh Review, Patmore's theory of architectural expression allowed him to trace a single human emotion pervading all aspects of a building. He was thus able to describe the expressive unity of structure and decoration

in Egyptian, Grecian, and Gothic architecture. Ruskin, it seemed, to Patmore, failed to see such underlying coherence; instead, he described, details "as if

they might be plucked from the building, like flowers from the stalk, without

any loss of significance". The tone of the Edinburgh article is sharper than

that of Patmore's other reviews, and. Ruskin's correspondence with his father

shows that he was annoyed by it.

Among the passages provoking his anger was one in which Patmore tried, to

vindicate certain kinds of Gothic shaft against Ruskin's censures. Ruskin, who

stressed mass as a quality to be admired, in architecture, insisted that a column

usually required a base to bear its weight and a capital to visibly take the

pressure of the arch. Patmore, associating height with an aspiring spirit, defended the shaft that rose with little intenniption from floor to vault. The

column of a Greek temple had the task of absorbing the downward pressure of the

weight. The capital and base dramatized this function. The Gothic shaft, in

Patmore's view, was required

133

. . . to bear burdens, and yet appear to do nothing of the sort, the burden and bearing members being alike transformed into positions of the great vertical stream of piers, pointed arches, groined vaults and vaulting shafts. The simplest way to obtaining this effect was

to leave out base and capital altogether? [my emphasis].

This was sometimes done, but it seemed to fly in the face of tradition. Moreover, a capital was useful to mark the springing of the arch and to cover the point at which the various ribs merged with the pier.

Elaborate devices were, therefore, invented for denying, and, as far as possible, reversing in their visual effects, the nature of bases and capitals as constructive members. Mr. Ruskin condemns a large class of Gothic capitals as 'unnecessary and ridiculous,' because

they 'have no bearing power.' Now we hold that this expressed absence

of any increase in power at the point of the capital is the only condition under which capitals could have been admitted into Gothic

architecture . . .1^

Ruskin's answer was written for the second volume of The Stones of Venice but never published. It survives in manuscript in the Ruskin Galleries at

Bembridge School. Ruskin, who often argued by analogy, announced that a capital is like a man charged with a serious duty; he should not appear frivolous or

oppressed, but should acknowledge his work and do it in a straight-forward manner.

It has nevertheless been supposed by some critics that the virtue of the capitals?and even of the shaft?in certain styles of Gothic?was to look as if they had nothing to do* and they have endeavored on this ground to vindicate the Early English capital from what I had alleged against it as having no supporting power in Vol. 1, Chapt 3X, 10.

Suppose I was to grant them their postulate?that the virtue of Northern Gothic was this hypocritical one of pretending to be idle when it is at work?(though I have far too high an opinion of northern gothic even to grant anything of its kind)?what defense have they to make against that other and far more important charge? made in this same sentence?that the Early English capital is incapable of decoration. If a man chooses to affect idleness, is that any reason

why he should affect dulness also?11

This brings a triple battery of Ruskin's moral artillery against Patmore: it accuses Early English capitals of deceit (because they do not admit the work

they do), idleness (because they do not seem to bear weight), and ugliness (because they do not accept the decoration that Ruskin identified with beauty).

The difficulty is that the analogy is stretched so far that the passage seems like a parody of Ruskin's usual method. No wonder he left it in manuscript.

Ruskin's final shot at Patmore's aspiration theory occurred during his

Edinburgh lectures in 1854. There he argued that the competition between citizens of medieval towns over who could build the highest nave and most dramatic tower resulted from a feeling more nearly "analogous to that in which

you play a cricket-match"12 than to any hope of heaven.

*"To bear burdens and yet appear to do nothing of the sort" (Edinburgh Review, October, 1851, p. 394).

134

Patmore was more successful in persuading Ruskin to alter his views on

foliated, ornament. In "The Lamp of Beauty" Ruskin had. insisted, that all

beautiful decoration was based on natural form. He placed high value on

naturalistic ornament, but stopped short of advocating direct imitation by

insisting that the severe art of architecture always required an element of

abstraction in its foliage. Reproducing some leaves carved on a moulding at

Rouen (Plate I), he pointed out that while their flow and. outline were precisely

represented, their serrations and veins were only indicated. This showed that

foliage ought to be thoroughly naturalistic in certain details and. severely

abstract in others. There were limits, however, to the degree to which Ruskin

would admire a severe handling of nature's forms; he was sure that "a purely

abstract manner, like that of our earliest English work, does not afford, room

for the perfection of beautiful form, and that its severity is wearisome after

135

the eye has been long accustomed to it".^

Patmore found the limitation on Ruskin1s naturalism to be inadequate. "This fine critic", he lamented in The British Quarterly Review, "falls into the universal error regarding Gothic leafage as nothing more than an imitation of nature".1^ He thought Ruskin's principle of abstraction insufficient to account for the great difference between Gothic carving and natural foliage. He was sure that a mere copying of hop or hawthorne leaves would give a totally ungothic impression and as proof he cited the failure of a recent attempt in The Builder to base spandrel decorations on the direct imitation of nature

(Plate II ). Patmore was sure that foliage became architectural only when

Vol. Vll.-No. 329.] THE BUILDER._247

THE IIOP IN DECORATION.

enclosed within the bounds of a geometrical outline. Citing certain spandrel decorations at St. Albans, he insisted that the grace and freedom of nature

were united with seven distinct and non-natural geometric forms. The secret

of Gothic foliage lay in its union of nature's spontaneous energy with geometry's

restraining law.

136

Ruskin agreed. It was not often that he capitulated to a critic, but his

chapter on "The Nature of Ornament" in the first volume of The Stones of Venice

gives detailed consideration to all the factors which combine to limit the

naturalism of Gothic foliage. Some, to be sure, had not been thought of by Patmore. Ruskin considers the limited skill of the workman, for example. He

also considers the distance that the ornament is to be placed from the eye of

the beholder. But he accepts the principle that some conventionalism is

necessary and in a footnote draws attention to Patmore's "valuable remarks" on Gothic foliage in the British Quarterly for August, 1849. Not surprisingly, Patmore was able to report in an 1851 issue of the British Quarterly that "Mr. Ruskin adopts these views as relate to the essential character of Gothic foliage, and reclothes them in splendour of words, which we, and all living critics besides himself, might well envy".1*

II

It is when Patmore sets out to recommend a future direction for English architecture that he becomes most important as a barometer of public opinion. In some reviews Patmore sounds like an academic agnostic, appreciating each

style for its merits but not expecting salvation from any. That attitude,

however, was fast becoming impossible to maintain. The eighteen-fifties were

not only a period of transition in English architecture but were felt to be one at the time. Contemporaries say that some change was necessary and contended

eagerly to suggest what it might be. Some advocated continuing and developing the Greek Revival, while others argued for various forms of Gothic. Some

proposed a new style developed out of the vocabulary of the Renaissance palaces while others urged a quite different kind of new style based on the necessities of cast-iron construction. Both Ruskin and Patmore were aware of contending alternatives, but Ruskin ended his hesitations more rapidly than Patmore and once he did he expressed himself with greater force. In the end, Ruskin1s

influence was to a large extent responsible for turning Patmore into a Goth and we may take it that this victory is representative of Ruskin's larger impact on educated opinion.

Some of Patmore's earliest comments suggest that he might have been enlisted

among the Greeks. His 1850 article in The North British Review pays compliments to several Greek Revival buildings. Patmore praised the new Post Office, called Smirke's British Museum "one of the noblest Greek buildings of Modern times",

* "

and pronounced, the Inwoods1 St. Paneras Church, then fiercely reviled by the

ecclesiologists, to be "the finest restoration of Greek architecture in the

world".!7 Ruskin too found words of praise for individual Greek Revival buildings, but they were usually concessions made in the course of his advocacy of Gothic. He assured his reader in "The Lamp of Truth" that he sincerely admired the noble

architecture of the British Museum, then went on to denounce an untruthful use

of materials in the construction of its staircase. He allowed in "The Lamp of

Obedience" that Greek might be a possible style for an exceptional public

building, but insisted that it would be utterly inappropriate for modern uses

generally. Above all, his criticism of Grecian ornament in "The Lamp of Beauty" argued powerfully against any continued attempt at a Greek Revival. Thus the

line between Patmore and Ruskin was clearly drawn on this issue and Patmore's

sharp criticism of Volume One of The Stones of Venice were largely made in defense of Greek architecture. But in another periodical Patmore came out

against the Greek Revival and did so on strictly Ruskinian grounds. Where others had complained, that Grecian forms were ill adapted to the English climate

137

or were pagan, Ruskin maintained that they did not give spontaneous pleasure to the English temperament. As Patmore explained it:

The vividness of the affections is put as the first requisite by Mr. Ruskin, because though their right direction is everything, yet they must exist before they can be directed at all. The evil of modern architecture is not that architects have liked the wrong things; they have not liked, anything, and have pretended to like the wrong

things. English architects never did, and never will, like Greek

architecture; and. we agree with Mr. Ruskin that they never ought; except as a thing of a past age and a strange clime.1?

This review, written in 1851? also contains Patmore's first praise of the

Pre-Raphaelites. It was eventually the combination of their art and Gothic

architecture, brought together under the umbrella of Ruskin's theories, that won Patmore's heart.

Before that could happen, however, another possibility had to be considered. The view that a new age required a new style lay behind some of the fiercest

opposition to Ruskin's theories and Patmore had revealed a basic sympathy with this view when he criticized Modern Painters in 1846. By the early fifties he had modified his enthusiasm for progress but not abandoned it.

Actually, there is a certain tension between Patmore's basically historical interest in architecture and his willingness to contemplate new departures. In

1851, the year of the Crystal Palace, Patmore could make the astonishing claim that "the constructive history of architecture has now been well nigh exhausted".1' In the same year, but in another periodical, he could advocate a new style based on iron and glass. In part, no doubt, he was feeling the impact of Paxton's exhibition hall. In addition, he had come upon a pamphlet by Vose Pickett which argued that new principles of construction and a new system of decoration would

emerge from the use of iron. Pickett was much derided by his contemporaries. Patmore, one of the sympathetic few, deserves credit for his foresight.

Patmore's most remarkable comments on iron architecture as the basis for a new style occur at the beginning of his review of the last two volumes of The Stones of Venice in The North British Review. Here he begins by contemplating a paradox: "All railway travellers who trouble themselves with 'trifles' of this kind will agree with us when we declare that, as a general rule, whenever artistic effect has been attempted in the places in question, the result has been a display of almost hopeless imbecility; but, on the other hand, where no such effect has been sought, it has often been obtained".

? This raises the fascinating possibility

that a new style might evolve naturally out of strict attention to practical necessity:

. . . leave 'style' to take care of itself, as it always will, if you trust it; mate your furniture strong and unpretending, as befits rough and hasty usage; do with your 'artistic effects' of all kinds, what the

song recommends little 'Bo-peep' to do with her sheep; 'leave them alone, and they'll come home,' and bring their decorative appendages behind them. Wherever mechanical operations are carried on upon a large scale, as in the Railway, there is sure to be enough to amuse and delight the eye. What can be more pleasing, in its place, than the light iron roof, with its simple, yet intricate supports of spandrels, rods, and circles,

138

at Euston Square; or the vast transparent vault and appropriate masses

of brick-work at King's Cross?^1

This sounds enough like early functionalist theory to catch the modern eye and

perhaps to engage modern sympathies. Why did Patmore not continue in this vein?

Ruskin's influence may well be part of the cause. In 1849 Ruskin had granted that "the time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws will be

developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction",^ but this had been

primarily a concession made in the course of an attempt to define and limit the

uses of cast-iron in current architecture. With the construction of the Crystal

Palace, Ruskin's attitude about cast-iron framed, structures and cast-iron ornament

becomes relentlessly antagonistic. He ridiculed. Paxton's building as a mere

cucumber frame, and dismissed Owen Jones's scheme for painting it. Ruskin's

1857 address to the Architectural Association is one of the key documents in

the growing Victorian opposition to the new idea of a new style. But it is not

likely that Ruskin's influence alone discouraged Patmore's interest in a new

style based on cast iron. In 1854, when Ruskin told an Edinburgh audience that

iron would never have attractive associations for mankind because it was not

alluded to in the Bible, Patmore simply threw up his hands at "the most imbecile kind of argument that ever came out of a sane man's mouth", 3 and in 1857 he was

still reiterating his view that the Crystal Palace suggested exciting new

possibilities for urban architecture.

There are probably three major causes of Patmore's decision not to vest

his hopes in the development of a new style. One is that throughout the remainder

of the eighteen-fifties no building was constructed that would justify hopes for

a new style; the Crystal Palace began to appear as an isolated phenomenon. Another is that Patmore, like Ruskin and like most Victorians, considered the

impression of permanence essential to architectural grandeur, whereas iron

frames look as though they can be easily disassembled.?as indeed they can be.

Finally, Patmore held the view, shared by Ruskin and deeply rooted in romantic

criticism, that imagination is one thing and analytic reason another:

Suspension bridges are generally pleasing objects; but their beauty is

precisely that of a well proved geometrical theorem, and is the very reverse of architecture as a fine art. All fine art appeals primarily to the imagination; but a suspension bridge appeals to* a faculty which

is usually found in greatest vigour where imagination is weakest. ^

So long as this distinction is made in such absolute terms, it is difficult to

see how an architectural style could effortlessly emerge out of engineering

practice. So Patmore eventually backs away from the newness of his style and.

argues that iron could best be used to realize the constructive tendencies of

Gothic and Arabian architecture. With his affection for the aspiring tendencies

of Gothic, Patmore could not help but be captivated by the thought of a Gothic cathedral vaster than any yet seen with a spire five hundred feet taller than

any yet built. Eventually, however, the sheer whackiness of this idea has to

militate against a continued advocacy of iron architecture.

Patmore's first, tentative acceptance of Ruskin's recommendations for a

revived Gothic occurred in 1851 and it grew into something close to a full

conversion. One reason is that, like Ruskin, Patmore was appalled by the bareness

of the Georgian streetscape and felt that Italian Gothic promised an improvement.

139

The squarish shapes of Venetian palazzos were well adapted, to city streets, the use of open arcades and polychromy would, be a delight after Gower Street.

In I851 Patmore soberly advocated redoing the facades of the Athenaeum and the

Reform Club in Venetian Gothic and. assured, his readers an Englishman would,

always feel Renaissance forms to be repulsively foreign but that if the Palazzo

Foscari were transferred unaltered from Venice to Pall Mall, it "would be at

once accepted, by us as native to our feelings". ^-5

Patmore did. make one significant?though perhaps unconscious?alteration

in his friend's recommendations. In 1857* in the course of an article on "London

Street Architecture", Patmore wrote:

The late Perpendicular, or Tudor style, is the best for English domestic

architecture. Mr. Ruskin, if we remember rightly holds this opinion; but has not given reasons for this selection.

^

As it happens, Patmore did not remember rightly. Ruskin caused, great alarm among his early readers by denouncing perpendicular as simply detestable. In most

respects, however, Patmore accepts Ruskin's views. Thus a man who might have

urged archaeological reconstruction of ancient Greek buildings, with their spare but 'chaste' decoration, or who might have welcomed a new style based on iron and. glass, had settled instead for a richly decorated Gothic, designed, with

Venetian and. French as well as English sources in mind, and employed for secular as well as religious uses. This, indeed, was the direction that Victorian architecture was taking during the eighteen-fifties and Patmore was swept up by the trend. But his enthusiasm was for doctrines that he had. not originated, and. even had he not been occupied, in writing The Angel in the House, there would have been little cause for him to complete his book on architecture.

Patmore wrote little journalism during the sixties, so it is not possible to know how he reacted, as The Seven Lamps and The Stones of Venice had such

sharp and diverse impact. By 1872, when he reviewed. Charles Eastlake's History of the Gothic Revival for The Pall Mall Gazette, he was able to look back on the recent past with detachment and in a revisionist spirit. He was pleased that the fascination with foreign styles of Gothic, which he associated with

Ruskin's influence, was at last moderating, and he noted that Norman Shaw and

William Morris were fusing medieval and Renaissance elements in a way that would

have been unthinkable twenty years before. Attempting to sum up the value of

Ruskin's impact, Patmore declared that his "direct and immediate influence had almost always been in the wrong, his more indirect influence as often ultimately in the right direction".^7 This is provocatively phrased and. Ruskin was annoyed, but surely Patmore meant only that Ruskin*s influence was wide and subtle, and

not to be measured simply by those buildings which featured bits drawn directly from the illustrations to The Stones of Venice. The articles that Patmore wrote on architecture for The St. James Gazette in the eighteen-eighties reveal the same spirit of distance from the polemical wars of mid-century. Patmore repeats

many of his earlier views on architectural styles, but is no longer pressed by the need, to make choices. Instead, each style is appreciated with impartial delight.

Westchester State College

140

NOTES

Patmore's letter to Moxon is quoted in J. D. Reid, The Mind and Art of Coventry Patmore (New York: Macmillan, 1957), P. 203.

See her article, "Spreading It Thinly: Some Victorian Reviewers at Work", VPN, IX (1976), 84-87. r> JThe ascription of anonymous articles to Patmore is based on J. D. Reid1s researches, reported in The Mind and

Art of Coventry Patmore . It should, be remembered that Ruskin and Patmore would have pursued their disagreements in conversation as well as in print. Basil Ghampney, the architect who wrote Patmore*s authorized biography, guessed that the two men would have met not later than 1847? a year after Patmore reviewed, the second volume of Modern Painters, The Ruskin family correspondence at Bembridge School suggests a later date. In February, 1850, Emily Patmore, whose father had been one of the young John Ruskin*s tutors, came to call at Herne Hill. Ruskin was then in Venice, but his father received her and reported to his son that Emily had married a young man in Lord Houghton's circle whom Ruskin might find congenial. They would probably have met when the Ruskins returned to London later that year.

Coventry Patmore, "Modern Painters", Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine (July, 1846), p. 11.

^Coventry Patmore, "Ruskin*s Seven Lamps of Architecture", The North British Review $ XII (l850), 324.

Coventry Patmore, "Ruskin*s Stones of Venice", The British Quarterly Review, XIII (l85l), 478.

^The Works of John Ruskin, ed. E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn (London & New York, 1903-12), IX, 187. o

Coventry Patmore, "Sources of Expression in Architecture", Edinburgh Review, XCIV (l85l), 379?

"Sources of Expression in Architecture", p. 39^?

10lHd.

Unpublished manuscript in the collection of The Ruskin Galleries at Bembridge School. I am grateful to James

Dearden, Curator of The Ruskin Galleries, and to the Ruskin Literary Trustees for permission to quote this material.

12The Works of John Ruskin, XII, 39.

13Ibid., VII, 171.

Coventry Patmore, "The Aesthetics of Gothic Architecture", The British Quarterly Review, X (l849), 64.

^"Ruskin*s Stones of Venice", The British Quarterly Review, XIII (l85l), 490.

"Ruskin*s Seven Lamps of Architecture", The North British Review, XII (l850), 309.

17Ibid. , p. 341. -1 o

"Ruskin*s Stones of Venice", p. 485.

"Sources of Expression in Architecture", p. 367?

Coventry Patmore, "Ruskin and Architecture", The North British Review, XXI (l850), 172.

21Ibid. , p. 173.

99 ^The Works of John Ruskin, VIII, 66.

-^Coventry Patmore, "The Arts", The Critic (June 1, 1853), 288.

24 Coventry Patmore, "Gothic Architecture?Present and Future",

^Coventry Patmore, "Character in Architecture", ibid. , XV (l85l), 249.

Coventry Patmore, "London Street Architecture", National Review, V (l

27Coventry Patmore, "The Gothic Revival", The Pall Mall Gazette (March 14, 1872), 12.