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the business of the Society, especially as it has never yet been in other hands. The event realised their anticipations; for no one of those gentlemen who dissented from the suggestions, and who disapprove the management, of the Committee, seem to have been provided with the names of others whom they might nominate as willing and qualified to replace it. The consequence therefore of the Committee not laying before the meeting a plan, according to which they could, consistently with the spirit of their recommendation of Feb. 13th, engage to continue their services if required, would have been to leave the Society without any executive at all, unless they themselves had continued to be the Committee in default of any other appointment. This will, I trust, explain the necessity of submitting the Resolution previous to the election of a new Committee. It would have been scarcely respectful to the meeting to have exposed it to the trouble and, as the event has proved, the painfulness of a discussion of their qualifications, unless there had been a guarantee that, if elected, they should be so on an understanding compatible with their duty and consistency.

It has been my desire, which I had scarcly an opportunity of expressing so as to be understood last night, that an Architectural Society should exist in Cambridge, such as would embrace many who might be unwilling to belong, under that name, to the Camden Society, under any management, especially under the present; and it was one object contemplated in the Resolution submitted by the Committee, to leave the ground entirely open for such an arrangement.

I may add that the proposed alteration is so framed as not to preclude the resumption of the periodical meetings under other auspices, or the occasional communication (as before) of Reports of the Society's acts and proceedings as conducted by the Committee. The only distinctive "principles" claim for the Society, as to which it seemed that I was misunderstood by the first speaker, were those principles on which Mr. Hope re minded the meeting, by citation of passages, that I had insisted more strongly than I have ever since done in my First Address (1840): namely, the rule of Church architecture on Church principles.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

May 9, 1845.

No. IV.

T. THORP.

I suppose I must take the blame to myself, unless it be assignable to the wrong direction given at first to the minds of those present by the interference of the first speaker, that my repeated explanations and assurances were unsuccessful in attempting to satisfy the meeting that the scheme of Laws, hastily drawn up, (as I stated at the time in excuse for their having come from the printer too late to be circulated among the members, or delivered at the door,) was framed merely with a view to shew how the body

might work without the ordinary meetings in Cambridge, preserving at the same time its capacity to elect new members, and to administer funds (with an especial view to the bequest of £6000.); and to invite suggestions on the subject from the members previously to the revised scheme being formally submitted to the Society. It is inconceivable that any one should suppose that such details as are there suggested would be seriously proposed for adoption without ample time for deliberation, especially such an one as the omission of the Law respecting Patrons; or that we could have been imagined capable of submitting such an alteration without having first obtained the unanimous consent and approval of those exalted persons whose rights it involved: even if it had not been stated, as it was by me over and over again, that no one, not even the Committee itself, was pledged to any of those details; and that the one only" basis" to which the meeting, by adopting the Resolution, would pledge itself was this,—that, if any of the old Committee were required to serve again, the ordinary meetings would be given up, and the Laws must be remodelled (of course with the approval of the Society), in such a manner as to adapt the Society to that arrangement.

T. THORP.

May 27, 1845.

No. V.

The following private letters, one from a Parochial Clergyman practically acquainted with the Society's labours, the other from a distinguished member of the House of Commons, received since the first sheets of the -above statement on the part of the Committee was printed off, will serve to illustrate the purpose for which it is now circulated, and to justify the language employed in p. 5:

May 24th, 1845.

MY DEAR * * *.-I have received two statements on the subject of the Camden Society, one signed "C. A. S.," (I think, for I have burned both) the other by the Master of Clare Hall; the latter in the form of a circular urging the members of C. C. S, to withdraw their names. I trust the Committee will take some notice of what seems to me a course most improper and very highly to be deprecated. Clearly every man has a right to withdraw himself from a society which he disapproves; but I think that is all he is called upon to do; the present acts of the protesters only tend to mischief and strife. As for me I have seen nothing yet in the Committee to make me withdraw from the Society. If I see anything hereafter it will be high time to do so then. It is to be lamented that should feel

*

called upon to withdraw themselves; but, with all due respect, their private opinions ought to stand upon rather better grounds than the * did, before it is made a point of conscience to break up a Society merely because they leave it.

*This is a mistake of the writer, not one of the parties having withdrawn to whom the writer alludes,

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But what I wanted to suggest was whether it would not be worth while, for the information of the non-residents, to issue some counter statement ? Every body is ready now-a-days to follow the popular side upon an exparte sentence; I am so sure that the C. C. S. has done and may yet do very much good, that I should be really sorry for anything which should occur to materially damage it. I believe the Committee have done their best to act for the good of the Society and the community at large, under many difficulties; and little worth as my opinion may be, I send it in the humble hope that they may find their hands strengthened by the concordant opinions of others besides myself.

Believe me, yours very truly,

This is merely a suggestion, which does not require necessarily an

answer.

MY DEAR ARCHDEACON,

No. VI.

PALL MALL, May 26, 1845.

I have received a letter from some gentlemen, no longer members of the Camden Society, calling themselves a Committee for the object of getting members to withdraw their support from that Society. This course of proceeding appears to me new and uncalled-for, and I have expressed this in my answer to the application.

I was sorry I was prevented from attending the meeting, in the issue of which I cordially agree: there has been extravagance, but where was there ever zeal without it? there has been imprudence, but compensated by the energy of youth. The firm attitude which you have taken has excited the admiration of all your friends, and has shown that you prefer the promotion of a public good to the pleasure of noble or even distinguished individuals.

I remain, yours very truly,

No. VII.

A third letter, likewise just received, is the circular of the 'Standing Committee,' referred to in p. 5, returned by the person (not a member of the University), to whom it was addressed, with the words here printed in italics inserted, so as to cause it to run thus:

SIR,-I do not authorize you to append my name to a document headed "The following Statement is submitted to members of the C. Camden Society," and dated "Cambridge, May 17, 1845," considering it a garbled account, and written in a spirit unbecoming a Christian."

May 26, 1845.

Signed

WARWICK & Co, Printers. Hobson's-place, Cambridge

*

ECCLESIOLOGIST.

66 'Surge igitur et fac: et erit Dominus tecum."

No. V.-SEPTEMBER, 1845.

ON DECORATIVE COLOUR.

We have long intended to offer a few remarks on the important subject of Decorative Painting, as applied to the interior of churches: principally by way of answer to some of the more popular objections raised against its employment. The consideration of this kind of embellishment is in a manner forced upon us by the appearance of an article, in a publication of the Bristol* Architectural Society, which adopts very different views from those which we have always up

held.

66

It is a curious fact, that while what is generally termed a cultivated taste will admire the employment of decorative colour in glass and pavement-perhaps also in vaulting-the moment that it is intended to apply it to other parts of a church, the moment that we propose to gild stone, and to paint oak, its prejudices are roused against it. 'Oh, I do not like that; it is tawdry!" is the constant remark which is made on such decorations. And it is seriously urged that the grey stone and the dark oak have a beauty, and solemnity, and appropriateness of their own, when applied to the interior of churches. It is useless to urge to such objectors, that if we may employ colour in one part of a church, we surely may in another,—that if there be no "solemnity" in white pavement and green windows, there is none in white walls and stone-coloured capitals.

Now, we wish to take the least advantageous position, and therefore we will not ask the question,-What is to be done in the case of a rubble or chalk wall? When forced to plaister," says the writer to whom we have already referred, "it does seem that nothing short of decorative colouring of some kind, and that too the best of its kind, can be admissible." But we will take the case where colour seems least necessary, for example, the living foliage of an Early-Pointed capital, and the mysterious intricacy of a late Pointed roodscreen. We maintain that these things are not perfect till suitably painted and gilded.

• NOTES ON The Church of S. JOHN SLYMBRIDGE: the work itself we have noticed elsewhere. S

We apprehend that one source of objection to this principle arises from the power of association. We have been so much used to write and to read, both in prose and poetry, of grey abbeys, and churches, and choirs, we have been so used to see this epithet verified in their present desolate condition, that we begin to think there must be something very solemn in this vacuity of tint, this Protestantism (if we may so express ourselves) of colour, this blank and cold greyness. Again, the decorative painting to which we are accustomed is generally so wretched in itself, and so associated with every idea of human pomp and worldly luxury, that we feel as if by employing it we should give the House of GOD the appearance of a fashionable drawing-room. This may be natural, but it is not the less false. Our fathers reasoned so with respect to pavement: and the result was, that instead of the spangled and ever-varying beauty of encaustic tiles, they chose the Wrennian uniformity of black and white marble.

Had we been brought up to worship in churches such as those in which our ancestors worshipped, these perverse associations had never had a place. Had we been used to the glitter of York Chapter House, on going into King's Chapel, as it is, we should have felt as if entering a magnificent chalk pit. It is the unconscious working of the puritan spirit that leads us to imagine that a negative is solemnity. The days are happily past when people talked of the sublime simplicity of Anglicanmeaning modern Anglican-services: Puritanism in sculpture, in architecture, in music, is scouted; it will soon be so in painting. Could the founders of our cathedrals see their colourless edifices, would they, do we suppose, talk of natural simplicity and decent solemnity? "Shall we compromise," asks the Bristol Society, "all our claim to taste and feeling, if we ask the question, Whether any colouring can add to the beauty and richness of deeply moulded arches and foliaged capitals?" Poore, and West, and Waynflete, how would they answer the enquiry?

Indeed, if the modern ideas on the subject be correct, medieval architects were completely wrong. And if wrong in so very important a question of ecclesiology, how can we trust them in any other? Nay, they were doubly wrong. They chose to introduce painting, and they thought it expedient, both on the score of devotion and taste, to employ figures, when from the incapacity of painters they were often out of drawing, and to a correct taste, grotesque. How much more readily would they have used the same decorations, could they have commanded the talent in this way which might at the present time be devoted to the work? Again, their halls, and parlours, and withdrawing rooms were grey" and uncoloured; at least in many cases: therefore there was no necessity to employ these decorations, lest GoD's House should be inferior to their own. with colour, ought to have some very valid reason for denying it to the We, who adorn our houses Temples of the Almighty.

We are surely not called upon to prove that colour is beautiful. If it be not, why employ stained glass at all? If it be, it is certainly the place of our opponents to say, why they would restrict its application to particular parts of a church. We are consistent; we would have