CURRENT LITERATURE.
the decay of ruined buildings in such a climate as ours, and as to the best means of guarding against the effects of damp and time, the author proceeds to consider the ravages which have been and are being caused by the over-restoration of buildings still in use, such as cathedrals and churches. His great principle is "to preserve the greatest possible amount of ancient work intact ; " always to make the new work an exact copy of the old, but never to try to make it look old or to furbish up the old so as to make it look new. If things go on as
they are going there will soon not be an ancient building either in
England or France. The idea of the architects seems to be that they are to pull down the old building and put up a nineteenth-century copy of it instead. In France the system is carried out more ruthlessly than
in England, though perhaps the new copies are generally better copies than ours are. But the result is always the same,—a caput mortuum,
from which almost all historical interest and all venerableness are for ever divorced. We wish Mr. Scott's pamphlet may be read by every educated man in this country.
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