ioned" in the second quarter of the present century, and soon became obsolete. The Greek revival in Europe, contemporary with the Napoleonic era, may also have had an influence in America, leading as it did to a close reproduction of classic design both in detail and in composition, — the best example of which in this country is the Treasury Building at Washington.
      As I have perhaps too many times, intimated, all that is good in Colonial architecture is derived from the "lying Greeks," who are not to be blindly followed, even when bearing gifts. There would have been nothing resembling it without the column, the capital, the lintel, the entablature and the pediment of the Hellenic temples; and as the small leaven of real Christianity, by whatever name it may be called, in whatever form of loaf it may be hidden, though flavored with many foreign spices, cooked in sundry ovens and served with manifold sauces, is the one sustaining force of Christian civilization, so the art of ancient Greece has never ceased to illumine the occidental world, and its spirit, rightly understood, is still the inspiring motive of all that excels in modern architecture. It has come to us by the way of Rome and Byzantium, the cloisters of Cluny, the Renaissance of Italy, central Europe and England. The tall white many-storied wooden steeples, built in the last part of the last or the first part of the present century, all the way from Portsmouth to Charleston, are direct but often degenerate descendants of Sir Christopher Wren's London spires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, — even as the creeds of the churches of that time were the concentrated and more or less clarified extracts of the theological juices of the uncertain ages; and as there has never been but one kind of righteousness, so the essential spirit of all art is the same in all times and places. To attempt to devise a new alphabet in architecture would be as wasteful as to burn all the dictionaries and invent a new language in order to improve literature.
      While it cannot be affirmed that the greatest vitality in art has been found whenever and wherever the vox populi is most clearly recognized as the vox dei, it does appear that the greater the independence of the artist, the higher will be the development of art; and this independence is most likely to exist where there is a widespread, intelligent, popular appreciation and criticism. The immortal Greeks were not merely free men, but men with plenty of leisure to discuss, criticise and analyze everything. Venice and the Tuscan cities in their most productive periods were virtually democratic, so far as the upper and middle classes were concerned; and the religious enthusiasts of the middle ages, in the development of that almost divine architecture which by an amazing ignorance was named Gothic, were to a great extent unfettered in following their inspirations.
      The notion that architecture or any other of the fine arts must have powerful personal patronage does not seem to be sustained by the testimony of history. Unless that patronage has consisted mainly in guaranteeing the largest liberty to artists and artisans the results are sure to be narrow and liable to be pernicious. There are many reasons why fine art in any form did not at once take root in this new world of ours, and cannot fairly be said to have done so yet. We are simply cumbered to the ground with much serving. We feel ourselves compelled to be careful and troubled about such a multitude of material things that most of us have no time to seek or even desire, the intangible realities. It requires a good tree to bring forth good fruit. There are surely to-day some grounds of hope for better things. As to our ancestors, — keenness of esthetic perception, physical and mental sensitiveness, imagination, the love and need of beauty, and the capacity for beautiful creation were not the dominant qualities of the men and women who converted a howling wilderness, covering half a continent, into a nation of the most marvelous material activity, irresistible might, the most audacious freedom and sublime potentialities. And vet there was much true and simple architecture in the early time, much refined and noble work to which we may well turn today for profitable lessons.