An enthusiastic antiquary and ecclesiologist, whose contributions to the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ of 1799 were of great service in calling attention to the reckless mischief which was often worked, under the name of improvements, in our noblest churches and cathedrals, has transmitted to us a sad list of mutilations and disfigurements which had come under his observation.  He has told how ’in every corner of the land some unseemly disguise, in the Roman or Grecian taste, was thrown over the most lovely forms of the ancient architecture.’[855] His indignation was especially moved by the havoc perpetrated in Westminster Abbey, sometimes by set design of tasteless innovators, often by ’some low-hovelled cutter of monumental memorials,’ or by workmen at coronations, ’who, we are told, cannot attend to trifles.’[856] Carter’s lamentation is more than justified by Dean Stanley, who has enumerated in detail many of the vandalisms committed during the last age in the minster under his care.  What else could be expected, when it was held by those who were thought the best judges in such matters, that nothing could be more barbarous and devoid of interest than the Confessor’s Chapel, and ‘nothing more stupid than laying statues on their backs?’ It might have been supposed that Dean Atterbury, at all events, would have had some sympathy with the workmanship of the past.  But ’there is a charming tradition that he stood by, complacently watching the workmen as they hewed smooth the fine old sculptures over Solomon’s porch, which the nineteenth century vainly seeks to recall to their places.’[857] For a list of some of the disastrous alterations and demolitions inflicted upon other cathedrals, the reader may be referred to the pages of Mr. Mackenzie Walcot.[858] Wreck and ruin seems especially to have followed in the track of Wyatt, who was looked upon, nevertheless, as a principal reviver of the ancient style of architecture.  If cathedrals, where it might be imagined that some remains of ecclesiastical taste would chiefly linger, thus suffered, even when under the supervision of the chief architects of the period, what would have happened if, at such a time, a sudden zeal for Church restoration had invaded the country clergy?

We may be thankful, on the whole, that it was an age of whitewash.  Carter, writing of Westminster Abbey, records one thing with hearty gratitude.  It had not been whitewashed.  It was the one religious structure in the kingdom which showed its original finishing, and ’those modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasantly bestows.’[859] Everywhere else the dauber’s brush had been at work.  He spoke of it with indignation.  ’I make little scruple in declaring that this job work, which is carried on in every part of the kingdom, is a mean makeshift to give a delusive appearance of repair and cleanliness to the walls, when in general this wash is resorted to to hide neglected or perpetrated fractures.’[860] The stone fretwork of the Lady