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On the morning of the day of Mr. Ruskin's first Lecture, there might be seen, pacing from end to end of Queen-street, Edinburgh, a grave Southron, evidently intent on some searching scrutiny of the goodly buildings in that fair long street. The Southron was unmistakably a chield amang them takin' notes, and perhaps to prent 'em. His eye was fixed on the first-floor windows, and not to be distracted from its intentness of gaze till the last house in the series was reached and examined. What could be his mission? Evidently he was a man of business, and one who knew how to go about it in a business-like way, steadily devoting his energies for the time being to the work before him, whatever that might be. A sonsie face might meet his eye at this or that window in the protracted course of his survey, but not to make him swerve from his purpose, or falter in his allegiance. Well might the piqued owner of the sonsie face marvel at the man and his mission, and become extra piqued to discover who the one and what the other could be.
If she went that day—as, being young, civilised, and inquisitive, she was sure to do—to Mr. Ruskin's first Lecture on Architecture and Painting, delivered at the Philosophical Institution in that very street, her curiosity would be speedily set at rest. Enter the Oxford Graduate, and lo! the mysterious inquisitor of the morning. So the first part or the problem is solved. But what could he be "glowering" at, in that strange, stern fashion, this morning? Hardly has he begun his lecture ere this remainder of the problem is solved too.
Speaking of the kind of window all but universal in the New Town—viz., a massy lintel of a single stone, laid across from side to side, with bold square-cut jambs—in fact, the simplest form it is possible to build—Mr. Ruskin allows to it the merit of being "manly and vigorous," and even dignified in its utter refusal of ornament, but "cannot say it is entertaining." He then continues: "How many windows precisely of this form do you suppose there are in the New Town of Edinburgh?"
Here the shrewd damosel catches an inkling of the meaning of that morning scrutiny. Of course, he was counting the windows! And by his last abrupt sentence it would seem that on this numerical errand he has perambulated the whole New Town—has been toiling at "dot and carry one" all the way from St. Bernardo-crescent to Leith-walk—has left no lintel untold in Charlotte-square or Moray-place, in Heriot-row or Royal-circus, in Doune-terrace or Bellevue-crescent, in the intricacies; of Stockbridge and the barony of Broughton. But he qualifies, and she finds she has been too hasty in her inferences.
For he goes on to say: "I have not counted them all through the town, but I counted them this morning through this very Queen-street, in which your hall is; and on the one side of that street, there are of these windows, absolutely similar to this example, and altogether devoid of any relief by decoration, six hundred and seventy-eight." The computation includes—with severe conscientiousness it is added—York-place
- ↑ Lectures on Architecture and Painting, delivered at Edinburgh in November, 1853. By John Ruskin, London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1854.
