be the case if the attempt is made to combine ornamental brickwork and
stone ornaments.

At South Kensington, a whole group of examples of brickwork with terra
cotta meet us. The Natural History Museum, the finest of them all, is
hardly fit for our present purpose, as it is as completely encased in
terra cotta as the fronts of the buildings in this avenue are in stone.
But here are the Albert Hall, a fine specimen of mass and effect; the
City and Guilds Institute; the College of Music, and some private houses
and blocks of flats, all in red brick with terra cotta, and all showing
the happy manner in which the two materials can be blended. In most of
them there is a contrast of color; but Mr. Waterhouse, in the Technical
Institute, has employed red terra cotta with red bricks, as he also has
done in his fine St. Paul's School at Hammersmith, and Mr. Norman Shaw
has, in his fine pile of buildings in St. James' street. This
combination--namely, brick and terra cotta--I look upon as the best for
withstanding the London climate, and for making full use of the
capabilities of brickwork that can be employed, and I have no doubt that
in the future it will be frequently resorted to. Some of those examples
also show the introduction of cast ornaments, and others the employment
of carving as means of enriching the surface of brick walls with
excellent effect. Here we must leave the subject; but in closing, I
cannot forbear pointing to the art of the bricklayer as a fine example
of what may be accomplished by steady perseverance. Every brick in the
miles of viaducts or tunnels, houses, or public buildings, to which we
have made allusion, was laid separately, and it is only steady
perseverance, brick after brick, on the part of the bricklayer, which
could have raised these great masses of work. Let me add that no one
brick out of the many laid is of no importance. Some time ago a great
fire occurred in a public asylum, and about £2,000 of damage was done,