brain of man. Now, consider, I pray you, what these wonderful works
are, and how they were made; and indeed, it is neither in
extravagance nor without due meaning that I use the word 'wonderful'
in speaking of them. Well, these things are just the common
household goods of those past days, and that is one reason why they
are so few and so carefully treasured. They were common things in
their own day, used without fear of breaking or spoiling--no
rarities then--and yet we have called them 'wonderful.'

And how were they made? Did a great artist draw the designs for
them--a man of cultivation, highly paid, daintily fed, carefully
housed, wrapped up in cotton wool, in short, when he was not at
work? By no means. Wonderful as these works are, they were made by
'common fellows,' as the phrase goes, in the common course of their
daily labour. Such were the men we honour in honouring those works.
And their labour--do you think it was irksome to them? Those of you
who are artists know very well that it was not; that it could not
be. Many a grin of pleasure, I'll be bound--and you will not
contradict me--went to the carrying through of those mazes of
mysterious beauty, to the invention of those strange beasts and
birds and flowers that we ourselves have chuckled over at South
Kensington. While they were at work, at least, these men were not
unhappy, and I suppose they worked most days, and the most part of
the day, as we do.

Or those treasures of architecture that we study so carefully
nowadays--what are they? how were they made? There are great
minsters among them, indeed, and palaces of kings and lords, but not
many; and, noble and awe-inspiring as these may be, they differ only
in size from the little grey church that still so often makes the