Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: under his own charge, and to superintend me in studies having a tendency in that direction. I accordingly took up my residence at Latimer's, in 1826. I had, two years before, made a trip to London, where my eyes were opened to much which I had never thought of before. Westminster Abbey, I need not say, I was charmed with ; it was the only gothic minster I had seen ; nor did I see any other, excepting St. Albans and Ely, till after my articles had expired, in 1830! I recollect that when I saw Westminster Abbey, in 1824, they were putting up the present reredos, or rather " restoring" in " artificial stone" the old one.5 My uncle's instruction was mainly in mathematics ; he carried me on through trigonometry and mechanics, in which I took great pleasure. He also gave me direct instruction in architecture, of which he possessed a very fair knowledge. I was by him initiated into classic architecture, both Greek and Roman ; and a friend of his (the Rev. H. Foyster), who had been once intended for our profession, having lent me a copy of Sir William Chambers' work, and some one else a portion of Stewart's Athens, I was able to follow up architectural drawing, as then taught, pretty systematically, and by the time I was articled I had already been put through my facings to a certain reasonable extent. I think I also had access to Rickman, as I certainly got to know the ordinary facts as to the different periods of mediaeval architecture. The only treatise I had before seen on this subject hadbeen an article in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, of which I remember little but the illustrations, more especially a west elevation of Rheims Cathedral, in which I took, when quite a child, the greatest delight. I stayed, I suppose, with my uncle about a twelvemonth, on and off. Though a somewhat so...