153 J 



SKETCHES BY A PRACTISING ARCHITECT. 

 No. VIII. 



** I must have liberty withal : — as free a charter as 

 The wind to blow on whom I please; for so fools have." 



Shakspeare. 



*' What is your opinion," said my companion, "of 

 Mr. 's buildings ? " 



" Simply this," said I : " They exhibit as much 

 merit as may be looked for in the designs of a man 

 not regularly educated as an architect." 



There was a slight tinge of the contemptuous in 

 the expression of his countenance, as he demanded 

 ^^ What I meant by a regularly educated architect ?" 

 and that expression became still more apparent as 

 he continued, in the same breath, to answer his own 

 question, by supposing that "the regular education 

 of an architect could mean little more than a suffici- 

 ency of constructive acquirement added to a fair 

 proportion of natuml taste." 



It is thus that architects, even in this day of im- 

 proved knowledge, and by men of approved educa- 

 tion and accomplishments, are confounded with 

 cabinet makers — no offence to the latter. Construc- 

 tive acquirement perfects the carpenter, and is 

 necessary to the architect, who, without it, might 

 give his " taste" impracticable scope; fascinating 

 his employer by the beauty of a design that he may 

 afterwards be disappointed by the impossibility of its 

 realization. As it has just been hinted, natural 

 taste may convert a joiner into a cabinet maker, and 

 possibly stimulate him to become an architect ; but 

 the practice of architectural design is just as much 

 dependant upon acquirement as that of constructive 

 carpentry. A man may become a very tolerable 

 architect without having an iota of natural taste, 

 which signifies, that the art is much less of a Jine 

 arty and much more of a science y than is usually 

 imagined. It is scientific in respect to its positive 

 laws of proportion — the distinct classification of its 

 several varieties — the established observances which 



VOL. v.— 1835. V 



