1830.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



351 



114 

 "For the height am we have 90 : 38 = 30 ; am, or am^—:= 



12-06 hi. Miike fi m equal to li-filj in., and from m draw mg and 

 mil, to meet the ])eri)endiculars from rf and c in p and ?(. Now from 

 p and II draw ph and itg. 



" Let the thickness of each of the piers be G feet ; tlien for the point 



2100 

 1 we have 00 : 70 = 30 : 1, or 1 = -^- = 2 1-87 in. from //. The 



90 



2100 

 point 2, in the centre, is= --— = 20 in. from h ; the point 3 is ^ 



2100 



18'42 in. from /(. 



SOX -to 



" In a similar manner we find that the point 4 is =; vwr-^ '"• f'™" g ' 



the point 5 



80X40 

 135 



80x40 . 



in., and ^ — -- — in. from g, 



"At those distances, when set off, draw perpendiculars to gh. 



"Let the lieight of the springingsof the arches be 24 feet; then we 



72 1 



have 90 ; 24^30 : 8, or 8 = — = 8 in. above a. Make as ecpva 



to 8 in., and from s draw sg and sA. 



" Let the arches be semi-circular ; tlien the height i to the crown 



99 

 will he 33 feet. Hence we get 90 : 33= 30 : /, or < = - = 11 in. 



above a. Set it up, and draw tg and tli. The intersection of Ig, with 

 the perpendicular from 5, gives the representation of tlie crown of the 

 one arch ; and the intersection of //j, with the perpendicular frtjm 2, 

 gives the representation of the other arch." 



The conchtdmg sections contain practical examj)les, and shows the 

 applicability of the system to Laitdacape Painting. 



Although we have extracted very freely from the volume before us, 

 we must refer the scientific reader to the essay itself, if he wishes to 

 obtain a knowledge of the author's system, from which we are sure he 

 will tlerive much pleasure, by contemplating its novelty and ingenuity 



The Jlncient Ha!/-Timbered Houses uf England. By. M. Habershon 

 Architect. Large 4to. 30 Plates. Weale. 183G. 

 We know not how to account for the date upon the title-page 

 otherwise than as an error of the press: the introductory essay bearing 

 the date of March, 1839. It is possible, therefore, as it is so recently 

 published, that that portion of the work may still draw forth some 

 reply from Mr. Pugin, unless he should consider Mr. Habershon an 

 antagonist less worthy of his notice than was the anonymous writer in 

 Fraztr's JMagazinc, or else deem it more prudent to be silent. Indeed 

 silence appears to be almost his only course for safety, since it will be 

 exceedingly difficult for him, we imagine, even to make a show 

 of disproving his egregious unfairness with respect to estimating 

 the architure of tlie present day, and further his attack on Pro- 

 testantism, In fact, Mr. Habershon has decidedly the best of the 

 argument; and his remarks must convince every one, that in order to 

 make out anything like a case in favour of his own views, and his own 

 church, Mr. Pugin was obliged to have recourse to the most trumpery 

 expedients and clumsy shifts, foisting upon us the house of the com- 

 mandery of the Knight's Templars at Grantham, as a specimen of an 

 ancient inn, because it is now converted into one ; and dragging for- 

 ward the wretched structure at Battle Bridge, as an instance of a mo- 

 dern cross, because it happens to bear the name of King's Cross. Had 

 Mr. Pugin contented himself with showing that the Roman Catholic 

 religion is greatly more favourable to the display of magnificence in 

 sacred buildings than Protestantism either is or affects to be ; and that 

 with here and there an exception, our modern churches are greatly in- 

 ferior in arihitectural character and style, he would have said no more 

 than the truth, and no more than what the public, architects included, 

 are ready to admit. But when he would make it appear tliat not only 

 our buildings belonging to that particular class — and in which pouiji 

 and splendour are rather shunned than ;U all aimed at — are inferior to 

 those of Catholic times, but that architecture itself has progressively 

 declined among us since the Reformation, and continues to decline still 

 more and more every day ; he quite oversiioots his mark, and lays 

 himself open to the charge of either wilful blindnesss, or very great 

 ignorance. No one can deny him zeal, even to furiousness, in support 

 of the cause in which he has put himself forth as a vohmteer advocate ; 

 yet it may be cjuestioned whether even his own party will not consider 

 him rather an officious bunglar. No one but a complete bunglar would 

 have gone out of his way as he has done, in order to call atteutiiju most 

 pointedly to one very important difference in the condition of Catliolic 



and Protestant clmrcli ; namely, that the clergy of the latter may 

 marry, while those of the former are interdicted from doing so ; which 

 prohibition has been the source of the most enormous scandals to the 

 see of Rome, not only among its monks and inferior clergy, but its 

 dignitaries; nay, more, in the )ierson of its supreme pontiffs, the popes 

 themselves, many of whom have been men of the most notorious pro- 

 fligacy, surrounded by mistresses and bastards, and who, could they see 

 Mr. Pugin's satirical etching, displaying the " Nursery windows" of 

 the present Ely house, in Dover-street, would hold it to be a most 

 bitter antl stinging liliel upon themselves. 



Now, had Mr. Pugin been forced to bring forward, or even in any 

 way to allude to this very unfortunate point of co;i/r(/s/, we might have 

 pitied and compassionated the awkward perpelxily he must have 

 found himself in: but when we find him actually lugging it in for the 

 nonce, all we can say is, that he shows himself a most blundering Mala- 

 prop of an advocate, and a very great blockhead. 



We have expressed ourselves with far greater vivacity than Mr. 

 Habershon does, for he does not apply rerhis ipssisshnis, the epithets 

 we have made use, yet what he says clearly enough proves tliey are 

 richly merited ; therefore the only difference between us is, that he has 

 more of the snavittr in modo, than we caj-e to display towards anoftt'uder 

 like Welby Pugin, — one who speaks of all his professional brethren of 

 the present day with contempt, stigmatizing them in a lump, without 

 a single exception in favour of any one architect or any one build- 

 ing, but cautiously abstaining from mentioning or alluding, in any way, 

 to what he caimot hold up to ridicule. Criticism he does not even 

 once attempt; for, in all that he says, there is nothing that amounts to 

 more than a brief and decisive enunciation of censure, without any 

 attempt to specify or even explain the grounds for it. Adopting a 

 very different course, Mr. Habershon distinctly answers all his alle- 

 gations ; completely anatomizes his contrasts, and examines his plates 

 one by one, in doing which he convicts our amiable " Mrs. Candour" of 

 the most Jesuitical sophistry and cunning, and of a direct — most 

 laboured effort to represent modern architecture in a very degraded 

 state by making the most far-fetched and strained comparisons. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. P.'s rule, we should be justified in contrasting a village 

 alms-house of the fourteentli centurv with Greenwich Hospital, the oUl 

 gateway leading into Bartholomew Close with the archway at the 

 corner of the Graen Park, and Oxford Cathedral with St. Paul's, by 

 way of showing the great progress since the time of the Reformation. 



Nay, we very much question whether Mr. P. is quite sincere, be- 

 cause his zeal looks quite over-acted, and very miudi like that of a 

 barrister who feels that he has undertaken to defend an exceedingly 

 bad cause. As the triumph would have been infinitely greater, we 

 naturally suppose that could he possibly have done so, he woiild have 

 brought forward some of the rtnj best specimens of modern gothic 

 and confronted them with only second-rate ones of the earlier period 

 he selects from, in order to show the prodigious superiority of the ori- 

 ginal style ; whereas by resorting to a directly opposite mode of com- 

 parison, he has acted highly indiscreetly, and incautiously, anil thrown 

 a slur upon the cause he professes to defend. When he compares 

 together Bishop Skirlaw's chapel ami the one at Somer's-town; 

 the compliment to the former is of a strangely equivocal kind, some- 

 what akin to that of telling a well-dressed woman she looks far 

 more like a beauty and a fine lady than a slatternly dowdy dogs. 



Setting aside, however, all unfairness of this kind, there is one 

 circumstance which, in his " candour," the author of the contrasts 

 ought most assuredly to have noticed and borne honest testimony to, 

 namely, that so far from our being at all insensible to the beauties of 

 gothic architect, the study of it has been greatly encoura^'ed among us 

 during the last half century, and that an acquaintance with it is now 

 considered almost indispensable to every professional man. He miglit 

 further have admitted that, considering the style was har<lly begun to 

 to be lirought again into practice until the commencement of the pre- 

 sent century, a greater proficiency has been attained to in tlian could 

 reasonably be expected ; and of this he might have foimd very satis- 

 factory proofs had he, instead of going to the worst and most paltry 

 modern s])ecimens he could ]uck up, reierred us to the buildings and 

 designs of such men as Barrv, Buckler, Rickman, Salvin, which have 

 not merely a knowledge of, but a true feeling for tlie style. Nay, 

 were all the reproaches heaped by him on Protestants and no mo- 

 dern architects greatly more merited than they are, from him do they 

 not come with the best possible grace, and might therefore, at all 

 events, be less acrimonious in tone — or has lie altogether forgotten the 

 Hattering, yet certainly well-merited reception which the publications 

 of the late Augustus Pugin met with from the very class id' persons he 

 reviles. If, alter seriously coi,sidering all this, and what has been 

 urged against him, both by Mr. Habershon and many others, Mr. Welby 

 Pugin should still persist' in the opinions he has put forth, without in 

 any degree qualifying them, in consequence of not having duly 



■1 v. 



