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WYATT, JAMES. 



WYATT, MATTHEW DIGBY. 



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attractive as the resort and rendezvous of the gay world ; yet how far 

 it merited all the encomiums passed upon it as a work of architecture, 

 it is now hardly possible to decide. Of the original structure nothing 

 now remains except the front towards Oxford-street, rebuilt after the 

 fire, and subsequently altered ; nor, though it was esteemed a master- 

 piece, has any publication of the original designs preserved to us au 

 authentic memorial of Wyatt's Pantheon. There exist indeed views 

 of the great room, or ' rotuuda,' but they are such that very little 

 reliance is to be placed upon them ; and even were they satisfactory 

 in themselves, they furnish very imperfect information ; nor is more 

 to be obtained from description, nothing deserving to be so called 

 having been written at the time. 



Greatly as it was admired, the Pantheon did not procure for Wyatt 

 a second opportunity of distinguishing himself in the metropolis by 

 any other building of note, either public or private. Commissions 

 poured in upon him, but all from different parts of the country, and 

 chiefly for private residences, the majority of which hardly aspired to 

 the character of mansions. Taken collectively, that class of his works 

 affords stronger evidence of extensive practice than of superior talent. 

 Considered individually, their architectural merit is of a negative kind. 

 As houses they are commodious and not without a certain air of dig- 

 nity ; but when looked at, they show themselves to be the works of 

 an able builder rather than an architect, and exhibit far more of 

 clever mannerism and of uniformly respectable mediocrity than 

 of style or artist-like treatment, they being nearly all variations of the 

 same design. James Wyatt was a degree or two less frivolous than 

 Adam, yet hardly more dignified ; nevertheless it must be acknow- 

 ledged that we are greatly indebted to both of them, if not for the 

 taste, for the superior accommodation and the refinement of comfort 

 which they introduced into our domestic architecture. Wyatt's 

 Grecian style, admired in his own day for its then almost proverbial 

 'simplicity ' and chasteness, now strikes us as being extremely jejune 

 and bare, and not so marked by as deficient in that artistical simplicity 

 which results from uniform finish throughout, perfect harmony of 

 character, and unity of expression. There is more of the pretty than 

 of the beautiful, of the neat than of the elegant, of the plain than of 

 the simple, in his so-called Grecian or Greco-Italian style; nor could 

 it perhaps be better described than as a sort of genteel commonplace. 

 Probably he would have done more in his art had he been employed 

 on fewer works, for the multiplicity of his professional engagements 

 prevented him from bestowing much study on the respective designs. 

 It has been recorded of him as matter for admiration that he was in 

 the habit of improvising his designs while travelling in his carriage 

 to the places he was about to be employed at ; no wonder therefore 

 that so many of them present such sameness and poverty of ideas, and 

 so very little study, being apparently little more than first hasty 

 sketches, with hardly any revising. 



Accustomed to this specious commonplace and indolent fertility, 

 he could scarcely rise above it on occasions which either demanded 

 or afforded opportunity for achieving something really noble. His 

 design for Downing College, Cambridge, where however he was uofc 

 eventually employed, was animadverted upon in a letter from Mr. T. 

 Hope to the architect himself, as being altogether unworthy of the 

 occasion. Neither did Chiswick inspire Wyatt with any kindred 

 feeling, for though the wings which he added to the house rendered 

 it more commodious as a residence, they sadly marred its original 

 grace as a finished gem of Palladian architecture. 



About the time of James Essex's death (1784), the only architect 

 of the period who had shown any knowledge of Gothic architecture 

 in regard to its details, if not its principles, Wyatt began to turn bis 

 attention to that style, which he studied in the original examples. 

 There was indeed then hardly any other course to be pursued, for 

 there were no publications, as at present, to initiate the student into 

 it, and facilitate his progress by exhibiting specimens of it in all its 

 manifold varieties. What architects of the present day find delineated 

 and measured for them on paper, and always ready for reference, 

 Wyatt had to draw and measure for himself; it is therefore highly to 

 his credit that under Buch circumstances, and amidst so many other 

 avocations, he gained the insight into it which he did ; and that he 

 attained to correctness in his details and individual features, though 

 not to a clear perception of the spirit and true character of the style. 

 Very great allowance is therefore to be made for him, and it is scarcely 

 fair, poor as his designs are, to call him, as one who is himself dis- 

 tinguished by his knowledge of that style has done, "James Wyatt of 

 execrable memory." 



His first essay in that style was Mr. Barrett's at Lee near Canter- 

 bury (1783), and it was for tho architect as happy a hit in its way as 

 the Pantheon had been. Extolled by Horace Walpole, it served to 

 bring thenceforward into vogue for modern residences a style of 

 Gothic comparatively admired at the time, but what would now be 

 termed ' mongrel,' tolerably correct in particular features and details 

 even those however too ecclesiastical, ill applied, and put together 

 without regard to propriety of character. From that time Wyatt 

 became " the restorer of our ancient architecture," and he certainly 

 stood singly without rival or equal. However little merit criticism 

 may now award to any of his productions of that class, we are cer- 

 tainly in no small degree indebted to him for the practical revival of 

 Gothic, although we now perceive that he did not adopt the best 



course. In the way of making alterations and ' improvements ' in the 

 older edifices in that style, he was extensively employed at some 

 of the colleges at Oxford and at the cathedrals of Salisbury and 

 Lichfield ; but his works at these places have since been considered 

 rather ' destructions ' than ' restorations,' and even at the time occa- 

 sioned very strong remonstrances. In that splendid caprice, Fonbhill 

 Abbey, erected for Mr. Beckford, and now dismantled, there was more 

 of magnificence than propriety of character : instead of being palatial, 

 the edifice was modelled externally after a church, and even as such 

 by no means happily in its general form and proportions. While en- 

 gaged upon it he succeeded Sir W. Chambers, in 1796, as surveyor- 

 general, which led to his being employed at Woolwich and the House 

 of Lords, and by George III. at Windsor Castle and at Kew, where he 

 began to erect for the king a castellated palace, never completed, and 

 since happily entirely demolished. In 1802, on West's retiring from 

 the office of President of the Royal Academy, Wyatt became his suc- 

 cessor, to the no small dissatisfaction of that body. He was how- 

 ever not very long seated there, for the following year West was 

 re-elected. 



After this, scarcely any particulars have been recorded of his life, 

 although materials for a full professional biography of him may 

 possibly be in existence. He himself has left none by publishing 

 any of his numerous designs, whereby authentic memorials would have 

 been preserved to us of the Pantheon and some other works of his. 

 Of Fonthill we have illustrations in two works, the one by Britton, 

 the other and more complete one by Rutter ; yet both together do 

 not afford satisfactory architectural information. Wyatt died Sep- 

 tember 5th, 1813, in consequence of being overturned in a carriage 

 while travelling from Bath to London. He left a widow, who sur- 

 vived him till January 27th 1817, and four sons, one of whom, Ben- 

 jamin, was the architect of Drury Lane Theatre. We subjoin a liat, 

 which, though scanty and imperfect, may be found convenient as far 

 as it goes, notwithstanding that several dates require to be supplied : 

 1770-2. Pantheon, Oxford-street, London (burnt down, January 14th 

 1792). 1778. Doric Gateway, Canterbury Court, Christchurch, Oxford. 

 1783. Lee, in Kent. 1786. Observatory, Oxford. 1788. Library, 

 Oriel College, Oxford : Ionic. 1789. Salisbury Cathedral : alterations. 

 1789. Balliol College, Oxford: alterations. 1795. Fonthill Abbey, 

 begun. 1796. Military Academy, Woolwich : castellated. 1797. 

 Designs for alterations at Magdalen College, Oxford. 1800. Windsor 

 Castle : alterations. 1800. House of Lords. 1801. Designs for 

 Downing College, Cambridge. Castle Coote, Ireland: Grecian. Cashio- 

 bury. Ashridge. Gothic Palace at Kew, now demolished. Mauso- 

 leum at Cobham, Kent. Mausoleum at Brocklesby, Lincolnshire. 



* WYATT, MATTHEW DIGBY, architect and writer on decora- 

 tive art, was born at Rowde, near Devizes, Wilts, in 1820, the son 

 of Matthew Wyatt, Esq., late police magistrate of Lambeth-street 

 Police Court. He was educated at Devizes until he was sixteen years 

 old, when he entered the office of his brother Mr. Thomas Henry 

 Wyatt, the architect, and commenced the study of his profession. 

 Within a year he gained a prize given for the best essay on ' Grecian 

 Doric' given by the Architectural Society. In 1837 he became a 

 student at the Royal Academy. In 1844 he went abroad, and studied 

 hard for rather more than two years, bringing home with him on his 

 return nearly a thousand drawings from the principal monuments of 

 architecture and decoration in France, Italy, Sicily, and Germany. 

 The most elaborate of these were a series of 'Specimens of the 

 Geometrical Mosaics of the Middle Ages,' which were published in fac- 

 simile in 1848, accompanied with a 'Historical Notice of the Art,' 

 founded upon papers read by the author before the Royal Institute of 

 British Architects, the Archaeological Institute, and the Society of 

 Arts. Through his connection with the last-named body, Mr. Wyatt 

 became interested in the practical improvement of manufactures, and 

 was led at various times to communicate ~to the society the following 

 papers in addition to one on mosaics : 'On enamels and enamelling;' 

 'On metal-work generally;' 'On the Paris Exposition of 1849;' 

 and 'An Attempt to define the Principles which should determine 

 form in the Decorative Arts.' The last-mentioned formed one of tho 

 series proposed by Prince Albert " On the Results of the Exhibition 

 of 1851." 



For two years after his return from abroad, Mr. Wyatt was closely 

 occupied in the intervals of his professional engagements in writing 

 for the press generally. In 1848 he re-arranged and decorated the 

 Adelphi Theatre. In 1849 he went down to Birmingham for the 

 'Journal of Design' to study the Exhibition of Manufactures held at 

 Bingley House, the immediate precursor of the Great Exhibition. He 

 was immediately afterwards despatched to Paris by the council of the 

 Society of Arts to examine and report upon the Exposition held there 

 in that year; he also undertook to prepare reports of it for various 

 journals and periodicals. Mr. Wyatt went with Mr. Cole [COLE, 

 HENRY] to Paris, where they were joined by Mr. Francis Fuller, who, 

 with Mr. John Scott Russell, had been in communication with Prince 

 Albert with respect to a corresponding exhibition in England. Messrs. 

 Cole and Fuller returned to England to start the scheme, find capi- 

 talists, &c., leaving Mr. Wyatt to complete the materials for an 

 elaborate report on French experience in the matter. 



On his return to London Mr. Wyatt was nominated as secretary, 

 and Messrs. Fuller and Coles commiflsisonera by Prince Albert, to 



