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THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



arched entrance was carefully secured by a 

 falling gate or portcullis. Outside, there was 

 in many cases a regular wet ditch or fosse. 

 Castles of greater magnitude consisted of two 

 or more towers and inner buildings, including 

 a chapel and offices for domestics, and stables 

 for horses and other animals. Some of them 

 were on a great scale, and possessed considera- 

 ble grandeur of design. 



As society advanced and civil tranquillity 

 was established, these military strengths grad- 

 ually assumed a character of greater elegance ! 

 and less the appearance of defense. The wet 

 ditch disappeared, and was superseded by a ! 

 lawn or shrubbery. Instead of the drawbridge 

 and portcullis, there was a regular approach 

 and gate of ordinary construction. The win- 

 dows became larger, and were fitted with glass 

 frames, and stone was abandoned for the 

 greater comfort of wooden floors. Instead, 

 also, of a bare region around, in which no foe 

 might lurk, gardens were established, and a 

 long avenue of trees led to the front of the mod- 

 ernized mansion. In some instances the pep- 

 per-box turrets at the upper corners of the 

 building remained. Of the class of structures 

 that sprang up in this period of transition, 

 which we may refer in England to the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth and in Scotland to the seven- 

 teeth centuries, there are several highly inter- 

 esting remains. These edifices of the nobility 

 and gentry were no longer called castles ; they 

 took the name of halls, and as such had 

 attained so great a pitch of magnificence in 

 the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, as to 

 have subsequently given a name to a new style 

 the Tudor or Elizabethan. Latterly, and 

 with no very distinct reference to any particular 

 period, this remarkable fashion of building 

 has been pretty generally called the old Eng- 

 lish style of architecture. One of the best 

 existing specimens of the Tudor era of archi- 

 tecture is 1 1 addon Hall, in Derbyshire, the 

 property of the Duke of Rutland. 



Modern British Architecture. Dur- 

 ing the sixteenth century, an extraordinary 

 effort was made in Italy to restore the purity 

 of Grecian architecture ; and in this attempt 

 Palladio was followed by the not less eminent 

 Michael Angelo Buonaroti, who, at an ad- 

 vanced age, in 1546, \mdertook the continua- 

 tion of the building of St. Peter's at Rome, a 

 work on which the greatest splendors of the 

 Italian style are lavished. Into England, this 

 revived taste for the Grecian was introduced 

 at the beginning of the seventeenth century by 

 Inigo Jones, to whose contemptuous observa- 

 tions on the German or pointed style the term 

 Gothic has been traced ; and after his decease, 

 the Grecian, or more properly the Italianized 



Grecian, was perpetuated on a scale still more 

 extensive by Sir Christopher Wren. The 

 edifices erected by this great master are char- 

 acterized by the finest taste, and his spires in 

 j particular are models of elegance. The great- 

 est work of Wren was St. Paul's Cathedral in 

 London, in which the Italian is seen in all its 

 glory. 



The eighteenth century was an era of de- 

 cline in architectural taste. Every other style 

 merged in that of a spiritless and often mean 

 Graeco-Italian, out of which the architects of 

 the nineteenth century have apparently had a 

 difficulty to emerge. Latterly, there has been 

 a revival in .England of a purer kind of Gre- 

 cian, and also, as we have already said, of old 

 English, and the Gothic or pointed style, and 

 in most instances with good effect. It is only 

 to be lamented that, by the manner in which 

 state patronage is distributed in this branch of 

 the fine arts, some of the largest and most ex- 

 pensive structures Buckingham Palace and 

 the National Gallery, for example have been 

 erected on the poorest conceptions of the Gre- 

 cian style, and with a general effect far from 

 pleasing. In Paris there now exist some mod- 

 ern structures after correct Grecian models, 

 which cannot be too highly praised ; we would, 

 in particular, instance the building called the 

 Madeleine, the Bourse, and the interior of the 

 church of St. Genevieve, which are exceed- 

 ingly worthy of being visited by young and as- 

 piring architects from Britain. Of the superb 

 buildings springing up on all sides of this vast 

 continent, it is unnecessary to speak. While 

 those already in existence, notably in Wash- 

 ington, are admirable copies of the great Greek 

 and Roman periods, the so-called Queen Anne 

 is now the especial craze. 



For palatial and other secular edifices in 

 England, the Renaissance for the most part 

 was in favor in the earlier part of this century. 

 The attempt of Stuart and others in favor of 

 Greek art had but little influence upon archi- 

 tecture, while the effort of Scott and others, es- 

 pecially Ruskin, to bias the public mind in the 

 direction of the Gothic has succeeded far beyond 

 all efforts of the same kind in other countries. 

 In churches and educational institutions, it 

 found especial favor, and, in 1836, it was de- 

 cided that the legislative halls of the Empire 

 should be rebuilt in this style, according to the 

 plans of Sir Charles Barry. These contem- 

 plated a Gothic, rich but not ornate, with 

 square supporting towers at certain points. 

 flanked, like the walls, with massive buttresses. 

 The New Palace of Westminster, as it is called, 

 covers eight acres and contains upwards of five 

 hundred apartments clustered around eleven 

 open quadrangles or courts. The edifice is of 



