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OF THE FINE ARTS. 



xxxv 



levelled old St Paul's, and under his eye the 

 present magnificent edifice arose into existence. 

 It is not alone what an architect accomplishes 

 that we are bound to admire ; we should take 

 into consideration the beauties which he is not 

 permitted to realize the designs which public 

 opinion or private intrigue prevent him from ful- 

 filling. Sublime in conception, harmonious in 

 combination, and unequalled for geometrical 

 unity though the present edifice is, it is excelled, 

 in all these high properties, by the other model 

 of the great artist still preserved in the archives 

 of the church. The internal arrangement dis- 

 pleased the duke of York, who, desirous of re- 

 establishing popery, wished to have room for the 

 monks. The external elegance offended some 

 of the dignitaries of the church, who desired to 

 see the figure of the cross less embellished ; and 

 between them they compelled the architect to 

 adopt a design which he did not wholly approve. 

 Of the worth of what we have lost, we may form 

 some notion from the grandeur of the present 

 structure, which, in lofty elegance and exquisite 

 harmony of parts, excels all works of the kind, 

 ancient or modern. Of the fifty churches of 

 London built by Wren, some are scarcely infe- 

 rior to St Paul's in beauty and geometrical unity. 

 Vanbrugh had genius of a high order ; his 

 works are grand, but irregular ; picturesque, but 

 wanting in propriety. He sacrificed too much 

 to situation ; in his structures he laboured to 

 raise something in the spirit of the landscape 

 around; and though he succeeded, as may be 

 seen in Blenheim, yet it must be confessed that 

 his works are less pleasing than striking and 

 uncommon. Other skilful architects followed. 

 Some of the dead will live, and some of the 

 living will not die, for their buildings will make 

 their names known to future centuries. It must 

 be confessed, however, that grand structures are 

 not in request, either of a religious or a national 

 kind. Save St Paul's, not a single cathedral 

 has been built in England since the Reformation. 

 The noble old abbeys are the work of Catholic 

 priests, who, married to the church, laid out their 

 wealth on the adornment of their sacred spouse. 

 Nor, since the days of Wren, has a single edifice 

 of a national kind been raised at all worthy of 

 our name. Our palaces though some have been 

 rebeautified, and that skilfully are anything but 

 princely ; our military and marine structures are 

 for use, it is true, but elegance might have 

 mingled more with the conception ; and London, 

 the capital of the first maritime empire in exist- 

 ence, is but a city of brick-stacks, with nothing 

 worthy of outliving it save half-a-dozen churches, 

 the cathedral of St Paul, the bank, Westminster 



abbey, and the bridges of London and Waterloo. 

 There is an apathy in the nation for such works ; 

 moreover, our architects are divided ; our read- 

 ing and schooling are for the classic, our heart 

 and nature for the Gothic. The latter will likely 

 succeed, and more than an indication of its 

 triumph has of late been made manifest. 



In sculpture much has been achieved since the 

 merciless hand of reform was laid upon the saints 

 and madonnas of the Catholic cathedrals. It 

 has, however, wholly separated itself from archi- 

 tecture. It is true that statues still occupy the 

 pediments or recesses of the architect's designs ; 

 but these, like the figures of Verrio and La 

 Guerre, are matters essentially picturesque, and 

 have nothing to do with sentiment and feeling. 

 No architect mingles sculpture with the interior 

 of a church or a palace ; places are left void, 

 for the genius of the sister art to fill up as 

 opportunities occur ; situations for statues are 

 merely indicated, or places for groups or reliefs ; 

 while room nigh the altar is left for a picture, to 

 be supplied by the chance charity of some opu- 

 lent devotee, or of an artist anxious to secure a 

 good light and a large audience for one of his 

 scriptural canvasses, of which no purchaser asked 

 the price. This injures the unity of the archi- 

 tecture, for few sculptors regard as we may see 

 in Westminster abbey the harmony of the work 

 around ; they desire to bring their own produc- 

 tions strongly forward. Nor is this all ; they 

 now and then give secular employments to 

 figures set up in sacred places. 



The first of our eminent latter sculptors was 

 Gibber ; and the works by which he will be known 

 to posterity are the Madness and Melancholy 

 carved for the asylum at Moorfields. They are 

 boldly and poetically, as well as naturally con- 

 ceived, and more than approach the designs of 

 the great Italian artists. Gibber sought to re- 

 vive the antique taste for the presence of sculp- 

 ture in arbours and gardens, and scattered his 

 fawns and satyrs, and gods and goddesses, 

 among the woods of Chatsworth. But our moist, 

 cold climate is out of harmony with the nude 

 progeny of the sunny lands of Asia or Greece ; 

 nor has learning yet induced us to love forms 

 which our reason rejects. Banks, with more 

 than the poetic feeling of Gibber, delighted in 

 classic subjects ; his sketches from the works of 

 Homer breathe the true austere spirit of anti- 

 quity. They are, however, but little known, 

 with the exception of his statue of Achilles, while 

 his national monuments are too well known, and 

 leave an impression on the public mind unfa- 

 vourable to his fame. Their chief fault is an 

 utter want of historic propriety ; he desired to 



