74 SCHEME OF THE WHITEHALL BUILDINGS 



more elaborate than De 1'Orme's and is treated in a different 

 style. 



The appearance which the building would have presented 

 from the river is well shown in Thomas Sandby's drawing 

 (Fig. i), hitherto unknown. The view is supposed to have 

 been taken from the gardens of old Somerset House previous, 

 of course, to the erection of Waterloo Bridge. It is the most 

 poetic rendering of the great scheme which has been attempted. 

 It is founded on the version published by Kent, so far as the 

 river front is concerned, and on one of the other seven designs 

 in respect of the front facing to the right of the spectator. On 

 the original drawings this front is considerably longer than 

 Sandby makes it, the lower portion being more than half as 

 long again ; a good idea may thus be obtained of the magnitude 

 of the conception. 



Admitting to the full the great skill and knowledge which 

 the designs display and which prove that Webb was not un- 

 worthy of the august influence which placed him under the 

 tuition of Inigo Jones, it is nevertheless no great matter for 

 regret that the palace was never built. It can hardly be held that 

 the complete design maintains the high standard of the Ban- 

 queting House. Much of it indeed verges on the commonplace. 

 So vast a building would have been a burden on any monarch ; 

 it would inevitably have fallen from its high estate, and would 

 probably have drifted to being put to such ignoble uses as was 

 the much smaller palace of the Louvre in Paris. If fate had 

 been less relentless it might eventually have been devoted to 

 some public use for which it was ill-contrived public offices 

 or a museum. Architecture, although apparently the most 

 permanent of all the arts, suffers most from change. Buildings 

 may remain, but the uses for which they were designed either 

 cease or are so modified that the buildings become unsuitable. 

 Then follows degradation, decay, or even destruction : at the 

 luckiest, a diversion from the original purpose. The Banqueting 

 House itself is a case in point ; for who among those who 

 inspect the interesting collection it now contains have any 

 notion of why it was built, or can picture, even faintly, the 

 scenes enacted within its walls ? 



In addition to the direct evidence which goes to show that 

 Jones was not the designer of the palace at Whitehall, there 

 is the evidence of such architectural drawings as are either 

 actually signed by him, or such as can almost certainly be 



