356 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[|Decembeb, 



theum." All the more pity then that it sliould he stuck on to a 

 little smuff sasli-wiiidowed house. It seems, however, that " the 

 front is of white marble." All the more pity ajjain, tliat wliite 

 marble should liave been wasted u]>on a design for whieh latli and 

 plaster would have been quite good enoujih. The turninff Erech- 

 theiims and Parthenons into prose is a notable achievement, truly ! 



VIII. Although she indulges in a good deal of young-lady-like 

 writing and feminine sentimentality, much ready-made enthusiasm 

 (but of a rather threadbare sort) included, Mrs. T. is a very mattei- 

 of-fact sort of lady, — a mere matermlist in criticism. Artistic idea 

 and design, or the absence of them, are to her as nothing in com- 

 parison with tlie merit derived from such materials as white marbleor 

 granite. The adverting to the mere circumstance of material, when 

 every other is passed over, does not bespeak much competency to the 

 task in one who professes to instruct others in architecture, and 

 direct their taste. Mrs. T.'s criticism never ventures beyond a poor, 

 solitary, mateless, forlorn-old-bachelor, celibatarian epithet ; and 

 even that is not only exceedingly loose and vague, but sometimes 

 quite misap])lied also. If we may believe what she «u.v-S Yale 

 College Library is a " beautiful edifice ;" but if we are to believe 

 what she shuws, and to trust to our own eyes rather than to her 

 ■words, it must be truly execrable in every respect. That building 

 and Hartford Athenaeum (of which a ]n'int is also given) are both by 

 the same architect (H. Austin), and are both meant to be in tlie 

 Gothic style-^of the Strawberry Hill period, it may be presumed. 

 Which is the most hideous of the two — to which of them the 

 "J5e/«r Tin-jiiori" (uight to be assigned, it would be difficult, per- 

 haps impossible, to decide. Their similarity of merit — or demerit, 

 is so great, that Mrs. T. herself has been forced to employ precisely 

 the same terms for their characterization, calling the one and the 

 other " a symmetrical and effective building," — a proof that her 

 stock of expressions is but a very scanty one. " Effective" enough 

 they both are, no doubt, and so is — an emetic : and just like an 

 emetic, it is, that they operate ; at least, if they resemble the repre- 

 sentations of them in the book. Some time ago, an American 

 journal made mention of a fish without eyes ; and it would seem 

 that the Americans themselves are altogether without eyes (or eye) 

 for Gothic architecture. 



IX. It was to be supposed that Mrs. T. would avail herself 

 largely of the opportunity of chronicling for fame some of her 

 own countrymen, in her " Chronological Table of the Principal 

 Architects ;" instead of which, she does not there insert the name 

 of a single one, assigning for the omission tlie following not very 

 logical reason : — " It would be very desirable to add here a list of 

 eminent American architects; but so many of the most distin- 

 guished are still living, that we must deny ourselves the pleasure!" 

 Oh, Mrs. T.! Mrs. T.! What a woman's reason! You are 

 woman all over ! 



*' In reasoning weak, in ciptivation strong." 



Dead worthies, it seems, are not to be spoken of, because the 

 race is not extinct, and other worthies are still alive. Very 

 easily might you have helped yourself to some notices of American 

 architects, quite sufficient for your purpose, from Dunlop's 

 "History of the Arts of Design in the United States"; but you 

 scorn to borrow or pilfer from anybody. 



X. At any rate, it cannot be said that Mrs. Tuthill has failed 

 to enrich her volume with a glossary ; and a particularly rich 

 treat it is to the lovers of fun and laughter. I, for one, was cer- 

 tainly guilty of man's-Zanyhler, when I read her definition of 

 " vertical." I would take a thousand bets tliat no one would ever 

 guess it. She does not indeed actually say that "vertical" 

 means "horizontal;" but she says— never would you find it out 

 of yourself — that it means "opposite;" which being the case, I 

 am quite vertical — in ojiinion I mean, and in opinion only — to 

 Mrs. T. How fortunate, or else how unfortunate, it is that the 

 Atlantic is between us ! 



XI. Among those with whom Mrs. T. has got into debt by her 

 literary borrowings from them, is Mrs. Jameson ; of whose descrip- 

 tion of the Konigsbau, at Munich, she has availed herself, without 

 having the grace to acknowledge its authorship, or the policy to 

 quote it in evidence of the competency of a female pen. IIovv- 

 ever, if she has defrauded some of her literary creditors, she has 

 paid off one of the smallest of them with usurious interest ; 

 namely, the gentleman to whom she has thought proper to apply 

 the epithet "learned," as the most characteristic one which she 

 could select,— or it was the one perhaps which was just then at 

 the point of her pen, — styling him emphatically "the learned 

 •Urfion"! Possibly, such ejiithet may, as a genei"al one, be well 



merited by the what-shall-I-call-him to whom it is applied ; yet 

 hardly appropriate to tlie actual occasion, since the words she 

 quotes are only a sample of what Sam Slick calls " soft sawder." 

 Go to, Mrs. T., — where you deserve to go to, I don't say; but go 

 to, for a very quizzical and roguish woman. 



OCCASIONAL NOTES UPON ART. 

 By Fkedehick Lush. 



I. We admire true art, on account of its ennoliling tendency. 

 This has its origin in principles which, founded in the constituticiu 

 of our nature, are the foundation of excellence. It w<nild not be 

 a difficult, though a very interesting task, from the varied and 

 honoured labours of the artist, to show that success demands, upon 

 his part, the exercise of the highest mental faculties. Ileal art is 

 an evidence of these — a manifestation of skill and manly energy. 

 It proclaims with eloquence its intrinsic dignity. How often, for 

 instance, do the stately monuments which her genius has reared 

 force themselves on our regard, rivetting our attention, and com- 

 manding our admiration, even when men are intently occupied in 

 the bustling transactions and exciting pursuits of life ! When the 

 appeals of art are so powerful, it would be idle to say anything in 

 vindication of its character, were it not that there are creatures 

 upon whose minds they seem to make no impression, and who 

 rudely pass them by, or only cast upon them a look of cold indif- 

 ference. To write, however, on subjects of pure and sublime art, 

 is to eulogise them, and at the same time, to give to the world 

 a history of the good they have effected ; but this has been felt 

 and acknowledged, from time immemorial, by all persons who have 

 claims to our respect for their quick sensibility to beauty and lofty 

 elevation of intellect : for, to the poet they have ever afforded a 

 congenial and favourite theme ; to the wealthy an opportunity of 

 gratifying their own taste in a judicious encouragement of talent ; 

 nor has posterity ever forgotten those artists whose services and 

 beautiful emanations have thrown such a glory over their voca- 

 tion, but have recorded their names on the roll of fame, as bene- 

 factors to their race. There is no reader of those remarkable poems, 

 the Iliad and Odyssey, but must remember the frequent allusions 

 which Homer makes to the works of the skilled Sidonian artists 

 and cunning artificers ; with what warm sympathy, but, at tha 

 same time, with what propriety he introduces descriptions of va- 

 rious instruments and accoutrements of war — royal and sacerdotal 

 vestments curiously woven — the shield of the hero Achilles — with 

 works of larger construction — architectural fabrics — such as in 

 after ages were conceived by a Palladio, or by a Sir Christopher 

 Wren. He considers all these as growing under the superintend- 

 ing eye and inspiration of personified Divinity — be it Pallas or 

 other goddess, the beauty of their contrivance and the transcend- 

 ancy of their invention being referred to a superior pow er, who 

 strengthened the artists' energies. Moreover, he reminds us how 

 the workmanship added immeasurably to the value of the mate- 

 rial, by the superiority of mind over matter. Yet, whether it was 

 the architect who built the lofty pile, or the potter who fashioned 

 utensils of domestic use into forms of beauty, each, by the selec- 

 tion of the most durable materials, insured to his work the greatest 

 permanence possible. The lower departments of art received a 

 high degree of artistical effect from the refined feeling and know- 

 ledge of harmonious composition applied to them ; it being an im- 

 portant aim in those decorative and ornamental arts which adorned 

 the palace or the temple to cultivate beauty of design in the 

 fullest extent ; so Minerva is represented as watching over and 

 herself occupied in the " illustrious labours of the loom ;" but it 

 was not the stuff of the tapestry, nor the precious stones that 

 composed the floor of rich inlay, but the design that graced it, 

 which was admired and commended. In works of fictile manufac- 

 ture, where the finer and most delicate skill of the hands was vi- 

 sible, the splendid vase is praised, not because its material was 

 costly, but because it was "figured with art that dignified the gold," 

 and reflected the image of a master-mind. We witness, in all this, 

 a most consummate taste and judgment. So Ovid, in the opening 

 of his glowing description of Phaston : — 



''Regia Solis erat aublimibus alia columnis, 

 Clara viicante auro , Jiammasque imitante pyropo ;■ 

 Cujus ebur nitidum Jastigia suiiima tegebat ; 

 Aryenli bifores radiabant tumhue valvce, 

 Materiem superabat opus.^* 



The bard of the Hiad says, the inventor of these elegant arts was 



