IS40.1 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XII. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withil, as large a charter as the winJs, 

 t'o blow on whom I jilcase." 



T. From all the views and drawings I have ever seen of Abbotsford, 

 lalvrays considered it to be a very trumpery specimen of architecture, 

 but I was not before aware of the exceedingly whimsical taste of Sir 

 Walter Scott, until I saw the view of the dining-room given in the 

 ninth volume of Lockhart's Life of him now publishing. Will it be 

 believed that that dining-room contains one of the oddest and most 

 impertinent pieces of furniture imaginable for such an apartment? 

 Had it been a Rumford cooking apparatus or something of that kind, 

 its convenience might have excused its oddity and homeliness, but 

 what shall we say to a four-post bedstead in a dining-room ? There 

 certainly is no accounting for tcistes; and the idea is a sufficiently original 

 one. Perhaps it was intended as a refinement on the Roman mode of 

 lying recumbent at table upon couches. But I trust that no one will 

 thintc of imitating Sir Walter in that particular fancy of his, or people 

 will henceforth strip and get into bed, instead of sitting down, to table. 

 At least that should be a privilege exclusively confined to persons of 

 genius, — not extended to ordinary mortals, good reader, like you and 

 me. Well, there certainly must have been comical doings at Abbots- 

 ford, if such was the custom of the place; and we insignificant no- 

 bodies may be very well content with dining-rooms without beds in 

 them. 



II. The Abbotsford dining-room remhidsme of the Scott Monument 

 at Edinburgh. How is that getting on ? — or how happens it that we hear 

 no more about it ? Is it, like the Edinburgh Parthenon, the monument 

 of a monument that was to have been ; or like the Nelson Mon\iinent 

 in Trafalgar Square, altogether an imaginary, immaterial fabric, Certes, 

 monuments are not things of mushroom growth. 



III. We are, now it seems, all at once going to be filled with ad- 

 miration of Inigo Jones; which is passing strange, considering that 

 they abound with the very faults that are found unindurable when they 

 occur in modern buildings. With what consistency of taste, those 

 who are shocked at the impropriety of half columns and broken en- 

 tabljtures, can affect to see anv supereraineut beauty in his building 

 at Wliitehall, which has the further impropriety of an upper order 

 above a lower one, — it is for them to explain. Possibly, — since they 

 cannot but allow that the circumstances just referred to are egregious 

 defects in themselves, they will assert that there are merits and ex- 

 cellences in his designs which amply atone for all their blemishes, — 

 not to call them vices. That such is really their opinion must be 

 taken for granted ; but then, wherefore do they not vindicate theiu- 

 selves from the appearance of inconsistency, by plainly discriminating 

 between the defects they reprobate and the beauties tliey admire, and 

 informing us in what the latter consist ? Or are we to suppose, that 

 they are of the sort of critics extolled by Sterne for being pleased they 

 know not why, and care not wherefore ; — for which in ray opinion no 

 very great power of criticism is required ? Perhaps Sterne was think- 

 ing at the moment, only of the kind of critics he himself wished for, — ■ 

 and there are otheis besides him, who look more to the quantity than 

 the quality of the praise they get, but for my own part I would rather 

 obtain the approbation of one critic who could tell why he bestowed 

 it, to that of a scoreof others whose compliments seem to have no mean- 

 ing, consequently carry with them no proof of sincerity. 



However correctly and exactlv general principles may be laid down, 

 they can never be made to comprehend every specific application of 

 them; but there will invariably be, more or less, something that, al- 

 though based upon them does not obviously appear to conform to them, 

 nay perhaps may seem at variance with them, on which account those 

 who are not acquainted with the mysteries of art, becomes perplexed, 

 and are at a loss to know whether they ought to censure or are at 

 liberty to admire. It becomes the duty of criticism, therefore to elu- 

 cidate such apijarent contradictions, and in every particular case, to 

 explain how it happens that the disregard of certain established rules 

 may have been attended with beauty, or, cice ivrsa, how the adiiereuce 

 to them has failed to secure it: — again, to point out wherein frequently 

 consists the very great difference between two buildings, very similar 

 as to style and design, yet altogether uulike in regard to the impres- 

 sion they make. 



IV. Very far more stress tlian ought to be, is generally laid upon 

 simplicity of plan. For my own part, I very much question it being a 

 merit at all, when I perceive that so far from conducing to any beauty, 

 it generally constitutes a defect, inasmuch as it excludes all variety 



and combination, together with contrivance. While it leaves nothing 

 to the imagination, it does not present itself to the eye as a beauty 

 the entire plan not being seen at once ; nor do I understand what par- 

 ticular pleasure can be afforded to the mind, by knowing that with 

 regard to the distriliution and form of the several rooms there is no- 

 thing more than what has been seen over and over again. Nay, 

 I will not be quite sure that I understand what is meant by sim- 

 plicity in such cases : yet if it be meant that the plan is such that 

 any stranger can at once comprehend every part of it, by merely 

 going over the building at a single time, should say that so far 

 there would be very little to approve or admire; — certainly no 

 evidence of skill or ingenuity, and very little of either picturesque 

 effect, contrast or variety, because where they do not result almost 

 entirely from accident, they are produced by a study which aims at 

 something more than mere simplicity of plan. While the latter tends 

 to make a large house seem smaller than it is, a certain degree of in- 

 tricacy and complexity causes a moderate sized one to appear con- 

 siderably larger, especially where the arrangement is such that rooms 

 mav present themselves unexpectedly after we suppose that we have 

 gone over the whole. Still there are limits to be observed: com- 

 plexity ought not to be carried to perplexity ; but some degree of the 

 former greatly heightens every other merit. 



V. Itis odd ; but now after the abuse throwTi upon the poor Nfi- 

 tional Gallery, because the rooms are no bigger than closets, — dis- 

 gracefully confined and mean, some one starts up and assures us that 

 thev are utterly unfit for their purpose, because they are very much — 

 too'large! So' at least says a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, who 

 contends that spacious and extensive galleries, such as that of the 

 Louvre are utterly unfit for showing pictures as they ought to be seen ; 

 and that the collection should be placSd in small rooms, — not more 

 than three or four paintings in each. This is surely running quite 

 into the other extreme ; but there certainly can be no doubt that as far 

 as enjoying pictures themselves, and not the display of a parade of 

 them, is the object, it is best obtained by hanging them so that each 

 when looked at can be distinctly seen and examined, with nothing to 

 distract attention from it. 



VI. How people can reconcile themselves to windows without dress- 

 ings in buildings where any degree of ornament or finish in other 

 respects, is aimed a.t, is almost incomprehensible. Not even on the 

 plea of economy h;is any one yet thought of entirely omitting capitals 

 to columns, though it might be done with as much propriety and con- 

 sistency ; for if a window will answer all the necessary purposes of 

 one, whether it be a mere aperture in the wall, or one properly defined 

 and finished by its own architectural border, — so also will a column 

 answer its purpose equally well, whether the top of it be fashioned as 

 an ornamental member of it or not. Nor would it, though certainly 

 more remarkable, be more solecistical and contrary to architectural 

 principle to introduce columns without capitals among dressed win- 

 dows, than naked windows among well dressed columns. Or if there 

 be any thing to render the latter, and more common mode less prepos- 

 terous than the other would be, it is because the columns themselves 

 are generally quite superfluous, therefore were their decoration 

 to be omitteil, they might be dispensed with altogether. But then, 

 on the other hand, so much the more absurd is it to have recourse to 

 columns at all — at least for decoration, — under circumstances which 

 forbid not only corresponding embellishment, but even ordinary finish 

 in any other respect. Next to omitting window dressings entirely, is 

 the fault of making them so poor and plain as to be hardly visible, as 

 is the case in many of our modern Greek buildings, in which the 

 dressings to the windows consist of a mere border distinguished by an 

 insignificant moulding around it, so as to occasion equal sameness 

 and insipidity. 



The Great Western Stemn-sJiip. — Tliis noble vessel, the pride of Bristol and 

 the queen oi' the ucean, was Ijrought up the river on Saturday morning, 1st 

 ult, and is now in Cumberland Basin, preparatory to her Ijeing placed in dock 

 and undergoing various alterations, and tor general examination and repair. 

 Durin" this week the puljlic have had the privilege of viewing the interior of 

 (his splendid sieam-ship on the payment of sixpence for each person, the 

 receipts to be equally divided between the General ILspital and the Infirmary. 

 We understand thai nearly 2U00 ! ! persons paid to inspect the vessel on Mon- 

 day, and miny hundreds on each following day. This is the first time she 

 has entered the dock gales since she left tor London, to receive her sp'endid 

 and powerful engines ; her paddle w h^^els have been removed to enaLile iier 

 to enter the gates. Her approach to the basin at seven o'clock last Satur- 

 day morning was announced by the discharge of cannun, &c. The recepta-.n 

 she met with upon arriving (at the dock ga.es) was very enthusiastic, arising 

 Irom the loud and deafening shouts which emanated from the persons assem- 

 bled '• to do honour to her appearance.' It is intended for her to resume the 

 station she has so ably and successfully filled, on Saturday, the 15th ol Fe- 

 bruary, 1840. nhich will be the commencement of her twelfth voyage across 

 ihe broad Allaniic. — Railway Magazine, 



B 2 



