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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



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CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XVI. 



" I must have liberiy 

 Withal, as large a cliarter as the h ;nas, 

 To blow on «hom 1 please.'' 



I. A fiifiid of mine is in the habit of exclaiming " Damn all Dic- 

 tionary-makers," and I am tempted to say ditto as regaiils all illus- 

 trators, a set of illuminati who generally display their cleverness by 

 leaving you as much in the dark as possible. Would it be believed 

 that one of these 'picturesque' geniusses, who visited St. Petersburg 

 ' expressly' for the purpose of taking views of the most striking build- 

 ings in that capital, actually tiu'ned his back upon the portico and 

 dome of the Kazuu Church, and brought into his view of that edifice 

 merely an angle of one of the sweeping colonnades! Hogarth's sketch 

 of a Serjeant and dog entering an ale-house, which group he exhibited 

 in three strokes of his pencil, nught be taken as a satirical quiz upon 

 such shamming illustrations. What then is to be said of Soane who 

 has actually omitted in his 'Designs of Public and Private Builduigs,' 

 what is by very far the best piece of exterior architecture he ever pro- 

 duced — namely, the little semicircular loggia at the north-west angle 

 of the Bank ! ! It is indeed just discernable iu a coarse scratch of the 

 general elevation barely au inch in height ; but from the peculiarity of 

 its plan, such a piece of design required to be explained by elevations, 

 sections, &:c. on as large a scale as the size of the plates would admit, 

 which would have been about lialf au inch to a foot. That 1 am not 

 singular in my opinion as to the merits of that piece of architecture is 

 evident, because it vvas selected as the subject of the medal presented 

 to him by the Institute. Such an extraordinary omission induces me 

 to imagine that Sir John's wits were btuighttd quite as nuich as him- 

 self ; — at all events he seems to have been resolved that the purchasers 

 of his work should be left quite in the dark with resjiect to the subject 

 alluded to. Poor man ! he was not deficient in cunning, and had just 

 enough to outwit himself, one notorious instance of which is his singu- 

 lar donation of his house, by which he has bamboozled the public, but 

 damned his own character for munificence, into the bargain. 



II. Conversing the other day with (who has a greater re- 

 putation for wit than for sanctity) on the subject of the present fashion 

 — style I will not call it, in church building, I remarked that Welby 

 Pugin was after all tolerably right in some respects, and that the prac- 

 tice of enclosing the congregation in separate pews was an insuper- 

 able disadvantage in an architectural point of view, besides which it 

 seemed to me objectionable as carrying wordly distinctions and the 

 principle of uieuin and letun into the very House of God. " As regards 



architectural eftect," replied , "you are certainly right, — in 



your other objection as certainly wrong. Do you not perceive the 

 symbolic propriety and expressive meaning of the very things you find 

 fault with." — "I really do not." "Why then, my good friend, you 

 nuist have grown quite muddy-headed. — Wliatl — do you not at once 

 see the striking propriety— the analogical and practical illustration of 

 Gospel, in putting the pastor into his pulpit, and his_;ifocA- into tsheep- 

 peiin ?" 



III. "It is most deplorable and paltry," observes Prince Puckler- 

 Muskau, "when, instead of being ex])unged and corrected, a particular 

 part which is eviilently a failure, is allowed to remain a blemish to the 

 whole work, merely because it has cost so much time and money, and 

 the requisite alteration would cost so much more." Although the 

 writer is here speaking of Lauilscape-gardening, the remark is equallv 

 applicable to architecture, many productions of which, might be 

 greatly improved by amendments that are almost self-evident. It is 

 true, there ought never to be any occasion for improvement of such 

 kind, because every part and feature of a building may be, and in- 

 variably ought to be, thoroughly studied and foreseen from the designs 

 for it. 



IV. Earnestly is it to be wished that architects would endeavour to 

 emulate the other sex in the devoted application of all their faculties, 

 which those exemplary and most truly cua amore artists bestow upon 

 their handy-works. When I perceive on the one hand with what 

 plodding indifference, hurry, or carelessness, many buildings have been 

 designed ; and on the other, what anxious thought, what patience, what 

 contrivance, what ingenuity, what scheming and planning, and how 

 much consultation, are given to devise a ball dress — as if it were a 

 work destined to outlive the eternal pyramids ; — when I perceive with 

 what critical study and exactness every part of the fabric is elaborated, 

 and that as much attention is paid to the precise quality and texture 

 of the material, as if all men were men-milliners and able to tell at a 

 glance where a lady's lace and velvet have been inanufaclured, or what 



they cost per yard ; — when I see and perceive all this, I cannot help 

 drawing a comparison that is greatly to the disadvantage of us 'male 

 creatures,' especially of some of those who call themselves architects. 

 What hurried, slovenly, and slobbered work do they make of it ! in 

 what coarse, ill-assorted, and awkwardly put on finery do they attempt 

 to dress up their designs, — to say nothing of the grotesque mixture of 

 arrant shabbiness and such finery which they so frequently parade be- 

 fore our eyes in the most ridiculous manner. We men are dull jiedants 

 who judge only by rules, wdiile women are guided by a refined tact, 

 au unerring delicacy of instinct, which preserve them from committing 

 those gross solecisms in taste into which we are perpetually falling : 

 let us therefore cry out Place aiix Dames .' for they deserve to take 

 precedence of all the Old Women in Breeches, who bore us with their 

 Vitruvius, and their Palladio. 



V. Lindley Murray would go just as far towards making a poet, as 

 the writings of Vitru\-ius, Palladio, el hoc genua vmne, towards forming 

 an architect who should also rank as an artist in his profession. For 

 what are that class of architectural writers more than mere grammaiici, 

 — useful as furnishing the rudiments and implements of study, and no- 

 thing further? But it would seem that in architecture mere gramma- 

 tical accuracy is held to be everything, — the ideas, the combinations, 

 the conception, the composition — ert'ect, character, expression, com- 

 paratively nothing, — what may be left to chance; because, provided no 

 sins be committed against the petty rules of the art, be it as intolerably 

 dull as it may, the work is certain of being recognized as legitimate 

 and orthodox. Such being the case, and negative merit being accepted 

 as possitive — nay as something wonderful, nothing short of a prodigious 

 achievement in art, can we at all wonder at beholding so many sickly 

 insipidities displaying themselves in stone or cement ? or such pieces 

 of architectimd bathos, as the Biitish Insurance Office, where Agrigen- 

 tum columns .shop windows, crooked balconies, figures of sprawling 

 drunken ladies, S:c., are all jumbled and squeezed up together. If the 

 author of that monstrosity be still living, with what a shudder must he 

 be seized every time he passes by it, — unless his nerves should happen 

 to be of iron, and his scull well fortified with lead. However he has 

 certainly given, at his own cost, an exceUent lesson ^;;-y bono publico to 

 the profession, showing them very forciljly what they ought to avoid. 



VI. It was the opinion of that exceedingly sensible, but most horri- 

 ble unsentimental person, Dr. Johnson, that "marriages wciuld in gene- 

 ral be as happy and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord 

 Chancellor;" — which, liy the bye, would'be a complete death blow to 

 the novelists: — and i myself am sometimes inclined to adopt a similar 

 opinion with respect to architectural competitions, and say that innine 

 cases out of ten, the choice would prove as good were it left to the 

 Lord Chancellor, or the — Lord Mayor. Seldom could their decision 

 prove a worse one than what now frequently occurs; not often would 

 it be so bad, because ignoramus as lie might be, a Lord Mayor, would 

 as an individual feel obliged to pay some deierence to public opinion; 

 whereas a committee can aftbrd to brave it, since whatever maybe the 

 odium that falls upon it as a body, no member of it feels in his own 

 person. As to the Lord Chancellor, however, I should be loth to com- 

 mit the task of decision to him, because expedition ami promptitude, 

 are not to be looked for in that (piarter. In fact, the Royal Exchange 

 does seem to have been actually put into Chanccrij ; for after the lapse 

 of two years and a lialf the foundations of a new structure are not yet 

 laid, although (he space of a single twelvemonth sufficed to rebuild, 

 and refuriiisii the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, an eilifice three or 

 four times the size of the one intended to be reared iu Cornhill. The 

 British Museum also goes on at the true Chancery ])ace, — dillo the 

 Nelson Monument that is to be. Nay, if the truth mav be told. Com- 

 petition itself is a sort of C'/iancertj,meYe chance ha^ingquite as much 

 to do with the decisions, as either judgement or taste. 



VII. I incline to the opinion of Mr. Walter Fisher, when he says: 

 "The real truth is, I feel mortified at being kept down by a want of 

 ardour m our patrons. We hear a great deal of Scott and Southey, 

 and Byron, and Wordsworth; and folks talk of Lawrence and Rey- 

 nolds, — and all the rest of it ; but what is poetry of which not one 

 person in ten thousand can judge — to Cookery ?" When I say I in- 

 cline to Walter's o|iinion,— who, by the bye, if he does not lack conceit 

 has an equal stock of enthusiasm. — I do not mean that I form precisely 

 the same comparative estimate of poetry, painting, and cookery as he 

 does, but merely agree with him that for one who can judge of poetry, 

 there are ten thousand who can judge of and relish cookery; and that 

 there are ten times ten thousand who are most unatt'ectedly devoted 

 to the latter, for who is passionately addicted to — architecture. 



It is invidious to scrutinize motives too narrowly, but I have certain 

 uncomfortable misgivings, that lead me to fancy architecture would 

 have still fewer votaries were it not for the attractions of cookery. If 

 the reader be so obtuse as to ask for further elucidation, I can only 

 pity—not assist him, because it would jbe impossible fur me to explain 



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