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THI] CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[AlGUST , 



most left-luimled compliment to her Majesty, — we shall probably ere 

 long have a 'Victorian' style, as well as an Eli/iabethau one, in archi- 

 tecture. Inileetl, such style is now beginning to display itself in the 

 rows of houses rising up about the church at PadJington, which are 

 about the most Brummagem attairs in bricks and mortar I ever beheld. 

 And such enormities are quietly perpetrated before our eyes, while 

 good easy critics are comfortably twaddling about styles. That we 

 should come to such abominations in taste — such frightful barbarisms! 

 Better, iiitinitely better would it have been to have stuck to the unso- 

 phisticated, respectable dullness which stamps all the jirivate streets 

 at the West-end of (he Town ; inasmuch as the absence of all preten- 

 sion at design is far more tolerable than design run mad — as we per- 

 ceive it to be among the Paddingtonians. The name of a Wyatt has 

 been mentioned to me — a descendant, I believe, of the illustrious James 

 of ' execrable memory,' — as that of the offender ; — yet can it be true ? A 

 law, it is to be hoped, will be passed, iirohibiting foreigners from pass- 

 ing through Paddington, exce])t they be blindfolded. Let the l/?gis- 

 lature look well to it; for the honour and credit of our beloved country 

 are at stake. Already have we been sneered at, — nay, reviled and 

 rated in good set terms by certain saucy foreign critics for our Boz- 

 niania and Jack Shephard-mania, which they are pleased to represent 

 as deplorably wretched in taste ; and now we shall be cut-up, abused, 

 ridiculed, and made laughing-stocks of, on account of our sins in brick 

 and mortar at Paddington — the more suitable name for w'hich would 

 oe JIadding-town. 



in. "And how," said I to a German friend, on his return from an 

 excursion to the North of England — "how did Newcastle please you ? 

 if there be truth in Dibdin, its magnificence must have enchanted you. 

 Come now, be sincere — put away all your continental prejudices; own 

 that at last you have met with sometliing to match the glories you 

 have left behind you." — "Dibdin bed — d "' was the startling rejily ; 

 "a man who could write greasy puffs on such a farrago of architectural 

 balderdash, is fit only to be flunky to your George Robins. Dibdin 

 must be an absolute dunce to gabble as he does about the 'Northum- 

 brian Vitruvius,' and cr)' up as superior creations of art, a parcel of 

 tawdrily bedizzened houses, among which there is not one single bit 

 of <lesign to be discovered." "All then that is to be said," returned 

 I, " is that we Englishmen do make confounded fools of ourselves." 



IV. The only symptom I have yet discovered of the so much talked 

 of March of Intellect, is that there has been no " laying the first stone" 

 of the New Houses of Parliament, — none of the fussy tomfoolery, 

 with the "silver-trowel," and all the rest of it, which generally takes 

 place upon such "important occasions." The sensible example thus 

 set, will, I trust, be adhered to in future ; for I suspect the silly cere- 

 mony hitherto in vogue, Iras frequently dipped rather deeplv into tlie 

 building funds — or into funds that might else have been added to 

 them. In truth it is rather provoking to mortal patience to find that 

 wliile a church or other building is frequently marred and spoiled for 

 the sake of saving a paltry hundred pounds or so, the money can be 

 found forthcoming freely enough for eating and drinking after the 

 august ceremony alhuled to,^ — for of course all such recreation must be 

 paid for, though it should amount to double the architect's commis- 

 sion. As to the architect himself, he, poor fellow, is generally a no- 

 body — a mere cypher on the occasion — a creature whom the news- 

 ]ia|iers do not think it worthwhile to name; the first fiildle on all such 

 occasions being some bustling body, noble or otherwise, who comjjli- 

 ments those around him, and is be-complimented by them as the hero 

 of the day. 



V. On the outside of his "Palace of Architecture," Wightwick 

 gives us what he calls a Pyramid of Architecture, the grarfmiorcourses 

 of which are respectively inscribed with the name of some high 

 authority in the art, the lowermost being that of Vitruvius, and the 

 topmost that of Hosking. Whether this arrangement was merely 

 accidental, or intended to have some particular meaning, I pretend not 

 to say; but it certainly does look much like assigning the post of 

 supremacy and honour to Hosking that staunch Anti-Vitruvianist, and 

 terrible heretic and unorthodox writer, who has not scrupled to abuse 

 the venerable Vitruvius in good set terms, — and to bring his authority 

 into contempt by asserting that a man might just as well study Geo- 

 graphy in Gulliver's Travels, as Architecture in the wiitings'of the 

 great Marcus Pollio. — We here also find placed in friendly conjunction, 

 " cheek by jowl," the names of Britton and Pugin, an association that 

 is almost enough to make the latter start from his grave, for in his 

 life-time the association between them was of the most cat-and-dog 

 kind ; nor was P. at all sparing of most highly flavoured epithets to- 

 wartls his quandam co-partner, — of whom by the bye, Bartholomew 

 has just spoken as " the immortal antiquary," and w horn he no doubt 

 considers to be a most profound and erudite etymologist also. 



VI. "There are thieves and paupers of a verv respectable kind in 

 the literary world"!; — So sayeth one— whom 1 take to be no other 



than Carlyle, in a recent article on Lessing, in the Foreign t^u uterlv. 

 How many respectable paupers — that is, very respectable people, vet 

 very poor creatures, there may be in the architectural world, it might 

 be dangerous to compute ; but with regard to thieves there is no occa- 

 sion to deny that there is abundance of them ; since so far from being 

 at all ashamed of thieving or making any secret of it, the greater part 

 jilume themselves mainly upon it, and hold plagiarism to be a proof 

 not only of taste, but of talent. A literary thief — at least a " respect- 

 able" one, has generally the grace to blush when his pilferings are 

 detected, and the fine peacock feathers with which, jackdaw-like, he 

 has dressed himself up are plucked from him: not so the architectural 

 one, for he boldly challenges your admiration of wdiat notoriously does 

 not belong to himself, yet in which consists all the design and taste his 

 buildings can pretend to. Originality of any kind, — even that wdiich 

 extends to no more than giving a fresh turn to stale commonplace, is 

 generally disclaimed altogether, — under the trumpery pretence that it 

 is exceedingly hazardous to depart from actual precedent; and so un- 

 doubtedly it is for those who have no principles of taste to guide them, 

 and who therefore find it most convenient and politic to decry all at- 

 tempt at originality as dangerous innovation. Nolumus leges Anglice 

 mutari, is the maxim of our legislators, notwithstanding which they are 

 perpetually tinkering our laws, quashing old ones, and enacting new 

 ones — blundering ones let those say who choose. Whv should archi* 

 tects not venture to follow their example ? — at all events blunders in 

 taste are not quite so dangerous in legislation. 



VII. "Obest pleruinque," says the great Roman philosopher, " iis 

 qui discere volunt auctoritas:" which is certainly, unfortunately like- 

 wise, most true with respect to architecture, in wdiich a superstitious 

 respect to precedent has impeded the advancement of the art, and 

 hindered that progressive developement wdiich might else take place. 

 Truly fortunate was it for the art that the writings of Vitruvius were 

 not brought to light an<l studied some centuries earlier, for otherwise 

 the world had, in all probability never beheld that exquisite Gothic 

 style which now enchants us. We of the present day are content to 

 be copyists — to do what has been done before, and nothing more. The 

 consequence is that when we have copied one particular style till we 

 are actually cloyed with it, we go back to some other, not because it is 

 at all better — perhaps not even so good as that we are become sick 

 of; but because it is, at any rate a change. Thus after a most servile 

 and so far erroneous admiration of Grecian examples, we suddenly, 

 with a High Presto ! become ardent admirers of Elizabethan architec- 

 ture, copying all its grotesque whims, its monstrous extravagancies, 

 its absurdities, and puerilities, instead of selecting out its good quali- 

 ties, and rejecting its vices. But to do this requires more taste and 

 discrimination than fall to every one's lot. Perhaps the recent appli- 

 cation of this style to some dashing shops at the West-end of the 

 Town, may help to bring it into discredit for other iiurposes, and stamp 

 it with the gentility-mongers, — a tolerably numerous class, as vulgar, 

 slow, and of course quite frightful. It happens oddly enough that 

 Wightwick has not given a single instance of i\\\i fashionable style in 

 his new work, mentioned above in the 5th section of this Fasciculus. 



VIII. " The Lord deliver us from patronage," was the half-serious, 

 lialf-jesting exclamation of one who had had some experience of the 

 pig-headed obstinacy of ignoraniusses who, because they hold the 

 purse, fancy their own blundering whims ought to over-rule all other 

 taste. No wonder that poor Peruzzi declined the patronage of Cle- 

 ment VII., who would fain have employed him — not to decorate an- 

 other Farnesina, but to act as military engineer at the siege of Florence ; 

 Such a Mecffiuas would engage a Ude to cut bread and butter, or one 

 like myself to make a spelling-book. The patronage of the tasteless 

 is the very bane and corruption of art; and the tyranny of those who 

 devote themselves to it in the true spirit of artists. His most gracious 

 Majesty king Midas was a royal patron of the above class ; and it is to 

 be regretted that our modern Midasses are not similarly decorated 

 with donkey-ears. 



IX. No tloubt it will be thought by many that I have already ex- 

 pressed my opinion of Palladio both frequentlt' and plainly enough ; 

 but inveterate prejudices are not to be put down by a few blows. 

 They must be attacked again and again, until the mere repetition of 

 the same censures attracts notice, and impresses them on people's at- 

 tention. I do not pretend to affirm that Palladio possesses no merit 

 whatever, or that he is the worst possible model an architect can fol- 

 low; yet I certainly do think tliat he does not deserve to be regarded 

 as a model or authority at all, because there is hardly a vice or solecism 

 which such authority will not be found to justify, if his precedent is 

 considered of any avail. Those whose indolence disposes them to 

 take up with ready-made opinions, wdiich once adopted they du not 

 care to have disturbed, will of course be scandalized at this, and are 

 welcome to be so, in like manner as many would be shocked at what 

 the Weber, that is Karl Julius (the most witty and entertaining of all 



