1840] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



351 



very much injured by it in her bottom, but am iKippy to say she has not re- 

 ceived any injury ; in facf. her bottom is as perfect and as good as on tJie 

 day slie left Liverpool — not a single rivet started nor a rivet-head floivn oil'. 

 If an oak vessel, with the cargo I had on deck, was to go on shore where the 

 Garryowen did, and get such "a hammering, they w ould have a different story 

 to teil. . . . Out of twenty-seven vessels that got ashore that niglit, the 

 Garryowen is the only one that is not damaged more or less." 



Colonel C'hesney, the commander of the Euphrates expedition, writes thus 

 of the iron vessels which were employed on that service : — •' It is but right 

 to tell you tliat the iron vessels constructed by you far exceeded my expec- 

 tations, as well as those of the naval officers employed in the late expedition, 

 who would one and all bear testimony anywhere to their extraordinary soli- 

 dity ; indeed, it was often repeated by Lieut. Cleavelanil and the others, that 

 any wooden vessel must have been destroyed befoie the .service w: s one half 

 completed ; whereas the Euphrates was as perfect when they laid her up at 

 ISagdad as the first day she w as floated. As I am now occupied in preparing 

 a work on the expedition. I shall have a better opportunity than the present 

 of doing justice to the subject of iron vessels, lor it is my belief ihat they will 

 entirely supersede wood, on account of their comparative strength, cheapness, 

 and durability, whenever people are satisfied that iheir only disadvantage — 

 the free working of the compass— has been overcome. 



REVIE^VS. 



Seville and its T'icinily. By Frank Hall Standish, Esq., Author of 

 the "Shores of the Mediterranean," &c., Svo. London, 184u. Black 

 and Armstrong. 



"The work now presented to the public," we are told in the pre- 

 face, "contains an enumeration of almost all the Ccnvents and Public 

 Buildings, which existed in Seville during the last century, with their 

 most remarkable contents in the present ;" it is accordingly one, far 

 more calculated to interest architectural and antiquarian readers, and 

 those who study the history of art, than the public generally ; for the 

 description of the Alcazar and Cathedral alone, the one a splendid 

 monument of Moorish, the other of Gothic architecture, extends to 

 somewhat more than sixty pages. In fact, a considerable mass of in- 

 formation relative to architecture and the other arts, and to many 

 Spanish artists, is here presented to the English reader, which has 

 hitherto been hardly accessible to those who are unacquainted with 

 Spanish. Instead of being as its title alone would, perhaps, lead us to 

 suppose, a traveller's sketch of the city and its inhabitants, this volume 

 is altogether topographical in form, — and so far rather a phenomenon 

 in these days of 'light reading.' It is in fact rather one for study and 

 reference, than for off hand perusal ; and therefore we conceive, ought 

 to have been furnished with that now almost obsolete appendage, an 

 Index. Neither is that all we here desiderate, for we conceive that 

 the Alcazar and the Cathedral might very properly have been made 

 to furnish something like disqiiisition as to the Moorish and the Gothic 

 architecture of the Spanish peninsula generally ; and so also would 

 the Lonja (here printed throughout Louja), or Exchange, have afforded 

 an opportunity for discussing the peculiar character of the style trans- 

 planted from Italy in the 10th century. Something of this kind would 

 have relieved the drj-ness of the work which is written too much in the 

 usual technical Guide-book style. As it is, the volume is too much of 

 a mere catalogue raisoime of buildings and pictures, and therefore likely 

 to be considered dull by the many, and tantalizing by the few for whom 

 it seems to have been more particularly intended ; for as there are no 

 illustrations of any kind — not even so much as a general plan of the 

 city to enable us to form some distinct idea of its topography, little 

 positive information, except as to historical facts, and names and dates, 

 can be collected from it. Nor do we, we must confess, understand 

 why so many minor — not to call them trivial, circumstances should 

 have been brought forward in regard to a place so very unlikely to be 

 visited by English travellers, and which requires to be described to 

 the English public quite as much by the pencil as by the pen. 



At present only one or two of its buildings are known to us, and 

 those very imperfectly — the Giralda or Tower of Gever, some por- 

 tions of the interior of the Cathedral, the Patio de Naranjos, the .Sala 

 de los Embazadores in the Alcazar, the Golden Tower, &c., which we 

 meet with in Roberts' Spanish Sketches, and the Landscape Annual, 

 and which are certainly calculated to excite a vehement desire for a 

 complete acquaintance with those edifices, and with similar informa- 

 tion as to others. Though not to be compared with the Alhambra, 

 the Alcazar alone would supply materials for an architectural volume, 

 if we may judge from the Sala above mentioned, and from some other 

 views of the edifice, which we lately met with in a recent French pub- 

 lication, whose exact title we do not now remember. As to the Cathe- 

 dral, we are here told the architecture is of all classes — Arabic, Gothic, 

 the 'Plateresco,' and the Greek-Roman; yet, although all these are 

 jumbled together, and an abominably unsightly "grand entrance" has 



been recently attempted — fortunately, not finished, by a Sevillian archi- 

 tect, Cano, and a good deal of the outside walls are left rough, " never- 

 theless, of all the cathedra's I have seen, this is the one which, upon the 

 whole, has most pleased me in Europe," says the author. After this we 

 naturally look for some vindication of such opinion — for some remarks 

 that would explain to us, in what its particular charm and merit con- 

 sists, more especially as we are told that, "the Interior of this temple 

 is of the plainest Gothic." — However, provided too much be not ex- 

 pected from it, we can recommend this volume to those — their num- 

 ber, we fear, is but small — who have not the means of consulting Ponz 

 and Cean Bermudez, yet are desirous of obtaining more minute in- 

 formation relative to Seville, and Spanish art and artists than 

 English publications will supply. For our own part, we greatly regret 

 that Roberts did not return to the Spanish Peninsula, and devote his 

 pencil to illustrating and recording the, at the present almost unknown, 

 treasures it contains, in the class of architectural and picturesque ob- 

 jects, instead of proceeding to the Holy Laud which is not exactlv the 

 land best fitted for the display of his talent. At all events, we hope, 

 that in these days of travelling, some other artist will visit the Spanish 

 territory, and return with a portfolio well stocked with architectural 

 subjects there to be met with in profusion, and of which we have, as 

 yet, had no more than a mere whet — a slight foretaste, a provocative 

 that is in itself quite provoking. 



Egert07i's Hems in Mexico ; being a Series of T.aelve Coloured Plates, 

 executed by himself from his Original Drawings. Large Folio. 

 London, 1840. D. T. Egerton. 



If it was not every one who could afford to visit Corinth, so neither 

 have all of us, even in this age of steam navigation, the means or 

 opportunity of taking a trip to Mexico ; although in the course of 

 another generation such a trip may become a very ordinary feat, and 

 that too, in a still more expeditious mode than tliat by a sea voyage 

 across the Atlantic, — to wit, in a balloon, should the experiments 

 which are now actually making, to prove the practicabilitv of sucli 

 mode of travelling, be found to realize the sanguine expectations of its 

 projector. In the meanwhile we are well content to take our ideas of 

 Mexican scenery and vegetation, — of the costume of the people, of 

 their habitations and cities, from Mr. Egerton, an artist who has not 

 merely visited, but been long resident in the country, and whose draw- 

 ings are no less atlractive as landscapes, than they appear to be faith- 

 ful and characteristic as local portraitures of the sites they represent. 

 We say seem, because of course we cannot pledge ourselves, as eye-wit- 

 nesses, to their veracity ; but they certainly do bear very strong internal 

 proofs of it, not only the general physiognomy of the landscapes and 

 buildings, bearing testimony to it, but more especially the plants and" 

 shrubs in the foregrounds, whose particular characters are clearly dis- 

 criminated. 



Looking at these views as imitations of the original drawings, we 

 may place them among the most successful attempts we have e 7er 

 met with, to give the effect not of mere tinted ones, but the depth of 

 tone, the vigour, the surface, and the^eculiar execution of the modirn 

 school of water-colour drawing. Therefore, though the work is much 

 higher in price than any of the masterly productions in lithography 

 that have of late been published, it cannot be called dear, considering 

 the great dimensions of tlie plates, and the time, labour and care be- 

 stowed upon the colouring, which has been executed under the artist's 

 immediate inspection. Naj', as compared with what is frequently 

 asked for a single drawing, not at all of more value as a work of art, 

 than one of sulyects forming this set, it may be termed cheap. One 

 great advantage, too, attending the form in which they are done up, 

 namely, their being a series of separate drawings motmted upon card- 

 board, and put into a portfolio, — is that any one or more of them may 

 be selected and framed, and would then scarcely be at all distinguish- 

 able from an original or autograph production of the kind. A separate 

 sheet of letterpress descriptions forms a very suitable accompaniment 

 to the engravings, for the information it affords gives additional in- 

 terest to the subjects it explains. Perhaps we cannot do better than 

 quote by way of specimen the description of tl»e first plate, the city of 

 Puebla, as it commences with an observation that meets an objectior* 

 very likely to be made by those who do not take into account the pe- 

 culiarity of the climate where the scenery lies. 



THE CITV OF PUEBLA. 



In representing scenery withia the tropics, where the atmosphere is sa 

 highly rarified, more particularly in situations that arc considerably elevated 

 above the sea, it is quite impossible to convey, to the inexperienced eye, aa 

 adequate Idea of distances, which always appear to be lessened; and the 

 hardness of outline, with the distinctive form of objects, as exhibited in faith- 



