1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



141 



revived architecture. Mr. Gwilt and others have written and spoken 

 with a righteous horror of the interference of "idlers," but let Mr. 

 Gwilt and the rest not confine themselves to writing and speaking 

 against amateurs, let them also write and speak openly against what 

 those amateurs say. A certain clique are too generous, too candid, 

 too much occupied with ideas of their own importance, to attack, 

 even in self defence, an anonymous assailant! let us see what reply 

 they can give to one who does not shelter himself in ambush, to one 

 who although fully sensible of his want of powers to set forth things 

 as he could wish, yet yields to none in a desire to promote a love and 

 knowledge of the art, and who is thoroughly persuaded that the best 

 method of doing so, both for the interest of the profession and the 

 furtherance of the art itself, is to give the public the means of obtain- 

 ing information. If the writer of tliese papers should have succeeded 

 in the attempt to promote this, then he has written as he would; but 

 if his endeavours have been marred by lack of ability then he has 

 written as he best could, and he hopes that others more highly quali- 

 fied may be induced to come to his assistance, point out his errors, 

 and supply that which is deficient. 



It has been too much the practice in all ages to meet suggested 

 improvements and proposed deviations from established notions, with 

 other than open and candid argument. Daring is the man who 

 attempts to run counter to the prejudices of his age ; parra componere 

 magnis ; Galileo was put into the Inquisition fur asserting that the 

 earth moves round the sun ; and Harvey lost his practice as a physi- 

 cian for attempting to demonstrate the circulation; still we can now 

 say with Florence's eldest son, 



" The starry Galileo with his woes." 

 " It moves," as he said, when a ray of light entered between the bars 

 of his prison and fell on a diagram of the Copernican system scratched 

 on the walls of his dungeon. And although worse than monkish 

 bigotry (considering the quarter from whence it came) assailed our 

 own Harvey, still from its citadel, the heart, life's current flows and 

 returns in the very circle which he pointed out. If the immortal con- 

 ception of the Greek architects, buried amidst the rubbish of false 

 taste, must lie neglected and dishonoured, let Resurgeram be graven 

 on its tomb, for assuredly against us also it shall hereafter rise in 

 judgment. 



II. Mr. Gwilt in his Encyclopedia, 'expresses the laudable desire 

 "to form, guide and correct the taste of even the imre amateur," and 

 he says that " York Stairs, another of Inigo Jones' examples exhibits 

 a pureness and propriety of character which appear afterwards unap- 

 preciated by his successors, with Wren at tlieir head." Will Mr. 

 Gwilt, the learned author of the Elements of Architectural Criticism, 

 have tlie kindness to state what form, figure or feature of this erection 

 "exhibits pureness and propriety of character ?" I am sure the plea- 

 sure and instruction lie can aftbrd by doing so, will be shared with me 

 by all the readers of this Journal, (1 hope a numerous class) who de- 

 sire to have their taste formed, guided and corrected. 



Clonmtre, Dublin, April 1844. 



PROGRESS OF ART.-WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. 80. 



While the Quarterly, and the Foreign Quarterly Review, both of 

 which used atone time to be rather frequent with architectural topics, 

 together with others bearing upon the fine arts, now never touch them, 

 the " Westminster" here gives no fewer that/bwr articles of the kind, 

 occupying one-third of the entire " Number." Architecture there- 

 fore seems to have turned up "trumps" in that quarter; and whether 

 they be small or high trumps, it holds a most remarkably strong hand 

 of them. The one which may be considered the ace of them, is played 

 off first, viz., that entitled "Progress of Art," which, we may observe, 

 in lieu of the writer's initials, has only ainyslilying, * ?, attached to it. 

 That the writer should not have cared to afford any clue to his name, 

 is not particularly surprising; since he does not take a very flattering 

 view of the Progress of Art, either among ourselves or in other coun- 

 tries, — in fact, he considers the Progress to be in some respects a 

 backward and retrograde one, — to be one not of advance but of falling 

 back upon antiquated forms and models, excellent in their time, and 

 admirably adapted to the spirit of it; yet our time is not theirs: 

 Europe is not China : the lapse of comparatively very few centuries 

 has wrought a complete change in the European mind, — and not only 

 in our social and outward habits, but in our mental ones likewise. 

 Nought does it avail to say that such ought not to be the case, if such 

 it really is ; consequently it is for those who contend that things ought 

 to be otherwise, to show how they can be made so. Surely Art has 

 not yet gone through every possible phase of it, — has not yet revolved 

 through the whole of its great Platonic year. 



We must not, however, allow such vain questions — hardly less use- 

 less than perplexing — to detain us ; neither can we pretend to notice 

 here what the writer says in regard to the state of painting and sculp- 

 ture at the present day ; accordingly to his comments on architecture, 

 little flattering, or rather, exceedingly unpalatable as some of them 

 are, we confine ourselves. Be they truth or untruth, it is important 

 that architects themselves should be fully aware what sort of opinions 

 get abroad relative to themselves and tlieir art. They may, indeed, 

 shut their eyes and their ears, but they cannot compel the public to 

 do so likewise, therefore it is as well for them to keep a sharp 

 look-out, or they may chance to find the tide rushing in upon, and 

 taking them by surprise when they are quite unprepared. 



" Though the whole nation," says the writer, " have and always have had 

 an interest, not only in the private edifices, but in the public buildings erected 

 throughout the kingdom, — while the knowledge and enjoyment of the sister 

 arts have been confined to the affluent and the educated, still architecture is 

 with us at present in a worse position than either of the others, its professors 

 have less title to the name of artists, and its best productions can only claim 

 as their highest praise to be correct copies, or at most, successful adaptations 

 of some other buildings erected in former times, for purposes totally different 

 from anything we at present require. The cause of this, we believe, will be 

 found to lie, even more directly than in the other arts, in the system of 

 copying, to the exclusion of all original thinking, or, indeed, of common 

 sense ; and the reason why this should be so fearfully prevalent in archi- 

 tecture will be found to be principally in the anomalous system in which not 

 onlv the patrons of art, but the artists themselves, have been educated in 

 England." 



We have next some severe but just remarks on "gentlemanly edu- 

 cation" in this country, and the insufficient system pursued at the 

 great schools and the two universities, with some lustily dealt blows 

 at the latter for their utter neglect of art. Then, after some stringent 

 remarks on the miserable sort of professional education which young 

 men receive in this country, when placed as articled pupils to archi- 

 tects, the writer comes to some of the late, and of the living " notabi- 

 lities" in the profession. Among the former, Soane, Nash, Wilkins, 

 are fairly enough estimated by him, — we might say, rather favourably 

 than the contrary, for considering the number and the kind of the op- 

 portunities afforded them, not one of the three achieved what he 

 might have done; each of them was, besides, too much of a mere 

 mannerist, and seems to have worked with a very limited stock of 

 ideas. Mannerism, monotony, and penury of ideas, still more strongly 

 characterize a distinguiisked living celebrity, who, as far as he has any 

 character at all, may be described as the utter " negation of an artist." 

 As such he is spoken of here, 



" Sir Robert Smirke ha« adopted a safer plan than any of these men ; bis 

 fame rests entirely on the sound masonry of his buildings, and the only 

 attempt he makes at artistic effect is putting up as many funic columns as 

 his employers will allow. One drawing made long ago has served for all his 

 porticos, now about to be brought to the acme of perfection in the British 

 Museum, where forty-four of these useless Ionic columns, placed in various 

 rows, are to form the facade." 



This is assuredly sufficiently expressive of contempt, in itself, yet 

 we fear, will be taken, both by Sir Robert and many others besides, as 

 very mild reproach, it is, indeed, by far too much so for so very great 

 an offender — one who has injured art most seriously, and that not so 

 muchby his own miserable aborticns,which might well be left to contempt, 

 as by robbing it again arid again of some of the fairest opportunities 

 that have been afforded to architecture among our public and national 

 edifices, nay absolutely nullifying them. If Pecksniffs there must be 

 in the land, at all events let them not be thrust into high places. The 

 man himself might have been a very respectable " carcase builder" 

 but as an architect is the poorest maudlin imaginable: still in his 

 merely being so there would be nothing very remarkable, but that 

 being so, he should have been allowed to go on to the extent he has 

 dune, — to commit failure after failure, is indeed most wonderful and 

 supremely mortilying ; and withal shows what kind of encouragement 

 is bestowed in this country on architecture itself, and how far the 

 patronage it receives is judicious, discriminating and sincere. 



If towards Sir R. Smirke, the writer in the " Westminster" has 

 been somewhat more lenient than many others, he has not been sparing 

 of criticism towards one who has hitherto been accustomed to have to 

 listen to it only as applause or even homage — we mean Charles Barry. 

 That gentleman would perhaps have been better satisfied, had his 

 works been more briefly mentioned ; still he can bear to hear the 

 truth as well as any body ; while as to the writer, if he has touched 

 one or two vulnerable points in the architect's greatest work, some- 

 what ungently, it shows that he is not over-awed by a reputation which 

 seems to carry all before it. After a few strictures on Mr. Barry's 

 club houses, the reviewer goes on to say — 



" The Parliament houses are, however, the great architectural undertaking 



