180 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[May, 



necessary to write them in plain Roman type, " that the people may 

 best see and read them." To use the extraordinary alphabets in 

 which we now so often see them, illegible black letter rendered inge- 

 niously still more illegible by rubrications and flourishes innumerable, 

 is a mockery. We may observe also that it is not easy to see how 

 people should be able to read Roman type, when set up over the 

 Altar; since the Altar itself, and in most cases the rails, must hinder a 

 sufficiently near approach ; in cases even wliere the Chancel itself is 

 accessible. 



Fifthly. There is no rule low they are to be set up ; so that there 

 can be no excuse for making niches to receive them a part ofthe con- 

 struclion. But Archbishop Grindul and Bishop Cox recommend 

 them to be " written on fair sheets of paper, and pinned up against 

 the hangings ofthe East end." If the canon may be thus complied 

 with, the stone tablet system becomes still less excusable. 



Sixthly. Our own belief on the subject is that the Commandments 

 were intended to supply the blank left by the demolition of the Great 

 Rood. In all probability the head of the arcli above the Rood-loft 

 was often, however bad this arrangement certainly would have been, 

 blocked up. The ancient painting of the Doom still preserved in St. 

 Michael's, St. Alban's, was originally in this position. So in Bettws 

 Newvdd, where the Cross remains, and in Llangwm Ucha, Monmouth- 

 shire, the head of the arch is panelled up. Now something was 

 wanted to supply the place of the defaced Rood or Doom ; and thus 

 we believe the Commandments came to be set up. This, be it remem- 

 bered, would be at the East end of the church (Nave), and would be 

 within sight of the people both from position and height. But we 

 should scarcely defend the boarding up of the head of the Chancel 

 arch, either as a point of taste or expediency. This plan really would 

 seem to shut the Chancel off from the Nave, which is never the effect 

 ofthe Rood-screen, however high. In short, the boarding remaining, 

 the Communion-service must still be read from the reading-pue ; as 

 was almost universally the case a short time since. At any rate, if we 

 block the lieads of our Chancel-arches for the Commandments, we 

 must have the service intoned again : or the people may read the 

 Commandments, but will not hear them from the Altar. 



Seventhly. Confirmatory of the last theory is the fact, that the 

 oldest tables of Commandments are found blocking the head of 

 the Chancel-arch and not at the Altar. For instance, a very early 

 example is so found at St. Margaret's at Cliflfe, near Dover. Indeed 

 it is little known how few examples of any antiquity are to be found 

 at the Altar. In looking through twenty-live church-schemes from 

 dift'erent counties, in which the article "Commandments" is filled up, 

 the writer finds twenty in other positions, of which nine cases are over 

 the Chancel-arch . In one, St. Mary's, Lambeth, an old copy exists in 

 this situation, and a more modern copy at the Altar — a significant f.ict. 

 Two of these churches have no/ie .■ in five th.ey are north and south of 

 the Nave ; in one, north and south of Chancel ; in one, north and south 

 of Chancel-aisle : in one, north of north Transept ; in the last, west of 

 Nave. So much for uniformity in the interpretation of the canon. It 

 is well known indeed that many churches, and particularly cathedrals 

 and college chapels, never had them ; also that in many they have 

 disappeared without question ; and that many new churches have been 

 consecrated without tbem. 



Eighthly. It is remarkable that in any early pictures, known to the 

 writer, e.g. the curious engraving given by Mr. Markland of the dese- 

 cration of a church by the Puritans, the Commandments are not repre- 

 sented as over the Altar : in the case referred to, indeed, there is a 

 triptych. On the other hand, Mede (folio, 1677, note, p. 396) inter- 

 prets the canon to mean " over the Communion-table," but seems to 

 wonder at the Injunction. Finally, for the setting up of the Creed 

 and Lord's Prayer tbere is no authority whatever. 



In conclusion, were we called upon to suggest a course to church- 

 builders to whom this subject presented a ditticulty, we should recom- 

 mend that the case be submitted to the Ordinary. We can scarcely 

 believe that the canon would be enforced, or at least be ruled to mean 

 the East end of the Chancel. In either case the Ordinary would pro- 

 bably sanction the distempering the Commandments in scrolls upon the 

 wall: thus making no construction necessary for them, and allowing 

 them to bear a part in the decorative colouring of the building. 



Atmospheric Railway System. — Herr Sichrowsky, Secretary of the Em- 

 peror Ferdinand Railway, w/io was last ytar in Ireland studying the atmospheric system, 

 has just obtained a grant for the execution of a railway on that system, uniting Vienna 

 with the beautiful palace and gardens of Schoenbrunn, the Windsor of that locality. It 

 win follow the banks of the river W'ien, on vrhich are a number of large commercial esta- 

 blishirrents, and which route during the summer is much frequented by the holiday folks. 

 The distance Is five miles, and the estimate, including seven stationary engines, is 2,000,000 

 florins (^200,000), In 200 shares of 10,000 Uorius (4t lOOOj each, and which were subscribed 

 in 2G hours. 



FOREIGN QUACKERY AND BRITISH CREDULITY. 



It appears that in so far as decorative Art is concerned, the people 

 of England are destined in all ages to be the dupes of Foreign quacks 

 and quackery. Fifty years ago an Italian, who assumed the high 

 sounding name of Michael Angelo Pergolizi, was extensively employed 

 in decorating the palaces and mansions of the English nobility and 

 gentry. And in this present year a German adventurer, ycleped 

 Mister or " Herr Sang," to naturalize whom a bill has been hurried 

 through Parliament, has been employed to decorate the new Royal 

 Exchange — and rumour whispers that it is not unlikely he may also be 

 employed to Germanize the pure English Architecture of Barry in the 

 New Houses of Parliament. 



The resemblance between Pergolizi and Sang is remarkable, and it 

 may help us to form an idea of what effect tlie produciions of the 

 latter is likely to have in the present day, if we revert to the debasing 

 influence which the works of the former had at the time when he 

 exercised unbounded sway over his patrons and admirers. 



A glance at Pergolizi's book of ornamental design, which by the 

 way was dedicated to a number of his noble patrons, will show what a 

 wretched imposter he must havebeen. He compounded and distorted 

 ill-drawn patches from Ra|jliael, Watteau, and others, and produced an 

 admixture of bastardized abominations which he had tact enough (o 

 palm upon hisemployers as original and novel designs, and through the 

 extensive influence and patronage which he commanded he was enabled 

 to poison the stream of English Decorative Art, and sweep away every 

 portion that then remained of pure national taste, in connection with 

 decorative house painting. Instead of the massive and graceful 

 geometric and foliated ornament, with which in ancient times cathe- 

 drals and palaces had been decorated, there were now to be seen in- 

 congruous assemblages of trumpets, drums, vases, and monsters inter- 

 woven with meagre and unnatural foliage. Every ornament intro- 

 duced, whether on ceiling, walls, or wood, was of the smallest, the 

 leanest, and the most unsatisfactory kind, and architects, plasterers, 

 wood carvers, and iron masters, imitated the style and aped the man- 

 ner of the great Ilalian master, Hignor Angela Pergolizi. 



Thus by the introduction into England of this trifling and meretri- 

 cious style of ornament was the national taste depraved; and it was not 

 until within these few years that there were any symptoms exhibited 

 of a desire to return to the first principles of design, or any prospect 

 of us being able to invent ornamental decorations in keeping with the 

 characteristic features of our ovin country. Just, however, when we 

 had begun to move onward in the right direction. Mister Sang was im- 

 ported from Germany, with a spick and span new set of German pat- 

 terns, or tracings ; and he and his pupils have commenced lo adorn 

 the interiors of some of our principal buildings with a superabundance 

 of German leaves, plants and flowers, together with German conceits 

 and monstrosities, as far removed from the indigenous plants and 

 flowers ol Britain, and as alien to the feeling of Englishmen as were 

 the productions of Michael Angelo Pergolizi. Is this to be tolerated 

 with impunity? What are our native Artists and Decorators about V 

 Are they so lost to every sense of shame as to sit tamely down under 

 such an'insult? What have our Schools of Design been doing? Was 

 the late magnificent display of Cartoons not a proof of the rising cha- 

 racter of British Art? Does not the present exhibition in St. James* 

 Bazaar, wherein the celebrated Herr Sang cuts so poor a figure, tri- 

 umphantly prove the superiority of our home bred House Decorators ? 

 lu that exhibition, those London houses who have employed French 

 artists to execute their dt;signs must see the poverty of their Anglo- 

 French productions, when compared with the specimens of British 

 Art by which they are surrounded. In the Club Rooms and other 

 places of fashionable resort, the decorative house painting is equal to 

 what can be found in any country ; while to a house painter in a pro- 

 vincial town (Mr. Hav of Edinburgh,) we are indebted for the most 

 complete and satisfactory digest which has yet been given of the 

 primary laws that govern form and colour. Notwithstanding all this, 

 however, native talent is thrust aside to make way for German hum- 

 bug and quackery. Shame on't! shame ou't! Let all interested in 

 the cultivation of the national intellect protest against such a practice. 

 Let a demand be made for genuine British decorations, ornaments 

 composed of forms or subjects peculiar to the country, and we will 

 soon not on.y equal but surpass other nations in Art, as we have al- 

 ready done in Science and Literature. 



