314 



THE CIVIL ENC^INEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[September, 



least obtnin credit for sincerity and inflexible integrity, and until tbey 

 do it, tbeir denunciation of Paganism and the taste for it, looks only 

 like mere make-believe and "gammon;" or else they must be of all 

 cowards the most cowardly, blustering furiously against minor offenders 

 but sneaking away from greater and more notorious ones. The Cam- 

 denists show themselves to be merely bullies, unless it be that they 

 let it also be seen that they are great" hypocrites into the bargain. 



V. We have very little reason to despise the impure and grotesque 

 specimens of the ancient orders in the Renaissance style, both here 

 and on the continent, when we look at the numerous miserable appli- 

 cations of of " pure Greek architecture" at the present day -, at those 

 flagrant barbarisms in taste, soi-diaant Greek porticos, or perhaps two 

 columns and antae, stuck up against buildings which are in all other 

 respects thoroughly bare and poverty-stricken. Nevertheless, instead 

 of being deservedly reprobated as the very bathos of design, things of 

 the kind— and even some of the worst and most tasteless of them all- 

 are frequently spoken of by crilics ! as if they were both of surpas- 

 sing merit in themselves, and all the rest of the design in perfect ac- 

 cordance with them. Were we to judge from the number of " Gre- 

 cian" porticos that might be reckoned mp we might suppose that this 

 country abounded in examples of genuine classical architecture, and 

 that every little market town in the kingdom had at least one build- 

 ing rivalling in taste an Athenian or Roman " monument." At length 

 there begins to be some hope of our being delivered from classicality 

 of that sort, since its utter mawkishness and dulness have begun to 

 produce satiety of it, and its mechanical routine to bring it into con- 

 tempt. Inmost things of the sort it is utterly hopeless to look for 

 anyone artistic quality, or for aught whatever amounting to design. 

 On the contrary, their chief or only characteristic is their being vul- 

 gar plagiarism of so truly tasteless a kind that it accuses those who 

 are guilty of it of no feeling for— not even the slightest apprehension 

 of the style which they hew and mangle after so barbarous a fashion. 

 Anathema be on them ! 



VI. It is a most gross aspersion on the Royal Academy to say tbat 

 they dislike High Art, for it is notorious that they invariably raise it 

 as high as they possibly can— even to the very ceilings of their exhi- 

 bition rooms. J 1 f 



VII. After the most unqualified admiration has been demanded tor 

 Windsor Castle, and has also been most liberally bestowed ; alter 

 ■writers and guide-books have rhapsodized about it in their loUiest 

 vein, piling up epithet on epithet till all meaning has been iairly 

 smothered under the accumulated load ; after all this, now comes the 

 Athenffium and rudely tells us, that "saving St. George's Chapel, and 

 some few other exceptions, the huge pile of buildings which consti- 

 tute the present Windsor Castle cannot worthily be called architec- 

 ture !" Truly this is plain-spoken enough— no puffing, no nji«f Y 

 here ! Still, though I agree with the writer upon some points, I think 

 that many of his— or, as I conjecture it should be, /ier— opinions are 

 greatly overstrained. It is objected, for instance, that the work ol 

 restoration or remodelling was set about in a mistaken spirit and on 

 erroneous principles ; and that the edifice was more satisfactory in its 

 former patched-up state, when without any attempt at disguise it told 

 its story plainly, showing that it had grown up out of additions made 

 from time to time, and bearing the impress of the architectural taste 

 or fashion of their respective periods; whereas now, it is urged, 

 " there is an attempt to cheat us into the belief that the present struc- 

 ture was the old one." Does the writer then mean to say that instead 

 of making all the buildings of the upper ward uniform as to condition, 

 and more consistent than formerly as to general character, it would 

 have been better had what was not absolutely required to be altered 

 been left untouched, and the new constructions been allowed to sbow 

 themselves as such, however dissimilar they might be from any other 

 portion ? It is difficult to persuade ourselves that the critic can really 

 Lave intended to say as much, yet no other conclusion can be drawn 

 from it. Then again it Ls objected— surely very captiously— that tlie 

 exterior is at variance with the interior, the former affecting seventy 

 as nearly as may be, while the other contains apartments fitted up in a 

 style of luxurious comfort and refinement wholly unknown in those ages 

 when castles were erected as strongholds and places. Such incongruity, 

 however, is an inevitable, and therefore a natural and pardonable one. 

 It is no more than what takes place in some ancient mansions tdat 

 have been kept up in their pristine character externally, yet have been 

 adapted within as nearly as possible to modern habits of living and 

 notions of comfort. If nothing but the " genuine" is anywhere to be 

 admitted,— nothing to be allowed tbat lynx-eyed liypercriticism can 

 accuse as an anachronism, there ought perhaps to be neither library 

 nor picture-gallery within the walls of Windsor Castle, jt J^ un- 

 doubtedly a fault, and no small one, that the style indicated by the 

 windows was not kept up with some tolerable degree of consistency 

 in all the principal apartments, especially as it might have been done 



without any sacrifice of refinement or comfort, nay with no little in- 

 crease of magnificence and grandeur. Even St. George's Hall itself 

 possesses very little of either of the two last mentioned qualities, — in 

 fact, has so very little of style, that it seems as if the architect had 

 been more solicitous to s!//)press it, than to e.rpress it. To return to 

 the exterior. Sir Jeffery erred in allowing the castellated or fortress 

 character to prevail over the palatial. While the former is marked 

 more strongly than there was any occasion for, the latter scarcely mani- 

 fests itself, except in particular features here and there, such as the 

 oriels of the east front, in designing which the architect seems to have 

 been guided more by the principle of contrast than of unity. If those 

 decorated projections show somewhat like modern embroidery upon 

 the rough and austere groundwork of the general elevation, they do 

 not do so the less from their openings being filled with plate glass, a 

 piece of luxurious refinement which might plausibly enough be ob- 

 jected to as a glaring violation of costume in what affects the charac- 

 ter of a feudal castle. In such case, however, the rigorous observance 

 of architectural costume must give way to convenience and to common 

 sense. It is evident, that at the present day, an ancient military 

 castle or fortress cannot possibly be made use of as a residence with- 

 out being expressly converted into one, and in consequence both ac- 

 quiring features which distinctly mark habitation, and also losing 

 somewhat of that uniform sternness which it possessed while intended 

 only as a place of defence and a stronghold of defiance. Every struc- 

 ture so converted, from its original purpose to a widely different one, 

 must partake of a mixed character, and such character accordingly 

 becomes a natural and appropriate one. In this case the architect had to 

 keep in sight the palace as well as the castle, the castle as well as the 

 palace ; the subject itself being a compound one, he could hardly treat 

 it exclusively either the one way or the other. Still there can be no 

 doubt that he might have treated it considerably better than he has 

 done, and in such manner as to combine togetVier somewhat more of 

 energetic grandeur with an increase of that stateliness and richness 

 which befit the abode of a sovereign. 



VIII. Dr. Fulton does not seem to perceive that a favourite term of 

 reproach with him, which he has flung one way, may recoil and strike 

 what it was not aimed at. If a pediment can justly be likened to a 

 cocked hat at all, it surely makes no difference in that respect how it 

 be applied ; being still a " cocked hat," it is just as much like one when 

 over a portico as when over a window; consequently the authority 

 for architectural "cocked hats" is of considerable antiquity, they 

 having been worn by all the temples of Greece. No doubt the Doctor 

 means no more than to stigmatize by a whimsical term what he con- 

 siders a gross violation of architectural fitness, and the perversion of 

 what was originally a feature of construction to one of mere decora- 

 tion. It is certain that neither pediments nor columns were at first 

 intended to serve for the parts of dressings to windows, as they are 

 made to do in the Italian style. Yet it does not exactly follow that 

 such after-application of them is a nt/s-application, utterly indefen- 

 sible. If the principle be an erroneous one in itself, it must be as 

 much so in one style as in another, consequently we ought in consis- 

 tency to condemn a very great deal of the decoration employed in 

 Gothic architecture, where we find a great many members primarily 

 applied to answer some specific purpose of utility, converted into 

 mere ornamental details. Here, too, we see small gables or Gothic 

 cocked hais introduced, merely in representation, on the surface of 

 walls, where tbey do not express any roof. We see weather-mould- 

 ings over doors within buildings, where, being unnecessary, they might 

 be captiously objected to as being in bad taste. Even greater absurd- 

 ities of the kind— if so they are to be stigmatized— might be pointed 

 out, and those not a few ; to wit, miniature buttresses and pinnacles in 

 carved screens, together with embattled cornices. Nay, even the 

 practice of enriching the surface of walls with panelling resembling 

 the compartments and tracery of windows might be represented as an 

 illegitimate one— a frivolous and unmeaning conceit. Let the Doctor, 

 then, stop in time, for should he carry out his principles of criticism 

 as fully and as consequentially as he might, he will bring down a horde 

 of Goths upon him ; and 



When Goth meets Greek then comes the tug of war. 



Competitions.— In reply to the advertisement offering premiums for the 

 two best plans for laying out White Knight's Park, at Reading, for the erec- 

 tion of detached villas, about thirty designs were sent in. White Knights is 

 one of the most beautiful places in England, and considerable skill was re- 

 quired to allot it so as to preserve its most striking features. To ensure a 

 proper selection, the proprietor placed the decision in the hands of two 

 known professional men, Mr. Mocatta and Mr. George Godwin, who after 

 minutely mvestigating the plans adjudged the premiums to two which were 

 afterwards found to be by Messrs. Scott and Moffatt, and Mr. John Batnett 



