IS44.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



373 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS LIX. 



" I must have liberty 

 M itlial, as lavge a charter as the winds, 

 To blow on wiioni 1 please." 



I. According (o the description given of it, the Durham Testimonial 

 appears to be as arrant a piece of "nonsense arclntecturc" as can well 

 be imagined,— at once a professed copy of a Grecian Doric temple in 

 some respects, and in another utterly unlike any temple or any othf r 

 building ancient or modern, except a " parish pound" for stray cattle. 

 We are told that the edifice is hypmthral : but— to make use of a 

 more apt than elegant proverb, " fine vrords butter no parsnips :" any 

 structure from which the roof had been blown off, or had fallen, might 

 with equal propriety be so denominated. An « hypoethral" temple 

 does not mean one without any roof at all, or appearance of it, but 

 only that peculiar kind of temple in which the cella was left partly 

 uncovered, after the manner of an inner cortile with colonnades along 

 Its sides, with a smaller order forming galleries over them, rising up 

 to the slope of the roof. Consequently the Durham Testimonial— or 

 as It might more properly be called, the Durham " Folly," does not at 

 all answer to the description implied by the epithet " hypcelhral" since 

 it has neither cella nor roof of any kind whatever. Nevertheless, as 

 if to render absurdity still more absurd, and inconsistency all the more 

 glaring, this roofless edifice is to have a "magnificent pediment" at 

 each end . For their magnificence, however, those superfluous fea- 

 tures, It seems, will be nowise indebted to sculpture, although that would 

 serve as some apology for the introduction of them, if any thing could 

 possibly excuse such gross and palpable violation of meaning and com- 

 mon-sense. In fact the design does not provide for auv sculpture at 

 all— not even for a statue or any thing else to express the purpose of 

 the " Testimonial," and point out the individual whom it is intended 

 to commemorate. On the contrary, we are told that >' nothing in the 

 nhape of ornament or meretricious decoration will be introduced;" and 

 so far, It may be presumed, this classical structure will manifest a very 

 great improvement upon such a meretriciously tricked out building as 

 was the Parthenon with all its lavish parade and pomp of sculpture 

 This IS refining upon Athenian taste, with a vengeance ! Still, it may 

 be thought that what is so undisguisedly a mere sham as a building 

 without even the appearance of answering any purpose whatever as 

 such, stands in need of more than an ordinary degree of embellishment 

 in order to reconcile us in some degree to the utter want of utility 

 or even the mere semblance of it. A monumental column at least ex- 

 presses Its intention, without any deception, whereas liere, on the 

 building being approached, it will show itself to be a mere sham— all 

 outside show,— a mere platform quite open to the skv, yet edged 

 round by useless columns supporting nothing but their 'own entabla- 

 tures. It IS consolatory however to learn that these last will be turned 

 to some account, as they are tn form "promenades," whence, after 

 having first crept up and squeezed through a staircase, within one of 

 the columns, (which are not more than five feet in their upper diame- 

 ter), visitors may enjoy "a panorama of the suiiounding country "— 

 that IS standing on a narrow ledge not more than between four and 

 five feet wide, with the blocking courses as parapets to if, so that they 

 wil have o promenade somewhat after the fashion of crows in a But- 

 ter! \yell, at any rate that will be a novel idea; only i\w prospect of 

 having to descend the awfully narrow corkscrew in one" of the columns 

 must be anything but a pleasant one. Surely the architect misht have 

 exerted the powers of contrivance a little more rationally,— in fact so 

 as bv providing a commodious platform or terrace on tiie top of the 

 building, and an equally commodious ascent up to it, he micht at the 

 same time have kept up the character of a peristylar temple, whose 

 coh.nnades form an external sheltered ambulatory around the enclosed 

 sanctuary ox cella That this might very easily have been accom- 

 phshed IS evident from the plan : there are i„ all eighteen columns so 

 disposed that the structure is tetrastyle at each end, and heptastyle 

 in Its flank elevations, in other words, these last consist of six, and the 

 ends ot three intercolumns each. This of course leaves onlv the so ice 

 of one intercolumn and two columns for any interior chamber or cella 

 (unless indeed the plan were altered to a pseudo-peristvle I • vet il 

 though it would be hardly su8icient-of much too narrow pro'portos 

 for any sort of sepulchral chamber or mausoleum containing a statue 

 of the nobleman to whom the structure is dedicated, it would, accord- 

 ing to the dimensions stated afford a clear breadth within, of about 

 eighteen feet by somewhat more than sixty feet in length, conse- 

 quently enough for a staircase of convenient width, consisfing of two 

 or more flights forward in one direction, and then returning again 

 similarly in the other. This being done there would have been a suf- 

 No. 86 — Vol. VII,— October, 1844. 



ficient y spacious terrace on the top of the building, extending over 

 the colonnades, or all that part of the plan not occupied by the^stair- 

 case. Another advantage would have been that had such an idea been 

 adopted the external walls of the cella (staircase) might have been 

 rendered sigmhcant and historic, by being sculptured with a series of 



reliefs and inscriptions, illustrating the deeds and merits of the individual 

 to whom this classic "monument" is professedly raised. At present 



urdi".v^nfHer"°"'°,h '""''* f'""' " '^''"''^••^- exquis^ite ab- 

 surdity of the design will operate as a powerful warning in future. It 

 IS a pity he public have not been informed who are the wiseacres to 

 whose judgement and taste they are indebted for the selection of such 

 a precious piece of maudlin and make-believe classicality-of what 

 may fairly be called classicality run mad. ^ 



II. Should V^elby Pugin ever favour us with a Supplement to his 

 Contrasts, he will uo doubt bring forward as one moTeg^eg o,^ n- 

 stance of architectural bathos the unlucky structure commS upon 

 in the preceding paragraph. He might also hold up for reprehens'^on 

 a good many Pecfc,»/specimens of Gothic and Tudor of very ecent 

 date-certainly more recent than would be imagined, for some of them 

 ? 7 to be jjimost twin-brothers to Strawberry Hill, or else to th" 

 fron of Guildhall. To say the truth, the Gothic style has nu thriven 

 in the metropolis; rather quite the reverse, for even the let ex- 

 ceptionable examples of it scarcely surpass a kind of respectable me- 

 diocrity, while the rest fall very far sho'rt even of that. Wlli 1, re- 

 after be believed that the range of "Gothic" building in the In, er 

 Temple, facing the Garden, was erected in the very s°ame age wtl 

 the "Palace of Westminster," and not more than a score of y"ars 

 or'date irii Ite ''' ^'T' ^-^0" School takes precedence in po 

 ot date by httle more than a single lustrum, of the new Hall and 

 Library of Lincohi's Inn? Those two unhappy Gothic abo t"n 'the 

 church in Little Queen Street, Holboru ; and that in Berwick sieet 

 Soho-the latter with an "area" and kitchen windows-are Uryin 

 the extreme-not better than some of the wicked caricature'l „pi" 

 gin s book, or than some of those suburban abominations in brick Tnd 

 compo ycleped "Gothic Chapels." Nor is it only when the Gothic 

 style IS affected for them, but nearly all the ecclesiastical str,^°u es 

 which have been erected of late years either in or about the metropo 

 is have been singularly unhappy-most meagre, tame, dull, pover^v- 

 tricken things, devoid of design or character-buildi gs n d ed even 

 to meanness converted into soi-dtsant Greek, by having four or six 



nl'T mo',! 1 •'" '""'' 5", ■'■ '" "P^" ^''^'^'-" "f ^1' ™n"ist ncy! 

 and the most obvious principles of good taste. Although not ab«o 

 lutely he very worst of their class, such buildings as the On rcliTn 

 Wyndham Place, and St. John's in the Waterloo Koad, are ba barois 

 monstrosities; and yet for the fir=t of them we are indebted to t|"e 



fvTth tirXetv": '"^^,^,'?' ""^ ^'?'^-'^« "'l^" copies Greek columns 

 with the nicety of a Chinese artist, but violates the principles and 

 spirit of Greek architecture by wholesale. The poilico of St. Pancras 

 Church-an avowed copy indeed-forms a most striking exception to 

 he generality of modern churches in that style, but then the ad n ra- 

 tion excited by the columns and doors abates wonderfully if we raise 

 our eyes at all higher than the a.chitrave of the entablature, for then 

 the spell IS broken, all above that member looking bare and unfin s ed 

 and in most dissonant opposition to the florid richness of the capitals' 

 decSion."" ""' ^"'"^ ''^'"'^"^ '' '° "'^ ^"^ distribution of 



n JiLi" ''''""r *° "*''" '^'«''^»'««« f'at beset the question of Fresco- 

 painting, one of no small magnitude now presents itself as regards the 

 choice of subjects. It certainly will be a puzzling matter ?o select 

 such as shall be in every respect well adapted fur pictorial represent 

 ation in that style of ait, and at the same'time of such histor'^cafim- 

 poitance as to express the most momentous points in 'our national 

 annals Neither is that all, since it will probably be made a sn,Za. 

 non-thUM subjects shall be avoided which are likely togive^um- 

 brage o the prejudices, whether political or religious, of anv one sect 

 or party. Pleasant steering it will be, (rulv, between the Scylla and 

 Charybdis of opposed opinions! The indiVidnal who to please one 

 party, must be drawn as a patriot, will by another be regarded as a 

 raitor ; and he m whom some will behold only a faithless fyrant, must 

 satisfy others be delineated almost as a saint and martvr. How are 

 he antuhe.ical reigns of those two royal viragos Mary and Elizabeth 

 be adumbrated on the walls of the Palace ot' Westminster ; or must 

 they be given upas impracticable, and as ai, equivalent for he latter 

 of them, must we be content with the old scene of 6ir Walter Raldgl 

 damaging his cloak in order to repair his fortune ?-a very lova nd 

 safe subject, but also one titter for an engraving in an annual, L n f o r 

 afrescoinasenate-house. Is the expulsTon of , he Stuarts to be passed 

 over as dangerous matter for the pencil ?-must not the "glorious Re- 

 vo ution" be commemorated-or the passing of the Reform Bil ai'd 

 If they are, how and an what manner are those events to be expre^s^d? 



34 



