414 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL, 



[November, 



prototypes, whereas as now treated in our modern ultra-classical, yet 

 at the best only pseudo-Greek buildings, the windows are left to show 

 themselves hardly better than so many holes in the wall, having for 

 the most part little other architectural dressing than a scanty border- 

 ing of flat architrave, no matter of how decorative character the order — 

 which ought to regulate all the rest — may be, or how highly wrought 

 in its enrichments. Between the most florid and the very plainest 

 Ionic no distinction is made as far as windows are concerned, it being 

 thought, it seems, that those which will serve for the one, will serve 

 equally well for the other ; or as to the matter of that, for all orders 

 alike. Such at least appears to be, if not avowedly his doctrine, the 

 principle — the idea of harmony and unity, and of due consistency of 

 character, manifested in the works of one great modern classic, — who 

 has been content to go on all his life with just one ide;i. That he 

 should have done so is, perhaps, not very strange, because it may fairly 

 be questioned if he could possibly muster up a second one ; yet 

 strange it certiunly is that his employers should be content with the 

 humdrum things he has supplied them with. 



III. Ecce ikrum! — Dr. Fulton fancies that I am prejudiced in fa- 

 vour of Palladio and his school. Next, I suppose, somebody will say 

 of me, — who have shown myself to be 



Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri, 

 that I am too bigotted an admirer ofVitruvius. I cannot just now 

 point out to the Doctor the precise passages where in the course of what 

 now amounts to Sixty Fasciculi, I have expressed my opinion of Pal- 

 ladio, but it certainly has not been one of admiration and respect. I 

 therefore fancy in my turn that the Doctor's acquaintance with my 

 Note-Book is not of very long standing, and if so, there is probably 

 some amusement and edification still in store for him: — so very far 

 indeed am I from entertaining any alfection for Palladio's own works, 

 or from being able to discover in any of them that refined taste which 

 is so liberally attributed to him by Italian critics and ciceroni, and by 

 those who write or speak after them, that I consider them to be for 

 the most part stamped by meagreness, littleness, and dryness of man- 

 ner, and to abound to such degree with sins against ordinary good 

 taste, that there is hardly a solecism or a deformity for which autho- 

 rity — if authority can avail aught in such cases — might not be pro- 

 duced from his designs and buildings. Even his admirers do not 

 seem to speak from self-conviction or from their own perception of 

 his merits: they extol him, it is true, by wholesale in those safely 

 vague generalities which amount to nothing more than the mere asser- 

 tion of praise; but as soon as ycu begin to ask them for more explicit 

 criticism, and to enter a little into the "why" and " hom," and Ihe pros 

 and cons of the matter, or set about cross-questioning them at all, they 

 turn a deaf ear u|ion you, or else cut you short by saying that Palladio 

 has always been held to be one of the greatest masters in his art, and 

 that if you are not of that opioion, your opinion is contrary to that of 

 all the rest of the world. 



IV. Few architects appear to have much siorge or natural affection 

 for their productions, or any of that sensitiveness in regard to them 

 ■wliich induced Queen Elizabeth to prohibit spurious counterfeits of 

 her fair features and person by unskilful "limners;" — or else we 

 should have more publications supplying authentic representations of 

 modern buildings, whereas of late years, a vfork of the kind has be- 

 come almost a rarity — in this country at least, nothing of the kind 

 having appeared for a long while except Barry's Illustrations of his 

 Travellers' Clubhouse, and the two separate works On Windsor Castle, 

 neither of which, by the bye, explain the interior of that edifice. One 

 plausible excuse for architects not bringing out authentic delineations 

 of their own buildings, is that such kind of publicity is not needed : 

 there are the buildings themselves for people to judge of. Very 

 true ; but they forget that they cannot prevent others from putting 

 forth to the world vile misrepresentations and caricatures of them, 

 called "views," — which, wherever they go — and many of them, un- 

 doubtedly find their way abroad, — are calculated to make the most 

 unfavourable impression. Besides which, it frequently happens that 

 by being published original designs become faithful and valuable — at 

 least interesting records of structures that have either been destroyed 

 by fire, or have else been so greatly altered as to present quite a dif- 

 ferent character from their first one. There can be little doubt that 

 the publication of their "Entwiiife" or "Designs," tended, not indeed 

 to establish, but certainly to widely extend the fame of Schinkel and 

 Klenze, and as little doubt can there be that many who would else not 

 have thuught of doing so, have been in consequence induced to visit 

 Berlin and Munich for the express purpose of beholding the structures 

 themselves. — Why does not Biiriy begin at once to edit the drawings 

 of the New Palace of Westminster ? — first of those portions that are 

 already executed, and then in like manner of others at intervals, 

 whereby the progress of their publication would nearly keep pace 

 with that of the edifice, and both be completed tog^'ther. Whereas 



if the one — which it is to be presumed will be undertaken some time 

 or other — is not to be commenced until after the other shall have been 

 terminated, it will be a far more laborious task than if it were executed 

 as here suggested. 



V. The Royal Exchange gives us a foretaste of that general splen- 

 dour of decoration which we look forward to for the Palace of West- 

 minster; therefore, although in all probability it would never have 

 been thought of — or if thought of, scouted as extravagant, had it not 

 been for what is contemplated for the other edifice, it has got the start 

 of the latter in point of time. In truth, the new Exchange seems to 

 be the commencement of a new era in our public buildings ; at least 

 so, it is to be hoped, it will prove, and that we shall not now revert to, 

 or any longer tolerate that bald and beggarly style of so-called sim- 

 plicity and purity which has heretofore prevailed from the commence- 

 ment of the century, and whose parsimoniousness has, after all, con- 

 duced nothing to economy, — quite the contrary, if it be true, as has 

 been stated, that notwithstanding its richness of decoration, the Ex- 

 change has not cost more than half what the Post Office did. Never- 

 theless it may be called a wicked building, inasmuch as it puts wicked 

 thoughts into one's head, making one wish many other public buildings 

 we are now heartily ashamed of, were to meet the same fate as the 

 old Exchange did, in order that they might rise from their ashes 

 " transformed, transfigurated" like the new one. 



VI. Seldom has any one obtained credit for superior critical 

 acumen more cheaply than Horace Walpole. His remarks are often 

 lively and epigrammatic enough, yet seldom amount to more than 

 brief dicla unsupported by any show of arguments. No wonder, 

 therefore, that he has been styled by some a flippant critic : the won- 

 der is that those who consider him such should sometimes adopt his 

 bare ipse-dixits, without attempting to show the justice of them. 

 Nevertheless this is done by Gwilt, who approvingly quotes Wal- 

 pole's sneer at Hawksmoor's church of St. George's, Bloomsbury, 

 whose steeple it pleases him to term a masterpiece of absurdity. 

 Gwilt, indeed, allows that there are considerable merits in other 

 parts of the building, yet without specifying one of them ; while as to 

 the steeple, he too, leaves us quite at a loss to understand whether 

 apart from the "absurdity" of a statue being placed on the summit 

 of it, it possesses any merit in its general design as a campanile. 

 Consequently, instead of at all confirming Walpole's opinion, he 

 merely repeats, just as any one else who had no opinion of his own to 

 offer — as any of those self-constituted critics, reviewers, and ama- 

 teurs might do, upon whom Gwilt affects to look down with so much 

 contempt and scorn. But "masterpiece of absurdity !" wherefore 

 so, most critical Horace, or most critical Joseph ? Does the absurdity 

 consist in placing a statue upon the very summit of a lofty structure, 

 where it chiefly serves as an ornamental finish or pinnacle to it, littie 

 more than the general shape of the figure being distinguishable? If 

 so, precisely the same sort of absurdity attaches to all statues simi- 

 larly placed, — whether on the top of a monumental column, or on the 

 apex of a dome by way of substitute for a lantern — of which there are 

 instances, or placed as terminations to gotliic pinnacles, let alone 

 spires. Or does the particular absurdity here consist in the statue's 

 representing a modern king instead of an ancient saint ? That, how- 

 ever, need scandalize no one — at least not when considering the matter 

 merely architecturally : the figure may just as well pass for the one 

 personage as for the other, at such a distance ; so that this master- 

 piece of absurdity is at least reduced to a minimum. However unfa- 

 vourable may be the traditional criticism given in books, since Wal- 

 pole's time, I never yet met with an architect who has not confessed 

 that there is something no less masterly than original in the general 

 composition and effect of that campanile. It has a look of solidity 

 and lightness combined, without any of that appearance of being a 

 Romanized or Italianized version of a Gothic spire, as is the case with 

 those of Wren. 



Fall of a Stalk at St. Rollox. — On Friday, Nov. 1, in the afternoon, a 

 little past three o'clock, the stalk, 240 feet in lu-ight, situated at the corner 

 of the works at St. Rollox, immediately adjoining the Glasgoiv and Garnkirk 

 Railway, gave way at the foumlauon, anil in an instant not one brick was 

 left above another. This stalk, we understand, was only finished a lew weeks 

 ago, and abiiut the same time it was discovered that its base was not secure. 

 Means were accordingly taken to insure its stability, by iiroppin,.; and other- 

 wise, and little fear was enterlained but tlfat it would stand a while, when on 

 Friday, as lias been staled, it fell with a most tremendous crash, lis descent 

 was almost perpendirular, and it tlicreiure occasioned little additional damage, 

 for aldioiigli a portion of the bricks fell within the Railway depot, and upon 

 the rails, no further accident was the result. Several m^n who were working 

 close by the slalk hoard it cracking a few seconds before it tell, and, fortu- 

 nately, having quickly left its vicinity, escaped. The wind was blowing very 

 fresh at the time, and the stalk fell in the same direction ; but had its loun- 

 dation been anydiing like secure, it would not have aliected the stability of 

 the structure,— C'n/i'(/o«ia« Mermrtj, 



