1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



435 



primary object, of decorating sucii a large extent of surface without some 

 assistance from those accustomed to the same work abroad. Had the 

 Gresham Committee been prepared to authorize the execution of a series 

 of paintings of a far higher order, in the historical and descriptive depart- 

 ments, so far as these might have been applicable, it is matter of evidence 

 that English talent would have been more than adequate to every exigency ; 

 it is from the novelty and peculiarity of the work alone that any necessity 

 arises for extraneous assistance. 



We have hitherto omitted to state, that the north and south approaches 

 to the quadrangle, as well as the entrance under the tower, have also had 

 their ceiUngs painted by M. Sang, in fresco ; the eastern entrance is particu- 

 larly successful. We must also mention, before leaving the ambulatory and 

 its decorations, that its north-east and south-east extremities contain niches, 

 which are tenanted respectively by the statue of Queen Elizabeth, by Mr. 

 Watson, and of Charles II., by Gibbons ; the latter being the identical occu- 

 pant of the central place in the former Exchange. These statues, of course, 

 refer to the buildings for the same purpose erected in the reigns of the sove- 

 reigns they represent. 



Tesselated Pavement. 



In closing our account of the quadrangle, we have only to observe that its 

 open area is floored with tesselated pavement, under the care of Mr. Singer. ' 

 Its design consists, generally, of a large fret and accompaniments, forming a 

 broad external border, after which the elongated form within is subdivided 

 by other bands of ornament into a square between two oblongs ; each of 

 these figures has then a lozenge inscribed within it, entwined with a circle at 

 each of the angles. The space left in the centre of the larger figure is in- 

 tended to afford the site for Mr. Lough's statue of Her Majesty ; the centres 

 of the smaller lozenges are occupied by a semi-arabesque flower. he general 

 design is by no means characterized by the exuberant fancy of some of the 

 Roman remains ; but its efi'ect of colour is rich and good, harmonizing well 

 with the tout ensemble of M. Sang's adjacent performance. We have only to 

 hope that the dust of traflic may not totally obscure, nor exposure to the 

 elements quickly destroy, Mr. Singer's production ; as the experiment which 

 he has here made is one which we would willingly see repeated, and with 

 success, wherever a favourable opportunity may present itself. 



The Sculpture. 



We are sorry that, after going the round of the building we find we must 

 be very brief in the consideration of the remaining accessory, that of sculp- 

 ture. Mr. Westmacott's production, which occupies the tympanum of the 

 pediment, seems to us a display of individual figures, civic, commercial, and 

 foreign, rather than a composition, those figures being well executed, but 

 minute withal. The whole is meagre as to descriptive interest ; and the 

 isolated as well as emblematical character of the presiding figure of Com- 

 merce, amidst sixteen occupied realities, leaves it open to the charge of that 

 want of significancy urged by the author of a jeii, d'esprit which appeared in 

 The Times about a month since. The general effect, however, is rich, the 

 relief powerful, and the principal lines in harmony with and subordinate to 

 those of the architecture. We object to the motto from Scripture, as being 

 a mere sculptural subterfuge, and especially out of keeping with the Latin 

 inscription beneath. 



The department of architectural sculpture, such as that of devices, drape- 

 ries, flower-carving, aud the like, has, we are given to understand, been com- 

 mitted to Mr. Westmacott. The golden days of Grinling Gibbons are gone, 

 without leaving to us his worthy representative. Greatly is it to be lamented 

 that our present architects are not more solicitous to revive the ancient school 

 of carving, and reject the trumpery and meretricious finery of plaster and 

 composition, which affords to every pretender a means of display as equivocal 

 in taste as it is cheap in execution. The mischief of all this, is that it substi- 

 tutes the mechanical for the imaginative, the perpetual repetition of one idea 

 for the renewed creations of individual genius. As ordinary spectators, we 

 never walk round the inside or outside of St. Paul's, without wishing that all 

 the members of the architectural profession could be made to feel this fact 

 as deeply as we do. In the Exchange, however, there appear many steps 

 taken in the right direction ; and we hope to see the same track followed 

 with increasing success by all future practitioners who value their art for any- 

 thing more than its commission. 



Lloyd's Room. 

 Before closing our remarks, we must notice Lloyd's rooms, which are the 

 only apartments of any public interest. They occupy, as before stated, the 

 north-eastern portion of the principal story of the building, and are ap- 

 proached by a staircase of amplitude and solidity, arranged in easy stages, 

 but exhibiting little eflfort at display. From this we enter the archway lead- 

 ing to what is, specifically, the lobby, a lofty apartment, equal to a square 

 of about 35 feet, but of irregular form on the north side. From the 

 irregular portion, however, a symmetrical space is cut off by the intervention 

 of a columned arcade of three openings. This lobby communicates to the 

 west with the commercial-room, to the south with the subscribers' or under- 

 writers'-room and its suite, and to the east with the captains'-room. The 

 commercial-room is affected in plan by the general obliquity of the site, but 

 is treated in such a way as almost entirely to disguise that fact. Its extreme 



» The tesselated paving since the openiog of the Exchange has been removed, it is a 

 failure either through its being exposed to the open atcQosphere, or not being properly 

 embedded in a cement that would withstand the Influence Of moisture. Ihe area is to be 

 covered with Seyssel Asphalte. 



length is about 92 feet ; its average width 40, and height 30. It is divided 

 into five compartments in length by means of broad enriched piers on each 

 side ; these compartments answering to the same number of windows, which 

 derive light from the upper part of the merchants'-court. Each corner of 

 the room is a quadrant, in the centre of which stands an Ionic column, ele- 

 vated on a pedestal, and giving support to an advancing angle of the entab- 

 lature, which is continued round the room considerably enriched. From 

 this springs a cove to meet the plafond of the ceiling, across which all the 

 prevailing lines of the vertical architecture are continued, and from which, 

 by the five principal compartments, light is liberally introduced through ele- 

 gant horizontal glazing. But the principal of Lloyd's apartments, for size 

 and symmetry, is the subscribers'-room, which looks into the quadrangle at 

 its eastern end, and is an oblong of 98 feet in length by 40 in width. It is 

 divided in length into six compartments, by members very similar in effect 

 to those in the room last described, though their detail is totally different. 

 Like that, it has its ceiling commenced with a cove-like arrangement, but 

 pierced in each compartment into a half-groin, through the top of which 

 light is introduced by an ornamentally glazed hexagon. The chief supply of 

 light, however, is obtained reflectively, down the centre of the room, each of 

 the six compartments of the ceiling being there elevated into a dome, with a 

 window beneath its springing on each side. The effect of this mode of light- 

 ing is less brilliant, perhaps, than of that in the commercial-room ; but it is 

 beautifully diffusive and gentle, while abundant in its supply. The decora- 

 tive detail in this room is very cousiderable, but far from overpowering ; wc 

 observe in it the frequent repetition of the heraldic bearings adopted by the 

 establishment of Lloyd's. 



Leaving this room by an archway on the south-east, we enter the reading- 

 room, an apartment 40 feet long by 25 wide, lighted by a lantern and fitted 

 at mid-height with a gallery on each long side, approached by a double stair- 

 case on the east. The decorations of this room are not so elaborate as to 

 detain us for a description ; and we turn, therefore, by the north, succes- 

 sively through the secretary's-room, its anti-chamber under the tower, a 

 clerk's office, and the kitchen of Lloyd's, which suite completes the circuit 

 of the eastern court, and brings us to the captains'-room. More need not 

 be said of this apartment than that it is a cheerful combination of three 

 rooms in one, connected by wide archways, and occupying the north-east 

 angle of the building ; from this we are led out again upon the great lobby 

 first noticed, and from which we retreat without thinking it necessary to 

 carry the reader through a series of various other and less accessible apart- 

 ments of no public interest. 



Here, then, we conclude our review of this important structure ; and in 

 doing so we shall not pay the architect or his co-operators the adulation with 

 which the crowd are too apt to laud every new building of magnitude when 

 clean from the mason's hands, as a superb edifice, magnificent pile, and what- 

 ever else the use of equally discriminative terms can make it. Be it enough 

 that we offer the expression of our opinion that the building has merit suffi- 

 cient to secure for it the approbation of futurity ; which is the highest ob- 

 ject a true artist aims to secure. 



That we may not leave our account incomplete, we subjoin the names of 

 those gentlemen who have been immediately and statedly engaged in super- 

 intending the building, or conducting its decorative departments, not omit- 

 ting to recognize at the outset the services of Mr. Richard Lambert Jones, as 

 the chairman of the controlling Gresham Committee : — 



Mr. William Tite, architect. 



Mr. Ebenezer Trotman, assistant. 



Messrs. G. and R. Webb, builders of the foundations. 



Mr. Thomas Jackson, builder of the superstructure. 



Messrs. Westmacott, Behnes, Carew, Joseph, Lough, and Watson, sculptors. 



Mr. C. H. Smith, architectural carver. 



Herr Frederick Sang, decorator in fresco and encaustic painting. 



M. A. Singer, maker of tesselated pavement. 



Mr. E. J. Dent, clockmaker. 



Messrs. Mears and Son, bellfounders. 



In conclusion, we derive satisfaction from a belief that the general state of 

 professional, and even of public taste, as well as the recently increased facili- 

 ties for building, are in favour of great advances in architectural excellence. 

 Within less than an interval of 20 years, we find that an edifice, not far dif- 

 fering in size from the General Post-office, and displaying incomparably more 

 studied composition and elaborate detail, can be raised at about half the cost 

 which that structure demanded. We wish all success to art aud its profes- 

 sors, and hope that, for the national credit, its interests may never be disso- 

 ciated from the favour of those influential men who shall hereafter assemble 

 in the new Royal Exchange, the centre of the commerce of the world. 



Atmospheric Railway. — The ConstUutiomiel states, that " the first trial 

 on a large scale «as made of M. Hallete's phin of applying the atmospheric 

 system to railroads a fuw days since on a space of 300 feet in his manufac- 

 tory at Arras. The result appears to have been so satisfactory, that Messrs. 

 Arago, Seguier, and other distinguished engineers, are to be invited tu wit- 

 ness a second trial in a few days." 



