10 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHltECT'S JOURNAL. 



[January, 



Little cared tin goilless jiofscssors of the Cluircirs lands for (he solemn 

 anathema which She had pronounced of old on the heads of the spoiler,.. 

 But the judgment cams, and fearfully and visihly it fell. Great families one 

 hy one hecaine rapidly extinct, .\wful deaths, grievous visitations, fruitless 

 marriages, were the peiiallies which attended sacrilegious wealth. Trnperty 

 passed from hand to hand, hut remained with none. The finger of God was 

 manifested against the deeds of that day ; but man in its blinduess saw it 

 not.— P. 63. 



We dare s;\y not. George Fox, in liis tliary, records vvitli great 

 coinpl.icency the fate of sonic of those who opposed his labours to ad- 

 vance t^iiiikcrisin. The justices who imprison hitn are "cut ott," or 

 by (he death of a wife " left willi fourteen motherless ;" one gaoler is 

 "cut off in his young days," another " in his wickedness," and others 

 are "mined in their worldly estates." 



Mr. Paley seems to view the calamities, or supposed calamities, of 

 (he reformers of the church, " venial and corrupt and careless" as he 

 confesses it to liave been, in a similar self-congratulating, amiable 

 spirit. Did he ever liear of tlie Tower of Siloam : 



The history of Letlierton church subsequent to the Reformation is 

 traced in most pathetic terms. The Puritans continue the spoliation 

 commenced at the Reformation, and the degradation of the sacred 

 editice goes on to the commencement of the present century. At that 

 time the church fortunately comes into the hands of a rector whose 

 son is addicted to church architecture, and is a member of the Oxford 

 Architectunil Society. (It vvotild have smelled of the shop, we sup- 

 pose, to have made liini a Camdenian.) Tlii» young gentleman, who 

 adopts the chronological notation invented by Dr. Pusey, and dates a 

 certain letter to his papa, "Oxford, the Feast of St. Matthew," set 

 about restoring the cliurch, something in the same fashion as the Cam- 

 bridge Camden Society have rtslcred St. Sepulchre's at Cambridge, 

 and so the story ends. 



Having thus analyzed the book, we shall give a few extracts to ex- 

 hibit some of its peculiar tenets. The following show the writer's 

 notions of chancels. 



A screen of wood was placed in the chancel arch to divide the people from 

 the throne of ihe adorable Mysteries. 



Does the chancel convey to a religious mind no esoteric meaning .' Is it a 

 mere oblong projection of the nave towards the east ? Do we not instinc- 

 tively feel tlict while the nave is, as it were, the vestibule, the chancel is the 

 palace of the Great King? Can v\e sec its solemn screen — its moat ancient 

 cancclli across the entrance arch, — without hearing the Church say to the 

 careless intruder, (liiis far shall titou come and iiti further .' The vse of I lie 

 chancel is just the same to us as it was before the Reformation ; namely, to 

 receive the clergy as distinct from the laity; the communicants from the 

 non-communicants ; the priest who offers prayer, from the people who follow 

 and join in it. The chancel is the choir of the angels ; the Church triumph- 

 ant ; the Holy of Holies. It is the feature which essentially distinguishes 

 the form and character of a church from a secular building. It holds apart 

 from the vulgar ga^e the seat of the blessed Mysteries. — P. 105. 



It is singular, that in promulgating these tenets, Mr. Paley has for- 

 gotten to support them by texts of scripture, or passages from the 

 prayer-book. He is content with bare assertion — even arguments of 

 common sense are deemed superfluous. 



The next peculiar doctrine of this book is faith in modern miracles ! 

 Our readers will perhaps scarcely credit that the tales of the marvel- 

 lous, so prevalent three centuries back, are here set down as sober 

 truths. On the first perusal, we charitably imagined that we had 

 mistaken Mr. Paley's meaning, and that the stories of miracles were 

 merely introduced to givw an antique air to the book. The following 

 description, however, of a case far exceeding any in the annals of 

 hydropathy, which occurred "very recently at the Holy Well of St. 

 Winifride, near Chester," is conclusive. 



A young Irish lad was grievously afflicted with that almost incurable 

 disease, a white-swelling in the knee-joint. He was brought, truly in faith, 

 from a very great distance to St. Winifride's well. The bone, I believe, was 

 quite diseased ; at least the pain and suft'ering were so severe that the poor 

 lad could only hear to sit at the well and pour the blessed water with his 

 hand over the joint. In a week he could walk : in a month he was perfectly 

 recovered by these means alone. People said cold water must be a specific 

 for white swelUngs; and perhaps, if they had said the cold water of St. 

 Winifride's well, lliey would have been right.— P. 163. 



The Lady Etheldreda has a withered limb restored by touching relics, 

 several sober pages are occupied by tales of bodies of monks laying 

 ill their graves centuries without decaying; "miraculous cures per- 

 formed at Gutherin, Shropshire, and Holvvvell;" mysterious disap- 

 pearances and dreadful apparitions. Had Mrs. Radclifte lived to read 

 this book, she had well nigh diad of envy. 



For ourselves, we thought I bat miracles ware long passed ; the few 

 that have been got up of late years have turned out anything but well. 

 The Cock Lane ghost was laid, Johanna Southeote proved a failure, 

 and the Man.in the Iron Mask has ceased to torture the curiosity of 



Europe. An idea is getting prevalent that the steam engine and the 

 printing press are sadly inimical to miracle stories. James Watt has 

 banished more ghosts than James the First. Mr. Paley, however, has 

 evidently no faith in the march of intellect, and all that ; he does not 

 wish to float onward with the stream of time ; the retreats of a college 

 secure him from the full force of the current, and like the countryman 

 in the fable he is fondly waiting for it to come to rest. It is hopeless 

 to argue with him; it is useless to satirize him — who would waste 

 good jokes on those who cannot feel them — who would satirize a 

 gate-post? We can only wish our good tide-waiter prosperity and 

 patience, and bid him not to be so very spiteful against those whom 

 he suffers to shoot ahead of him. 



We cannot accede to the criticism on the Fitzwilliam Museum, ex- 

 pressed incidentally in the following passage — 



The middle ages had in most respects the same requirements as ours : 

 vast halls, great houses, places for worship, business, and amusement, were 

 as much wanted then as now. But would the builders of that time (had 

 they known them) have copied pagan temples, retaining expensive and per- 

 fectly useless parts merely to keep up the necessary efl'ect.' Would they 

 have added an imposing stone portico, of no manner of use in the world, to 

 a clumsy square body made up principally of brick, cast-iron, and plaister of 

 Paris, merely to make a street elevation, as we have done ia the new Fitz- 

 William Museum at Cambridge ? — P. 191 



Though we readily concede that "architecture is in its origin and 

 consistent development the expression and the type of the purpose 

 of its use," Ihe above censure of the Fitzwilliam Museum seems to us 

 by no means an obvious deduction from this canon. The edifice cri- 

 ticised, though doubtless in many respects faulty, will hardly be con- 

 demned by any one, but a rule and square critic, for the magnificent 

 portico which forms its chief beauty. The use of this architectural 

 member, in those great prototypes the Grecian temples, must have 

 been to defend the worshippers from the scorching heat of the sun 

 and the inclement weather. To the same purpose the portico of the 

 Fitzwilliam Museum is applicable. The obvious origin of the columns 

 of the portico was the necessity of supporting the gable of the roof. 

 But can it be asserted, that in buildings like the Parthenon or Temple 

 of Theseus, there existed the same absolute necessity, as in more 

 primitive structures, for supporting the roof by a portico? When an 

 area within that occupied by the columns became enclosed by an inner 

 wall, the portico became a projection, an appendage — serviceable in- 

 deed for some purpose, but certainly not for that for which it was ori- 

 ginally intended. At the later period of the art, the part supported 

 that part only of the roof which was immediately above it. That part 

 of the roof was, however, we apprehend, of no service when an inner 

 area was enclosed, but as a shelter to persons entering or quitting the 

 building; — and for precisely the same service the portico of the Fitz- 

 william Museum is available. It cannot, therefore, be condemned on 

 the ground of utility ; the real fault lies in the ugly structures jiroject- 

 ing above and by the side of the pediment of the Museum, and which, 

 it follows from the above observations, vitiate the original idea of a 

 portico. 



The maxim that Grecian architecture is wholly inapplicable for 

 modern purposes, is insisted upon in the present work as strongly as 

 in the " Ecclesiologist." We are told that "pagan archi/cclare must 

 die the death;," and the writer considers such arguments as the follow- 

 ing sufficient to bear out his opinion — 



As many persons ask h'% Grecian and other antique styles may not be 

 used at least for modern secular purposes, we will endeavour briefly to 

 answer them. All architecture whatsoever is in its origin and consistent 

 development the e.rpressiou and the type of the purpose of its use. That is 

 to say, the architecture of every age and every nation owed its existence and 

 formation to the requirements of the religion, or other objects for which it 

 was intended. Thus, a Grecian temple contained arrangements adapted to 

 the worship of a heathen deity, or the reception of the worshippers, and 

 ornaments and members possessing manifest fitness as parts of a whole ; 

 material, cHmate, mechanical skill, and other subordinate influences being 

 taken into consideration. In Christian architecture, in which this principle 

 was invariably carried out to the fullest extent, we find in the same manner 

 a definite use for every single part of a secular as well as of a religious edifice. 

 Now the question is this : can ice retain (he form irrespective of the nse, 

 without violatinff the fnudamenial principles of architecture .* Clearly we 

 cannot. If we alter or curtail the form, we lose the true proportions and 

 effect, and thus travettie, not imitate. If we retain it, and copy exactly the 

 ancient temples, we waste money and space on mere show. One or the 

 other of these alternatives »1HS< attend the practice of modern architects; 

 and an examination of any pseudo-Grecian building in the kingdom will 

 readily prove this. The style is manifestly unfit for us. 



We fully concur with the writer that the very essence of architec- 

 ture is the exhibition of form in strict dependence upon, and subser- 

 vience to use — taking the word "use" in its most extended and liberal 

 signification. But were the requirement! of the Greeks so entirely 



