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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



more attractive and popular shape than that of formal treatisps and 

 theories. Yet they cannot reasonably complain of ground being tres- 

 passed upon, which they themselves willingly abandon to all who 

 choose to enter upon it. No doubt there is a great deal of absurdity 

 — no small number of crude superficial opinions served up to the pub- 

 lic in that f.ishion; and why ? because however ignorant and superfi- 

 cial such writers may be, the public are still more ignorant, conse- 

 quently unable to detect the shallowness of those who " set up for 

 critics." This last phrase has been employed as one of peculiar re- 

 proach bv a certain professional writer, who seems to hold all criticism 

 illegal and contraband that does not bear the lawful professional mark, 

 which is assuredly greatly overshooting the mark, and almost tanta- 

 mount to interdicting criticism altogether. From whom do we get 

 criticism on art at all, if not from those who voluntarily come forward 

 and "set up as critics," without other licence for doing so than their 

 own ? Condemn and expose bad critics, but to rail at the whole race 

 indiscriminately is extravagantly absurd, and also perfectly useless. 

 It would seem that some are possessed with such a horror of criticism, 

 that while they carefully abstain from it themselves, they will on no 

 account tolerate it in others. Strange, then, that professional men 

 should care at all for the good opinion of those who, if some among 

 them are to be believed, are no better than pretenders, and whose 

 praise ought therefore to be held as valueliss as their censure. Yet 

 somehow or other it happens that praise — even though it should come 

 from a blockhead — is always acceptable, and will be received as legal 

 tender without being very nicely examined. So long as he deals only 

 in that, a man mav pass tor a very judicious and discerning critic ; but 

 ■when once he begins to censure, or even to qualify his praise by noting 

 defects and imperfectiens also, his judgment is disputed. 



III. As in a good many other things, Nominalism is the source of 

 no little mischief, error, and hum'iug in architecture. Jt puts us off 

 with mere delusions — words, names, and titles, instead of realities. 

 Because the style which a building must be described as belonging to 

 — for want of other means of indicating the mode it affects — is good 

 in itself, it nominally ranks as being q/' it, although it may be a positive 

 disgrace to it. Notwithstanding that the contrary opinion seems to 

 prevail, there is no talismanic power in the name of a style. Grecian, 

 Roman, Italian, Gothic, may be all alike rendered detestable, thoroughly 

 mean and jialtry ; and when that is the case the excellence of the style 

 adopted only renders failure in it the more ignominious, proving that 

 he who has attempted to use it has neither understood it nor had the 

 least feeling for it. The name of a style is of infinitely less import- 

 ance than the manner in which it is treated. Instead of taking one 

 that is good merely to emasculate, impoverish, and vulgarize it, it 

 would be far better to make use at once of what is considered a poor 

 one, and try to infuse some spirit and quality into it. It matters little 

 what style an architect employs, if out of the very best he can only 

 produce what is decidedly unsatisfactory. Before determining upon 

 what style he shall select, an architect would do well to ask liiniself if 

 he can treat any style at all with geniality. Unless he be content to 

 be nothing more tlian a mere builder, geniality is a sine qua non pre- 

 req\iisite for him who would not unworthily write himself architect. 

 Genius, indeed, we have no right to demand, because it cannot be 

 commanded even by the most diligent and the most zealous, but 

 geniality — intense relish for his pursuit, earnest and fond application 

 to it, generous and enthusiastic devotion to it, may not unreasonably 

 be looked for in him who enlists under the banners of Art, which is pre- 

 sumed to admit into its service only volunteers. A coward in a red 

 coat is less pitiable and contemptible than he who enrols himself in 

 the ranks of art, though conscious of his own disqualifications, and 

 animated by no higher stimulus than the hope of pay and plunder. 



IV. Onerous and odious as the window-tax may be, it cannot — as 

 those who declaim against it would fain make us believe — be alleged 

 against that it operates to the disadvantage of architecture. Absurdly 

 anomalous it is, no doubt, there being no reason wherefore a special 

 tax should be levied on those parts of a honse more than any other — 

 than on doors or fire-places, wnicli are equally indispensable, and the 

 number of which in a house afford just as good a criterion of its occu- 

 pier's ability to pay accordingly. If tax of the kind there must be, it 

 would be good policy to take it off from windows and clap it upon 

 doors f^double doors or folding doors reckoned as two), because were 

 windows unt.ixed there could no longer be room for any sentimental 

 lamentation about the inhumanity of making people pay for enjoying 

 the "Light of Nature, the enlivening, the pure, the h.oly light!" — 

 In regard to which flourish of superfine sensibility, I may observe, 

 that to so very prusaic a creature as myself, it seems that it depends 

 upon a variety of other circumstances than the mere number of win- 

 dows whether the said " holy light" be particularly " pure " and " en- 

 livening" or not. Although one side of a room were made all win- 

 dow, there would be nothing particularly enlivening in having an un- 



interrupted prospect looking into a narrow, dismal, and stinking alley, 

 into which fresh air never finds its way, though such gratification were 

 attended with the additional delightfulness of a person's knowing that 

 he was fully exposed to the constant surveillance, inspection, and 

 sympathetic watchfulness of his opposite neighbour, — window-blinds 

 and draperies being of course totally out of the question. If the poor 

 are ever to enjoy them in their dwellings, light and fresh air must 

 first of all be admitted into the places where such dwellings are now 

 squeezetl up and crammed together to the all but utter exclusion of 

 both. The dismal lanes, and courts, and alleys inhabited bv the poor, 

 stand in need of thorough ventilation both physical and moral, nor is 

 the latter kind of it that which is least of all needed ; yet neither the 

 one nor the other, it seems, is likely to be promoted by the Society for 

 Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, and its model 

 houses packed together within " blind" courts and alleys. — But there 

 must always be a certain degree of humbug and cant afloat, and the 

 cant which is just now uppermost with the public is that of providing 

 a panacea for the poor by affording them light and ventilation in places 

 so densely built that it is almost mockery to talk of their having either, 

 unless such districts can be thoroughly thinned out — half the houses 

 or more knocked down in order that the rest may get a little sun- 

 shine and fresh air. If a system of" thinning out" and dispersing the 

 present liorriblv accumulated masses of poverty be impracticable, no 

 effectual remedy for the evils complained of can be supplied. 



V. If there be any justness in the preceding remarks, it further fol- 

 lows that even in houses of a superior kind, regard is to be had to the 

 express situation, if a certain fixed proportion of light is to be ad- 

 milted into all the rooms alike — as seems to be gener.dly considered 

 desirable. There is therefore something like quackerv in the rules 

 pretended to be laid down by some writers, for regulating the number 

 and size of the windows of a room according to its cubic dimensions. 

 Either there can be very little difference in the size and proportions 

 of the several rooms or what woulil be proper for some of the rooms 

 would not suit others. Besides which the sciupidous secundum artem 

 nicety which is affected, is, after all, disregarded if a variety of other 

 circumstances, be not also taken into account, — imprimis, external 

 situation, fur it surely makes some diflerence whether light be at all 

 obstructed or even moderated by opposite buildings, or not; neit, as- 

 pect, because if we are to come lo such very nice calculation, windows 

 of tliat size which suit an East aspect do not answer equally well 

 for a West one; thirdly, the position of windows — whether at one 

 end or along one side of a rooEii, — whether on a level with the floor or 

 raised only two or three feet above it, or in a lofty room placed high 

 up over head, just beneath the entablature or cornice; again, whether 

 they be in the side walls at all or in the ceiling as a lantern or dome 

 skylight, — in which last shape a much smaller proportion of window 

 aperture is required than in any other. 



VI. So far from operating at all to the prejudice of architectural 

 design, the window-tax is a most decided boon and blessing to it — 

 that is, supposing it does ever cause fewer windows to be made in a 

 front than otherwise would be. If — as seems to be the vulgar notion 

 — "frequency" of windows and comparative narrowness of spaces be- 

 tween tiiem be a merit in architecture, then are the " Terraces" in 

 the Regent's Park, and other similarly genteel- named ranges of 

 houses beskirting the metropolis, in better and more ratiouaf taste 

 than Barry's and Basevi's Clubhouses, which are in comparison 

 with them, of course very sulky-looking — not to say prison-like with- 

 out, and dismal and gloomy within. Neither Reformers nor Conser- 

 vatives seem to have any very inordinate affection fur "the holy 

 light" — for what Friend Joseph calls "God's eldest daughter." On 

 the contrary, we might suppose them of the other sex, who, if they 

 are not grossly belied, are led by instinctive policy to prefer artificial 

 light to "the light of nature." Tlie Conservatives' new building does 

 not, indeed, look very much like a eonscroalonj. There are compara- 

 tively few openings for daylight either in that or the Reform Club- 

 house ; and the buildings are in other respects far more massive and 

 substantial than light in style. Nevertheless, in spite of their pro- 

 nounced Italianism, vvliich ought, according to some learned wiseacres, 

 to disqualify them entirely for this tramontane, hyperborean climate 

 of ours, they are not sucli exceedingly owlish places within as might, 

 a prion, be imagined. The rooms are passably lightsome and cheeiful 

 "considering;" the atmosphere within them is not quite of the kind 

 to bring on a fit of the blue-devils, — wdiich is rather to be mortally 

 regretted than nut, because it is most mortifying to the solemn twad- 

 dlers whose puny theories it completely upsets. Pityl that a little 

 more light cannot be admitted into some gentlemen's Haltic storeys I 



