362 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[December, 



Quadrangle seems also very ungraceful. It will be observed also that 

 the now buildings do not make the Court a parallelogram, the side 

 next the Abbey being drawn parallel to the palisading on the oppo- 

 site side cf the road, instead of being at right angles to the side in 

 which is the entrance to Westminster Hall. 



The plan involves the removal of all the houses on one side of 

 Bridge-slreet, and also of St. Margaret's Church. Of the latter pro- 

 position we shall have something to say hereafter, but as it does not 

 immediately concern us at present, it is better that it should be con- 

 sidered by itself. Mr. Barry states, that in forming New Palace Yard 

 into a Quadrangle, he is adopting a plan suggested by the form of the 

 ancient Palace, in which he states that the same area was enclosed by 

 buildings. We have examined a great nomber of very old and very 

 scarce engravings in the British Museum, particularly one by Hollar, 

 and find ranges of buildings in a line with the front of Westminster 

 Hall, apparently of Perpendicular architecture, bat have not been able 

 to find any representation of a Quadrangle, such as that proposed. 

 Mr. Barry is, however, doubtless the best authority we can have on 

 the subject to which he has devoted so much study. 



The situation proposed for the New Law Courts is an area, bounded 

 by the Strand, Fleet-street, Chancery-lane, Carey-street, and Shire- 

 lane. The rectangular marked A, B, C, D, in the engraving below, 

 shows the position of the Courts themselves, the deeplv shaded parts 

 immediately below the line A, B, and above the line C, D, denote the 

 situation of the Law Chambers, and other accessurv buildings. Tem- 

 ple Bar is a little above, and to the right of the letter A. By the in- 

 crease of the street to nearly double the present width, the Bar would 

 be left on one side of the street, which would amount to virtual aban- 

 donment of the Palladium of the City of London. For if the Sove- 

 reign were at any time to pay an unexpected visit to the city, it would 

 be easy enough to slip round by the side of the barrier without the 

 ceremony of knocking at the portal, so sedulously guarded by the civic 

 corporatioD. 



Tiie. removal of the old crowded tenements adjoining Shire Lane 

 would L>e a great advantge in a sanatory point of view. It will be 

 seen by reference to the Plan that Carey Street and Chancery Lane 

 would be widened; this would be a great convenience, not only to the 

 attendants on i!ie Law Courts, but to the public generally. From the 

 analysis of the evidence already given, it will be seen that Mr. Barry 

 anticipates a deduction from the cost of the improvements on account 

 of the rental derivable from the Law Chambers. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 



FASCICULUS LXVII. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withal, as large a charter as the winds. 

 To blow ou whom I please." 



I. Chambers' Journal presumes upon the ignorance of its readers 

 somewhat too impudently, when, speaking of the Clubhouses about 

 Pall Mall, it tells them that those buildings exhibit " every order of 

 architecture, from the severest Doric to the most florid Composite," 

 and that a stranger might mistake some of them for " restored Gre- 

 cian temples," the mistake being in fact entirely on the part of the 

 writer, unless Scotch second-siglit has enabled him to discern that 

 very striking and illusive Dromiosort of resemblance to Grecian tem- 

 ples, which seems to strike him, but vshich no one who is not equally 

 gifted can possibly detect. Even when he comes to matter of fact, he 

 is hardly less imaginative, for he characterizes the Athensum Club- 

 house as " gorgeous," and singles out its staircase for especial notice, 

 although there is nothing for notice about it except its extreme plain- 

 ness. With similar judgment and accuracy, he describes the Hall of 

 the "Conservative" as "a circle (broken only by the staircase and 

 gallery) surmounted by a cupola" I — He therefore literally muiat 

 quadrata rotundis, and turns a square apartment into a round one. It 

 is true, the large opening in the ceiling of the lower hall and the floor 

 of the upper one is circular, but that no more converts the liall itself 

 into such shape than a round table placed in the centre of it would do. 

 As to " temples," though in accordance with a very common license, 

 he speaks of them in the plural number, perhaps he means only the one 

 in Pall Mall East, viz., the Tempte of Esculapius, a/!us the Cottage 

 of Physicians, which though not exactly a clubhouse itself, is linked 

 with one in architectural matrimony, namely, with the " Union;" now 

 exhibiting with bitter facetiousness the union of black and white, the 

 fair and better half of it belonging to the Club, and the grave and dis- 

 mal portion of it to the Doctors, of whose trade as purveyors for the 

 undertakers, its complexion is epigrammatically expressive. — As to 

 the temple part of the aff'air, it will not bear contemplating at all: the 

 very columns looking ashamed at being tacked as a portico to such a 

 piece of dowdiness. — And a propos to porticoes, as if we had not 

 quite enow of them before, considering what humdrum sort of things 

 they for the most part are, one of the weekly papers has just be- 

 stowed a portico, or rather a couple of porticoes, on Sir Robert Tay- 

 lor's "Stone Buildings" in Lincoln's Inn, — another instance of the 

 accuracy and nous displayed in architectural description, by those wlio 

 employ at random the few terms they have picked up, as innocently 

 unconscious all the while of blundering as Mrs. Malaprop herself. 



II. The mention of porticoes leads me to observe that one of the 

 very best we have in regard to its being a specimen of the Grecian 

 Doric ilyle, and not merely of the order — of its columns and entablature 

 alone, is precisely the one which is never quoted at all as an example 

 of it, is that of the Colosseum in the Regent's Park, not only on account 

 of its scale, but also of being free from any admixture of those incon- 

 gruous features which, notwithstanding that they almost always occur 

 in modern examples — even where they might be avoided, are incom- 

 patible with, and therefore detract greatly from the classicality aimed 

 at, or at least affected by the external elevation of the portico itself. 

 Now that the interior of the Colosseum has been converted into a 

 " Gbjptotheca," — and a most charming Sculpture-gallery it is, the ex- 

 terior might be made to express the present purpose of the building 

 very significantly, by the portico — that is, the metopes of the frieze 

 and the tympanum of the pediment being enriched with sculpture. 

 We have as yet not a single instance of a Grecian Doric so embellish- 

 ed. All our modern examples of that style, even those which are 

 otherwise unexceptionable — and they are but very few — exhibit it 

 only in its undress, though it might be supposed that even for the sake 

 of a little variety and of some degree of character to distinguish one 

 design of the kind from another, Doric decoration would some- 

 times be adopted. — Happily the mania for Grecian Doric, and for 

 "PcEstan columns six feet high," has subsided, since of all the 

 ancient orders that is the most obstinate and unmanageable, — the 

 one which requires a severity and dignity of manner that frequently 

 unfit it for general purposes. It is so expressly adapted to the simple 

 temple form, and to culumniation merely, that fenestration is fatal to 

 it. It rejects all alliance with nwdtrniam ; yet nevertheless has, with 

 singular perversity, been applied by us to buildings of every class, and 

 some of them of the most ordinary and vulgar kind ; and accordingly 

 the most o«^r(' and tasteless combinations have produced,— even such 

 vile monstrosities as bird-cage-looking verandas, supported by Doric 

 columns as Athenian as Stuart's "Athens" could supply them. Wil- 



