18-15.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL 



363 



kins was guilty of some absurdities from wliicli it might be supp<ised 

 that his reverence for classical antiquity, if not his judgment anil his 

 taste, would have withheld him. The house built by him at Oxbcrton, 

 for Mr. Foljambe, is a striking instance of utter disparity of character 

 between the building and the portico attached to it, the former being 

 a moderate-si/.ed house of the plainest description externally, without 

 even dressings to the windows, while the other is a Grecian Doric 

 tetrastyle, of which the columns are 4 ft. in diameter, therefore as thick 

 as the windows are wide. So far from bestowing dignity on the 

 house, such a portico causes it to look all the more insignificant by 

 comparison ; and on the other hand, the house quite destroys I he dig- 

 nity of the portico. Instead of composing together, they display two 

 quite distinct modes of building, and the most antithetical taste. 

 Artistic ;)ro;;or/iOH was there completely violated; and ihere me- 

 chanical proportion as to separate parts avails notliing, if the respective 

 parts be not proportioned to each other, and appear to be expressly 

 adapted to each other, so as to constitute a well-proportioned whole, 

 and that whole with^d of consistent, if not perfectly unitorm character. 

 It would have been taken for granted that the author of the work on 

 " Migna Graecia" could dram a Doric portico, without his erecting 

 one as an example of the ordir, betraying at the same time how little 

 be understood, or else how completely he disregarded the genius and 

 spirit of the Grecian Doric style. Oxberton, however, seems to have 

 had its admirers, for it forms one of the subjects in Richardson's 

 Vitruvius Britannicus, where it was, no doubt, introduced on account 

 of its pure Grecian! am, since, the portico excepted, or rather the por- 

 tico also included, there is nothing whatever of design, nor a single 

 idea in the elevation. — Neither is the portico of CoventGarden Thea- 

 tre by any means a very satisfactory or dignified specimen of the 

 style, uotvvithstanding that in regard to mere dimensions the order is 

 upon a more than usually noble scale. Considering the purpose of the 

 building, sculpture both within tlie pediment and in the metopes of 

 the frieze, would have seemed almost matter of course, more espe- 

 cially as some sculptural decoration is bestowed on other parts of the; 

 facade ; nor would the addition of it to the portico have been a very 

 expensive matter, as that is only a tetrastyle; consequently, as the in- 

 tercolumniation is monotrighjphic, there are only six metopes in front. 

 Still, even such decoration would have helped little — perhaps would 

 only have rendered, in contrast with such classicality, the interior of 

 the portico all the more at variance with its external elevation. Being 

 merely moiwproslyle, the portico neither does nor appears to afford 

 sufficient shelter at tlie entrance into a theatre, for it is both short and 

 shallow, whereas could it have been recessed also within the general 

 line of front, so as to render it twice as deep as it is at present, be- 

 sides the greater convenience that would have been so obtained, by 

 being set further back, the inner elevation (which is cut up by doors 

 and windows of very anti-Doric physiognomy) would not have been so 

 observable; and at the same time the whole facade would have been 

 greatly relieved by both depth of shadow, and the appearance of some- 

 thing like spaciousness within the portico. — To return to the Colos- 

 seum, — though its portico be only monoprostyle, it does not consist 

 merely of a single range of columns, but forms a boldly projecting 

 mass of which the depth is about three-fourths of its width in front; 

 which circumstance and the absence of windows render the portico and 

 the exterior of the Colosseum generally almost unique among modern 

 examples. In character, if not in material and construction, that edi- 

 fice may be termed "monumental;" while some that have been built 

 for durability, and which derive their merit from the stonemason, more 

 than from the architect, are so unendurable in the taste which they 

 display, that it would be a satisfaction to know they were only of lath 

 and plaster. 



III. Sir Robert Inglis must surely have meant to relieve the drudgery 

 of "committee work" by a little facetiousness, when he asked Mr. 

 Barry if Temple Bar would be like the Arch of Titus, when the whole 

 of the ])resent line of houses on the north side of Fleet-street and the 

 Strand, between Chanciry-lane and Clement's Inn, come to be pulled 

 down and set back. — Very like the Arch of Titus, indeed I — Though 

 Barry does not care to raise a hubbub among the citizens by formally 

 declaring war against the Bar, which might spirit them up to resist 

 bis invasion, and fight manfully for the preservation of that architec- 

 tural Palladium, he is no doubt perfectly satisfied that as soon as his 

 new Law Courts are built up, the Bar will have to come down. Were 

 it to be left standing, jutting out just mid-way into the street, which 

 will then be double its present breadth, it would cut a most ridiculous 

 figure indeed, for its own ugliness would only enhance the absurdity 

 of suH'ering it to remain to block up and disfigure the street on that 

 side. However, Barry will willingly enough erect another barrier — 

 a Bar in somewhat less 6ar-6urous taste than the present one. 



IV. Professor Hosking's estimate of Palladio is more just than 

 flattering. "His porticoes may be Vitruvian," he says, "but certainly 



not classic. His columns upon columns, his attached and clustered 

 columns, his stilted, post like columns, his broken entablatures, his 

 numberless pilasters, straggling and unequal intercolumniations, inap- 

 propriate and inelegant ornaments, circular pediments and the like, 

 are blemishes too numerous and too great to be passed over, because 

 of occasional elegance of prop<jrtion, and beauty of detail." Such is 

 the great master, whose works have been cried up and extolled as 

 hardlv less than the ne plus ultra of art, and not only by the oi 7ro^Aot 

 of tourists and bookmakers, but by Gcethe, Forsyth, Beckford and 

 others, capable, it may be thought, of judging and thinking for them- 

 selves. But that they really did so, may very strongly be doubted, 

 because their laudations have always been general, or even when they 

 h.ive been in raptures about particular buildings, they liave never ex- 

 jilained their particular merits. What is not least strange of all is, 

 that snch ultra-admirers of Palladio should not ever have taken the 

 slightest notice of any of the works of his modern imitator Cahlerari, 

 which, save that they are somewhat better, might very well pass for 

 being by Palladio himself. In fact, " the sublime genius" of Palladio 

 is the merest cant and twaddle that ever was uttered. 



SUPPLEMENT TO THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA. 

 Vol. I. London: Knight and Co. 1S15. 



A contemporary has dispatched its notice of this volume of G75 

 closely printed pages in columns, with equal facetiousness and brevity 

 — brevity being the soul of wit, — for all that he said about it was that 

 " Abati" was the hrst article, and "Gyrosleus" the last, the former of 

 them being an Italian painter, and the other a fossil fish. As to all 

 that lies between, it may be questioned if the hasty "railway" critic 

 ever looked at a line of it. He certainly paid a very poor compli- 

 ment to his readers in supposing that they did nut care to learn anv 

 thing further about the publication, notwithstanding that it differs from 

 preceding works, in consisting almost entirely of fresh matter that has 

 accumulated or arisen not only since the publication of former crclo- 

 pffidias, but during that of the Penny Cyclopeedia itself. However 

 well executed a work of the kind may be, it must inevitably reipiire ad- 

 ditions to be made to it from time to time, more especially in an age 

 when fresh discoveries and inventions are taking place almost diily. 

 Accordingly so far from the present Supplement being superfluous, 

 another will be required some ten years hence, if not sooner. Many 

 who have taken in the Cyclopsdia, may not choose the Supplement, 

 yet we think that quite as extensive a sale, or even a greater, may 

 be looked to for the additional volumes, because though intendi-d ex- 

 pressly to match with the original series, they are in a manner inde- 

 pendent of it, inasmuch as their contents are equally supplementary 

 to any other work of the kind, and also of interest and value to those 

 vvlio possess no work of the kind at all. 



It will not be expected that we should enter into an examination of 

 the work generally, — for that would be a most preposterous attempt 

 on our part. iVt sidor ultra crtpidam — we accordingly confine our 

 notice to the architectural articles, which, as may be supposed, are 

 cliioHv biographical ones; and some of them might in fact havi' been 

 given in the "Cyclopa;dia." They are nearly all, however, of com- 

 paratively recent date, and only one or two — and those of English 

 architects — have found their way into English biographical works. 

 Among them are — Bouonii, Bonsignore, Cagnola, Calderari, Cantoni, 

 Carr, Colonna, Dance, (father and son), Delorme, Dnraud, Fischer, 

 Foschini, Foulston, Gaertner (father of the present eminent Munich 

 architect), Gandon, and Gasse (Liugi and Stefano) ;— all of which ap- 

 pear to have been carefully drawn uj), and by no means mere ordinary 

 compilation, for instead of a jejune recital of facts, they are occasion- 

 ally enlivened by critical and other remarks. In the article on Colonna, 

 for instance, the writer has noticed Prolessor Cockerell's exuberant 

 commendation of that very singular production the "Polifilo" — re- 

 markable enough as a literary curiosity, but a mere galimatias in re- 

 gard to architecture. The article on Delorme, again, corrects! in a very 

 emphatic manner the opinion that has hitherto passed current in re- 

 gard to that " worthy," by inforjning us that so far from possessing 

 the superior talent hitherto ascribed to him, he was in reality little 

 more than an audacious quack, who with equal meanness and base- 

 ness, robbed his own brother, taking to himself all the credit of works 

 in which the 1 itter had had by far the greater share. The infamy, 

 therefore, which must henceforth attach to the name of such an im- 

 postor, ought to be in full proportion to his former celebrity ? Foul- 

 ston, who is spoken of at considerable length, is estimated more iustly 

 than flatteringly ; and to say the truth lie was more of a builder than 



48'» 



