IS 17.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



167 



Julius Ca3sar, llieir own hisloriographers, or were accompanied by histo- 

 rians aud poets to celebrate Iheir achievements. In addition lo the Konian 

 and native writers. Britain furnishes in every corner of its island architec- 

 tural and sculptural remains of much grandeur, whilst tesselated pave- 

 ments of exquisite designs, pottery, arms, and other relics of the Roman 

 period of British history, attest their accuracy. 



The same style and taste iu an, and ihat love of convenience, comfort, and 

 splendour that was found in the chirf provinces of Italy and Gaul, which 

 fell short only of imperial Rome itself, pervaded the palaces of the Roman 

 generals and the British chieftains — their coadjutors and allies ; and Roman 

 luxuries in architecture, such as hot, cold, and vapour bulbs, with gymnasia, 

 hyppodromes, theatres, and amphitheatres, were lo be found, as their ruins 

 testify, in every Romauo-Iiiitish city or station in the island. Britain 

 abounded at this time with well-built villages, towns, forts, and fortitied 

 stations ; and the whole country was defended by that high and strong 

 wall, with its numerous towers and intervening castles, which reached 

 from the mouth of the river Tyne on the east, to the Solway Firth on the 

 west. 



This spirit of improvement that distinguished every spot whereon the 

 Romans formed a settlement, so much advanced the taste and increased the 

 number of British artists and artificers, that iu the third century this island 

 was celebrated for artistical knowledge. When Constautius, the father of 

 Constantine the Great, was about lo rebuild the city of Autuu, iu Gaul, in 

 the year of Christ 296, being well acquainted with Britain, of which coun- 

 try his wife Helena was a native, he procured the ablest of his workmen 

 from there, which, according to Kusebius, greatly abounded with the best 

 artificers. 



After the abiindonraent of Britain by the Romans — whose attention was 

 called by insurrections against their imperial authority in slates nearer 

 home to think raucii of this distant colony, which had been severely ravaged 

 by the Picts and Scots — the classical taste in architecture gradually de- 

 clined, and was succeeded by various, and in son.e instances depraved, 

 styles. The country, although divested of Roman armies, had been 

 thoroughly Romanised by the enlightened conquerors; and if no Roman 

 general or person of inferior rank remained behind, the Britons who had 

 been intrusted with command had become half Romans by education. 



The earliest city recorded lo have been built by the Romaus was on the 

 site of our present metropolis, near the spot on which St. Paul's Cathedral 

 now stands, as proved by the remains of a Roman temple discovered when 

 digging for its foundations by Sir Christopher Wren, and olhers more re- 

 cently found in taking down a part of old London wall, at the back of the 

 houses on the south side of Ludgate hill. This city was founded as early 

 as the tifleenlh year of the Christian era, and was called Camelodunum ; it 

 was destroyed about eleven years afterwards by tlie Britons, in revenge for 

 the cruel treatment received by Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, from the 

 Ramans. It was at that time said to have been a large and well built 

 town, embellished with statues, temples, theatres, and other public struc- 

 tures. From the circumstance of this rapid destruction, perhaps by fire, 

 it is probable the principal buildings of that city were of timber ; till the 

 time of Agricola, who finally established the dominion of the Romans in 

 Britain, from which period may be dated the first construction of public 

 buildings in the British capital of brick, stone, and olher incombustible 

 materials. Agricola goverued the colony during the reigns of Vespasian, 

 Titus, and Domilian, witii equal courage and hunuinily ; his lesideuce and 

 seat of government being the new city of Camelodunum, then as now the 

 metropolis of the country. 



These points are of some importance, as proving that the Roman style of 

 architecture preceded every other iu this island— the hut and cabin alone 

 excepted. The Romans not only erected a great number of solid, con- 

 venient, and magnificent edifices for iheir own use and accommodation, but 

 instructed, exhorted, and encouraged ihe Britons lo imitate them. 



At the time when the Saxon dominion was gaining ground in Britain, 

 and before the disturbed times of Heugist and Horsa, public and private 

 dwellings are related to have been constructed with strength and magnifi- 

 cence. In the year of our Lord 480, Arabrosius, a British commander, of 

 Roman descent, who had assumed the regal government of Kent, built for 

 his residence a splendid palace at Canterbury, which he made the metro- 

 polis of his small kingdom. During the Saxon heptarchy, domestic and 

 sacred architecture continued to fiourisii,aDd buildings of both denominations 

 were erected in the most populous pans of the seven kingdoms. The monks, 



who were the only architects of the times, and who travelled in fraternities 

 from place to place, as their services were required, were a species of 

 operative Freemasons, keeping their skill and crait within the circuit of 

 their own lodges. In their travels they visited Rome or lioman cities, and 

 tile least skilful of them carried away the types of iheir art in their me- 

 mories only. From their works arose the style called Saxon, which, as its 

 earliest efforts pro. e, is a corruption of the Roman style— perhaps provincial, 

 and therefore nut in the purest taste, — made by memory, or rude sketches 

 by untaught arlists. The Saxon style was called by the monkish writers of 

 those days *' Opus Romanum." 



The elements of the Saxon style are too well known to the readers of 

 this Journal to need description, -but a reference to the crypt of Lasling- 

 ham Priory, in Suflulk; the remains of Boxgrave Cliurch, near (Jhichesler, 

 Sussex ; Waltham Abbey Church, iu Kssex ; among many other very early 

 specimens of this style, undoubtedly well known to our arch;eological 

 readers, bear witness to this hypothesis. In these examples will be found 

 rude imitations of bad specimens of Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian capitals, 

 with or without entablatures, and with or without archivolts, as seemed 

 best suited to the architect's purpose or his erratic fancy. Bound by fewer 

 rules than the architects of ancient Rome and Greece, the builders of these 

 structures, by giving way to their own picturesque fancies, rhuosing or re- 

 jecting what they had seen at pleasure,— following however the best con- 

 structive rules, among which " a Utile stronger timnslruiig fiinugh" was 

 not among the least,— they erected buildings which are still in efficient use ; 

 and created a style which is at once picturesque and, with certain eflects 

 of natural scenery, worthy the living architect's attention, from its majestic 

 simplicity in some portions, and its singular richness of sculptural embel- 

 lishments in others. 



Tills native Anglo-Saxon style is well suited for entrance lodges on a 

 large scale, or prospect towers appertaining lo an extensive demesne, 

 where the scenery is grand and majestic. Its preponderating, massive, and 

 gigantic features, if well applied, accord with such purposes ; particularly 

 where the material is solid and dur-ible, and of ralher sombre hue in its 

 colouring: tints. A Saxon castellated entrance tower and portals <if dark 

 blue limestune, so common in the mountainous districts of North Wales 

 and the central parts of Ireland, would form au appropriate adjunct to any 

 of those romauti'; spots with which these islands abound. 



As excellence is always advancing, so did architecture and its sister arts 

 advance with varied steps in this country. Its vicissitudes may be arranged 

 into epochs or eras in somewhat like the following mar.ner, and will be so 

 considered in this inquiry. Namely, from the splendour of the Augustan 

 age — an emanation of which had reached us during the administrations of 

 Claudius, Auloniiius. and Agricola — till the declension of pure taste by the 

 expulsion of the Romaus, and the substitution of other arts, literature, and 

 customs, formed by the association of the ancient Britons — their Saxon 

 colleagues, which completely established the style called Saxon. 



Next arrived that state of transition in which the art continued from the 

 pure Saxon times till the rise, progress, decline, and fall of that eminently 

 beautiful style called Gothic, ibis stjle is so varied and so expansive 



that it is nearly impossible to catch it within the limits of a definition it 



almost eludes descriptiou, and has occasioned more schiAUis anion<' writers 

 on art than other style of architecture extant. It has rules — but ihey are so 

 discursive and ideal that no true code, like the Vitruvian or ihe Classical 

 styles, has yet been formed. Some admirers of this style object lo the 

 epithet applied to it as derogatory to its importance; — but the Society of 

 Friends scarcely ever object to the title given them originally in derision, 

 and are not oU'ended as being described as Ihe people called Quakers. 

 However objectionable the title may appear, it has become loo general 

 now lo be altered ; and the frieniis of the style are bound to receive it as 

 an honourable distinction. Perliaps a more satisfactory title may be ob- 

 tained by calling it the Anglo.Germanic style. The late Sir John Soane 

 used to tell us students of the Royal Academy, in his lectures, emphaticly 

 that Gothic architecture was any thing that was not Grecian. Wreu un- 

 fortunately called it ** a gross concameration of heavy, melancholy, and 

 monkish piles." But Wren was bliud to the beautiful details of Gothic 

 architecture, although he appreciated those of its scientific conslructiuu and 

 its general forms, as his well known reverence for King's College Cliapel, 

 Cambridge, which he declared to be inimitable; and his clumsy imitatiuu of 

 York Minster iu his west front of Westminster Abbey ; his pseudo Gothic 

 ofSt. Mary, Aldermary ; his almost beauliful imitation of Magdalen Tower 

 Oxford ; in that of St. Michael, Cornhill, tacked by the way to a Doric 

 interior; and his singularly beautiful spire of .St. Dunstan in the East ^i. 

 though disfigured by Roman mouldings,— abuuduutly testify. Nor must ihe 



