16>J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[June 



Gothic construction of some of the concealed parts of St. Paul's Catheilral 

 be omitted i" this category of Wren's blindness to the beauty of this style, 

 ,ir of his willingness to be taught by such an enemy to the taste he revered. 

 It is painful to speak thus of a man like Wren, but his fame as a mathe- 

 matician, and as the greatest constructive architect that EnRland has pro- 

 duced, besides his many other eminent qualities in the highest branches of 

 learning and science, will more than counterbalance this defect, although 

 not a small one. 



An eminent living architect and writer on his art, has, on the contrary, 

 pronounced his liat ex cathedra (that is of his own chamber) that Grecian, 

 Roman, Byzantine, or such like architecture, used in ecclesiastical edifices is 

 I'agan and unchristian ; as did Taylor the Platonist declare, in as dictato- 

 rial a manner, that all who did not believe in the religion of the Platonic 

 school were infamous, daring, and Galilean. What says the anathematizer 

 of Pagan and unchristian edifices, to the " Pagan and unchristian" style 

 of the (so called) Cathedral of the Christian world, the throne of gods, vice, 

 gerent upon earth; whence in by-gone days were fulminated the anathemas 

 of the head of the Christian church against all heretics and unbelievers ? 

 or.of any other of ihe Christian churches in that self called capital of the 

 Christian world ? or, of the beautiful Christian churches of Michafl Angelo, 

 Raffaelle, Bramante, Palladio, Scamozzi, and other Christian architects of 

 the Medicean period of Italian art,— to say nothing of the more recent 

 Christian church, designed and executed by the catholic and tasteful 

 Canova 7 



William Hazlitt justly compares the correctness and chastened rules of 

 Grecian architecture to those of the Greek tragedians, and the elements of 

 its style to the purity of their incomparable language. " A Doric temple," 

 observes this discriminating critic, " differs from a Gothic cathedral, as 

 Sophocles does from Shakspeare." The principle of the one being simpli- 

 city and harmony, governed by severe rules ; that of the other richness and 

 power directed more by fancy and taste than by too rigid an observance of 

 scholastic discipline. The one relies on form and proportion, the other on 

 quantity and variety, and prominence of parts. The one owes its charm to 

 a certain union and regularity of feeling, the other adds to its effects from 

 complexity and the combination of the greatest extreme. The Classical 

 appeals to sense and habit, the Gothic or romantic strikes from novelty, 

 strangeness, and contrast. Both are founded in essential and indestructible 

 principles of human nature. 



If the Gothic style be considered as a genus in architecture, it may be 

 divided into three 5;(ecies:— the robust, the ornate, a.n<i Ihe florid. Under 

 the term robust, may be classed all the varieties of Saxon or Early British 

 architecture; under the ornate, the Anglo-Norman or English; and under 

 the florid, the gorgeously embellished works of the Plantagenets and 

 Tudors, which romantic species flourished resplendently till it reached its 

 meridian grandeur in those ages, and may date its decline from the intro- 

 duclion of classical literature in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, 

 when Roman, or rather Italian, architecture began to mix itself with our 

 native Saxon and British styles, as its words did with our language; and 

 we were then, Shakspeare and Bacon excepted, pedants in both. 



Various hypotheses have been formed upon Ihe origin of this beautiful 

 and original style. The learned German critic. Dr. Moller, principal archi- 

 tect to the Landgrave of Hesse, in his Essay on the Origin and Progress 

 of Gothic Architecture, traced in and deduced from the ancient edifices of 

 Germany, with reference to those of England ; and the English Archaeolo- 

 gist, Sir James Hall, in his profound work on the same subject, derived 

 them from a similar source, namely : — 



1. From the sacred groves or thickets of the ancient Celtic nations. 



2. From huts made with the entwined branches of trees. 

 :(. From the structure of the framing in wooden buildings. 



4. From the pyramids and obelisks of Egypt. 



5. From the imitation of pointed arches generated by the intersection of 

 semicircles. 



Holbein, and olher painter-architects, whojdourished in the last Henry, 

 and his daughter Elizabeth, introduced the mongrel style affectedly called 

 Elizabethan, <,\ hich is neither pure nor classical, but a rambling picturesque 

 style of shreds and patches. 



Palladio, the father of that style of architecture which was introduced 

 into England by Inigo Jones, read his Vitruvius in the true spirit of its 

 author; and delineated restorations of ruins of ancient Rome in a purer 

 style than perhaps existed in some of their originals. The style of domestic 

 architecture which this great Italian master formed from his study of these 

 splendid ruins may be gathered from the numerous Roman villas and 

 palaces with which he studded almost every part of bit native Italy. Two 



fine specimens of his immediate stjle may be gathered from Inigo Jones's 

 adaptation of his quadrilrontal villa at Amesbury, in Wiltshire, and Lord 

 Burlington's little gem at Chiswick, now belonging to the Duke of Devon- 

 shire ; which Lord Chesterfield declared was so pretty, although not large 

 enough for a chimney ornament, was too large for an appendage to bis 

 watch chain. Both are masterly imitations of Palladio's villa, which he 

 erected for the Magnate Biaggio Saraceno at Vicenza, and prove, with Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds, that skilful adaptations are not always plagiarisms. 



Had Palladio's views been directed to Greece instead of Italy, and had 

 he studied the ruins of Athens, such as they were in his time, instead of 

 those of ancient Rome, and had delineated restorations of the Propyleium, 

 the Parthenon, the Theseium, the Agora, the triple temple of Minerva 

 Polias, and other gems of that splendid city, with Vitruvius in his mind, 

 instead of Ihe lemples of Fortuna Virilas, of Concord, of Peace, the 

 Theatre of Marcellus, and such like coarse imitations of the Grecian style, 

 — or the ruins of the Greek theatres, instead of the Roman,— he would 

 have formed a school of architecture, founded on those structures whence 

 Vitruvius drew his rules, and as much superior to that called Palladian as 

 are the works of Iclinus, Callicrales, and Phidias to the Coliseum, the 

 Amphitheatre at Verona, the palace of Dioclesian at Spalatro, Ihe Golden 

 palace of Nero at Rome, and the other canons from which Palladio formed 

 his style. 



The Roman style of architecture was more successfully cultivated iu 

 England in Ihe reigns of James I. and Charles I. than in any preceding 

 lime since the occupation of Britain by the Romans, both of whom were 

 liberal patrons of Jones ; — it perished, as did all the tasteful arts, through 

 the fury of the Iconoclasts and Roundheads of the Commonwealth; — rose 

 again under the fostering patronage of Charles II., who possessed some of 

 the taste, if not the virtues, of his father ; — was eclipsed by ignorance and 

 bigotry in the reign of James II. ;— and from that period till the reign of 

 George III. a mere blank is presented in the history of the art. 



Among the best specimens of our earliest domestic architecture, Hamp- 

 ton Court, in Herefordshire, affords a good example. It is cited, from 

 having come nearer our times in an unaltered slate than many others of 

 like antiquity. It was erected in the reign of Richard II. (about 1380), 

 by the Duke of Hereford, afterwards Henry IV. The mansion was 

 thoroughly repaired, or rather restored, about a century ago, by Lord 

 Coningeshy, it having been the baronial seat of his ancestors. It con- 

 tained, after the re-instatement, seven very noble apartments of stale, 

 richly furnished, and numerous convenient dwelling rooms and chambers, 

 with suitable offices for a large retinue of servants ; extensive gardens, 

 well planted and laid out in the formal style of the times ; a large park, 

 and noble demesne ; a well slocked decoy, for wild fowl ; and every ad- 

 vantage both for pleasure and convenience. 



The foreign wars, and civil commotions at home, left the English kings, 

 nobles, and people little lime for the cultivation of the Fine Arts. There- 

 fore, no great progress was made in architecture, except in fortified resi- 

 dences for the aristocracy, and ecclesiastical buildings, erected or enlarged 

 by pious devotees and profligate soldiers, — who compounded for their sms 

 committed abroad, by erecting or endowing ecclesiastical buildings and 

 religious services at home, for the good of their souls. This state of 

 foreign warfare and domestic insecurity continued during Ihe reigns of Ihe 

 fourth, fifth, and sixth Henries, till the successful establishment of the Earl 

 of Richmond as Henry VII. gave security and much-requind peace to 

 the country. Before the time of Richard III., however, I'rosby Hall, 

 which has been recently beautifully restored, was erected ; it is a splendid 

 specimen of this style, and was in its day a sumptuous metropolitan resi- 

 dence. The same golden age of English architecture produced that 

 delightful miracle of tasteful and scientific construction — King's College 

 Chapel, Cambridge ; and other sacred edifices, that do honour to ibeir 

 authors. Henry VII. completed what may be considered the perfection 

 of the Florid style in his mausoleum at Westminster, now called Henry 

 VII. Chapel, — and brought over to this country Tortegiaus, the rival and 

 combatant of Micha;! Aogelo, to execute his magnificent tomb of bronze, 

 for the reception of his mortal remains. 



The mixed anomolous style that was introduced into England after the 

 sun of the Tudor style ha<l set, by ornamental and scenic painters from 

 Flanders and other parts of the Low Countries, obtained the patronage of 

 the rich for fashion sake, and in imitation of Ihe bad taste of Ihe court 

 from the middle of the reign of Henry VIII. till the time of James I., 

 Holbein, Zucchero, and iheir royal mistress, Elizabeth, may be esteemed 

 its sponsors ; and it revelled in bold misrepresentations of Palladian 

 purity, grafted upon a Flemish stalk ; and abounded in orders upoa 



