1847.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



209 



HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



A Brief Slcetcli or Epitome of the Rise and Progress of Architecture 

 in Great Britain. By James Elmes. 



'■ Epitomes are helpful to the memory, and of good private use." 



Sir Henry Wotton. 



(^Continued from page 170.^ 



It has been already mentioned that Inigo Jones had improved his taste 

 hy studying the worlis of Palladio and other eminent Italian architects, in 

 Italy. It is not unlikely that he had met Sir Henry Wotton at Venice, as 

 this tasteful connoisseur and elegant illustrator of the Vitruvian art was 

 then ambassador from James I. to the Doge. James's brother-in-law, 

 Christian IV., King of Denmark, who had heard of Inigo's reputation 

 from that city of lakes and palaces, introduced him to the British monarch, 

 who immediately appointed him his architect. 



Jones's style, after his return from Italy, bears marks of much improve- 

 ment in taste and purity, as may be seen in the works he executed before 

 his visit to that fostering country of the arts, and those which he designed 

 after his return. This eminent architect visited Italy twice, and enjoyed 

 the friendship and patronage of the celebrated Earl of Pembroke, and 

 other tasteful nobility of the period. 



Among his works not already mentioned, are additions to Lord Pem- 

 broke's seat at AVilton, the porch of which had been designed by Holbein. 

 Jones's classical additions to this edifice are apparent, particularly the 

 triumphal arch and its equestrian statue, that has been lately cited as an 

 authority, among others, in the controversy about Matthew Wyatt's colos- 

 sal statue of the Duke of Wellington, in Piccadilly. Also, the quadrangle 

 of St. John's College, Oxford, another proof of his want of feeling for the 

 beauties of Gothic architecture, as is the Chapel Royal, St. James's ; 

 Coleshill, in Berkshire ; Cobham Hall, in Kent ; and the Grange, in 

 Hampshire. 



Before concluding that portion of onr notice that terminates with Inigo 

 Jones, we must revert to some of those less known artists who flourished 

 between the great days of the Tudor style and the expulsion of arts from 

 England by the rough-shod founders and suppoiters of the Common- 

 wealth. 



Whatever may have been the intentions of James I. as to the erection of 

 a splendid palace for himself and his successors to the crown of the two 

 kingdoms, which had been first united in his person, he had strong objec- 

 tions to his example being copied by his nobles. Fearing that if they made 

 their establishments in the metropolis too large and expensive, it might rob 

 the provinces of ranch of their grandeur, and the country people of their 

 natural protectors, the wealthy aristocracy of their respective counties ; he 

 therefore issued edicts against the enlargement of the metropolis, and con- 

 firmed the royal will of his predecessor, Elizabeth, that no further man- 

 sions or noble residences should be erected but upon ancient foundations. 

 Lord Bacon informs us, that King James was wont to be very earnest with 

 the country gentlemen to abandon London for their country seats ; and thut 

 he would sometimes say to them : " Gentlemen, at London you are like 

 ships in a sea, which show like nothing ; but in your country villages, you 

 are like ships in a river, which look like great things." 



Although James attempted to drive his opulent subjects from the metro- 

 polis to their country residences, few of our monarchs had a greater num- 

 ber or more splendid palaces in London than the successor of Elizabeth, 

 from whom he probably inhereted this dread of palatial rivalry by his 

 nobles in the metropolis. That powerful queen, who was one of the most 

 absolute monarchs in our history, issued several proclamations, rigidly 

 forbidding the increase of new buildings in Loudon. James did not con- 

 tent himself with merely reproving and exhortmg his nobles and magnates, 

 but issued several proclamations to the same purport. 



In ICOo, when he had been but two years upon the throne, he issued 

 the first of these mandates, which forbade all manner of building within 

 the city, and a circuit of one mile thereof. Among its commands was the 

 salutary one to a wooden metropolis, that all persons henceforward should 

 build their external walls and windows either of brick or stone. The 

 classical reading of the king, who delighted to be compared in wisdom to 

 Solomon, and in the patronage of literature and art to Augustus, probably 

 wished to vie with the Roman emperor in the boast of having found his 

 metropolis of wood, and leaving it of marble (stone). The reason given 



in this proclamation for building with brick and stone is, " as well for 

 decency, as by reason all great and well-grown woods were much spent 

 and wasted, so that timber for shipping became scarce." James always 

 showed a predilection for the establialiment of a powerful navy, both mer- 

 cantile and warlike, as his founding the corporation of the Trinity House, 

 the cultivation of the royal woods and forests, aud this proclamation, tes- 

 tify. This edict produced as little effect as those of his predecessor ; he, 

 therefore, issued another, with more stringent penalties, dated October 10, 

 Il>07, and on the lOth of the same month, some oflenders against it were 

 censured in the Star-chamber, for building contrary to its tenor. By an- 

 other edict of the same nature, issued in 1G14, the commissioners are 

 required to proceed with all possible strictness against every offender of 

 this sort. This had somewhat more effect, particularly as to the mode of 

 building with stone and brick; and from this period may be dated the 

 reformation of the architecture of London, which is so much indebted both 

 to the architect and his royal patron. 



The first house of note that was erected in conformity with this procla- 

 mation, was one in the Strand, built for Colonel Cecil ; after that, one near 

 Drapers'-hall, Thrograorton street, in the city, is celebrated ; another, built 

 for an opulent goldsmith, in Cheapside, opposite to Sadlers'-hall ; and one 

 that was built for a leather-seller, in St. Paul's Churchyard, near the north 

 gate of the cathedral, not being in conformity with the king's regulations — 

 being built of timber — was ordered to be taken down, and rebuilt accord- 

 ing thereto. 



Among the principal mansions of this period, are Hatfield, in Hertford- 

 shire, the seal of the JMarquis of Salisbury, and Burleigh, near Stamford, 

 in Lincolnshire, the seat of the Marquis of Exeter, both built in the reign 

 of Queen Elizibeth ; and being still in existence, with very little alteration 

 from their original design, are fine specimens of the mixed pictorial style 

 of the Elizabethan period. 



James enlarged and improved, in a similar style, Theobald's, near Ches- 

 hunt, in Hertfordshire, originally the seat of Elizabeth's great prime- 

 minister, Cecil, Lord Burleigh, who often entertained his royal mistress 

 within its walls. It was a favourite residence of King James, and was 

 the scene of his last moments. It afterwards became the abode of Rich- 

 ard Cromwell, who retired thither after his resignation of the protectorate 

 of England. He passed the remainder of his days in this once royal 

 residence, in peaceful retirement. 



Of the principal reformers of taste among the literary men and nobles of 

 the period, the great lord -chancellor Bacon stands in the foremost rank; 

 and his opinions on architecture and gardening are decisive of the charac- 

 ter of those arts, which he so much improved, in his days. His maxim 

 that houses are built to live in, aud not to look on, should never be forcot- 

 ten by the domestic architect; and his description of a palace, in opposi- 

 tion to such huge buildings as the Vatican, the Escurial, and some others, 

 which, he pithily observes, have scarce a fair room in them, is character- 

 istic of the best style of this period, which Inigo Jones, Sir Henry Wotton 

 and the elegant-minded lord-keeper had so much improved. 



That the taste of Jones was influenced by his association in literature 

 and art, with Pembroke, Bacon, Wotton, Ben Jonson, and other eminent 

 Englishmen, as well as with the literati and connoisseurs of Italy, is 

 proved not only by the purer style of his maturer age, but by the 

 unrivalled design for the royal palace, which bears marks of being ar- 

 ranged in the study of the artist, assisted by noble minds, rather than the 

 work of a builder's office, traced by the mechanical hands of architectural 

 draughtsmen. 



Bacon's description of what elements an architect should compose a 

 royal palace, with its accessorial gardens, terraces, and courts ; royal 

 state, dwelling, and necessary apartments, together with the personal 

 survey that Jones had made, accompanied by men with congenial minds 

 of the palaces and royal residences of Venice, Florence, Rome, and other 

 parts of Italy, had a powerful effect upon all his designs, and particularly 

 upon that of his unexecuted palace. 



The limited space which the pages of this Journal allows'to this notice 

 will not permit the quoting of Bacon's admirable description of a royal 

 palace — not designed for his poetical commonwealth of Eulopia, but evi- 

 dently for the encouragement of his royal master to commence a palace 

 which, in two or three reigns, might surpass all the other royal residences 

 in Europe. 



Upwards of twenty years ago, the author of this sketch gave Bacon's 

 description entire in the introduction to his Memoirs of Sir Christopher 

 M'ren, and said— "This ideal palace would be an excellent task to try the 

 abilities of a young architect to design on paper, aud would make an 



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