234 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[August, 



„;n.d and Heideloff has been specially invited to furnish designs in that 

 Tu S.ill, complimentary as this looks to Gothic architecture, it may 

 , rW he questioned whether the compliment will not be resented raiher as 

 In insult, by the staunch advocates for med,«;valism. To apply such a style 

 a theatre will be deemed by them little less than a downright profanation 

 of U One inevitable scandal will be, that Precedent must be rudely shov d 

 aside' there being no precedent whatever for any profane structure of the 

 W „d in all the remains of the middle ages. Innovations, and very extensive 

 les there must be, in order to accommodate the building to its express 

 uurpose. The idea is not, indeed, quite new to the Germans, a private court 

 theatre having been built some few years ago, by Ottmer, in a sort of GoUuc 

 -but of such sort, as would certainly scandalise our Pugins and our Wil- 

 lises Whether Heideloff will acquit himself of the difficult task imposed 

 upon him, much more satisfactorily, may be doubted, since the very fact 

 wJch is a leged as peculiarly qualifying him for it, must in a great measure 

 disiify him also; because if he has all along devoted himself exclusively 

 he udy of Gothic architecure and art, he must come quite unprepared 

 to such a very special subject as a theatre, which is, moreover, one that 

 lemans ability of a particular kind. His designs for Gothic furnitur 

 or nromise much for his power of invention-that species of invention 

 :c onsets in re-eombinirg forms and details in,o novel ^PP'-t-;- 

 them, and adding others to them where necessary, conceived in the same 

 snirit and treated with the same gusto. ^, ,■ „„j 



' V Although in his lately published lecture on the "Education ad 

 Chal cter of the Architect," Professor Donaldson earnestly recommends the 

 study of blgraphy. and especially comments Milizia's " L-- '^ ^^^^ 

 think that no farther dose of biography is now wanted. At least he has e^ 

 prssed no desire to see some one undertake a continuation of that wo k, 

 br g ng it down to the present time. Such a continuation of , ough to he 

 Sas i teresting as Militia's work, which, to say the truth, haily pre- 

 ends to be a readable book, though useful enough as one of mere reference. 

 To 3 y the truth again, there is very little that answers to the idea of bio- 

 la hyin it, most of the lives being very jejune notices of the indiviauals 

 fhemselves ;ith a dry enumeration of their principal buildings. The sub- 

 ectTof s ch biography have since then greatly accumulated, although it 

 Lu be confessed that materials for them are in many instances ^-y scaiity 

 owing to their not having been collected while they were within reach. St 

 there i very much lying scattered about, which requires only to be searched 

 u and Jut'togethei! It will, perhaps, be said that in the two last genera- 



ulrof architects who have gone off ^^^ ''^''- ^^Jur lyllreZ^ 

 .uished themselves either by great works or great talent, .till, there were 

 many of elebrity, whether that celebrity was merited or not, and several of 

 Tea abi ty also,-persons quite as worthy of a niche in biography, as are a 

 grea many of those recorded, and merely recorded, by MiUzia. It is in 

 0^ respect all the better if there are comparatively few to be spoken of. 

 becau 'o that case there is room for biographical narrative and critical re- 

 ma k Something more attractive and instructive also than such mere 

 2Lns, s many of the notices in Milizia are, is highly desirable ;-some- 

 hg sufficiently readable to impress itself on the memo^' >-^°'-"."°8/»": 

 loToL in plan to •■ Johnson's Lives of the Poets." Properly written, the 

 biogaphies of architects, or indeed any artists, might be made to comprise a 

 'Z deal of valuable preceptive comment, illustrating and illustrat d by the 

 Sing themselves that are spoken of ; and even where they must be spoken 

 of wth censure, art and good taste arc benefitted by the exposure of mis- 

 takes and errors. It is almost as necessary to know what we ought to avoid as 

 what we ouJht to imitate ; otherwise we have only one-half of the experience 

 necessary for our guidance, and are in danger of running aground on the 

 y same shoals that others have been wrecked upon, merely because the 

 '"staken not to say dishonest, lenity of biography and criticism has not 

 ,,ointedly' marked out for our warning, those concealed dangers. 

 ' V Not long ago a volume made its appearance, which promised beforehand 

 to 1; an unusualfv complete piece of architectural biography the who e of it 

 lein, devoted to ihe life of James Gandon. As the subject of it could pos- 

 elo interest for the general public, it was almost to be taken for Erantcd 

 bat it would contain a great deal that would be paiticular ly '"teresting o 

 architectural reader,. Instead of which, it has no interest at all fo. any 

 one a a biography it is a nullity, there being nothing ,n the history of h 

 anhmself but what might have been related in a couple o pages. I 

 wa not a life replete with incident like that of Benvenuto Celhni; neith r 

 Tit made a vehicle for bringing us acquainted, except here and here merely 

 nominallv, with other individuals who were of paiticular note The anecdote 

 «itk whicii the book is eked out, are all of the most trivial description ; and 



the notices of contemporary artists-nearly all of them, by the by pa mter -- 

 are as dull as they are meagre, or rather are so meagre as to be almo.t o f ne - 

 ee.sitv verv dry and dull also. The only one of whom we are allowed to obta n 

 more\han a mleglimpse,isPaulSandby,whoexhibits himself as abumour.^ 



i„ which character he prepossesses us not a li.t e in his favour in one or two 

 very livelv and playful letters-the only tonne Louche in the volume. A to 

 Gando" "i-elf he might just as well have been any thing else-a ud 

 or contractor, for instance-as what he was; and the book might still have 

 been just wh^t it is now. That he was an architect seems to have been all 

 bu tenLy forgotten by his biographer. Though he did not erect many 

 tructules Uiose which he did were important ones ; accordingly they ought 

 to have been made the subject of full description and discussion : or if hi. 

 works do not deserve it, but are as uninteresting as bis own W''- J^^J f;";'; 

 his biography have been attempted at all ? At any rate one ""^Y ,b 'two 

 his which would have afforded ample matter for notice, namely, the two 

 supplementary volumes to the "Vitruvius Bri.annicus," for upon them might 

 very properly have been founded a review of the state of arch, ectu re in thi, 

 cuntry during the period they illustrate. As it is, the -. Life" of Gandon 

 ully verities the proverb, that " Godsends meat and the devd sends cooks 



VI Allan Cunningham's " Lives of British Architects," are just what they 

 were "intended, a few popular and pleasingly written biographies of the kind 

 derived from accessible sources, interspersed with superficial, and some of 

 them erroneous, remarks, that may pass for very respectable second-hand 

 criticism. With him, Vanbrugh the architect is eclipsed by Vanbrugh the 

 dramatist. Allan contented himself with what he could find at hand and 

 shaped out for him, without looking about for more raw material. James 

 •Wvatt is excluded, although he was most undeniably of extraordinary vogue in 

 his time and also in some measure makes epoch in his profession by having 

 been one of the first to practise revived Gothic architecture to any extent. 

 Notwithstanding, too, that he kimself was a Scotchman, and not deficient m 

 nationality, Allan gave us no biography either of Sir William Bruce, or 

 Robert Adam ;-and the omission of the latter is remarkable enough. 



VII If we turn to the continent, we shall there discover many important 

 names' that are now become available for architectural biography,-such for 

 instance as Percier, Cagnola, Piermarini, Schinkel, and quite recently, 

 Friedrich Giirtner. Of these, with the exception of the last, various memoirs, 

 and some of them of considerable length, and critical as well as biographical, 

 are to be met with in foreign publications; as are likewise those of a great 

 many other French. Italian, and German architects. Most of them are 

 ouiteas "well written" as Milim's "Lives;" some of them mcomparably 

 better. As to Mrs. Cresy's translation of the latter, it is charitable to suppose 

 that she was learning Italian at the time, and turned the book into English, 

 for there are passages in it of which it is impossible to discover the meamng 

 at all without referring to the original. MUizia required not a lady trans- 

 lator. but one thoroughly conversant with architecture, and capable of 

 officiating as his annotator also. 



HISTORY OF ARCHITECTUKE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



A Brief Sketch 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 Hesry Wotton. 



(Continued from page 210.J 

 The -reat epoch of modern architecture in Englan.l is that of Wren, and 

 was created by the fire that reduced the city of London to a mass of ru.ns. 

 Wren was fortunate in falling upon such an opportunity, and London wa. 

 fortunate in finding such an able rebuilder as Wren who was a singular 

 combination of the greatest powers of the human mind. He was a scholar, 

 a poet, an artist, an astronomer, a mathematician, an engineer, an archi- 

 tect, u d a profound philosopher. Nothing was too difficult for his aspir- 

 iu. and po«^rful mind. He was born when Charles I. was in the zenith 

 orchis power, having then sat on the throne of Great Britain, as its second 

 monarch, about seven years. How that monarch patronised architecture 

 and the other arts of design is before recorded. Wren began his public 

 career at a very early age ; but, unlike the generality of precocious youths 

 retained his intellect unimpaired and his body vigorous to a Nestonaa 

 age. 



