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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[Oct. 



as in the upper story, at least not for tliat of the porch. Hardly need we 

 add that the doorway ouglit to form a corresponding arch to that in front, 

 or that the ceiling should be likewise semicircular and coffered. If this 

 would not materially improve the whole design, and render it more true to 

 the spirit of Sansovino's work, we are willing to forfeit for the future our 

 pretensions to judgment in such matters. 



With regard to the species of polychromy introduced in the exterior, by 

 employing dark polished granite for the shafts of the columns, it remains to 

 be seen how it will hear the test of time, when the granite shall have lost 

 its lustre, and the rest of the stone-work be tarnished and discoloured. At 

 present, the effect — of which an outline elevation conveys no idea — is 

 striking and vivacious enough, perhaps somewhat more so than is exactly 

 desirable for other neighbouring facades. It is, however, a question whether 

 colour does not require to be carried out a little more, and whether, if they 

 were not to be sculptured, the metopes of the Doric frieze might not very 

 properly have been filled in with polished granite also, like the panels on the 

 Ionic frieze, the form of which last-mentioned ornaments might have been 

 improved, they being now of more fanciful and arl)itrary than tasteful de- 

 sign. — Our remarks are as impartial as they are free : whoever had been the 

 architect, whether Mr. Barry or Sir Robert Smirke, we should have spoken 

 of the " Carlton" facade just the same, except that had it been the latter, 

 we should have heartily congratulateil him on his emancipation from pseudo- 

 Crecism, and his adoption of a style that, be it ever so impure, recommends 

 itself by Artistic spirit. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS LXXIV. 



'* I must have liberty 

 Withal, as Urge a charter as the winds. 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. Archaeology may be likened to fire, — not on account of any brilliancy 

 and vividity that it possesses, for to say Ihe trulh, it is apt to give out far 

 more smoke than flame, but this it has iu common with tire, that it is a good 

 servant, but an intolerably bad master. So long as archeology is made 

 only an auxiliary study to Architecture and Fine Art, it is serviceable 

 enough. With that, however, it is not content, or more properly speaking, 

 those who call themselves arcliaeologisls, are not content to have it kept 

 within its proper bounds. They insist upon its being allowed to become 

 quite dominant and rampant,— completely dictatorial. They themselves, 

 knowing merely what has been done, and limiting the powers and capa- 

 bilities of art just to their own little iie plus ulira, beyond which they have 

 not an idea, insist upon nothing being done that cannot be shown to 

 have been done before ; thereby cither insolently denying that we of Ihe 

 present day possess any sort of genius or talent, or still more insolenlly re- 

 fusing us the privilege of exercising it. And what do architects them- 

 selves do? They qurtke and— are sileut, or else fawn and flatter, thank- 

 ful, perhaps, that nothing worse than mere indignities are cast upon them. 

 >iay, some, who would be thought to have the iuteresls of architecture 

 oliietiy at heart, seem to do all in their power to throw it into the shade, 

 and bring forward in lieu of it the most anile rubbish imaginable,— such 

 arrant rotten lumber that a sensible antiquarian is downright ashamed of 

 it. 



II. Unless it be restrained by that judgment and discrimination which 

 will render it subservient to the advancement of Art, archaeological study 

 comes to be considered an end rather than a means, as which latter alone 

 it is of any value to the architect, r]w>(id architect. It may, indeed, enable 

 him to talk or write very learnedly, and to display a deal of recondite 

 erudition and curious research ; yet, if he addicts himself to it in such man- 

 ner as to make it at all his hobby, it will play him — or else cause him to 

 play, many strange hobbjhorsicil pranks. He will be always looking 

 backwards when he should be looking forwards, — will even be afraid of 

 getting onward a step forwarder than Precedent will permit him. 

 Ihat same Precedent — or rather the nonsensical and superstitious reve- 

 rence atl'ected for it, is maile a pos lue dead weight— a millstone hung 

 round the neck of Art. It is a chain apoareully bestowed on it as a badge 

 of honour, but made use of in reality as u halter wherewith to strangle it. 

 Nor is it au overweeoiuj tonduess for medieeval aicha;ology alone that is 



to be deprecated, that for classical antiquity, with its consequent blind and 

 indiscriminate deference to classical authority, being equally apt to mislead 

 — or if not exactly to mislead, to fetter, impede, and retard. Far better, 

 in all probability, would it have been for Wilkins, had he never seen either 

 Athens or Magna Grecia ; — better at least had he dismissed them and 

 Vitruvius entirely from bis thoughts whenever he sat himself down to de- 

 sign, and instead of thinking of what had been done, had sludiiusly be- 

 thought him how to make the most of the subject in hand, had considered 

 what new ideas it might be made to produce, and how artistic effect might 

 best be secured for it. Hut, alas ! artistic composition and artistic effect 

 were almost the very last things that be, like many others, ever thought of. 

 Had not such been the case. Downing College would have exhibited a very 

 different piece of design from what it now actually does, — pseudo Grecism 

 in all its pedantry and all its dulness. Neither would the same architect 

 have vapoured so much as he did about the mere iotercolumniatiun of the 

 portico of the National Gallery, but would have attended much more to the 

 general composition of that fayade. The eye of an arch^ologist, and that of 

 an artist — and an architect ought to be one — have very different powers of 

 vision. The former is so myopic that it cannot discern a single inch be- 

 yond Precedent, while the other — we are speaking of the true artist — can 

 discern with prophetic ken, liAuf will be Precedent to after-ages. It is all 

 Nery well to understand Precedent, but to be enslaved by it is equally ab- 

 surd and despicable. 



III. In a letter from a friend who is now a temporary resident at Edin- 

 burgh, I have lately received some exceedingly clever and welcome criti- 

 cism on the architecture of the self styled Woilern Athens, — which desig- 

 nation, by -ihe-by, he observes is a complete misnomer as far as architecture 

 is concerned, although Scotchmen may be sutKciently Greek in some 

 respects. After expressing a rather mean opinion of the Gothic architec- 

 ture of Scotland generally, which, he says, alTords no studies worth the 

 attention of an English architect, my correspondent adds, "the general 

 rate of recent imitation of that style, in Edinburgh, is lamentably below 

 even the local standard of antiquity. The exterior of the Assembly Hall 

 has unquestionably many fine parts, but where is the climax which the an- 

 cient builders produced, in the interior ? The Scott Monument again, the 

 boast of all Edinburgh, obtrudes itself upon you in twenty different sizes 

 in every print-shop — is painted on every snuff-box — graven in metal — 

 yea I built up in confectionary ; yet no architect would now get practice 

 in England in the Gothic line, on the strength of such a master-piece — I 

 might say such a missij piece as that same Scott Monument ; — so defective 

 is it in detail, and most signally so in the proportion and graduation of its 

 lower story, which, from almost every point ol' view, reduces its apparent 

 height one-third. Instead of the thousandand-one representations of that 

 precious Monument, I would far rather see one satisfactury view of 

 Donaldson's Hospital, the finest building in Edinburgh, ancient or modern. 

 In this structure, designed for similar objects as George Heriot's founda- 

 tion, we have a very successful adoption of the combined forms known as 

 Elizabethan, and exemplified in Burleigh. Like Heriot's Hospital, its 

 plan is quadrangular, with a tower at each corner, flanked by four ogive- 

 domed turrets, and a corresponding tower of bolder and loftier desiga 

 marks the centre of the principal or southern front." — Thus much by way 

 of specimen, and 1 hope my friend will be induied to work out his remarks 

 fully in extenso, and give them iu some shape or other U> the public, who 

 will then for the very first time get any thing at all like intelligent criticism 

 relative to the architecture of the northern capital, and ils public buildings 

 One thing there is which the Edinburghers themselves might do, at least get 

 done, which is, instead of publishing again and again ad vauseum the 

 Scott Monument, to publish a collection of some of their best edifices, 

 illustrated architecturally by plans and elevaiions, in some such economic 

 form as the " Public Hiiildiugs uf London," and Landou's " Edifices de 

 Paris." Surely Playfair, Hamiltou, Kliind, and others who have shown 

 talent in some of Ihe recent structures, would gladly promote an under- 

 taking of Ihe kind,— in which sections and interiors ought not to be quite 

 forgotten- certainly not such as the hall and principal apartment in Ihe 

 new Commercial I5auk, which last-mentioned apartment appears from 

 descriptiou lo be quite unique as a public " business-room," it having a 

 Corinthian colonnade on each side, and being moreover enriched with de- 

 corative painting, marbling, and gilding, most probably by Mr. Hay — al- 

 though that is merely my own conjecture. The hexastyle Corinthian por- 

 tico of the exterior, with its pediment tilled in with statues iu full relief, 

 might pass fur classical, were not such character sadly marred by the two 

 ranges of windows within; whereas had there been none below, but only 

 the doorway there, the upper ones might have been excused. 



