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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AD ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Oct. 



their backs upon, or tarn up their noses at, modem works of that descrip- 

 tion, when they themselves are all the while labouring with might and 

 main to bring modern-antiquity into general vogue among us. Such people 

 have a most strange way of showing their gratitude, and an equally 

 strange way of showing their taste. As to the latter, both that and 

 their admiration of what they do condescend to admire, appear to be 

 regulated entirely by dates and registers. Such learned owls see best in 

 obscurity and darkness. The broad daylight of the actual truth quite 

 dazzles and scares them. — If it be strange that the arclueologists should 

 have treated Cossey as they did, it is hardly less so that none of our 

 architectural draftsmen, who sometimes seem very much at a loss for fresh 

 and interesting subjects, should have exercised their pencil upon that 

 mansion, which is certainly not delicient in varied and highly piquant 

 parts. But the shadows of archseology are fast falling upon aud darken- 

 ing the whole land of Art,— enwrapping it in its own morbid gloom, till 

 Dulness, universal Dulness, reign. Then take my advice in time : Fling 

 physic to the dogs and Precedent to the devil. 



HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



A Brief Sketch or Epitome nf 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 Jirom page 271.J 



The four great epochs of architecture iu England are, as hath been shown, 

 — I. The introduction of the art into Britain by the Romans, until its deca- 

 dence by the Saxons. — II. The introduction of the Ecclesiastical or Pointed 

 styles by the Normans, through all the rich exuberance of the florid Planta- 

 genet and Tudor styles, to the mixed anomalies of the Holbein, Elizabethan, 

 or picturesque styles, which fell into desuetude shortly after the death of 

 Elizabeth.— III. The revival of the Roman and introduction of the Italian 

 styles by the Stuarts, to the absence of all style and schools which marked 

 the reigns of our first two princes of the house of Hanover.— IV. The 

 patronage of all the polite arts which distinguished the accession of George 

 HI., and the establishment of the Royal Academy, to the present day; in 

 which period all the styles have been revived and practised, with various 

 degrees of success, and to which we owe the introduction of the pure sim- 

 plicity and unrivalled elegance of the Greek style, as well as the eccentric 

 architecture of the Chinese and the ponderous eternities of the Egyptian. 

 This latter epoch, so abundant in materials both in theory and practice, will 

 form the subject of the following section. 



The overflowing exuberance of our English language, which soars above 

 the pure simplicity of a mother tongue, borrows its words, phrases, and 

 idioms from the Hebrew, Latin, Saxon, Norman, German, French, Dutch, 

 and even from the Arabic and other Eastern tongues, at pleasure ; engrafts 

 such as are suitable for its purpose, rejects the useless or those which are 

 merely pedantic, and thus renders it the most powerful and 'rich of modern 

 languages. So have the architects of the Georgian-Victoria period, by a 

 •imilar usufruct of every known style of their art, rendered the architecture 

 of our time more exuberant and usefully elegant than any other single 

 people. They have not used the Greek style to monotony, the Italian to 

 littleness, the Gothic to florid pedantry and heraldic exaggeration, nor any to 

 satiety; but, with a few solitary exceptions, have engrafted a freedom of 

 style and an unfettered selection from the beauties of every clime to their 

 productions. Hence, although we have no style of architecture that can be 

 properly called English, we have a rich engrafting upon our parent wild 

 stock, domestic utility, a mixed but not incongruous style, rich and exube- 

 rant as is our language. Therefore, the architecture of England, if it cannot 

 be called English arcnitecture, is like the Venus of Praxiteles, composed of 

 the choicest elements of beauty. 



In the early part of the reign of George the Third, Sir William Chambers 

 enjoyed the royal favour and almost the whole of the architectural employ- 

 ment of the day. Fond of ease, he indulged in his professional reveries in 

 his office at the Board of Works. Not being a regularly bred architect, or 

 even builder, he educated no pupils — that is to say, as the word is now 

 understood ; he therefore formed no school, and left little more than his 

 Somertet-houie, his Royal Exchange, Dublin, a few edifices of lesser noto- 



riety, his Chinese buildings at Kew, and his " Treatise on Civil Architec- 

 ture," to perpetuate his fame; but his name will always hold a distinguished 

 place in the list of British architects. His only followers or pupils were 

 bred in the office of the Board of Works, in which he held the situation of 

 surveyor-general. Among the principal of these were his friend and asso- 

 ciate, John Yenn, for whom he obtained from his royal master the diploma 

 of R.A. and the honourable office of treasurer to the Royal Academy ; Wil- 

 liam Gandon, who distinguished himself by his able editing of the last two 

 volumes of the " Vitruvius Brittannicus," his splendid buildings of the 

 Custom house, the four Courts, and Parliament house, Dublin, and some 

 private edifices in other parts of Ireland ; the late Mr. Hardwick, father of 

 the present eminent architect of that name; and the late Mr. John Buona- 

 rotti Papworth, who received suflicient directions for his professional studies 

 and advice in the selection of models, to warrant a small claim to that title. 

 This gentleman's father and elder brother were the eminent plasterers to the 

 Board of Works, and as they executed the beautiful ornamental plastering 

 and stucco work to the cornices, ceilings, coves, and panels of Somerset- 

 house, some of which in the Royal Academy form frames for decorations 

 from the pencils of Reynolds, Cipriani, Regaud, Mary Lloyd, and other 

 members of that institution, the young Buonarotti, who exhibited early in 

 life a decided love and taste for ornamental design, had often easy access to 

 the architect and to the building. 



Of the first of these, namely John Yenn, notwithstanding the honourable 

 addition of R.A. to his name, his only known work is that part of the 

 Treasury which faces St. James's Park, and grins horribly upon Holland'* 

 pretty edifice of Melbourne-house, and Kent's picturesque composition of 

 the Horse Guards: and this is his only voucher to the honourable title of 

 Royal Academician, in the newly-established Royal Academy of Painting, 

 Sculpture, and Archileclure! This extraordinary event the architect com- 

 memorated by presenting his brother academicians with a geometrical eleva- 

 tion of his design, shaded with Indian-ink and tinted with gamboge, in the 

 manner of the day, and framed and glazed, with his autograph (John Yenn, 

 R.A., Architect). Of his right to this title Dr. Johnson bears witness in his 

 Dictionary, wherein he says that " Architect" is a noun substantive, and 

 means a contriver of anything ; — ergo, John Tenn is an architect, for he 

 contrived the north front of the Treasury. His original (?) design for that 

 contrivance is still in the collection of works presented by the Royal Acade- 

 micians to the Academy, and is preserved, though rather in an obscure 

 corner, in the council-room of that institution, honoured by a companionship 

 with the self-selected works of Reynolds, West, Lawrence, Hoppner, Wyatt, 

 Dance, and other eminent coteniporaries j his successors being purposely 

 omitted from the comparison. 



The first symptom of a regular-bred genuine architect in the reign of 

 George HI. was James Wyatt. Being the son of an eminent and opulent 

 builder in the city of London, who was much concerned in government and 

 other large building contracts, he received the elements of a sound scientific 

 education necessary either for the builder or the architect. After being 

 thus far qualified in his father's establishment, he refined and purified his 

 taste by investigating the finest ancient and modern structures, and in visit- 

 ing the best schools of architecture in France and Italy. Foreign travel in 

 those days was absolutely necessary for one who aspired to the eminent 

 profession of an architect ; for, with the exception of Sir William Cham- 

 bers's little Goshen in Scotland-yard, there was no school or master of the 

 art, properly so called, in England. It is true, that at the commencement 

 of the Royal Academy, Thomas Saudby, brother of the facetious painter 

 Paul Sandby, an architectural critic and draftsman, read occasional lectures 

 on architecture in the Academy ; but of his works and lectures we have no 

 records. His brother Paul, an amiable, agreeable, and facetious man, and a 

 considerable artist for his period, was among the earliest R.A.'s, and doubt- 

 less persuaded his brother Thomas to read Vitruvius and Palladio, and to 

 transmute their stern lessons on their art into agreeable essays, suited to the 

 mixed assembly of painters, sculptors, incipient architects, engravers, draw- 

 ing masters, and otliers, who were admitted as memliers, associates, and 

 students, to draw from the antique and living figure, and to listen to the 

 biennial discourses of Reynolds, and the annual platitudes of Penny, R.A., 

 Professor of Painting, of whom we have no more room than to saj, that he 

 painted the death of General Wolfe with all nude figures, — modern drapery 

 being in his opinion beneath the dignity of an historic pencil ;* the clever 

 compilations of Thomas Sandby on architecture, and the few but earnest 

 prelections on anatomy by the celebrated Dr. Hunter. Wisely then did 



• ThU work la Still preserved, among same really Soe irorks of art, ia the Picture Gal- 

 lery at Oxford. 



