M 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[January, 



never be understood ; and it will then, possibly, be found, that the in- 

 tercessions of saints, and the pride of heraldry, are not in accordance 

 with the free spirit of a Protestant, and a free people of the 19th 

 century; and we may then shake off this dull, unmanly copyism which 

 disgraces our school, and daring to think for ourselves, invent and 

 perfect an architecture suited to the ideas religious and moral of our 

 times, and in accordance with the materials and structure of an im- 

 proved practice .'" There's heresy for you, with a vengeance! What 

 say you to that Joseph Gwilt ? Why, the smallest of the "small-fry " 

 could have uttered nothing half so mischievous and vile! Invent, in- 

 deed ! — perfect too ! By the beard of Vitruvius — if he wore one — it is 

 truly scandalous. — " Dull, unmanly copyism !" What say you to that, 

 Sir Robert? — the audaciousness of it must make your hair stand on end. 

 What say you again, Friend Welby, to that same fling at " copyism," 

 and the expressive hint, that the spirit of our ancient architecture is 

 not exactly in accordance with the spirit of the 19th century ? Well, 

 after all, you have reason to comfort yourselves that Cockerell did not 

 have a fling at Lord Shrewsbury and his "Inspired Virgins," who turn 

 out, it seems, to be just what might be expected of miracles and 

 miracle-mongers in this 19th century. 



III. Architectural painters and draftsmen are privileged, it may be 

 presumed, to lie with impunity, a licence of which some avail them- 

 selves so freely, that some of their productions are no better than so 

 many downright graphic falsehoods, which, by greatly exaggerating 

 or flattering the buildings so shown, cause disappointment when we 

 afterwards behold them. It is a very common mode of lying, with 

 them, to draw their figures, which should always serve as a faithful 

 scale to the architecture, so much smaller than they ought to be as to 

 convey the idea of the buildings being very much larger than they 

 really are. Another common piece of deception is to throw in forced 

 effects of light and shade that are never to be seen in the real objects. 

 By no means is it an uncommon trick to put in, not merely positive, 

 but most violent and exaggerated shadows on the upper part of a 

 building, while all below is quite light; — shadows which we must 

 suppose are occasioned by a score of balloons hovering over us just 

 up in the air. 



IV. It was to be hoped that the invention of the Daguerreotype 

 would ere this have been turned to a very great account for the study 

 of architecture, and have been made to supply us with perfect and 

 trustworthy representations of buildings, more especially of such as 

 have not yet been represented at all. With regard to subjects of the 

 latter kind, this does not appear even likely to be the case. Cer- 

 tainly it is not so with the "Excursions Daguerriennes ;" for there 

 some pains seem to have been taken to select some of the stalest 

 subjects possible, and to avoid any which in addition to their in- 

 trinsic attractions, would have those of novelty and freshness. This 

 is rather — or more than rather — provoking, so exceedingly perverse, 

 in fact, that one is quite puzzled to account for it. Those who pro- 

 vide the engravings for the large sheet almanacs, seem to have the 

 same relish for staleness of subject. The Cambridge almanac for 

 this year has an interior view of the hall of Trinity College, instead 

 of the facade of the new Assize Courts, as might have been expected, 

 and which, shown upon that scale, would have formed an interesting 

 architectural plate. Again, there has been so very little building 

 going on of late, and that little so undeserving of their notice, that 

 the " Stationers" have been obliged to go to Greenwich Hospital for 

 the subject of the engraving to their almanac. Well, some fifty 

 years hence, perhaps, the turn will come for Cockereil's Sun Fire 

 Office, and Moxhay's Commercial Hall. 



V. A sort of materialism seems to be just now prevailing in archi- 

 tectural doctrine, that is more likely to give us able builders and 

 cunning "artisans" than real artists in their profession. No doubt, in a 

 merely utilitarian point of view, it is far more important that we 

 should have the former than the latter. Art may be dispensed with, 

 or treated as sometbing altogether subordinate ; but then, let us, in 

 fairness, abate our claims in behalf of architecture itself, as one of 

 the fine arts, and to which, in its quality of such, we look for aesthetic 

 charm and power. " Mere builders," is quite as strong a term of 



reproach as " mere artists ;" and is one by very far more generally 

 applicable than the other, since there are but comparatively few in 

 the profession — and not everyone among the professors themselves— 

 who show themselves to be artists at all; most of them being no 

 better than respectable copyists and plagiarists, unable to catch the 

 spirit of their models, and both preserving that, and combining with 

 it some spirit of their own, to give us some fresh ideas wortli having, 

 and produce works that might deserve to become models in their 

 turn. It must be admitted that the studies belonging to an architect 

 are very multifarious; yet, while undue stress is laid upon some, 

 which, after all, are but means — the mere scaffolding of his art — that 

 which is assuredly not the least important among them is overlooked, 

 namely, the study of design, by which is to be understood some- 

 thing more than that mechanical species of it, which may be learnt 

 secundum artem. "But," say the feeble and the timid, " it is safer to 

 stick to mere rules: to pretend to deviate from them, and aim at 

 originality is very presumptuous, and moreover, exceedingly hazardous 

 and dangerous." No doubt: yet it is by that daring which some 

 call rashness, that glory is won, and through perils and hazards that 

 conquest is achieved — in art as well as in arms. Of course those 

 whose valour and prowess are calculated for nothing more arduous 

 and perilous than a sham fight or review, do well to abstain from 

 entering a field where only master-spirits may hope to win, and 

 where even they may fail and fall. 



VI. Greatly do I envy Professor Donaldson the possession of that 

 pair of spectacles, which enables him to discern " lines of palaces at 

 Pimlico and on the north side of the New Road," and magnificence 

 in Regent Street! George Robins could hardly have been more 

 liberal of praise in one of his puffing advertisements; and from him. 

 such puff would have been received for just what it is worth ; but 

 from a Professor and ex cathedra ! it is tin pen fort. Such excessive 

 liberality on the part of the Professor at University College, is the 

 more remarkable, because he could not find even one syllable of praise 

 to bestow on a certain building in Gower Street, which some hold to 

 be a very fair piece of architecture, although they are so fastidious 

 in their taste, as to have no admiration for Pimlico palaces — not even 

 for the palace, and for Regent Street magnificence. Perhaps the Pro- 

 fessor was afraid of alluding or calling the attention of his auditors 

 in any wav, to the portico of the building they were assembled in, 

 knowing that its columns had been compared by one very great au- 

 thority in such matters, to "Ten Cyprians," a class of ladies that 

 ought not to be allowed at Colleges and Universities. As to the 

 great critical authority alluded to — one, by the bye, who holds archi- 

 tectural criticism generally, in abhorrence, much as he has scandalized 

 at " Wilkins' Corinthian Cyprians," he is quite enamoured with those 

 of St. Martin's Church. 



NEW ARCHITECTURAL SOCIETY EXTRAORDINARY. 



Some witty but malicious wag has just been amusing himself by 

 circulating a hoaxing jeu d'esprit, which imports to be a list of the 

 officers of a new Architectural Society, and in so doing has made ex« 

 ceedingly free with many respectable names, attaching to several of 

 them some of the most ludicrous titles imaginable. We suspect that 

 it comes from some one who is no very great admirer of Mr. Gwilt 

 and his opinions, for that gentleman's name stands very conspicuously 

 at the head of the list, wheje he is sneeringly designated "Professor 

 of Latin architecture," — a style of architecture never heard of before 

 — and as " Vitruvian Professor," which last title seems to be intended, 

 to be a double shot, and to allude contrastingly to Mr. Hoskiug as the 

 "Anti-Vitruvian Professor," and therefore in Mr. Gwilt' s opinion, a 

 Professor of Architectural Heresy and Radicalism. Then we have 

 Mr. Valentine Bartholomew, "Professor of Fruit and Flower-painting," 

 — an odd sort of appointment in a college of architects ; Mr. G. Aitch- 

 inson, "Professor of Concreting and Opus Incertum," — in which last 

 there are, if no professors, plenty of practitioners already. How Mr. 

 Billings will relish the title of " Itinerant Delineator," we know not ; 



