3G 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[February, 



ment of Scott's virtuosity in architecture. Attempts in the Gothic 

 style by Scotch architects are almost without exception intolerably 

 bad, many of them utterly contemptible. Taymouth Castle, about 

 which the newspapers made so much fuss a few months ago, is in 

 point of architecture, most miserable. The noble owner of that big 

 house possesses an infinitely superior specimen of architecture in a 

 small one called the Forest Cottage, which he has lately erected in 

 Inveroran. Homely in character, as its name denotes, yet at the same 

 time something more than a mere cottage, it idealizes that character 

 most happily, bringing forward some of its most picturesque traits, 

 without any paltry affectation. It is withal eminently picturesque, 

 which is more than can be averred of those things which pretend to 

 be " Picturesque " by title, and for the nonce. 



III. That the lord of Abbotsford himself could be. sufficiently severe 

 upon other persons' architectural whims, is evident from a postscript 

 of a letter of his to Mr. Morritt, of Rokeby Park, and who was then 

 at Brighton ; saying, " Will you do me a favour? Set fire to the 

 Chinese stables, and if it embrace, the whole of the Pavilion, it will 

 rid me of a great eye-sore " ! 1 As this was written in the February 

 of 1826, immediately after the crash that laid low his fortunes, and 

 reduced him to beggary — at any rate to that sort of nominal beggary 

 which thousands would call luxurious affluence — hardly is it to be 

 supposed that his so expressed opinion of the Pavilion at Brighton 

 ■was a mere sally of wantonness and gaiete de cam. The Pavilion 

 might have been rendered a good specimen of the style it pretends to, 

 and so far have been satisfactory, whatever may be objected to the 

 choice of such style for such purpose. Instead of which it is a finical 

 and insipid, not to say paltry imitation of that style, with little charac- 

 ter than that of toyishness and gimcrack, certainly with no " hearti- 

 ness of character" about it, nor any gusto. The "pimping pagoda taste" 

 of George IV. is not yet extinct in the family, for a Chinese conser- 

 vatory, or something of that sort, is now erecting in the gardens of 

 Buckingham Palace, but whether it is of porcelain, or common crock- 

 ery quality, is not said. 



IV. Were the reviewers to pay Mr. Gwilt in his own coin, they 

 would say nothing of his book, except that, being the work of a living 

 contemporary, delicacy prevented them from expressing any opinion 

 relative to it; besides, their silence would be far more gratifying 

 than any remarks, however complimentary, from a class of critics 

 whom Mr. Gwilt himself denounces as a set of meddling blunderers 

 and blockheads. He has shown himself most dreadfully sore upon 

 the subject of reviewers and anonymous criticism, and for no other 

 reason, it appears, than because an article in the Foreign Quarterly 

 spoke in commendation of Schinkel and the German school of archi- 

 tecture. Any other person than Mr. Gwilt would have been thankful 

 for the information there first conveyed upon the subject, whether he 

 agreed with all the writer's opinions or not: whereas the meek Jo- 

 seph assailed him as virulently as if that article had been a personal 

 attack upon himself, and spluttered in a very big strain about "small 

 fry " writers and anonymous critics — or rather those who set up for 

 critics, though utterly ignorant of the subjects they profess to treat. 

 Does Mr. Gwilt then suppose that professional men never write in 

 literary journals, on subjects connected with their own pursuits ? Is 

 he not aware, poor man, that among the anonymous scribblers in the 

 periodical he fell foul upon, there was no less a nobody than Sir Walter 

 Scott ? Can he be so ignorant as not to know that Cowper, Byron, 

 Southey, Moore, Hallam, Brougham, Horner, the Rev. Sydney Smith, 

 not to mention Bishops, have been anonymous reviewers? It will be 

 well for him should he not find out at last, that it had been better had 

 he condescended to publish anonymously, himself. None will envy 

 him the fame he will now get by not doing so. 



V. "Nothing is so tiresome," says Sir Walter Scott, " as walking 

 through some beautiful scene with a minute philosopher, a botanist, or 

 pebble-gatherer, who is eternally calling your attention from the grand 

 features of the natural picture, to look at grasses and chucky-stones." 

 Mutatis mutandis, this may be applied to those minute critics in 

 architecture who attend chiefly to inferior matters, such as the pro- 

 portions or correctness of an order as an order, without regard to any 



further effect, or its coherence with the rest of the building. Any 

 thing of that kind which happens not to be in distinct conformity with 

 standard, and therefore only general, rules, — which we are r.aher to be 

 guided by than tied down to, is at once pronounced by them to be 

 faulty and incorrect, yet at the same time thpy can tolerate infinitely 

 greater faults, far more reprehensible licenses, and that which is the 

 greatest defect of all, let the style be what it may, the utter want of 

 all artist-like feeling. By a minute critic, however, is not to be 

 understood one who examines merely the minutiae and details of a 

 building — for that is more than every one of the tribe is capable of 

 doing: but one who looks at every thing piecemeal, and who dwells 

 exclusively upon individual particulars and detached circumstances, 

 without taking into consideration whether there be any thing to call 

 for, to justify, or to account for what he only perceives to be uncom- 

 mon. Your minute critic is generally a staunch stickler for precedent, 

 and not without reason, since precedent and authority are the crutches 

 which help him along. Deprived of their aid, he comes to the 

 ground. In any case out of the ordinary course he feels quite put out, 

 and unable to make any thing of it, takes his revenge by pointing out 

 what does not accord with usual practice, and therefore, as he will 

 have it, a blunder or a solecism. How the minute philosopher 

 chuckles when he detects some homceopathically small infringement 

 of a mere pettifogging rule. Yet how obtusely blind is he apt to 

 show himself in regard to every thing which does not come within 

 the compass of rules and routine. 



VI. By no means would it be amiss were public spirit and archi- 

 tectural zeal to be displayed in completing and giving the finishing 

 touches to some of our modern buildings, as well as in the restoration 

 of decayed ones. Many there are which admit of being greatly im- 

 proved by corrections, and by omissions in them, more or less obvious, 

 being supplied. Such is certainly the case with the National Gallery 

 for one, and there even seems to have been some idea at one time of 

 doing something more to that building, Barry having actually been 

 consulted on the subject. Greatly might the United Service Club 

 House be improved by giving it a cornicione, and throwing more spirit 

 and richness into its other features. Nay, perhaps even the Conser- 

 vative might be converted into a tolerably satisfactory design, were 

 carle blanche for such alteration to be granted to some one who pos- 

 sessed both ingenuity and taste. At all events we may now expect to 

 find that that building has served as a wholesome warning to the ar- 

 chitects of the forthcoming new Conservative Club House in St. 

 James's Street, and that they will show themselves Radical Reformers 

 in point of architectural taste. 



EXPRESSION IN ARCHITECTURE. 



The expression, or as it is sometimes termed, the language of 

 architecture, is a subject which has engaged the attention and em- 

 ployed the talents of many writers, both amongst professors of the art 

 and others, nor is it at all uncommon to hear it said that every build- 

 ing which makes any pretensions to style and taste, should express by 

 its design and character, the purpose for which it is intended. Al- 

 though it is by no means my intention to deny that buildings of almost 

 every class are capable of great and varied expression, yet to suppose 

 that this expression may be varied so as to indicate all the different 

 purposes of modern buildings appears to me as absurd as to deny all 

 power of expression to the art. The characters of sublimity, majesty, 

 grandeur, gaiety, or gloom, may be and frequently are imparted to a 

 structure by the skill of its designer; but this is very different from 

 the building indicating the intended puipose of its erection. We 

 may see this by considering that gloom and solemnity are features 

 equally characteristic of a prison or of a tomb, that grandeur and 

 majesty are qualities of expression as appropriate in a palace as in a 

 senate house, whilst gaiety and elegance are generally considered as 

 characters equally to be impressed on the decorations of the private 

 house and of the theatre. A great number of buildings must, indeed, 



