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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[February, 



architects. In the very dawn of literature the architect was required to he 

 learned. In the Memorabilia of Xenophon, Socrates inquires, " But what 

 employment do you intend to excel in, Euthedemus, that you collect so 

 many books ? is it architecture ? for this art, too, you will find no little 

 knowledge necessary." 



A familiar example of the great utility of these researches had been given 

 in the quotation from Philibert de l'Orme (lib. ii. c. xi.), of the specification 

 for concrete, written in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and corre- 

 sponding precisely with the recent so-called discovery of this method of 

 securing foundations. During the last century our architects had discon- 

 tinued the ancient practice, having adopted the most fallacious fashion of 

 wood-sleepers, to the ruin of many fine buildings. It was, then, the igno- 

 rance of this invaluable and most instructive and amusing author, Philibert 

 de l'Orme, which had led to so fatal an error. 



With reference to Vitruvius, the commentators, in forty-one editions, since 

 his discovery in 1416, were shown to have made but slow progress, and to 

 have done the author but little justice ; and ever since the uncandid Schnei- 

 der had published his edition in 1807, ten important discoveries, illustrating 

 the correctness of his theories, had been made by modern travellers and 

 architects. 



Iu the present course the Professor purposed the consideration of the 

 more difficult, but no less important, injunction of the Academic regulation, 

 " that these lectures should be calculated to form the taste of the students, 

 to instruct them in the laws and principles of composition, and fit tbem for 

 a critical examination of structures." 



Those laws and principles which are technical, were often treated, and 

 were more obvious ; but those which constituted architecture a fine art, were 

 more subtle, but not less vital, to those who aspired to the higher attain- 

 ments of the art, namely, the sublime and beautiful. Such inquiries had 

 employed the most learned and ingenious minds in all ages ; and although 

 theories are proverbially dangerous things, and must be treated with great 

 caution, yet, recommended as they are by the authority of great names, thev 

 ought to he known and discussed'; effects attributable to right reason and 

 right feeling are essentially subjects of discussion, and the old proverb should 

 be reversed, and "De gustibus disputandum est " should apply to all those 

 preferences which depend on reason, and not on sexual or fanciful arbitra- 

 ment; and though the inquiries into the sesthetical of art, which have occu- 

 pied the last century particularly, fall short of the results we should desire 

 and expect, and that after all genius alone can rightly solve these questions, 

 which elude common sense, yet we may cultivate and improve our critical 

 powers, learn to think more accurately, and correct that colloquial laxity of 

 speech which refers all impressions to some cant phrase of undefined signifi- 

 cation, asfne and beautiful, tasteless, &c. 



Such investigations afford the only means by which the principles of this 

 or any other art can be ascertained, and the artist can be enabled to deter- 

 mine whether the beauty he creates is temporary or permanent, whether 

 adapted to the accidental prejudices of his age or to the uniform constitution 

 of the human mind ; and whatever the science of criticism can afford for the 

 improvement or correction of taste must altogether depend upon the previous 

 knowledge of the nature and laws of this faculty. 



In the following lectures the Professor proposes to review the examples 

 Cited in his former courses with reference to these important principles. 



Lecture II. 



, . The Professor said, that the developement of the human faculties was ex- 

 hibited in the history of Architecture under its most favourable aspect. The 

 art might be termed the epitome of of civilization, the first fruits of social 

 order and combination, of every discovery in science, and of every concep- 

 tion of beauty. Political history was of comparatively inferior interest, and 

 betrayed, for the most part the depravity of our species. The natural 

 labours of man, those of agriculture, or commerce, their unvarying succession, 

 brief endurance, and disappointment, leave melancholy convictions ; hut in 

 the occupation of architecture, man finds the employment of those higher 

 aspirations and idealities for which he feels himself born, as well as of his 

 physical energies. Here he perceives that he has a soul ; all his loftier con- 

 ceptions—order, calculation, beauty, and immortality— are opened to his 

 contemplation, and he seems to feel the power of extending his works and 

 his memory beyond the bounds of nature and of time. 



The exhibition of these innate and physical capacities seems to be his 

 natural desire ; and the progress of his operations coincides with his intel- 

 lectual growth. In his boyhood he contends with the forces of nature j he 

 moulds the vast rocks, and rears on end the monolithic obelisk ; or, accumu- 

 lating the masses with laborious endurance in the pyramid, he emulates the 

 works of Nature herself; and exulting in the force of order and combina- 

 tion, and his acquired skill, be exclaims, with the Babvlouians, •' Go to, let 

 us build a city and a tower, whose top mav reach unto the heavens, and let 

 us make us a name." Add, although in our advanced civilization, we may 

 smile at the superfluity of such labours, we must not forget that by them 

 man first vindicated his capacities, and that metallurgy, mechanics, and all 

 the manual exercise and discipline whicli fulfilled his apprenticeship to civili- 

 zation, were brought into practice, which soon employed itself in more 

 intrinsic benefits. J 



The age of Alexander and the Romaus abundantly illustrated this truth 

 Man now contends with the elements. The ocean is curbed by his ports' 



and quays, and Pharos ; he sails across its bosom ; marshes are drained ; 

 sewers, canals, aqueducts, and roads, exhibit the mastery he had acquired, 

 and his conquests over nature. Frontinus, whose work on aqueducts was 

 written about the year 80, has a passage remarkably illustrative of the 

 growth of this spirit in his time. After giving a description of the nine 

 aqueduets under his care, brought to Rome by successive labours, making an 

 aggregate length of about 142 miles, he exclaims, " with so many waters, 

 and so many magnificent works necessary for their transport to this great 

 city, will you compare the idle Pyramids of Egypt, or even the inert works 

 of the Greeks, however celebrated and glorious in his ory ?'' The ingenuity 

 of the architect now, therefore, issues to use, and through 1800 years it is 

 more or less subordinate to it, either in the great business of religious and 

 moral improvement in the building of churches, or the security of civil life in 

 castles and mansions. Finally, in recent times, it is contracted to absolute 

 utilitarianism, and all its powers are bent to the perfection of the individual 

 dwelling between party walls, in which every subject of the state is in the 

 enjoyment of personal luxuries and conveniences of life unknown to the 

 Pharoahs, the Medici, or the magnificent Louis the Fourteenth. 



Thus, as Monsieur Guizot finely observes, each age and nation seems to 

 have flourished for some beneficial purpose to Mankind, which, being accom- 

 plished, it disappears from the stage. 



The history of architecture may be said to divide itself into five classes — 

 Sacred, Civil, Military, Domestic, and Monumental. In the accompanying 

 drawing (a roll about twelve feet square, containing a vast group of build- 

 ings inscribed within the outline of a pyramid, on a large scale) are seen in- 

 discriminately some of the principal monuments of all these classes (except 

 the military), comprising a period of 3,334 years. We may say to the 

 students, in the words of Napoleon to his troops, before the Pryamids of 

 Gizeh" Quarante siecles vous contemplent!" 



This arrangement done under the Professor's direction, about twenty years 

 ago, appeared, he believed, for the first time in the Penny Magazine. A com- 

 parative view of the great buildings of the earth, on the same scale, might 

 minister to that false estimate of merit, which is derived from material 

 dimension; but that criterion would vanish before the comparison of renown; 

 and the Parthenon, and other small buildings, here represented, would 

 abundantly illustrate the preference to be awarded to 



The little body, but the mighty soul. 



National attachment might excuse his pointing out the spire of Old St. 

 Paul's, the only one exceeding the height of the Great Pyramid. Those of 

 Mechlin and Cologne, though designed to have exceeded it, remained imper- 

 fect. A limit seems to be placed to man's arrogance and vain glory. We 

 were taught, like the Babylonians, that the God of nature delights not in 

 the accumulation of his favours and his light, and isolated in single spots, 

 but in the wide-scattered communication of them throughout all lands. 



But the observations already offered, were illustrated still further by the 

 sections [on a roll as large as the former, showing the structure of the most 

 important temples, on the same scale.] The issue of the art in use and 

 economy, was most remarkably shown in the comparison of those sections, 

 in which we observe, that St. Paul's displays the largest bulk with the least 

 material, hitherto contrived. 



He should now call the attention of the students to two rolls [about 16 

 feet long each], in the first of which the plans of the remarkable temples of 

 the ancient world, from the Tabernacle in the Wilderness (1491 B.C.) to the 

 reception of Christianity (313 a.c), and in the second those from that epoch 

 down to 1842, were all laid down to the same scale. There was displayed, 

 as it were, the genealogy of temples, during 3330 years. 



It was sacred architecture which he purposed to review cursorily that 

 evening ; and short enough was the time for a subject so deeply interesting ; 

 indeed, such an expression might be deemed presumptuous ; and it was obvious 

 that we should be enabled to do no more than pass the plans in review, and 

 remark upon those characteristics which became the more palpable on the 

 synoptic view of centuries and ideas of such extent and variety ; and which 

 were less frequently commented upon. It might be objected by the stu- 

 dents that subjects of such vast scale and importance and rare occurrence 

 should be illustrated, rather than the more practical ; but we should re- 

 member the dictum of Vitruvius, that the architect ought to pursue his 

 studies " maxime in sedibus Deorum, in quibus operum laudes et culpae 

 peternre solent permanere." In fact, the remains of these precious exemplars 

 of skill and cost and labour, the types of our art, were still discoverable 

 even from the most remote times, as if Nature herself, as well as man, had 

 respected them. 



In approaching sacred architecture, and in discussing the technical con- 

 siderations of the forms and structures of temples, we cannot but bow with 

 respect and veneration to those motives and affections, the noblest of the 

 human heart, which have ever urged these sacrifices to the mercy and the 

 majesty of the Creator — and we recognize in the Grecian or the Druid, the 

 Hindoo or the Christian temple, the universal sentiment so finely expressed 

 in the Psalms, cxxix : — 



" Lord, remember David and all his trouble ! 



" How he sware unto the Lord, and vowed a vow unto the mighty God of 

 Jacob, 



" I will not come within the tabernacle of mine house, nor climb up into 

 my bed, 



" I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyelid to slumber, neither 

 the temples of my head to take any rest, 



