1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



961 



mental effigies, recumbent in unbroken sleep, or with hands clasped in 

 holy aspiration; and, overcome by the spirit of the place, he will walk 

 with softer tread, his mind impressed with feelings of devotion, and 

 with vivid recollections of his country's great. 



In Gothic buildings, no construction is masked by decoration ; no sham 

 feature inserted to correspond with another that is real. Sincerity is the 

 guiding rule, and geometry the instrument. In vaultings, the thrust of 

 the main supporting ribs is concentrated atone point, and there counter- 

 abutted by a flying buttress, in the precise direction which the compo- 

 sition of the forces dictates. Bridged across the nave, it was further 

 resisted by the wall buttress, and confined within narrow limits by the 

 downward pressure of a pinnacle, until it found its limit in the earth. 

 Now in this system of counterfort, (the principle of which it was hardly 

 necessary to explain here,) we discover an adaptation of means to an 

 end, surpassed only in the construction and action of the human frame. 

 Thus, like the trellis on which the jasmine and the convolvolus en- 

 twine, the forms of pointed architecture are but the framework on 

 which beauties are engrafted, evolving those beauties, but never 

 sacrificing themselves to them, and even snatching peculiar graces 

 from circumstances originally adverse. Gothic structures never dis- 

 appoint, as almost every other edifice is sure to do. The first sight 

 of the church, " bosomed high in tufted trees," the nearer approach, 

 or the study of days, are alike pregnant with delight. The most 

 skilful arrangements of contrast are displayed — in the low doors by 

 which you enter the lofty pile ; and in the spires which rise in every 

 part of a level district. Also the contrast of dark to light, in such 

 situations as the porch of Henry VII's chapel. 



Whatever objections there may be to the practice of the medieval 

 architects, these can have no hold against a modern adaptation of 

 their style. We should work with all the skill derived from exami- 

 nation of Gothic edifices, and from analysis of the causes of failure 

 in some, superadded to all the advantages which modern discovery 

 affords. We should choose good stone, and select or prepare good 

 foundations, protecting our buildings from damp and decay by drains 

 and water pipes in place of the old gorgueils. And the result of our 

 study of each form of ecclesiastical structure, combined with our in- 

 vention, would be the raising of fabrics worthy and characteristic of 

 the age, which the peasant and the peer alike would recognise, as ex- 

 pressive of religious uses. 



THE CAUSES WHICH HAVE ENNOBLED ARCHITECTURE. 



By Frederick Lush, Associate of the Institute of British 



Architects. 



(Continued from page 154.,) 



" If to do were as easy as to know what 'twere good to do, chapels had 

 been churches, and poor men's cotiages. princes' palaces."' — Shakspeare. 



It is not surprizing that the great churches of Europe, but espe- 

 cially those on the Continent, should so frequently present a confusion 

 and discordance in their parts, when they were the production of 

 many ages, against the revolutions of which they had to contend, and 

 when, moreover, their construction was committed to manv different 

 minds, who it appears very obstinately differed from each other with 

 respect to their architectural principles. However beautiful these 

 varieties of style may be in the abstract, we like to see the same 

 character, the same feeling and expression running throughout the 

 whole, as if one mind alone presided over it. But it seems as if 

 many architects loved to show their predilection for some particular 

 school when called upon to restore or add to any existing edifice, and 

 to act entirely as their own tastes and their own prejudices dictated, 

 without reference to what their predecessor? had done, in order to 

 make their work of a piece with them. It is, perhaps, one of the 

 weaknesses peculiar to genius. We think, for instance, of the Corin- 

 thian portico of Inigo Jones on the west front of old St. Paul's ; and 

 not only what this celebrated man, but many others have done, in their 

 fondness for the ancient or their love of novelty, by introducing some- 



thing from Vignola or something from the Renaissance on such noble 

 monuments as those of Notre Dame, and St. Germain l'Auxerrois at 

 Paris. It is in consequence of this, that all which is most beautiful in 

 the Gothic in the best ages of its invention, lies scattered over those 

 countries where a passion for it was most felt, and where it naturally 

 best flourished ; and it is necessary to accumulate and combine these 

 in order to form a perfect cathedral. 



For the finest remains of this sublime art we look to the churches of 

 the 13th and 14th centuries; and although there is scarcely any country 

 which does not claim it as its own, yet we select those of Germany, as 

 this seems the soil from which originally it sprung and was matured ; and 

 as in the year 1277, when the famous Strasbourg pile was commenced 

 there was established in that town perhaps one of the oldest associ- 

 ations of masons, which is the chief lodge, and who have the honour 

 of having built, not only this, but Cologne, and many other edifices, of 

 which the Germans have reason to be proud. That they were not 

 wanting in talent and perseverance for bringing to perfection the stvle 

 of building of which they were the professed masters and had devoted 

 themselves to, we have abundant proofs ; great improvement was ne- 

 cessarily made in it ; miscalculations on the composition and reso- 

 lution of forces were corrected ; no defects in their designs were 

 permitted eternally to remain for want of previously studying their 

 effects upon the eye; and every thing was done both theoretically and 

 practically, to place the art on a firm and solid basis. We say the 

 chief aim of art consists in producing the grandest effects with the 

 smallest means; in giving to a structure the greatest strength with 

 the least material ; in constructing it in a manner the most advan- 

 tageous for the purpose to which it is destined, and wherever no 

 ignorance can be detected in disphiyiug the art by which all these 

 ends are accomplished. We turn, then, to the works of these build- 

 ers, and find they did not live to pile up stones in vain, but attained 

 these results with a most unrivalled success. 



Their union, moreover, with a number of similar societies, all 

 attached to and teaching the same principles, placed within their 

 reach immense power and immense resources. One of the oppor- 

 tunities that was afforded them of the certainty of the correctness of 

 these principles, was the wide field of observation that was opened to 

 them by means of travelling. By the numbers likewise of the work- 

 men they had at their command, the wages with which they rewarded 

 their labours, and the industry that they excited among them, an em- 

 ployment was created which very much conduced to the happiness 

 and well-being uf the poorer class of people. But the good did not 

 cease here. Men were everywhere occupied in erecting a church on 

 a scale commensurate with the imposing rites of the Catholic worship. 

 Superstition, too, in those ages, doubtless had no small share in pro- 

 ducing the magnificent structures which were the wonder of the mul- 

 titude ; but we cannot blame them for this. It is not difficult to trace 

 the weakness of our nature in everything, and to see it mingling even 

 in what is most holy. At a period, therefore, less enlightened than 

 our own, we cannot wonder if the hand should be somewhat prompted 

 by superstition in rearing one of those beautiful and elaborate spires 

 which rise abovp our houses and ornament our land. But if we feel 

 it a kind of devotion to look upon it ; if we endeavour when gazing 

 upon it to 



yitlidraw our minds 



I 'it, 'ii iarth. and control our tbimj-jhis 'till we have 

 Got by heart its eloquent proportions : 



let us not say that those who reared it were degraded by any such 

 motive ; but rather imitate their zeal and rival those efforts of human 

 skill and piety; though their authors were once turned into ridicule 

 by the common people, and thought no better than fanatics. It was 

 this class of persons whose co-operatiens were the means of ennobling 

 architecture during the middle ages ; for whom no art could be too 

 refined, as no religion too sublime. They considered it impossible to 

 conceive any building too grand or too splendid in which to celebrate 

 its solemnities; they wished to make it resplendent with the in- 

 ventive genius of the pencil; and if they could not possess the fres- 

 cos of such artists as Raphael and Michael Angelo, those champions 



