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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[September, 



this is too extensive and important to be treated in a mere digression. 

 It is a vice of the present school of architecture to npglect obvious 

 and natural resources in construction, to produce showy falsities, and 

 to be ashamed of sound realities. To support this proposition would 

 lead to another dissertation, but it would be unjust to conclude with- 

 out qualifying the general observations already made upon this 

 tendency, by admitting that there are many honourable exceptions. 

 To select examples would be invidious, but it may be allowable to 

 mention what has appeared in print, and it would be throwing away 

 the advantage of a powerful support to the argument which has been 

 pursued, not to refer to the letter on ecclesiastical architecture, ad- 

 dressed to the Bishop of London by Mr. John Shaw. 



The most considerable attempt ever made to connect cast iron with 

 architecture, as an art, is the construction of the new spire of Rouen 

 Cathedral. In this work, the proportions have been carefully 

 adapted to the material ; whether the object sought has been as well 

 attained as it might be is not now the question. The endeavour is 

 laudable; and as wp flatter ourselves that in a knowledge of Gothic 

 architecture, at least, we have the advantage over our neighbours 

 let us try to produce something more satisfactory. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 



FASCICULUS LII. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withal, as hrfre a charier as the winds, 

 To blow on whom 1 please." 



I. It is with naked windows as with naked figures — the latter may 

 be either innocent enough or grossly indecorous, just as they happen 

 to be introduced. Put a naked figure, that may be unexceptionable 

 in itself, into a picture where other figures are clothed, and it becomes 

 an indecency — of which, by the bye, there is an instance which had 

 better have been omitted, among the cartoons in Westminster Hall, 

 where sans-cutotte gentlemen in puris naturalibus " cut a figure " along- 

 side of others who are in breeches. As to windows, the rule should 

 be, if you can't afford clothes, that is, "dressings" for them all, bestow 

 them on none. It does not, indeed, follow, that all are to be dressed 

 alike, or in the same degree, for some may be comparatively in un- 

 dress ; but between undress and a state of nudity there is some little 

 difference. It is nothing less than a positive violation of the ordinary 

 and most obvious proprieties of architectural decorum, to give dress- 

 ings to the windows of the principal floor only, and leave all the others 

 absolutely bare. Yet how frequently is this done! which being the 

 case, we must suppose that it is admired as producing at least a 

 smartish look — something of would-be consequence, like that of those 

 unhappy people who affect to be above their own class in society, yet 

 can get into no higher one, and so render themselves objects of ridi- 

 cule to both. Another most tasteless practice is that of sticking in 

 columns and pilasters between windows which have no dressings, or 

 if any at all, such as are by no means sufficient to produce consistencv 

 of character. Yet it is of such bungling vulgar stuff that the archi- 

 tectural " magnificence " — so the penny-a-line critics call it — of Re- 

 gent Street, and Regent's Park palaces, and of Pimlico and Paddington, 

 is made up. This is the sort of stuff which, as Welby Pugin — who 

 does not always cull his words for ears polite — says, "absolutely make 

 us spew to look upon them " ; whence it may be supposed that John 

 Nash and I. is school must have caused many a dreadlul fit of land- 

 sickness. 



II. Surely architects have an excellent right to claim Mercury for 

 their patron, as being the God of Thieves. Not content with stealing 

 ready-made orders and columns, they generally pilfer almost every 

 thing else, till sometimes there is nothing whatever in a design they 

 can fairly lay claim to as their own, except the tastelessness with 

 which they botch together their stolen ware. For their not exercising 

 their invention at all in regard to columns, the excuse is that they are 

 things by far too | recicus to be "tampered with," and even the idea 



of attempting — not to produce a fresh order, but to modify the stand- 

 ard examples of the orders, so as to produce others, is reprobated as 

 presumptious. Yet that they should almost invariably steal ready- 

 designed windows too, is somewhat unpardonable, more especially as 

 they afford very great scope indeed for diversity of design and deco- 

 ration, where decoration is most of all imperatively required, if there 

 is to be any degree of it at all. 



III. Together with the very best piece of design Soane ever pro- 

 duced, the Bank of England exhibits some of his worst. Did we not 

 know it to be fact, never could it be imagined that the north-west 

 angle of that edifice, and the centre of the south front, were by the 

 same architect; the latter is as complete a failure as the other is 

 beautiful and picturesque — a mere jumble of ill-assorted parts, and in 

 its ensemble stamped by a littleness of manner amounting even to pal- 

 triness. The arched entrances are so utterly at variance in every 

 respect with the order, that they alone would disfigure the compo- 

 sition, were it otherwise ever so unexceptionable. Bad enough in 

 themselves, they look some degrees worse than they else might, owing 

 to the very strange contrast they make with the large square-headed 

 blink doors — features of rather questionable propriety in themselves — 

 introduced into the wings of that elevation. So long as this centre part 

 remained to be done, it was to be expected that the architect would 

 here put forth all his force, and give us a veritable coup de maitre. 

 Instead of which, when he came to what ought to have been his finish- 

 ing stroke, he seems to have got quite to his wit's ends, and to have 

 been left without an idea. Fortunately this portion of the facade will 

 look more miserable than ever now that it is brought into close prox- 

 imity with the portico of the new Royal Exchange: nor is "fortu- 

 nately " here either a slip of the pen or error of the press, but se- 

 riously meant, because it is fortunate that there is now a very sufficient 

 pretext afforded for remodelling the exterior of that portion of the 

 Bunk, so that it may not look absolutely pitiful in comparison with its 

 new neighbour. As this part is here really loftier than the rest, so 

 also might the order be very well made upon a larger scale than that 

 of the wings; and indeed it was generally supposed beforehand, that 

 such was the architect's intention; instead of which he merely piled 

 up there what shows itself uo better than an excrescence, and one in 

 pretty much the same taste as that hoisted up on the top of the Man- 

 sion House, and which has lately been removed — an example that 

 ought to be followed by the Bank. 



IV. The precedent as to alteration set by the Mansion House might, 

 indeed, be both greatly extended in regard to that building itself, and 

 be followed by a very great many others, to their no small improve- 

 ment. Were something, for instance, done to the body of St. Martin's 

 Church, so as to make it tolerably of a piece with the portico, that 

 edifice might be rendered far more worthy than it now is of the repu- 

 tation it holds. The National Gallery would sustain no loss by getting 

 rid of its miserable dome ; nor would Goldsmith's Hall be improved 

 for the norse, were its lower part made to agree with the upper part, 

 instead of being, as at present, two distinct halves, one with mere 

 holes in the wall, the other with more than usually ornamented win- 

 dows. Neither Somerset House nor Sir W. Chambers' reputation 

 would suffer were the paltry "pigeon-house" turrets on the sides of 

 the inner quadrangle to be swept away. Were, again, the United 

 Service Club to subscribe to buy a cornice for their building, it would 

 be a deed of charity — would be clothing the naked, and almost like 

 feeding the hungry, for at present it has a most famished and famine- 

 struck appearance. As to Buckingham Palace, that might very well 

 escape intact, it being altogether incorrigible and unimproveable. No- 

 thing short of such a judicious "accident" as those which befel the 

 Houses of Parliament and Royal Exchange, could clear away all its 

 vices and blunders; and it would be too much to look for a special 

 interference of Providence to deliver the nation from such a disgrace 

 as that precious pile of architectural gewgaw and trumpery. 



V. It matters not what may be the capabilities of a style, if it be 

 taken up by those who have no capability of their own. What is 

 nominally one and the self same style, will show itself altogether 

 opposite in character according to the talent and taste, or the no talent 



