1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



331 



brickwork, over a spun of 7a feet, ami springing at a height from the 

 foundations of 73 feet, the crown of the arch being 110 ft. from the 

 same. It is proposed to extend this permanent mode of construction 



to the two courts adjoining, which, if executed, will present a grand 

 vista of vaulted ceilings upwards of 30U feet in length. From this 

 we may hope that the architectural character of the exterior will be 

 fully maintained in the interior. 



The building is now rapidly advancing, and is carried up as high as 

 the bases of the columns, and the contractor has undertaken to com- 

 plete the exterior in 1S45. The estimated expense, exclusive of 

 ornamental fittings and finishings, is .£125,000, of which sum the 

 foundations and basement story have cost nearly £ 12,000. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 



FASCICULUS LIU. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withal, as large a charter as the winds, 

 To blow un whom 1 please." 



I. The group of three houses or mansions which are now erecting 

 in Grosvenor Place, on the site of what was the Lock Hospital, al- 

 though intended to be a superior specimen of the Italian palazzo style, 

 a la Barry, with mierostylar Ionic windows to the principal floor, as 

 in the Reform Club-house, is very unsatisfactory, owing to the nar- 

 rowness of the piers between the windows, which certainly do not 

 allow space sufficient for such extended dressings to the windows as 

 are here applied. The consequence is, the fronts look too much 

 overdone in that respect, the parts being so much crowded together, 

 as to lose their value; and the effect cannot, perhaps, be better 

 described than that of a tasteful style treated without taste — which, 

 odd as it may seem to a great many, is by no means an uncommon 

 thing. 



Apropos of architectural taste, it seems to be migrating eastward 

 and cityward. There is a new stone-fronted building — as yet unap- 

 propriated — just by the church in Lothbury, and facing the Bank, 

 which, though but of moderate size, being only four windows in 

 breadth, is not a little remarkable for general elegance of character, 

 and for careful finish of detail. This charming Utile specimen of the 

 Italian palazzo style, would be an ornament even to Pall-Mall, for 

 except, perhaps, just there, it has not a rival at that end of the town 

 for refined simplicity and gracefulness. It deserves to be noted, also, 

 that though the return on the west side faces a mere alley, the archi- 

 tecture is carried on there consistently with the front. 



The new Brighton terminus, with its campanile, near London 

 Bridge, will also, in point of design, be a more than ordinarily taste- 

 ful specimen of Italian. The bold rustication of the quoins contribute 

 in no small degree to the expression and finish of the principal build- 

 ing, more especially as it is not confined to the external angles of the 

 facade, but is repeated at those of the slightly projecting breaks, at 

 the ends, in each of which is a door below and a window above ; and 

 in the intermediate part there are three windows on a floor. 



II. There is, just now, an excessive deal of cant afloat about the 

 moral influence of the tine arts, just as if the line arts were not worth 

 cultivating for their own sake, without any hypocritical pretence. 

 Fudge ! Talk of the moral influence of waltzing, or of the ballet as 

 viewed from the pit at the Opera! I should like to know, if any one 

 could explain it, what has been the amount of moral influence for good 

 of all the fine arts, drama and literature included, in the civilized 

 stages of society. Was the court of Leo. X remarkable for its correct 

 morality? Was the "divine" Raphael himself a bright exemplar of 

 moral purity ? Only consider how many Madonnas have beeu painted 

 from ladies who had qualified themselves for turning Magdalens. If, 

 on the one hand, art has mainly served to perpetuate the puerilities 

 of pagan mythology, so, on the other, it has kept alive the puerilities 

 of papistical superstition, To us, therefore, who can sympathise 



neither with the one nor the other, it can have little, value than what 

 it derives from its mere aesthetic influence. All the rest is but mock- 

 ery and delusion, carried on by gullibility on the one side, and hum- 

 bug on the other. If art has no intrinsic worth in itself, and deserves 

 to be encouraged chiefly as a means, not as an end, let us be honestly 

 told so ; and let us have done with cant and make-believe, and with 

 all that frothy flummery with which penny-a-liners descant on art for 

 the nonce in newspapers. 



III. To what purpose do we take such pains to collect architectural 

 and similar specimens of ancient art; or why should there be such 

 a prodigious cackling on any thing of the kind, no matter how worth- 

 less it may be in itself, being brought to light, when some of the finest 

 studies of the kind are neglected as soon as they come into our pos- 

 session, without being turned to account in any way whatever? The ex- 

 amples, of ancient or antique columns and other architectural ornaments, 

 to be met with either in museums or inserted in Italian buildings of 

 later date, are almost infinite, both as to nu mber and variety, yet who ever 

 condescends to derive a hint from them ? There are some fine things 

 of the kind in the British Museum; — which of our architects has taken 

 a lesson from them for any thing he has himself done ? Of nearly all 

 our modern buildings in the Grecian and Roman style, the detail looks 

 as if it had been supplied from some " furnishing warehouse " for the 

 purpose, where it is kept ready made. It is just the same with co- 

 lumns and entablatures, and it frequently looks as if they had been 

 bought at different shops, or were very ill-matched. Hence it is little 

 to be wondered at if, so mechanically treated and with such weari- 

 some sameness, those styles have greatly fallen in public esteem 

 within the last few years. Notwithstanding that we know that even 

 the best preserved examples of Grecian architecture are reduced to 

 lit tie more than the skeletons of what they originally were, quite dis- 

 mantled and shorn of their splendour, and seen, some of them, in all 

 but total eclipse, we content ourselves with copying their remains, 

 without attempting to supply those beauties which are no longer to 

 be traced in the faded originals. Perhaps were we to set about 

 making trial of it, we should find that a very great deal might be 

 done with painted glass, even in the Grecian or Roman style. It is 

 not to be supposed that any Pecksniff could discover how it ought to 

 be done ; neither could it be done by adopting Gothic patterns and 

 Gothic character; yet it might be made to have a sulliciently ex- 

 pressive character of its own, by being introduced as a species of 

 transparent mosaic. In such case the apertures ought, perhaps, to be 

 double glazed, so that the painted window would show itself only as 

 a mere panel or compartment on the. face of the wall, decorated after 

 such fashion — which would, to a certain degree, be a substitute for 

 other polychromy, or else a suitable accompaniment to it. — But it 

 would be a most scandalous innovation. 



IV. Much of our modern Anglo-Grecian architecture is chiefly re- 

 markable for extreme sulkiness of look ; this, however, may be a merit, 

 for it may be strongly characteristic of our unfortunate climate- And 

 though the sun does really shine now and then in this country, per- 

 haps about half-a dozen days iu the course of the year, its brightest 

 beams cannot dispel the gloom and sulkiness of some of our ultra- 

 classical buildings. We have among us, more especially, 



" Him, the great master of the sulky style," 



whose buildings have one and all a strange Mawworm physiognomy, 

 no matter whether it be intended for Grecian or for Gothic. 



V. At present, the new Conservative Club-house in St. James' Street 

 does, not promise to be very much better than the one in Pall Mall, 

 either as to composition or style; or to be treated with particular 

 gusto. It might have been thought that, coming after such an example 

 as the Reform Club House, a certain spirit of rivalry would have sti- 

 mulated the members of the Conservative to take care this second 

 time that their building should, if possible, take precedence of the Re- 

 form in public opinion, as a finished work of architecture; yet the new 

 Conservative certainly does not challenge comparison with the other, 

 fur the architect seems to hive nmst carefully avoided wli itcver might 

 look like borrowing an idea from Mr, Barry; though he might, allowably 



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