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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[October, 



enough, have taken a lesson from him in regard to general refinement 

 of taste. As yet the building is not carried up higher than the top of 

 the ground floor: neither is that portion finished, still enough may be 

 made out to convince us that whatever may be the care with the upper 

 part of the facade, there will be very little beauty below. In fact, the 

 ground floor is not only plain, but rather bald in style, consequently, if 

 much richness be affected elsewhere, there can be but very little gene- 

 ral harmony of character. Although the principal floor of a building 

 requires a higher degree of decoration than the one below it, it does 

 not follow that the last is to have scarcely any, or that what there is 

 may be treated as of no importance ; on the contrary, well studied and 

 careful detail are there more especially called for, as being in such 

 situation so much more distinctly seen — in fact the only parts that are 

 seen by those passing along on the same side of the way, lor in order 

 to have a proper view of the whole of a front and its upper part, it is 

 necessary to look at it from the opposite side of the street. Another 

 reason for paying particular attention to finish in those parts of a 

 building which are nearest to the eye, is that it will be taken for 

 granted that equal care of execution has been bestowed throughout, 

 though the ornaments and details at a distance from the eye may be 

 less highly wrought up — however richer and more ornamental they 

 may be in point of design. All this is, of course, to be taken grc.no 

 salis, because circumstances must decide when and to what extent it 

 is desirable to treat the ground-floor or lower portion of a building as 

 air important part of a composition. 



In the case of the new "Conservative," such mode might very well 

 have been adopted, for irow, the lower part of the front will be at 

 least very tame, if not decidedly poor, in character, yet at the same 

 time the reverse of sober as to design, for at each end of fronl is i 

 sort of loggia or recess between two Italian Doric columns, placed 

 excessively wide apart; and one of these recesses, viz., that at the 

 north end, has a second smaller recess within it, also between two 

 columns, and containing the entrance door ; while the south one en- 

 closes a bay-window, which is segmental on its plan. Owing fo the 

 prodigious interval between the columns, these loggia*, or whatever 

 else they may be called, have the appearance of being squai 

 and that, too, precisely when there ought to have been a decided ex- 

 pression of strength and solidity. In one respect, the building mani- 

 fests neither originality nor improvement, having mean horizontal stripes 

 after the ordinary fashion of those on the parlour floor fronts of 

 suburban " speculation " houses, without even mouldings of any kiad 

 being substituted for rustication. To be sure, this is only matter of 

 taste, but it would be well were such taste wholly exploded, or at any 

 rate abandoned to speculation builders. One vast comfort is, that the 

 facade of the British Museum will make ample amends for all other 

 mishaps — for all our blunderings and all our failures — our National 

 Galleries, Buckingham Palaces, Nelsonian Monuments, and all the 

 rest of the tribe. 



THE EPISCOPAL CEMETERY CHAFEL, WISBEACH. 



O.N'E prevalent foible of the age is Fussiness, a sort of bustling, 

 fidgetty, over-acted parade, mixed up with a good deal of maudlin 

 cajolery, manifested ridiculously, and sometimes still more offensively, 

 so that what ought to be works of charity and sober-minded piety, 

 frequently appear, in the eyes of the sober-minded, to be acts of 

 simpering self-laudation, ostentatious display, and almost of self 

 worship. Charily, now-a-days — at least fashionable charity, cannot 

 put its hands into its pocket, without a flourish of trumpets announc- 

 ing to all the world its own prodigious goodness. A very remarkable 

 instance of the kind occurred at Wisbeach, in August hist, when thai 

 place presented the spectacle of a general carnival, for about a week, 

 anil kept up will, great gaiety and carousing, there being a fancy 

 bazaar, ball, concert, picture-exhibition, and, most strange to say, a 

 "grand display" of tire-work-, also, on the occasion of laying the first 



stone of a small cemetery chapel! We had hoped that "fancy 

 bazaars" and all such equivocal — or, we might say, farcical— doings 

 in the aid of charitable or religious purposes, had gone out of fashion, 

 at least were greatly on the decline: for we cannot help looking with 

 great suspicion on the charity which requires to have the bait of 

 amusement and excitement thrown out to it. To make a trading 

 speculation of what professes to be a work either of benevolence or 

 public spirit, to resort to such a mode of raising funds as was adopted 

 at Wisbeach, is, to say the least of it, in particularly bad taste, a suc- 

 cession of festivities and holiday rejoicings being altogether out of 

 character with the actual occasion, which would have been more ap- 

 propriately celebrated by a masque of the "Dance of Death," than by 

 feasting and fireworks. Besides being altogether unsuitable in them- 

 selves, the " performances" got up for the occasion were upon a scale 

 so wholly out of proportion to it, that it was an affair of a mountain 

 bringing forth a mouse. Were the edifice that has been commenced 

 at Wisbeach intended to be such a pile of Golhic architecture as 

 Cologne cathedral, there would have been an excuse for the extraor- 

 dinary rejoicings which attended the ceremony of laying the first stone ; 

 but as its internal dimensions will not exceed 30 feet by 16, somewhat 

 less than those of a not particularly large dining-room, the fuss made 

 by the good peopl" of Wisbeach does partake somewhat of farce. 



What was expended one way or other without airy advantage all at 

 to the funds for the building, must have amounted to a sum that would 

 nearly have defrayed its total cost without further contributions. The 

 fireworks alone, as we are informed by the Cambridge JldveTUier, 

 which has minutely chronicled all the " small beer" of this mighty af- 

 fair, cost the " worthy vicar" not less than -10 pounds; and as the same 

 gentleman kept open house during the week, with banquetting parlies 

 of " distinguished guests" to the number of sixty in one day, and a 

 hundred-and-thirty another, he would hardly have been a loser, had 

 he erected the chapel at his own sole expense, and thereby have 

 secured to himself some more permanent fame than his " pyrotechnic 

 tre.it'' is likely to obtain for him. Perhaps this last, by the bye, was 

 not altogether so inconsistent as it at first appears, for it may have 

 been intended as a sort of pyrotechnic sermon, symbolizing the brevity 

 of human life, the (ransitoriness of all worldly splendours, glaring for 

 ,i brief moment in dazzling radiance, and then bursting and vanishing 

 altogether into extinction and darkness; thereby serving us a most 

 impressive meincnto-mori ! 



As mere amusements, those at Wisbeach were innocent enough iir 

 themselves, but were rendered unbecoming, by being altogether at 

 variance with the occasion, which was made to serve as a pretext for 

 them. They may also be taken as one strong manifestation of that 

 strange spirit now rife in society, which seizes on every opportunity 

 as one fur indulging a passion for heated excitement and mountebank 

 display, whether it be that of Father-Matthewism, or Puseyism, or 

 New mania, or any other mania of the day. Still, we certainly should 

 not have bestowed any notice on the doings at Wisbeach, or at most 

 should have pointed to them only as a caricature of the idle and non- 

 sensical " ceremony of laying the first stone " of a building, as it is 

 called, were it not that there is something else connected with the 

 building itself of more immediate interest to our readers. 



Notwithstanding that the chapel itself will be a mere miniature 

 funic two gentlemen are employed upon it in the capacity of de- 

 signer and architect — not a Wisbeach Pecksniff and Pinch, but persons 

 of some note in the architectural world, viz. Professor Willis and Mr. 

 Bascvi, the first of whom has furnished the design, while the other 

 merely acts as clerk of the works. Such application of the principle 

 of division of labour and combination of talent, may in certain 

 be proper and advantageous enough— for instance, in such an exten- 

 sive and complicated pile as either Windsor Castle, or the "Palace 

 of Westminster" : but in that of so very small a building there was 

 no occasion for it — none at least for formally avowing it. The design 

 being his, Professor Willis might have been allowed to pass as its 

 architect, lor ii could have been taken for granted that he was not 

 the operative one, hut had professional assistance of some sort or 

 oilier. As fir, indeed, is he is concerned, the circumstance of another 



