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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[October, 



would have added to his fame. If these pediments were to serve 

 ;iny useful purpose, they ought to have been placed over every win- 

 dow, and not those of the first floor alone ; and if intended only for 

 ornament, (?) all should have been thus ornamented. As representa- 

 tions of military cocked hats, they might have been selected by the 

 more warlike clubs; but mere civilians have no right to such em- 

 blems. 



Fourthly, besides rustic quoins and rustic fronts, we have the thing 

 carried out still further; I do not know what name it rejoices in, but 

 it may be seen on Burlington House and the Town Hall at Birming- 

 ham : this is intended, no doubt, to give us some idea of rocks. I do 

 not know that Palladia is accountable for this latter; I rather believe 

 it had its origin in the times of cutting vew trees into figures of things 

 animate and inanimate. It may be very proper that a house should 

 be built on a rock, but that a tree should represent a man, or a house 

 a rock, is not so evident : the exterior of an edifice should represent 

 one whole, not made up with a show of patches, but as a composition, 

 stable and secure, concealing, not thus exposing, the smallness of (he 

 materials, by the introduction of rustic work, either as quoins or 

 fronts. As receptacles of dirt and moisture, such work is unsuited to 

 our climate, and can only be of use to the builder by swelling his bill 

 of charges. 



Fifthly, it is difficult to say why modern architects crown their cor- 

 nices in almost every instance with balustrades. Surely the advocates 

 of this practice do not think — if indeed they think at all about the 

 matter, that a pigmy column can harmonize in a composition with 

 columns of due proportion, or that a cornice is at all ornamented by 

 this tasteless expenditure; but in truth the necessity for balusters, 

 can only occur when the cornice itself is meagre, and dues not suffi- 

 ciently mask the roof. 



Sixthly, broken Kaes and cornices are the most glaring faults of 

 modern architecture. The only defence of the practice which 1 h ive 

 heard given is, that it relieves the eye! Relieves the eye from what i 

 The eye can take in a straight line easier than a broken one. When 

 an officer wishes to show off his regiment to advantage, does he not 

 dress his line? I wish our would-be (irecian architects would observe 

 the same rule in dressing theirs. In order to observe the contrast 

 between broken and unbroken lines, let us take a model of the Par- 

 thenon, and break up its cornices, \c, according to modern practice, 

 and then look at the result. No — in the Greek style, and all those 

 which attempt to approach it, simplicity must exist where dignity is 

 desired, and this simplicity is not inconsistent with the highest state 

 of finish, and with ornament, so rich, as to be beyond our ability to 

 produce any thing similar, as for instance, the marbles of the Parthe- 

 non ( but all ornaments should, as they did, harmonize with the edi- 

 fice. 



I believe I have seen all the urban edifices of Palladio; as to the 

 suburban, I did not see many of them, nor did I think they were worth 

 going out of the way to see, as I could not observe a single beauty in 

 any of those I did see. Did Palladio draw on those works of the 

 ancients, which he measured and delineated ? Oh, yes, he did, just 

 as Sir Fret ul Plaigery, took the worst parts of the works of others; 

 and yet these appropriations, whenglaced beside his own productions, 

 seemed like patches of silk embroidery on a fleecy-hosiery ground 1 



As in the lecture before referred to, most of the public buildings 

 in Dublin are criticised (but not more severely than they deserve) I 

 would wish to do justice to one erection made since the delivery of 

 the lecture. And in truth, the breast wall earning out the improve- 

 ments in Nassau Street in that city, is every thing that could be de- 

 sired, and although of humble pretensions, yet calculated to give more 

 pleasure than a view of any of our ornate buildings. A plain straight 

 breast wall (1300 feet in length) of well-tooled granite surmounted 

 with a plain and suitable moulded coping on which the rail is placed. 

 No breaks, no rustics, nothing in the cant of false taste to rehtn the 

 eye : no. ttie eye needs it not, for all is repose and harmony. I wish 

 1 could say as much of the railing, but perhaps it would be too tnui h 

 to expect perfection in it also, and as a contrast it is broken up by 

 the heads of 48 trumpery pilaster*, on which the arms of the College 



are introduced 91, and the name of the iron founder 47 times. From 

 its locality we may say that this ostentatious display of the name of 

 the man vf iron, is the foundation of the bad taste of the superstruc- 

 ture. If the railing anil the ornate stable at the east end of the screen 

 corresponded with the chasteness and simplicity wdiich characterise the 

 breast wall, (he entire might be hailed as the harbinger of improved 

 taste. 



Mr. Gwilt, who admires Palladio more than I do, will doubtless cry 

 havoc, and let slip his pen against the attempt of a mere amateur to 

 write on these subjects; but I am ready to stand up for my order, and 

 ask who designed York, and the many other Gothic cathedrals of the 

 same class ami date ? were they professional architects or mere ama- 

 teurs? Was William of Wykeham an architect? and yet have pro- 

 fessional architects since the age of the Parthenon and the Pantheon, 

 produced any thing to equal them ? St. Peter's itself, the pride and 

 glory of modern Rome, is perhaps twice as large and cost ten times 

 the amount required for York, and although, from its vastness, it is 

 beautiful, yet it cannot stand a comparison with Yoik or the Par- 

 thenon, or even the Pantheon of Agrippa. 



But the amateur of the middle ages found the state of architecture 

 degraded and debased; fortunately for posterity they knew nothing 

 of Vitruvius, or of Grecian art as handed down by the Roman school, 

 else, like Palladio, they might have attempted its restoration, and, 

 like bin, have failed. No! from the confusion into which the art 

 had fallen after the age of Dioclesian, they did not attempt to rescue 

 it, but out of this chaos created a new style, which, in after limes, 

 architects in derision called Gothic. Perhaps these amateurs may 

 not have left us any thing equal, certainly nothing which surpasses, 

 Grecian art, still they have undoubtedly left, at an immeasurable dis- 

 tance, all their revilers of the Palladio-Yitruvian school. 



After the practice of the art had passed from Grecian into Roman 

 bands, the decline was gradual but complete, and the age of Dioclesian 

 exhibits its total decadence. That much, both of the Palladian or 

 Vandal and Gothic architecture, arose out of the Dioclesian, is evi- 

 dent. In the ruins at Spalatro we have the swelled frieze, arches 

 raised on slender columns, thesa hitler supported by consols, which 

 are ornamented with representations of (he human face, just as we 

 see in the Gothic, as the following, taken from Adam's work on Spa- 

 latro, plate xvi, will show. 



: 



It is remarkable that the zig zag moulding on the consul is to be 

 found on many of (he early specimens of Gothic ; and also, as pointed 

 out to me by my friend Mr. Petre, on some of the Irish round towers. 

 The moulding on the archivolt of the. other figure will also suggest a 

 strong resemblance to the deep doorways of the Gothic. 



Let not the profession imagine that I want to transfer the working 

 of the art from their hands into that of amateurs. Architecture is a 

 profession the details of which require much experience and study, 

 and few amateurs will be found capable of working out these details ; 

 but the same judgment which is necessary to enable a purchaser to 

 feel the merits of a painting or a statue, is absolutely necessary ill 

 the science of architecture ; and unless that taste exist, it is in vain 

 to expect any thing like improvement in the designs for either our 



