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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[December, 



possible, the entire, together with all the works of Palladio and Sir 

 William Chambers that can be procured, should be piled together and 

 burned, and the ashes collected after the manner of the ancients and 

 deposited in a suitable urn, and let the spirits of these mighty authors 

 rest in peace. The Institute is in the habit of giving medals and 

 prizes for essays ; it would be well to give a medal for the best essay 

 on the propriety of such a sacrifice at the shrine of architectural 

 taste. Although the destruction of these works would not destroy 

 the existing memorials of them, nor yet perhaps work out much im- 

 provement in the taste of those architects who are grown old in the 

 love of them, yet the advantage to the rising generation would be 

 great, and a new order of things would arise. 



There is a royal road to a correct taste in Grecian architecture 

 and every other style, (except, perhaps, the Gothic,) it is the straight 

 and consequently the shortest road to excellence ; it is comprised in 

 this aim at < HASTENESS, unity, and SIMPLICITY ; ornament as highly 

 as you please, finish as elaborately as you can, but still recollect that 

 all must harmonise with chasteness of composition, unity of design, 

 and simplicity of character: such are the features to be recognized 

 in the rude remains of Possidonin, and such is the character of the 

 highly finished, though ruined and despoiled edifices at Athens. This 

 road will lead us to study the best proportion; will lead us to be more 

 anxious with regard to the quality than to the quantity of ornament. 

 There are few things which distinguish a civilized from an uncivilized 

 people more than the love of displaying extravagant ornaments on 

 their persons, particularly the softer sex; our own lovely country- 

 women set off their beauty and show their sense by a few but well 

 selected ornaments; others, not so highly gifted in pprson.but making 

 up for that deficiency by good sense and taste, use no ornament which 

 can make them remarkable ; and others again, deficient both in mind 

 and person, show the first in attracting observation to the latter, by a 

 display of too much ornament. Does, or rather did, the gilding of 

 the nondescript cages, which surmount the National Gallery, redeem 

 the want of chasteness, unity, and simplicity? By the way, these cages 

 ought to be removed to the Zoological Gardens, 



In pursuing our journey by the royal road, we shall not be templed 

 to seek for variety for the purpose of " relieving the eye." Yitru- 

 vius gives us his theory of the proporlions of columns as to that of 

 the human figure, this is sheer nonsense ; but it is not nonsense to ob- 

 serve that in the human form there are no breaks, no angles except 

 those necessary for some purpose in the economy of our being. How 

 well the Greeks understood the appropriate manner of relieving the 

 eye, may be seen from an inspection of the Elgin marbles ; the figures 

 of the pediment, intended to be raised far above the point of vision, 

 are in high relief, those of the metopes, which were nearer, are in a 

 lower relief, and those of the frieze of the pronaos still lower, because 

 intended to be seen directly from beneath ; had they projected, the 

 effect would have been anything but pleasing. The architects of the 

 interior of St. Peter's understood the effect of due proportion well — 

 the figures with which it is ornamented are increased in size in pro- 

 portion to their elevation, and hence in optics the most perfect unity 

 of proportion is obtained. To a want of the consideration of this 

 may be imputed the poverty of our crowning cornices, and the neces- 

 sity which is improperly created for the use of those hideous balus- 

 trades on tile tops of our edifices: man dislikes monkeys, they imi- 

 tate humanity so abominably — and the quadrumana themselves, as 

 they rise above each other in the scale of intelligence, shun the so- 

 ciety of those below them : the horse abhors the ass, because it is a 

 caricature of himself: and if columns were animated they would re- 

 ject all association with balusters; but although they cannot speak, 

 the effect produced shows us the incongruity. 



An architect should be in his line what Raphael was in painting, 

 not the pupil of Perugino, nor the disciple of Palladio, but the 

 scholar, whose mind should be enlighted by a ray emanating from the 

 works of Da Vinci or the ruins of a Greek temple. And here we 

 may observe, that as Raphael did not think it necessary to copy the 

 works of Da Vinci, in order to arrive at the excellence which he at- 

 tained, neither is it requisite to copy the works of the ancients, pro- 



vided the same principles guide the modern architects which enabled 

 the ancients to produce theirs. 



Greek and Latin are called dead languages, and any author writing 

 in them must, to write well, compose in the style of those authors 

 who are considered to be classical : the ideas of the modern writer 

 may be new, but the style and construction are old ; so it is with the 

 Greek, Roman, and Gothic styles of architecture. We may, indeed, 

 invent a new order or style out of these, just as French, Italian, and 

 Spanish were formed on the root of Latin, after it was barbarised by 

 the Goths and Vandals ; but the new style so invented will require to 

 be refined and polished, as those languages were in the hands of men 

 of master minds. Without, therefore, asserting that the door for 

 change and improvement should be considered as closed to us, it is 

 folly to require architects to give a composition in any particular 

 style, and at the same time say that they are not to be bound down 

 by the rules which governed those who invented the examples from 

 which we learn it. The lovers of pure architecture have some con- 

 solation when they see many of the edifices which are every day 

 served, up to them, for they may hope that even out of absurdity 

 itself (and we have enough of it), good may eventually arise in the 

 shape of a new r style, as I have, in former papers, endeavoured to show 

 that the Gothic did out of the debased Diocletian. 



In the last number of this Journal, page 370, a ground plan of the 

 proposed facade for the British Museum is given; I freely confess 

 that it promises better than anything which I feared was to be given 

 to us; and I have no doubt the drawing of the elevation will appear 

 strikingly magnificent ; but, let Sir Robert Smirke remember and let 

 the public understand, that the building itself must have a very dif- 

 ferent effect, for the porticos of the wings being seen first and nearer 

 to the eye than that of the recessed centre and principal one, will 

 appear colossal in proportion. In one of two ways, and with the 

 same number of columns, this might be obviated. First, by making 

 the centre a colonnade (without any pediment) with steps on the 

 three sides, and adding another column to the depth of the front of 

 the wings; or, secondly, by arranging the columns of the centre por- 

 tico after the manner of the Roman Pantheon — thus : 



H BHft=ffl - g 



There are two errors of the press in my last paper, page 371 

 column 1, lines 41 and G5, for "works" read "crocks," and for" //«- 

 dressed" read " undraped ;" the season is too cold for dress being dis- 

 pensed with: belter to wait until "the wind shall be tempered to the 

 shorn lamb," before we request the Palladian architects thus to ex- 

 hibit on the raking cornices of the window pediments in a doe a dos 

 IHe a ti'te position as designed by the great Maestro. 



ON THE QUALITIES OF TIMBER AND DEALS. 



On the several specks of Fir Timber and Dealt »up] lied to >/ie English 

 Market, and their respective qualities for the purposes of Building. 

 Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Nov. 20, 1843. By 

 George Bailey, Esq., Hon. See. 



In the practical part of the profession of an architect, and especially 

 in those branches which occupy by far the greater portion of the time 

 and labour of most of us, the security of our foundations is certainly 

 the most important object to which we have to direct our attention, — 

 the second in importance is undoubtedly the choice of our timber. 



