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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[December, 



the time, or when they were in a perfect state, have not been per- 

 petuated by the graver. All that we now kuow of James Wyatt's 

 chef d'ceuvre, rest merely upon tradition and conjeclure, perplexed 

 rather than aided by paltry views, which leave us quite at a loss as to 

 the superlative beauty and magnificence claimed for the structure in 

 terms of eulogium that read like newspaper puffs. 



VII. Now that symbolism is come into vogue, it is odd that no one 

 has yet protested against the monstrous paganism and heathenism of 

 the Nelson column or any other of the kind, as being evidently derived 

 from monuments of Phallic worship, consequently not unmeaning, but 

 on the contrary, pregnant with a meaning that will not bear to be ex- 

 plained. It is true symbolism does not scandalize in such cases, 

 because do one sees or understands it; and, for a similar reason, other 

 symbolism may be equally unavailing. 



VIII. It does seem strange, that with a frontage of not much less 

 than 150 feet, the architect of the new Conservative Club House, 

 should not have placed the entrance in the centre of his facade ; or 

 if circumstances absolutely compelled him to place it at one end, it 

 should not have been within a recess. There is, indeed, something 

 corresponding at the other extremity of the front, yet not sufficiently 

 so as to preserve symmetry, and even were such the case, gaps of this 

 kind at the angles of the ground floor, where the expression of 

 strength and solidity is most of all desirable, would be a defect de- 

 tracting very much from whatever other merits and good points there 

 may be in the design. Perhaps the architect was determined that it 

 should be impossible for any one to say that he had copied — or, in- 

 deed, looked at Barry ; so resolved, coiile qui co/i/e, to give us a spe- 

 cimen of something altogether different, and therein he has certainly 

 succeeded. 



IX. A good deal of sentiment and pathos has lately been expended 

 upon the quondam College of Physicians in Warwick Lane, and that 

 venerable piece of rubbish ycleped Old London Wall. Yet it might 

 be better, if instead of all this Parthian retrospectiveness, these long 

 and lingering glances backwards at antiquity — a lady called by the 

 poets " hoar antiquity " — it might be better and somewhat more to the 

 purpose to pay greater attention to the future, to look forwards a 

 little more than we do, and bethink us what sort of figure we our- 

 selves shall cut in the eyes of posterity. While people are moralising, 

 poeticising, fantasticising, on some sturdy remnants of old brick and 

 mortar somewhere in the ultima Thule of the metropolis, they hive 

 no eyes at all for the portentous operations now going on in Great Rus- 

 sell Street. At any rate they have no voice that exclaims against such 

 doings, and their eyes they employ merely to wink at them. It might 

 be supposed that the Museum was a mere parish job, which concerned 

 the good folks of Bloomsbury, or the " Bloomsbury barbarians," as 

 Hook used to call them, alone ; and with which no one else has aDy 

 right to meddle or make. Infinitely better wuuld it have been to have 

 kicked out Sir Robert at once, and plaistered him with a good round 

 pension, which hist would, no doubt, have convinced him that if he 

 abandoned the field to another, he had made a masterly retreat for 

 himself, and could enjoy, if not otium cum digtlitate, his olium cumpe- 

 cuuiti — a far better thing still. Hew he came to be appointed archi- 

 tect at all to the Museum, puzzles many; and pity it is that the ap- 

 pointment was not made a complete sinecure to him, sonu under- 

 strapper, some "Pinch" being employed, as the great man's proxy. 

 As matters have been managed, Sir Robert will not be able to find any 

 convenient sub or proxy, who will bear for him the disgrace he is now 

 bringing upou himself. It is true the building is not yet done, yet it 

 is now completely " done for." 



X. Thank heaven: though literature is now for the most part re- 

 duced to a mere manufacture, art is not yet workable by machinery, 

 although some of those who call themselves artists are in themselves 

 no better than machines, with about just the same intelligence of and 

 affection for it as the implements they handle. They have one or two 

 patterns, which, either through laziness or incapacity, they apply 

 pretty much in the same way on all occasions, no matter under how 

 widely different circumstances. No wonder, therefore, that at the 

 very best no more than mere decent mediocrity and insipid, flavourless 



common place are the result. How should that possibly be expressed 

 which is not felt? How should there be aught of genuine and genial 

 feeling where every thing and every part is concocted out of second- 

 hand and borrowed ideas, and those perhaps very ill understood? I 

 have met with architects who might have been very clever as masons, 

 but who have had no more notion of art or of the poetry of art than 

 an Irish labourer, although able to talk more glibly about Vitruvius 

 and Palladio. Well! those are just the sort of people to admire the 

 British Museum— perhaps, to build one. 



XI. It is cleverly remarked by a German architectural critic, that 

 it is generally considered quite enough to provide sufficient light in a 

 building, no matter whether there be any effect of Light or not. Artist- 

 like study and treatment in that respect are, indeed, hardly to be 

 looked for in ordinary houses or in mere sitting-rooms; but neither on 

 we find anything of the kind in superior ones, except on very extraor- 

 dinary occasions, and partly arising out of mere accident. One may go 

 over a large mansion containing numerous and most sumptuously fur- 

 nished apartments, without being struck with a single effect of the kind 

 in any part of it, or any thing whatever that amouuts to character and 

 effect purely architectural. One sees what the maximum of cost 

 and the minimum of imagination if not exactly of taste, can accom- 

 plish ; and even if there be nothing calling for particular censure, there 

 is nothing to enchant by novelty of effect, or by decided individuality 

 of character. As for any peculiarity of arrangement, that might as 

 well be looked lor in the London stereotype front and back drawing- 

 room, or in a row of readv-made speculation houses. A good deal 

 has been said lately about " architecture for the poor! " but it would 

 be hardly less charity to think of architecture for the rich — for those 

 who are obliged to conceal the utter architectural nakedness of their 

 mansions by the mere trappings supplied by the upholsterer, dis- 

 playing moat ostentatiously the costly poverty of their taste, and the 

 paucity of their ideas. Exceptions there are — though not in our 

 royal palaces — and I lately beheld one in an apartment which, though 

 not very large, and rather sober in regard to decoration than otherwise 

 was most striking for its high degree of architectural beauty, and the 

 very peculiar kind of it, arising both from unusualuess of plan, and 

 from the mode of lighting, and the charming effects attending the 

 latter. So replete, indeed, was it with beauty of such kind, as to 

 possess a variety which nothing can stale. From almost every point 

 a new picture — a fresh combination as to perspective, is presented. 

 It should be observed, however, that this is an entirely con anion work, 

 planned by the proprietor himself. It may be wrong for amateurs to 

 turn architects; one consolation is, there is very little danger of archi- 

 tects turning amateurs, and giving more study to an episode in a plan 

 than they now do to a whole building, though it be one as big as the 

 British Museum — whose merits are all summed up in that little word. 



SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE 

 OP THE EGYPTIANS. 



In the verv earliest ages of the world, man must hive directed his 

 attention to the art of building, as habitations were indispensable, not 

 only for comfort, but also for protection ; the necessity for some de- 

 fence against the parching heat of the sun, the power of the elements, 

 the ferocious attacks of wild beasts, and the treacherous assaults of 

 fellow man must have been early experienced, and the rational facul- 

 ties with which the Deity had gifted him, must at once have been 

 called into action to accomplish this desirable abject These buildings, 

 on account of the roving lives which their occupants led, were con- 

 structed of very slight materials, and must naturally soon have fallen 

 a prey to the destructive hand of time. To expect, then, after a 

 lapse of some thousands of years, to find any remains of those pri- 

 maeval buildings would be most absurd; but from observing the prac- 

 tices of men, now in an uncivilized and primitive state, as well as the 

 authority of the earliest records, we have very strong presumptive 

 evidence of what must have been the first daw : ning of architectural 

 science. 



It is recorded by the author of the Pentateuch, that Cain built a 

 city, and called it Enoch, after his son. This town, being a collection 

 of huts, probably constructed in the manner of those now to be seen 



