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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[January, 



and prejudices, than where no feelings of the kind should have been 

 allowed to interfere with the plain duty of a chronicler: we allude to 

 the List of Architects, which record we naturally expected to find 

 tolerably copious towards the end of it. Instead of which, it gives but 

 a very meagre sprinkling of names for the last 50 or 60 years, and 

 those appear to have been merely picked up by chance, and inserted 

 without any regard to principle or system. At all events, it must 

 have been a most singular principle of selection, which, while it ad- 

 mitted many names of far inferior note, rejected those of James 

 Wyatt, Sir Jeffry Wyatville, Wilkins, and Rickman. Although we 

 ourselves do not estimate his talents very highly, the first of these 

 established for himself a historical name in the annals of our archi- 

 tecture, if only as the reviver of the Gothic style — on which account, 

 perhaps, it is that he is here excluded, and perhaps, again, both Sir 

 Jeffry and Rickman for their attachment to the same style. But then 

 how is it that the "Palladian" Calderari is passed over, Temanza, 

 who was also the biographer of the Venetian architects, and Pier- 

 marini and Cagnola ? — and that, though there have been several of 

 considerable note, there is not the name of a single Italian architect 

 who has died within the last half century ? Again, why has one who 

 professes to think so very highly of modern French architecture as 

 Mr. Gwilt does, omitted so many names belonging to that nation- 

 above all that of Durand, whose system of interaxal divisions of a 

 design, which to us appears a very mechanical and plodding one, he 

 so warmly recommends, and has brought forward in his Encyclopaedia? 

 That he should have black-balled Schinkel as undeserving of being 

 admitted into the company of his "worthies," is no more than we 

 expected, after his laboured attempt, some years ago, to depreciate, 

 not only that eminent architect, but all the rest of the modern German 

 school. Here again, then, Mr. Gwilt has suffered bis prejudices, 

 piques, and antipathies so far to get the better of him, that he has 

 wilfully maimed that List, and deprived it of much of the value and 

 interest it else might have had ; nor would it have been less service- 

 able had the dates of births and deaths been given, as they are in a 

 much fuller table of the kind, though commencing only from the be- 

 ginning of the 18th century, printed in the " Ciril Engineer and Archi- 

 tect's Journal." Does Mr. Gwilt really hope to extinguish the name 

 of Schinkel by the marked omission of it, not only in that List of 

 Architects, but in his chapter on German architecture? If so, he is 

 likely to be disappointed, since the course he has adopted is calcu- 

 lated to excite surprize, and to force that name more strongly into 

 notice than if lie had mentioned it as matter of course. Great, too, 

 must be his vexation at learning that it is now proposed to erect a 

 public monument to the "Great Schinkel," and that since his death 

 more has been written throughout Germany on him and his works 

 than has appeared relative to any other architect of the present or 

 last century. 



Having thus far touched upon the subject of German architecture, 

 we may now as well turn at once to that chapter of the Encyclopaedia 

 which professes to give some historical account of it. In what degree 

 it performs the promise its title implies, what information it affords, 

 and what pains have been bestowed upon it, may easily be conceived, 

 when we say that it amounts altogether to no more than a single page 

 and a few lines! In fact it consists of only a few slight unconnected 

 and desultory remarks such as almost any one unacquainted with the 

 subject could have picked up and patched together. It is not without 

 reason therefore, we suspect, that Mr. Gwilt was unable to go to any, 

 even the most ordinary sources of information in the language itsel'f, 

 for had he done so he might easily have compiled a good deal of in- 

 teresting matter that would have been almost quite fresh to the 

 English reader, and would have formed a tolerably satisfactory outline 

 sketch. What few names he does mention — and they are bare names 

 — VOX el praterea nihil, are, with one or two exceptions, comparatively 

 obscure and of minor interest, for they belong to a period when the 

 art cannot be said to have had a school of its own in Germany, but 

 merely adopted the routine established in Italy and France. It is only 

 within the present century that architecture has there produced mo- 

 dern works that have attracted the notice of all Europe, not only by 

 their number, their magnitude, and their importance, but by their 

 quality, and by the artistieal study they display. Yet these are'passed 

 over entirely; not even the names of anv such buildings or their 

 authors are mentioned; for which most provoking silence, that is, 

 provoking, not to ourselves but to those who are unable to obtain for 

 themselves information of the kind,— the following most extraordinary 

 apology is offered: "The circumstance of the principal works of 

 Germany, at Munich, Berlin, &c, having been executed by artists still 

 living, we feel precluded here from allusion to them, because if we 

 were to enter on an examination of them we must detail their defects 

 as well as their beauties." 



A flimsier excuse can hardly be imagined, or one more illogical and 



contradictory: it would appear from what is here said that "allusion, 

 to" and "examination of any of those works would be the same 

 thing; at least that they could not be alluded to, or mentioned at all 

 without some further examination of them being gone into ; nevertheless 

 this formidable difficulty has been completely got over by Mr. Gwilt 

 in every other chapter of the kind in his work, for among all the 

 buildings enumerated, mentioned, or " alluded to," by him, scarcely 

 any can be said to be "examined" or commented upon. So far indeed 

 from their "defects as well as their beauties" being detailed, he has 

 contented himself with asserting merely the one or the other, as the 

 case may be, without entering into any critical investigation, or even 

 attempting to relieve the dryness of a mere muster-roll, by occasional 

 description and remark. As to the other scruple, namely that of passing 

 any opinion upon the works of "living artists," it is extravagant in 

 itself, and absolutely ridiculous coming from one who made no scruple 

 whatever of pouring unqualified censure, and even coarse abuse, on 

 the whole living race of German architects, in his so called "Elements 

 of Criticism." On that occasion, he not only undertook his task quite 

 voluntarily, without its being expected from him by any one, but so 

 far from feeling the exceeding delicacy of the office he so imposed 

 upon himself, inasmuch as it required him to point out " defects as well 

 as beauties," he did not even think it incumbent on him to point out 

 beauties as well as defects, for it then suited his purpose to see no- 

 thing but the latter! 



New and singular doctrine at all events it is, that the works of 

 living artists are not fair subject for criticism — in fact, cannot be 

 spoken of at all without violating propriety, and risking the giving 

 offence. Though artists as well as literary men be of the genus irri- 

 tabile, we do not imagine that either the one or the other are so ex- 

 cessively sensitive and thin-skinned, so exceedingly averse to be 

 alluded to even by name, or have their works spoken of in print, as to 

 look upon silence as compliment and favour; on the contrary, very 

 many of both are eager to be spoken of as much as possible while alive, 

 knowing there is not much chance of their being so after they are dead. 

 According to such ultra-refined notions of delicacy and propriety as 

 those which are pretended to be entertained by the author of "the 

 Encyclopaedia, we ought as yet to fiud nothing iu print relative to the 

 works of Thorwaldson, Cornelius, Hess, Schnorr, Schwanthaler, Klenze, 

 Gartner, and many others who are still living, but have nevertheless 

 been spoken of in various publications, and some of them at consider- 

 able length. In fact there would be an end at once to all contemporary 

 criticism and contemporary biography, both which Mr. Gwilt is so fear/ul 

 of even approaching, that he has deemed it prudent not to attempt to 

 bring down the history of English architecture later than the time of 

 Revely who died in 1799, which he, by-the-bye, is pleased to call bringing 

 it down to "the end of the reign of George 111" ! Some may think that 

 the reign of George IV., when a fresh impulse was certainly given to 

 architecture in this country, might very well have been included also; 

 but no, "further," says Mr. G. " we should not be able to pursue our in- 

 quiry (?) without coming into contact so with our cotemporariesand their 

 connexion*, that our office, if not dangerous and fearful, might be un- 

 Bt." Yi't many since Revely's time have gone olfthe stage so 

 ln.iuv years ago, that they might have been spoken of without the 

 slightest danger of giving umbrage to any of their surviving connexions, 

 unless made the subject of highly offensive and improper remark ; 

 whereas, at present, it looks as if they were all such a degenerate 

 race that nothing whatever could be said of them and their works, 

 except in the shape of censure. 



If he was withheld by delicate considerations of that kind from no- 

 ticing any of the recent architects of his own country, hardly can Mr. 

 Gwilt have been deterred by any such feelings from speaking of fo- 

 reign ones, of those still living as freely as ol those who are lead, in 

 regard to them he could have expressed himself impartial v, without 

 suspicion of his praise being dictated by flattery, or his ceusure 

 pointed by jealousy of professional rivals. In criticising literary pro- 

 ductions it is not always possible to avoid remarks which more or less 

 atl'ect the personal and moral character of their writers; but from this 

 inconvenience, if such it be, architectural criticism i* altogether free. 

 Besides, mere matter-of-fact information aud description would have 

 sufficed, and while they would have been perfectly innocent, they 

 would undoubtedly have been most welcome. An Encyclopedia is 

 expected to contain if not the fullest, the latest and freshest informa- 

 tion, yet so very far is this from beiug the case with Mi. Gwilt's, that 

 it in that respect lags behind even some general encyclopedias, whose 

 architectural articles show more industry of compilation and research, 

 and contain a good deal of matter altogether wanting in hi*. Most of 

 those in the Penny Cyclopaedia are very interesting, and there are also 

 several articles in that work, belonging to architectural biography 

 which there appear for the first time, we believe, in an English dress. 

 Among others those on Ventura Rodriguez, and yuarenghi; neither 



