1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



59 



tions are so gross as instantly to expose themselrf s, yet very few readers 

 indeed take the trouble of compariDg a Reviewer's remarks aud qnotatiHns 

 witli tlie book itself tha- happens to be under notice. And your Reviewer 

 must not only be of sucli opinion, but must hare Mt pietly well assured iu 

 his own mmd either th It no readers atallev.rdi so. or that the "Com 

 panioa was of all books in the world the mo-t uolikely to fall ia the wav 

 ofthe readers of the Civil Eugine,>r, else he wmild hardly have ventured 

 upon asssrlions ealcuiated to induce people to Uirn at once to the Com- 

 panion, for the purpose of ascerlaimug whether the remarks on Public 

 Improvements were as nonsensical as he has represented tliem 



The Reviewer commences his attack on (hat chapter in the Companion 

 with what IS rather an unlucky slip for a gentleman who pretends to take 

 otbers to task, for carelessness of espress.ou, and inaccuracies of lan^ua'^e 

 giving It as his opinion-aad a Reviewer's opinion can be nothin-^- les°s tlfan 

 a pi«m;,<;r-that ihe new range of buildings near the Royal Exchange, called 



treemans Place, is praised for the " 'juali/ication"\ which it least of 

 all possesses. Here then, vve (iud '• qualification" confounded with 

 ' quality, ' aud though what the writer means to say is obvious eaou-h 

 he has no right to expect that his own meaniogs will be iudulgentiv made 

 out for him, when he himself studies to misinterpret the at least eauallv 

 plain meanings of other writers. Perhaps he thought that " oualificatioa'' 

 being ihe longer one, was the liner sounding word of the two and .ave it 

 the preference accurdm-iy. Still, however awkwardly exoressed the 

 censure itself may be just; and it is certainly no slight censure upon one 

 who pre.ends to speak of architecture, to say that he praises buildings for 

 quahties which they do not at ail possess ;-i,ot but that such malaprop 

 praise has been U-alt lu very largely by architectural critics 



The particular mem cLaimed for the building above mentioned is, that 

 It ,s a hae and well-proportioned architectural mass, as will hard y be 

 disputed by those who ha.e seen it. Therefuie, in order to make ev dent 

 with what pains aking ingenuity the Reviewer has proved it to be wholly 

 undeserving of the character given it, it is necessary lirst to give The re- 

 marks in the ' Companion' at length, and then consider what ^ort of fl!r 

 constructiou the Reviewer has put upon Iheiu. 



"Freemim's Place, is in a manner so connected with the Roval Fv 

 change (mentioned just before in the book) " to which it may be con" 

 sidered a sort ot architectural satellite, that we proceed to notice it at 

 once before we come to other general improvements and alterations of the 

 kmd, more especially as it dutiuguisbes itself from all the rest by havin- 

 more the air of a single large editice, than a mere piece of stree- arrhi" 

 tecture. This range of building, which immediately faces , I 'e^Vront' 

 of the Royal Excnange, and forms the opposite side of a wide pa°"d 

 avenue between the two Ouildings, that is reserved for foot passen-ers onlv 

 IS in a sty e of noble simplicity that says much for the good !ae and 

 judgment ot its architects, Messrs. E. I'Anson and Sou. ° Ennaly flee 

 from the usual common-place of pretensions decoration-apt to run i lio 

 he merelricious, and Irom baldness and lusipidity-apt alio to be mixed 

 up w^ith the former, ,t is at once sober and digniUed-wilh neithe" too 

 much nor too little ot embellishment, but consisrent througuo ",?ani all 

 of a piece. Not only is it a hue mass as far as mere size .-oes but the 

 importance so derived is well kept up and preserved by the°charac"er of 

 the .fenestratiou," which is sucn as not to cut up the mass itselt- i,u, 

 littleness, as is too generally the case, owing to wfudorv b ,ig p"t "oo 

 closely together, which inevitably occasions an ordinary dwelling house 

 to prevail in spue ot every attempt to mask it by ornament; wl erfas this 

 fa?ade"-et this be particularly attended to-'- is exceed, igly well pro! 

 portioned both as to the quantity of window opening as compeared w hX 

 entire surface, and well-proportioued also iu regard to mass fabou 1 



^:^^i^!:r::i;::;^'"'-''^-^' -'- ^" ">« whole of it:s^fd:^i;:it 



More need not be quoted, there being already enough for the purpose 

 and also to show the kind ot writing and architectuTal comment in the 

 Companion, which, it none of li.e best, are quite as good as what we 



frjil ^' '^"^ ^™"' '^'•'^'^''•^'='"™' J-'--''^'^'- Novi, after reading he utv, 

 would any person m hi:, senses suppose that bv ■' fenestraiin„-'^t i 

 det-stood merely the ground-Uoor "Lows wh'.ch l^l rarch^e^cturUr; 

 and artistically, answer much better to the nauie ot'glazed^rcades than i^f 

 windows? Ihe design would have been precisely the°same hid the tround 

 flcor arches been entirely open, as tor instance, in what is ca td'coveu 

 (warden Piazza. And did the Reviewer understand any th^i of arch^ 

 tecture beyond a few crude notions about it he must know hS, f , 

 tiou aud arcading require very dilierei.t prip'ortions n it'a d to the "atij 

 between souls and voUs. So desperately determined,Cvee,rs he o 



^z i^ui^^^^^i^ii^he ;:;l:;:;; zix-^rT'h'-'^^^T^^ 



term " fenestration "-for of the „' ndows and ^ih- " ," '""'''" ^^ ""^ 

 the fasade he takes no not.ce-lbut nvTouslv c^nharr!' T'T"'" f 

 to the ground.floor, the very p.rt whfch "s irromTei' '"nT' ofn tfclt 



ui^iSsrcLt:;^? ^;::^;:/^^t:;;:;::i '^s^^^-^'j ^"'-^" ^" 



plausibility to his own distorted rep resen atiln of thi IT, '" f '" '"'r 



converts the words '-this F.c.nc," into "^"aI^^IP"^'"'-'^' ^l 



pri^t u'L it"wasTmo';"'','" "?' ''"' "" """"""" ^^^ - ™ere mis- 

 i"iui. II so, It was a most pat and convenient om. a, ,i,= t; i i 



accordingly took care not to auer lh,a when cori" ctm" Uie p ouf \"'. t " 



muake is so unluckily lucky aud con>euient, that widiout U the quotation 



aAfnt M™ 7r «""«.'•'•'' ?'« pvrpose at all, but wotild rather have told 

 somewha, Jfti M '" '""^^equence cut off, having exerted his ingenuity, 

 .somewhat after the manner of the fellow in one of Ho-arth's Electioa 



Ihe grc. und"'"'"' '^'" ^'' ""^' ''« »"=' certainl/come to 

 ' To make assurance doubly sure,' the Reviewer takes some pains fo 

 convince us of the marvellous fact, that when Conservatories are buil to 

 cor espond with the architecture of the mansion they happen to be con- 

 nected with-whether designed as arcades or olher^4e-the spaces be- 

 tween the glazmgs are quite as wide as tha piers of the grounTfloor in 

 Freeman s Place. What a notable piece of information ! how wonderfL" 

 that an arcade forming the ground floor of a street building should resemWe 

 any o her arcade, more especially one used as a conservatory ' Fortu"a e 

 was It for the Roya Exchange that the Reviewer did not turn round upon 

 ha'oTthet'n""' ";«^Sg.-egate surface ofthe windows, compared vvkh 



r ic r 1, '■^' '? ''" '", S''"' °'" S''"'*'^'- ""'" " is !« many conserva- 



tones, for the reason that "the grouud-lioor of the building exhibits one 

 continued series of arched window-openings, separated only^by piers '' 



Of course he himself has seen the building-or if not, there is a partial 

 elevation of it m the Companion to inform him what is its design, and what 

 are Us propor ions. Besides seeing it, he gives us to see that he examined 

 It very carefuily-so very carefully indeed, as to see nothing at all in it 

 except the single part which it served his purpose to look at,-which he 

 took a "rough admeasurement of," and concerning which he had written 



Zl^r,? ™"^: ' ■■""".'■'"• . "^''"^ ""'y ''""S i" "l''^!' !"• shows any smooth- 

 ness ,s the gentle protestatiou-flung out as a sop to the architects Ihem- 

 selves-that ne does "not intend the slightest censure of the actual 

 arrangement of the windows." How vastly candid and generous ' how- 

 soothing and flattering it must be to them to be assured that their buildincr 

 IS passable enough, only it does not at all answer to the character n-iven of 

 It in the Companion as being a noble aud well-proportioned aslylar facade 

 not cut up into littleness by too great a number of windows. Ho\v far 

 such really is or is not the case will be rendered tolerably evident by statinsr 

 that m a frontage of 160 feet or thereabouts, there are only thirteen window! 

 over the (craz-o or groundfloar, which being treated as an arcade has, of 

 course very much wider openings than the rest of the facade. The -'eneral 

 Ia9ade IS assuredly quite as solid in its proportions as those ofthe Reform 

 and other palatial club-houses,-at least as regards the fenestration of the 

 several Hours, for it must be admitted, that there is not quite so much 

 space between one floor and another as could be desired. Still, upon the 

 vvhole, the Freeman's Place facade is marke.l by the quality— or as the 

 Reviewer has it, by the qualification of bre,ulth-by which, I ought for his 

 beueht to explain, is not to be understood width. 



The next subject of commentary, observes the Reviewer, is Trafalgar 

 Square; whereupon he proceeds to comment upon the commentary in tha 

 CorapanioD, alter his own ingenious and iugeuuous fashion. The Civil 

 hngineer pronounced, some time ago, the two fountains in Trafal-'ar 

 Square to be not only far from beautiful, but positively ugly, aud not only 

 ugly but of "intense ugliness!" which the Companion opines to be rather 

 too severe,' assigning as reason for such opinion, that " the insigniScance 

 ot tlieir (the fountains) appearance is at least an equal defect." Which 

 observation has not been thrown away on the Reviewer, for he seizes hold 

 of it m two ways, first to broach a novel and very peculiar notion entirely 

 his own, and next to expose the writer's false and absurd logic. Accordins 

 to the Reviewer, Insigtiijimnce of appearance and Ua liiiess, —hiihevto con- 

 sidered two uistinct and very separable, although not always separated 

 qua iiies, are so incorporated together as to constitute one and the same • 

 so that whatever is ugly must be also iusigniucani, whatever is insi-ni- 

 beaut, ugly ; whence it should follow that what deserves either one oi-°the 

 other epithet in the superlative degree is superlative with regai-d to both 

 attributes at the same time, and "intense ugliness" is equivalent to intense 

 lusignihcauce. Hence— if such very curious argumentbe worth any thing— 

 a pigmy must be a far uglier monster to encounter than ugliest Polyphemus, 

 or what IS the same thing a hideous monster of agiaut more insignificant than 

 a pigmy. Alter this, it will be absurd to talk of things being " too insig- 

 nificant and contemptible for notice." Nevertheless, there are some diffi- 

 culties attending the doctrine aud its application. 'Insignificance' has 

 till novv passed for being rather a relative than a positive quality : the 

 same thing may be either insignificant or the contrary according to place 

 and circumstances. What would be admired as a very elegant aud tasteful 

 ornament upon the mantelpiece of a lady's boudoir, uught'make but a very 

 insignificant appearance in a stately and spacious saloon, yet would it 

 therefore become at all ugly in itself ?— hardly. To such awkward conclu- 

 sion, however, those must arrive who go along with the Reviewer, the 

 curiousness of whose ideas on that point of theory has seduced me into 

 something like digression. The notion which he has briefly thrown out 

 is by far too good to be thrown away ; wherefore it is to be hoped that he 

 will evolve, expound, and elaborate it, tiking it as the germ of a now 

 " Philosophy of .Esthetics," which, if it should not edify will at least 

 astonish the public. 



Besides the mistake of supposing there is any distinction at all between 

 ugliness and insignificance, the Companion has committed the egregious 

 error of assigning one defect, not as additional cause for censure, but in 

 mitigation of very strong censure on account of some other imputed defect, 

 let there is surely nothing illogical in that, unless logic consists more in 

 verbal forms than ideas. The Reviewer excepted, every one is aware that 



8* 



