CO 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[February* 



opposite defects neutralize each other more or less ; consequently what is 

 so far from being noticeable as to be insignificant, cannot be especially 

 remarkable or olTensive for its ugliness. Neither does the remark in the 

 Companion admit that Mr. Barry's fountains deserve to be called ugly at 

 all. It is ratlier levelled against the outrageously vituperative criticism 

 ■nhich brands them with that epithet in the hyper-superlativc decree as if 

 they exbibiteil the very ' pricterplui)erfect' of hideousness. AVIien it was 

 first bestowed on them, the expression "intense ugliness" seemed to Ije 

 uttered very inconsiderately, but as it has been brought into notice again 

 without any admission of it's impropriety, or with the least attempt to soften 

 it down, we must perforce conclude that it was penned deliberately at the 

 time, and that its author still maintains it most resolutely. 



That critic's vocabulary must be exceedingly limited indeed, who can 

 find no terms for the uunu-rous intermediate gradations between beauty 

 and positive ugliness and tlie extreme of hideousness. The lieviewer 

 seems to have only black and white upon his palette, and to daub every 

 thing he notices with one of those two colours, as best suits his purpose 

 at the moment. 



In point of design the Trafalgar Square fountains are not remarkable 

 for any particular beauty, neither are they so for the opposite reason. 

 "What is most to be complained of is that they are not uijnu a snfliciently 

 noble scale. A single fonnlain equal in capacity to both the present ones 

 would have formed a noble decoration — a far more imposing object in the 

 centre of the square. But I forget— the lieviewer has an inUnse horror 

 of every thing that is imposing or partakes of imposition. Let us, however, 

 see what sort of imposition be can, nevertheless, stoop to himself, — what 

 sort of sense, or nonsense he has made out of what is said in the Com- 

 panion respecting the general appearance of Trafalgar Square. And here 

 it is necessary to quote from the book. 



" A more striking architectural fault as regards the enclosure m Square 

 itself is, that the two side boundary walls, east and west, are made to 

 slope according to the fall of the ground from north to sontii, although the 

 enclosure itself is on a uniform level plane. Within the enclosure this 

 produces a singularly disagreeable eOect, for the tops of walls are not made 

 to rise and fall like hedges according to the iucqualities of ll:e ground." 



Undoubtedly, this is not so well expressed as it might have been ; still 

 the meaning is sulliciently obvious, viz. that an unpleasing efiecl is occa- 

 sioned by liie tops of those walls being made to slope, instead of being 

 carried horizontally, and parallel to the flat pavement of the area. Yet 

 the Reviewer has made it appear that it is complained of by the Com- 

 panion, that " the tops of tlie walls are not made to rise and fall like 

 hedges." How came that remarkably significant "The" to be conjnred 

 into the text? — or did it jump in entirely by accident, and just into the 

 very place where it so admirably suited the purpose of the honest and 

 conscientious Ueviewer? Can that, too, be a mere mistake ? If so, the 

 mishaps which liave occurred in printing the Reviewer's comments, are 

 not so much mistakes and mishaps as actual miracles. Still, prodigiously 

 lucky andconvenient as they may have been just at the time, they prove 

 anything but agreeable in their consequences, when they are pointed out. 

 They oc'casion not only ugly, but " intensely ugly" suspicions; and those 

 suspicions are rather confirmed than at all lessened when it is perceived 

 how studiously the Reviewer labours to fasten upon the Companion more 

 silliness than it really contains. AVhere did be find in the book itself 

 such a Balaam expression as that of "making Trafalgar-square agree- 

 able ?— and, if it be not in the book, but one of his own concocting, where- 

 fore should " agreeable " be printed with inverted commas, as if it was 

 the very word there made use of, and the one constituting the silliness of 

 the phrase employed. It is also in some degree made to appear that, 

 while it speaks of Trafalgar-square as an "ill-arranged spot," the Compa- 

 nion calls it " one of the noblest sites in Europe," those words being 

 also printed between inverted commas, as if a quotation from the book ; 

 which, not being the fact, the Reviewer ought to have guarded against 

 misconception by saying, " irlmf lias been called by some, ' (most ptople) one 

 of the noblest sites in Europe.'" 



It is, however, absurdity in me to talk of his guarding against miscon- 

 ception, when misconception and misconstruction, and misrepresentations 

 are what he has evidently laboured at in all that he has said of the sec- 

 tion headed " Public Improvements" in the Companion to the Almanac. 



In like manner as he has reiterated his crushing condemnation of the 

 Trafalgar-square fountains, he has again attacked— for there can be very 

 little doubt that the former attack proceeded from himself— the new 

 building at Lincoln's Inn, on account of deal being used for the ceilings 

 of some of the rooms, which he not only derides, but absohilely vilifies 

 as mere sham and deception, notwithstanding that it is the real wood 

 which shows itself, without pretending to be any other material than what 

 it actually is. In asserting that the members of the Inn themselves vote 

 the ceilings in question to be Brummagem, he may be right, for if he 

 assists at the " Hall dinners," he of course can best tell whetlier they do 

 or not— and his veracity is of course also unimpeachable. Still, few will 

 agree with him that the sneering exclamation " Brummagem " is at all 

 the criticism of " gentlemen and men of educated taste," On the con- 

 trary, it is a very Brummagem sort of criticism, to which those only have 

 recourse who have neitlier reasons nor arguments wherewith to support the 

 opinions they pretend to hold. 



Singularly enough too, just after seemiug to allow that it is the clum- 

 siness of the deception which renders imitative materials despicable, he 

 is shocked at the Companion fur its commending the columns in the Co- 



losseum because they imitate white marble " most deceptively." Admi- 

 rable consistency, truly ! Are we then to suppose that, in his opinion, 

 the imitation wonld have been all the more praiseworthy had it been less 

 successful and less deceptive ? — that the paltriness of deception is in pro- 

 portion to the exactness and truthfulness of the imilation. 



At any rale he has started a fieali and fertile topic for discussion — one 

 which I must here pass over, contenting myself with keeping it in reserve 

 for some other occasion, only remarking that the Reviewer seems to con- 

 sider Design as altogether secondary to Material ; wherein he shows him- 

 self to be a much more matter-of-fact kind of person than he has done as 

 regards sticking to matlerof-fact quotation. According to his notions, 

 Pompeii, with its stucco columns, Venice, with its so called " marble pa- 

 laces," and Vicenza, with its Palladian facades of brick coated over 

 with intonaco, ought to be scouted as exhibiting the mere Brummagem 

 architecture. The Travellers" Club House, Pall Mall, is but of mock, 

 material ; and there is plcntv of ISrummagcin, viz. sham marble, or scag- 

 liola, not only in the other ciub-houses, but in Buckingham Palace and 

 Sutherland House. Nay, there is even mock masonry— wood-work ceil- 

 ings painted to imitate stone vaulting, in some parts of both \ork Min- 

 ster and Ely Cathedral, surely, therefore, the deal ceilings at Lincoln's 

 Inn are not such very dishonest things after all— perhaps houest enough 

 to satisfy most people, if not one who is as straightluced in his notions of 

 honesty as the Reviewer h.is shown himself to be. * * 



To your own Readers, Mr. Editor, I leave now to judge if I am the 

 ridiculous ignoramus which your publication has represented me ; and 

 whether I am capable of writing tolerably correct and intelligible Eng- 

 lish. This letter contains some pretty plain English, and also some suf- 

 ficiently intelligible and significant hiuts, which you ought to thank me for 

 not having made plainer. 



I remain. Sir, 



Yours, &c. &c. 

 Thi; AVbiter in tul Cumpamon to the Almanac. 



CHRIST CHURCH, PLYMOUTH. 

 Sir— In reference to your observations on the fault of a " show front," 

 the " other sides" of my church being " merely plaiu masonry," it 

 is only necessary to inform you that the sides of the building unite 

 with the buildings on either hand: that the Eastern end is entirely 

 concealed, with no more than a space for light of ten feet deep ; and, m 

 short, that the front alone is visible ; or that it alone iciH be visible when 

 the intended school is built against the Southern side. The church is 

 already built in on the nurlh side. Of course, nothing can be worse than 

 the making of an insulated building with a " show front." 



Yours truly, 



G. M'iGHTVVICK. 



[Amon" the difficulties which architects meet with from the injudicious 

 wi'^hes of"those who employ them, not the least is that of erecting buildings 

 on sites wholly uusuited for them. A church of which the sides '• unite 

 with the buildings on either hand," must have three great defects : 1st. It 

 has a show front which greallv diminishes its architectural value. 2nd. 

 The difficulties of procuring light must be obviated by some unchurchlike 

 arrangement : 3rd. The adjacent houses produce inharmonious combinations 

 ,and secularize the character of the church.] — Eu. 



ICKWORTH. 



SiK— In a memoir which I have just been reading of Mario Asprucci, 

 an Italian architect who died in 1S04,— and who, I may observe, is omitted 

 not only in Na-ler's Kunstler-Lexicon, but in the enormously copious Bio- 

 graphical Diclimary of the Society for the Diliusion of Useful Knowledge, 

 —it is stated that he designed for " Milord Ervei," a splendid palace which 

 that nobleman afterwards began to erect in England. By " Milord Ervei" 

 —that "■'ran mecenate delle belle arti," is of course meant the eccentric 

 Hervev. Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, but is it Ickworth that is 

 the edifice alluded to? In the " Beauties of England and Wales," that 

 mansion is said to have been begun from the designs of two Porfw^iicsc 

 architects, named Carialho, — which has always struck me as an improba- 

 bility. Supposing, however, the latter account to be correct, what is the 

 other " palazzo" which " Milord Ervei" erected or began to erect in Eng- 

 land ? Or is that a mistake on the part of the Italian writer, who perhaps 

 confounded Ireland with England, in the former of which countries there 

 is or was somewhere in the county of Derry— the name of the place, I 

 do not now recollect— another stately country-seat, built by the " Bishop ; 

 and which like Ickworth was remarkable for the singularity of its plan, 

 the body of the house, being in both instances, an ellipsis. 



M'hct'herthe mansion in question be really Ickworth or not, the designs 

 for it were engraved and published, that circumstance being alleged as 

 sufficient reason for merelv mentioning that specimen of Asprucci's abili- 

 ties, " che tutti, perchi- inciso, baslumenle conoscono"—it being what is so 

 well known to every one by means of those engravings. Be they ever so 

 well knowu'in Italy, no copies of such work or engravings seem to have 

 reached this country,— at least uot for sale ; nevertheless I take refuge 



