1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECPS JOURNAL. 



199 



ROMAN REMAINS AT COLCHESTER. 



The fifth mimber of the Journal of the British Archaeological Association 

 •ontains a descri(.tion of some remarkable specimens of Roman art, discover- 

 ed at Colchester. Among them was a sphynx, sculptured in stone, found in 

 the garden of the General Hospital, about ten paces from the west wall, and 

 about fifty-five paces from the London Road, at two feet from the surface of 

 the soil : close to it was dug up a fragment of the tibia of a human leg, bones 

 of oxen, deer, pigs, and fowls, with Roman pottery ; and between twenty and 

 thirty paces from the same spot, part of a scpulnhral inscription to the me- 

 mory of one or more legionary soldiers. Within the hounds of the hospital 

 were dug up at the same tijne a large quantity of building materials, ted and 

 white tiles, coarse and unhewn stones, used probably in foundations, and a 

 great many well-hewn fragments of a stone called swanage, from a place in 

 the Isle of Purbeck, where it is chiefly dug; the fragment of the inscription 

 above alluded to is of the same material. The stone in which the sphvnx is 

 sculptured is freestone, brought probably from Portland. Very recently, Mr. 

 Taylor, the resident surgeon, has noticed, in the same locality, a Roman wall, 

 from four to five feet wide, and from ten to twenty feet in length, as far as 

 it was excavated. A bronze statuette of a sphynx, about an inch and a half 

 high, was found in 1820, within a few yards of the stone figure. As a work 

 of art, the sculptured sphynx exhibits a good taste and executive skill of no 

 mean order. The fabled monster of Thebes, combining the five-fold attri 

 butes of a virgin, a lion, a bird, a dog, and a serpent, is correctly exhibited 

 in accordance with the ancient myths in which it figures so conspicuously. 

 The head, breasts, and arms, are those of a beautiful virgin ; the fore-paws 

 are of a lion; the body and fecund dugs indicate a bitch ; the hinder part 

 takes the lion's form ; and the tail, doubled upon itself in short foldings, is 

 the serpent in repose. The mangled remains of a human being lie beneaih 

 the figure, and protrude on both sides. The head of the victim is extremely 

 well executed ; the eyelids are closed ; the mouth is drawn down at the cor- 

 ners; muscles are strained and set, and the countenance, sunk in death, con- 

 veys an expression of exhaustion and agony. Altogether, the composition is 

 good and harmonious, and is probably of early date. On the base is cut a 

 large S, douhtU ss a mark of the quarrier or of the sculptor. 



In the collection of Mrs. Mills, of Lexden Park, is a bronze figure of 

 Cupid riding on a sea-griffin, discovered some years since in excavating for 

 laying the foundations of Colchester bank, but which has been hitherto un- 

 published. The god of love is often represented riding on the back of a lion, 

 or on dolphins and sea-monsters, emblematical of his omnipotence, which is 

 well symbolised in the triform griffin, a combination of bird, beast, and fish, 

 ebedient and tractable under the gentle sway of the youthful divinity. 



AUST PASSAGE BRIDGE. 



Sir— With respect to Mr. Fulljames's letter on the subject of the Aust 

 Passage Bridge, I beg to state that in the paper published with the names 

 of Mr. Giles and myself in your April number, there was no claim to 

 originality in the proposition to build a bridge across the Old Passage of 

 the Bristol Channel at Chepstow, the idea having been originally suggested 

 by Mr. Tellord many years since. A mere reference to the map will at 

 once point out the Aust Passage as the narrowest part of the channel in 

 that neighbourhood. The occurrence of rocks, visible at low water and 

 suitable for the foundation of piers, is a still further recommendation of 

 that locality for a suspension bridge. 



The span of the bridge at Freiburg is 820 feet, and Telford proposed 

 one of 1,000 feet at Runcorn. There is no doubt that this could be con- 

 structed so far as the mere strength of the main chains is concerned but 

 the liability to undulation is a very serious obstacle. I see no reason to 

 alter the opinion already expressed that the plan which I have been anx 

 lous to lay before the public, would completely remedy that defect which 

 has proved very injurious to the most celebrated of our suspension biidses 

 iQ exposed situations I believe that a bridge with radial bars would if 

 properly constructed, be quite capable of allowing the passage of railvv'av 

 trains, and that opinion is confirmed by considering the strenglb which lat 

 Uce brulges have by actual experience been found to possess 



wIm^'^T,"''. ""i^ '''^P^''*7 bridge proposed by me was firs't published in 

 Weale s Quarterly Papers for Lady-day, 1845, and I there gave an outline 

 of the design, which was afterwards described in a more complete form ,n 

 your Journal, f,.r a bridge over the Aust Passage. 



Mr. Fulljames appears to intimate some intention of commenting upon 

 my calculations 1 shall feel very much obliged to him for pointing out aT/ 

 Hie errors which he is able to detect. ^ 



I am, Sir, 



Your obedient servant, 



Francis BAsiiFonTii. 



REVIE'WS. 



Studies of Ancient Domestic Architectdre, with obsermtions on the 

 Application of Ancient Architecture to the Pictorial Composition of Modem 

 Edifices. By Edward Buckton Lamb, architect. Twenty Plates 4to 

 London, Weale. 1846. 



A book, that comes with a quotation from Candidus for the motto on iU 

 title-page, brings with it, as may be supposed, a letter of recommendation 

 to us, nor has the prepossession in its favour, so caused, been at all de- 

 ceived. Mr. Lamb-whose name has repeatedly been mentioned by us 

 for praise in our notices of the architectural drawings in the Royal Aca- 

 demy's exhibitions-has here produced an exceedingly clever work, re- 

 plete with original remark and sound instruction. In the generality of 

 architectural publications in which engravings constitute the leading and 

 foremost feature, the letter-press is either of very subordinate quality- 

 little better than mere filling-up stufi-, or anything but architectural-some- 

 limes evidently the compilation of some book-maker, who besides pillagiDR 

 not only bis matter, but entire paragraphs verbatim from others, does 00*1 

 seem to have even so much as looked at the plates to which he was writing. 

 Such is not the case here, for, though all the subjects represent actual ex- 

 amples of ancient-that is, Old English-domestic architecture, instead of 

 cramming his pages with gossip history about the houses themselves and 

 the people (all their kindred included) by whom they have been occupied, 

 Mr. Lamb leaves those readers who have a taste for such " information'' 

 to seek it in professedly topographical works, contenting himself with 

 speaking of the respective subjects, " exclusively with reference to artistic 

 criticism elucidated by direct example." Criticism of that kind— espe- 

 cially so good of its kind as what we here obtain— is rather a scarce arti- 

 cle ; at least, it is very rarely served up to the general public, who are 

 kept upon a water-gruel diet of discussion about "styles" alone ; as if 

 people needed to have such incipient information to be dinned into them on 

 every occasion, and needed no other instruction at all. A very great deal 

 more, it may be suspected, is requisite for enabling them to make use of such 

 " first-step" knowledge, when we find that even those who can show off 

 very fluently, so long as they stick to styles and dates, either become quite 

 mule in regard to anything further, or else betray that their knowledge is 

 all got by rote, and does not reach beyond what just enables them to dis- 

 criminate between one style and another, but leaves them incapable of 

 judging of individual productions of the art, except as they happen to con- 

 form to or deviate from precedent. So strongly, indeed, is a blind and 

 servile regard to Precedent now insisted upon, that nothing seems to be left 

 for us to do in architecture but to copy literally what has been done; be- 

 sides which, it might be thought that those who lived in former ages had so 

 completely foreseen and anticipated all the wants of the present one and of 

 our actual social condition, as to render any further modification of the 

 styles we borrow from them wholly unnecessary— and not only unneces- 

 sary, but dangerous. If Precedent is to be so followed— not as a guide 

 merely going before us on the road, but one on whose footmarks we must 

 plant our own feet at every step,— we may as well renounce at once, both 

 for ourselves and for architecture, the power of doing anything that has 

 not been done before. Those who cautiously follow Precedent step by 

 step generally hobble along though they may not stumble ; yet better is it 

 that some should stumble— perhaps, break their necks— than that a whole 

 generation should go hobbling along, and perhaps, at last, get angry and 

 shove Precedent aside, and fairly take their leave of him altogether. 



We are not losing sigbt of Mr. Lamb all this while, for we are glad to 

 find that he has not at all more respect for that same bugbear Precedent 

 than ourselves. He too considers Precedent- that is, that " slavish ad- 

 herence to it which paralyses all invention"— to be the " very rust of art 

 —the canker that feeds upon its vitality." After all, too scrupulous a regard 

 to precedeet aflfords not the slightest defence against bad taste in architec- 

 ture and decoration, for, as is here observed, " the worst conceits of the 

 Pompeian, ihe tawdriest crinkum-crankums of the Louis Quatorze style, 

 are facsimilized by our decorators, as if the taste displayed in them were 

 so pure and perfect, that to deviate from it would be profanity." — But let 

 us begin at the beginning, taon ami Belier, and, certes, the opening para- 

 graph of the volume is well penned, and serves as a very appropriate ves- 

 tibule—to express ourselves architecturally— to what follows. 



" At the time of its being re-introduced and adopted into modern prac- 

 tice, so very ill was our mediaeval architecture understood, so great was 

 the ignorance that prevailed even as to its very nature, constitution, and 

 physiognomy, and so completely was even thatordinary sort of good taste 

 which is founded upon good sense disregarded, that notwithstanding lis 

 evident and almost total unfitness for the purpose, the ecclesiastical style 



