TIIK CIA TL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[February, 



on which Mr. I'drsey so greatly prides himself; and of whose value 

 he tries to convince us at first sight, by exhibiting a practical applica- 

 tion of it in his own frontispiece. In one respect, indeed, that illus- 

 tration has no novelty, for in nearly every work on perspective we are 

 acquainted with, the subjects introduced as examples, are for the 

 greater part either the most insipid or the ugliest things imaginable, 

 nor does thjt piece of architecture, — which, by the by, was exhibited 

 a season or two back at the Royal Academy, where it met with a good 

 deal of quizzing, — form any exception to such general rule. It says so 

 little for our discoverer's knowledge of, or taste in, architecture, that he 

 would have acted more discreetly, had he contented himself with 

 Parsci/fying some, building already provided to his hand ; nor could 

 he, perhaps, have selected a better subject to operate upon than the 

 front of the Soanean Museum, that being a tolerablv whimsical speci- 

 men of architecture in itself, and otherwise well fitted for the purjjose, 

 inasmuch as its height greatly exceeds its width, conse(|ueutly it is 

 much better suited to show the convergence of vertical lines, than Mr. 

 P.'s own plump and squat structure. — At all events, as it is intended 

 as a model sample of the new system of Perspective, or "New Lan- 

 guage of the Eye," — a language soine;\hat akin to Irving's Unknown 

 Tongues, — it would not have been amiss had it been correctly drawn; 

 so far from which being the case, there are hardly above two of the 

 vertical lines that converge to the same point, but some of those that 

 are nearest to the axis of vision are much more inclined than those 

 which are farthest off! which produces the same effect as a drawing in 

 which the cornice or upper horizontal lines of a building should be 

 made to incline less than those of a string-course or lower cornice at 

 half the distance or less, above the eye. It may be that this is an 

 error merely of inadvertence, but then it is a most extraordinary in- 

 stance of carelessness indeed, because Mr. Parsey must have been 

 aware that his sample drawing would be likely to be rather rigourously 

 scrutinized, and that any blunder in it would consequently be laid hold 

 of as an objection to the system itself. Admitting for a moment his 

 doctrine of the convergence of vertical lines to be correct, his notions 

 of convergence must be exceedingly tcctnlric, for the upright lines of 

 the little stumpv turret on the building vanish much more suddenly 

 than any of the others, so as to give it, even when compared with the 

 rest, the appearance of being a truncated pyramid. We do not know 

 how drawings according to the rulgar and now to-be-exploded system 

 of perspective, appear to Mr. Parsey's eyes, but most certainly the 

 one he here favours us with, appears to ours a most preposterously 

 distorted delineation, and totally contrary to nature. 



Yes, we are so hopelessly obtuse that all Mr. Parsey's eloquence is 

 quite thrown away upon us when he assures us "This effect of nature 

 lannched incessantly upon the vision of mankind, as well from per- 

 pendicular as from horizontal surfaces, has never been recognized 

 by theorists, neither is it found in works of art. it has evidently 

 been a sheer omission." " The necessity of adopting this principle 

 for the future," he goes on to say, "in the visual sciences will require 

 no urging so soon as this truth and its consequences shall dawn upon 

 the unbiassed intelligence of the world." — Which last remark is ex- 

 ceeding well put in, for that dawn seems to be quite as far off as ever. 

 Notwithstanding that so great a luminary as Parsey has risen upon the 

 intellectual horizon, we are as much in the dark as before, or else 

 obstinately shut our eyes and refuse to be enlightened by Parsey's sun- 

 beams. 



It certainly is most unaccountable that the very class of persons who 

 are most interested in this notable discovery, and who must of all 

 others be best qualified to appreciate its value, so far from gratefully 

 bearing testimony to its importance — so far from availing themselves 

 of it, are precisely those who set their faces against it, and protest 

 against it with one accord, not indeed, loudly, but assuredly most sig- 

 nificantly by refusing, one and all, to make any use of it. When we 

 see one artist — one architectural painter or draftsman begin to adopt 

 it, — when such people as Roberts, Nash, Haghe, &c., whose drawings 

 are in all other respects so admirable, lay aside the old-fashioned, in- 

 correct, vulgar system, and becoming enlightened begin to ^orsei/yi/ 

 their productions, then indeed our own obstinate prejudices may begin 

 to thaw and melt away. 



No doubt we are exceedingly dull: our comfort is that we are by 

 no means singular in that respect; for not only have many others alto- 

 gether scouted the " New Language of the Eye"— which they rudely 

 set down as being All my Eye and Betty Martin, — but neither the 

 Westeni, the Marylebone, the West London and the Westminster, 

 Literary and .Scientific Institutions, "from all of which societies," says 

 Mr. P., " 1 received most satisfactory and complimentary testimonials," 

 have done any thing as yet to promote and diffuse the new science. 

 Their testimonials may be complimentary, yet if Mr. Parsey considers 

 them satisfactory, all we can say is that he is the most reasonable and 

 most easily satisfied person we ever met with. Were the case our 



own, we should set down the complimentary part of the business, as 

 mere matter-of-course humbug, as being of just as much value as 

 "Your very humble servant" at the end of a letter of refusal. If 

 notwithstanding their professed admiration of the author's theory 

 people do not care to apply it practically, their testimony in its 

 favour, however compliraeutarily expressed, must stand for just no- 

 thing at all. 



With the Institute of Architects — whose testimonial in favour of his 

 system would have greatly outweighed those of merely literary socie- 

 ties — Mr. Parsey was not quite so successful, being peremptorily re- 

 pulsed, on offering to give " a full and gratuitous explanation" of'it to 

 that body. Not satisfied, however, with one repulse, he renewed his 

 application about two years afterwards, when he met with no better 

 success than on the former occasion ; as he himself relates at length 

 in his Introduction, where he has inserted the notes he received from 

 the Secretary Mr. Donaldson, and animadverts upon the prejudice and 

 inconsistency shown by the Institute in refusing him permission to de- 

 monstrate to them his theory. Yet although he evidently seems to 

 have no suspicion of such being the case, the refusal on the part 

 of the Institute, was probably prompted by kindness, — by unwillingness 

 to let Mr. Parsey not so much explain his principles as expose liim- 

 self ; because the main point of all in his theory, namely, the conver- 

 gence of vertical lines, must have been tolerably well known to most j 

 of the members, it having been made the subject of more tlian one j 

 article in Loudon's Architectural Magazine, where, in fact, it had ' 

 occasioned some controversy. The Architects undoubtedly knew 

 enough of it, to be aware that it would not at all hold water — as the 

 saying is, and accordingly declined his offer; nor do we think that his j 

 frontispiece is likely to gain him any converts in that quarter. Mr. 1 

 Parsey makes no secret of the repulses he has met with from others, 

 for he speaks of " non-replies to letters addressed to influential 

 scholars," — we almost wonder he did not address himself at once 

 either to the Premier or the .Secretary for the Home Department; — 

 yet although he quotes our friend Candidus, he does not attempt to 

 controvert either what that writer or Kata Phusin have said, fatal as 

 their objections appear to be to his theory, unless they can be set j 

 aside ; wdiereas by allowing them to remain unanswered, Mr. Parsey I 

 leaves us to infer that he considers them unanswerable. 



We have already given it as our opinion that the Frontispiece is 

 not attractive, — otherwise than by its oddity; nor do we think that, j 

 its new fangled doctrine apart, the volume itself is calculated for any I 

 practical service. On the contrary, it appears to us that Parsey's new 

 light serves only to mystify the subject more than ever — absolutely to 

 bewilder it; and his processes of delineation to be most complex and 

 tedious. To say the truth, there has always been a great deal move 

 mystery made about Perspective, than there is any occasion for, that 

 is, as far as practice alone is concerned, since for that merely a few 

 simple elementary rules are required, and were they but properly ex- 

 plained and elucidated, they would be all-sufficient. The great point 

 of all in teaching the practice of perspective is to convince the learner 

 at the outset, not of its difficulty, but of its easiness, to explain the 

 principles intelligibly, and not only intelligibly, but intelligently also, 

 and to show how those simple elements suffice for all combinations, 

 and for the most intricate subjects. But to come to Mr. Parsey's 

 hobby, or rather his cheral de guerre, the Convergence of Perpendicu- 

 lars — by which we are to understand Vertical lines, we will not be i 

 quite sure that Mr. Parsey clearly understands himself, or if he does 

 he has most certainly an unlucky, Mrs. Malaprop way of explaining 

 himself; for an instance clearly demonstrating the natural convergence 

 of perpendiculars, he refers us to the effect produced by looking up 

 from the bottom of a deep shaft, or doron into a well ! Good Mr. Par- 

 sey, this is playing upon people's credulity rather too openly, for you 

 might just as well have told them not to look into a well nor to walk 

 into one, but to go into the shaft of the Thames Tunnel, and fancy that 

 instead of looking straight before them in a horizontal direction they 

 were looking upwards. .Such effects as looking upwards, whether to 

 the roof of "a lofty cathedral" or a low room, cannot be represented 

 except on a horizontal plane over the spectator's head, as in a painted 

 ceiling, for it is only such prodigious artists as Billings who can show 

 us at once the effectoflookingup into the lantern indome of St. Paul's, 

 and down upon the pavement, at the same instant. Except in very 

 particular cases, such as those of ceiling pieces, giving effects of di solio 

 in su, all pictures are supposed to be vertical planes, or planes perpen- 

 dicular to the horizon, which'we therefore view not by looking either up 

 or down, but straightforward at, and in which no more can be properly 

 represented than can be seen under such angle as will enable the eye 

 to take in at one view the greatest diameter or dimension, whether it 

 be that of height or breadth. And until Mr. Parsey undertook to en- 

 lighten the world, both we and all artists, have ever fancied that all 

 Imes parallel to the picture continued parallel to each other in repre- 



