lS4i.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



77 



should teach us how unfit the common building-stones of this country 

 are for the long bearings and great superincumbent weights which the 

 use of this style imposes on us, but for which the Greek marbles were 

 so eminently adapted. The assumption which some have endea- 

 voured to maintain, that the architects of Greece confined themselves 

 to horizontal composition on account of the superior grandeur of effect 

 ■which could be so produced, is sufficiently refuted by our own magnifi- 

 cent cathedrals ; and I am myself convinced that, had the principle 

 of the arcb been known to them, and the almost illimitable power 

 ■which the architect, by its means, obtains over his materials, none 

 ■would more fully have availed themselves of its aid than these great 

 masters in science and art. I am aware that I am liable to the charge 

 of reviving truisms ; but there are architects who seek to conceal 

 their own dullness under an affectation of enthusiastic admiration of 

 the style of ancient Greece ; who abandon and pretend to despise the 

 use of the arch in their designs, because it was unknown to, and con- 

 sequently unused by, the Greeks, and thus produce buildings which 

 can never be otherwise than unsubstantial and insecure, because con- 

 structed of materials unfit for the practice of the style which they 

 aflfect to follow. I remarked in speaking of the Custom House, that 

 fractures were visible in the stone-work, which I could only attribute 

 to a settlement in the foundations. I have siuce been confirmed in 

 this opinion, by observing seven or eight similar fractures, particularly 

 in the south and south-westera parts of the building, some of a most 

 serious and threatening aspect : thus this extensive and costly pile 

 Tvill, probably ere long, require, like its prototype in London, a repair 

 almost as expensive as its first erection. But to return to the banks. 

 Having disposed of the principal joint stock banking-houses, Eder 

 attacks, without mercy, the building in vrhich the branch business of 

 the Bank of England is conducted. Of the interior of this bank I 

 know but little, and any apparent want of convenience may be perhaps 

 sufficiently accounted for by the fact of its having been originally a 

 private dwelling-house. With respect to the exterior, however, I 

 can assure you and your readers, Mr. Editor, that it is one of the most 

 pleasing street fronts which the town contains. It is of Italian charac- 

 ter, exhibiting a Corinthian pilastral order of five intercolumns on a 

 solid basement, with two stories in the height of the order, and an 

 attic above it. The wall between the pilasters and the attic piers, as 

 well as that of the basement is rusticated throughout. The ground 

 floor windows have no otlier decoration than their moulded cills, and 

 the centre opening, which till very lately was occupied by the door, 

 has the only pediment in the facade, supported on bold trusses. The 

 cills of the one pair windows are lighter and more decorative in 

 character than those of the ground floor, beside being supported by 

 trusses of varied detail and pleasing design, from which festoons of 

 fruit and flowers descend towards the heads of the ground floor open- 

 ings. The attic is perhaps too high for the order it surmounts, but 

 not more so than is the case in many well known buildings ; Greenwich 

 Hospital for example ; and the narrowness of the street, and the pro- 

 jection of the cornice almost neutralize this defect. The festoons are 

 ■well designed and executed, and harmonize with the decorative cha- 

 racter of the Corinthian order employed, as does also, in my opinion, 

 the rusticated surface of the intermediate masonry. I do not know 

 the date of this house, nor the name of its designer, but should think 

 it must date some 80 years back; at all events it does credit to his 

 taste, and I am certain that most persons making any pretensions to 

 architectural taste would agree with me that it is much to be preferred 

 before any of the modern banks which have been noticed by Eder. 

 The removal of the door from its proper place in the centre, to the 

 meagre Roman Doric porch beyond the line of front, has injured the 

 unity of the composition, and the subsequent scraping of the stone- 

 work has given it all the rawness of a newly finished building, without 

 its sharpness of detail. In closing my remarks on this bank I cannot 

 but express my astonishment at, and pity for, the taste which could 

 find so much to admire in the tortured and unnatural decorations of 

 the Union Bank, in the misproportion and coarseness of the Welsh, 

 and consign the Branch Bank to such unqualified reprobation. 



The markets next engage the attention of your correspondent. He 

 commends the fish market as well adapted to its purpose, which may 

 be the case now, but certainly was not until the fish-fags rose en masse, 

 and with sundry threats of violence to the architect, demanded and 

 obtained the admission of light in the side walls. St. John's market is 

 capable of fine effects of light certainly, in consequence of its great ex- 

 tent, which on plan is about the same as York Minster, but other merit I 

 cannot discover in it, and the construction of the roof is of the most 

 ordinary and journeyman-like description. In referring to St. James's 

 cemetery I was reminded of the circular structure in which Gibson's 

 beautiful statue of Huskisson is immolated. Independently of the ab- 

 surdity of setting an eight foot statue in a place not twice that height 

 in diameter, the thing is in itself most ungraceful. I am perhaps fore- 



stalling Eder, but he must excuse me. Adopting the details of the 

 Tivoli example of the Corinthian order, the architect appears to have 

 aimed at a mean between the proportions of the temple to which it 

 belongs, and the well known monument of Lysicrates. The result is, 

 that the proportions are neither those of horizontal composition like 

 the temple of Tivoli, nor of vertical, like those of the little monument 

 named. Perhaps habit has given these two ancient examples almost 

 the authority of rule as to the proportions of circular buildings in the 

 classic styles. At all events the medium here attempted is a com- 

 plete failure, and Bramante's little temple of St. Peter in Montorio, 

 might have given the architect a hint that a varied outline might 

 be preferable to a severe one in so small a building. The terminal 

 which crowns the cupola is far from redeeming the other defects of 

 the design. The enormity of burying so fine a work of art as Gibson's 

 statue in a coop like this, is the more to be regretted, as another by 

 tlie same eminent sculptor which was intended to occupy the centre 

 of the long room in the Custom-house, has, with the vessel which con- 

 tained it, gone to the bottom of the sea, somewhere near the mouth of 

 the Tiber. The cemetery in which this (I really scarce know what to 

 call it, for it is neither a mausoleum nor a monument), statue-box 

 stands as one of the lions of Liverpool, and as a matter of course must 

 be admired by every body, but really those who do so must prefer 

 seeing animals in a reclaimed rather than a natural state, for it is a 

 very tame lion. I could say more on this subject, but shall refrain for 

 the present; for should Eder, like other "strangers," launch out in 

 admiration thereof, I should prefer giving my opinion in the form of 

 a reply to his. 



I am, Sir, 

 Lii-erpool, Yours, &c., 



Jan 22}ul, 1841. H. 



ON THE STYLE OF CAMPBELL AS COMPARED WITH 

 THAT OF INIGO JONES. 



In pursuing a criticism upon the genius of the Palladian school, the 

 excuse rests chiefly on the influence its pupils have had upon the 

 growth of classic beauty, and on the exertions they have made to 

 rescue the treasures of antiquity from the dust : and though, in look- 

 ing amidst the ranks of Palladio's followers, we see art for a second 

 time as it were cradled, void alike of vigour or of finish, we cannot 

 but feel pleasure in peeping at its once infant condition, especially as 

 we contrast it with its more advanced state : nor can we feel other- 

 wise than sanguine, as we catch through this in fair perspective its 

 promise of hastening maturity. 



Up to the Kith century architecture was less definite in outline, less 

 studied in symmetry ; — you were awed by the mass, or were charmed 

 by the intricacy of its parts;— you were arrested, it is true, but then 

 the whole was after all only an agreeable perplexity. It was reserved 

 for Jones and his followers to turn the stream of taste and to transplant 

 the graces of Italy. But the followers of Jones had not very much of 

 their master's sentiment. They seem to have followed the fashion of 

 the time, as much as the sentiment of Palladio. Hence we find 

 Hawkesmore and Vanburgh easily catching the precise feeling of 

 Grecian rule, to the prejudice of the Italian. 



Campbell however as a follower of Jones, and as a Palladian archi- 

 tect, seems more deserving of attention, though whether he features 

 the original, or only staggers after him is a question. — In his mansions, 

 (so many of which grace our land) the sentiment of Palladio and the 

 style of Jones seem both affected. Still you are conscious at the first 

 glance of a stiffness in the design. You feel if an importent part is to 

 arrest that it becomes very often unpleasantly independent of the re- 

 mainder ; or if a change of features are successively to please, that 

 you are not led to them by approaches sufficiently easy. The eye is 

 not courted, it is forced.— Sudden changes too often occur from the 

 horizontal to the vertical, in that part where altitude is the aim; and 

 very often in the front a sudden depression of the sides, disuniting to 

 a certain extent the centre from the rest, and destroying in a measure 

 the harmony of relations by a want of unity. It seems as if the artist 

 occasionally lept into his parts ; as if notwithstanding his apparent 

 study of every subordinate feature in the Pallatial style, and of the 

 principles of Italian arrangement, the stiffness of the copy must remain, 

 rather than the freedom of the original. It is true that you are look- 

 ing at the design of a Palladian architect ; that there are dispositions 

 of the void and enriched, of the depressed and the elevated ; that there 

 are the same segmental and triangular windows in mutual relief; that 

 balustrades crown the void, and that turrets, cupolas, columns, figures, 

 &c. prevent you dwelling on the breadth : but then you see too much 

 of a studied arrangement. You can almost detect the labours of the 

 artist ; vou can almost discern the process by which the features of 



