1S41.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



121 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XXV. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withal, as large a charter as the wintls, 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. It were to be wished that some of those who profess to admire 

 Palladio, would be at the trouble of specifying his particular merits 

 and beauties by pointing out striking instances of tliem in his works. 

 Instead of which they deal only in vague eulogiuni, which teaches no- 

 thin". Surely they ilo not mean to say that it would not be worth 

 while to perform so good an office for their favourite, nor can we 

 imagine that it would be either a difficult or a disagreeable one to 

 themselves. On the contrary it would afibrd them the opportunity of 

 dwelling upon his excellences one by one, while such analysis of them 

 might perhaps enable them to detect, to a certain extent at least, the 

 secret of his peculiar art in composition. Neither would the task be 

 at all superflnous, because I have met with others besides myself, who 

 have confessed that they have not only been struck by egregious faults 

 and solecisms in Palladio, but have been utterly unable to perceive any 

 counterbalancing merits in him, — at the best no very striking beauties. 

 For my own part I should say there is scarcely any work of Palladio's 

 which does not aftbrd an instance of something or other tasteless or 

 faulty. By no means do I intend to deny that there are many useful 

 elements to be derived from them, but as exhibited in his own com- 

 positions, they are either valueless, or else overpowered and neutralized 

 by the rest. 



II. It is likewise not a little remarkable that after Professor Hosk- 

 ing's bold attempt "to disabuse the public mind as to the merit of the 

 work of Vitruvius," not only the public but professional men should 

 continue to speak of it with implicit deference as before, and without 

 attempting in turn to vindicate it from the aspersions so cast upon it, 

 just as if the opinion put forth in such diametrical opposition to their 

 own, had been given to the world anonymously iu some obscure news- 

 paper paragraph, instead of proceeding from an autlioritative quarter, 

 appearing in a treatise in the Encyclopajdia Britannica, afterwards 

 published separately, as a manual for students, consequently likely to 

 prove extensively mischievous — at least in the opinion of those who 

 still continue to "swear by Vitruvius," looking upon him as an infalli- 

 ble oracle. If such persons are perfectly sincere — which is somewhat 

 problematical — their silence argues a great want of moral courage, 

 since they patiently allow their oracle to be treated with contumely 

 and indignity, without reproving the oft'enders; — unless indeed it be 

 by merely affecting to sneer "at the small fry of critics who carp at 

 Vitruvius." Such cool contempt may look very magnanimous, but it 

 is in reality little better than cowardice, and a virtual acknowledg- 

 ment that the less the merits of Vitruvius are inquired into, the better 

 for him and his admirers. It is not denied that his writings have 

 some interest, but then it is almost entirely in a philological point of 

 view. They may occasionally help to elucidate nrcheeological facts ; 

 but as far as the study of the art is concerned, they require to be elu- 

 cidated by means of the other more satisfactory and more copious 

 sources of information now opened to us. Perhaps it would have been 

 a blessing to architecture had they never been discovered, for they 

 have undoubtedly exercised a baleful influence on the Italian school, 

 since had it not been for the blind deference paid to them, it is pro- 

 bable that on the revival of Roman architecture, the great masters 

 would have freely imitated the orders of antiquity, instead of cramp- 

 ing the art, by establishing positive rules for each, and by endeavouring 

 to make them conform as nearly as possible to the recipes given by 

 Vitruvius ; — in contradiction to that license — if it must so be termed, 

 which manifests itself in actual examples — not those aftbrded by build- 

 ings alone, but by detached specimens and fragments, some of which 

 are infinitely more valuable as artistical studies. Would Vitruvius 

 help us to the Tivoli Corinthian, or to any of those varieties of the 

 Ionic capitals, ice, which we meet with inPiranesi's "llagnificenzes"? 

 Vitruvius and the Italians who have given us their codes of the orders, 

 would reduce each to a single pattern : Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, 

 must each be put into its respective uniform, the precise cut of which 

 is established by their martinet regulations, which, like the laws of the 

 " J\Iaids and Parsom" as Hook calls them — are to remain unaltered. 



III. In this country architecture — or at least the study of it, seems 

 to be just now marching at cjuick pace — backwards. While the Insti- 

 tute is forming a collection of the various editions of Vitruvius, the 

 Royal Academy Professor is instilling some very odd notions into his 

 audiences; — of course quite orthodox, since he himself must be looked 



upon as the very centre and fountain of orthodoxy; nevertheless far 

 from being of the most enlightened kind, or manifesting a genuine 

 Catholic love of the art. Wren seems to be the god of his idolatry — 

 the master to whom he would refer us at the present day as the stan- 

 dard and compendium of architectural excellence. He claims our 

 admiratiou not only for St. Paul's,— which we most readily concede, 

 but for every other production of Wren's, although the majority of 

 them possess no beauty whatever, but on the contrary display utter 

 want of taste, and scarcely any invention. 



IV. I am sometimes inclined to wonder, not that architecture should 

 not be cultivated as a mere study, but that it should have any volunteer 

 followers at all, for the silly trifling, the dulness, the pedantry, the 

 bigotry, the extravagant galimathias, the downright nonsense, one has 

 either' to imde through, or else evade by skipping over,— are enough to 

 disgust people with most treatises on architecture. As a mere vague, 

 indistinct poetical analogy, something of the kind may be fancied to 

 exist between architecture and music ; but to adopt such speculations 

 seriously as Vitruvius suggests — although he has not explained hom 

 we are to set about doing so, is sheer extravagance— a will-o'-the- 

 whisp chimera, a delirium of the intellect. A thousand other analogies 

 just as much to the purpose, just as substantial, and not a whit more 

 whimsical might be traced by any one who chooses to beat the trouble 

 of doing so. "For instance, I myself would engage to show the analogy 

 between Architecture and Cookery much more clearly and explicitly 

 than has?hitherto been done in regard to that fancied to exist, between 

 Architec'ture and Music. The fantastic opinions promulgated by some 

 in reo-ard to architecture, convince us that Swift's Laputa is no carica- 

 ture—quite the contrary, for the idea of extracting sunbeams from 

 cucumbers, or of applying trigonometry to tailoring, seems perfectly 

 rational compared with ilichael Angelo's queer crotchet— viz., that a 

 knowledo-e of anatomy is indispensable to the architect ; or with the 

 crazy metaphysical rhapsodies of Padre Georgi and his "Platonic 

 principles" in architecture ! what lunatic reveries! 



V. Among the very queer things which have fallen from the Pro- 

 fessor's lips during his course of lectures, may be reckoned, his ad- 

 monition to students to avoid aiming at the Picturesque in architecture. 

 Without o-oing any further, it would be sufficient to remark that the 

 advice, ho'wever salutary, is perfectly superfluous, for whatever else 

 may be alleged against modern architecture and architects, it is quite 

 impossible to lay picturesqueness, or the aim at it, to their charge. On 

 the contrary we see building after building erected, which are remark- 

 able for nothing so much as the entire absence of all picturesque quality, 

 so that if not amenable to criticism when examined by standard rules, 

 they are quite spiritless and insipid. Even allowing that the advice 

 was intended chiefly as a caution to the junior students, to guard them 

 from the error of attending chiefly to such effect, and overlooking 

 more important considerations,— it does not seem to be of the 

 soundest and most wholesome kind. If the architect intends 

 to become more than a builder, we should say, it is highly im- 

 portant that he should begin to cultivate his taste, to exercise his 

 fancy as soon as possible. For if the imagination is to be restrained 

 until the judgment shall have been matured, and until proficiency 

 in practical knowledge shall have been attained, the probability is 

 that there will then exist no imagination to be brought into play. 

 To ex]iect that they who begin as plodders will end as artists, 

 is to expect the order of nature will be reversed— that after-life will 

 prove the season of genial inspirations and high imaginings which 

 never came across the mind in youth— and that after years of torpidity 

 and dulness, the powers of fancy will burst forth with peculiar vigour. 

 Methinks it would have been greatly more to the purpose had the 

 Professor exhorted his pupils to endeavour to secure picturesque 

 qualitv in the first sketches of their ideas upon paper, and then rigo- 

 rouslv to revise them, correcting, sobering down, maturing, until the 

 whole should satisfy the judgment as well as the fancy. If, indeed, 

 the principal or sole merit of a design consists in its being picturesque, 

 it will be more or less defective in more essential points; yet that 

 quality in itself is not a defect, unless it can be shown that every thing 

 else has been sacrificed in order to obtain it. I almost wonder the 

 Professor did not follow up his admonition by a fling at that specimen 

 of the picturesque in architecture which his predecessor both at the 

 Academv and the Bank of England, — has given us in the North-west 

 angle of'the last-mentioned building. And except that, there is hardly 

 another instance about town, where picturesque expression has been 

 studiously brought in, unless it be in that very strange piece of archi- 

 tecture iii the AssuranceOffice in the Strand, which the Professor should 

 have held out in ternirem to his pupils, and held up in derision to his 

 audience generally. 



VI. Some one,' I find, has been liberal enough to say of me in a 

 newspaper critique on one of the late nambera of the "Civil Engineer," 

 that if ! wanted a motto, I might take "Castigat Ridendo" for the 



