ooo 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



rJuLY, 



knots ]>CT hour, and yet the old entrances to those rivers have been 

 blockp'-l up hy impassable bars, and either new passages have been cut 

 into the ocean, or the egress waters have forced a passage out in a 

 new direction; here we have an absence of quarter flood, sloping, 

 and of the ditlerence in tlie gravity of the two waters, no salt water 

 being in the vicinity of the disemboguing site of the above rivers. 



I must now take leave to make an observation on Jlr. B.'s pro- 

 position to take away the shoals or deposits in the Thames, at Wool- 

 wich by scouring, and not by dredging, the result of such an operation 

 f if it were accomplished) would be, tliat the matter moved could only 

 i)e impelled onward while the impetus was retained, but so soon as 

 that ceased, a re-deposit would occur which would occupy the same 

 extent of the bed of the river, which it had previously done — he seems 

 not to be informed of the eftisct produced on Barking Shelf, removed 

 by dredging although an immense accumulation of sand and shingle, 

 the base of which appeared at low water — but I will not further in- 

 terfere with the interior part of his subject, that is all plain sailing, no 

 insurmountable difficulty occurs in attempts to improve inland navi- 

 gation, there we have no impinging billow, or any material effect pro- 

 duced by the winds or tides. 



Before I conclude, allow rae to give some farther proofs of the ac- 

 curacy of my two first propositions — New Zealand, " The entrance to 

 the bay at Wangarver is 1! miles broad, perfectly safe, and without a 

 bar ; the bay is studded w iih rocks, (so are the harbours I have pre- 

 viously referred to as being free from bar). The water is deep close 

 to the shore. The bays of Plenby and Port Nicholson are similarly 

 formed and are free of bar, although no back waters^ The harbour of 

 Hokianga with an extensive interior river, where the waters run out 

 at every ebb tide, there a bar exists. In the West Indies, at St. Lucia 

 -.ind the Havannah, both splendid harbours, but have neither rivers, 

 back waters, nor bars. 



I remain, Sir, j'our obedient servant, 



Henry Barrett. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 



FASCICULUS xxvm. 



" I must have liberty 

 Vitlial, as large a charter as the winds, 

 To blovi- on whom I please." 



I. The absurd trifling, the stupid pedantry, the puerile discussions 

 that at one time engaged the attention of architects, almost surpass 

 belief, and are to be paralleled only by the quibblings of the school- 

 men and divines of the dark ages, when theology was reduced to idle 

 disputation, and religion to the practice of the grossest superstition. 

 Were it not so authentically recorded, that it is impossible to doubt 

 the fact, hardly would it be now believed that the problem proiposed 

 by Sansovino as to the mode of obtaining the exact hal/ of a metope 

 at the angle of a Doric entablature — the semimetopia of Vitruvius' — 

 made a noise throughout Italy, and excited the attention of aU the 

 architectural geniusses of the time I Had Sansovino and his contem- 

 poraries been equally scrupulous and precise in all other matters, we 

 might excuse their ovemiceness in regard to such di{Jiciks migie; in- 

 stead of which they were most latitudinarian, even shamefully so in 

 many respects. Like those people who make no difficulty of jumping 

 over mountains, yet break their shins against straws, who can swallow- 

 millstones whole, yet are choked by a pound of butter, they were not 

 at all shocked at some of the grossest violations of architectural pro- 

 priety. In some of Sanmicheli's plans, for instance, the rooms are so 

 frightfully out of square, that no two sides are parallel to each other. 

 Symmetry, too, in respect to the position of doors and windows within 

 buildings, is totally disregarded, as if it were perfectly indifferent 

 whether it were attended to or not. The designs of II Divino Palla- 

 dio, as he has sometimes been called, abound with scandalous defects 

 of this kind. I suspect that his "divinity" must have been somewhat 

 of a piece with that of II Divino Aretino, a monster who ought to have 

 been hanged, drawn, and quartered. Such "divinities" as the last 

 must be inquired for in the infernal regions. 



II. Nothing can be more opposed to every legitimate principle of 

 art and esthetics, than the attempt to reduce the different orders to so 

 many express and immutably fixed types. The consistency so aimed at 

 is attended with almost the worst species of inconsistency, because 

 it totally excludes such modification as may be most suitable for the 

 particular case. It is time for us to get rid of all the mechanical 

 quackery to which we have so long submitted, and which has reduced 



architecture, as generally practised, to little better than a mere handi- 

 craft trade — to copying certain individual parts met with in former 

 styles of the art, without auy regard either to the genius of the styles 

 themselves, or to the circumstances of the building required. What 

 puerile trifling it is to alVect scrupulous nicely as to the express shape 

 and proportion of every little detail belonging to columns which are 

 to be stuck up by way of portico before a dowdy house or other 

 building, which is thureby only rendered a grotesque absurdity I In 

 most other matters people think of attending a little to consistencj- 

 and common sense ; or should they fail to do so, they must submit to 

 the derision of their neighbours. But in architecture, the most 

 ridiculous incongruities and o'/s//ar<ifes are tolerated — tolerated 1 thev 

 are even applauded ; and hitmcs that would hardly be endured iu the 

 preparations for a temporary fete, may be perpetrated with impunity 

 in buildings intended to be permanent. 



III. "Geniality" is net an English word, — hardly can it be said to 

 be as yet adopted by us; and what is more io be regretted, there is, I 

 apprehend, very little of the thing itself among the artists of this 

 country. At all events very little evidence of it is to be discerned in 

 our architecture. Looking at the majority of the buildings which 

 have been erected of late years — and they certainly have not been 

 few in number, they must be allowed to confirm such opinion, dis- 

 agreeable and unflattering as it is in itself. If we find the styles 

 respectively aimed at, copied with passable fidelity, without any par- 

 ticularly gross violation of their principles, it is nearly the utmost that 

 can be said in their favour ; and as matters stand, such poor negative 

 merit must be received as a positive one. How very far, however, 

 it stops short of geniality, hardly needs to be said, it being sufficient 

 to remark that the latter draws out, concentrates, and heightens all 

 the good qualities of a style, and at the same time imparts to thera 

 some fresh charm, some additional unborrowed value ; and that, even 

 though the subject should be an unpromising or inconsiderable one in 

 itself. If he cannot always create favourable opportunities, a man of 

 real talent will, at least, do the very utmost that circumstances will 

 permit — will convince us that he has not satisfied himself with merely 

 turning out a decent, workman-like job, but has applied himself to 

 his task as to a labour of love, with the feeling of an artist, not of a 

 builder— not of a tradesman. Were we to believe some of those who, 

 albeit without aught of the artist in their constitution, style them- 

 selves architects, their genius would blaze forth upon the world, were 

 but sufficient opportunities afforded them. The man who cannot put 

 together two ideas — except detestable ones — for a moderate-sized 

 house, or church, would be able, nevertheless — if we choose to believe 

 him — to erect the most splendid palatial and ecclesiastical edifices. 

 John Nash was an architect of this stamp, and as it most unfortunately 

 happened, opportunities, both many and of no ordinar}' kind, were 

 thrown in his way. How he acquitted himself of them is but too well 

 known. It is to no purpose that Theodore Hook affects to consider 

 him the victim of harsh and illiberal criticism ; or that Professor 

 Brown, as he facetiously designates himself, tells us, tx callitdr<'i, I 

 sujipOse, that John was " a man possessing great taste for the grand 

 and the picturesque." For the Grand ! Surely the learned Pro- 

 fessor must be speaking sneeringly and ironically, for never did Nash, 

 on any one occasion, even approximate to the grand or the dignified 

 in architecture. Never did he get nearer to it than ITO degrees 

 E. or W. longitude of it. Still, incredible as it may appear, the 

 enlightened Professor is not joking, but intends it to be taken as his 

 serious opinion; for he elsewhere speaks of "the magnificent houses 

 along the Strand, King William Street, and the splendid houses in the 

 Bayswater Road !1 " adding, "but when •ne behold the more mag- 

 nificent columnar edifices on the east side of the Regent's Park, and 

 the crescent on the west, where the houses are crowned with octago- 

 nal domes, we stand astonished with admiration ! '. " Most undoubtedly 

 we do so, Mr. Professor Brown, for we stand absolutely " putrified" 

 with astonishment that such masses of ugliness and vulgarity should 

 ever have been erected. However, perhaps the Professor judges of 

 Nash by his own quantum and calibre of talent and taste, in which 

 case he has undoubtedly sufficient cause to look upon Nash as a very 

 great man, he himself being but a mere dwarf and pigmy by the side 

 of him, as his own designs abundantly testify. When we look upon 

 those architectural abominations and atrocities, we do indeed stand 

 astonished, but it is with the astonishment of unmitigated horror and 

 disgust. Oh, Professor Brown, Professor Brown, unlucky was the 

 day and iiour when .you dubbed yourself with that ambitious title. 

 Could 3'ou get rid of it again — but no, that is impossible; it will stick 

 to you for ever ; it will render you the laughing-stock and the by- 

 word of the profession. You cannot ini-Pro/issor yourself now, or 

 divorce yourself from the ill-sorted companion to which you have 

 married your name. Doctors' Commons won't help you. Dr. Lardner 

 will uot rim away with that "better-half" of you. Professor Brown 



