27G 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[August, 



Gothic furniture and Gothic pattern?, in the true Brummagem gusto ; 

 illustrating some of these mongrel monsters by specimens in his en- 

 gravings and cuts, — among the rest, of a "New SheflBeld pattern for a 

 modern Castellated Grate ."' 



" Modern grates," he observes, " are not unfreqnently made to represent 

 diminutive fronts of castellated or ecclesiastical buildings with turrets, loop- 

 holes, windows, and doorways, all in a space of forty inches. 



" The fender is a sort of embattled parapet, with a loiige-gate at each end ; 

 the end of the poker is a sbar]) pointed finial ; and at the summit of the tongs 

 is a saint. It is impossible to enumerate half the alisurdities of modern me- 

 tal-workers ; but all these proceed from the false notion of disguisiiuj instead 

 of lieautifying articles of utility. How many objects of ordinary use are ren- 

 dered monstrous and ridiculous simply because the artist, instead of seeking 

 the most convetiinit form, and then decorating it, lias embodied some extra- 

 vagance to conceal the real purpose for which the article has been made .' If 

 a clock is required, it is not unusual to cast a Koman warrior in a flying 

 chariot, round one of the wheels of winch, on close inspection, the hours may 

 be descried ; or the whole front of a cathedral church reduced to a few inches 

 in height, with the clock-face occupying the position of a magnificent rose 

 ■window. Surely the inventor of this patent clock-case could never have re- 

 flected that according to the scale on w Inch the edifice was reduced, his clock 

 •would be about two hundred feet in circumference, and that such a monster 

 of a dial would crush the proportions of almost any building that could be 

 raised. But this is nothing when compared to what we see continually pro- 

 duced from those inexhaustible mines of bad taste, Birmingham and Sheffield ; 

 staircase turrets for inkstands, monumental crosses for light-shades, gable 

 ends hung on handles for door-porters, (?) and four doorways and a cluster of 

 pillars to support a French lamp ; while a pair of pinnacles supporting an arch 

 is called a Gothic-pattern scraper, and a wiry compound of quatrefoils and 

 fan tracery an abbey garden seat. Neither relative scale, form, purpose, nor 

 unity of style, is ever considered by those who design these abominations ; if 

 they only introduce a quatrefoil or an acute arch, be the outline and style of 

 the article ever so modern and debased, it is at once denominated and sold as 

 Gothic. 



" While I am on this topic it may not be amiss to mention some other ab- 

 surdities which may not be out of place, although they do not belong to me- 

 tal-work. I will commence with what are termed Gothic-pattern papers, for 

 hanging walls, where a wretched caricature of a pointed building is repeated 

 from the skirting to the cornice in glorious confusion, — door over pinnacle, 

 and pinnacle over door. This is a great favourite with hotel and tavern 

 keepers. Again, those papers which are shaded are defective in principle ; 

 for, as a paper is hung round a room, the ornament must frequently be shadowed 

 on the light side. 



" The variety of these miserable patterns is quite surprising ; and as the 

 expense of cutting a block for a bad figure is equal if not greater than for a 

 good one, there is not the shadow of an excuse for their continual reproduc- 

 tion. A moment's reflection must show the extreme absurdity of repeating a 

 perspective over a large surface with some hundred differeut points of sight : 

 a panel or wall may be enriched and decorated at pleasure, but it should 

 always be treated in a consistent manner." 



These cavalier censures will hardly obtain for Mr. Piigin the good- 

 word of the honourable company of Paper-Stainers and Paper-Daubers. 

 It may reduce the value of their stock on hand, and also of that of the 

 Sheffield and Brummagem artists, at least 75 per cent. ; but let them and 

 Messieurs the upholsterers plaister up their pique with the comfort- 

 able reflection that, as many people will now be ashamed of their 

 trumpery Gothicizijigs, and proceed to get rid of them as fast as they 

 can, they must have their rooms refurnished, — which will, of course, 

 be all for the benefit of trade. 



In his second lecture he again touches upon the subject of furniture, 

 and has another slap at the Upholsterers ; who 



" Seem to think that nothing can be Gothic unless it is found in some 

 church. Hence your modern man designs a sofa or occasional table from de- 

 tails culled out of Britton's Cathedrals, and all the ordinary articles of furni- 

 ture, which require to be simple and convenient, are made not only very ex- 

 pensive but very uneasy. We find diminutive flying buttresses about an arm 

 chair ; every thing is crocketed with angular projections, innumerable mitres, 

 sharp ornaments, and turreted extremities. A man who remains any length 

 of time in a modern Gothic room, and escapes without being wounded by 

 some of its minntia", may consider himself extremely fortunate. There are 

 often as many pinnacles and gablets about a pier-glass frame as arc to be 

 found in an ordinarv- church, and not unfrequently the whole canopy of a 

 tomb has been transferred for the p\irposc, as at Strawberry Hill. I have 

 perpetrated many of these enormities in the furniture I designed some years 

 ago for Windsor Castle. At that time I had not the least idea of the princi- 

 ples I am now explaining ; all my knowledge of Pointed Architecture was 

 confined to a tolerably good notion of details in the abstract ; but these I 

 employed with so little judgment or propriety, that, although the parts were 

 correct and exceedingly well executed, collectively they appeared a complete 

 burlesque of pointed design." 



This last confession is highly creditable to Mr. Pugin. Such a frank 

 avowal of his own artistical delinquencies, speaks much in his favour. 



and shows that if he is severe towards others, he cannot be reproached 

 with being over-indulg''nt towards himself. At the same time we 

 must say that if the censures he levels against architects and their 

 employers be for the most part well merited, they are occasionally too 

 sweeping and overstrained. His objections, for instance, against the 

 application of the Italian style, to domestic architecture in this coun- 

 try, amount to little more than a sophistical tirade. "What," he asks, 

 " does an Italian house do in England ?" Which question put forth 

 by him as an unanswerable one, might be turned against the cause he 

 himself advocates; for just as well might it be asked, on the other 

 hand, why should a house erected in the reign of Queen Victoria, be 

 made to resemble one built in the time of Edward IV., or, Henry VII. 

 or VIII? Why should a Protestant church of the I9th century be in 

 any respect modelled like a Roman Catholic one of the 14th or 15th I 

 Is not the Italian style to the full as applicable to our actual wants and 

 purposes in the majority of cases, as any mode borrowed — for borrowed 

 after all it must be — from examples to be found, indeed, in our own 

 country, but belonging to periods more dissimilar from, than in aught 

 resembling the present one? Nominally Italian as to design, are not 

 Barry's two Club-houses in Pall Mall, perfectly English in their accom- 

 modation? W^e could easily extend this list of questions ; but until 

 they are answered they will answer for the present occasion. Even 

 our ancestors themselves were addicted to change : they endeavoured 

 to make their buildings keep pace with the progress of social im- 

 provement and the spirit of the times. Nay, mutatis mutandis, what 

 Mr. Pugin himself urges against the castellated style might in some 

 degree be objected to some other styles of much later date. 



" What can be more absurd than houses built in what is termed the cas- 

 tellated style ? Castellated architecture originated in the wants consequent 

 on a certain state of society : of course the necessity of great strength, and 

 the means of defence suited to the military tactics of the day, dictated to the 

 builders of ancient castles the most appropriate style for their construction. 

 Viewed as historical monuments, they are of surprising interest, but as models 

 for our imitation they are worse than useless. What absurdities, what ano- 

 malies, what utter contfadictions do not the budders of modern castles per- 

 petrate ! How many portcullises which will not lower down, and drawbridges 

 which will not draw up ! — how many loop-holes in turrets so small that the 

 most diminutive sweep could not ascend them I — On one side of the house 

 machicolated parapets, embrasures, bastions, and all the show of strong de- 

 fence, and round the corner of the building a conservatorj- leading to the 

 principal rooms, through which a whole company of horsemen might pene- 

 trate at one smash into the very heart of the mansion ! — for who would 

 hammer against naded portals when he could kick his way through the green- 

 house ? In buildings of this sort, so far from the turrets being erected for 

 any particular purpose, it is difficult to assign any destination to them after 

 they are erected, and those which are not made into chimneys seldom get 

 other occupants than the rooks. But the exterior is not the least inconsistent 

 portion of the edifices, for we find guard-rooms without either weapons or 

 guards ; sally-jjorts, out of which nobody passes but the servants, and where 

 a military man never did go out; donjon keeps, which are nothing but draw, 

 ing-rooms, boudoirs, and elegant apartments ; watch-towers, where the 

 housemaids sleep, and a bastion in which the butler cleans his plate : all is a 

 mere mask, and the whole building an ill-conceived lie." 



We would give a trifle to know what is Mr. Pugin's opinion of 

 Windsor Castle; — in fact we should very much like to see a volume 

 of comments from his pen relative to some of the principal modem 

 Gothic structures he has examined in various parts of the country. 

 We do not imagine that he is perfectly satisfied w ith any one of them 

 — not even with Windsor itself; still, they cannot ail be equally bad: 

 some must possess more or less merit in particular parts, or i Ise be 

 conspicuous for egregious sins and defects ; and at any rate, we should 

 then obtain something in the shape of specific criticism from Mr. Pugin, 

 instead of those generalized observations to which he has hitherto 

 chiefly confined himself. In the meanwhile, we thank him for the pre- 

 sent work, from which much profitable instruction is to be obtained. 

 Considerable praise is also due to the publisher, for the truly elegant 

 manner in which the volume is got up, so as to render it one well fitted 

 not only for the library, but the drawing-room and boudoir; nor is it 

 deficient in the popular recommendation of being unusually cheap. 



History of Belvoir Castle, from the Norman Conquest to tie Nineteenth 

 Century ; roilh a Description of the Present Castle, and Critical 

 Notices, and the Panitings, ^c. ^c. By the Rev. Irvin Eller, of 

 Queen's College, Cambridge. 8vo. London, 184 1. 



We shall confine ourselves to the latter half of this volume, namely, 

 the description of the Castle itself and its apartments, as being that 

 which more properly comes under our cognizance, and which is most 

 to our individual taste. From the first or historical part we content 



