1841.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



297 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XXX. 



" I must have liberlv 

 AVidinl, as large a charter as the winas, 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. It is a most fortunate circumstance tliat the Croakers, and 

 Screech-owl school of philosophers, both contratUct each other, and 

 are contradicted by experience ; else we should have a most woful 

 time of it, were we to pay attention to all their notable advice in re- 

 gard to the hygehie regimen of architecture. At one time the public 

 —at least the nervous public — are scared by being told that St. James' 

 Park is the seat of malaria, and by being made to believe that Queen 

 Victoria actually dwells in the midst of pestilence, although she does 

 so only metaphorically, like all sovereigns, amid the moral malaria of 

 a court. Next come the ventilation folks, who would fain persuade 

 us that we are now all suffocating ourselves in rooms whose atmosphere 

 is incapable of supporting animal life, owing to our present defective 

 modes of construction. And indeed were the atmosphere in our houses 

 as oppressive and suffocating as their doctrines, it would be so deadly, 

 that I question if any sort of ventilation could correct it — except it were 

 the ventilation occasioned by a hearty laugh. It was certainly a very 

 great piece of presumption on the part of the Old-Londoners to pre- 

 Bume to exist, as they did, cooped up in narrow lanes and alleys, where 

 the different stories of the houses, projected over each other, so that 

 the occupiers of the garrets could Pyramus-and-ThMe with their 

 opposite neighbours. No less impertinent is it that even nowadays, 

 people will presume to fancy they can contrive to exist huddled to- 

 gether in the cabin of a steamer, in an atmosphere reeking with frowsi- 

 ness ! — and sleeping in boxes, not very much bigger than — and certainly 

 not so well aired as, an ordinary dog-kennel. Did I wish to set up a 

 fussy doctrine of my own, I should say that sea-sickness is chiefly oc- 

 casioned by the horrible agglomeration of impurity condensed between 

 the decks of a ship. Nevertheless instead of keeping quietly at home 

 in their own comfortable rooms, many people are seized every season 

 ■with a desperate fit of fidgetiness, until they can regale themselves 

 with fresh air in a steamer, and squeeze themselves into poking little 

 rooms in crowded lodging-houses, peopled from Cockney-Land, in a 

 place that looks just like a suburb of it. — Well if the Ventilation folks 

 can frighten them a bit, they may so far do good. If too, their doc- 

 trine be worth anything, an act ought to be passed making it a cogniza- 

 ble offence, for any one to get a genteel squeeze, especially if their 

 "saloons," as the newspapers call them, consist of no more than two 

 ordinary-sized upstair parlours, with a little cabin beyond them, made 

 to perform the part of Boudoir — for that 'night only'. As for that, it 

 matters very little how many or how spacious the rooms themselves 

 may be, if more persons are to be crammed and jammed into them 

 than their area can well contain ; for it is no less absurd to attempt to 

 pour a gallon into a quart mug, than a quart into a pint one. " Was 



not the squeeze, last night at 's actually insupportable ?" was a 



question once asked, and produced the following reply : "It was, in- 

 deed, tremendous, but not insupportable, since the gentlemen sup- 

 ported the ladies, and the ladies supported the gentlemen." 



II. Though th'i first has been a long one, I must give a second act to 

 the farce of Ventilation. If the Terrifiers be in the right, ought not 

 all under-ground kitchens, servants' halls and other rooms, to be strictly 

 prohibited? — or does it not matter whether the High-Life-below- 

 stairs part of the creation are suffocated or not ? We are told that 

 those whose avocations compel them to be chiefly in the open air, are 

 proportionable healthier than others; and in proof of this we are per- 

 haps referred to the striking difference between a ploughman, and a 

 weaver; — a gamekeeper ranging about the woods, and a tailor doomed 

 to sit all day upon the piece of wood called his shop-board. In all 

 such arguments the stress is laid exclusively upon the single circum- 

 stance that happens to make for it. Here, the difference is attributed 

 entirely to air, — to exercise, diet, &c., nothing. Should a tailor chance 

 to drink himself into his grave, the "Ventilators " would seize upon him 

 —not exactly after the fashion of body-snatchers, — but as an instance of 

 the deplorable consequences of the want of fresh air. Well but put 

 exercise to fresh air, and good appetite and its wherewithal, to them 

 both, and they achieve wonders. — Yet, your jolly, jovial, foxhunter 

 dies at the venerable age of forty, while some poor feeble, sickly, 

 bookworm who immureshimself almost constantly within his study, out- 

 lives another foxhunting generation, keeping among the living for four- 

 score years. — It is unnecessarv to repeat so well known an anecdote as 

 that of Fontenelle's "slow poison;" — which, by the by, is only one of 



the slow poisons which certain ingenious gentlemen have from time 

 to time invented for the laudable purpose of alarming their neigh- 

 bours. I remember once reading an awful medical invective against 

 carpets, — the general use of which was said to have rendered people 

 less healthy and long-lived than their ancestors who were unacquainted 

 with such foolish luxuries. Yet I make no question but that the Doc- 

 tor himself had his rooms carpetted, as well as his neighbours. 



III. The author of the World of London, in Blackwood's Magazine, 

 speaking of the building at the corner of Downing-street, observes 

 that it is by " Sir John Soane, of Baeotian celebrity, who, together with 

 Nash, has done so much to deprave our metropolitan taste in archi- 

 tecture, that another invasion of the Goths and Vandals were more to 

 be desired than deplored." Indeed it is truly wonderful, and not a 

 little scandalous also that two such Bseotians as Soane and Nash should 

 have obtained fat-headed patronage to the extent they did, and been 

 permitted to play their tasteless and extravagant pranks, while John 

 Bull paid the piper. Both of them were acldicted to the expensive 

 practice of experimentalizing with their buildings, constructing, pull- 

 ing down again, and reconstructing afresh, as if alterations of that kind 

 cost no more time or money than they would have done in a drawing. 

 Such was notoriously the case with Buckingham Palace, such too was 

 it with the Downing Street edifice, which after all is unfinished, and 

 doomed never to be finished, it having been commenced so Bsotianly 

 and bunglingly that it caimot possibly be continued Northwards with- 

 out either being twisted, or else projected into the street, so as to 

 extend across the foot-pavement. Tlierefore it is likely to remain as 

 long as it lasts, in statu quo, — a monument of its architect's taste, and 

 his great affection for the "scored pork" style, and likewise of his 

 extraordinary ingenuity, the entablature being most artfully contrived 

 to block up a series of raezzannie windows just behind, and separated 

 from it merely by an interval of three or four inches. It is lucky for 

 Soane that this fault has escaped the notice of his friend Gammon, 

 who has just found out what he might have discovered many years ago 

 that Soanean Gothic is very so-soish stuff. But poor little Gammon's 

 esteem for Soane, has steamed itself quite away, and is now utterly 

 evaporated. 



rV. One of the least exceptionable samples of Soane's taste is the 

 basement of the State Paper Office, St. James' Park, where he has in- 

 troduced a rather novel mode of rustication, which is at once rich and 

 sober in effect. There are also one or two other good points about 

 that building, although as a whole it is not particularly happy. It 

 appears to be no more than a private house, and even as such by no 

 means a large one. Most certainly there is nothing whatever in the 

 exterior to indicate, or even remotely suggest for what particular pur- 

 pose the building was erected. In regard to Soane's works generally, 

 it is somewhat remarkable that they have been so very little noticed 

 by foreigners, either for approbation or the contrary. The venerable 

 architect's affection or appetite for his "scored pork" was so inordi- 

 nate, that he did not scruple at times to employ that singular species 

 of decoration even internally. 



HINTS ON ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM.— Part 1. 



It is a very delicate thing to insist on primary principles, when the 

 very suggestion that a knowledge of those principles is necessary, 

 seems almost like a whisper of insult. Thus, to intrude with aa 

 alphabet for the critic, in an age when men have grown grey in criti- 

 cism, becomes scarcely pardonable ; — nay it would be almost dangerous, 

 but for the suggestive attitude the writer would assume, in pleading 

 anew those elemental truths, by which alone the critic can arrive at 

 an equitable conclusion. If therefore, out of regard perhaps for one 

 or two, (who have viewed the vision of Palladio's family with horror, 

 as if the harmless race of a Banquo had been passing in review,) I 

 draw for a httle a veil upon the past to introduce a new subject, and 

 appear on a new scene, tlie spectator must judge me mildly ; for I am 

 no literary coxcomb, pufling myself into notice, but anxious, — deeply 

 anxious, to remove some of those weeds, which entangle around to 

 choke the beautiful flowers of a still more beautiful art. 



The subject of consideration, is criticism, which, like politics, be- 

 trays many currents of opinion, and many hostile enthusiasts. 



It is right that there be enthusiasm, for without it art would slumber, 

 but it is also right that every persuasive argument be adduced, to free 

 the mind from certain prejudices, which lead the enthusiast astray; 

 and it is a commendable task, to try at turning these various currents 

 of opinion into one deep channel, the original source of which shall 

 be " truth." — This preface must suflice. I am satisfied after this at- 

 tempt at beckoning the attention towards what I would present, to 

 leave it to the reader to judge, whether I quibble merely for indefinite 



2 S 



