216 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[July, 



in consequence of the turn the affairs of the Company have taken, 

 the pubHc has lost all confidence in it ; and that it appears to the pro- 

 prietary that the only way of restoring confidence, as well as of 

 promoting the general interests of the Company, is to request the 

 directors to resign ; and that with the view of preventing any obstruc- 

 tion to the effectual introduction of a better system, and of giving the 

 public confidence in the reality of its introduction, as well as of 

 advancing the interests of the Company, it is desired that the resig- 

 nation of the directors sliouhi be accompanied by the resignation of 

 all the subordinate officials.'" As men of character and station— 

 which the directors are— they could not refuse to comply with such a 

 requisition ; and the Augean stable being fairly swept, let the affairs 

 be put into the hands of the most circumspect, experienced, and ener- 

 getic persons that can be pitched upon. There may be among the Com- 

 pany's officials one or two persons whom it might be expedient to 

 retain ; but no exception should be made on their account. A complete 

 clearance is indispensable to success, and should it be thought expe- 

 dient, after the new system has been established, to re-elect those 

 persons, it can easily be done, and would then be unproductive of 

 detriment. It is necessary to contemplate the substitution of smaller 

 vessels for some of those at present plying; but this question and all 

 others are comprehended in the fundamental one of efficient manage- 

 ment. 



In conclusion, we desire to repeat, that for the directors individually 

 we entertain the most unmingled respect; we reverence thera as 

 English merchants and as English gentlemen, and we do not believe 

 there is one among them whose high character and general commer- 

 cial capacity are not universally appreciated and acknowledged. But 

 in their collective character, as the executive of a great enterprise in 

 steam navigation, they are only eminent for their egotistical perver- 

 sity, and their utter destitution of every qualification indispensable to 

 the exercise of so arduous a function; and we cannot but esteem it 

 unfortunate for their fame, as well as injurious to their fortunes, that 

 they ever assumed a direction of that technical and particular species 

 which their other avocations must have rendered inconvenient, and 

 for which their past pursuits have never rendered them fit. To ma- 

 nage steam enterprises properly requires much skill ; that skill is only 

 to be obtained by experience, and such experience the directors have 

 never had. They may, perhaps, have relied for this upon their offi- 

 cials, but such reliance is not a proper one; for what is it but having 

 directors with directors over them? Besides, not one of these same 

 officials has ever had any experience in the conduct of commercial 

 steam navigation upon the large scale, and they are, for the most part, 

 far too theoretical and enthusiastic, to be safe guides or discreet 

 advisers. It is true, time and experience might cure these failings, 

 and in time, too, the directors might acquire sufficient knowledge and 

 discretion to enable them to govern as they ought. But the Company 

 would be ruined in the interim, and by the time these gentlemen had 

 become proficients, there would cease to be a field for tlie display of 

 their attainments. The particular management ought to be confided 

 to two or three managing directors, who should be paid well for their 

 services, and who should do nothing else. The board of directors 

 should confine itself to the regulation of matters of finance— to the 

 determination of measures of general policy— and to seeing that the 

 man-aging directors did their duty. That there will probably be some 

 difficulty in getting persons competent to fill the office of managing 

 directors is undeniable, for talent such as that office requires is not 

 likely to be unengaged ; yet that eligible persons may be obtained 

 we are perfectly convinced, and no sacrifice should be thought too 

 great to obtain such auxiliaries, the very existence of the company 

 being contingent upon its skilful management. 



Let the proprietary then weigh well, proceed resolutely and act 

 promptly. To attempt to disguise their present position would be 

 idle— to shut their eyes to it, insane. We do not think their affairs 

 irretrievable— nay, further, we are of opinion, that under proper ma- 

 nagement, this enterprise might become as flourishing and lucrative 

 as it is now disastrous and alarming. But this consummation is neither 

 accomplishable by the same measures nor the same men ; and the 



sooner new men and measures are chosen, the less dangerous will be 

 the wound and the less difficult the cure. The proprietary have two 

 courses before them ; if they adopt the one they will continue unper- 

 plexed and become prosperous— if they persevere in the other they 

 will very soon find themselves embarrassed, impoverished, and 

 undone. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XXXVIII. 



" I must have liberty 

 ■Witlml, as kirge a charier as the winds, 

 To blow on whom I please." 



L If Michael Angelo was, as some have called him, a giant in archi- 

 tecture, he was also a barbarian in it. Many of his buildings are little 

 better than stupendous pnerihties; and all of them abound, more or 

 less, with vices that would hardly be tolerated in any one else. Well 

 may Vasari call his St. Peter's " una fabrica lerribilissima," it being 

 literally terrible enough in many respects. Memmo has pointed out 

 in his "Elementi d'Architettura," many egregious solecisms in the 

 works both of Michael Angelo and Palladio, and he might have ex- 

 tended the list of them to a much greater length. In regard to the 

 latter, it is, indeed, astonishing that people— or at least some people 

 — should continue to repeat the praises bestowed upon him a hundred 

 years ago, for hardly can it be averred that he now stands in the same 

 relative position he then did. It is also extraordinary that, while 

 Palladio's name has become a metonym for excellence in art, that of 

 Alessi should be comparatively obscure and seldom mentioned at all, 

 notwithstanding that in comparison with him, the other is, at the best, 

 tame and insipid. It is to Alessi that Genoa is mainly indebted for 

 its title of La Superba, and for the stately and picturesque character 

 of its palazzo facades. He has been as much undervalued as his Vi- 

 centine contemporary has been overrated. Even his name is not to be 

 found in every biographical dictionary ; nor, horresco refemis, does 

 Woods mention him at all in his " Letters of an Architect," although 

 he says that Genoa may justly be proud of its palaces, which, by the 

 bye, is all that he says about them .' 



II. A German periodical on the Fine Arts speaks of a house now 

 nearly completed at Paris, for the banker Hope, which is somewhat 

 larger than the Louvre, and when finished and furnished will cost 

 about thirteen million francs I or upwards of half a million sterling! 

 Is this a "Munchausen"? if not, how happens it that no rumour 

 relative to such an architectural undertaking has found its way into 

 any English journal ? Had it been a new bonnet instead of a new 

 Louvre, the pattern of it would have been in London in the course of 

 four-and-twenty hours. This, however, is not the only instance of our 

 extreme tardiness in obtaining information relative to what is going 

 on in architecture upon the continent ; and about which just as much 

 is known as about the current literature of the continent. For 

 the last twenty years our Anglo-German critics have been pester- 

 ing us with Schiller and Goethe, Goethe and Schiller, and have gone 

 on Schillering and Goetheing, and Goetheing and Schillering, as if all 

 the rest of the literature were a mere blank. It is pretty much after 

 the same fashion that those who speak of buildings at all, repeat the 

 same cuckoo strain, to the tune of Parthenon and Pantheon, Pantheon 

 and Parthenon, Vitruvius and Palladio, Palladio and Vitruvius, till 

 we sicken of the very mention of them. Who is Cagnola ? asks one ; 

 and, who is Canonica ? who is Gartner ? who is Langhans ? who is 

 Rossi? who is Thon? who is Ottmer? are all questions in turn. 

 Truly, there is as yet no railroad for architectural intelligence ; it 

 travels as slowly and as crawlingly as an old Yorkshire stage wagon. 

 Perhaps at the end of the century, something will be known here of 

 what has been going on in architecture upon the continent, during the 

 two last decenniums. 



in. "It notunfrequently happens that those who derive their know- 

 ledge from books are far better acquainted with things or objects than 



