18-12.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



247 



speaking, belonged to the profession of architecture at all. Michael 

 Angelo was a sculptor, fiir Christopher Wren a professor of geometry; 

 and we honestly believe that much of their eminence is due to the 

 accident of their having been architectural interlopers. They brought 

 to their new occupation an unsullied taste— extensive information- 

 imagination which had never been frozen by the chill atmosphere of 

 schools— sensibility which gilded the commonest objects with the 

 rays of its own benignity, and which had communed with the chief 

 aspects of nature, and the most conspicuous objects of the moral and 

 intellectual worlds : and they poured out these accumulated treasures 

 upon their architectural creations, and moulded inanimate matter into 

 images of unspeakable beauty, and quickened it into life by the fire 

 of genius; and while in the course of nature the spirits of these great 

 men have passed away, the reflection of them still exists in their 

 works in all its primitive majesty, and still rules the minds of other 

 men — not by virtue of associations peculiar to any race or generation, 

 but by such as are common to all men in all ages, and are the insepa- 

 rable concomitants of the qualities by which they are awakened. 



There are probably few persons prepared to maintain that there is 

 any architect at the present day equal to those great masters, or that 

 the condition of architectural art is as exalted now as when they 

 flourished. The cause of this declination is, we conceive, chiefly due 

 10 the apparent paradox of architects being too solicitously educated; 

 in other words, tlieir education is in our eyes far too architectural. 

 They become thus as it were a separate caste, having few or no sym- 

 pathies with men in general, and their beauties are such as are not 

 associated in common minds with any interesting impressions. They 

 are, moreover, far too much under the influence of rules and precedent, 

 and attach too much importance to certain recipes of beauty which 

 are administered with too little reserve and discrimination. That there 

 are among architects now living men of genius we do not deny, but 

 what we complain of is, that they can on no terms be induced to (xert 

 that genius ; they are afraid of ridicule or failure, and instead of 

 producing works of real genius, which we are convinced many of them 

 could do, are content with the reputation of insipid correctness, and 

 ponderous mediocrity. This may, it is true, be a very safe policy for 

 individual practitioners, but is certainly a very spiritless one, and is 

 absolutely fatal to the progress of art ; for how can there be improve- 

 ment if there be not even adventure? Besides, this pusillanimous 

 mode of procedure reduces architecture to a mere trade — a trade, 

 ioo, of the meanest description, since it does not require even manual 

 dexterity for its exercise. It oft'ers a premium to dullness, by placing 

 stupidity and genius upon the self same terms : reduces architectural 

 proficiency to a simple acquaintance with certain lengths and breadths ; 

 and makes beauty a mere question of arithmetical computation, which 

 the artizan is quite as competent to resolve as the artist. 



One of the distinguishing features of the present age is love of 

 novelty and of powerful emotion, and if architects continue unable 

 to administer to the popular taste, other instruments will certainly be 

 •sought for. Many of the constructions which formerly belonged to 

 architecture have already passed into the province of the civil engi- 

 neer ; and it can scarcely be doubted that all those which require the 

 exertion of science rather than taste for their execution will speedily 

 follow. No one now thinks of applying to architects to build bridges, 

 or piers, or lighthouses, or anything indeed which is not to be em- 

 bellished. The architects, therefore, it would appear, have already 

 been driven from many of their strongholds : one — an impregnable 

 one — remains with them, and that is — Art. From this position no 

 power can ever drive them, so long as it is defended; but, with a sui- 

 cidal infatuation that is scarcely credible, they appear of their own 

 accord disposed to abandon it to their opponents. By art we do not 

 mean the power of multiplying Grecian constructions, or of producing 

 columns or gateways which shall be in accordance with the rule, for 

 this the engineer or any one else is perfectly able to do ; but we mean 

 the invention of new modes of decoration and distribution answerable to 

 particular purposes, or such a combination of old modes as will constitute 

 in reality a new invention. Except in cases where this is done, the 

 intervention of an architect is altogether superfluous, and if old designs 



are only repeated, or repeated with some insignificant modification, ar- 

 chitects will cease to be employed ; and builders will engage to proiluce 

 churches or mansions, as ship-builders now produce ships, or engineers 

 steam engines. It appears to us, therefore, to be of the last import- 

 ance to architects to cultivate assiduously the art of decorative design; 

 not after the formal and prescriptive manner they have observed 

 hitherto, but by means calculated to promote the progress of art, and 

 to awaken the sympathies of the community. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XXXIX. 



" I must have liber'.y 

 Withal, as large a charter as the wnJs, 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. HoWEVKR bad a system of things may be— however flagrant and 

 notorious its abuses— there are always some who are interested in 

 supporting it, and who accordingly set their faces against any reforms 

 in it. Little, therefore, is it to be wondered at that there should be 

 architects who decry competition, and who would fain keep up the 

 old system of architectural monopoly and favouritism, which worked 

 so well for them and their predecessors, and under which they Jlourislied 



in many cases with the very minimum of talent, the system itself 



being calculated to suppress all superior talent, by aflbrding it neither 

 chance nor opportunity. Fortunately that system has been somewhat 

 broken down of late years, and the consequence is that some of the 

 "mighty ones" have been thrown into the background and the shade; 

 and now when we look at their works, it is with wonder and regret- 

 wonder how they could have obtained the imposing reputation tliey 

 did at the time, regret that so many of the fairest opportunities- 

 opportunities not likely to occur again, unless the buildings erected 

 by them happen to be destroyed by fire— should have been recklessly- 

 flung away upon them. That competition has its evils and abuses is. 

 not denied ; highly desirable, therefore, is it— not to get rid of com- 

 petition itself, but— to check and reform the abuses now tolerated in 

 it. Let us, however, look also at the blessings of monopoly and non- 

 competition, before we decide which of the two systems works the 

 best for the art itself, and for the public. In the metropolis alone 

 there has fallen to the share of one monopolist— of one who may well 

 be said to have been unrivalled in his profession, for the very sufficient 

 reason that no rivals have been suft'ered to approach him— opportunity 

 after opportunity, many of which might be called splendid ones. To 

 that individual alone is the metropolis indebted for the followin>j 

 most distinguished architectural ornaments of it, viz. :—Coveut Garden 

 Theatre, the Mint, Post Office, British Museum, new centre of the 

 Custom House and its "Long Room," College of Phy>iciaus and 

 Union Clubhouse, St. Mary's Church, Wyndhara Place, tlie Library 

 and other buildings in theTemple, King's College (Somerset Place), 

 and the Conservative Clubhouse, besides some others of less note and 

 less importance. With the exception of the first-mentioned— and 

 even that is in very equivocal taste— the rest are little better than so- 

 many architectural blanks. When you have said that their columns 

 and antffi are, as far as they and their capitals go, accurate copies 

 from one or two well-known and now rather hackneyed Grecian exam- 

 ples of such members, vou have summed up all the merits of the great 

 or we might say the big architect of the big edifices above eimme- 

 rated. Pity, great pity '. that he could not keep the secret of his vast 

 genius and exquisite taste entirely to himself. How many works of 

 pretending duUness and pompous insipidity might we have escaped, 

 had he not met with his copyists in Foulston and others, who have 

 covered the land with their soi-disant classical structures, with their 

 mockerv of Grecian porticos stuck on to buildings that in every other 

 respect"are of the most John Uuhish physiognomy. Most strange it 

 is that with all its rigid punctilio, its servile and superstitious reve- 

 rence for classical models and precedents, the followers of this school 



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