248 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[August, 



make no scruple whatever of entirely falsifying the character of 

 Grecian architecture, of running counter to all its principles, and ex- 

 punging from it all its charm and all its sentiment — all that gives it 

 effect, and all that renders it imposing and impressive. 



II. To this most unfortunate school the study of Grecian archi- 

 tecture has most assuredly not proved the torch of Prometheus. 

 Insteatl of kindling them by its flame, it has only smothered them in 

 its smoke, or its smoke has served to blind the eyes of other people. 

 Some of them may have anatomized Grecian architecture, may have 

 cut up its carcase, and descanted upon the separate limbs and members 

 with tolerable ability ; but hardly ever have they been able to tack 

 them together again, except in the most clumsy manner, and then it 

 has still been but a carcase, from which the spirit that once gave it 

 life and grace has fled, and which they are unable to revive by breath- 

 ing into it a newer spirit, an operation not to be accomplished by a 

 pair of bellows — not even by a patent Vitruvian one. 



III. In the efficacy of Vitruvian bellows, however, the Institute of 

 British Architects have, it seems, very great faith, since they have 

 thought it worth while to collect an assortment of them. Surely the 

 Institute must either have a good deal of cash to fling away, or have 

 been bitten with a strange curiosity mania, or it would never encumber 

 its bookshelves with such " venerable lumber" as the different editions 

 of Vitruvius, not one of which, probably, either has or ever will be 

 opened, except to look at its title-page and date. One would imagine 

 that the library must be most abundantly stocked with other archi- 

 tural works of every kind, because until it was so furnished, a single 

 copy of Vitruvius might be deemed sufficient ; more especially as 

 Vitruvius is not so very scarce an author but that a copy of his work 

 may be obtained any day, or even picked up at almost any book-stall. 

 Yet the Institute \\l\l have plenty of Vitruvius ; it will also have 

 nothing else — or, at any rate, very little more than Vitruvius. Cer- 

 tainly the gaps and hiatuses in its library are many and startling. It 

 does not contain even a set of Wiebeking's works ! In fact, to mention 

 what it does not contain would be to make out a list, a bulky catalogue 

 rather, of nearly all the choicest and most valuable architectural pub- 

 lications which have appeared on the continent for the last hundred 

 years, and not a few English ones besides : in short, precisely that class 

 of works which are not likely to be possessed by private individuals 

 — at least, only a very few of them — and to which, therefore, it is all 

 the more desirable and requisite that there should be access in the 

 library of that body which represents the architectural profession. 



IV. Arthur Parsey, who is labouring hard to mislead the public, has 

 lately been again advertising, and otherwise doing all that he can to 

 attract notice to his "New Science," for which he has just received 

 a tolerably hearty lashing in the Atlas, and has there been called, in 

 very plain terms, an impiident charlatan and quack. It certainly does 

 require more than ordinary mortal impudence to refer, as he has done, 

 to some of the publications which have exposed the utter absurdity 

 of his " Sciertce," and its worse than uselessness in practice — or rather 

 its actual impracticability, without even attempting to gainsay any 

 one of the objections brought against it, or to point out the miscon- 

 ceptions and prejudices, if such they be, of his opponents. And 

 although those who have contradicted him with their pens are 

 comparatively few, all the world — at least all the world of artists, 

 are decidedly opposed to him, not even a single individual having 

 adopted the Parseyan Principles of Perspective, notwithstanding 

 that six years or more have elapsed since they were first broached. 

 We all know that prejudice has frequently caused great oppo- 

 sition and mistrust at first, in the case of many inventions and 

 discoveries, that have since been universally adopted. Yet if Mr. 

 Parsey lays " the flattering unction to his soul," that such is the 

 case with regard to his own, he dupes himself far more than he 

 does anybody else. The matter is one which admits of no dispute, 

 for if his " converging perpendiculars " really do produce a more 

 faithful and therefore natural representation of objects, the great im- 

 provement attending such system would be as manifest at the very 

 first as at last, because it would, in fact, be self-evident. It is idle to 

 say that artists would still be prejudiced against it, if only because con- 



trary to their former practice, too inveterately confirmed to be all at once 

 laid aside. Their refusing to make use of the "New Knowledge" 

 could not prevent its spreading elsewhere; their refusing to open 

 their own eyes to the Parseyan " new light " could not hinder the rest 

 of the world from opening theirs and being illuminated by if. If the 

 painters — some of whom seem scarcely to pay any attention at all to 

 perspective — did not care to avail themselves of Parsey's grand dis- 

 covery, at all events the architects would hardly have failed to do so ; 

 and scene-painters would long ere this have certainly turned it to 

 account, and have astonished and delighted the public by such very 

 improved and natural mode of representation, more especially for 

 their bravura architectural vistas and compositions. However, to give 

 Parsey his due, he possesses both bronze and nerve in a most extra- 

 ordinary degree ; while every body else who understands any thing of 

 perspective laughs at it, he himself stands up undauntedly and be- 

 praises it in his own " lectures " with such rodomontade flourishes 

 as the following (copied from one of them) : — " Hail, then, the accom- 

 plishment as a British achievement, and let our native talent first reap 

 the advantages of an improved practice." Pity that talent — -native 

 and foreign alike — turns its back on Parsey, and refuses to benefit by 

 the advantages he so liberally holds to them. 



V. There is, no doubt, some very deep and mysterious meaning in 

 what must strike ordinary eyes as very ridiculous, namely the half 

 white-washed and half tawny face of the building on the West side of 

 Trafalgar Square. Is that "Union" intended as a satire upon Unions 

 generally — both political and matrimonial? The structure certainly 

 looks very much as if spliced together by a modern match-maker — a 

 fashionable specimen of the compound creature termed iVIan and Wife. 

 After all, the greater probability is, that there was neither satire nor 

 joke in the matter, but that the odd diversity of complexion in the build- 

 ing arises from the " Club " contenting themselves with compo for their 

 portion of it, while the " College " would have theirs of stone. Why, 

 then, some inquisitive folks may ask, did not the architect proceed 

 accordingly, and make the two buildings two distinct designs, instead 

 of passing them oft' for a single one dressed in a motley suit ? — A puz- 

 zling question! to which the most likely answer that can be given, is, 

 that he thought it good economy to make one design serve for both, 

 and to kill two birds with one stone. 



VI. The world has had didactic poems upon almost every subject. 

 The " Art of Cookery" has found poets to chaunt its praises and its 

 precepts, as well as the "Art of Poetry" itself; but I do not believe 

 that any poem upon architecture exists in any language ; at least I have 

 been unable to discover even the title of such production. And yet, 

 methinks, the subject is one of which very much might be made in 

 poetry. What visions of gorgeous splendour does even the very 

 name of the Alhambra conjure up 1 How awful, sublime, the eternal 

 cavern fanes of India, and the massive and many-pillared structures 

 of Egypt. Persepolis, Palmyra, Baalbec, Ionia, Greece, the Roman 

 and the Goth, all throng around the bard, and court his strain ! But 

 come, this is sheer rhapsody and frenzy, easily abated, however, by 

 a dose of — Sniirke. .So far from being inclined to patronize poems on 

 the art of architecture, many architects seem never. to have read that 

 of Horace on the Art of Poetry, from the first lines at least of which 

 they might, mulalis mutandis, learn something, as haply the following 

 paraphrase may show : — 



Should some odd painter lovely Venus dra«- 



In judge's w ig and grave costume of law ; 



Or deck some legal sage in C'ashnieie shawl, 



And feathered bonnet, how you'd stare and srjuall ! 



You'd think him mad ; and fair ones cry, " Oil dear, 



How droll ! how monstrous ! how absurd ! bow queer !" 



You'd laugh ; yet m by ? — not more absurd such dress 



Than many a '-classic" architectural mess. 



Where nought agrees — no part another matches, 



But all's made up of motley shreds and patches; 



A daw in feathers — peacock here, there goose ; 



■' Splendid but neat," magnllicent yet spruce ; 



And pert as spruce— more paltry than refined, 



"With front all foppery, and all rags behind. 



