404 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[December, 



spcct could dictate or wealth supply, to alter the edifice one jot more tliau 

 was requisite to lend renewed durability to its antique beauty, nor to heap 

 upon a Christian church a too meretricious adornment. On the one hand, 

 then, we were gratified atlindingthe design of the building a little changed- 

 and that, even in details, the alterations were not only in the way of reno- 

 vation, but principally, in the strictest sense, of restoration. The church is 

 a noble exemplification of the unquestionable, but often forgotten truth, that 

 the true sublime depends not upon size ; and, that simplicity is, after all, a 

 main element, alike in the beautiful and the grand. Nothing can be more 

 simple, yet nothing more truly imposing — striking with a sense of blended 

 grace and grandeur, than the interior architecture; the two rows of dark- 

 coloured marble, rising in slender yet stately beauty like trunks of lofty 

 trees, while the equally simple yet surpassingly lovely tracery of the arches 

 whii'li from their summits realize an enduring embodiment of the artless in- 

 terlacing and the overhanging foliage of a noble grove. The round church 

 at the entrance is spacious, and, opening into the body of the building, af- 

 fords an unobstructed view right through to the chancel, over which and 

 nearly along the whole breadth of tliat end are seen splendid painted win- 

 dows, the colours of which, bright in pristine beauty, are certainly as bril- 

 liant and as beautiful as any we remember to have seen — blending in softened 

 hues the glowing purple or the milder violet, " the cloudy crimson or the 

 misty blue;" through which streams "the dim religious light," admirably har- 

 monizing with the restored colours of the roof, which, with the more sub- 

 dued tints of the side windows, give an air of warmth and repose to the 

 edifice quite in keeping with the general tone of its Gothic architecture. 

 The continuity of view, so essential to the sense of grandeur, is not broken 

 by any obstruction, the organ being in a side recess; the pulpit and reading 

 desk masked in the line of pillars on each side (though in the best positions 

 for audibility) ; and the interior as little as possible broken up for purposes 

 •f seats — there being no pews, properly so called ; the students' benches in 

 the centre and stalls at the sides — so that the general impression, at first 

 sight, is that of chaste and simple beauty, and every subsequent view serves 

 to deepen the feeling of the softened harmony that pervades the whole, 

 while over all 



" the spirit of the gray old time 



" Still breathes around the fane an awe sublime," — 



though no longer, from " the shining mail and banners free " of its early 

 oceujjants " flashes the light of ancient chivalry." Everything, indeed, 

 throughout the interior manifests a just appreciation and a constant feeling 

 of the sacred character of a church ; this is equally apparent in the studious 

 abstinence from all inappropriate adornments, and in a careful attention to 

 all Ihe important accompaniments of service, as is exemplified in the liberal 

 supply of prayer-books and bibles. The benchers have been evidently guided 

 tb.'-oughout by a desire to adopt the just medium between a meretricious 

 magnificence, out of keeping with the character of a church, and a cold cor- 

 recmes;, equally at variauce with the majestic style of the architecture. Their 

 aim has been to make all adornments harmonize with the spirit of the an- 

 cient design, an allusion to which was not inappropriately made by the 

 Master of the Temple when referring, at the close of his sermon, to the 

 restoration of the building. He deprecated (while applauding the homage 

 paid by wealth to religion) a departure, in the decoration of such ancient 

 churches, from the beautiful simplicity of their general design, which (be 

 observed) in this case eminently exemplified how much better our ancestors 

 understood the character of sacred architecture than their descendants; 

 there should, he said, be nothing in the way of ornament calculated to at- 

 tract attention too particularly to itself; while, on the other hand, there 

 •ought to be a general tone in harmony with the grand beauty of a Gothic 

 idifice. Assuredly, the architecture of such buildings was the design of 

 those who " dreamt not of a perishable home " — who felt that " feelings 

 which from Heaven are shed" naturally ally themselves to sympathies of 

 kindred, though perchance of subordinate nature; — and that while man is 

 influenced by the spirit breathed into his "inner senses" through the 

 medium of external objects, it might he well to enlist these influences on the 

 side of the sacred and the eternal ; and if in some sort a superstitious spirit, 

 impelled by a naturrl and not improper ardour for the heaping on religion 

 all iu;.-igiiiahle honour, induced them to transgress the legitimate Imiits, and 

 lose the distinction, severing the subordinate from the superior, theirs was 

 an error into which, perhaps, there is less danger of our falling than that 

 contrary one, of imagining (in the words of an eloquent living preacher) 

 " that in religion, more than in other cases, men can be entirely independent 

 of associations ;" — of supposing (as said Robest Hall) " that there need be 



no very great diftereuce between a temple dedicated to the Most High and a 

 common building"— t!:e mistake of thinking that it can be wrong to invest 

 the " outward and visible " appliances of religious worship with as much of 

 .ittraction as is consistent with a due sense of the distinction so justly 

 pointed out by the .Master of the Temple, who remarked that there was 

 nothing arouml him wliich coidd have the effect of diverting attention from 

 the object and design of edifices so sacred ; and though, indeed, it might be 

 that to strangers accustomed to churches of humlder architecture, there 

 might be something at first view exceedingly splendid in the aspect of the 

 interior, the efl'ect of a very little famiharity would be a feeling of entire ap- 

 propriateness, consistency, aiul harmony — 



" The arch and architrave divinely grand ; 

 " The fairy fretwork of the cunning hand ; 

 " The harmony of stone, the coloured light 

 " That gleams through rainbow windows dimly bright — 

 " How can we gaze, nor turn from earth to heaven, 

 " As though some finer sense were newly given .'" 

 You felt that there was nothing in all you saw about you to detract from, 

 rather to enhance, the feelings of devotion ; that it was something, at all 

 events, if not all, to have thus ministered amid 

 " The sanctities combined 

 " By art to unseusualize the mind," 

 incitements tending " to raise the heart and lead the will by a bright ladder 

 to the world above;" and while listening to the " pealing organ " and 

 the "solemn chant" of the cathedral service (conducted, as it was, in a 

 manner so subdued and so chastened as to be enough to silence for ever the 

 cold and shallow stigmatizers of such chanting, as necessarily savouring in 

 any degree of aught save the harmonious and the hallowed,) its music 

 seemed " lingering and wandering" (in Wordsworth's lovely language^ — 

 " Like thoughts, whose very sweetness yielded proof 

 " That they were born for immortality." 

 You felt that these were influences calculated " not to divert, but to inspire;" 

 that they served " without oftence, to aught of highest, holiest influence " 

 (still borrowing from the great poet of our age), but to " recall ihe wan- 

 dering soul to sympathize with what man hopes from Heaven ;" and to pro- 

 duce impressions perfectly consistent with the beautiful liturgy (admirably 

 read,) and with the impressive and able discourse of the JIaster, which we 

 should be desirous of describing from memory, did not respect, alike for the 

 preacher and his theme, forbid us. 



For ourselves, in the feelings which pervaded our mind at the close of 

 this first, in (we trust) the long uninterrupted succession of future services 

 in this noble church, where mingled gratitude to the benchers of these so- 

 cieties whose funds they have with so much munificence expended in this 

 highest of all objects; and gratitude, more remote in its application, to the 

 founders of those ancient institutions, which thus act as conservators of so 

 much that is valuable and venerable, and whose powers are so worthily ap- 

 plied to the employment of wealth in a manner calculated, beyond the more 

 immediate results of their liberality in the renovation of a building which is 

 their noblest heritage, to afford an example worthy of every possible imi- 

 tation in the restoration of similar memorials of ages assuredly nobler in 

 their religious foundations, though not so orthodox in their religious faith 

 as is our own ; in preserving (that is) all that is valuable in legacies of the 

 past, for purposes most sacred and most important to the present. And if 

 the mind coidd not altogether exclude the recollections of those misguided 

 warriors, whose name and whose memory vet linger on the spot which cen- 

 turies ago their stern enthusiasm hallowed, it was not, perhaps, an unfounded 

 idea that as from their church uothing has been removed that was at all 

 necessary to the simple harmony of its majestic design, so amid the more 

 peaceful fraternities that have succeeded them their virtues have not been 

 discarded along with the alloy of their superstition ; hut that, with a more 

 enlightened liberality, there survives among the modern Templars all the 

 high and honourable feehng (without its accompanying delusions) which for 

 the most part characterized the Templars of old. — Times. 



Nni/iil SIcam Nanj.—k h;uidsninp anil powerful steam-vessel is ordereil to 

 be hiiilt, anil named the " Trident," and it is probable she will be constructed 

 for the sole use of Her Majesty. The vessel is expected io be ready for 

 launching at an early period next season. The Trident will be equal, if not 

 of l.irger dimensions, to the Dcrastiil'wii, and will be fitted with the compact 

 and superior [engines invented by Messrs. Jlau'lslays and Field. The port 

 at whieli she will be built is not yet knou n, but Pembroke has been named 

 as the most likely place, the slips in the other dockyards suitable for building 

 her being already appropriated for other vessels. 



