Relrospective Criticism. 41 



round the hall, by way of preserving the communications for the purposes of 

 habitation. I tliink if it had been talcen only along that side of the hall 

 which faces the court, its width might have been handsome ; and it could have 

 been broken into projections upon brackets, corbels, or cantilevers, with very 

 fine rich effect, and the convenience of the communications equally main- 

 tained. The ceiling of the great dining-room was not, to my view, an agree- 

 able segment, and the statues which form the chimney-pieces are not upon an 

 agreeable level. They would seem to be part of the company, and do not 

 maintain their illustrative and decorative character. Such were the ci'owds 

 of visitors, that I had the advantage of seeing these gardens peopled ; and, as 

 at Versailles, it is a most advantageous carrying out of the fundamental 

 views of the designers of that section of gardening. I hope that the didie, 

 who is always so alive to the completion of his magnificent residence, will 

 make a grant of his notice to the termination of the architectural cascade. 

 It would double its value were it decorated by architecture and statues and 

 seats of stone, which should be so consulted in the composition of them, as 

 not only to banish the nudity of the immediate scene, but furnish decorative 

 points of view toother parts of the gardens. The old French works on this 

 style of gardening offer a great variety of materials for such a composition. The 

 great conservatory is yet without its plants. It is certainly- very hideous in its 

 forms, but surprises from its magnitude. It seems very ill built, and of very 

 inferior materials, both wood and glass. The collection of plants of so many 

 different kinds is very amusing, and they are in general very well conducted as 

 to management. The glazing by a groove in the sash-bar does seem the best 

 mode yet hit upon ; and, if I can get over the difficulty of working the panes, 

 I feel disposed to prefer it for my own houses. At Chatsworth they seem to 

 make no difficulty about it, which ought to make it appear verj' practicable, 

 especially when there is so much done there in that way. 



Alton Towers always amuses me ; and, although there is much of the ridi- 

 culous done away with, I doubt whether much of it must not be set down to 

 the category of whim and caprice, rather than to ripened or artistical taste. 

 It is one of the multitude of instances in England, and applies to the last 

 half-century, beginning at Strawberry Hill up to the very spot, how feebly 

 the subject intended to be created, or even imitated, has been understood by 

 the employer ; and how still less intensely the architect or adviser has been 

 acquainted with first principles, or brought to his work a sober feeling, or even 

 educated attention. I even require that, as in other arts, the artist or archi- 

 tect should aim at ideal beauties, cull them, and not confine himself to copv. 

 This is quite compatible with an adhesion to anj- period or style which may 

 be selected. The contrary or opposite view conducts him out of art, strictly 

 so called, and reduces him to the pedantry of an antiquarian, which must, or 

 ought to be, anything but the plan for imaginative exertion. I believe that 

 that radical, Luther, contrived to inveigle away his generation, and those that 

 have followed it, out of that expansiveness of imagination which is so indis- 

 pensable for art. The house is full of fine gorgeous furniture and pictures. 

 The galleries are too low, I thought, and not very agreeably lighted. The 

 descent to the dining-room, so far from being made into any thing fine, for 

 which a flight of steps is so admirably adapted, is quite the contrary : it is 

 rather ridiculous to see a company arriving at their dinner table a vol ctoiseau ; 

 for it is a very precipitous descent, and the circumstance of winding round 

 must destroy all the pageantry of such a proceeding. The idea of descendino- 

 from a height (but only moderately so) to a dinner table of display is calculated 

 to have a very good effect. The pattern of the dinner table, like the pattern 

 of a symmetrical flower-garden, gains by being looked over by an eye somewhat 

 more than six feet above it, rather than looked along by an eye "at the com- 

 mon height: Paul Veronese has j)ut this often in practice in his compositions. 

 The most beautiful pictorial effects, and a true realisation of the purpose and 

 sensual character of a pageant feast, are at once displayed to those senses 

 most upon the look out for thciie gratifications ; and my recollections serve 



