1e4 
speaking of the execution, and therefore 
do not question the genius of the artist ; 
but tame attitude does not lie within the 
perfections of the art. The inseription 
too, does not please me. It it said, that 
the noted Sarah duchess of Marlborough, 
offered five hundred pounds in vain, tor 
an adequate eulogy of the British pro- 
totype of Buonaparte. It appears to 
me, that the simple words of common 
‘Iife, “ the great duke of Marlborough,” 
“the great duke of Bedford,” without 
addition, imply more than volumes of 
elaborate panegyric. 
From thence F proceeded to the New 
Theatre. 
architecture appears to have made such 
little progress. Sir Christopher Wren 
‘has been extolled, as having attained the 
acme of the science. Whoever has seen 
Stuart’s Athens will not believe it; at 
least if he judges by effect. The nume- 
rous spires with which he has loaded the 
town, are a barbarous mixture of two 
incongruous orders, the Grecian and 
Gothic, mm a most capricious and fan. 
tastic taste. The beauty of the spire is 
its graceiul proportion; and when rising 
above the trees of a village, or seen at a 
distance in acity, it brings the view to 
an apex, and is exceedingly pleasing. 
Its form, however, does not admit of va- 
Fiation, nor even of ornament, suffici- 
ently large to break the fine conical out- 
line. Who would think of elevating 
obelisks upon straddling stools, as con- 
sistent with good taste. St. Paul’s itself 
has nothing to recommend it but the 
dome and colonnade, to which seme per- 
gons add the pepper-boxes of the west 
front. Setting aside the dome, ali the 
other parts of St. Paul’s are frittered 
away by sub-divisions. To break it into 
two stories, was an unpardonable fault. 
The chief majesty of ancient temples, 
consists in the colonnade rising from the 
base to the cornice, in one uniform de- 
sign—one grand and consistent whole. 
St, Paul’s is ruined by wanting this grand 
encircling colonnade, which relieves the 
dead weight of wall, and brings the whole 
into one sublime yet simple character. 
I am one of those who do not like the 
triple stories of the colosseum and am- 
piutheatres. A simple single colonnade, 
with an attic, at®most, appears to me 
of far greater effect: I donot mean thus 
to applaud those scarcely perceptible. 
pilasters which jut out of modern 
wails, but a grand and bold series of fine 
three-quarter columns. I mean not to 
depreciai¢ the talents ef Sir Christopher 
Pisit of an Aniiquary to London. 
itis singular, that in London * 
{Sept. ?, 
Wren, but his taste. I have gazed with 
rapture upon the precious relics of an- 
cient Athens; but I can iook without 
emotion upon the churches of London. 
Much however is to be allowed to the 
sad necessity (though the necessity only 
of bad custom) of adapting Grecian 
buildings to the Gothic fashions of 
crosses and spires. There is no treat 
then in the churches of London. In 
other buildings, there are no less diffi- 
culties arising from the windows. In 
ancient fabrics, they form no necessary 
point of consideration. They scarcely 
appear, and often form no part of the 
plan of the work. If windows have ar- 
chitraves, they are almost infallibly 
heavy; and if they have not, they do not 
harmonize with the other parts. If they 
are either too large, or too small, they 
equally offend; and great delicacy is re= 
quisite in making the size of them, in 
order to avoid too large a unass of naked 
wall. The best view in which they ap- 
pear is, perhaps, that of descending to a 
Jascia round the building, at the bottom 
of them; and being surmounted at some 
distance from the top, by another cor- 
nice of the building, as in some modern 
Piccadilly houses. Upon the whole, 
modern house- architecture is often to 
lerably light and elegant, and of very fair 
design. An evident alteration 6f taste 
has, howeyer, recently ensued. Somer- 
set-place, a building of considerable di- 
mension, is too light in style, too pro- 
fuse in ornament: while the New Theatre 
is exactly the converse. Of late, there 
have been numerous visits to Magna 
Grecia, and they have produced splendid 
publications, The Doric is the most 
common order found in the remains of 
antiguity; and the channelled Pastan 
column, has at length appeared in Lon- 
don, and with it introduced a taste for 
the heavy. It is not remembered, that 
this heaviness is often avoided im the an- 
tigue by the structures being mostly 
hypethral, that is, without a roof. In 
the ancieut architecture, there appears 
to have been but three simple causes of 
effect consuked in the plan; first, the 
cclonnade, and then the frieze and cor- 
nice. Upon these, for exterior effect, 
those great masters seem to have mostly 
relied. The plan of the moderns has 
never been equally simplified, and there- 
fore failed of adequate effect. [tis not. 
usual among the ancients to see an ob- 
long square barn-formed building, with a 
portico in the centre of the longest side. 
In England this is perpeyual, aud seems 
te 
