contemplated. As a wit, he was inferior to none that levelled its shafts at him, and hen his novel compositions in architecture became among the professed critics of the day: much the more an object of derision, as, in their puny notions, his only assailable poin Attacked from party feeling, the public allowed itself to be biassed by epigrams and sma verses from the pens of Pope and Swift; and when the former, in his fourth epistle, in all sion to Vanbrugh's works, exclaims,—

"Lo! what huge heaps of littleness around,
The whole a laboured quarry above ground,"

he little thought he was leaving to posterity a record of his consummate ignorance of ar and of his total insensibility to grandeur, in all that relates to composition in architecture. 492. The opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds first enlightened the public upon the thithert condemned works of this extraordinary architect. "I pretend," says Reynolds, in his fift discourse," to no skill in architecture. I judge now of the art merely as a painter. Whet I speak of Vanbrugh, I speak of him merely on our art. To speak, then, of Vanbrugl in the language of a painter, he had originality of invention, he understood light and shadow, and had great skill in composition. To support his principal object, he produced his second and third groups of masses; he perfectly understood in his art what is most difficult in ours, the conduct of the backgrounds by which the design and invention is (are) set off to the greatest advantage. What the background is in painting is the real ground upon which the building is erected; and as no architect took greater care that his work should not appear crude and hard, that is, that it did not abruptly start out of the ground, without expectation or preparation, this is the tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composes like a painter." The testimony of Mr. Payne Knight, a person of a taste highly refined and cultivated, in his Principles of Taste, is another eulogium on the works of this master. And again we have the concurrence therein of another able writer on these subjects, who, though frequently at variance in opinion with Mr. Knight, thus expresses himself in his Essay on the Picturesque, vol. ii. p. 211.: "Sir J. Reynolds is, I believe, the first who has done justice to the architecture of Vanbrugh, by showing it was not a mere fantastic style, without any other object than that of singularity, but that he worked on the principles of painting, and that he has produced the most painter-like effects. It is very probable that the ridicule thrown on Vanbrugh's buildings, by some of the wittiest men of the age he lived in, may have in no slight degree prevented his excellencies from being attended to; for what has been the subject of ridicule will seldom become the object of study or imitation. It appears to me, that at Blenheim, Vanbrugh conceived and executed a very bold and difficult design, that of uniting in one building the beauty and magnificence of the Grecian architecture, the picturesqueness of the Gothic, and the massive grandeur of a castle; and that, in spite of many faults, for which he was very justly reproached, he has formed, in a style truly his own, and a well-combined whole, a mansion worthy of a great prince and warrior. "His first point appears to have been massiveness, as the foundation of grandeur: then, to prevent the mass from being a lump, he has made

rious bold projections of various heights, which seem as foregrounds to the main building; and, lastly, having been probably struck with a variety of outline against the sky in many Gothic and other ancient buildings, he has raised on the top of that part where the danting roof begins in any house of the Italian style, a number of decorations of various characters. These, if not new in themselves, have, at least, been applied and combined by him in a new and peculiar manner, and the union of them gives a surprising splendour and magnificence, as well as variety, to the summit of that princely edifice. The study, therefore, not the imitation, might be extremely serviceable to artists of genius and dis

cernment,"

493. Vanbrugh's principal work was Blenheim (whereof we give, in figs. 215. and 216.,

the plan and principal elevation), a monument of the victories of Marlborough raised by a grateful nation. Its length on the north front from one wing to the other is 348 ft. The internal dimensions of the library are 130 by 32 ft. The hall is perhaps small compared with the apartments to which it leads, being only 53 ft. by 44. and 60 ft. high.

494. The execution of his design for Castle Howard, in Yorkshire, was commenced in 1702, and, with the exception of the west wing, was completed by him. The design possesses much greater simplicity than that of Blenheim. There is a portico in the centre, and a cupola of considerable height and magnitude. The galleries, or wings, are flanked by pavilions. The living apartments are small; but for the comfort and convenience of the house, as an habitation, many improvements have been made since the time of Vanbrugh 495. At Eastbury, in Dorsetshire, he built a spacious mansion for Mr. Doddington. The front of it, with the offices, extended 370 ft. We regret to say that it was taken down by the first Earl Temple, about the middle of the last century.

496. King's Weston, near Bristol, erected for the Honourable Edward Southwell. A beautiful feature in the house is the grouping of the chimneys, in which practice no artist has surpassed, nor perhaps equalled, him. This house is not, however, a favourable specimen of our architect's powers.

497. In the front which he executed to Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, he indulged himself in an imitation of Blenheim and Castle Howard. The hall here is of noble dimensions, being 110 ft. in length, and 40 ft. in height, surmounted by a cupola.

498. Charles Howard, the third Earl of Carlisle, Deputy Earl Marshal in 1703, appointed Vanbrugh, Clarenceux king of arms, over the heads of all the heralds, who remonstrated, without effect, against the appointment. The cause of such an extraordinary promotion is supposed to have had its origin in the Earl's satisfaction with the works at Castle Howard. It was, however, altogether unjustifiable, for Vanbrugh was, from all accounts, totally ignorant of heraldry. He held the situations of surveyor of the works at Greenwich Hospital, comptroller general of the works, and surveyor of the gardens and waters. Though perhaps out of place in a history of architecture, we cannot resist the opportunity of mentioning that our artist was a dramatist of genius. The Relapse, The Provoked Wife, The Confederacy, and Æsop, according to Walpole, will outlast his edifices. He died at Whitehall, March 26. 1726. Vanbrugh can hardly be said to have left a legitimate follower; he formed no school. Archer, indeed, attempted to follow him, and seems the only one of his time that could appreciate the merit of his master. But he was too far behind him to justify our pausing in the history of the progress of British architecture to say more than that his best works are Heythrop, and a temple at Wrest. St. Philip's Church at Birmingham is also by him. "A chef d'œuvre of his absurdity," says Dallaway, "was the church of St. John's, Westminster, with four belfries," a building which has not inaptly been likened to an elephant on his back, with his four legs sprawling in the air.

SECT. VIII.

GEORGE 1.

499. Though the example of Wren was highly beneficial to his art, he does not seem have been anxious to propagate his doctrines by precepts, for he had but one pupil w deserves a lengthened notice. That pupil was Nicholas Hawksmoor, who, at the age eighteen, became the disciple of Sir Christopher, " under whom," says Walpole, " durin life, and on his own account after his master's death, he was concerned in erecting man public edifices. Had he erected no other than the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lom bard Street, his name would have deserved with gratitude the remembrance of all lovers c the art. This church has recently (on the opening of King William Street) been unfor tunately disfigured on its southern side by some incompetent bungler on whom the patron age of the church warden lucklessly fell. Such is the fate of our public buildings in thi country. The skill displayed by Hawksmoor in the distribution and design of St. Mary

Woolnoth is not more thai rivalled by the best production: of his master and instructor. We here give, in figs. 217. and 218., a half section, elevation, and plan of it. It was commenced in 1716, and finished in 1719. Not until lately was it seen to advantage. Lombard Street, in which one side still stands, was narrow, and its northern elevation, the only one till lately properly seen, required, from its as. pect, the boldest form of detail to give it expression, because of its being constantly in shade, and therefore experiencing no play of light except such as is reflected. This is composed with three large semicircular rustiFig. 217. cated niches, each standing on a lofty rusticated pedestal, relieved with blank recesses, which are repeated in the intervals below between the niches. The whole rests on a basement, whose openings, of course,

Fig. 218.

HALF ELEVATION HALF SECTION OF ST. MARY WOOLNOTH.

想

PLAN OF ST. MARY WOOL.NOTH.

correspond to those above. The niches in the recesses are decorated with Doric coluinns on pedestals, and the top of the entablature of the order is level with the springing of each niche head running through on each side, so as to form an impost. The front is crowned with a block cornice, continued round the building, and the central part of the northern front

is surmounted by a balustrade. We are not prepared to maintain that the whole of the details are in the purest taste; but the masses are so extremely picturesque, and so adapted to the circumstances of the aspect and situation, that their faults are forgotten. Not so the interior, which needs no apology. It is a combination of proportions, whose beauty cannot be surpassed in any similar example. The plan is nearly a square, whose north-west and south-west angles are truncated at angles of forty-five degrees, for the introduction of stairs. The leading lines are an inscribed square whose sides are equal to two thirds of the internal width, the remaining sixth on each side being assigned to the intercolumniations between the columns and the pilasters on the internal walls. The columns, twelve in number, are placed within the sides of the inscribed square, and at the angles are coupled at intervals of one diameter. The order is Corinthian ; the columns are fluted, and crowned by an enriched entablature one quarter of their height. The space thus enclosed by the columns continues in a clerestory above, pierced on the four sides by semicircular windows, whose diameters are equal to one of the wide intercolumniations below. The height of this, including its entablature, is one half that of the lower order; thus, with its pedestal, making the total height of the central part of the

church, equal to its extreme width. A sesquialteral proportion is thus obtained in section well as plan. The eastern end is recessed square for an altar piece, and arched with a rmicircular ceiling enriched with caissons. The galleries are admirably contrived, and in no way interfere with the general effect, nor destroy the elegance and simplicity of the design. The ceilings throughout are horizontal, and planned in compartments, whose parts are enriched. As regards construction, there is a very unnecessary expenditure of materials, the ratio of the superficies to the points of support being 1:0-263. Hawksmoor was not so happy in the church of St. George's, Bloomsbury, in which he has really made King George I. the head of the church by placing him on the top of the steeple, which we must, with Walpole, term a master-stroke of absurdity. But many parts of the building are highly deserving the attention of the student; and if the commissioners for new churches in these days had been content with fewer churches constructed solidly, like this, instead of many of the pasteboard monstrosities they have sanctioned, the country, instead of regrerting they ever existed, which will at no very remote period be the case, would have owed them a deep debt of gratitude. The only gratification we have on this point is, that a century, and even less, will close the existence of a large portion of them. Hawksmoor I was deputy surveyor of Chelsea College and clerk of the works at Greenwich, and in that post was continued by William, Anne, and George I., at Kensington, Whitehall, and St. James's. Under the last named he was first surveyor of all the new churches and of Westminster Abbey, from the death of Sir Christopher Wren. He was the architect of the churches of Christ Church, Spitalfields, St. George, Middlesex, and St. Anne, Limehouse; rebuilt some part of All Souls, Oxford, particularly the new quadrangle completed in 1734, and was sole architect of the new quadrangle at Queen's. At Blenheim and Castle Howard he was associated with Vanbrugh, and at the last-named place was employed on the mausoleum. Among his private works was Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire, and the restoration to perpendicularity, by means of some ingenious machinery, of the western front of Beverley Minster. He gave a design for the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and of a stately front for Brazenose. His death occurred on the 25th of March, 1736, at the age of seventy-five.

.

500. Those acquainted with the condition of the country will be prepared to expect that the arts were not much patronised by George I. The works executed during his reign were rather the result of the momentuin that had been imparted previous to his accession than of his care for them; and it is a consolation that the examples left by Inigo Jones had an effect that has in this country never been entirely obliterated, though in the time of George III., such was the result of fashionable patronage and misguided taste, that the Adamses had nearly consummated a revolution. That reign, however, involved this country in so many disasters that we are not surprised at such an episode.

501. After the death of Hawksmoor, succeeded to public patronage the favourite architect of a period extending from 1720 to his death in 1754, whose name was James Gibbs, a native of Aberdeen, where he first drew breath in 1683. Though he had no claims to the rank of exalted genius, he ought not to have been the object of the flippant criticism of Walpole, whose qualifications and judgment were not of such an order as to make him more than a pleasant gossip. He certainly had not sufficient discernment properly to estimate the talent displayed in Gibbs's works. Every critic knows how easily phrases may be turned and antitheses pointed against an artist whom he is determined to set at nought; of which we have before had an instance in the case of Sir John Vanbrugh; and we shall not here further dilate upon the practice. We will merely observe, that on the appearance of any work of art the majority of the contemporary artists are usually its best judges, and that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the public afterwards sanction their decision; and we will add, in the words of old Hooker, that "the most certaine token of evident goodnesse is, if the generall perswasion of all men doe so account it;" and again, "although wee know not the cause, yet this much wee may know, that some necessarie cause there is, whensoever the judgement of all m n generally or for the most part runne one and the same way." We do not, therefore, think it useful in respect of an artist of any considerable talent to repeat a criticism more injurious to the writer than to him of whom it was written.

502. The church of St. Martin's in the Fields is the most esteemed work of our architect. It was finished in 1726, as appears from the inscription on the frieze, at the cost of 33,017. 9s. 3d. The length of it, including the portico, is twice its width, one third whereof, westward, is occupied by the portico and vestibule. The portico is hexastyle, of the Corinthian order, and surmounted by a pediment, in whose tympanum the royal arms are sculptured. The intercolumniations are of two diameters and a half, and the projection of the portico of two. Its sides are flanked by antæ in their junction with the main building, one diameter and a half distant from the receiving pilaster. The north and south elevations are in two stories, separated by a fascia, with rusticated windows in each. Between the windows the walls are decorated with pilasters of the same dimensions as the columns of the portico, four diameters apart; but at the east and west ends these elevations are marked by insulated columns coupled with antæ. The flanks are connected with the

prevailing lines in the portico by columns placed on the walls, recessed for the p pose, and coupled with antæ, whereby a play of light is produced, which imparts gi effect to the other parts. The interior is divided into three unequal portions by a ra on each side of four Corinthian columns, and two pilasters placed on pedestals, raised the height of the pewing. From their insulated entablatures rises an elliptical ceili covering what may be called the nave. This ceiling is formed by arcs doubleaux, tween which the vault is transversely pierced in the spaces above the intercolumniati by semicircular arches springing from the top of the entablature of each column. what may be called the aisles, from the entablatures of the columns, semi-circular arcl are turned and received northward and southward on consoles attached to the walls, a by their junction with the longitudinal arches from column to column pendentives : evolved, and thereby are generated small flat domes over the galleries. The altar recessed from the nave in a large niche formed by two quadrants of circles, whose radi is less than one fourth of the whole width of the niche. It is vaulted semi-ellipticall Galleries are introduced on the north, south, and west sides of the church. On the tv former sides they extend from the walls to the columns, against which the continuity their mouldings is broken. The interior is highly decorated, perhaps a little too theati cally for the sombre habits of this country; but its effect is, on the whole, extremely lig and beautiful. The tower and spire are, as in all the English churches of the Italian styl a sad blemish; but the taste of the day compelled their use, and we regret that the clerg still persist in considering them requisites. The length from the front upper step to th east wall (inclusive) is 159 ft. 6 in., and the breadth from north to south 79 ft. 4 in. Th total area of the church is 12,669 ft., whereof the points of support occupy 2803 ft. Th ratio, therefore, of the former to the latter is a 1: 0-220, from which we may infer that th edifice exhibits no very extraordinary constructive skill. The span of the roof (fig. 696.) which is of the common king-post form, is 38 ft. Gibbs, unlike Wren, does not appear t have been guided in his leading proportions of this work by a series of ratios. The onl point in which we perceive an approximation to such a system is in the length from th plinths of the columns of the portico, being just double the width of the church measured a the same level. The portico is well designed, and hitherto has not been equalled in London 503. In the church of St. Mary le Strand, Gibbs was not so successful. There is no portion of its space on which the eye rests with pleasure. It is cut up into littlenesses which, though not individually offensive, destroy all repose or notion of mass in the fabric. He built the new church at Derby, and executed some works at King's College, Cam-. bridge, which last were not calculated to raise his reputation; but in the senate house of that university, he was more successful. In the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, his fame was maintained. It was completed in 1747, and thereon he was complimented with the degree of Master of Arts. This library is on the plan circular in general form, and rises in the centre of an oblong square, 370 ft. long, by 110 in width. Its cupola is 100 ft. in diameter, and 140 ft. high. It possesses no features of striking beauty, and yet is a most valuable addition to the distant view of Oxford, from whatever point of view it is seen. The interior is pleasing, and the disposition good. The books are arranged in two circular galleries, round a large central area. A description of this celebrated building was pub lished with plans and sections, fol. 1747. Gibbs was the architect also of St. Bartholo mew's Hospital. In 1728, he published a large folio volume of designs, including several of his works.