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unity, by the very law of its being, was now to branch forth, to bud out, to blossom into multiplicity again. And how could the age of Raphael and of Michael Angelo, and of Luther, the age of Shakspeare and Cervantes, any longer endure the devout monotony of the pointed style? With the expansion and cultivation of the nature of man, using the word nature as opposed to the supernatural, there returned, of course, the ancient doctrines; the semicircle and the rectangle, the happy medium between excess and deficiency, the full developement and even balance of perfect form, once again were loved and understood.

Having these considerations full before us, we are most willing to admit that it was, in part, owing to the dispersion of the great body who kept secret among themselves all real knowledge of the art of building, that the attempts of the modern architects, in the classic style, were so incoherent and infelicitous at first; and that from first to last they have never yet attained, in their own line, that pitch of perfection which the freemasons did in theirs. But to this we must also add many other causes. The ancient forms, reappearing in all their beauty, struck them so forcibly as possessing exactly that expression of completeness which they wished to attain to, that they could not, by any means, free themselves from their attractive graces; nor could they, on the other hand, succeed in uniting these graces with a mode of building suited to totally different habits of life. The warmest admirers of the Grecian style must acknowledge that it is well adapted only for buildings one story high; for if the peculiar dignity of the column is derived from the just proportion between its own strength and the weight which it bears, that must inevitably be destroyed, when another column nearly equal to it, and then a third, are superimposed upon it. Even where nothing is left between the tiers but a simple architrave, as we see at Pæstum, still the character of the style is altogether lost; much more so then when architrave, entablature, cornice, triglyphs, dentils are all absurdly huddled together, and repeated in every story. Besides this, the column has no lateral support, and requires therefore a solid basement. A pile of pillar, mounted upon pillar, would hardly be able to stand by itself, and would certainly not look very solid; and

if attached to an inner wall, and supported by it, it becomes quite insignificant, inasmuch as it signifies nothing of the real nature of the building. Still worse is the matter managed, when, over a plain wall, a huge casing of pillars and pilasters, and architraves and cornices, is tacked on to the outside of a common house; and one sees a comfortable three-story box inclosed in the shell of a Grecian temple, the horizontal lines of the floors cutting through the vertical lines of the pillars, so that the joists must be supposed to be morticed into holes in their sides; while little doors and windows, proportioned to the story to which they belong, peep between colossal columns, proportioned to the height of all the stories taken together; so that there can be no possible symmetry, there being no common measure. Such were the styles of Bramante, Michael Angelo and Palladio, faulty indeed, and incoherent, but valuable, in so far as they admitted the horizontal dimension, (which the monkish architects had almost banished,) and, consequently, requiring a balance between that and its opposite the vertical, re-introduced the doctrines of contrast and of proportion which belonged to the Grecian system of ethics. Little, however, remains to be said of the fruits of this new style; it was a forced exotic, and could bear none. It belonged to a different age and state of society, and it had been, and was exhausted. In St. Peter's itself there is little which can please the taste of the critical architect, though Mr. Hope has finely remarked, that "there "is a serenity of look, and equability of temperature in this "vast edifice, which throws over all its parts an inexpressible "charm; and one is astonished to find so much splendour, "and even glitter, united with such an air of repose, of ma"jesty, and of quiet.”

The modesty, simplicity, consistency,-in short, the moral feeling of the antique, began soon to appear tame and insipid to the Italians, and

"a Fontana, a Bernini, and a Borromini, in their corkscrew columns, their architraves en papillote, their pediments curled and twisted into every unnatural shape, their architecture in perspective, their orders, intended for flat wide temples, pyramidized one over the other, in high narrow churches, far outstripped in bad taste, the worst examples of the worst era of pagan Rome. If, of the leading, the essential members of archiVOL. VII.-No XIII.

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tecture, the shapes were thus distorted, the consistency thus destroyed, still more were those surfaces and outlines, those mouldings and details of a lighter and a more purely ornamental sort, which form, as it were, its last and brightest embroidery and fringe, destined to experience every species of contortion. In every material, and in every art susceptible of the influence of a taste either pure or corrupted, not only all those accurate and faithful imitations of actual productions, animate or inanimate, of nature or of art, which even the arabesques still show, but even all regularity, all definiteness of surface and shape; all forms decidedly round, or square, or smooth, or projecting, or straight, or angular, were abandoned for a sort of irregular, uncertain, involved outline, nowhere showing a decided continuation or a decided break, and for an unmeaning applique of clumsy scroll-work, which spread like an ulcer; ate into every moulding, and corroded every surface; and no where left simplicity, variety, unity, contrast, or symmetry. This style is known by the name of the old French taste, though Italy has the credit of the invention. It should properly be called the inane or frippery style.

"In England, Government, by taxing alike heavily brick and stone, which form the solid walls; and the apertures from which they are absent for the admission of light; discourages in architecture both solidity of construction and variety of form. Copyhold tenures, short leases, and the custom of building whole streets by contract, still increase the slightness, the uniformity, the poverty of the general architecture. Here the exterior shell of most edifices is designed by a surveyor who has little science, and no knowledge of the fine arts; and the internal finishing-regarded as distinct from the province of the architect-is left to the mere upholder. Thus has arisen at least that species of variety in building which proceeds from an entire and general ignorance of what is suitable and appropriate to the age, nation, and localities. Some, by building houses in the shape of temples, have contrived for themselves most inappropriate and uncomfortable habitations. Some, reverting to the pointed style, as more indigenous, more national, but taking all their ideas from religious edifices, instead of a temple, have lodged themselves in a church. Others have, in times of profound peace, or at least of internal security and refinement, affected to raise rude and embattled castles, as if they expected a siege. Others again, wishing for more striking novelty, have sought their models among the ancient Egyptians, the Chinese or the Moors; or, by way of leaving no kind of beauty unattempted, have occasionally collected and knit together, as if they were the fragments of a universal chaos, portions of all these styles, without consideration of their original use and destination. Finally, as if in utter despair, some have relapsed into an admiration of the old scroll-work, the old French style, of which the French had become ashamed, and which they had rejected. No one seems yet to have conceived the smallest wish or idea of only borrowing of every former style of architecture, whatever it might present of useful or ornamental, of scientific or tasteful; of adding thereto whatever other new dispositions or forms might afford conveniences or elegancics not

yet possessed; of making the new discoveries, the new conquests of natural productions, unknown to former ages, the models of new imitations more beautiful and more varied; and thus of composing an architecture, which, born in our country, grown on our soil, and in harmony with our climate, institutions and habits, at once elegant, appropriate and original, should truly deserve the appellation of Our Own.”—Page 561.

This comprehensive recipe of Mr. Hope's for making a new style we cannot exactly approve of; to borrow all that is useful or ornamental from every style, adding, quantum suff., of our "new conquests of natural productions," is an experiment that has been sufficiently tried in our Regent Street, and other great national works, though one would have hardly thought that the monstrous absurdity, which a writer might let slip in a careless sentence, could have been actually worked out and perpetrated, even in plaster. But these things, though perhaps in excellent "harmony with our institutions and habits,” have had their day; and we rejoice to see that some of the later buildings, in our metropolis, have a more substantial and honest character, exposed to none of those contradictions which make null all unprincipled imitations. What, indeed, the silent unquestionable future has in store for us, who shall attempt to guess? No Grecian temple, and no Gothic cathedral, that is certain. Great municipal buildings, perhaps, assembly-houses of all kinds. And already we think we can trace some germs of a style, that may develope the true Christian loftiness and sublimity in a natural and balanced organization; that, leaving the proportion of weights and masses to the Greeks, as their peculiar organ of expression, and the elliptical lines and arches to the middle ages, as theirs; should abide by its own material form, which is the wall, with its floors, doors and windows, the essentials of a modern European building; and contrive in this, and by this, to express the character of our own age; and endeavouring, first of all, and above all, to maintain truth and consistency, then aim at sublimity, without dereliction of beauty.

Though we have been obliged to quarrel with Mr. Hope, sometimes for the want of ideal and formal principles, we take leave of him with feelings of cordiality and esteem, and recommend his book as the most intelligent, learned, and comprehensive we have met with on the subject. We trust

that we have fulfilled our own duty as reviewers, in giving the reader a general account of the whole gist of the treatise, and ample opportunities of judging of the execution.

ARTICLE II.

Athens; its Rise and Fall. By EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, Esq., M.P. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1837.

MR. BULWER's historical work has taken us somewhat by surprise. When it was announced, we looked for a series of highly-coloured scenes, diversified with the melodramatic philosophy of the author of Devereux and Pompeii and other works of a graver complexion, and which, as a whole, might have been entitled "The Romance of History,-Athens." We were in some pain lest we should fail to recognise our old acquaintances, Pericles, Alcibiades, or Brasidas, in that masquerade-dress, which, in Mr. Bulwer's classical fiction, is made to represent the antique. His plastic hand had performed so many remarkable conversions of historical pictures into fancy portraits, that it seemed not improbable that Euripides and Protagoras might be among the few who retained, under the process of transmutation, any of their original lineaments. Our conjectures however, though made inductively, were, upon the whole, erroneous; and we rise from the work before us with the impression, that if not altogether such as might have been looked for in the improved state of modern scholarship, and from an author "occupied many years with the subject," the "Rise and Fall of Athens " is much more creditable to the talents and industry of Mr. Bulwer, than any experiments, however ingenious, upon public taste and morals made through the seductive channels of fiction.

On more than one occasion we have been led to express opinions of Mr. Bulwer's literary character, not altogether perhaps in accordance with his own views of it. With every wish to give him credit for considerable powers of mind and

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