proportions are so exquisite, that the eye cannot rest on the coupled columns and the arch of the principal gate rising into the story of the colonnade. The original profession of Perrault was that of medicine, which, however, he only exercised for the benefit of his friends and the poor; hence the design he made with others in competition for the above work having been successful, he was associated for its execution with Louis le Veau, the king's principal architect. From the variety of sciences in which Perrault excelled, it is not probable that the assistance of a practical architect was actually necessary; indeed the four volumes which he published under the title Essais de Physique, and the collection of machines for raising and removing great weights, which he also published, show that he was, without assistance, quite competent to the charge which was committed to him with others. He built the observatory at Paris, possessing an originality of character which Milizia says is very conformable to its purpose. But however suitable it may have been considered at the time of its erection, and it cannot be denied there is a fine masculine character about it, it is for its purpose in the present age altogether ill adapted for the objects of astronomy. Perrault died in 1688. Cotemporary with him was Le Mercier, the architect of the church de l'Oratoire, in the Rue St. Honoré. Le Mercier died, however, in 1660; eight and twenty years, therefore, before the decease of Perrault. Among the architects whose practice was exceedingly extended was Jules Hardouin Mansart, the architect of Versailles, and the especial favourite of Louis XIV. He was principally employed between the years 1675 and his death in 1708. His ability, as Milizia observes, was not equal to the size of his edifices; though it is hardly fair for that author to have made such an observation on the architect of the cupola of the Invalides at Paris. Of this church and dome De Quincy has most truly stated, that though nothing that can be called classic is to be noticed about it, yet it contains nothing in dissonance with the principles of the art. It is a whole in which richness and elegance are combined; in which lightness and solidity are well balanced; in which unity is not injured by variety; and whose general effect silences the critic, however he may be disposed to find fault. In Versailles, the taste which we have above noticed as introduced by De Brosse is prevalent; but the interior of the chapel displays to great advantage the great genius of Mansart, and shows that he was not incapable of the most refined elegance. 360. Jacques Ange Gabriel was the relation and worthy pupil of Mansart. The colonnades to the Garde Meuble in the Place Louis XV. (now the Place de la Concorde) exhibit a style which, with the exception only of Perrault's façade of the Louvre, not all the patronage of Louis XIV. was capable of eliciting. To Gabriel almost, if not perhaps as much as to Perrault, the nation is under a debt of gratitude for the confirmation of good taste in France. He has been accused of pirating the Louvre; but reflection and comparison will show that there is no real ground for such an accusation. The difference between the two works is extremely wide. The basement of Perrault is a wall pierced with windows; that of Gabriel is an arcade: in the upper stories the columns are not coupled, which is the case at the Louvre. From these circumstances alone the character of the two works is so different, that it is quite unnecessary to enter into other detail. Architecture in France at this period, the commencement of the eighteenth century, was in a palmy state, and has never before or since risen to higher excellence; though the French are still, from the superior method of cultivating the art there, and the great encouragement it receives, the first architects in Europe. The great extent of the Place Louis XV. (744 ft. long, and 522 broad) is injurious to the effect of the Garde Meuble, which, as the reader will recollect, is rather two palaces than one. Its basement is perhaps, speaking without reference to the vast area in front of it, too high, and the intercolumniations too wide, for the order (Corinthian) employed; but it is easier to find fault than to do equally well; and we cannot leave the subject without a declaration that we never pass away from its beauties without a wish to return and contemplate their extreme elegance. They are to us of that class to which Cicero's expression may be well applied: "pernoctant nobiscum, peregriGabriel died in 1742. Antoine, the architect of the Mint at Paris, was another of the choice spirits of the period: he continued the refined style whereof we are speaking; and though the age of Louis XV. was not destined to witness the erection of such stupendous edifices as that of Louis le Grand, it displayed a purer and far better taste. This architect was the first who employed in his country the Grecian Doric, which had then become known, though not perfectly, by the work of Le Roy. Antoine used it at L'Hospice de la Charité; and De Quincy cites it as a circumstance which called forth the approbation of people of taste, and observes that the attempt would have attracted more followers, if, instead of exciting the emulation of architects in the study of it and its judicious application to monuments, to which the character of the order is suitable, fashion had not applied it to the most vulgar and insignificant purposes. Antoine lived into the present century, having died in 1801, at the age of 68. nantur." 361. Louis XV., during a dangerous illness at Metz, is reported to have made a vow which led to the erection of the celebrated church of St. Geneviève, or, as it has since been called, the Pantheon; the largest modern church in France, aud second to none in simplicity, elegance, and variety. Another cause may, however, with as much probability, be assigned; the inadequacy of accommodation for the religious wants of the population, and especially of that appertaining to the patroness Saint of Paris. Many projects had been presented for the purpose, but that of Soufflot received the preference. This talented artist, who was born in 1713, at Irancy near Auxerre, after passing some time in Italy, had been settled at Lyons, and there met with considerable and deserved employment. In that city the great hospital had deservedly brought him into notice, for his knowledge in providing against the miseries of mankind, not less than had his beautiful theatre for providing for its pleasures. The plan (fig. 177.) of the Pantheon (so it is now usually called) is a species of Greek cross. The interior is divided transversely into two equal parts on each side, and a central one much larger, by isolated columns, instead of the plans previously in use of arcades decorated with pilasters. It is, however, strictly, in its internal as well as external character, to be classed as belonging to the Venetian school. Its west front and transverse section are given in fig. 178. The light effect, which is so striking in the interior, produced by the employment of columns instead of the old system of arcades, is extremely pleasing, though, as has often been truly urged, they have no office to perform. Objections, moreover, have been taken to the wide intercolumniations of the portico, and to some other parts, which here it is unnecessary to particularise. It is, notwithstanding all that has been written against it, most certainly entitled to take the fourth place of the modern great churches in Europe; which are, Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence, St. Peter's at Rome, St. Paul's at London, and then the church in question. Its greatest fault is instability about the piers of the cupola, the old fault, from which not one is altogether free, and one which gave Soufflot so much uneasiness that it is said to have hastened his death. This failure was afterwards rectified by his celebrated pupil Rondelet, who, with consummate skill, imparted perfect and lasting security to the edifice. 362. We ought perhaps before to have mentioned the name of Servandoni, as eminently influencing, in his day, the taste of Paris, which, as the world knows, is that of France. A Florentine by birth, and a scholar of the celebrated Pannini, he, in 1731, exhibited a model for the façade of St. Sulpice; and after a year's probation before the public, it was adopted. On an extended front of 196 ft. he succeeded in imparting to it, as a whole, an air of great majesty, and of giving to the church a porch of vast extent without injury to the general effect. Servandoni was very extensively employed: his style was that of the Venetian school; and his death occurred in 1766. 363. To write an history of the modern architecture of France, and at the same time to do its professors justice, would require a much larger volume than that under our pen: we profess to give no more than a bird's-eye view of it, so as to bring the reader generally acquainted with its progress; and it is not without much regret that we propose closing our account of it in the person of Jacques Gondouin, who died at Paris in 1818, at the age of eighty-one; an architect whose veneration for the works of Palladio was so unbounded, that for the study of them exclusively he performed a second journey into Italy: a strange infatuation in a man of great acquirements, if the opinions of some of our anonymous critics are of any value. When Gondouin was employed, the heavy style of Louis XIV. had passed away, and the suitable and elegant style of the Venetian school had been adopted. The pupils of Blondel, among whom he was eminent, were stimulated by the patronage of the whole capital; and even in the present day, so far capable are its inhabitants of appreciating the merits of an architect, regret as we may to record it, that it is from that circum stance alone likely to maintain its superiority over all others in Europe. The most celebrated work of Gondouin is the Ecole de Médecine, whose amphitheatre for lectures, capable of holding 1200 persons, is a model for all buildings of its class, without at all entering on the great merits of the other parts of the building. He was one of those upon whom the effects of the French Revolution fell with particular force, though, upon the re-establishment of order, he in some measure recovered his station in society. He was entrusted with the erection of the column in the Place Vendome, but merely as respected its preparation for the sculpture. 364. In Paris is to be found some of the most beautiful street architecture in Europe. That of Rome and Florence is certainly of a very high class, and exhibits some examples which will probably never be equalled. These, moreover, have associations attached to them which spread a charm over their existence of which it is not easy to divest one's self. and which, perhaps, contain some of the ingredients which enter into our high admiration of them. But, on a great and general scale, the most beautiful street architecture in Europe is to be found in Paris; and so great in this respect do we consider that city, that we are certain the education of an architect is far from complete if he be not intimately acquainted with the examples it affords. In that, as in most of the cities of Europe, the requirements of the shopkeeper interfere with the first principles of the art; but in this the violation of the rules of sound building, so as to connect them with his accommodation, are less felt by the critical observer than elsewhere. The spirit which seems to actuate the French nation is to produce works which may properly be called monumental; in this country, the government has never applied itself to a single work worthy of that epithet. The prin cipal care of an English minister seems to be that of keeping his place as long as the nation will endure him. Commerce and politics are the only subjects which such a personage seems to think worthy his attention, and the sciences have only been patronised by the government in proportion to their bearing on those two absorbing points. But we shall perhaps revert to this in the following chapter. SECT. XVIII. GERMAN ARCHITECTURE. 365. No country exhibits more early, beautiful, or interesting specimens of Romanesque and pointed architecture, than Germany. The Rhine, and the southern parts of it which were under the sway of the Romans, are those, as we have already observed, in which these are principally to be found. Their history, however, has, sufficiently for general purposes, been traced under the sections of Byzantine or Romanesque and Pointed Architecture. The revival of the arts in Italy, as it did in other nations, here equally brought in the styles of the Italian schools, which, as elsewhere throughout Europe, have lasted to the present period; and will certainly endure until some general change in the habits of its different nations renders necessary or justifies some other style as a worthy successor to them. On this to speculate were a waste of time; though there be some, and those men of talent, who contemplate a millennium of architecture, by making every thing in style dependent on the new materials (cast-iron for instance) which it is now the practice to employ, and often, it must be conceded, most usefully. Whilst the pointed style lasted in Europe, Italy was occasionally indebted to the Germans for an architect. Thus, notwithstanding the denial of Milizia, Lapo, a German architect, was employed in the early stages of construction of Santa Maria del Fiore; and it is well authenticated that Zamodia a German, Annex of Friburg, and Ulric of Ulm, were employed on the cathedral at Milan. Franchetti (Storia e Descrizione del Duomo di Milano, 4to. Milan, 1821) asserts, that the first of these was engaged on it about 1391, the period of the golden age of pointed architecture in Germany; and the reputation of the Germans in this respect was at that time so great, that John and Simon of Cologne were actually carried into Spain for the purpose of designing and carrying into execution the cathedral at Burgos. It is at this period difficult to assign the cause of the nation so completely dropping astern, to use a nautical phrase, in the fine arts, and more particularly architecture. It was most probably the result of their political condition, and the consequent relative position they occupied in the affairs of Europe. But, whatever the cause, it is, in fact, most certain, that from the revival of the arts in Italy until near the end of the 18th century, Germany furnishes the names of few, if any, architects who are known beyond the limits of the country. Italy during the time in question seems to have repaid the nation for the early assistance received from them. At Fulda and Vienna, Carlo Fontana was extensively engaged; Guarini on the church of Santa Anna at Prague; Scamozzi on the cathedral at Salzburg; Andrew Pozzo, who died at Vienna in 1709, was there employed on several of the churches: Martinelli of Lucca was another of the number that were solicited to decorate the country with their works. Fischers, indeed, was a native; but his works, and especially his palace at Schönbrun, begun in 1696 for the Emperor Joseph, though not altogether without merit, is but a repetition of the extravagances of the school of Borromini; and equally so was the palace built by the same artist for Prince Eugene at Vienna, in 1711. (Essai d'Architecture Historique, Leipsig, 1725.) Pietro Cart, who built the bridge at Nuremberg, Neuman, Bott, and Eosander of Prussia, are the only native architects of the period recorded by Milizia. 366. But it was not only from Italy that the Germans drew their architects: France contributed a supply to the country in the persons of Blondel, who was there much employed towards the end of the 17th century; Robert de Cotte and Boffrand in the first part of that following. It is therefore, from what has been stated, impossible to give any independent account of the architecture of Germany. The Germans had none. Whoso were their architects, they were the followers of a style which contemporaneously existed in France and Italy even down to the bizarreries of that which prevailed in the time of Louis XV.; and it is a very curious fact, that whilst Germany was seeking the aid of architects from France and Italy, England could boast of professors of the art whose fame will endure while printing remains to spread knowledge amongst mankind. During the last century, Germany appears to have risen in this respect from its slumber, and to have produced some men of considerable architectural abilities. Of these was Carl Gotthard Langhans who was born in 1732, and built the celebrated Brandenburg gate at Berlin, which, though formed much on the model of the Propylea at Athens, and therefore on the score of originality not entitled to that praise which has been so unsparingly exhausted upon it, proves that a vast change had begun in Germany as respected matters of taste in ar chitecture. Copies prove sad poverty of imagination on the part of the artist copying; and all, therefore, that can be said in favour of such an expedient as that under consideration is, that better forms being submitted in this example to the Germans, it created a dawn of taste to which they had long been strangers. The inaccurate work of Le Roy, which had preceded that of Stuart and Revett on the antiquities of Athens, was the means through which Langhans wrought and tried his successful experiment. In France, as we have already observed, Antoine had tried the employment of the Grecian Doric at Paris, but without the impression produced by Langhans. This architect died at Berlin in 1808, and is, perhaps, entitled to be considered as the father of good architecture in Germany, where he met the highest patronage and encouragement. Knoblesdorff, who died in 1753, had, it must be allowed, prepared in some measure the change which was effected; but neither he nor his successor are known in the world of art beyond the confines of their own country. The names of Boumann, Goutard, Naumann, and others of much merit, occur to us; but the examples which they have left are not of the class that justify specimens for presentation to the reader in a general work of this nature. None of them rise so high as to be put in competition with the examples of the French school; and from the circumstance of the principal works of Germany at Munich, Berlin, &c. having been executed by artists still living, we feel precluded here from allusion to them; because, if we were to enter on an examination of them, we must detail their defects as well as their beauties. An extraordinary species of bigotry has laid hold on some in relation to them, which time will temper; and the world, as it always does, will ultimately come to a right judgment of the rank they are entitled to occupy as works of art. In the other branches of the arts the Germans are rising fast; but there is withal an affectation of the works of the middle ages in their productions, which, impressed as they are with great beauties, are not sufficiently pure to prognosticate the establishment of schools which will sweep all fore them, as did those of Italy. SECT. XIX. SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE ARCHITECTURE, $167. What has been said in the preceding section on the architecture of Germany is equally applicable to that of Spain and Portugal, whose architects were educated, if not in the schools of Italy, yet on the principles that guided them. Still, the pre-eminence in architecture on the revival of the arts must be given to these countries over the contemporaneous buildings erected in Germany, and more especially to those of Spain. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, both greatly attached to the fine arts, the pointed style gave way to the architecture then in esteem in Italy; and Giovanni de Olotzaga, a native of Biscay, is, we believe, entitled to the merit of having first introduced it in the great college of Santa Croce at Valladolid, which was commenced in 1480, and finished in 1492. About the same period appeared Pietro de Gumiel, supposed to have been the architect of Santa Engracia at Saragossa; but known as the artist who designed the college of Alcala, a splendid building in a mixed and impure style. In this the orders were employed. The edifice consists of three courts: the first Doric, with an arcade and two orders above, in the lower whereof the Doric was repeated, and the upper was Ionic; the second court has thirty-two Composite columns, with arcades; and the third is designed with thirty-six Ionic columns, beyond which is the theatre. The church is of the lonic order, and contains the monument of Cardinal Ximenes, the founder, considered one of the finest in Spain. The names of Giovanni, Alonso, and Fra Giovanni d'Escobado continue in their works the history of the art in Spain, wherein a style between the pointed and Italian prevailed during the greater part of the reign of Charles V. Giovanni Gil de Hontanon, at the end of the 15th century, appears in Spain as an architect of much celebrity. He made a design for the cathedral at Salamanca, which was submitted to the judgment of four of the then most eminent architects of the country,-Alonzo de Cobarrubias the architect of the church at Toledo; Mastro Filippo of that of Seville; Giovanni di Badajos of that of Burgos; and Giovanni Balleso, by whom Hontanon's design was approved and commended. This church is 378 ft. long, and has a nave and two series of aisles on each side. The nave is 130 ft. high, and 50 ft. wide. Rodrigo Gil, son of the above-named architect, had the execution of this church, which commenced in 1513. It was probably this Rodrigo who, in 1525, erected the church of Segovia, very similar to that of Salamanca, except that it is more simple, and in a purer style. The cathedral of Segovia, equal in size and grandeur to those of Toledo and Seville, was, after 1577, carried on by Francesco de Campo Aguero, who died in 1660; to whom succeeded Biadero, who died in 1678. Respecting Hontanon, Don Ant. Ponz observes, in the 10th volume of his Travels in Spain, that he must have been a clever architect, and well acquainted with the Greek and |