feelings, that we regret we cannot add force to the observations in which we so fully

concur.

455. Inigo Jones was the son of a clothworker, and was born about 1572. From the most probable accounts he appears to have been apprenticed to a joiner, in which state he was, from some accounts, discovered by the Earl of Arundel, from others by William Earl of Pembroke, and by one or other of these noblemen sent to Italy, rather, however, according to Walpole, to study the art of painting, than that of architecture, for the former of which, the author named says, Nature appears not to have fitted him, inasmuch as "he dropped the pencil, and conceived Whitehall." But our own belief is, that though he might have afterwards been patronised by both the noblemen above mentioned, he owed this part of his education to neither of them; for, considering that at his first visit to Italy, before 1605, Lord Pembroke was but just of age, and that Lord Arundel was somewhat younger, there is no great probability that either of them thus assisted him in his studies on the Continent.

456. Of his employment as an architect nothing can be traced previous to the visit of James I. to the University of Oxford, in 1605, at which time he was thirty-three years old; and then, according to Leland (Collectanea, App. vol. vi. p. 647.), "They" (the University) "hired one Mr. Jones, a great traveller, who undertook to further them with rare devices, but performed little to what was expected. He had for his pains, I have constantly heard, 50l. ;" from which it is certain that his earliest visit to Italy was before 1605. At Venice he became acquainted with the works of Palladio; and there, as Walpole observes, "learned how beautifully taste may be exerted on a less theatre thar. the capital of an empire." In this city his reputation was so great, that Christian IV. appointed him his architect, though of the buildings erected by him in Denmark we know nothing. In this country's capital, however, he was found by James, and by his Queen (Anne) was removed from Copenhagen to Scotland, in the quality of her architect. Prince Henry he was employed in the same capacity, and about this time had the grant in reversion of surveyor general of the works. On the untimely and lamented death of that prince, he once more visited Italy, where he perfected his taste and ripened his judgment. It appears more than probable that it was previous to his second journey that he designed those of his buildings that partake of a bastard style. These buildings, however, are such as could, under the circumstances, have been designed only by a great master in a state of transition from one style to another; such, for instance, are the north and south sides of the quadrangle at St. John's College, Oxford, in which he seems to have copied all the faults of the worst examples of his great master Palladio; still the composition is so picturesque, that, though reluctantly, we cannot avoid admiring it. In the garden front of

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Fig. 206

GARDEN FRONT OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, (1631-5).

the same college (fig. 206.), notwithstanding its impurity, there is a breadth and grandeur which subdue criticism, and raise our admiration; and we by no means subscribe to Horace Walpole's dictum, that " Inigo's designs of that period have a littleness of parts and a weight of ornament." Previous to his second return to England, the surveyor's place had fallen in, and finding the office in debt, he prevailed, as Walpole observes, with an air of

Roman disinterestedness, and showing that architecture was not the only thing he had learned in Rome, on the comptroller and paymaster of the office, to give up, as he did, all the profits of the office till the arrears were cleared.

457. By the Fœdera, vol. xviii. p. 99., we find that there was issued to him, in conjunction with the Earl of Arundel and others, a commission to prevent the building on new foundations within two miles of London and the palace of Westminster; and in 1620 he was, if possible, more uselessly employed by James I. in guessing, for it was no more, who were the builders of Stonehenge. For this last, the necessary preliminary information had not even dawned, although Walpole, in his usual off-hand manner, loses not, in alluding to it, the opportunity of displaying his own dreadful ignorance on the subject. (See Chap. II. Sect. II., where this monument has been examined.) In the year last named, Jones was one of the commissioners for the repair of old St. Paul's, though the repairs were not commenced till 1633, in which year Laud, then Bishop of London, laid the first stone, and Inigo Jones the fourth. Our architect was now too much disinclined to Gothic to bend his genius to

anything in the shape of a restoration; and though the Roman portico which he placed before the church was magnificent, the application of Roman to Gothic architecture of course ruined the cathedral. The reader will find a representation of this portico in Dugdale's St. Paul's. Abstractedly considered, it was a fine composition; and its dimensions, of a length of 200 ft., a depth of 50 ft., and a height of 40 ft., were calculated to give it an imposing effect.

458. The Banqueting House at Whitehall, which we have pride in quoting as one of the most magnificent works in Europe, has generally been supposed to have been erected in the reign of Charles I.; but there is sufficient reason for assigning the period of its execution to the preceding reign. It was begun in 1619, and finished in two years. The designs for the palace of Whitehall, whereof fig. 207. at the foot of the preceding page, exhibits a block plan, on which the banqueting-house (at A), it will be seen, forms a very inconsiderable portion, would, had they been executed, have formed, beyond all comparison, the finest in the world. In magnitude it would have exceeded even the palace of Diocletian. The form, as will be observed, was an oblong square, and consisted of seven courts, whereof six were quadrangular. The central one was larger than the other two chief divisions; and these were again subdivided into three courts, the centre one of which, on the north side, had two galleries with arcades, and that on the south a circular Persian court, as it was called, whose diameter was 210 ft. Surrounded on the ground floor by an open arcade, the piers between the arches were decorated with figures of Persians, with what propriety it is useless to discuss; and the upper story was ornamented between each window with caryatides, bearing Corinthian capitals on their heads, surmounted by an entablature of that order, and the whole was finished by a balustrade. Towards Westminster, the front extended 1152 ft.; and that towards the park, in which the length of the banqueting-house is included, would have been 720 ft. With the exception of Westminster Hall, the banqueting-house (now used as a chapel) was, until of late years, the largest room in England, its length being 115 ft., breadth 60 ft., and height 55 ft. 459. In 1682, Jones was employed on Somerset House, to the garden front whereof he executed (fig. 208.) a façade of singular beauty, lost to the world by its demolition on the

rebuilding of the edifice for its present purposes. On the ascent of Charles I. to the throne, our architect seems to have been very much employed. As surveyor of the public buildings, his stipend was 8s. 4d. a day, besides an allowance of 461. per annum for houserent, a clerk, and incidental expenses.

460. In the passion for masques which prevailed during the reign of Charles I., Jones was a principal contributor to their splendour. They had been introduced into this country by Anne of Denmark; and Walpole gives a list of thirteen to which he furnished the scenes and machinery.

461. They who have seen Wilton can appreciate Inigo's merit for having introduced into England, in the seats of our aristocracy, a style vying with that of the villas of Italy. Some disagreement appears to have arisen between him and Philip Earl of Pembroke, which here it would be irrelevant to dwell on; we will merely mention that in the Harleian library existed an edition of Jones's Stonehenge, which had formerly belonged to the nobleman in question; and that its margins are filled by the former

possessor with notes, not on the substance of the work itself, but on its author, and anything else that could be injurious. He calls him "Iniquity Jones," and says he had 16,000l. a year for keeping the king's houses in repair. The censures were undeserved; and the accusations, unwarranted by facts, are extremely discreditable to the memory of Earl Philip

462. The works of Jones were exceedingly numerous; many, however, are assigned to him which were the productions of his scholars. Such buildings as the Queen's house at Greenwich (much altered, and, indeed, spoiled, of late years, for the pur. pose of turning it into a public naval school); Coleshill, in Berkshire, built in 1650; Shaftesbury House, in Aldersgate Street; the square, as planned, and Church of St. Paul, Covent Garden; and many other works, are strong proofs of the advancement of architecture during his career. York Stairs (fig. 209.), another of his examples, exhibits a pureness and propriety of character which appears to have been afterwards unappreciated by his successors, with Wren at their head, whose mention by constructive skill he possessed.

463. Jones was a follower of the Venetian school, which we have described in a previous section. His respect for Palladio is evinced by the circumstance of a copy of that great master's works being his companion on his travels through Italy. It is filled with his autograph notes, and is now deposited in the library of Worcester College, Oxford. Lord Burlington had a Vitruvius noted by him in a similar manner. It is curious to see the amateurs and pseudo-critics of the present day decry these two authors, whom Jones, a genius of the first order, thought his best instructors. The class in question are, however, no longer considered worthy of being listened to on matters of the art; and the public taste is, in this respect, turning once more into the proper channel. Palladian architecture, thus introduced by Jones, would have reached a splendour under Charles I. perhaps equal to that which Italy can boast, had not its progress been checked by public calamities, in which it was the lot of the artist to share the misfortunes of his royal master. In addition to being the favourite of the king, he was a Roman Catholic; and for this (as it was then curiously called) delinquency, he had to pay 5451. in the year 1646. He died, aged 79 years, at Somerset House on the 21st of June, 1652; and left 4,2007, in legacies, and 1007. for a monument, so that he did not die in poverty as usually stated.

464. The plans of houses introduced from Italy by this master were not, perhaps, altogether suited to the climate or habits of the English. One of his greatest faults was that of aiming at magnificence under circumstances in which it could not be attained. Thus, his rooms were often sacrificed to the show and effect resulting from a hall or a staircase, or both; sometimes, to gain the appearance of a vista of apartments, they were made too small for the scale of the house. His distribution of windows is purely Italian, and the piers between them consequently too large, so that the light is occasionally insufficient in quantity. The habits of Italy, which enabled Palladio to raise his principal floor, and to have the farm offices and those for the vintage in the same range of building as the mansion, impart an air of great magnificence to the Italian villa. Jones saw that this arrangement was not required for English convenience, and therefore avoided the Palladian practice; "but," says Mitford, "the architects who followed him were dazzled, or dazzled their employers. To tack the wings to the centre with a colonnade became a phrase to express the purpose of plan of the most elegant effect; and the effect, provided the combination be harmonious, will be elegant; but the arrangement is very adverse to general convenience, and especially in the moderate scale of most general use. Where great splendour is the object, convenience must yield to it. Magnificence must be paid for in convenience as well as money." Webb and Carter were the pupils of Jones. The former will furnish us presently with a few remarks. During the time of the Commonwealth, the history of architecture in this country is a complete blank. We know of no public work of consequence that was designed or executed in the interregnum. On the restoration of

the monarchy, however, the art began to revive; but it was much tinctured with the contemporary French style, which Lord Burlington, on its reappearance many years afterwards, had the merit of reforming, and of bringing back the public taste to the purity which Jones had introduced: but this we shall have to notice hereafter.

465. John Webb was nephew as well as scholar of Inigo Jones, whose only daughter he married. He built a large seat for the Bromley family at Horseheath, in Cambridgeshire; and added a portico to the Vine, in Hampshire, for Challoner Chute, the Speaker to Richard Cromwell's parliament. Ambresbury, in Wiltshire (fig. 210.), was only executed

by him from the designs of his master, as also the east side of the court of Greenwich Hospital. Captain William Winde, a native of Bergen-op-Zoom, and pupil to Sir Balthazar Gerbier, was, soon after the Restoration, in considerable employ as an architect. He built Cliefden House, Bucks, which was destroyed by fire in 1795; the Duke of Newcastle's, in Lincoln's Inn Fields; Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, for Lord Craven; and for the same peer he finished Hempsted Marshall, which had been begun by his master. But the chief and best work of Winde was Buckingham House, in St. James's Park, on whose site now stands a palace, larger, indeed, but unworthy to be its successor. It is known from prints, and not a few of our readers will probably recollect the building itself. It was erected for John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham; and on its frieze was the inscription "SIC SITI LÆTANTUR LARES." The arrears in the payments for this house, according to an anecdote in Walpole, were so distressing, that when it was nearly finished, "Winde had enticed his Grace to mount upon the leads to enjoy the grand prospect. When there, he coolly locked the trap-door, and threw the key to the ground, addressing his astonished patron, I am a ruined man, and unless I have your word of honour that the debts shall be paid, I will instantly throw myself over.' And what is to become of me,' said the duke? You shall come along with me.' The promise was given, and the trap-door opened (upon a sigu made) by a workman in the secret, and who was a party to the plot." We do not vouch for the truth of the tale.

466. An architect of the name of Marsh is said, by Vertue, to have designed the additional buildings at Bolsover, as also to have done some considerable works at Nottingham Castle; and Salmon, in his account of Essex, mentions a Doctor Morecroft, who died in 1677, as the architect of the manor-house of Fitzwalters. Of the works of the French taste about the middle of the period under discussion, a better notion cannot be obtained than from Montague House, late the British Museum (fig. 211.), the work of a Frenchman here whose example had followers; indeed, Wren himself, in some of his works, has caught the vices of the French school of the day, though he was a follower of the Venetian and Roman schools. The fire which destroyed London in 1666, a few years after the death of Jones, brought into notice the talents of Sir Christopher Wren, whose career was opened under