The merit, therefore, shown in the construction of the above edifices will be nearly as 15. 17, 20, 26, or inversely proportional to the numbers in the last column.

479. We must here mention one of the most unpardonable defects, or rather abuses. which this church exhibits, and which must be learnt from reference to fig. 214. Therein is

From this it will be seen that the enormous expense of the second or upper order all round the church was incurred for no other purpose than that of concealing the flying buttresses that are used to counteract the thrusts of the vaults of the nave, choir, and transepts, - an abuse that admits of no apology. It is an architectural fraud. We do not think it necessary to descend into minor defects and abuses, such as vaulting the church from an Attic order, the multiplicity of breaks, and want of repose; the general disappearance of tie and connection, the piercing, as practised, the piers of the cupola, and mitering the archivolts of its great arches, and the like, because we think all these are more than counterbalanced by the beauties of the edifice. We cannot, however, leave the subject without observing that not the least of its inerits is its freedom from any material settlement tending to bring on premature dilapidation. Its chief failures are over the easternmost arch of the nave, and in the north transept, for the remedy whereof (the latter) the architect left written instructions. There are also some unimportant failures in the haunches of most of the flying buttresses, which are scarcely worth notice.

given a transverse section of the nave and its side aisles.

480. The wretchedly naked appearance of the interior of this cathedral is a disgrace neither to the architect nor to the country, but to the clergy, Terrick, bishop of London, and Potter, archbishop of Canterbury, who refused to sanction its decoration with pictures, gratuitously proffered by artists of the highest reputation; and this after the cupola itself had been decorated. The colour of the sculpture is of no use in heightening the effect of the interior.

481. The Parentalia contains a description of the manner in which the walls of the old

cathedral were destroyed, and those of the present one raised; which should be read by all those engaged in the practice of architecture.

482. Wren, having lived to see the completion of St. Paul's, was, as before stated, displaced from the office of surveyor of Crown buildings to make room for an incompetent pretender, named Benson. Pope, in the Dunciad, has left a record of the job, in the lines— While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends,

Gay dies unpensioned with a hundred friends.

Wren died at the age of 91 years, and was buried under the fabric, “with four words," says Walpole, "that comprehended his merit and his fame."

"SI QUÆRAS MONUMENTUM CIRCUMSPICE."

483. It will be impossible, consistently with our space, to describe the works of Sir Christopher Wren. One upon which his fame is as justly founded as upon St. Paul's itself. is St. Stephen's Church in Wallbrook, in which, on a plot of ground 80 ft. by 594 ft., he has contrived a structure whose elegance is not surpassed by any one we know to have been raised under similar restrictions. The church in question is divided longitudinally into five aisles by four ranks of Corinthian columns standing on pedestals; the places of four columns near the centre being unoccupied; the surrounding central columns form the angles of an octagon, 45 ft. diameter, on which arches are turned, and above which, by means of pendentives, the circular base of a dome is formed, which is in the shape of a segment of a sphere, with a lantern thereon. The ceiling of the middle aisle from east to west is vaulted in groins. The rest of the ceiling is horizontal. The interior of St. James's, Westminster, is another beautiful example of the master, though recently underrated by an ignorant critic.

484. One of the peculiarities remarkable about Wren's period is the investment of the form of the Gothic spire with a clothing of Italian architecture, by which the modern steeple was produced. If any example could reconcile us to such a practice, it might be found in that of Bow Church, another of Wren's works, which rises to the height of 197 ft. from the ground, the sides of the square from which it rises being 32 ft. 6 in. There are in the leading proportions of this tower and spire, some extraordinary examples in relative heights as compared with widths sesquialterally, which would almost lead one to suppose that, in this respect, our architect was somewhat superstitious.

485. In St. Dunstan in the East, Wren attempted Gothic, and it is the least offensive of his productions in that style. It is an elegant composition, but wants the claim to originality. St. Nicholas, Newcastle, and the High Church, Edinburgh, are its prototypes. 486. The Monument of London is original, notwithstanding columns of this sort had been previously erected. Its total expense was 88561., and it was commenced in 1671, completed in 1677. The height is 202 ft. ; hence it is loftier than any of the historical columns of the ancients. The pedestal is about 21 ft. square, standing on a plinth 6 ft. wider. The lower diameter of the column on the upper part of the base is 15 ft., and the shaft incloses a staircase of black marble, consisting of 345 steps. It was fluted after the . work was carried up. The quantity of Portland stone whereof it is composed is 28,196 cubic feet. The Antonine column at Rome is 163, and that of Trajan 132 ft. high. That erected by Arcadius at Constantinople, when perfect, was of the same height as that last mentioned. The structure of which we are speaking loses much by its situation, which has neither been improved nor deteriorated by the streets consequent on the rebuilding of London Bridge: and though it cannot compete with the Trajan column in point of intrinsic beauty, it is, nevertheless, an exquisite and weil-proportioned work, and seems much better calculated with propriety to record the object of its erection, than the other is to be the monument of a hero. In these days, it is singular to see that no other mode than the erection of a column could be found to record the glorious actions of a Nelson. Such was the poverty of taste that marked the decision of the committee to whom that object was inost improperly entrusted.

487. Among the works of Wren not to be passed without notice is the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is one of his finest productions, and one with which he himself was well satisfied. It consists of two orders; a Doric arcade below, open to a basement supported by columns, which has a flat ceiling, exceedingly convenient as an ambulatory, and itself simple and well proportioned. The principal story is decorated with threequarter columns of the Ionic order, well proportioned. From their volutes, festoons are pendent, and the key-stones of the windows are carved into cherubs' heads, &c. This is the elevation towards Nevill's Court; that towards the garden has three Doric doors below, but above is without columns or pilasters in the upper stories. Without ornament, it

is not the less graceful and imposing. The interior, as a single room, is designed with great grandeur and propriety.

488. We cannct further in detail continue an account of the works of this extraordinary architect, but shall now proceed to submit a list of his principal works, together with a catalogue of those of his principal churches whose estimates exceeded the cost of

50002

489. We must here close our account of Wren. Those of our readers who desire further information on the life and works of this truly great man will do well to consult the Parentalia, or Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens, compiled by his son, and published by his grandson Stephen Wren. Fol. Lond. 1750.

490. Among the architects of Wren's time, there was a triad of amateurs who would have done honour to any nation as professors of the art. The first of these was Henry Aldrich, D. D., Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, who died in 1710. He was attached to the Venetian school, as we may see in the three sides of Peckwater quadrangle, and the garden front of Corpus Christi College, a façade which for correct taste is not surpassed by any edifice in Oxford. The second of these amateurs was Dr. Clarke, one of the Lords of the Admiralty in the reign of Queen Anne. This distinguished amateur sat for Oxford in fifteen sessions. The Library of Worcester College, to which he bequeathed his valuable architectural collection of books and MSS., was from his design. He built the library at Christ Church. The third was Sir James Burrough, Master of Caius College, Cambridge; by whom, in 1703, the chapel of Clare Hall in that University was beautifully designed and executed.

It

491. We now approach the works of a man who, whatever some have thought of them, has a stronger claim on our notice as an inventor than any of his predecessors. must be anticipated that we allude to Sir John Vanbrugh. Upon no other artist has Walpole delivered criticisms more unworthy of himself, nor is there any one of whose genius he had less capacity to appreciate the powers. The singular mind of Vanbrugh was distracted by control: his buildings are the result of a combination of forms and anticipation of effects, originating solely from himself; effects which none before had seen or

contemplated.

As a wit, he was inferior to none that levelled its shafts at him, and hence his novel compositions in architecture became among the professed critics of the day so nuch the more an object of derision, as, in their puny notions, his only assailable point. Attacked from party feeling, the public allowed itself to be biassed by epigrams and smart verses from the pens of Pope and Swift; and when the former, in his fourth epistle, in allusion 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 art, 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 thitherto condemned works of this extraordinary architect. "I pretend," says Reynolds, in his fifth discourse, "to no skill in architecture. I judge now of the art merely as a painter. When I speak of Vanbrugh, I speak of him merely on our art. To speak, then, of Vanbrugh 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

various 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 slanting 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 The study, and magnificence, as well as variety, to the summit of that princely edifice. therefore, not the imitation, might be extremely serviceable to artists of genius and discernment."

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.

A

496. King's Weston, near Bristol, erected for the Honourable Edward Southwell. 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 spe

cimen 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 arins, 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 ig norant of heraldry. He held the situations of surveyor of the works at Greenwich Hos pital, 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 sop, 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.