while, on the other, the various competitors had suffered severe losses, both in time and expenditure. A second reference of all the selected designs led to no better result; and it now appears that a new and limited competition is to be entered into, and that this is to include an architect not concerned in the former competition, but who was one of the committee's referees on the second occasion. This proceeding has greatly increased the dissatisfaction which already existed.

In both these cases the programme, or code of instructions for the guidance of the competitors, was loose and unsatisfactory; the composition of the tribunal (though very different in each) was, in the outset, far from being calculated to inspire confidence; and no sufficient means were taken to attract the public attention, and to induce the formation and expression of critical opinion on the merits of the various designs submitted. Instead of public exhibition before the adjudication of the premiums, such exhibition followed the adjudication in the former case, and in the latter there was no public exhibition at all. These are obviously points of the first importance.

The case has not been better with respect to our Sculpture. public competitions for works of Sculpture: and here we may usefully carry the retrospect a little further back.

in Saint

Surprise has often been expressed that the opportu- The public nities afforded to our sculptors by the parliamentary monuments votes of statues to many of our countrymen who dis- Paul's catinguished themselves during the late war, were so little thedral,&c. improved as to produce scarcely a work calculated to do lasting honour to the country. Yet among the sculptors employed were Bacon, Chantrey, Rossi, and Flaxman. To what cause are we to ascribe the disappointment? It will be found, I think, in the subjection of the taste and judgment of the artist to the capricious

pleasure of a committee of superintendence, in the composition of which not the slightest pains had been taken to ensure even a sound elementary knowledge of the matter in hand.

"A superintendence of the public monuments of sculpture seems to have been considered necessary," says Mr. Prince Hoare,* "to guide the less informed minds of the sculptors; and for that purpose a commission was formed, composed of such persons as were most conspicuous for a liberal regard for the arts; gentlemen of high repute for classical learning and refinement, (some of them members of the House of Commons,) candid in their opinions and amiable in every concern of life. In conjunction with these was nominated the President of the Royal Academy." After stating that this superintendence gradually fell altogether into the hands of the unprofessional judges, "to the total exclusion, or with the total desertion, of artists of whatever description," Mr. Hoare thus proceeds:†

"To the committee of taste thus formed exclusively of unprofessional judges, not only an absolute preliminary power is intrusted of deciding what designs shall be accepted and preferred for execution, as well as to what sculptor a preference shall be given, in consequence of his design having met their approbation; but they exercise also a discretionary power of directing whether a part, or the whole, of any of the models so approved by them shall be executed; whether parts of one design shall be transferred to another, so as perhaps to compound one out of two; and, finally, whether a sculptor shall execute his own design or that of another competitor." Well may the writer conclude by saying,

In his Epochs of the Arts, London, 1813, p. 229, et seq. t Ib. p. 233.

that "a mere statement of such a mode of proceeding is sufficient." A walk into St. Paul's cathedral will supply the most appropriate commentary.

Strange as this "mode of proceeding" may appear at first sight, its strangeness vanishes when it is remembered, that at neither of our universities is there the slightest provision for instruction in the theory and principles-to say nothing of the practice of the arts of design. Whatever knowledge, therefore, of these is acquired by unprofessional men, is usually gathered in the most desultory manner, and as usually is a onesided or half-knowledge, so far is it from being true, that "an amateur is necessarily free" from those prejudices which sometimes lead professional men of narrow education to close their eyes to the merits of any style or school of art, save that to which they are themselves attached.*

nial.

More recent experience is unfortunately much of the Nelson same kind. For the Nelson Testimonial, a hundred Testimoand fifty designs were sent to the committee. Three of them were selected as worthy to receive the appointed prizes, and the first of these three-a column-was recommended for execution. Subsequently to this selection the whole of the designs were exhibited to the subscribers; an almost universal dissatisfaction was

"Moreover, the prejudices of professional men are often extended from individuals to the rival schools in which they have been educated; and this an amateur is necessarily free from" !—Thoughts on the expedience of a better system of control and supervision over buildings erected at the public expense; and on the subject of rebuilding the Houses of Parliament. By Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward Cust. London, 1837, p. 7. Sir E. Cust, who, it will be remembered, was one of the judges of the designs for the Houses of Parliament, ought, before he penned this notable sentence, to have read the letters addressed by Mr. W. R. Hamilton, an amateur of no mean rank, to Lord Elgin, respecting those very designs.

French monument to General Foy.

expressed at the choice which had been made, and the committee was at last compelled to invite a new competition.

But of this new competition, after increased trouble and outlay on the part of the artists, the result was precisely similar. A majority of the committee still preferred a mere column, with a statue at the top, to any other design; they accordingly adhered to their original choice, and, with some difficulty, obtained its confirmation. And thus, after several designs of great beauty had been produced, they were all rejected in favour of an imitation of the column of Trajan at Rome, involving no invention at all, in the proper sense of the term, and a compromise was effected with the claims of that artist—a man of deserved celebrity-whose design was placed second in the selection, (although unquestionably the best of all which had been submitted,) by giving him a commission for the statue which is to surmount the column. There is now no room to doubt, that from the first it had been predetermined by a powerful clique in the Committee to prefer a column, let the merit of the other designs, which the invitation should produce, be what it might. A few more proceedings of this kind will so effectually ruin the repute of public competitions altogether, that we shall be fain to revert even to the system which produced those miserable abortions, the Queen's Palace and the National Gallery.

With this narrative let us contrast the account of a competition of French architects for a monument to General Foy, as given by M. Vaudoyer,* a member of the Institute, and the father of the successful competitor.

* In a letter to T. Leverton Donaldson, Esq., then secretary to the Institute of British Architects.

The programme required that the ground should be twelve metres (about thirteen yards) in the greatest dimension, that the competitors should furnish geometrical drawings and views in perspective, details of construction, an estimate of the expense (which was not to exceed 50,000 francs), and a model executed in relief on a fixed scale of large proportions. Twentyfive of the most able of the French architects engaged in this competition. The names of the authors of the several designs were rigorously concealed.

After a public exhibition of eight days, during which the journals abounded in criticisms, a numerous commission was composed-1st, of architects, sculptors, and painters, of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute; 2d, of artists not belonging to the Institute; 3d, of generals; and 4th, of members of the Chamber of Deputies. To this commission the selection of the design was referred. The generals and the deputies deliberated with the other members, but not thinking themselves competent to pronounce upon an art which they had not studied, and fearing by a conscientious, but possibly ill-placed vote, to falsify the judgment and commit an injustice, they had the delicacy to withdraw. The commission, thus reduced to artists, proceeded in various sittings to the determination-1st, by eliminating fifteen out of the twenty-five; 2d, by selecting from the ten remaining the five best; and 3d, by again selecting three out of the five, which merited the preference. Of these, the design of M. Leon Vaudoyer was unanimously chosen first, for execution, and the two which stood next it were rewarded.

In this instance we find a carefully prepared programme, a public exhibition before the selection, and a duly competent tribunal: but whether the total exclusion of unprofessional judges be generally conducive to the latter, may reasonably be doubted.