*

parts of Hampton-court, Middlesex, we have a memorable and striking specimen of the character of building, which the magnificent Wolsey esteemed desirable for a palatial residence. We here see several courts, uniformly of a quadrangular shape, rising progressively, from subordinate chambers with a plain exterior, to spacious suites, highly embellished on the front towards the courts. The most sumptuous parts of Wolsey's structure are no more; but it appears that the gloomy character of the ancient castellated house was studiously avoided in their arrangement; and that the halls and galleries, designed for state and festivity, were calcu lated to display with advantage that splendour of domestic decoration in which he took an ostentatious delight.

1

The reign of Elizabeth presents the next great era in the pro gress of domestic architecture.† Very numerous mansions were then constructed; and the slightest topographical researches will be sufficient to convince us that many of these still remain, as magnificent and grateful monuments of the affluence and security of that renowned period in our national annals. In the mansions of Queen Elizabeth's days, and those of James the First, a great amplitude of dimensions would appear to be the first object in request; and, secondary only to a pride in extensive site, is conspicuous a fondness for multiplied ornaments on the exterior. The most stately of these palaces are marked by numerous turrets, carved parapets, decorated portals, and enriched corridores. In the disposal of these embellishments, little correctness of taste is displayed; and a poverty of invention is often united with a mixture of styles, peculiarly disgraceful to the character of an age in which the chief efforts of architectural talent were directed towards domestic edifices.

An imported Italian fashion had been for some time gaining on public

2 F 2

• Beauties for the county of Middlesex, p. 446-482. Although so many splendid structures were erected in this reign, it is remarkable that but little is known concerning the architects respectively employed. The same observation also applies to the reign of Henry the Eighth.

public notice. This consisted of defective imitations of Grecian and Roman architecture, which were intermixed with various non descript novelties of style, in a manner truly puerile and offensive. The protector Somerset had adopted this strange union of dissimilar modes, in his London palace, lately taken down to give way to the public building erected by Sir W. Chambers; and it progressively grew into a national fashion, of which many instances remain, discreditably produced by the best architects in the times of Elizabeth and James the First.*

The interior of these noble, but ill-designed dwellings, presents numerous stately rooms, large in proportions and very lofty. On their capacious dimensious, indeed, they chiefly depend for admiration. Destitute of the fine carved ceilings, rich in tracery and pendants, which adorn some domestic buildings erected in the previous century, and in the time of Henry the Eighth, these rooms are usually finished with little labour and less elegance. But, in the arrangement of the apartments, there is evident a preparation for extensive social intercourse, more refined than that of ages in which greater cost was bestowed on the few principal rooms; although a want of comfort will be discovered by

the

Mr. Warton, in his observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen, takes occa sion to say that, " although the Roman or Grecian architecture did not begia to prevail in England till the time of Inigo Jones, yet our communication with the Italians, and our imitation of their manners, produced some specimens of that style much earlier." After noticing Somerset House, in the Strand, Mr. Warton observes that the monument of Bishop Gardiner, in Winchester cathedral, made in the reign of Mary, about 1555, is decorated with Ionic pillars. "However, most of the great buildings of Queen Elizabeth's reign have a style peculiar to themselves, both in form and finishing ; where, though much of the old Gothic is retained, and great part of the new taste is adopted, yet neither predominates; while both, thus distinctly blended, compose a fantastic species hardy reducible to any class or name. One of its characteristics is the affectation of large and lofty windows; where gays Bacon, you shall have sometimes fair houses so full of glass that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun."

the examiner who is accustomed to the delicate accommodations of a modern mansion.

The following remarks concerning several characteristics of noble domestic structures, commencing with the reign of Henry the Eighth, and ending with that of James the First, are worthy of attention, as they proceed from a writer who was an architect by profession, and who had taken advantage of every professional opportunity to investigate the architectural antiquities of his country.

"The brick buildings of the age of Henry the Eighth, may be distinguished, by being chequered with glazed bricks, of a darker colour than the rest of the fronts, which were generally built with bricks of a deep red, very hard and well burnt. The windowframes were sometimes of stone; but very often of bricks, moulded on purpose, and covered with strong plaister of stucco imitating stone. During the reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the ornaments of Grecian architecture, which were introduced in the time of Henry the Seventh, were frequently imitated in burnt clay; and with them they laced the fronts of their houses, and covered the shafts of their chimnies, in the same manner as those which were executed in stone on Somerset-house in the Strand. For this purpose a variety of fantastical figures were invented, in which the Grecian and Gothic ornaments were often absurdly mixed together; and in this manner they were used till the time of James the First, when they began to make plainer shafts to their chimnies, and those moulded bricks were laid aside but in this and the preceding reign the buildings in general were badly executed, many of the walls being little better than rubbish between two thin shells of brick; and some of them were filled with small rough stones, mixed with clay instead of mortar, and others with turves or peat, such as common people use for fuel in those places where wood and coals are scarce.

* Remarks on the Antiquity of brick and stone buildings in England, by Mr. Essex. Archæol Vol. IV. p. 107,

Amongst the most splendid mansions erected in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James the First, may be noticed Burleigh, în Northamptonshire;* Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire;† Audley House, Essex; Longleat, in Wiltshire;§ and Holland House, Middlesex.

The above, however, are merely adduced as satisfactory examples of the prevailing modes. Instances of sumptuous domestic buildings, constructed in these reigns, occur much too frequently in the different volumes of the " Beauties," to allow of an attempt towards a collective enumeration.

The castellated structures of WALES, and its domestic buildings, of the more important and ornamental classes, are so nearly similar to those of England, as far as regards remaining examples, that they scarcely demand distinct notice, in this place. In the progress of the present enquiry, several buildings, situated in Wales, have been cited, as satisfactory instances in an attempt towards the elucidation of marked peculiarities of style, prevailing in determinate stages of the history of military architecture. A few general remarks may be added.

Some valuable observations, respecting the Military Architecture of Wales, are afforded by Sir Richard C. Hoare. The following excerpt cannot fail of being acceptable to the reader." Welsh castles may be divided into three classes; the original British, situated on high and almost inaccessible mountains, such as Carn Madryn near Neyn, and Corndochon near Bala, in North Wales; and Crug Howel above the village of Crickhowel in South Wales, with numerous others dispersed about the hills in each principality, bearing the same characteristic features of rude and remote antiquity. The vulgar name of Cottiau Gwyddelod, or huts of the wild men, attributed to them by the natives, arose probably from their mode of construction;

It has been said, by a late writer on the castellated antiquities of Wales, [the Hon. Daines Barrington, in the first volume of Archæologia] that all the principal castles of that country were 2 F 4 rebuilt

being excavations made in the ground and rock, and surrounded by an inclosure of loose stones.

Under the next head I shall place those that were constructed with stone, and cemented with mortar, and placed on less eminent situations. These are very similar in their plans, having generally an outwork, and an artificial mound of earth as a citadel; instances of these are seen at Pencadair and Lanpeder in South Wales. These appear to me to be the castles recorded in the Welsh Chronicle, as having been so frequently destroyed, and so frequently rebuilt; and I am inclined to think that they were chiefly con structed with wood, otherwise they never could have been restored and reFortified in the very short time specified in the Welsh annals.

"After the subjugation of Glamorganshire by the Normans, and the settlement of the Flemings in the Principality; a new and far more sumptuous mode of building was introduced; of which we see many fine examples in the castles of Cardiff, Kidwelly, Pembroke, Cilgarran, &c. &c. The contrast between the second and third classes may be seen at Hay, where the tumulus and site of the Welsh castle, and the ruins of the subsequent Norman for tress, are still visible.

"A great improvement was afterwards made in military architecture by King Edward the First, who at the same time that he skewed his good policy in erecting the stately castles of Conwy, Caernarvon, and Harlech, as bulwarks against the Welsh, displayed his good taste and knowledge in military architecture. The picturesque superiority of these buildings is owing to the introduction of small turrets arising from the larger, by which the heavy castellated mass of masonry receives great additional lightness and elegance."

These passages are extracted from Sir Richard C.. Hoare's edition of the Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin, &c. Vol. II. p. 401-3. It is probable that the learned and elegant editor may be correct in supposing that Welsh eastles, like those of Pencadair and Lanpeder, were chiefly constructed of wood; but the reader will recollect that, in page 240, of this “Introduc tion," some reasons are adduced for believing that early chroniclers were often guilty of misrepresentation, in stating castles to be utterly destroyed, when, in fact, only the fortifications were dismantled, and the interior rendered før some time uninhabitable.