doing so; and consequently, they will be prevented from imparting to the latter any fresh spirit and vigour in return. Gigantic as they may be, such constructions do not in the least address themselves to the imagination, but merely to good sense and matterof-fact reflection. There is nothing of the poetical connected with them, any more than with a problem in Euclid. Whether they be not preferable to the poetical-more befitting the manhood of society and the earnestness of every-day life, than the chimerical fancies and illusions which amuse our idleness, is a different question, which will be answered in the affirmative or the contrary, according to the individual views entertained of it. The only point upon which most are likely to agree is, that from this quarter little or nothing is to be expected that will in any degree advance architecture by driving it out of its beaten track. Or, if this should ever happen, it is not likely to be produced by any direct agency, but rather by architects being driven to the necessity of availing themselves of improved methods of construction, and other materials than those they have hitherto employed, and thus gradually led to essay forms dictated by such changes. In the mean time, they strive to mask their structures to the best of their ability by all manner of appliances, out of deference to customs which they either have not the courage to desert or the talent sufficient to put down, by showing that beauty may be elicited from other elements of design than those of which we have hitherto availed ourselves. Quoting again from Dr. Ritgen, we may add: - "It appears almost incomprehensible, that the passion for imitating the ancients should have taken such deep root as to have grown up into a species of tyranny--a tyranny that daily instigates us to the perpetration of some fresh folly, some regular absurdity. Satisfied with shifts and expedients that answer our immediate purposes, we allow no time for either the understanding or taste to exert itself; but, while we admit the necessity for new ideas, the plastic talent which should produce them is inert-dormant, if not extinct. Greek, Roman, and Gothic forms are alternately resorted to and alternately laid aside, in order to be again brought into use; until, perhaps, wearied of thus repeatedly borrowing modes of architecture, which we put on and off with equal facility, because they are no more than superficial disguises, we may at length begin to form for ourselves a style of our own, which, in all its features and ornaments, including the embellishment of colour, shall be both consistent and expressive. The course we must pursue in order to accomplish such arduous purpose, and gradually mould our architecture to the actual wants and usages of society in its present tendencies, may even now be foreseen with some degree of distinctness. The progress of civilization is in nothing more evident than in the strides which mechanical industry and invention are every day making. It will be incumbent, therefore, on architecture to follow closely in the same track, and, by catching the spirit which now animates the mechanical arts, to assume a natural and unaffected character, wholly independent of antiquated systems. Besides which, it ought to avail itself of the improvements that have taken place both in the mathematical and the physical sciences. Intimately acquainted as we are now become with the properties of every kind of material, whether wood, metal, or artificial substitutes for stone, and with the laws of statics in respect to them, we possess the means of providing whatever we require, with far greater facility and economy than by employing stone and marble. Here a new and extensive field opens itself to the architect; for the variety in regard to proportions, forms, and modes of construction, which the materials now known to us afford, is endless in comparison with what solid masonry admits of. "But O! the folly of inveterate prejudices! While ample means are thus placed at the architect's command for securing propriety not less than novelty, he can scarcely be induced to make any use of them. The most he does is to make his new materials simulate the old ones, and in proportion to the ingenuity he shows in thus falsifying his work, does he give himself credit for having achieved something particularly meritorious and deserving admiration. Yet, after all, the incongruity is too evident, the imposition too palpable to be persisted in for ever. Already do the newer modes of construction, and their tendency, begin to gain ground, and as they do so, the architect will be gradually led to have recourse to them in every branch of his practice, both on a large and on a small scale, so that, driven from his old routine, he will strive to infuse another and newer æsthetic character into his productions. All we have to require of him is, that, in pursuing this aim, he should proceed honestly and openly, exhibiting his construction such as it really is, without any attempt to mask or falsify it.* Let but each kind of material show itself undisguisedly, in the forms and proportions natural to it, and, while all the conditions of durability, convenience, and propriety, are fulfilled, there will also be full play allowed to originality. At the same time, all regard must be paid to beauty, as one of the first and most indispensable conditions annexed to art. One beauty, that of simplicity, will result almost spontaneously, inasmuch as the ideas of the artist, not the mere imitator, will present themselves in their original clearness, and in unaffected expression. At the same time, the natural constructive forms and outlines will admit of being decorated and filled up, and thereby present a wide scope for taste in the selection of suitable details and colours. "We ought not," observes a recent German critic," to strive to imitate the Greeks, either in the construction or the architectural composition of their buildings, but rather in the refined taste with which they made art subservient to what their climate and their customs required. Had they been inhabitants of the North, and at the same time been gifted with the same degree of taste, they would not have produced the antique as we now find it, but have invented something partaking more of the style of the middle ages. Most assuredly, they would have approximated, more or less, to Gothic architecture, because no other style is so well adapted to northern countries." "In this respect, antiquity offers few models. Stone construction was almost universally prevalent, so that we have scarcely any examples of the application of wood or metal; nevertheless, the few that we do meet with clearly prove that they were designed independently of any reference to the other material; which is, perhaps, so much the better for us; since the few remaining instances of the use of metal and wood, and likewise of polychromy,* are sufficient to call our attention to them; while, not being such as to furnish express models for our imitation, they are likely to direct us all the sooner to exercise our own invention, unfettered by formal precedents." After this, many, if not most, of our readers, at least such as are professional men already far advanced in their career, will regard Ritgen's doctrine as not less mischievous than novel,-as amounting, in fact, to a proscription of Greek, Gothic, and every other former style; and tending to upset all that is now recognized as legitimate and established, to subvert the principles of taste, and to introduce complete anarchy, by countenancing wholesale innovation, or rather, directly advocating it. How * The subject of polychrome architecture, to which we ourselves recently called attention (see No. XXXV. Art. 8), has excited much interest and inquiry, more especially in Germany, where, as we now learn, one or two practical experiments of the kind we recommended have been actually executed, and, it appears, with complete success. The principal one is an ornamental building, lately erected after designs by Klenze, in what is called the "English Garden," at Munich. This structure, (upwards of fifty feet high,) which is an open rotunda, or monopteral decastyle temple, in the Grecian Ionic style of the richest character, is so embellished both within and without. No colouring is applied to the shafts of the columns, but it commences immediately below the capitals, where a series of arrow-headed leaves, blue on a gold ground, correspond with the flutings of the columns; the neckings of the capitals are similarly ornamented with painted leaves and tendrils, in accordance with the decoration of the like character given to the abacus and echinus, and with the mode in which the volutes are enriched with colours; and the whole combination of colours, although different from that observed in any of the ancient specimens of polychromy yet met with, is allowed to be exceedingly beautiful. The middle facia of the architrave is distinguished from the other two by a tint partaking of red or orange hue, while it is thus made to agree with the cymatium and other mouldings which crown the entire architrave. The frieze has a fret interspersed with rich foliage of different colours, upon a sky-blue ground; and the different members of the cornice are relieved by colours; besides which, the antefixæ surmounting it, are so painted as greatly to contribute to the general richness of effect. On the summit of the roof or dome is a rich ornament composed of foliage, partly of white metal and partly variegated with colours, surmounted by another in the form of a pineapple. Within, this dome is divided into coffers, with white ornaments on a green and red ground alternately; and its centre is occupied by a rich rosette upon a blue ground, encircled by a kind of border or frieze composed of differently coloured flowers. The pigments are applied with wax and an admixture of copal, and the dead colouring, or first coat, is made of a darker tone than the finishing one; and, in the stone employed for this building, the colours were found to penetrate considerably beyond the surface; so that there is every reason to presume that the method here resorted to will be found to possess great durability, provided the colours themselves resist the action of the weather and atmosphere. The new Post-Gebäude at Munich, by the same architect, offers another example of polychromy, but of a different and more simple character. ever opposed they may be to each other, all sects in architecture are likely to view in him a common foe, aiming at nothing less than to give a death-blow to what they term sound principles, but which he looks upon as pedantical restrictions and antiquated prejudices, which cannot be too soon got rid of, in order that we may freely avail ourselves of superior mechanic means, together with improved mechanic knowledge. Our own objection is, that he gets over the main difficulty by passing it by altogether untouched, and leaves us in the dark with respect to those very points which most require some kind of direct illustration; there being nothing either in his introductory remarks or in the body of his work from which we can gather more than the above vague, unsatisfactory, and remote hints, announcing that as not merely possible, but almost easy, whose feasibility remains to be proved by its successful accomplishment. The difficulty of practically working out the solution of this problem is not at all lessened by the consideration that there must be very decided success to recommend what would have to encounter a more than usually rigorous ordeal, and must submit to have its pretensions closely scrutinized by those who would be ill-disposed to admit them; because, in the case of architecture, novelty-that species of it at least which consists in actual innovation-is generally so far from conciliating favour, that it is rather apt to be regarded with suspicious jealousy. Besides all which, it is exceedingly difficult to divest the mind of habitual associations and prepossessions, and to get rid of that attachment to established styles which would prevent our breaking away from them to the degree we ought to do, if we would form one that should not appear either a corruption of some one of them, or a medley of several. The present position of the art is altogether different from what it was when pointed architecture began to develop itself out of a negative, degenerate style, bearing few traces of its original eleAt that crisis, there were no models of excellence to be abandoned; nothing to be lost by experiment; every thing to be gained; nothing to be uprooted, but merely the seeds of future taste to be sowed. Widely different becomes the case when both taste and practice are biassed in favour of certain styles already so inveterately confirmed as to admit of no improvement in themselves, and scarcely of any departure from them that would not be deemed capricious or solecistical. ments. Hitherto not one systematic innovator who has set up as the founder of a new style has been at all successful, or rather, his failure has been so decided, that his example has carried with it more of warning than of authority, and proved more disheartening than encouraging. Both Ledoux and Soane failed most egregi ously, the wild philosophical theory of the one producing only bombastic chimeras-mis-shapen, unlicked, roughly chalked out monstrosities; the feebler invention of the other rising no higher than puny conceits, hammered out of two or three pet fancies, and repeated till they became sickly, nauseating mannerism. Like the Frenchman, our English architect and professor got out of the high road only to bewilder himself, and stumble about gropingly, without chart or clue whereby to direct himself onwards in a progressive course. Sir John's own distinct style was made up of little arches without impost mouldings, sunk lines in lieu of mouldings, and petty dabs of ornament scattered about, as if intended to render the general blankness and vacancy the more disagreeably striking: or an infinitude of petty details was spread over entire surfaces, so as to render the whole indistinct and confused; yet, even in such cases, there was also something left in jarring contrast with the rest-some incongruous manifestation of penuriousness in the midst of riotous prodigality. The primitive elements of his style, and the taste upon which it was founded, may be traced with tolerable distinctness from his incipient efforts in his collection of " Designs for Casinos and Garden Buildings"-a volume, always curious, and now become rather scarce, owing to the author's having afterwards bought up every copy he could meet with-to that chef-d'œuvre of it when in its acme, his own residence in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, destined henceforth to pass under the title of the Soanean Museum. Neither ought we entirely to overlook that specimen of his powers in design, the exterior of the National Debt Redemption Office, a work so execrably uncouth in every respect, that it would be discreditable to the merest village bricklayer. Besides its other offensive incongruities and poverty-stricken conceits, that building, like many others of the professor's, exhibits a most offensive mixture of brick and stone in glaringly raw opposition to each other; the piers of the no less flimsy than cumbersome screen being of stone, while the arches themselves are of rough brick, without the slightest dressing or finishing of any kind: in fact, the whole looks as if it had been suddenly abandoned in its progress, before being completed, by the architect. The extreme paucity of Sir John's ideas, if we except some of those which relate to plan alone, wherein we admit that he threw out many excellent hints, becomes evident enough on inspecting his volume of "Designs of Public and Private Buildings," which, to say nothing of the disgracefully coarse and bad drawing, proves his imagination to have been exceedingly limited, although devious and irregular. For the most part, these Designs show only two or three odd whims differently hashed up, at which he |