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first designs were such as a school boy draws on a slate, and his 1862 Exhibition Building was only fit to be pulled down. But he was a man of architectural instincts, and, had he been educated as an architect, and escaped the trammels of the Copying School, might have done wonders. As it was, he was brought up as a military engineer, and set to work to design and carry out civil buildings before he had mastered the most elementary principles of the art. He failed of course; but ten years' experience-at the country's expense-had enabled him to remedy the defects of his early education, and his natural aptitude for the art at last enabled him to realize this very beautiful design. It was neither Grecian nor Gothic, but thoroughly nineteenth century; and had he lived and been allowed to carry it out with such ameliorations as further study would have enabled him to introduce, his building would have marked an epoch in the history of architecture in this country.

Dis aliter visum. One fine morning the Government, worried and perplexed by the rival claims of the competing architects, issued an ukase which was intended to settle the whole question. To Mr. Scott, as the Goth of the Goths, it was given to design and carry out the Home and Colonial Offices in the Italian style. To Mr. Street was awarded the Law Courts, because his design was the worst-a perfectly competent tribunal having awarded him only three marks in the competition, while it had assigned Edward Barry fortythree. But as a sop to keep the latter quiet-which does not, however, seem to have proved a successful expedienthe was given the new National Gallery. Because Messrs. Banks and Barry had some claim on the Government in respect to a War Office competition, they were given the Burlington House buildings; and lastly, because Mr. Waterhouse was supposed to have earned a claim by what he had done in the early stages of the Law Courts competition, to him they awarded the task of

carrying out Captain Fowke's design for the Natural History Museum.

It would be difficult to conceive a process more insulting to the judges, or more detrimental to the encouragement of architectural art, than this was, and has proved to be. Government, it is true, to save their responsibility, always insert clauses to protect themselves from legal damages in the event of their doing what they know to be a violation of the spirit of their agreement. Practically, however, no architect enters upon a competition except on the understanding that, if his design proves to be the best, he will not only get the first prize, but be employed to carry out his design. The prizes, however large, never cover the cost of a competition; and when to the cost we add the waste of energy and time, and the mental anxiety involved in the process, no man in his senses would compete if he had not faith in his judges, and confidence that the only prize worth having would be awarded to him who best deserved it. There is an end of all faith in the justice and discrimination of Government when, in defiance of this understanding, it is found that an official with no special qualifications may any day tear up all the awards of the judges, and then proceed to distribute the prizes according to his own caprice, or according to the pressure brought to bear upon him. Such a system is degrading to the profession, and it is very creditable to it that the public are still so well served, and our public buildings not infinitely worse than they are.

If the Government had any serious intention that Captain Fowke's design for a natural history museum should be carried out, they would have insisted on a pledge that this should be done with only such changes and ameliorations as the original architect himself might have introduced. Nothing of the kind was done; and what might have been foreseen as inevitable, soon came to pass. Mr. Waterhouse's position as an architect did not allow of his carrying out any other person's design, much

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less that of a soldier-officer. sequently very soon produced an entirely new design of his own, in what he is pleased to call the Norman, or according to the more fashionable modern euphuism, the "Bizzantine" style, though what its connection may have been with Byzantium I do not know. As Mr. Waterhouse very well knows, it is no more Norman than the British Museum is Greek. It is a modern building, with large openings filled with plate-glass. The roofs are fitted with skylights; swing doors, modern fireplaces, plate-glass cases, and every other nineteenth-century contrivance, is sought to be introduced; but he escapes from the difficulty of designing details appropriate to the present age, under the pretext that the rude clumsy ornament he is using is correct Norman.

If this building were as truly and essentially Norman as Mr. Street's is thirteenth century, it would be so intolerable that it could not be erected. Some people think we may safely go back as far as the time of Edward III., but no human power would force British science to be content with the dark dungeons that graced or disgraced our island in the troublous times succeeding the Conquest.

Mr. Street's design, again, fails from exactly the opposite quality. It is the accuracy of imitation pervading every detail that makes it so perfectly intolerable. According to this Joshua of architects, the sun of art stood still when Edward III. died in 1377, and has not moved forward since that time. Hence the lawyers of the nineteenth century must be content to lounge in vaulted halls, with narrow windows filled with painted glass, and so dark that they cannot see to read or write in them. They must wander through corridors whose gloom recalls the monkish seclusion of the Middle Ages. They must sit on high straight-backed chairs, and be satisfied with queer-shaped furniture, which it is enough to give one the rheumatism to look at; and no higher class of art must be allowed to refresh their eyes than the heraldic devices, or the crude, ungainly

nightmare paintings of the Middle Ages. It is strange that educated men in the nineteenth century should desire this; but if they do, it is well they should have it in perfection. The more complete the reductio ad absurdum, the sooner the reaction will set in.

When the reviving taste for barbarism imposed a task of this sort on the late Sir Charles Barry, he submitted, as an architect must; but with characteristic common sense he chose that form of Gothic which was least offensive to modern ideas. And he further gave it a dignity and grace which hardly belong to the style, by taking the licence of putting his design for the Parliament Houses into an Italian form. The Palace at Westminster is not perfect, but it has at least this merit, that its style is two centuries nearer our time than Mr. Street's, and thus incorporates all the improvements that were introduced during those 200 years. It consequently comes so much further forward, that modern improvements and modern art are not the complete discord which they would be in a building so essentially mediæval as the Law Courts are intended to be made. In so far as it is nearer our time it is better, but the public will hardly be able to measure this advantage till they feel the inconvenience of the more archaic building.

But the important question remains, Where is all this to end? When we have got our Tudor Parliament Houses, our Edwardian Law Courts, our Norman Museum, what is to be done next? One step backward we can still see our way to-there is the Saxon. Instead of repeating the vague term "Englishmen," representing a heterogeneous medley of nationalities, let the Saturday Review use the more definite term, and ask, Are we not "Saxons?" With sufficient iteration its claim must eventually be admitted, and ought to be; for besides its undoubted ethnological claim, it has two merits of its own. We know so little about it that it admits of considerable latitude of design, without offence to archæologists, and its details are so

rude and lean that they must be cheap. Let the Government, then, when they issue their proposals for a competition for the new War Office, for once make up their minds beforehand, and specify the Saxon style as that to be adopted. It will admit of some novelties, and be quite as appropriate to the wants of the nineteenth century as the Norman or Edwardian styles.

When, however, we have thus completed our hortus siccus of dried specimens of dead styles, the prospects of the next generation of architects will be dark indeed. There will only then remain the so-called Druidical style of the Ordnance Survey. At present no doubt it is inconvenient and somewhat draughty; but if plate-glass and modern refinements may be used with the Norman, why not with the Druidical? I do not feel by any means sure that a stuccoed Stonehenge, with a glass and iron roof, would not be as good, perhaps a better representation of the architecture of the nineteenth century than many buildings which have recently been erected.

But to return to the Law Courts for a few minutes, before concluding. The particular crotchet which, besides its anachronism, renders the principal façade so unsatisfactory, is Mr. Street's determination to insist on his great vaulted hall. In his first design this hall was placed east and west, in the centre of the building. It was not seen from the outside, and was useless inside. It was therefore harmless, except that it increased the expense enormously, while it darkened the lights, and rendered the courts and passages around it noisome and inconvenient. In addition to these trifles, however, it may be added that it is not Gothic, for so far as I know no such vaulted hall was erected for any civil purpose in any country of Europe during the Middle Ages.

In the new designs the hall is placed north and south, and comes so near the front that the temptation was irresistible to justify its introduction by showing it, and making it a feature in the design.

seen.

It could not, without destroying its supposed use, be brought quite to the front, like Westminster Hall, thus making it the central feature in the façade. It must consequently be seen in perspective at some distance behind, but in order to enable this to be done the façade must be cut in two; and more than this, all the nearer features must be kept small and subdued, so as not to dwarf the distant hall. All this is quite right and logical, if the hall is to be But why the hall at all? If the Government had even now the courage to say to Mr. Street, "You shall not have your vaulted hall, but must introduce a glazed court, or such a hall as Mr. Waterhouse proposed in his design," they would not only immensely improve the convenience of the Courts, but save the architect from a difficulty he does not see his way out of. He could then close up his front and introduce a central feature, with appropriate wings, which would give some dignity and proportion to the whole design, and so save it from the scattered littlenesses which every one remarks, though few are aware why they are inevitable with the present arrangements.

No re-arrangement of the parts, however, can possibly remedy the real and fundamental error which is inherent in the whole design. If the Strand were the bed of a pellucid mountain stream, and this building were designed to be placed on its banks in some remote sparsely inhabited Midland valley, for the accommodation of a congregation of barefooted friars, we might admire the picturesqueness of its details, and shut our eyes to the anachronism in consideration of its appropriateness. It is difficult, however, to realize the frame of mind in which any one could sit down at the present day seriously to prepare such a design for a Palace of Justice in the largest and richest city of the world. If the Government, when the competition was proposed, had had the courage to proscribe both the Classic and the Gothic styles, there are many architects in this country who could have furnished both elegant and appropriate

designs in styles perfectly suited to our wants and feelings. If, however, Gothic was admitted, one of two things seems inevitable. The building must either (like Sir Charles Barry's Parliament House or his son Edward's design for the Law Courts) be an Italian design in a Gothic disguise, or, if it is to be (as Mr. Street boasts that his is) a real fac-simile of the monastic or domestic architecture of the Middle Ages, it must be such as is only suited to that remote stage of civilization, and both antagonistic to the taste and inappropriate to the purposes of the present generation.

It is not pleasant to write thus of the works of men who I am proud to call my friends, and for whom personally I have the greatest possible esteem; but my belief is that they are the slaves and the victims of a thoroughly vicious system, and unless some one will speak out, even at the sacrifice of personal feelings, there is no hope that it will be amended. My conviction is, that so long as men copy, and copy only, art cannot advance beyond the schoolboy stage, and no ability, however great, will enable any one to produce a building which will be satisfactory fifty years after its erection. There are not probably in Europe two architects of greater ability or greater knowledge of their profession than Messrs. Street and Waterhouse, and their failure to produce satisfactory designs for the two buildings criticized above, is to my mind sufficient proof of the truth of the proposition that it is impossible to render the art of a bygone age suitable or appropriate to the wants or feelings of the present.

On the other hand, if men will think, and think only, of how they can best carry out a design, with the best materials and with the forms best suited for the purposes it is intended for, and ornament it in the manner most elegant and appropriate to its constructive and utilitarian necessities, without ever thinking of, or at least copying, anything done before, my conviction is, that it will be as difficult to make a bad design as on the copying sys

tem it is to make a good one. I have arrived at this conclusion because I find that every nation in the world has been able to produce a style of architecture perfectly suitable to its own wants, and commanding the admiration of all strangers; and this though many were in a state of civilization infinitely below our own, and had neither the knowledge or the appliances which we possess. If we can revert to the thinking system, though we may blunder a little in starting at first, we may look forward with confidence to the future of architectural art in this country. We have hundreds of architects able and willing to do all that is required. The rapidity with which they learned to copy Gothic details, and the perfection of their imitations, are proofs that there is no lack of ability on their part. They could just as easily and as quickly produce designs in modern styles if they were asked for; but it is doubtful whether the public are prepared to demand this, or whether they are sufficiently educated in true art to appreciate them if obtained. On the other hand, if we are content with the copying system, we may fold our arms and despair. In no part of the world has it succeeded in any age, and it is very unlikely it should do so now.

Are the architects wise in the course they are pursuing? Is there no danger that the Government and the public may in future go to Chatham or to Great George Street for their architects? If they ever do, it will be a dark day for the arts of this country. Architecture is not an art to be learned in a day, or practised by amateurs. Long apprenticeship and severe study are requisite for success; and if architecture ever passes out of professional hands, we certainly may be more cheaply and more conveniently accommodated, but the art will probably be something one dreads to look forward to. The Institute of Architects may save us from this, but to do so it must write over its doors, "Archæology is not Architecture," and, I would add, "never can be made to take the place of true or manly art.”

MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1872.

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A DAUGHTER OF HETH," ETC.

CHAPTER IV.

MASTER ARTHUR VANISHES.

"Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine; And Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight."

"RAIN!" cried Queen Titania, as she walked up to the window of the breakfast-room, and stared reproachfully out on cloudy skies, gloomy trees, and the wet thoroughfares of Twickenham.

"Surely not!" said Bell, in anxious tones; and therewith she too walked up to one of the panes, while an expression of deep mortification settled down on her face.

She stood so for a second or two, irresolute and hurt; and then a revengeful look came into her eyes, she walked firmly over to my Lady, got close up to her ear, and apparently uttered a single word. Tita almost jumped back; and then she looked at the girl.

"Bell, how dare you?" she said, in her severest manner.

Bell turned and shyly glanced at the rest of us, probably to make sure none of us had heard; and then, all this mysterious transaction being brought to a close, she returned to the table, and calmly took up a newspaper. sently she threw it aside, and glanced, No. 148.-VOL. XXV.

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with some heightened colour in her face and some half-frightened amusement in her eyes, towards Tita; and lo! that majestic little woman was still regarding the girl, and there was surprise as well as sternness in her look.

Presently the brisk step of Lieutenant von Rosen was heard outside, and in a minute or two the tall young man came into the room, with a fine colour in his face, and a sprinkling of rain about his big brown beard.

"Ha! Not late? No? That is very good!"

"But it rains!" said Tita to him, in an injured way, as if anyone who had been out of doors was necessarily responsible for the weather.

"It may go

"Not much," he said. off; but about six it did rain very hard, and I got a little wet then, I think."

"And where were you at six?" said Tita, with her pretty brown eyes opened wide.

"At Isleworth," he said, carelessly; and then he added, "Oh, I have done much business this morning, and bought something for your two boys, which will make them not mind that you go away. It is hard, you know, they are left behind

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"But Bell has given them silver

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