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THE 
 
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 T(j XbjSjC/f 
 
 COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 OF 
 
 ARCHITECTURE: 
 
 BEING 
 
 AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT 
 
 or THE ORIGIN, 
 
 SUCCESSIVE AND SIMULTANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS, 
 RELATIONS, PERIODS, AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 OF ITS VARIOUS KNOWN STYLES. 
 
 By SAMUEL HUGGINS, 
 
 ARCHITECT. 
 
 AUTHOR OF VARIOUS ESSAYS ON ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 DESIGNED AS A COMPANION TO HIS 
 
 “CHART OF THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.” 
 
 -♦- 
 
 ILonKoit: 
 
 JOHN WEALE, 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL LIBRARY, 59, HIGH IIOLBORN, 
 
 DAY & SON, 
 
 LITHOG. TO THE QUEEN, GATE ST., LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, 
 
 MDCCCLXIII. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. f j •/" 
 

 
 LONDON: X. F. A. DAV, KRINTEK, 3, NEW COURT, LINCOLN'S INN, W.C. 
 
DEDICATION, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 f itojpl raft Jwjjralopal Society 
 
 TO WHOM 
 
 the “ Chart of the History of Architecture” was 
 
 FIRST SHOWN, 
 
 AND THROUGH WHOSE FLATTERING RECEPTION OF IT, 
 
 IT IS NOW OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC, 
 
 that Work and this, its Literary Companion, 
 
 ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 by their Sincere Friend 
 and Fellow Member, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following work, some portions of which have already 
 appeared in the pages of the Building News , being written 
 as an historical and explanatory companion to my “ Chart 
 of the History of Architecture,” no apology would be 
 needful in offering it to the public were it not for its 
 extension beyond the size required for a mere Key to that 
 work, and assumption of the form of an independent History 
 of the Art. The enlargement of its design is owing to a 
 feeling that the study and research requisite for the con¬ 
 struction of the Chart had induced a clearness and com¬ 
 prehensiveness of view, touching the origin, changes, and 
 relations of the various styles, which, with the further aid 
 of the allegorical monitions of the Chart itself, would enable 
 me to give a more systematic and explicit account 'of those 
 subjects than has hitherto appeared within the same limited 
 compass. Such an account I humbly think the present 
 work will be found to contain, however deficient in some 
 other and important respects it must necessarily be. 
 
 The deviation from the usual arrangement into chapters, 
 by letting the division of the work arise entirely out of the 
 nature and requirements of the subject has been made, to 
 render more clear and conspicuous the disposition of the 
 styles, which is a compromise between the chronological and 
 the geographical, and I think the best possible one for their 
 relationship and mutual influence being understood. The 
 Synoptical Table of the styles may make this more apparent. 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Chai’t being, as I believe it to be, an entirely new 
 application of an old idea, will, I venture to hope, be “its 
 own excuse for being.” From the highly favourable reception 
 experienced by its original copy among my professional 
 friends in Liverpool, I cannot but think it will be acceptable 
 to the profession at large, as well as to that now somewhat 
 numerous band of accomplished amateurs who are engaged 
 in the study, or take an interest in the promotion of the 
 noble art of architecture; and if that art be adopted by 
 our schools and colleges as an essential element in the 
 education of the lady and gentleman, which it is now the 
 opinion of a great many that it ought to be, then the work 
 in question may be no less welcome to the heads of such 
 establishments, as a means of assisting to a knowledge of 
 the genealogy of the styles, which leads to a knowledge of 
 their principles, if it be not essential thereto. 
 
 Moreover, as such a view of the state of our knowledge of 
 architectural history will show, more clearly than has yet 
 been shown, where knowledge is deficient or impei’fect, it 
 may not be without its use in suggesting to the future ex¬ 
 plorer where discovery of the relics or traces of lost styles is 
 most likely to be made. 
 
 I am not supposing, however, that the present state of 
 our knowledge has been perfectly delineated by me. Entire 
 correctness I do not pretend to, and indeed feel that it ought 
 not to be expected. I was not bound to be perfect in the 
 details of a subject, the outline of which was never before 
 sketched, and regarding which there is anything but uni¬ 
 formity of statement or opinion amongst writers. 
 
 Among its omissions is the intentional one of an existing 
 branch of architectural practice of great interest—the Revived 
 Gothic, which has been left out, not from any disrespect for 
 the movement, but simply because to avoid recent complexity, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Vll 
 
 and the representation of what is sufficiently known to all, it 
 was deemed advisable to terminate the Chart at the opening 
 of the present century or at the year 1800 . 
 
 Of the general design, and chronological and geographical 
 arrangement I may venture to speak with more assurance 
 than of the historic details. While the chronological suc¬ 
 cession and development of styles are truly shown, their 
 arrangement with regard to geographical position, both 
 absolute and relative, from east to west, is as correct, I 
 believe, as it is possible to make it. The solitary Central 
 American group of Mexico and Peru appears in the extreme 
 west; the Indian and Chinese outlying group in the further 
 east, the Ch'nese being furthest of all; while all the great 
 styles of Europe, Asia, and Africa fall into their proper 
 places between them—the Gothics on the west, the Byzan¬ 
 tines and their offspring (the Saracenics) on the east of the 
 central classic trunk. The Italian Romanesques, as ramified 
 continuations of the Christian Romanesque in the course 
 which that style had been pursuing for centuries, is shown 
 in the same undeviating line with it. 
 
 Among these Romanesques, again, the Renaissance and 
 Italian spring up to shoot out their branches in their turn, 
 east and west, like the original streams. 
 
 The relative as well as absolute geographical positions of 
 the ancient parent styles are no less correct; and the bending 
 eastward of these styles, as they rise in antiquity, is intended 
 to be expressive of the more than probable opinion that all 
 architecture, like all civilisation, of which it is an instrument 
 and exponent, came to us, directly or indirectly, from the 
 banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. 
 
 The patriarch of the group, and parent, so far as we know, 
 of the architectural styles of the world, it will be seen, is 
 that hoar school of the valley of the Nile which woke into 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 life and activity in the darkness of remote ages, and which 
 was approaching its decrepitude centuries before the com¬ 
 mencement of our present epoch. 
 
 The orbs of Christianity, Islamism, &c., are shown in 
 their true positions with regard both to the time and place 
 of their rise. The dotted lines running out from them and 
 elsewhere, towards certain styles, are to be understood as 
 rays of influence, operating at the generation of those styles, 
 or during their transition into some other form, upon their 
 genius and character. Such influence, it will be seen, pro¬ 
 ceeds at one time from a neighbouring style; at another, 
 from the spirit of a new religion; at a third, from the 
 energies of a new race. 
 
 It may not be unnecessary further to remark in explana¬ 
 tion that the colouring of the streams is significant, as well 
 as their forms : the grave and severe styles—trabeated in 
 construction and chaste in decoration, such as Egyptian and 
 Greek, are represented by the cool blue. Where the arch 
 and dome come in to mitigate the severity of the rectangular 
 beamed system, the colour becomes warmer, and the warmth 
 increases in each branch, in proportion as the style relaxes 
 into greater elegance and delicacy of form. 
 
 The Byzantine style, warming by the Oriental element, 
 which is represented by yellow, changes, from the reddish 
 blue of the parent Romanesque, to green; while the richest 
 and most luxuriant of all styles, the Saracenic, is shown by 
 the warmest of colours, orange. 
 
 Round Gothic, from the almost pure blue of its Christian 
 Romanesque progenitor, becomes at length purple by the 
 additional colour answering to the new elements of its com¬ 
 position, which purple again brightens into the pure vermilion 
 indicative of Complete Pointed Gothic. 
 
 Having designed the Chart and Volume as companions, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 and done my best to make the book a help-mate to the Chart, 
 I could wish them to keep lovingly together. At the same 
 time I think I have so endowed them both with the power of 
 speech that should they in any case be unfortunately parted, 
 they will have no difficulty in making themselves understood 
 separately. 
 
 The opinions expressed in the book, I need scarcely say, 
 are my own, conscientiously held, and I hope not offensively 
 obtruded. But I am, of course, largely indebted in the 
 composition of both works, for at least the knowledge of 
 facts, to many who have gone before me in some or other 
 of the tracks described ; and as a Preface could not conclude 
 more gracefully than in acknowledgment of its author’s 
 obligations to others by pointing to the sources of his 
 information, I beg to say that I have more or less carefully 
 consulted and compared the following works, namely:— 
 Hope’s “ Historical EssayAgincourt’s “ History of Art 
 by its Monuments Gaily Knight’s “ Ecclesiastical Archi¬ 
 tecture of ItalyLetarouilly’s “ Edifices of Modern Rome 
 Coussin’s “Du Genie de L’Architecture Gwilt’s “Encyclo¬ 
 paedia of Architecture;” Durandu’s “Parallels;” Fergusson’s 
 “Hand Books of Architecture;” The Hand Books to the 
 Fine-Art Courts of the Crystal Palace; Architectural 
 Publication Society’s Dictionary, &c. ; Ware’s “ Palladio’s 
 Architecture;” Layard’s “Nineveh and Persepolis;” Ruskin’s 
 “ Stones of Venice;” Godwin’s “ History in Ruins;” Verdier 
 and Cattois’ “ Architecture Civile et Domestique au moyen 
 age et a la Renaissance;” Wareing and Macquoid’s “Ex¬ 
 amples of Architectural Art in Italy and Spain ;” Wight- 
 wick’s “Palace of Architecture;” Fellow’s “Asia Minor;” 
 The new edition of Nicholson’s Dictionary of Architecture, 
 by Lomax and Gunyon ; The Architectural Articles of the 
 “ Penny Cyclopedia ;” and “ The Encyclopedia Britannica;” 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Rev. J. L. Petit’s Work on Churches in the South of 
 France; “ Public Buildings of London,” by Britton, Pugin, 
 &c.Cresy and Taylor’s “ Architecture of Middle Ages in 
 Italy Denon’s “ Voyage dans la basse et la haute Egypte 
 Wilkinson’s “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyp¬ 
 tians Various Papers in the “Art Journal,” the “Builder',” 
 the “ Building News,” the “ Civil Engineers and Architects’ 
 Journalthe “ Dublin Buildermore especially an able 
 series of leaders on the history of Architecture in the 
 “ Builder.” 
 
 SAMUEL HUGGINS. 
 
 The Groves, Chester, 
 July, 1863. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction . 
 
 Egyptian . 
 
 Assyrian . 
 
 Babylonian. 
 
 Persian . 
 
 Lycian . 
 
 Pelasgic . 
 
 Greek 
 
 Etruscan .. . 
 
 Roman . 
 
 Christian Romanesque— Varieties 
 Sassanian, or Middle Persian 
 Byzantine— Varieties 
 French Byzantine 
 
 Ancient Irish . 
 
 Saracenic— Varieties 
 
 Norman Sicilian . 
 
 Round Gothic— Varieties... 
 
 Baronial . 
 
 Pointed Gothic— Varieties 
 
 Venetian Gothic . 
 
 Moresco . 
 
 Indian— Varieties . 
 
 Casiimerian . 
 
 Chinese . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 20 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 24 
 26 
 31 
 33 
 41 
 47 
 49 
 58 
 58 
 60 
 68 
 70 
 76 
 80 
 
 90 
 
 91 
 
 92 
 94 
 94 
 
11 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Peruvian . 
 
 Mexican .. 
 
 Italian Renaissance . 
 
 Italian —Varieties. 
 
 Renaissance, and Italian Off-shoots:— 
 
 Spanish Renaissance and Italian 
 
 French Renaissance and Italian . 
 
 English Renaissance and Italian . 
 
 German Renaissance and Italian . 
 
 Renaissance and Italian in the Netherlands. 
 
 Renaissance and Italian in Scandinavia . 
 
 Italian in Russia .. 
 
 Corollary . 
 
 A Synoptical Table of the Styles of Architecture ... 
 
 Note on the foregoing Table . 
 
 The Style of the Future . 
 
 Notes. 
 
 95 
 
 96 
 
 97 
 
 104 
 
 118 
 
 122 
 
 129 
 
 187 
 
 140 
 
 141 
 
 142 
 
 145 
 
 156 
 
 162 
 
 163 
 
 188 
 
THE 
 
 COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 fnirclmttimt. 
 
 RCHITECTURE may be considered 
 as divided into three branches—the 
 first, Civil; the second, Military, or 
 Fortification ; and the third, Naval, 
 or Shipbuilding. Civil Architecture 
 is again subdivided into Civil Archi¬ 
 tecture proper, and Civil Engineer¬ 
 ing. The first of these latter, viz., 
 Civil Architecture proper, is alone 
 generally supposed to be a fine art 
 and susceptible of beauty. 
 
 But they are all I conceive, in different 
 degrees, susceptible of that quality, and ought 
 so to receive it. In the pursuits of the naval ar¬ 
 chitect and civil and military engineer it is, of 
 course, more important that the physical laws 
 of matter should be consulted than the principles 
 of aesthetic beauty. But beauty is a quality that 
 cannot be ignored—nay, that should be earnestly sought in 
 them. Man, having aesthetic and spiritual wants, as well 
 as physical, every object he builds, and that is daily before 
 his eyes, should be made as beautiful as it is capable of 
 being, by which, as it serves two purposes, it becomes 
 
 B 
 
9 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 doubly interesting and valuable. Architecture is the art 
 of the beautiful in building—building of any kind ; and 
 there is no structure into which the fine-art essence, the 
 spirit of beauty, will not enter. She is capable of revealing 
 herself more or less in every form which the physical 
 wan ts of man, wants arising out of his nature and con¬ 
 stitution, dictate, and which ascends into the sphere of 
 architecture in proportion as it has received her impress. 
 
 This spirit of beauty can float, over the sea in a ship, 
 which is susceptible of a fairy-like grace, and of all the 
 charms that carved decoration and painting may lavish. 
 She can span the river in a bridge as well as pierce the 
 clouds in a spire, or emulate the firmament in a dome, and 
 even throw a veil of enchantment over the threatening war- 
 tower, or lonely beacon and lighthouse; for even buildings 
 erected solely for offence, or warning of danger, may have 
 beauty of form and proportion without impairing strength 
 or interfering with scientific principles of distribution, as 
 the towers of Caernarvon and Conway, and the Eddystone 
 lighthouse will testify. 
 
 As to the works of the civil engineer, they are in a still 
 greater degree susceptible of beauty. Nay, in any broad 
 view of architecture little distinction can be seen between 
 Civil Architecture proper and Civil Engineering ; tbe latter 
 melts into the finer art, and is embraced along with it in any 
 true theory of the art. Bridges, whether of brick, or stone, 
 or iron, may be as beautiful as houses; bridges, and mills, 
 and aqueducts, and warehouses, and factories, every thing 
 erected by man upon the face of the earth, may, like the 
 works of nature, have its own species or order of beauty. 
 
 It is, however, Civil Architecture proper that is pre¬ 
 eminently a fine art, susceptible of the highest order of 
 beauty, inasmuch as it embraces that class of structures to 
 which man is naturally most inclined to give beauty, which 
 most loudly calls for it, or to which it is most essential— 
 structures wherein are the scenes of his enjoyments and 
 sufferings, and which are hallowed in his associations and 
 memory by the occurrences of birth and death, as well as 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 3 
 
 those which he raises to the memory of his departed dear or 
 great ones, or dedicates to the honour of his Maker, to 
 mark and symbolise his relations to the Infinite—the hos¬ 
 pitable mansion, the sumptuous palace, the triumphal pillar 
 —the august and solemn temple. It is this branch which 
 is emphatically the art of the beautiful in building. It is 
 the art of idealising the great physical exigence of shelter, 
 and enclosing space by forms that shall possess fitness, dura¬ 
 bility, and delight. It is the art of constructing the grace¬ 
 ful, the beautiful, the sublime, of transfixing the melody, of 
 petrifying the poem—by its arcuated and columnar perspec¬ 
 tives, its mysterious recesses, its fretted vaults, its majestic 
 domes. It is the creator of the eurythmical mass, the sym¬ 
 metrical and harmonious utility, the gorgeous palace, the 
 cloud-capped tower, the solemn fane. It is in a word, the 
 tent, the cave, the hut, exalted from the lowly vale of ma¬ 
 terial necessity to the ethereal regions of art and beauty. 
 
 This is the branch which we are about to exhibit his¬ 
 torically in its numerous and various styles or modes—the 
 phases it has assumed among different nations and in 
 different times. 
 
 That these styles or modes should be numerous and 
 diverse was from the very nature of architecture to be ex¬ 
 pected. As the geographical distribution of plants in the 
 vegetable world is influenced by conditions of soil, heat, 
 moisture, light, and many other causes, so the geographical 
 arrangement of architectural styles is ordered by conditions 
 of climate, scenery, &c.; by the political and social state of 
 communities, the quality of their mental organisation, their 
 literary and scientific status, their pecuniary resources, their 
 religious belief, and national propensities. Without these 
 there is no reason why styles of architecture should not be 
 identical, or why the style of one country should differ from 
 that of its neighbour or any other. On the other hand, 
 if all these conditions were fixed and unalterable, a style of 
 architecture once formed would never change. Some of 
 the conditions are so. But since others alter with the 
 course of time, as the political and social state of communi- 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ties, for instance, their literary and scientific grade, pecu¬ 
 niary means, and sometimes their religious creed, it follows 
 that architecture not only differs in different countries, but 
 is unlike in unlike ages in the same country, and changes 
 is each with the mutations of society, participating in the 
 revolutions in man’s political, social, and intellectual condi¬ 
 tion, and running like an organic structure through a con¬ 
 tinuous variation of phases from its birth to its decline and 
 dissolution. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 5 
 
 EGYPTIAN. 
 
 F the origin of Egyptian architecture 
 we know nothing. It is lost in the 
 night of time, beyond the ken of his¬ 
 toric or monumental record. For 
 aught we know to the contrary, Egypt 
 was the cradle from whence fine- 
 art-building or architecture, properly 
 so called, first rose into being—where 
 it first reached technic and aesthetic 
 excellence, and became truly and in¬ 
 dissolubly wedded to the sister arts. 
 By the Egyptian temple-and-palace-build- 
 ers, who are now generally admitted to 
 have been at least the most perfect masons 
 that have existed, was laid the corner¬ 
 stone of the architecture of the world, for 
 through its parental relationship to Greek, 
 Egyptian architecture is the progenitor of a 1 ’ 
 Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, and other styles—the root of 
 the main trunk of architectural history. If it be not the 
 Adam of the architectural world, it is the Noah—the 
 father of the present, and the orphan of a past one, of 
 which no vestige remains, its parent, if it had one, having 
 perished. We can trace the Greek to the Egyptian, the 
 Roman to the Greek, the Gothic to the Romanesque and 
 Roman ; but of the Egyptian none can point to the origin. 
 No style we may say, however, bears more unmistakable 
 marks of being of native growth and invention; the archi¬ 
 tecture of Egypt is evidently Egyptian architecture ; while, 
 
6 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 on the other hand, we may trace its influence, and detect 
 something of its cast and colour in the systems of all suc¬ 
 ceeding times. 
 
 The earliest known form of the style is supposed to be 
 that presented in the structural tombs and buildings around 
 the pyramids of Gizeh, which, as remarked by Mr. Fer- 
 gusson, show symptoms of having had a wooden original. 
 In this style appears the cove-cornice and angle-roll, so 
 characteristic of Egyptian architecture in all its successive 
 stages. With the first great Theban dynasty a new style 
 of art, evidently from its showing the same angle-ornament 
 and cornice, arising out of the old Memphian one, makes 
 its appearance in the sanctuary of Karnac, and, though 
 shortly afterwards arrested in its career for some centuries, 
 evidently the same style that illustrated the works of the 
 Pharaohs. The earliest form of Egyptian column is the 
 plain square pier, which afterwards assumed first a polygonal 
 and then the cylindrical form, crowned by capitals of varied 
 shape, from the lotus-bud and papyrus-caps of Beniliassan 
 and Karnac, to the Isis-heads of Dendera. In order that 
 uninterrupted surfaces might be left for sculptural and pic¬ 
 torial decoration, mouldings were sparingly employed. The 
 crowning cornice, so characteristic of the style, consisted in¬ 
 variably of a plain face or frieze, surmounted by a torus, 
 deep cavetto, and a fillet; and this simply-formed feature 
 was alone employed from the period of the sixth dynasty, 
 when it first appeared, to the extinction of the style under 
 the Romans, varied only in its surface-enrichment and 
 relative size. 
 
 With these few and simple members—column, architrave, 
 cornice—which, so far as we know, the Egyptians invented, 
 and which the Greeks afterwards perfected and idealised in 
 form and expression—with these, along with elements of 
 decoration furnished by sculpture and painting, Architecture 
 in this early period, twenty centuries before our era, and a 
 thousand years before the earliest known works of the 
 Greeks, exhibited on the banks of the Nile, the true ele¬ 
 ments of the sublime and beautiful in architecture. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 7 
 
 The Egyptian style is embodied in two distinct kinds of 
 edifices besides the rock-cut temples—viz., palaces or palace 
 temples, and temples strictly so called. We say strictly so 
 called : for while the later edifices of the valley of the Nile, 
 which were erected by the Egyptians under the Greeks and 
 Romans, such as those of Esne, Edfou, Phil*, and Den- 
 dera, are temples only, those of the ruined cities of the 
 Pharaohs, built chiefly during the great 18 th dynasty, 
 being for regal residence and pomp, and having royal 
 apartments attached to them, have been termed palace- 
 temples. Such are the great temples of Karnac and 
 Luxor, as is also that of Amenophis III., generally called 
 the Memnonium. 
 
 Among the first things that strike us in these edifices is 
 the number of varied and artistically-pregnant features of 
 which they are each of them composed: sculpture-formed 
 alleys of approach, colonnaded courts, porticoes and halls, 
 not to mention obelisks, colossi, and other adjuncts, elements 
 of plan which are susceptible not only of the greatest con¬ 
 ceivable grandeur in themselves, but of such varied modes 
 of combination as to be capable of producing an all but in¬ 
 finite diversity of examples or distinct works. 
 
 And this general affluence of resource, while it gave the 
 greatest scope for variety in disposition and proportion, both 
 horizontally and vertically, enabled the architect to produce 
 the most imposing ensemble and the most striking and 
 solemn architectural vistas perhaps ever formed. The peri- 
 stylar court, fronted by the twin towers or moles, which are 
 characteristic of the Egyptian temple, is itself a feature of 
 great beauty, and gives an advantage, by the mode in which 
 it combines and is brought into play, over most subsequent 
 temples. The Greek temple, it is true, had its peribolus, 
 which must have presented a scene of great beauty; but 
 this was not a part of the edifice itself, as was the Egyptian 
 court, but was a sort of superior enclosure, analogous to that 
 formed by balustrades in modern buildings. The hall of 
 columns is another somewhat peculiar feature of these 
 edifices, and enters into the composition both of the temple 
 
THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 and palace; that of the palace-temple of Karnac was 
 perhaps the greatest apartment ever formed by man, as was 
 its Caryatic and other courts in all probability the grandest 
 of quadrangles. But even the sublime structure of which 
 these are parts, and which is celebrated for its glorious 
 perspectives generally, does not fully illustrate the merit and 
 capabilities of the Egyptian system, as it does not exhibit 
 all its great elements of plan. This is better done by the 
 later edifices—temples only, where the court is succeeded, 
 and the hall preceded, by the deep and awful pronaos, a 
 feature wanting in the great palace-temples, and which 
 together form perhaps the most impressive architectural 
 spectacle that the art can boast. 
 
 Again, the position of the adytum, or sanctum sanctorum, 
 threw more sanctity around the statue and symbols of the 
 deity than it generally did in the classic temple. The 
 adytum was the last and most sacred portion, beyond which 
 only the imagination of the vulgar and uninitiated might 
 penetrate, completing a scheme of arrangement the idea of 
 which is carried to the utmost degree of intensity in those 
 temples where courts and porticoes and halls have been 
 erected, and the sacred cell or sekos, excavated out of the 
 living rock. In short, the whole is an arrangement of plan 
 embodying an abstractedly grand architectural idea to which 
 all after temple-builders, whether to the known or to an 
 unknown god, are largely indebted. The obligation of 
 Greece is evident; and the most perfect structures ever 
 reared to Christian worship—I mean the mediaeval cathe¬ 
 drals—are closer to the Egyptian than to the Greek type ; 
 while the former also more nearly answers to the descrip¬ 
 tion of the fore-Christian church, the Temple of Solomon, 
 the holiest place of which was, as in the Egyptian temple, 
 separated from the external world by outer apartments and 
 courts of intermediate degrees of holiness, the successive 
 divisions of increasing sanctity corresponding to the sup¬ 
 posed qualifications of the several grades of worshippers. 
 
 The variety in elements of plan was an advantage no less 
 to exterior design than to interior. In the Greek temples 
 
I 
 
 OF ARCHITECTURE. 9 
 
 there could be little or no diversity in general composition 
 of exterior, but a rather wearisome sameness. The portico 
 front was everything in Greece; in Egypt it was but one ot 
 the elements, which were wrought up by the architect, in a 
 masterly manner, into a composition which showed much of 
 imposing and picturesque grandeur externally. By the 
 admission of different relative heights and sizes in the com¬ 
 ponent masses, they were enabled to break the sky-line in 
 each individual edifice, and to introduce a great diversity in 
 artistic composition into the class of works, which probably 
 had a direct influence upon Roman architecture to the 
 furthering and encouraging its departure from Greek mono¬ 
 tony of plan. Picturesqueness of composition was very 
 much aided by that pyramidal spirit to which the Egyptian, 
 from whatever cause originally, seemed to be singularly 
 attached. The fundamental idea of the Egyptian erected 
 temple was probably caught by its architects from the 
 excavated temple or tomb, and its external form imitated 
 that of the exterior of the rock out of which the latter 
 was hewn ; a form that the flatness of their country, which 
 they never lost sight of, along with a desire to emu¬ 
 late nature in the expression of the enduring, led the 
 Egyptians to give to their edifices, and thus apply them to a 
 purpose, similar to one at least, answered by the pyramids, 
 which may be regarded as artificial hills to relieve the 
 aspect of the surrounding desert, and which indeed rejoice 
 in a degree of strength that may render them coeval with 
 the everlasting hills of nature. 
 
 Whether the pyramidal principle of their architecture so 
 originated or not, it was no doubt adhered to for aesthetic 
 reasons, otherwise it would not have been so universally 
 applied as it was. I say universally; for while all their 
 temples and palaces were pyramidical in general form and 
 tendency, they were compounded of features which were 
 individually so also. They were entered between truncated 
 pyramids, the frequent occurrence of which in the great 
 palace temples harmoniously wedded and blended the per¬ 
 pendicular and horizontal principles, and rendered the 
 
 b 3 
 
10 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 edifices models of picturesque composition, of which the 
 Island of Philaj presents us with examples, equal to any¬ 
 thing in any style. And this was further heightened by 
 dromos of sphinxes, obelisks, and colossi; and whatever 
 may be thought of the rather monotonous pole-ornament of 
 the cornice and wall-angle, it must have had a wonderful 
 effect in binding all the different masses of a building 
 together ; while sameness was prevented by the variety of 
 its sculptural decorations. 
 
 One peculiarity of Egyptian edifices, and one that asserts 
 an important principle in architecture, is its being chiefly 
 interior. In both temples and palaces we see that predo¬ 
 minance in beauty of form and architectural decoration, of 
 interior over exterior, which right reason, the legitimate 
 object of architecture, which is to enclose and adorn a 
 portion of space, and which analogy between the material 
 and moral world, dictates it should have. This is conso¬ 
 nant with the intellectual and refined nature and conception 
 of art, and more especially applicable to ecclesiastical archi¬ 
 tecture,—to the temple of religion, which, if symbolism be 
 admitted at all should, like “ the king’s daughter,” be “ all 
 glorious within.” A building, beautiful on the exterior 
 only, is but half a work of architecture, if it be one at all; 
 whereas one beautiful only within, though so far imperfect, 
 would be real architecture as far as it went, and would be 
 more likely to be found in every sense commensurate with 
 its purpose. There is no comparison between their artistic 
 value. The beauty of the latter envelopes the occupant, 
 and is a never-ceasing charm ; the former but ornaments 
 the landscape like a tree or flower. 
 
 The principle I am here endeavouring to enunciate was 
 still more vividly embodied by the rock-excavators, in whose 
 works, indeed, interior was all, and exterior nothing, or 
 comparatively nothing, for it was confined to a mere facade. 
 It is an exaggeration, it is true, but the principle is in¬ 
 variable ; and no building is, I consider, perfect, in which 
 the graces of architectural adornment have not been drawn 
 upon within to a far greater extent than without—in which 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 11 
 
 interior service and beauty have not been the ruling idea of 
 the whole. 
 
 In the greatest palaces of modern times there is much that 
 is mere building—mere utilitarian prose; but those of Egypt 
 are all fine-art work, all embodied poetry; the plans are 
 arranged throughout for the production of artistic qualities, 
 for greatness and grandeur of effect, and power over the 
 mind of the worshipper, and, to my mind, embody the entire 
 essence of architecture as a fine art, and yield the com- 
 pletest possible idea of a temple or a palace. With the ex¬ 
 ception of the arch and dome, we find in Egypt the elements 
 of all that is great in architecture—the portico and peristyle 
 of G-reece, the long-drawn aisle of Gothic—succeeding times 
 having added but little that is really great, and nothing 
 that is essential to a sublime creation, in structural art. 
 
 In Egyptian edifices—-in the columnar grandeur of the 
 portico and hall, and in the loftiness of the propyleum—we 
 have the seed of the great attributes both of the Greek and 
 the Gothic—the grandest and most magnificent of courts— 
 the noblest of porticoes—the sublimest of halls ; defended by 
 the most time-defying of towers, and approached between 
 objects the most striking and significant. You could not 
 have a grander portico than that of Esne, nor enter it from a 
 more glorious court than that of Edfou, nor pass it to a sub- 
 limer hall than that of Karnac ; and the architect who would 
 design a building abstractly great, must look not to Greece 
 or Rome for inspiration and suggestions as to principles of 
 distribution and design, but to Egypt—to the temples and 
 palaces of the Nile, the plans of which I look upon as the 
 most ambitious ever drawn. They had but one limited 
 kind of beauty, I grant, to which every other was sacrificed. 
 The graces had no place among the gods of the Egyptians ; 
 and grace was not a quality sought for as an essential in 
 their architectural works : they immolated it on the altar of 
 the sublime. They did not range the whole circle of nature, 
 and express in their works that infinity of beauty which is 
 revealed to the artist who lays himself open to the influence 
 of the surrounding universe. But it belonged to their pur- 
 
12 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 pose so to confine themselves—a purpose to which they 
 subordinated their genius, and which is written in indelible 
 characters on all they did. Their love for nature may have 
 been unrestricted and impartial—indeed, their works prove 
 the ardour of their love for all that was beautiful in creation; 
 but their religion, or the policy of its priesthood, demanded 
 the material expr4ssion of the solemn, the awful—the 
 character for which their temples were so remarkable. 
 Though lovers of universal nature, they wooed her only in 
 reference to this, and moulded her images and types in their 
 minds to their peculiar religious purpose, to which their fine 
 sense of the beautiful and poetic, and vast imaginative and 
 conceptive power, was made completely subordinate. The 
 temple, besides being entirely fitted to the services of their 
 religion, which, I would observe, must, at some epochs of 
 their history, have embraced doctrines of deep and solemn 
 import, and contained elements of high spirituality and 
 power if not of purity, was in its entii’e aspect aesthetically a 
 symbol of their theology, a reflex of their religious creed, 
 with which its (the temple’s) broad effects of light and shade, 
 and vast mural masses, promising an almost immortality of 
 duration, were doubtless in perfect harmony. If the Egyp¬ 
 tians did not range through and occupy the whole sphere of 
 the beautiful, they went far in the direction they took; for 
 their temples and palaces of the Pharaonic age are at least 
 models of sublimity and power, and embody the most im¬ 
 pressive qualities that wei'e ever communicated to stone. 
 By an awful sfeverity of linear expression and general great¬ 
 ness of treatment, a power and grandeur was produced that 
 has never been equalled. The Egyptian temple, with its 
 court beyond court, its sphinx-lined avenues, its colossi- 
 guarded portals, stands in my imagination for the most 
 solemn temple ever reared to a deity, true or false, Jehovah, 
 Jove, or Lord; and certainly no aggregation of art-elements 
 assists us more to an abstract idea of a great edifice. In the 
 possession to so unrivalled an extent of these highest of 
 qualities, sublimity and grandeur, Egyptian architecture xvas 
 a worthy prelude, and preparation for that purity of detail 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 13 
 
 and universal perfection which belongs alone to the design 
 of Greece, to which it stood in the same relation that the 
 Lombard and Norman occupied to the pointed Gothic. 
 But it was moi’e than this : I look upon Egyptian archi¬ 
 tecture as the complement of the antique or classic circle— 
 as that which completes the elements of the beau ideal of 
 architecture, and the study of which would supply what was 
 wanting to reach the full conception of all that was great 
 and lovely—all that could be conceived of sublime and 
 beautiful in the structural art. And though an overawing 
 power and sublimity are the qualities aimed at and carried 
 to such perfection, yet it is not without grace and refine¬ 
 ment, so far as these qualities would not interfere with the 
 former: they were shown in the details, which, however 
 inferior to those of Greece, were exactly suited to the archi¬ 
 tecture to which they belonged, so that the whole was 
 perfect as regards the intended expression and purpose. 
 
 The Egyptian temples no doubt, like all other edifices, 
 owe something of their impressiveness to their greatness of 
 size, which is essential to grandeur; but they, as all intelli¬ 
 gent observers of them agree in asserting, had an effect of 
 greatness and magnitude beyond what results from their 
 actual size; for great as is their scale, they look larger than 
 they are. Their visual dimensions were increased by the 
 architect in a degree beyond anything done since. This is 
 one of the merits of Egyptian temples ; one in which they 
 have the advantage over most modern ones, which in many 
 instances look smaller than they are. And to that close¬ 
 ness of columnar disposition, to which this w 7 as in some 
 measure owing, they were, I believe, not driven by any 
 constructive exigency, as dearth of skill or material, but 
 mainly by artistic feeling. I do not believe that their 
 columns were so thickly placed because they were ignorant 
 of framed trusses ; I believe they were thoroughly masters 
 of columnar architecture, understood its every capability, 
 and used the thick-set disposition, as well as that singular 
 irregularity of arrangement observable in the hall of Kar- 
 nac, with a clear conception of its exact value in hiding 
 
14 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 the limits of the hall, and making what was really so great 
 seem greater; in stimulating the imagination, and com¬ 
 mingling the visible and invisible; and thus embodied re¬ 
 finements and subtleties of plan, which if understood, have 
 certainly never been fully appropriated in modern design. 
 It does not follow that because the Egyptians made no 
 artistic use of the arch in their works, that they did not 
 understand or appreciate it. They made no use of it pro¬ 
 bably, not because they were unable to construct it, but 
 because they did not require it. It should be borne in 
 mind that construction is not an end, but a means, to be 
 used as occasion calls, and the Egyptian architecture yields 
 us a lesson on this very important point: its authors placed 
 art and science in their true relative places, the reverse of 
 which has been done in many of the greatest modern works. 
 They could probably have had as great an aisle through the 
 hall of Luxor or Karnac as runs through any European 
 cathedral; but it was not a part of their artistic scheme, 
 which to them was paramount, and from which no pride of 
 constructive power, or love of scientific enterprise and 
 daring, could lure them. 
 
 Architecture is both an art and a science ; but art is the 
 greatest, the most divine, and should beware of leaning too 
 much or being too dependent upon science for its results. 
 Science increases our physical power over matter, but art’s 
 gifts are of infinity—the spiritual, the immortal; and I am 
 convinced that architecture of herself could produce beauty 
 and grandeur, at least, equal to what is usually pro¬ 
 duced, with less obligation to science than is generally 
 incurred. 
 
 If the Greeks were the refiners and perfectors of columnar 
 architecture, the Egyptians were its inventors ; purity, and 
 truth of detail, are all that the former could communicate 
 to it, for simplicity and grandeur the Egyptians already 
 achieved; they could not exalt it, for it had reached the 
 summit of sublimity ; and in greatness of plan and greatness 
 of treatment they left nothing for Greece. The Ramseion 
 would be infinitely less charming, but it must have had 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 15 
 
 more power over the imagination than the Parthenon. 
 And whatever Greek art may owe to Assyrian, and what¬ 
 ever of civilisation or science may have come to us through 
 any channel from the plains of Shinar, I believe that high 
 architecture—all that is impressive and soul-stirring in 
 structural art-all its great and grand qualities—were first 
 embodied on the banks of the Nile. 
 
 I speak advisedly when I say that the Egyptians were the 
 inventors of the classical ordinance, for the Greeks really 
 had little to invent in the way of elements, however much 
 they may have accomplished of intellectual and artistic re¬ 
 finement. In the form and decoration of many of their 
 columns we see the germ of the Greek orders. And in the 
 treatment of their entablature—than which it would be 
 difficult to conceive anything more beautiful and harmonious 
 —the triglyph, the decorated metope, and the figure-charged 
 frieze of the Parthenon may have had their suggestive 
 source; and not only so, but they invented more than has 
 ever yet been appropriated; the column-capitals of Egypt 
 are not only suggestive of new varieties, but they are preg¬ 
 nant with new principles which their successors have never 
 yet seized upon. That principle of variety, for instance, 
 introduced into the portico, by which the capitals increased 
 in richness of decoration from the extremity on either hand 
 towards the centre, where it became greatest, and thus 
 formed' a sort of climax, is a most artistic one, eminently 
 worthy of reception into modern practice, where it may 
 become an inexhaustible source of beauty and freshness of 
 design. And, whilst increasing the important element 
 variety, it would, in drawing the eye at once to the centre 
 as a principal point, enhance breadth and unity. 
 
 Besides elements to appropriate, there was much that was 
 suggestive in their plans as to the artistic capability of the 
 column, and the general principles of design and composi¬ 
 tion. To say nothing of the periptery, which is clearly 
 realised in the Mammeisi, or temple to the mysterious 
 accouchement of the mother of the gods—of the anta and 
 pilaster, and the architrave door-case, of which they were 
 
1G 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 also the inventors, the Egyptian court is the parent of the 
 pei'ibolus that surrounded the Greek and Roman temple; 
 and, through this, may be regarded as the progenitor of the 
 agora and forum, the early Christian atrium, and medieval 
 cloister. 
 
 To the qualities which we have ascribed to the Egyptian 
 palaces and temples, sculpture largely contributed as an 
 artistic element. Of its peculiarity of form in the valley of 
 the Nile, one cause was, that having no alphabet to record 
 the exploits of their kings and heroes, it was used by the 
 Egyptians, not, as in Greece, to embody the conceptions of 
 the poet and the narrative of the historian, but as a record 
 itself, and made a sacred or hieroglyphic language, in which 
 they wrote their history on the temple and palace walls. 
 But of sculpture in Egypt we can speak only as an architec¬ 
 tural element. All sculpture was pressed into the service of 
 architecture; all its works—sphinxes, colossi, obelisks— 
 wei'e architectural constituents: the Memnon statues were 
 probably adjuncts to the Palace of Memnon, and even the 
 great sphinx seems to have been an anthropomorphic com¬ 
 panion to the great pyramid of Gizeh. But art, the central 
 essence, united and ruled all, nor allowed one art to rise to 
 the detriment of another, or the whole ; and not only its 
 own branches, but all science was made completely sub¬ 
 servient to it. It manifested itself all the more vigorously, 
 that, for want of an alphabet, it could not reveal itself in the 
 way of literature, and shine forth in the page of the poet, 
 but was confined alone to the temple. 
 
 The peculiarity of form and character of the Egyptian 
 sculpture is, I think, sufficiently accounted for by this con¬ 
 nection with architecture, with which statues breathing and 
 speaking in every limb would not unite ; and so viewed, I 
 think it is worthy of the closest attention and study, both by 
 the architect and sculptor, who cannot fail to perceive, in 
 the deviation from abstract grace, in the avoidance of the 
 line of beauty, and the adoption in the figure to such an 
 extent of the straight line, the endeavour to harmonise the 
 sculpture with the architecture, and reduce it to an archi- 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 17 
 
 tectural feature itself. If it is silent, rigid, mathematical— 
 natural and lifelike only in the face, which alone is entirely 
 detached, and thus only half sculpture in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, half unfolded, half chaotic—it is that it may 
 assimilate in nature to the silent architectural mass it joins, 
 partake of its essence, and appear to grow out of it. It was 
 not to display the sculptor’s knowledge of anatomy, hut to 
 perfect and intensify the architectural conception. And 
 whatever may be said of the sculpture of the Egyptians per 
 se, no people ever succeeded to the extent they did in 
 heightening the effect of their architecture by it. No sculp¬ 
 ture ever rendered such active and important service to 
 architecture as did this : it truly clothes and adorns it. 
 And what is said of figure sculpture applies equally to every 
 other kind : everything brought to their architectural loom 
 was wove into beauty. Their winged suns and globes, and 
 sacred asps, and their symbols generally, as well as their 
 hieroglyphic inscriptions, they wrought into architectural 
 ornaments for column or wall or entablature ; on which 
 latter we find the type of the frieze and metope decoration 
 of Greece. If there is a flatness in the relief of their capitals 
 and other ornaments, we must remember that the colours 
 they applied, and applied so harmoniously, would fully 
 remedy it. And, besides {Esthetic treatment that completely 
 united the sculpture to the architecture, there is a ration¬ 
 ality in its application that might put to the blush more 
 boasted schools. While it was employed wherever it would 
 give vitality and force to the architecture, it is remarkable 
 that there is no instance of figures being used in a situation 
 that is offensive to common sense or good taste. They did 
 not place them to support an entablature as in the Caryatic 
 order of Greece which bears no comparison to the Osirid 
 pillar of Egypt or to the sitting or standing Colossi in front 
 of the rock-temples of Aboo Simbal, either for artistic beauty 
 of conception, or logical consistency and truth. 
 
 The merit of Egyptian architecture rises in our estimation 
 when we consider how much it had to embrace, how much 
 to harmonise; and this should never be lost sight of. The 
 
18 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 temple had not only to receive the artistic and mechanical 
 mind, but to enshrine the diversified intellect of the whole 
 nation, giving body and expression alike to the conception 
 and principles of the philosopher, the poet, and the historian. 
 What written philosophy, and history, poetry and art were 
 collectively in other countries, where alphabetic writing 
 became known —the mind and heart of the nation —these three 
 entwined arts alone were in the edifices of the Egyptians: 
 the philosophic doctrine, the poetic conception, the national 
 achievement—these were all to have voice in their temple; 
 and well they succeeded in giving it. They aimed at a 
 material immortality, but they achieved a higher. Their 
 bodies, which they were so anxious to preserve, are now 
 mere objects of curiosity, if not of disgust, in the various 
 museums of Europe, among which they have been scattered; 
 but the embalmed mind of their master-spirits, clothed in 
 the bright robes of form and colour, is enshrined for ever in 
 their temples, in the granite veins of which the life-blood of 
 the nation, as it were, still flows, as in some new and im¬ 
 mortal creation. 
 
 The most brilliant period of Egyptian art is that of the 
 great eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, or from the nine¬ 
 teenth to the thirteenth century n.c., when priests and 
 African fetichism had less sway than it subsequently had 
 under the Greeks and Romans. It closed with Ramses III., 
 of the twentieth dynasty, who added the side temple and 
 built the great Hypostylar hall at Karnac. A line of 
 kings, all bearing his name, succeeded him, forming the 
 twentieth and twenty-first dynasties, but who have left no 
 architectural or sculptural monument worthy of mention 
 behind them. A more vigorous Sovereign from time to 
 time appeared, to stem the course of decline ; as Shishak, a 
 Bubastite King of the twenty-second dynasty, who built the 
 western court of Karnac, which finished that vast and sub¬ 
 lime temple ; and a race of Princes who reigned at the city 
 of Sais, by whom buildings of a Pharaonic class were 
 erected. With such exceptions, six centuries of gradual but 
 steady decay were terminated by the desolating invasion of 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 19 
 
 the fire-worshipping Persians (b.c. 525), under whose rule 
 no architecture connected with idolatry, as was that of 
 Egypt, could be expected to flourish, idolatry being an object 
 of their hatred and persecution, and for the extinction of 
 which, under Cambyses, a regular plan was pursued. 
 
 Under the Greeks, from 332 to 47 b.c., Egyptian archi¬ 
 tecture enjoyed a second youth, and for a time not only 
 recovered from her degraded state, but appeared in edifices 
 which, though not equal in magnitude and grandeur or 
 beauty of workmanship to those of the Pharaohs, were, in 
 some respects, superior to them. The principal change the 
 Egyptian architecture underwent was from the uncouth 
 grandeur of the great age to a greater formal beauty in the 
 Greek and Roman periods, when, while sculptui’e degene¬ 
 rated to architectural carving, architecture showed more of 
 grace and beauty than it had ever before displayed. The 
 temples of Kalabshe and Philse were superior in formal 
 beauty to those of the Theban period—they show a more 
 artistic and beautiful application of their papyrus-flower in 
 the capital, and the whole column is more graceful and in 
 truer taste. 
 
 Though still unmistakably Egyptian, yet so far was the 
 style modified by the influence of Greek art and artists that 
 it assumed quite a new aspect. The temples last named 
 have much of the rationality and purity of form of those of 
 the Greeks. 
 
 The Romans, whose subjugation of Egypt took place 
 b.c. 47, carried on the works of the Ptolemies, but in a less 
 vigorous manner; and the style became extinct some time in 
 the third century a.d., the latest imperial name found in 
 hieroglyphics on Egyptian monuments being that of Decius, 
 a.d. 250, at Esne. It was replaced by the Roman, at that 
 time the all but universal style of the civilised world ; but it 
 had doubtless an after and posthumous influence on the 
 spirit and decorative character of those branches of the 
 Byzantine and Saracenic styles which were elaborated in 
 Egypt and the adjacent countries, and through them on 
 other and later styles. 
 
20 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ASSYRIAN. 
 
 Assyrian, the style of the first ot 
 ; four almost universal monarchies, 
 and which arose in that interest¬ 
 ing region between the Euphrates 
 and Tigris, to which the Scrip¬ 
 tures point as the cradle of the 
 human race, next claims our at¬ 
 tention. 
 
 I have followed the theory, 
 though it has not been unques¬ 
 tioned, which assumes that the direc¬ 
 tion of the current of architectural 
 progress was from Assyria to Greece. 
 The earlier appearance of the Assyrian 
 monarchy on the stage of history—its 
 early power and magnificence, lead- 
 early call upon decorative architecture, whose 
 forms nature would supply to Assyrian as 
 willingly and readily as to Greek, are circumstances that 
 lend their countenance to this theory, which is further 
 supported, I think, by the primitive, free, and natural air of 
 the Assyrian sculptures, and by their style of relievo which 
 seems a link between the incised principle of Egypt, which 
 was the earliest kind of relievo, and that of projection em¬ 
 ployed by the Greeks. 
 
 It seems not impossible, indeed, that if the earliest monu¬ 
 ments of this style remained to us, and we could trace it to 
 its source, it might prove the first form which architecture 
 assumed in the world, and from which all others emanated ; 
 
 ing to an 
 elementary 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 21 
 
 initiated, perhaps, by the “ mighty hunter ” himself in the 
 erection of “ Babel (Babylon), and Erech, and Accad, and 
 Calneh, in the land of Shinar,” from whence Ashur went 
 forth and built Nineveh, the city Rehoboth, and others. As 
 exhibited in Mr. Fergusson’s restorations of the palaces of 
 Nineveh, it bears something of the air of a style that would 
 arise from the imitation of nature : I mean of that kind of 
 structure that instinct and climate would lead man in his 
 early state, in such a country as Mesopotamia, to form for 
 himself—a style into which the genius of the forest bower 
 had breathed consistency and beauty. 
 
 It is a wooden style embodied in palaces, remains of which 
 have been discovered at Nimroud, Khorsabad, and Koyunjik, 
 which Mr. Layard thinks were all within the compass of 
 one great city—Nineveh. Colour was lavishly and bril¬ 
 liantly employed in the style; but its grandest and most 
 imposing features, and what perhaps gave it its strongest 
 claim to the character of architecture, is the human-headed 
 and winged bulls, images of their kings, warriors, and other 
 emblematic figures and sculpture, forming and flanking the 
 entrances and adorning the basement story of their temple- 
 palaces. No species of architecture is so calculated to in¬ 
 spire emotions of veneration, humility, and awe as that 
 which embraces among its elements stupendous representa¬ 
 tions of living beings ; and this the Assyrian as well as the 
 Egyptian architects evidently understood when they adopted 
 these colossal decorations, which must have given a solemn, 
 mysterious, and sublime air to the scene of magnificence, 
 barbaric though it may have otherwise been, which the 
 palaces themselves presented. Perhaps no loftier or more 
 appropriate mode of decorating the interior of a lordly hall 
 has since been conceived than that of lining it with historic 
 bas-reliefs, employed in these Assyrian palaces. The first 
 appearance of the arch as a decorative feature is in the 
 Assyrian style. 
 
 What gives it additional interest is its Biblical associations, 
 through the intercourse of the children of Israel with the 
 Assyrians, to whom they were often tributary, and whose 
 
22 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 style they received through the Phoenicians, and employed 
 in their great temple and other buildings of Solomon. 
 
 The second temple, as well as the synagogues and public 
 schools built by Nehemiah, with permission of Cyrus, in the 
 fifth century, b.c., would be in the same style probably more 
 advanced by influence from Persia, and more Hebraized or 
 adapted to their own very peculiar purposes. In later times, 
 the sacred architecture of the Jews—their third or Herod’s 
 temple (for it was an entire renewal of the second), and con¬ 
 temporary synagogues, in which the Divine Founder of 
 Christianity sometimes taught, would, it is probable, partake 
 largely of Roman character. The munificence of Herod had 
 increased the external decorations of the original temple. 
 
 The most brilliant period of the style, as known to us, was 
 during the reign of Sennacherib, in the eighth century, B.C., 
 and coincided with the most brilliant period of the Assyrian 
 monarchy, when the greatest of the palaces, that of the king 
 just mentioned, was built. 
 
 After this a change came over the arts of Assyria, visible 
 at least in sculpture, the later productions of which were 
 distinguished by minuter finish, greater sharpness of outline, 
 and more correct delineation. 
 
 On the fall of the Assyrian empire its arts passed to 
 Babylon and Persia, from whence through Ionia they had 
 no doubt great influence in the development and formation 
 of those of Greece. 
 
 BABYLONIAN. 
 
 Babylon, perhaps, existed as early as Nineveh, or earlier, 
 but was in subjection to it, and formed part of the Assy¬ 
 rian empire till the time of Nabopolassar, under whom 
 Nineveh was subdued. When Babylon rose she became, in 
 her turn, the chief seat of the arts, which, under Nebuchad¬ 
 nezzar, probably attained their highest perfection, and rail 
 a brilliant but short career, till the conquest of Babylon by 
 Cyrus, when Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain. 
 
 The Babylonian architecture, from being without stone, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 23 
 
 and showing nothing of the rich sculptured and inscribed 
 slabs which lined the walls of the Assyrian palaces, and 
 consisting but of glazed and coloured bricks and painted 
 plaster, could not have been identical in style with the 
 Assyrian. But as the religion, customs, language, and 
 laws of the two people were nearly the same, it was very 
 probably but a slight modification of it, and a link between 
 that style and the Persian, for it was no doubt through 
 Babylon that the arts found their way to Persia. The 
 columns as at Nineveh must have been of wood or brick. 
 
 Though all but void of masonry, and almost altogether of 
 brick and wood and drapery, the Babylonian architects by 
 the profuse and tasteful application of colour and by artistic 
 design in the ornamental detail must, from the testimony of 
 ancient travellers, have produced in their edifices very 
 gorgeous results, to which no doubt magnitude of scale in 
 some measure contributed. The lack of sculpture seems to 
 have been ably compensated by painting of historical and 
 religious subjects. 
 
 The Babylonian palaces, like those of Nineveh, stood on 
 lofty terraces. 
 
 PERSIAN. 
 
 The Persian style seems to have been very similar to the 
 Assyrian. It is, indeed, the timber style of the Assyrians 
 converted into a stone one, in which condition it no doubt 
 presented purer and nobler forms than it could ever have 
 reached in its carpentry state. And had its career been 
 protracted long enough for complete development it would 
 no doubt have become one of the noblest styles of the 
 ancient world. The difference between the Persian and 
 Assyrian religion, which, however, must have less influence 
 on palaces than on temples, would make itself manifest in 
 the decorative character ; though it is not unreasonable to 
 suppose that this difference was not very great, and that it 
 was the existence of a Sabian element in their creed which 
 caused the absence of temples from the architecture of the 
 
24 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Assyrians. The Persian style, as known to us, was embo¬ 
 died in palaces discovered at Persepolis and Susa. 
 
 Owing to the destruction of the great cities of central 
 Asia, we cannot trace the subsequent history of the Persian 
 style after the death of Alexander- the Great, and know 
 nothing of any Asiatic style, west of India, which it may 
 have influenced, or to which it may have given rise, till the 
 revival of the Persian empire, and restoration of the fire- 
 worship under the Sassanidas, except indistinct vestiges of a 
 style which we have called the 
 
 LYCIAN, 
 
 Which is owing to the discoveries of Sir Charles Fellowes 
 and others in Asia Minor of tombs and various monumental 
 buildings. This style bears evidence of being derived from 
 a wooden original, which was petrified in the sixth century 
 b.c. From the series of examples alluded to, it appears it 
 subsequently assimilated to the Greek by the influence of 
 the neighbouring Ionian style, and in its last form appears 
 almost identical with it. 
 
 PELASGIC. 
 
 The next style that claims notice here is the Pelasgic— 
 that practised by the Pelasgi, or early inhabitants of Greece, 
 to the time of the Dorian invasion under the conduct of the 
 Heraclidse, an event which extinguished the style as a 
 distinct phase of art. Of its origin we know nothing. It 
 may have been coeval with the foundation of the kingdom 
 of Sicyon or Argos, and derived, like the Pelasgi them¬ 
 selves, from Asia Minor. It could scarcely escape the 
 influence, either in its rise or subsequent development, of 
 Egypt, through the immigrations of Cecrops and Danaus, 
 nor of Assyria and Phoenicia through that of Cadmus and 
 Pelops, which, along with what we know of the origin of 
 the Greek and Roman, suggests the probability that all art- 
 streams of the world flow, directly or indirectly, from 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 25 
 
 Western Asia. It is not improbable it may have been a 
 descendant of some earlier form of the Assyrian than has 
 yet been traced. 
 
 The Pelasgic style contains scarce anything of decorative 
 art; but it contributed to the stream of architectural progress 
 the horizontal arch (a feature which possesses the advantage 
 over the true one of avoiding lateral pressure, and combining 
 the stability of the beam with the beauty of the arch), and 
 the more interesting and important feature, the dome, both 
 of which originated in the construction of tombs. Little, 
 however, of this style appears in the Hellenic Greek; in 
 the Doric order it is not seen at all; and only in the sloping 
 jambs of the Ionic doorway is its influence visible. The 
 dome does not reappear in art till the Bomans took it from 
 the Etruscans. 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted that the style of the Pelasgi, 
 to whose admixture with the Hellens or Dorians is attri¬ 
 buted all that is great in the art and literature of the 
 Greeks, must have possessed beauties of which we have but 
 little conception from the elements that remain of it. These, 
 however, are too few to constitute a style. They form but 
 the fragment of a style which only claims a place in the 
 annals of the art for its historical importance—for what 
 the entire style in its original perfection contributed to the 
 generation and development of the more perfect architecture 
 of the Greeks. 
 
 c 
 
26 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 GREEK. 
 
 E first style of whose birth or origin 
 we have any knowledge is the 
 Hellenic or true Greek, which is 
 the result, as far as architecture is 
 concerned, of the mixture of the 
 two races, Pelasgic and Dorian, 
 consequent on the Dorian invasion 
 of the Peloponnesus before men¬ 
 tioned. Its first germ, or the nu¬ 
 cleus from which it grew, was pro¬ 
 bably certain elementary features 
 of the Pelasgic already elaborated 
 in Greece, though, as the Greeks 
 did not worship their ancestors as 
 the Pelasgi did, and were indifferent 
 about their own tombs, little of this 
 art could ultimately find a place in 
 the Greek system. To the style of the Pelasgi, the mixed 
 Grecian race brought elements from the Egyptian and As¬ 
 syrian, till, in the course of centuries, a new style appeared, 
 which, it is probable, first presents itself to us in the temple 
 of Corinth, a form, though full of grace, almost as massive 
 as those of the Nile. 
 
 The chief source of the Greek elements was the Egyptian ; 
 but most of the circumstances which have an influence on 
 the form and character of all true styles of architecture, were 
 materially different in Greece from what they were in Egypt. 
 The Greek mythology, though derived from that of Egypt, 
 was yet so chastened and beautified by the intellectual and 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 27 
 
 poetic medium through which it passed, that it breathed quite 
 another spirit. The lively imagination of the Greeks, who 
 were passionately fond of poetry, and not debarred by their 
 veneration for superior natures from the use of fiction and 
 fable in speaking of them, devised numerous tales and adven¬ 
 tures of their gods. To what of the Egyptian mythology 
 they appropriated, they added more poetic and beautiful 
 elements. To the great celestial deities they introduced less 
 awful ones, demi-gods and heroes, personifications of the 
 virtues and vices, times and seasons, and peopled all nature, 
 the air, the woods and waters, mountains and cities, with 
 invisible beings, supposing that every object in creation, 
 from the sun and sea to the smallest fountain and stream, 
 was under the guardian care of some tutelar deity. This 
 most poetic and art-inspiring of the ancient systems of 
 theology, which, indeed, in regard to some of its depart¬ 
 ments, is not separated by any wide gulph from the beautiful 
 conception of Milton :— 
 
 “ Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
 Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep 
 
 and which was religiously believed in by the multitude, was 
 the creation of the Theogonists and poets of early Greece ; 
 for here, unlike Egypt, poetry was a distinct art, the prevail¬ 
 ing one, and sculpture, painting, and architecture were the 
 illustrations of her volume ; a fact that of itself was calcu¬ 
 lated to have no mean influence on the group of arts em¬ 
 ployed in the construction and decoration of the temple. 
 And it had such influence, as had every other circumstance. 
 The Greek style was columnar architecture set free from 
 Egyptian bondage to grow truthful and beautiful at once, 
 and to attract to its sphere all it could assimilate of what 
 was great and beautiful in nature and in foregone art— 
 columnar architecture purified from the symbols of a gross 
 and ridiculous superstition, made to drink into the spirit of 
 a deeper and grander philosophy and literature, and to 
 sympathise with the beauty of a brighter landscape. The 
 Greeks did not copy Egyptian symbols and hieroglyphics, 
 which had no place in their literature or creed ; but true to 
 
 c 2 
 
THE COURSE ANT) CURRENT 
 
 their own religion and race—true to their national customs 
 and institutions, true to the climate and physical aspects of 
 their country, and true to their own capabilities, their own 
 imaginations, feelings and judgment—they bequeathed to 
 their successors an art which was in every feature Greek, 
 that never was or could be mistaken for that of any other 
 people, and that recorded the exact stature of the Greek 
 soul, at the different periods of its career, as distinctly as the 
 biographer, historian, or poet could have done it. 
 
 The quality most soul-stirring in architecture had been 
 already embodied on the banks of the Nile, and its secret 
 would soon be caught by the Greeks, whose chief task in the 
 development of their style would be in qualifying the sublime 
 by the beautiful, and giving refinement and perfection to the 
 grand forms suggested by the Egyptian; qualities which 
 were never so successfully embodied as in the edifices of the 
 great period of Athenian Architecture, when it reached a 
 height of excellence that enabled it to assimilate with sculp¬ 
 ture of the highest class, which is an integral part of the 
 Doric order. And when from this great heroic style they 
 descended to the more subdued Ionic, they showed in the 
 chastening of the most luxuriant forms of the Asiatics into 
 harmony with their austere Doric, the same high artistic 
 power of invention—a power which completes the cycle of 
 its range in the monument of Lysicrates, where it revels in 
 the utmost luxuriance and fioridity. 
 
 It is true that few elements were absolutely invented by 
 the Greeks, and that most of the features of their style may 
 be traced to Egypt or Assyria, the former of which, at least, 
 none will deny to have been a storehouse of art and well- 
 spring of inspiration to Greece, to whose art it imparted not 
 only innumerable elements, and the germ of some of its most 
 sublime characteristics, but hints for combination and treat¬ 
 ment in design. But it is the characteristic of high genius 
 to be eminently receptive ; and we are to judge of its power 
 more by the use it makes of what it borrows than by what it 
 absolutely creates. For absolute creation is not needful in 
 the human artist, who, if he lack materials to work upon in 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 29 
 
 the foregone art of man, has abundance in the infinite 
 creation of God that surrounds him. 
 
 So judging of Greek art, research into the sources or pa¬ 
 rentage of the style can only tend to raise it in our esti¬ 
 mation, for it makes known to us how true and intellectual 
 the relationship between it and its predecessor—how truly 
 and legitimately the Greek is the daughter of the Egyptian ; 
 it lays bare to view an artistic faculty on the pert of the 
 Greek artists to digest their materials, which was true 
 creative power, and makes manifest that the essential life of 
 their art, and those subtile graces which distinguish it from 
 all the styles of the world, were imparted by the generating 
 and refining fire of their own genius. It reveals the mental 
 stamp on all they borrowed—the mark of adaptation on all 
 they adopted; for to all they borrowed, all they adopted, 
 all their derived material, they either gave a new appli¬ 
 cation and signifiance, or a greater refinement and idealisa¬ 
 tion, making it more logical and true, more imaginative and 
 divine. 
 
 Never, perhaps, was there a power exercised by man on 
 the earth more closely resembling the organic power or 
 principle in nature that produces plants and animals—the 
 principle controlling and guiding the polarities of chemical 
 elements, than that organising intelligence which the Greek 
 exercised in the building up of the grand fabric of his art 
 from the originally diverse and discordant elements of which 
 it was composed. Grecian art exhibits a comprehensive 
 unity—the unity that guides and controls all to one end, 
 which no other creation of human intelligence can boast; 
 and whose truth and excellence, be it observed, sprang not 
 from instinctive feeling alone, but from an earnest and pro¬ 
 found search into the principles of beauty, which are based 
 on the structure and laws of the human mind. Certainly 
 no human work by its symmetry and simplicity and per¬ 
 fection of form, and the evidence of thought and skill which 
 every feature displays, resembles an organism of nature so 
 much as does a Greek temple, a comparison of which with 
 its Egyptian prototypes proves the possession on the part of 
 
30 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 the Greek artists of a power which, had they not found the 
 principle of columnar architecture already carried out in the 
 works of the Egyptians, would lmwe called it out of chaos, 
 or rather would have supplied it, by dint of their pregnant 
 and vigorous imaginations, from the hints which nature 
 affords in her constructive works. 
 
 Of the style as it existed at its best period, that during , 
 the administration of Pericles, I will only say that every 
 increase of knowledge goes to confirm the belief that it was 
 the noblest and most perfect architecture that ever existed ; 
 combining the highest qualities with the minutest and sub- 
 tilest graces and excellences ever expressed in stone; the 
 edifice generally referred to as its typical example, the Par¬ 
 thenon, embodying more intellectual beauty and aesthetic 
 perfection of form and detail, within the same compass, than 
 any other building in the world. 
 
 The history of this great age of the art proves that the 
 genius of architecture did not reach her distinguished po¬ 
 sition through the undue development of one faculty of the 
 nation to the impoverishment of all others. Architecture 
 Avas in perfect harmony Avith every other element of civili¬ 
 sation. She Avent hand in hand with her sister arts, sculp¬ 
 ture and painting, which were also in their zenith, and Avith 
 poetry and divine philosophy. The time in question was 
 long posterior to the Homeric period of the Grecian epic, 
 but it followed close upon that of Pindar and the Greek 
 lyric muse, and it was contemporary with the glorious dra¬ 
 matic era of ACscliylus, Sophocles, Eui'ipides, and Aristo¬ 
 phanes ; rendered still more illustrious by the pure teachings 
 and bright example of the prince of moral philosophers, who 
 was then living at Athens—I mean, of course, Socrates ; it 
 was followed up by the philosophic age of Plato and Aris¬ 
 totle. Within the three or four centuries during which the 
 style continued to progress, ending Avith the death of Alex¬ 
 ander the Great, there flourished, besides the illustrious 
 names already mentioned, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Herodotus, 
 Sappho, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Praxitiles, Lysippus, 
 Xenophon, Xenocrates, Euclid, Hippocrates, Zeno, Anaxa- 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 31 
 
 goras, and others no less worthy to be mentioned, com¬ 
 pleting the most glorious galaxy of genius in literature 
 and philosophy, arts and arms, that the world has ever 
 witnessed. 
 
 From the age of Alexander the style gradually declined 
 till the final conquest of Greece by the sacking of Corinth, 
 when it mingled with Etruscan elements, probably already 
 embodied in an early Roman style, producing the great 
 Roman system, which was no longer a purely trabeated 
 one; and thus commenced that wonderful series of trans- 
 migi'ations, reminding us of the metempsychosis itself, which 
 its spirit has undergone, through all the subsequent styles of 
 the world, and through which its wonderful vital energy 
 has conveyed it, in various forms—-Romanesque, Byzantine, 
 Gothic, Saracenic—down to the present day. From the 
 Greek style not only came the first great propelling and 
 directing impulse to the history of architecture, which is 
 little else than a record of its own transformations, but the 
 essence of all architecture itself—almost every true style 
 that has since appeared in the world, whether Pagan, Chris¬ 
 tian, or Mahomedan, having, under various influences, been 
 generated from it, and being its lineal descendant. 
 
 ETRUSCAN. 
 
 The Etruscans are known to have carried the cultivation 
 of the fine arts to a considerable degree of perfection cen¬ 
 turies before the rise of Hellenic art among the Greeks, with 
 whom they are said to have had intercourse about the sixth 
 century before Christ, probably in the time of Porsenna, 
 who made war upon the Romans in behalf of the deposed 
 Tarquins, and in whose reign their power was, most likely, 
 at its highest. The question, however, does not seem to be 
 quite set at rest, whether their civilisation was indigenous or 
 derived ; but it is most probable, and is now pretty generally 
 believed, that they were a branch of the same Pelasgi that 
 originally colonised Greece, and which migrated at an early 
 age into Europe from Asia Minor ; and that their art, if not 
 
32 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 identical with that of the Grecian Pelasgi, is derived from 
 the same Asiatic source—an hypothesis countenanced by the 
 character of its remains. They had theatres and amphitheatres, 
 aud have left city-gates, aqueducts, and bridges. They had 
 also temples, both circular and rectangular; but religion 
 among them, partaking very much of the nature of ancestral 
 worship, their architecture developed itself less in temples 
 than in rock-cut tombs and tumuli, which objects, with 
 other remains, though like the Pelasgic, forming but the 
 fragment of a style, are interesting for the light they throw 
 on much of the subsequent history of architecture. Etruscan 
 architecture contains the radiating or true arch, not only 
 as a constructive but as a decorative feature, which was 
 used contemporaneously with the horizontal pointed arch; 
 and also the rotunda and dome, which passed into, and 
 became such conspicuous and important features of, the style 
 of the Romans. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 33 
 
 ROMAN. 
 
 HILE the earliest civilisation of 
 Rome was, no doubt, threefold in its 
 origin—Latin, Etruscan, and Sabi- 
 nian—it would probably be from 
 the Etruscans solely, who were in 
 advance of all the rest of the Italian 
 peninsula, in cultivating the arts, its 
 first architectnre, consisting of little 
 else, perhaps, than copies of the 
 small rectangular temples, and the 
 round tombs and temples of Etruria, 
 was derived. But this borrowed 
 style would soon fall in with that 
 of the Greek, through the Dorian colonies 
 of Magna Grascia and Sicily, the refined 
 temple architecture of whose chief cities-— 
 Selinus, Agrigentum, Syracuse, Psestum, &c.—could scarce 
 fail to inspire and enrich the art of the early architects of 
 Rome ; though it would probably remain for the age succeed¬ 
 ing the final subjugation of Greece by the Roman arms, to 
 see the two styles flow freely together, and exhibit their com¬ 
 bined capabilities. It would not be till the close of the bloody 
 dictatorships of Marius and Sylla, and the shutting of the 
 temple of Janus in the mild reign of Augustus, that they 
 could bear much fruit, and worthily embody the style which 
 we know as the Roman—the broad gulf of all ancient, the 
 fountain of all modern, architecture, and whence the motive 
 currents issue that thrill to the present hour. 
 
 Many deny that anything like birth or generation took 
 
 C 3 
 
34 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 place on the introduction of Greek architecture into the pre¬ 
 vious art of the Romans, who, it is supposed, did not put 
 together the two systems in the most intellectual and artistic 
 manner. It is believed to be adverse to the nature of 
 columnar architecture in its integrity to unite with arches 
 and domes ; and that its introduction to the Roman arch 
 should have been a signal for an immediate dissolution be¬ 
 tween column and entablature, causing the former, like a 
 chemical element under the force of a stronger affinity than 
 that by which it had been previously held, or like a faithless 
 spouse, smitten by the charms of a new lover, to leave its 
 old associate and unite itself in indissoluble wedlock to the 
 new comer. Because this decomposition and recomposition 
 did not take place at the inauguration of the Roman system 
 of architecture, it has been characterised as a mechanical com¬ 
 pound of two styles rather than one homogeneous and com¬ 
 plete style, and ranked as a style of transition merely from 
 Greek to Christian Romanesque, Byzantine, and Gothic. 
 
 What I must here maintain is, that the Romans in retain¬ 
 ing the peristyle of Greece as an essential part of their art, 
 and combining it bodily with their arch and dome, took the 
 course calculated to lead to the greatest and most beautiful 
 results. That they did not always make the most refined 
 junction of the two systems is no argument against the har¬ 
 mony or capability of the Roman style, which alone I am 
 defending, and by which I understand a style composed of 
 the Romanised orders of the Greeks (including pilasters) 
 used in their entirety, either detached or attached to a wall, 
 forming the framework of a facade, and, in either position, 
 along with arched openings and domes, just as in St. Paul’s 
 Cathedral. This is Roman architecture, the two parts of 
 which, I think, can be proved to be capable of the most, 
 perfect union, and of composing a good and consistent style 
 of architecture, one that never necessarily leads to the em¬ 
 bodiment either of discordancy or falsehood ; which is no¬ 
 thing more than might naturally be expected from a style 
 inaugurated and employed by a people who, in almost every 
 other department of intellectual creation, were the true 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 35 
 
 imitators and pupils of Greek genius, and gave fresh models 
 therein to posterity, and to whose achievements in some of 
 the arts of civilisation history affords no parallel; as, for 
 instance, those wise legislative enactments by which they 
 could blend discordant nations together, and make the whole 
 world one harmonious community. At least, it would be 
 strange if the empire of Augustus and Vespasian, Nerva 
 and Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines—an empire which, 
 having absorbed all the states and colonies of Greece, must 
 have had an extensive Grecian element distributed through 
 its population, and while yet flowed on the stream of im¬ 
 mortal men, continuous from the Periclean age, to adorn the 
 history of Rome with some of the brightest names in war 
 and politics, and literature, that ever appeared in the world— 
 it would be strange, I say, if an empire and people such as 
 this, and which could boast of poets like Virgil and Horace, 
 Ovid and Lucian, Tibullus and Juvenal; orators like Cicero 
 and Quinctillian; historians like Tacitus and Livy; philo¬ 
 sophers like Seneca and Epictetus, to say nothing of 
 Vitruvius and others distinguished in architecture itself; and 
 whose pecuniary resources were the spoils of the civilised 
 world, should so utterly fail in the art of architecture as 
 some would have us believe; and while they could frame, 
 for the vehicle of their ideas in poetry and literature, so 
 noble a structure as the Latin tongue, be content with an 
 architectural language in which contempt of consistency and 
 harmony was the chief characteristic. 
 
 The architecture of Greece was, I conceive, the grandest 
 decorative addition the arch system could have to erect it 
 into a style. No panelling or other device, could substitute 
 it, or beget a system of arcadal decoration half so excel¬ 
 lent as that furnished by the application of the orders, 
 with which as curved forms may always be harmoniously 
 inserted within rectangular ones, arched openings, however 
 placed, either between attached columns or behind detached 
 ones, and forming the background of a portico, are in per¬ 
 fect harmony, and may produce combinations unrivalled in 
 beauty. I am aware that one thing here advocated, the 
 
36 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 employment of engaged orders, is a practice that by most 
 critics is deemed wrong under any position with relation to 
 other elements. But it is one that I conceive has been 
 too severely criticised. We need licenses in architecture, 
 which are as philosophically proper as licenses in poetry. 
 It is in the nature of a fine art sometimes to ignore theories 
 of construction, to break away from the trammels of reason 
 and yield obedience only to the higher faculty of imagina¬ 
 tion. A veil of attached columns expresses sympathy with 
 the peristyle—the most beautiful feature of the style ; and is 
 itself the highest decoration that could be applied to the 
 vertical plane of a building. If its beauty is not sufficient 
 apology, it will be found in the additional strength which 
 it communicates to a wall, columnar projections from which 
 are surely no unjustifiable means of economising material. 
 It is an ossifying of the walls of a building, the introduc¬ 
 tion into classic architecture of a feature analogous to the 
 bones of animals, and which bears the same relation to the 
 mural and other surfaces that these do to the flesh and 
 membranes. 
 
 While such broad application of the Greek orders as I 
 have endeavoured to indicate was necessary to the original 
 Roman elements to raise them into the ethereal realm of 
 art, the latter, on the other hand, were as needful to the Greek 
 system to render it a complete and plastic style of archi¬ 
 tecture. The arch and dome were the desideratum of the 
 Greek, which though a perfect and exquisite architecture, 
 as far as it went was only a beautiful fragment, not a com¬ 
 plete system. Constructively, it needed a better means of 
 covering openings and ceiling areas; artistically, it wanted 
 curve lines along with the straight, and these could be best 
 given by the arch and dome, features which the natural 
 progress of things seems to have called for to complete the 
 Greek columnar system. Roman architecure is the com¬ 
 plement of the Greek, the Greek in its fulness, with the 
 sphere of its elements enlarged and made capable of ap¬ 
 plication to all the various purposes of life, and which the 
 Greeks, had they longer retained their national inde- 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 37 
 
 pendence and prosperity, would no doubt themselves have 
 aimed at. 
 
 That Roman architecture is a true and homogeneous style, 
 one celebrated example that remains of it is sufficient to 
 prove, I mean the Pantheon, referring more especially to its 
 interior, wherein the columnar ordinance, in its full integrity, 
 is applied, along with arches of large span, to adorn the 
 base of the Etruscan dome, and which exhibits as noble and 
 consistent an application of the great elements of architecture 
 to the production of a grand and magnificent effect as any 
 building in the world. 
 
 But if in our own metropolitan cathedral there is no dis¬ 
 cordancy of form between the peristyles, straight and cir¬ 
 cular, on the one hand, and the numerous arched openings 
 and great dome on the other, then is the style of the Romans 
 a consistent and harmonious one, for in its design and com¬ 
 position it is Roman architecture; it displays, I believe, 
 every element of Roman architecture, and nothing but 
 Roman architecture. 
 
 The style that, in the hands of the great Florentine, 
 Roman, and Venetian masters, led to such poetic and 
 beautiful results, and which in the sixteenth century dis¬ 
 played such truly classic breadth and grandeur, was but a 
 restoration of the Roman style of the Julian and Flavian 
 periods ; for in its revival it underwent no organic change, 
 but was merely raised from its slumber by men who knew 
 how to use it—-who were capable of understanding its prin¬ 
 ciples and receiving its inspirations. The best works of 
 Raffaelle, M. Angelo, Sanmichele, Sanosvino, Palladio, 
 Vignola, Sangallo, Julio Romano, &c., some of which, as 
 the Library of St. Mark, the Basilica of Vicenza, the 
 Farnese, Pitti, and Pandolfini Palaces, St. Peter’s at Rome, 
 are among the most celebrated buildings in the world, are 
 composed of this Roman architecture, applied as the Romans 
 applied it. The justly admired Library of St. Mark, a 
 building whose sins against the philosophy of architecture 
 and the Greek principles of design, if it have any, are never 
 alluded to, is not only Roman in essence and principle, but 
 
38 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 it shows almost precisely that application of the columnar 
 architecture to an arcuated wall which is so generally con¬ 
 demned in the Colosseum ; while of another and still more 
 celebrated building, St. Peter’s Church, at Rome, it may be 
 averred that it is Roman architecture not so well used in 
 its composition as in the better works of the Romans. And 
 not only these works of the Italian revivalists, but all that 
 is greatest and best of the achievements of architecture since 
 their time—the best works of Bernini, Perrault, the Man¬ 
 sards, Inigo Jones, Wren—the colonnade of St. Peter’s, the 
 fagade of the Louvre, the domed churches of Paris, White¬ 
 hall Banqueting-house, St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. Stephen’s, 
 Walbrook, Burlington House and its admired colonnade, 
 Somerset House—are Roman architecture as the Romans 
 used it. 
 
 The change that was really necessary to be made in the 
 Grecian ordinance to harmonise it with the arch and dome, 
 as well as to fit it for the new uses to which it was applied 
 —new situations and new relative positions—to be bent 
 round the inside or the outside of a rotunda, to be placed in 
 double and treble, as well as in single stories, or to decorate 
 a wall, they introduced into it. To the baseless Doric they 
 gave a base, and without, I think, so much injury to its 
 masculine character as is generally supposed, they so miti¬ 
 gated its severity as to fit it for introduction to the Corin¬ 
 thian order, as well as to the curved Etruscan elements, 
 and for application to other than sacred purposes. And 
 whether we regard it as a new order, or new variety of the 
 Grecian Doric, which was a single design rather than an 
 order (for the Dorics of the Parthenon, Theseum, &c., were 
 virtually one), it was a valuable acquisition to the resources 
 of design, and more than might be expected to be produced 
 out of what was incapable of advance and seemed incapable 
 of v ariation. They gave perfection and a freedom unknown 
 before to the Corinthian order, which in Roman architec¬ 
 ture, comes before us, not as a single design, but as a 
 species, capable of an infinity of forms or varieties, of which 
 what is called the Composite is only one, in which the voluted 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 39 
 
 or spiral member has its extreme development. Out of 
 the Greek anta they created a new order—that of pilasters 
 —a valuable acquisition to the treasury of architecture, as 
 was also the pedestal, which increased the applicability and 
 usefulness of the orders. 
 
 They may not have executed this difficult and delicate 
 task in the best possible manner, and given to what they 
 modified or invented all the expressional truth and refine¬ 
 ment of which it was capable in its new relations and offices. 
 If they did not, it is not to be wondered at when it is re¬ 
 membered how much else they achieved in the way of ap¬ 
 plication and combination, and how greatly they increased 
 the comprehensiveness and scope of the style; and their 
 failure, if they did fail, to give the finishing touches to the style, 
 has only left the greater room for advance on the part of 
 the moderns, whose task it is, while extending it to all the 
 various purposes that may be called for by the spirit and 
 institutions of the day, to give it all consistent refinement, 
 all that perfection and purity of detail which, in their 
 haste to combine and expand, and to ci’eate the magnificent, 
 the Romans omitted to communicate to it. 
 
 But be this as it may, it was in the free and bold treat¬ 
 ment by the Romans of the Greek orders, along with the 
 gradual extension of them to all the diverse purposes of life, 
 for few of which the past presented them with prototypes, 
 and the application of the decorative elements of the style to 
 the various features called for by new purposes, to the 
 encasement, for example, of windows and doors, and the 
 construction and adornment of interiors ; and in the varied 
 and bold application of the arch to simple and groined 
 vaults and domes—it was in this lay the real progress of 
 Roman architecture, and not in its gradual turning into 
 Romanesque. Architecture itself was progressing; the 
 temple architecture of Egypt and Greece was growing into 
 a system possessed of powers and appliances for universal 
 adoption. The change into Romanesque which, from the 
 time of Augustus to that of Constantine the Great, was 
 going on, had it not been a corruption of the Roman style, 
 
40 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 which we generally find it to have been, was a degeneration 
 of it—a lowering of its tone and capacity. 
 
 No style ever practiced in the world had so great a geo¬ 
 graphical range as the Roman, which must have been nearly 
 commensurate with the Roman sway, a sway which 
 extended, during the flourishing periods of the empire, from > 
 the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the Euphrates, 
 and from the Rhine and Danube to the deserts of Africa. 
 In the two first centuries of Christianity it was, so far as we 
 know, the only style of the world, with the exception of the 
 Egyptian, the Buddhist of India, and the Chinese. Early 
 in the third century it received an oriental rival by the 
 revival of art in Persia, consequent on the delivery of that 
 country from the Parthian yoke by the Sassanidce, whose 
 architecture shows traces of Roman influence. 
 
 We speak of this broad Roman style as of one style; but 
 when we consider the vast variety in genius and character 
 of the nations under the Roman rule by whom the style 
 must have been very diversely applied, and the influences 
 that would naturally be exerted by different native styles, 
 we can scarce doubt the existence of as many and as distinct 
 varieties of it as we find in the Gothic or Saracenic. At 
 Petra and Baalbec, the majesty and grandeur of the Roman 
 style is tinctured with an Oriental richness in detail and 
 decoration, which imparts to it a new and very interesting 
 character. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 41 
 
 CHRISTIAN ROMANESQUE. 
 
 HE early Christian church, as we might 
 naturally expect to find, adopted what¬ 
 ever it consistently could from 
 Judaism, the system of religion 
 by which it was typified and fore¬ 
 shadowed, and from which it may 
 be said to have sprung. The first 
 Christian societies are known to 
 have been formed, in a great 
 measure, on the model of the syn¬ 
 agogue, which held very similar ser¬ 
 vices—those of prayer, and reading, 
 and exposition of the sacred books. 
 But the form of the buildings so-called, 
 of which a great number are said to 
 have existed at Jerusalem, and which 
 were not only for worship, but, like the Pagan basilicas, for 
 holding local courts of justice—the form of these and of the 
 Jewish temple were doubtless not without influence on that 
 of the first edifices reared for assemblies of the faithful. Re¬ 
 miniscences or traditions of the colonnades forming the royal 
 porch and cloisters which lined and beautified the great 
 court of their second temple, would be affectionately asso¬ 
 ciated in the minds of the Christianised Jews with the idea 
 of divine worship, and operate thereon in favour of columnar 
 divisions in their churches, in which the need of breadth and 
 spaciousness would, probably from the first, beget the tripar¬ 
 tite arrangement of the basilicas, whose plans may have 
 been thus anticipated before the time of Constantine. The 
 
42 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Stoa Basilica itself foreshadowed the disposition of the Con- 
 stantinal Basilica, and was suggestive of the basilican plan. 
 
 That Christianity should turn her back on the external 
 peristyles of the edifices called into being by the too mighty 
 spirit of Paganism, and so inalienably associated with its 
 rites, and adopt the simple unpolluted basilica, was highly 
 politic and proper. She was of a different spirit from her 
 fallen rival, and required a distinct and unique shrine. If 
 the model chosen was not as original as could be wished, it 
 had the significant and appropriate characteristic of substi¬ 
 tuting internal for external richness, and the recommen¬ 
 dation of being of a form eminently suited to the purposes 
 of the new worship. 
 
 In the preceding section I denied the gradual change of 
 Roman into Romanesque to be a process of progression, and 
 contended that it was a lowering of the tone and capacity of 
 the former style. The Christians, however, had a more 
 rational motive for changing the style from the pure Roman, 
 which was more contaminated with reminiscences of ido¬ 
 latry than the Romanesque modification of it. The superior 
 grandeur of the former style they could forego, or were 
 willing to exchange for elements which removed them from 
 mementoes of former error, and tended to the development 
 of a new style of architecture. The same motive afterwards 
 led the Byzantine architects to go still further, and by 
 increased modifications, and the weaving of new elements 
 into its texture, to create their style into an entirely new 
 one; and it probably led the great Constantine to the expan¬ 
 sion of the ancient Byzantium into the new seat of empire, 
 called Constantinople; which itself may be almost considered 
 as a creation of Christianity, called for by its horror of 
 everything Pagan. 
 
 The first Christian style is what lias been termed the 
 Roman Christian Basilica style, which, if Romanesque 
 at all, is certainly the purest variety of it, and least removed 
 from the pure classic parent. It seems, indeed, but the 
 ancient Roman style, not adapted to the new purpose, but 
 simply applied to it, embodied in a new kind of edifice, with 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 43 
 
 scarce any modification* It is certainly more Roman than 
 Romanesque, as those terms are generally understood, there 
 being scarcely any element found in it that is not seen in 
 the style of the empire, and may be considered as a link 
 between it and the Romanesque. 
 
 This style ran down as a central and purer branch amid 
 the Romanesques of Italy to the twelfth century, the most 
 direct offshoot of the style of the Pantheon and Coliseum, 
 exerting a strong purifying influence on contemporary 
 branches, and a creating influence also, to which we doubt¬ 
 less owe the Pisan Romanesque, which is the purest of the 
 Romanesque styles properly so termed. 
 
 By Romanesque architecture I mean that pure modi¬ 
 fication of the declining Roman made by the classic races 
 of Italy and the Celtic races of the west, which the classic 
 predilections of those races led them to preserve, and which 
 remained distinct from the Gothic of the Teutonic races, 
 Lombard, Norman, &c., on the one side, and from the 
 Byzantine or style of the Eastern Empire on the other, 
 though it gave birth to both. In this style, while the arch 
 is substituted for the entablature, the classic purity of spirit 
 is retained; the Roman proportions and detail of the 
 columns are preserved, and the needful abutment of 
 vaultings provided for by a sufficiency of strength in the 
 wall, rather than by projections from it in the nature of 
 buttresses. This is, perhaps, the ideal of the style, never 
 actually realised, for it no sooner became distinct from its 
 parent style, and grew into consistency, than it became 
 more or less imbued with a Byzantine or Gothic feeling. 
 The fact of its continued existence after the generation 
 from it of other styles, proves that it was not a style 
 of transition merely between the Roman style and the 
 Round Gothic, as some have considered it, but a style dis¬ 
 tinct in itself; which, I think, is further evinced by the 
 qualities peculiar to itself which it possessed, and which 
 were afterwards exhibited in some very artistic productions. 
 
 It was not, it is true, as new a style as its purpose (the 
 fabrication and adornment of the temples of a new religion 
 
44 
 
 TIIE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 of a new spirit) seemed to demand, a purpose which, per¬ 
 haps more than any other, called for an absolutely new 
 style ; for, whatever degree of novelty it possessed, it arose 
 directly out of the old and heathen art. But, alas, no such 
 style, so far as we know, has ever yet appeared, and it must 
 be mortifying to human pride to think that a temple for 
 Jehovah must be of the same earth-born material, and have 
 its design composed of the same elemental principles, as one 
 for Jupiter. 
 
 The Apostles planted churches or Christian societies 
 throughout the Roman Empire in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
 which were so diligently watered by their successors, that 
 as early as the second century or beginning of the third the 
 faith had gradually spread to the middle and higher ranks 
 of society. About the year 244 we find an Emperor (Philip 
 the Arabian) favouring the Christians, and granting them 
 permission to build churches and exercise their worship in 
 public. From all this it is probable that soon after the 
 commencement of the Christian era, or at least long before 
 the time of Constantine, the Christian Romanesque style 
 must have begun to germinate, more especially in Asia 
 Minor, and other remote parts of the empire far from the 
 seat of Government. After the time of Constantine it pre¬ 
 vailed over the whole Roman world, and was the sole style 
 until the rise of the Byzantine, which was probably about the 
 latter end of the fourth century or early in the fifth century, 
 from which period it ceased in the East, but was the archi¬ 
 tecture of the whole Western world till the rise of the 
 Gothic, when its range became still more circumscribed 
 geographically, being confined chiefly to Italy. But within 
 the limits of its range the course of the style must have been 
 one of progression, which would be commensurate in some 
 measure with the growth of the clerical power, and increase 
 of the rigour of ecclesiastical discipline, which broke in upon 
 the simple architectural arrangements of the early days of 
 the Church. The separation of the people into clergy and 
 laity, and the introduction of the doctrine of transubstantia- 
 tion would cause the full development of the chancel and 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 45 
 
 separation of it from the nave by screens; alterations calcu¬ 
 lated to stimulate the inventive faculties of the architects, 
 and increase the motive and scope for design. 
 
 It was mainly in proportion as the church lost her single¬ 
 ness of heart,, and sullied herself by communion with 
 heathenism, that she drew upon the resources of architecture, 
 and ranged through the sphere of art. The fact is a melan¬ 
 choly one; but we may console ourselves with the reflection 
 that Christianity might have been as beautifully adorned 
 without losing her innocence, as she was in the proudest 
 days of the Papacy, and that there was nothing in the 
 nature of gospel purity to lead to the repudiation of the 
 graces of architecture. It is true that pure religion, con¬ 
 scious of her own intrinsic might, can afford to go plainly 
 dressed, and dispense with temple grandeurs, which can add 
 nothing to her heaven-born dignity, or enhance the beauty 
 of her holiness. Yet into her service architectural beauty 
 and grandeur might be enlisted with perfect propriety, when 
 it is used as an harmonious accompaniment to her teachings, 
 and not as a substitute for it, and made to strengthen the 
 bonds of priestly dominion over the heart and spirit of man. 
 The poetry intertwined with paganism has found its way 
 into Christian literature; and the graces of its temples may 
 as consistently pass into Christian architecture. 
 
 But though beauty of right belongs more to the true than 
 to the false religion, it is the peculiar glory of Christianity 
 to be all independent of it, as of every extraneous help. It 
 is not necessary to her power nor essential to her progress. 
 
 Before the dismemberment of the Homan empire, and for 
 a century or two after, Christian Bomanesque was one 
 style. But when with the division of the empire and the 
 decay of its literature and civilisation, institutions, laws, 
 customs, and languages began to assume local peculiarities, 
 so did the Romanesque architecture, which developed itself 
 in a manner characteristic of each particular country where 
 it flourished, and showed local varieties, which we term 
 respectively, Itaxian Romanesque, French Romanesque, 
 Spanish Romanesque, each of which again became sub- 
 
46 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 divided or gave birth to new branches. The French presents 
 us with Provencal, Angiovine, Aquitanian varieties, 
 while from the Italian springs Apulian on one side, and 
 Pisan on the other, which latter, as before remarked, was 
 the purest of all the round arched styles. 
 
 These may be regarded as a ramified continuation of the 
 Christian Romanesque, in the same direction in which the 
 style had been moving for centuries from its Roman source; 
 while the Gothic and Byzantine and Saracenic were in a 
 new direction—the Byzantine and Saracenic eastward, and 
 the Gothics westward from the central parent line. The 
 Italian, French, and Spanish Romanesques bear the same 
 relation to the Roman that the Romance languages bear to 
 the Latin, and grew out of it by a similar law—a closer 
 relation to it than the different Gothics, whose relative 
 position is analogous to that of the Teutonic languages. 
 
 And their position in the history of architecture, with 
 reference to the contemporary Gothic and succeeding Renais¬ 
 sance styles, is similar to that which the poetry of the Trou¬ 
 badours of France, Spain, and Italy, and the writings of 
 Petrarch and Boccaccio hold in the history of literature, with 
 reference to its Germanic and to its revived Greek and 
 Roman branches. 
 
 To local influence on the career and character of the style 
 in question, was joined the influence of neighbouring styles : 
 the Romanesques in their different branches were variously 
 coloured through the rise of Byzantine and Saracenic on the 
 east side of their range, and by the Gothic on their west. 
 A tinge of Oriental feeling, arising from the action of 
 Byzantine and Saracenic, shows itself in the Apulian branch, 
 while a strong Gothic colouring is seen in the French, 
 and still more in the Spanish, which are both further 
 removed from the Roman than was the Italian. The 
 Apulian is distinguished by richness in sculptured animals, 
 arising from the prevalence of the Greek Iconoclastic feeling, 
 which prohibited the sculpture of the human figure. 
 
 The conquest of Italy by Justinian, the establishment of 
 the Exarchate, and long retention of Lower Italy by the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 47 
 
 Greek empire, would cause interesting blendings in many 
 buildings, of the Romanesque and Byzantine styles. The 
 latter had some slight influence on the Pisan Romanesque ; 
 but on the central or main trunk—the Italian-—its influence 
 was least of all. This was the typical form of the Christian 
 Romanesque, and the style which continued the longest. It 
 showed itself susceptible of a high decorative development 
 without diverging into Gothic, and might, had it been 
 worked out by men of pure taste and free artistic power, 
 have reached a chaste and solemn beauty and grace in 
 religious edifices, that architecture has seldom exhibited. 
 As it is, it has produced some of the noblest buildings in the 
 world, buildings which, to the magic of the pillared per¬ 
 spectives of the pointed cathedrals unite the solemn 
 grandeur, and breadth of light and shadow, resulting from 
 broad surfaces and masses of wall. 
 
 In the Christian Romanesque churches we find the germ 
 of the plans that prevailed in the subsequent styles, and from 
 whence arose their chief characteristics—viz., the vaulted 
 oblong, which was the form of the place of general assembly, 
 and the domed circle, that of the baptistry and tomb. The 
 former became the form of the Gothic; the latter of the 
 Byzantine ; and the two together enter into the composition 
 of the domed churches of the Renaissance and Italian. 
 
 The first erected domed example of the Italian Ro¬ 
 manesque style was the church of St. Vitale at Ravenna, 
 built in the sixth century, and which marks the first ap¬ 
 pearance of the cupola in Italy. 
 
 SASSANIAN OR MIDDLE PERSIAN. 
 
 It would seem that under the Greek and Parthian sway 
 in Persia, a corruption of the gorgeous native style of the 
 Achsemenides became fused with Roman orders and orna¬ 
 ments, and in time grew into consistence. Under the 
 Sassanians, who restored the ancient Fire Worship, and many 
 of the national habits and customs, and encouraged art, it 
 became a new and important style which, in its perfect 
 
48 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 state, shows much of the detail and peculiarities of the 
 ancient Persian, to some vestiges of which they must have 
 had access. In its course to perfection, during which 
 Roman details gradually disappeared, it made great progress 
 in arching and domeing, and exhibited, when fully formed, 
 the pendentive dome ; and, instead of the Roman orders and 
 details, the system of long elegant pilasters which we see 
 in the Armenian style, extending the entire height of the 
 building, and joined and surmounted above by small round 
 arches, producing an effect that calls to mind the long arch¬ 
 ing of the Roman aqueducts, of which I suspect it was an 
 inspiration. 
 
 This style, which reached its highest perfection in the 
 sixth century under Cosroes the Great, generally appears as 
 an Astylar style ; but the celebrated “ Tak Kesra,” of that 
 monarch, at Ctesiplion, shows that Roman orders were not 
 entirely worked out of the -style at the time of its erection. 
 In this fragment or ruin of a palace the Roman orders take 
 the place of the tall pilasters and arches of other examples, 
 which are the the chief peculiarities of the style. 
 
 As a descendant of the ancient Persian, the gay colouring, 
 and other elements of which it certainly inherited, and trans¬ 
 mitted to its Mahommedan and Christian offspring, it is 
 extremely interesting and important in an historical point of 
 view. It is one of the parent styles of the Armenian and 
 Georgian Byzantine, and contributed to the beauty and 
 variety of the Byzantine of Western Asia. Its picturesque 
 composition, elaborate decoration, and gay and tasteful 
 colouring, united with the Byzantine churches and palaces 
 of Syria, produced the Saracenic styles, more especially the 
 Persian. 
 
 Ruined examples of this style—of the Arsacian and 
 Sassanian periods—still exist in Persia. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 49 
 
 BYZANTINE. 
 
 E traced, in a preceding part of 
 this history, the course and ra¬ 
 mifications of that modified form 
 of the Roman architecture called 
 Christian Romanesque, as it flow¬ 
 ed uninterruptedly down, through 
 the middle ages, from its antique 
 source; and saw the art that had 
 rejoiced in the construction of the 
 blood - stained amphitheatre and 
 arch of triumph, that had enshrined 
 in columnar magnificence the gods 
 and symbols of Paganism, converted 
 to the service of the religion of for¬ 
 bearance and humility, and become 
 embodied in churches for the celebration of its 
 rites. We must now go back to the first branch¬ 
 ing off from this central flow of architectural history, which 
 was by the Byzantine style, or that version of Christian 
 Romanesque made by the Greek architects of Constanti¬ 
 nople, in their desire to give, in the decorative character 
 of their temples, a new and more worthy clothing to the 
 idea of Christianity, and which was used by all nations 
 under the rule of the Eastern Empire, and in communion 
 with the Greek church. 
 
 From its geographical position, we may conceive of this 
 style as flowing off from the parent stream in an eastern 
 direction, or the opposite one to the Gothic, which may be 
 pictured as flowing westward ; and as being half a Euro- 
 
50 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 pean half an Asiatic style, which it was, not in a geogra¬ 
 phical sense only, but in an artistic—in reference to its 
 distinguishing characteristics, which are the result of 
 the Oriental fancy and love of splendour operating on the 
 sober qualities of European art. We come to this eastern 
 branch first because it was the earliest, its first origination 
 being about the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth 
 century, while that of the Gothic was about a century later. 
 
 This descent of the Byzantine style from the Christian 
 Romanesque is, I believe, universally admitted, but not its 
 cognate relation to the Lombard or Round Gothic, which is 
 looked upon by some as the daughter rather than the sister 
 of the Byzantine, a view which I think will be found less 
 correct than that I have adopted, and one calculated to in¬ 
 troduce confused notions into the history of architecture. 
 The Gothic style owes much to Byzantine, under which it 
 went through a strong refining process in its development 
 and growth, but not its birth. It is closely related to the 
 Byzantine, but it is by cognation and sympathy, not by 1 
 descent; both were raised by the spirit of Christianity out 
 of the Christian Romanesque, to grow to perfection under 
 new and diverse principles and towards different goals. 
 The Byzantine is the Greek counterpart of the Round Gothic, 
 and its different branches in Europe, Asia Minor, Armenia, 
 Georgia, &c., bear the same immediate relation to the 
 Christian Romanesque on the one side, that the Lombardy 
 Rhenish, Norman, Saxon, &c., do on the other. 
 
 But we may picture the Byzantine as making a gentler or 
 less abrupt divergence from the course of its parent stream 
 than the Gothic, which was worked out from a revolution in 
 the general form and proportions of the churches, a part of the 
 design for which the Oriental races showed less aptitude 
 than for the ornamentation and colouring. For this their 
 facultiesi were best fitted, and to this they made everything 
 subordinate. The embryo of Byzantine composition existed 
 in the Roman domed churches and tombs, among which the 
 pendentive mode of applying the dome had originated; and 
 on the ramification of the Roman style, while the rectangular 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 51 
 
 form, with its intersecting vaults, was taken up by the 
 Teutonic nations of the West, the domical, which had arisen 
 in the East among the Pelasgic races, was adopted by the 
 Eastern Empire, and became the nucleus of the new style, 
 every other feature in it having reference to the dome. The 
 fabric of the Byzantine church is otherwise similar to that 
 of the Romanesque, from which it grew. It shows the same 
 absence of buttresses, the same single and classically-pro- 
 portioned shafts, with foliated capitals, and semicircular 
 arches, so that it is the minute details and decorations 
 chiefly that characterise and constitute the Byzantine style. 
 
 But though we are thus justified in representing its gene¬ 
 ration as a more gentle branching off than the Gothic from 
 the central stream, we may consider it as eminently entitled, 
 from the merit of the new elements it exhibited, to be ranked 
 as a new and distinct style. In its perfected state the 
 Byzantine style is the Christian Romanesque fully purified 
 from Pagan feeling, exalted and refined by Greek genius 
 under the inspiration of a zeal to render the temples of 
 Christianity truer architectural exponents, or more in unison 
 with the spirituality of the new religion, both by remodelled 
 detail and a more symbolic and phonetic decoration. It 
 inaugurated a new and more refined principle into the treat¬ 
 ment and design of the capital of the columns and other 
 carved embellishments, that of subordinating the foliage de¬ 
 coration to the outline. It carried the beauty and variety 
 of the Corinthian foliated capital to the utmost pitch, and 
 drew out of the classic type an astonishing number of refined 
 and elegant varieties, of the utmost richness and significance, 
 and wherein the foliage evinces greater sympathy with 
 living herbage than had been seen before. 
 
 But the chief merit of the style lay in the commanding 
 grasp it took of the sister art of painting, in its highest walk, 
 which, in the shape of mosaic work, it employed to the 
 exelusion of the large traceried windows, and glass painting, 
 which became the peculiar and crowning glory of the sister 
 style, but which probably the heat of the climate alone 
 would have forbidden in the East. Mosaic, a species of 
 
 d 2 
 
52 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 painting eminently architectonic, was the essential element 
 of the decoration as the dome was of the construction, if it 
 was not the essence of the style itself, to which dome and 
 everything else was adapted and made subservient: domes, 
 pendentives, vaults, walls being so many differently shaped 
 and colossal frames for the insertion of painting. The style 
 itself (which may be termed a pictorial style of architecture) 
 seems shaped by the genius of painting for the display of her 
 higher ministrations, which were almost solely the source of 
 the very solemn expression, so suited to a place of worship, 
 which characterised the Byzantine churches, though these 
 edifices were of a most imposing general form, and crowned 
 by the sublimest feature in architecture. 
 
 Through its adherence to classical Romanesque propor¬ 
 tions and symmetry, it could not boast the untrammelled 
 freedom of range in expression, nor the power of sympathy 
 with the wild life of nature, enjoyed by the Gothic. But it 
 yields to none as a susceptible vehicle of religious feelings— 
 in the means and power of embodying the qualities befitting 
 the house of worship, or that are most worthy to enfold the 
 conception of God. 
 
 It is in the power of architecture to give intimation and 
 suggestion of something beyond its own sphere. The genius 
 embodied in a truly great edifice goes into the susceptible 
 spectator, blends with his inspired imagination, and raises 
 him to the apprehension and contemplation of beauty and 
 excellence of a higher and diviner nature. Without dis¬ 
 paragement to what was elsewhere and subsequently 
 achieved, I think the style under notice, aiming as it did 
 at abstract and ideal beauty, the kind that appeals most 
 strongly to the imagination, and raised and illustrated by 
 the bright visions that painting can call up of sacred and 
 scripture story, is inferior to none in respect to this power. 
 Its chief monuments, which combined the majesty of the 
 Lombard-Gothic with the gorgeous splendour of the Sara¬ 
 cenic, do more than strike the senses; they inspire by their 
 solemn grandeur, profound and exalted feelings on the great 
 subjects most interesting to humanity. The Church of St. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 53 
 
 Sophia at Constantinople, in the possession of grand, sym¬ 
 metrical, and uniformly extended space, crowned by a model 
 and type of the living firmament itself, and capable at 
 least of receiving one inextinguishable and radiating flood 
 of light, comes nearest, perhaps, to the beau ideal of interior 
 architecture of all the structures in the world. In no other 
 building I should fancy are so many of the sources of 
 grandeur and beauty—-of those qualities which we would 
 naturally associate with ideas of true religion, and seek in 
 a house erected to the honour of God, great magnitude, 
 form, proportion, light, colour, richness of material—so suc¬ 
 cessfully blended into one absorbing and harmonious whole. 
 At the same time, it not only touches the imagination, it 
 fully satisfies the judgment, and for the pure worship for 
 which it was destined, is, perhaps, the most sensible building 
 ever reared by Christian hands. 
 
 The Byzantine style of architecture is our greatest debt 
 to the Byzantine Greeks; as they produced scarce anything 
 else that is original and great, during the thousand years of 
 their political existence. 
 
 As this style arose amid the light of Greek classical taste, 
 so it continued to exhibit something of ancient Greek ele¬ 
 gance, and, like the declining literature of the empire, pre¬ 
 served more or less of classic spirit and feeling, through all 
 the revolutions of the middle ages. Its best period is that 
 which witnessed the erection of the great edifice just cha¬ 
 racterised, the church of St. Sophia, its noblest example ; 
 soon after which, under local and national influences, and 
 through conformity to new requirements, the style began to 
 ramify and show geographical varieties. The influence of 
 the Gothic and Romanesque styles on one side, and of Per¬ 
 sian or Sassanian, and Saracenic on the other, began, too, 
 to make themselves visible. In Armenia, Byzantine archi¬ 
 tecture shows strong traces of the Sassanian and Saracenic 
 styles ; pillars became somewhat elongated, and the compo¬ 
 sition more pointed, which with other mutations, render it 
 strikingly different from the European branches. The Per¬ 
 sian or Sassanian elements, it is believed, are inherent in 
 
54 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 this branch, which is sometimes called Byzantine-Persic 
 from its having had another parent in the style of the 
 Persian empire, by which, in its generation or origin, the 
 Christian-Romanesque was impregnated. This variety of 
 Byzantine architecture is peculiarly elegant, both in its 
 decorations and proportions. To it the pointed Gothic of 
 the West was probably much indebted. 
 
 The Western Asiatic branch of Byzantine may be con¬ 
 sidered as extinct at the end of the eleventh century, by the 
 I'ise of the Seljukian Turks, Avho, in 1099, tore away almost 
 the whole of Asia Minor from the Eastern Empire. But 
 the styles of Armenia and Georgia, where the Christians j 
 were undisturbed for some centuries, lingered on, and with 
 the European branch, can even now scarcely be considered 
 as dead, their embers rather slumbering than being extin- 
 guished in those countries. 
 
 With regard to the European branch, as Mahommed II. 
 did not wantonly destroy, but preserved the imperial edifices, 
 and converted the churches into mosques, and as the Chris¬ 
 tians were allowed, and have ever since been allowed, the 
 free exercise of their religion, the style continues to be 
 practised in Constantinople to the present day. 
 
 The Byzantine style gave birth to the Egyptian, Syrian, 
 Sicilian, and Turkish Saracenics, and also to the Russian 
 style, an offshoot of its Armenian branch ; and it aided in the 
 development of the Persian Saracenic from the Sassanian, 
 and of the Moorish from the Spanish Romanesque. In 
 Sicily, tinctured with Saracenic and Norman elements, it 
 produced some of the most beautiful edifices in the world; 
 and similarly associated, it gave birth in Venice to the style 
 called Venetian Gothic, which is embodied in the Ducal 
 Palace, the Palaces of Ca d’Oro, Pisani, Foscari, &c., some 
 of which are among the most graceful and elegant of such 
 class of structures. The Russian, a derivative of the Ar¬ 
 menian, owing to the subjection of Russia in the thirteenth 
 and two following centuries to Batou and his successors, the 
 Khans of the Mogul Tartars, became rudely mixed with the 
 Saracenic. It is very pointed and oriental in physiognomy, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 55 
 
 and seems a discordant mixture of Byzantine, Saracenic, and 
 Gothic, elements which, elsewhere, compounded by other 
 and abler hands, led to the most charming results. 
 
 But the career of the Byzantine style, like that of the 
 Byzantine state, was, with the exception of slight intervals 
 in the reigns of Theophilus and Basil I., Leo VI., and Con¬ 
 stantine VII., one of uninterrupted decline from the time of 
 Justinian; and the successive disasters of the empire were 
 reflected in the history of its architecture. The general 
 decay of the former, after the last named era, in wealth, true 
 greatness and energy—all that fosters genius and inspires 
 artistic enterprise, prevented anything like the energetic and 
 daring spirit that in Gothic and Arabian lands led to such a 
 variety of marvellous or beautiful productions. 
 
 It was, however, from the decline of wealth and power 
 alone in the state, and the consequent abandonment of it by 
 artistic talent, that this was the case, and not from any in¬ 
 herent weakness or defect in the style, which, had it been 
 differently circumstanced, had it been the style of a rising 
 and flourishing, instead of a sinking state, would, it can 
 scarcely be doubted, have met a very different fate ; indeed, 
 its beginnings and the position, as to consistency and beauty, 
 it, so early as Justinian’s time reached, were sufficient to 
 inspire the greatest hopes of a brilliant and progressive 
 career. What might not have been rationally expected from 
 a style that was no sooner formed than it was wrought into 
 one of the very greatest architectural compositions in the 
 world ? What might it not have achieved had the Greek 
 empire preserved its ancient boundaries in their full extent, 
 and retained Africa, Upper Italy, and the Exarchate of 
 Ravenna, with all their resources, on the one side, and 
 escaped the mutilations it underwent by the successive in¬ 
 vasions of Saracens, Seljukian and Ottoman Turks, lopping 
 off its fairest provinces, on the other ? 
 
 Our regret for the fate of this style is mitigated, however, 
 by the knowledge that what was lost to the art of the van¬ 
 quished, was gained by that of the victors. The mutilations 
 of the Byzantine Empire, while it crippled or paralysed the 
 
56 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Byzantine style, opened up new, and, perhaps, more fruitful 
 fields elsewhere for the operations of architectural genius. 
 The persecution of images and their votaries, which separated 
 Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and prepared 
 the restoration of the Roman Empire in the West, only 
 turned the tide of progress westward, and diverted archi¬ 
 tectural enterprise and genius from the Byzantine to the 
 Lombardic and Rhenish streams, which would not have 
 swelled to the tide of grandeur which the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries witnessed in the valleys of the Po and the 
 Rhine, but for the rise of the power and empire of the 
 Franks under Charlemagne. The Venetian conquest of 
 Constantinople in the thirteenth century, by the increased 
 intercourse it created between the Italians and the Byzantine 
 Greeks, gave an impulse to the architecture of the West, 
 which probably more than compensated for any decay it 
 occasioned in the East. 
 
 Turning to the other side of the empire, the losses in the 
 East gave rise to new nations, and the architectural expo¬ 
 nents of those nations, and their new religion. The tide of 
 Mahommedan conquest which, in cutting off kingdoms and 
 nations from the Greek empire, lopped off branches from the 
 Byzantine style, sowed the seeds of so many future varieties 
 of Saracenic—styles forming, in many respects, the most 
 graceful and beautiful group the world has ever seen—styles 
 which to me seem but the natural flowering and perfection 
 of the Byzantine itself, and to bear the same relation to that 
 style, which the pointed and completed Gothic bears to its 
 round-arched progenitor. 
 
 But it was not alone in the transfer of power and 
 patronage, by the Byzantine misfortunes, to the styles of 
 other countries, that art was indemnified for her losses in the 
 Eastern Empire. By the dispersion of Greek artists, an 
 extension, far and wide, of the style, or its strong influences, 
 took place in every direction, which was most beneficial to 
 the arts, both contemporary and succeeding, of many lands ; 
 the more so from its characteristic beauties being of a deco¬ 
 rative nature, and, consequently, such as could be emulated 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 57 
 
 by other styles without violence to their spirit, which 
 constructive qualities cannot. In the universality of its 
 influence, as in some other respects, the Byzantine style 
 strikingly resembles its ancestor, the Hellenic Greek. 
 
 It assisted the natural desire of the northern architect to 
 clothe the different parts of his works with forms of beauty, 
 more varied and luxuriant than could be obtained by struc¬ 
 tural ornament, and thus, to give them a higher life, and 
 render them more perfect and excellent than his colder fancy 
 could make them. It placed those higher and more vital 
 elements before his eyes, by the adoption of which he could 
 add artistic speech to structural life and expression—those 
 elements in which every true artist most delights to deal, 
 inasmuch as they afford the greatest exercise to his 
 imagination. 
 
 The styles more remarkably indebted to the Byzantine 
 are, perhaps, the Lombard and Rhenish; but the Norman 
 also, and other branches of the Round Gothic, in a greater 
 or less degree, drank its inspiring and refining spirit, received 
 warmth and perfection from it, and were probably aided by 
 it through every stage of their progress. It had a beautify¬ 
 ing influence on the architecture of Apulia and Naples. It 
 penetrated, I need scarcely say, into the south of France; 
 and is seen in the mysterious round towers of Ireland, and 
 the deserted churches which accompany them. 
 
 Great as are some of its examples, it is probable that the 
 value of the Byzantine style, and its true honour, lies chiefly 
 in the virtue that went out of it, and was transfused into 
 other styles. 
 
 Without such mutual influence of styles, architecture could 
 not have reached her loftiest height. The inhabitant of 
 the gorgeous south and east, vividly impressed with the rich 
 and luxuriant scenery of his country, will find his imagina¬ 
 tion the most powerful of his faculties, and take most 
 pleasure in the superficial decoration of his works, the part 
 which affords him the best field for its display, and in which 
 will lie their distinguishing excellence, rather than in the 
 main fabrication or construction; while in the north and 
 
 D 3 
 
58 
 
 THE COURSE' AND CURRENT 
 
 west, under almost the reverse conditions, the architect will 
 be more fitted for general design than for embellishment, 
 which latter with him will be in abeyance. The tendency, 
 therefore, of the mutual influence of different regions, in 
 respect of architecture, must be to supply desiderata, and 
 produce in each more perfect and complete architecture than 
 any one alone could yield. Architectural fulness and 
 perfection seem to require the combined genius of the world ; 
 and the intercourse of nations and artists has, fortunately, 
 supplied the need. Northern Gothic received its full luxu¬ 
 riance and maturity of decorative development, from the 
 Byzantine and Saracenic; and these are indebted, more or 
 less, to the Classic and Teutonic nations, for the borrowed 
 framework on which was poured out the rich fancy of the 
 East — for the bold skeletons whereon were woven the 
 beautiful tissues of their decoration. 
 
 The Byzantine style has been considered in four periods— 
 the first from its rise to a.d. 500; the second, from 500 to 
 800; the third, from 800 to 1200; the fourth since 1200. 
 
 FRENCH BYZANTINE. 
 
 The Byzantine style, as just remarked, penetrated into the 
 south of France, where, combined with local elements, it 
 became modified, and formed what may be considered a 
 distinct branch. 
 
 It is a domical style; but differs from other varieties of 
 Byzantine in that all the constructive arches are pointed. 
 Its best example is the Church of St. Front, at Perigeux, 
 in Aquitania, which is on a very regular and beautiful plan, 
 the outline of which is the Greek Cross; and which bears a 
 striking resemblance to the Church of St. Mark at Venice, 
 which it follows very closely in date. 
 
 ANCIENT IRISH. 
 
 There is a round-arched style indigenous to Ireland, 
 differing materially from the contemporary Saxon or Norman 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 59 
 
 of England, and embodied in small churches on a similar 
 plan to the Byzantine churches, and in the far-famed round 
 towers. 
 
 It is superior, in point of detail and ornamental design, to 
 most other styles of the same period, and equal to any. Its 
 system of elaborately carved ornamentation, which some¬ 
 times resembled the N orman, but oftener the Byzantine, 
 spread into Wales, Cornwall, the north of England, 
 Scotland, and the Isle of Man, and even into Scandinavian 
 lands, where it is seen in the wooden churches of Norway. 
 It is supposed to extend from the foundation of the Irish 
 Church by St. Patrick in the fifth century, to the English 
 Conquest in 1176. To the round towers was formerly 
 attributed, by archmologists generally, a much higher 
 antiquity. But their details, which, as shown by Dr. 
 Petrie, are the usual accompaniments of Romanesque 
 ecclesiastical work, have betrayed the comparative lateness 
 of their origin. 
 
60 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 SARACENIC. 
 
 E Arabian or Saracen empire, 
 which arose in the East, with such 
 unprecedented celerity, in the 
 seventh century, may be said to 
 have had its origin geographically 
 between the empire of the Byzan¬ 
 tine Greeks, on the one side, and 
 that of the Persians on the other ; 
 and to have been founded on the 
 spoils of the former and the ruins 
 of the latter. Its architecture was 
 wrought out, by the magic spirit of 
 Mahommedanism and the fiery 
 genius of the Arab, from the min¬ 
 gled elements ot the styles of these 
 two empires—the Byzantine or 
 great Christian style of the East, 
 as embodied in the churches and palaces of Syria, and the 
 Sassanian or style of the Fire Worshippers; blended, how¬ 
 ever, in very different proportions in different countries or 
 provinces; the Syrian and Egyptian varieties being based 
 chiefly on the gorgeous Byzantine, the Persian on the con¬ 
 trary receiving its key-note from the domical forms and gay 
 colouring of the Sassanian, the fate of which style, though 
 little is now known of it, became passively connected with 
 the most important revolutions which have changed the 
 history of the arts. 
 
 Almost all preceding styles had part in the composi¬ 
 tion of the Mahominedan system of art, but it was mainly 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 61 
 
 founded on these two great styles of the East, to which 
 probably the Arabs were chiefly attracted by their poly¬ 
 chromatic decorations, so congenial to their own national 
 taste. That of the Byzantine would be brought near to 
 them by the flight of Greek artists from Iconoclastic perse¬ 
 cution at Constantinople. 
 
 On the conquest of Southern Spain, in the beginning of 
 the eighth century, the Moorish, under the same Mahom- 
 medan and Arabian influence that gave life to the former 
 styles, subsequently aided by Byzantine genius, was 
 generated out of the Christian Romanesque as it existed in 
 the Peninsula. 
 
 These styles, 1 conceive of, rather as continuations than 
 as branches from their respective sources—continuations or 
 recovered threads of arts which the rise and victories of 
 Mahommed had arrested, but with a new colouring. The 
 dome, which had been taken up by the Byzantine architects 
 as the principal feature of their style, was adopted by the 
 Saracens, and made the chief and commanding form of theirs, 
 which in regard to general composition or framework, was a 
 relaxation of the Byzantine—the Byzantine melted, as it 
 were, to a softer grace. They gave point and foliation to 
 the Byzantine round arch, and filled their window openings 
 with a beautiful tracery. They also added the graceful 
 minarette. But the change was far more in the decoration 
 than in the general construction. 
 
 In this department the Arabian, whose fancy was 
 luxuriant, and whose energies were roused by various 
 external and internal impulses, would soon make manifest 
 in his works his own national feelings and propensities, and 
 the temper and spirit of his religion. This would assimilate 
 the styles of different provinces to each other, and tend to a 
 general resemblance, which would be strongest during the 
 continuance of the great Moslem empire centred at Bagdad, 
 till the fall and division of the caliphate. 
 
 On the conquest of Sicily in the ninth century, a Sicilian 
 variety arose out of the Byzantine, and formed the last of 
 those branches of Mahommedan architecture which can be 
 
62 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 properly called Saracenic. The two later ones—viz., the 
 Indian, generated by the blending of the Hindu with the 
 Moslem style of Persia on the conquest of India by 
 Mahommed, founder of the Gaznevide dynasty, and the 
 Turkish, which arose on the capture of Constantinople, out 
 of the imitation of St. Sophia’s and other churches of the 
 city, are not Saracenic but Tartar or Turkish, the Arabian 
 genius, except what may have been caught by their suc¬ 
 cessors, having previously died out; which, indeed, may be 
 asserted of the later periods of the original styles. In the 
 eleventh century the empire of the caliphs was overthrown 
 by the Seljukian Turks, by whom several of the Asiatic 
 thrones became occupied; and in Spain the arrival of new 
 hordes from Barbary, caused the downfall of the Omniade 
 caliphs, events which must have had their effect upon the 
 styles of the Saracens, in most of them probably a detri¬ 
 mental one. In the Spanish, the great period extends but 
 little lower than the century last named, after which the art 
 gradually declined, owing to Moorish deterioration of the 
 Saracenic race, till at length it became truly “ Moorish,” a 
 term which does not properly belong to the best age. 
 
 Though so much indebted to previous styles for form aud 
 substance, no modification of a foregone architecture had 
 ever a stronger claim to be considered a new style than the 
 architecture of the Saracens. It gave in its Arabesque 
 ornamentation an entirely new dress to its derived fabric, 
 and it was a dress entirely architectonic, or drawn from 
 purely architectural sources, on which the architects were 
 thrown by the interdiction to represent the human form. 
 The Byzantine Greeks had reclothed the Romanesque with 
 a new and more refined dress, but in doing so they had to 
 render the style a peculiarly pictorial one, and were largely 
 indebted to painting in its highest forms, as their ancestors 
 the Hellenic Greeks had been to sculpture, and the Egyp¬ 
 tians to both. But the Saracens, for the Christian symbols 
 and pictures of the Byzantine, substituted a dress strictly 
 and entirely architectonic, which was a new thing in archi¬ 
 tecture, and presented the world with a style in which, for the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 63 
 
 first time, architecture proper was fully developed, and 
 showed herself capable of a high and satisfactory deco¬ 
 ration, without the aid either of sculpture or her “ rainbow 
 sister.” 
 
 The phonetic office of the last named arts was well sup¬ 
 plied by the beautiful inscriptions, consisting of texts from 
 the Koran, and poetical passages in Arabian and Cufic 
 characters, which were so tastefully interwoven with the 
 surface decorations, and which may be viewed as a literal 
 contribution of poetry and literature to the adornment of 
 architecture. These not only enhanced the artistic beauty 
 of the edifice to which they were applied, and shed around 
 it an atmosphere of wisdom, but they had a potency to 
 enable the susceptible spectator himself to embellish it with 
 visions as bright as any the prohibited arts could have 
 bodied forth, or perchance brighter. 
 
 The Saracenic architects worked under conditions that 
 excluded from their use the noblest elements of beauty. 
 But they so employed the materials allowed to them as to 
 produce a style that needs little indulgence on the grounds 
 of its limitations in judging of its merits. It does not pos¬ 
 sess the highest qualities of architecture, which, indeed, 
 cannot be attained to without the sources of sublimity and 
 beauty opened up by the higher arts; its pointed domes and 
 minarettes do not carry up the soul to the empyreal heights 
 penetrated by the spirit of fretted vault and spire, exploring, 
 as it seems to be, the “ veiled infinity ” beyond. But this 
 is no dispraise of it, as it cannot be blamed for wanting 
 what it never aimed at—what the religion of Mahommed, 
 which was the great animating principle of the art, did not, 
 and could not inspire. It was not the architecture of 
 holiness but of pleasure, and though applied to mosques it 
 was essentially a palatial style. It was the style of palaces, 
 of fountains, and of bowers, designed to mingle with and 
 reflect the hues of everything lovely around it in nature, 
 but to breathe nothing higher, even in the mosque; for 
 the heaven of the Mussulman was but an idealisation of 
 earth, a belief with which palaces, and temples, and tombs 
 
64 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 are fully in harmony. The religion of Islam involves some¬ 
 thing purer and higher than this for those capable of re¬ 
 ceiving it, but the popular notion of it is the one that 
 inspired the Saracenic style, which was modelled in a purely 
 terrestrial mould—the architecture of refined physical en¬ 
 joyment, in unison with, and thrilled with the sentiment of 
 all that is delicious and beautiful on earth. The qualities 
 sought by the Saracenic architects were exquisite elegance 
 and grace of form, combined with minuteness and gorgeous 
 richness of decoration, and in these qualities their architec¬ 
 ture may almost be said to be perfect. In some of its 
 branches it seems the very quintessence of richness and 
 elegance ; a style made up of graces—the poetry without 
 the prose of architecture, in which all that is most pleasing 
 and agreeable in structural art is brought together, to pro¬ 
 duce the most romantic and fairy-like buildings in the 
 world. If it indicates the predominance of fancy and feel¬ 
 ing over judgment, there is no lack evinced of the latter, 
 in carrying out consistently the architecture of fancy and 
 feeling which was aimed at, and giving perfection to the 
 style ; which approves itself the work of an intellectual, as 
 well as of a graceful people. 
 
 This style, the practice of which extended frem the shores 
 of the Atlantic to the frontiers of China, was necessary to 
 complete the cycle of architecture, and give us the Asiatic 
 version of the beautiful in building. Byzantine is half a 
 European, half an Asiatic style; but this is entirely Asiatic 
 in spirit—the full architectural exponent of the Asiatic 
 mind under the influence of a congenial creed. It is the 
 natural successor of the ancient Assyrian and Persian style, 
 as it is in part their descendant, through the medium of the 
 Sassanian. Architecture had hitherto been awed by the 
 spirit of a grave and solemn religion ; but here she was 
 allowed to relax into a more smiling mood, and array her¬ 
 self in graces of mien and dress that are beyond the reach, or 
 unbecoming the character, of Occidental art. 
 
 The foregoing remarks apply to the Saracenic architec¬ 
 ture generally, the many varieties of which of Europe, Asia, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 65 
 
 and Africa should, I think, be viewed as various parts of 
 one whole. What was wanting in one country was supplied 
 in another, and in each some one quality was pushed to a 
 high pitch of perfection; a fact chiefly owing to the style 
 being applied to a different species of edifice in different 
 countries; in one, palaces being its chief examples, in 
 another mosques, and in a third tombs. For, unlike the 
 Christian, and most Pagan styles, which arose in the for¬ 
 mation of one kind of building—the temple, the genius of 
 Saracenic architecture revealed itself equally in all, which 
 were each, however, pervaded by the spirit of Mahom- 
 medanism, wherein the mosque was not the all-absorbing 
 and ever-changing structure, which the church was in the 
 Christian system. The unmistakable monotheism of the 
 religion of Islam, gave simplicity and unity to the mosque, 
 and its unchangeableness and uniformity as regards the 
 mode of its public administration, and the absence of spi¬ 
 ritual ambition from its priesthood, conferred stability on its 
 forms. It was, however, in palaces the style seemed most 
 to rejoice, and successfully display its characteristic beauties. 
 In those of Persia it reached the greatest splendour and 
 magnificence in colour, and in those of Spain the greatest 
 delicacy and minute elegance of ornament; while in the 
 Egyptian mosques it attained the highest beauty of form; 
 and in the tombs of India, and imperial mosques of Con¬ 
 stantinople, the greatest grandeur. 
 
 In the Egyptian branch it acquired a consummate grace 
 of outline, combined with the utmost elegance of detail. 
 The most beautiful structures belonging to the tower-class 
 ever erected, are the minarettes of some of the mosques of 
 Cairo. That of Kaitbey might stand for the work of the 
 graces themselves. 
 
 In the Persian style, composition and form were less a 
 subject of study than colour: from its Sassanian proge¬ 
 nitor it inherited a greater feeling for slenderness and lofty 
 proportion than any other variety; but its great charac¬ 
 teristic is, that colour, both externally and internally applied, 
 is its chief source of architectural beauty. 
 
G6 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 The Morisco-Spanisli style is a true exponent of the cha¬ 
 racter of the gay and voluptuous people among whom it 
 grew up. It reflects their poetic and rich fancy, and is in 
 harmony with the cloudless skies, resplendent vegetation, 
 and sunny prospects that surrounded them. It is, as it was 
 designed to he, a translation of the poetic and imaginative 
 doctrines, splendid imagery, and bold metaphors of the 
 Koran—an embodiment, in short, of the religion of Ma- 
 hommed, which had beautiful and attractive features, and 
 was rich in all the graces of Oriental poetry. Geometry 
 was never so successfully invoked and made to form such 
 varied and harmonious combinations, as in the planning and 
 decorating of the buildings of the Spanish Moors. In no 
 other style were the leaves and flowers with which nature 
 decks the earth so successfully treated in their application to 
 the enrichment of architecture. Where, in a Gothic interior, 
 large surfaces were covered with tracery, as in Henry VII.’s 
 chapel, there is more or less alloy of monotony; but in the 
 Alhambra all is endless variety and harmony. The fairy 
 tracery, moreover, while it invests it with the embodiment 
 of a thousand day-dreams, entirely keeps its place. It 
 clothes, but does not disguise, the limbs of beauty. 
 
 The Saracenic, of India, is that of Persia ennobled. It is 
 the Persian style of architecture (which the Moslem con¬ 
 querors introduced as they did the Persian language, or a 
 dialect of it), with greater majesty of proportion, imparted to 
 it by the Hindu, on which it was based, and by its 
 frequent employment in the composition of tombs—build¬ 
 ings in the power and grandeur of which the genius of 
 Maliommedan design seems to have achieved its greatest 
 triumphs. Mosques and tombs could be pointed to in this 
 gem-frauglit land, which would prove that the style of the 
 Saracens could rise to the solemn and majestic, and unite 
 grandeur of outline and composition, with extreme delicacy 
 of detail. 
 
 There is something of the same quality about the great 
 mosques of Constantinople, which, for internal majesty, 
 owing to their broad, simple, and uninterrupted expanse, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 67 
 
 and their noble roofs, which are a combination of domes 
 and semidomes, are unsurpassed by any other temples East 
 or West. The Ottoman Turks are not deemed a very 
 artistic people, but like most nations of Northern origin 
 they had greater boldness in construction than their Southern 
 predecessors—the Saracens ; and they had learned from the 
 Byzantine Greeks the capability of the dome, and the right 
 mode of treating it. It was to the latter circumstance that 
 they were mainly indebted for their greatness of manner. 
 
 A remarkable characteristic of the architecture of the 
 Mahommedans is the constant insertion of circular-headed 
 openings, within square panels, and the use, in their 
 horizontal general composition, of the pointed arch, a feature, 
 the introduction of which into Gothic, gave such an impulse 
 to the vertical principle, and upward growth of all other 
 features. I cannot help thinking it a matter of some sur¬ 
 prise, that their natural feeling for the softer species of forms, 
 did not lead them, despite any constructive convenience of 
 the pointed arch, to adopt the round arch of the Byzantines, 
 which would have been more congenial with the general 
 spirit of Moslem architecture. That there was no insur¬ 
 mountable bar to its admission is evident from their adopt¬ 
 ing it in Spain, where, in the best age, the pointed arch does 
 not appear. The bulging of the dome by the Tartars in 
 Persia and India, though picturesque and pleasing on a 
 small scale, was, I think, an unarchitectural expedient, and 
 one injurious to its majesty and grandeur. 
 
 Mahommedan princes have lately shown a predilection for 
 the architecture of the west, which is as much out of har¬ 
 mony with their climate and scenery as any Greek temple 
 could be in England; while their own native styles, which 
 are capable of adding charms to already enchanted lands— 
 appear to have fallen into comparative disesteem. More 
 than one of them have virtually died out, and all have been 
 more or less corrupted by European influence. It is to be 
 hoped that increased intercourse between east and west, so 
 calculated to promote the good of both, may be carried on 
 without so disastrous a result as the destruction of oriental 
 
68 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 taste. Europe is paying back with interest what she owes 
 to Asia of knowledge and civilisation generally. But she 
 will be making but an ill-return for her obligations in respect 
 of art, which are no less remarkable than those she lies 
 under in reference to any other branch of intellectual culture, 
 should her influence lead to the gradual extinction of the 
 beautiful and poetic styles which we have here been 
 reviewing. 
 
 NORMAN SICILIAN. 
 
 In all countries have styles of architecture been, more or 
 less, modified by the influence of other styles practised in 
 their neighbourhood, or in any way brought into contact with 
 them. Most of those we have hitherto considered were 
 generated by the mingling of elements of two or more styles. 
 Styles intrinsically beautiful and harmonious have arisen 
 from the fusion of elements drawn from diametrically oppo¬ 
 site points in the sphere of art; and some of the most beau¬ 
 tiful buildings in the world are those in the production of 
 which the richer and happier fancy of the east has come to 
 the aid of western genius, and reclothed its soberly decorated 
 framework in more glowing and luxuriant hues. Those 
 most interesting phases of the art practised by the Mahom- 
 medan-nations were, as we have seen, nothing more than 
 the Byzantine, Hindu, Sassanian, and other styles kindled 
 into brighter and gayer life by the superb genius of Asia; 
 whose beautifying influence has been felt, through the 
 medium of its architectural creations, in styles nearer home, 
 as in several Italian Romanesques—Apulian, Spanish, &c., 
 as well as in the various pointed Gothics. 
 
 But nowhere, perhaps, is the blending of the character¬ 
 istics of different styles so distinctly seen as in Sicily, where, 
 owing to its insular position, and its architectural history 
 being distinctly understood, we can clearly trace the fusion 
 of three well known and complete styles, and contemplate 
 its result, which is in a high degree beautiful. 
 
 When the Saracens conquered the island in a.d. 827, a 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 69 
 
 style must have been developed by them out of the previously 
 practised Byzantine, constituting, probably, a distinct variety 
 of Saracenic and Mahommedan architecture. The adap¬ 
 tation and application of this Sicilian Saracenic to the 
 erection of churches, planned by Roman priests who 
 attended the Norman conquerors of the island in the 
 eleventh century, produced a mixed style of singular beauty, 
 called the Norman Sicilian, the peculiarity of which is the 
 mixture of Byzantine and Saracenic feeling in detail and 
 decoration. It may be considered a combination of the 
 Byzantine, Saracenic, and Italian Romanesque styles, with 
 some little of Gothic feeling, perhaps no more than what 
 attached at the time to the Italian Romanesque. The 
 churches follow the Roman Basilica in plan more than they 
 do the Gothic cathedral, and are without vaults. 
 
 The Norman Sicilian is a pointed style; but the pointed 
 arch was introduced by the Saracens, and not for construc¬ 
 tive but aesthetic reasons. In it two most beautiful modes 
 of internal decoration are appropriately combined, the whole 
 of the lower part of the walls being incrusted with slabs of 
 marble or porphyry, symmetrically arranged as a basement 
 for mosaic paintings above, in which the pictorial art is 
 embodied in its highest and grandest forms. This latter is 
 the prevailing element of the style, so much so that the 
 architecture, refined and beautiful as it is, seems subordinated 
 to the sister art of painting—chiefly a vehicle for the exhi¬ 
 bition of her loftier ministrations. 
 
 Its chief examples are the cathedral of Monreale, and the 
 cathedral and churches of Palermo, some of which are 
 among the most brilliant and fascinating of architectural 
 creations. 
 
70 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ROUND GOTHIC. 
 
 Y the middle of the fifth century the 
 great central trunk of Christian 
 Romanesque, which was a sequence 
 of that of the Roman, had become 
 narrowed by the branching otf east¬ 
 ward of the Byzantine, and was con¬ 
 fined chiefly to Italy and the west. 
 It was destined to be restricted still 
 more, and limited chiefly to south Italy, 
 and parts of France and Spain, by the 
 flowing from it, soon after, of the great 
 Teutonic branch of art, the unpointed form 
 of which I shall here call Round Gothic, a 
 term I believe now generally accepted, to 
 distinguish it from the preceding and contem¬ 
 porary Romanesques. 
 
 The branching or separation of this style is more distinct 
 than that of the Byzantine. The change from the Roman¬ 
 esque parent into the Byzantine, and from the Byzantine 
 into the Saracenic, had been chiefly in detail and decoration, 
 the last named styles being indeed different species of 
 Romanesques—a combination of round columns and arches, 
 though much modified and entirely re-clothed; but the 
 change into Gothic was in the anatomy of its edifices, which 
 was entirely re-organised in the process, though it began 
 probably from ignorance or contempt, on the part of the 
 style-formers, of the classic principles of proportion embodied 
 in their Romanesque prototypes. 
 
 From imitation, in ruder materials, by the various tribes 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 71 
 
 who overthrew the Roman empire, of the Christian Roman¬ 
 esque churches in the various countries in which they were 
 settled, with little regard for their proportions or refine¬ 
 ments, arose the first germs of the Gothic style. In course 
 of time a feeling for, and attention to, self-consistency and 
 truth, would come to supply the place of classical guidance; 
 and decoration, in which national feeling and fancy were 
 indulged, would be made to follow and take its tone from 
 the construction. Deviation from the Romanesque proto¬ 
 types would be accelerated by the introduction of the 
 vaulted roof, causing an increase of vertical, and a decrease 
 of horizontal lines; and this in time would beget in the mind 
 of the architects a feeling for the aspiring principle, and lead 
 them from a sense of its fitness in God’s house to make it 
 their aim, if it had not already been suggested by the vertical 
 structures of nature in their own northern forests; which 
 indeed it is probable would from the first bias their mind in 
 favour of lbftiness rather than of horizontal extension in 
 their works. 
 
 Be this as it may, sooner or later the Romanesque form 
 of art they at first copied became impregnated with fresh 
 elements, and inspired with a new principle of composition 
 which entirely revolutionised it, and led in course of ages, to 
 a new style, which, unlike its parent, could indulge in a 
 seeming lawlessness of proportion and combination, though 
 equally true to nature with the Greek itself. The genius of 
 the Christian Romanesque, Byzantine, and Saracenic styles 
 was horizontal, but in round-arched Gothic the horizontal 
 gives way to the vertical, and the sentiment of upward 
 growth for the first time displays itself in architecture. The 
 horizontal cornices and strings are gradually decreased or 
 their continuity interrupted. The vertical lines are increased 
 by the grouping of pillar-shafts, and the introduction of 
 vaulting shafts above them to receive, and harmonise with, 
 the vault-ribs; the pilaster on the outside is supplanted by 
 the buttress, a feature in the after-development and perfection 
 of which the rays of statical science were focussed till it 
 assumed a fitness of expression to its particular purpose as 
 
72 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 great as that of the Doric column of the Greeks, to which it 
 bears striking analogy. Partly in sympathy with these 
 changes, and partly in obedience to the demands of a 
 northern climate, the roof rises in pitch, and above the 
 clerestory roof is seen another mass in the shape of a tower, 
 a feature which afterwards played a conspicuous part in the 
 drama of architecture. 
 
 Thus was the Gothic developed from the Christian 
 Romanesque, which had been impregnated with a new 
 principle by the spiritual and artistic energies of the 
 Ostrogoths and Lombardi, in Italy and Germany—by the 
 Franks and Burgundians, and Normans, in France—by the 
 Saxons in England—by the Visigoths in Spain. Soon after 
 its birth, various refining influences were exerted on its form 
 and character: its early path was lighted by existing styles, 
 and, above all, by the Byzantine, which showed its power 
 more particularly in Germany. In Italy it would be affected 
 by the Italian Romanesque, still practised in its vicinity, 
 which gave to the Lombard-Gothic a greater degree of 
 refinement than the other branches. 
 
 Its generation, however, from its Christian Romanesque 
 parent is totally unlike that of its sister the Byzantine, which 
 was produced by a process of refinement on the common 
 progenitor. The Byzantine arose amid the light of Greek 
 classical refinement, and in it beauty and life were almost 
 twins. Gothic on the contrary, originated in the darkness 
 and corruption of Teutonic barbarism, and through slow 
 processes, arrived at a state which exhibits simultaneously 
 the quintessence of poetic beauty, and the most marvellous 
 constructive skill. In the hands of the Barbarians all 
 classicality was trampled on and lost, bnt out of its ashes 
 arose the phoenix Round Gothic, which in its turn gave birth 
 to the Pointed Gothic, a style possessed of a degree of 
 refinement and grandeur that the Byzantine never reached. 
 
 Let us picture the general history of the working out of 
 the style in question by one broad and dark stream flowing 
 out from the Christian Romanesque to the westward at the 
 latter end of the fifth century. It is broad, for it extends 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 73 
 
 over Lombardy and all transalpine Europe, and dark and 
 troubled by the confusion of the Gothic with the classic 
 spirit; for centuries it is undistinguished by any local 
 differences, and truly Gothic or barbaric in character. 
 That eastern portion of it, answering to Northern Italy, 
 would first, probably in the seventh or eighth century ; 
 begin to extricate and divide itself from the surrounding 
 chaos of corruption, and become a separate and distinct 
 stream. This represents the Lombard, the style elaborated 
 during their occupation of Italy by the Lombards, a people 
 who, of all the nations concerned in the overthrow of the 
 Roman empire, were the most cultivated, and of the greatest 
 artistic.capabilities. The first germination of the Northern 
 Gothic principle began probably among less artistic tribes-— 
 in Germany, Spain, France, or England, or during the 
 sway of the Ostrogoths in Italy; but in Lombardy, about 
 the time mentioned, first appeared a distinct and consistent 
 style of Round Gothic. This style was introduced by Char¬ 
 lemagne, about the beginning of the ninth century, into 
 Germany, where it operated as a leaven to the rude 
 Gothic style already woi’ked out, and advanced it to the 
 condition in which we find it in the great churches of the 
 Rhine, in which we may call it the Rhenish. 
 
 Germany had no political existence till the time of Char¬ 
 lemagne, when it became part of his great empire-—-the new 
 Empire of the West. Before his time there was probably a 
 barbarous Gothic already generated, but by h im it was 
 advanced through the introduction of the Lombard. Henry 
 the First, the Fowler, the father of Otho the Great, built, 
 embellished, and fortified cities. 
 
 At this time the known world was under the dominion of 
 three great powers-—the Byzantine empire, the Caliphate, 
 and the great empire of Charlemagne. It is owing to the 
 concentration of the resources of the west under the latter, 
 renewed for a short time by his successor, Charles the Fat, 
 and the political union, and flourishing condition of Ger¬ 
 many and Lombardy, under the great Otho and his suc¬ 
 cessors, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries—the first 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 distinguished by the rise of chivalry and the crusades—it is 
 owing to these that the Round Gothic style attained to such 
 grandeur of development, as it did in Lombardy and the 
 Rhine valley, and that it was so similar in character in those 
 countries. 
 
 If the Lombard style was introduced into France by or 
 soon after the time of Charlemagne, which it is by some 
 writers stated to have been, it was merely a more advanced 
 phase of the same Gothic art as the Franks had been en¬ 
 deavouring to work out, since the foundation of their king¬ 
 dom by Clovis, from the Christian Romanesque, examples 
 of which must have been common in their country. 
 
 We have now three parallel streams disengaged from the 
 general flood of Gothic history—the Italian, the German, 
 and the French. By and by other streams separate them¬ 
 selves—a Spanish —an Anglo-Saxon, and between the Ger¬ 
 man and French, a Belgian springs up. The French stream, 
 owing to the plurality of nations in France, separates into 
 several important branches of greater or less distinctness— 
 viz., Frankish in the centre, ‘with the Burgundian on the 
 east and the Norman on the west, which latter was pro¬ 
 bably elevated to the condition it assumed in the eleventh 
 century by influence from Germany or Lombardy, if not 
 from a source nearer home in the Burgundian, which was 
 an earlier branch. The Lombard stream also from similar 
 causes shows similar subdivisions, but more numerous and 
 less defined, which extended more or less into the pointed 
 period. The Veronese is perhaps the most distinct. 
 
 On the Norman conquest of England, the Norman Gothic 
 mingles with and advances the ruder Gothic, called Anglo- 
 Saxon, to the state in which we find it in the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries in England, if it had not, along with other 
 continental Gothics, exerted an influence on it through 
 Roman missionaries, before that event. 
 
 Here, then, the radical flood of barbarous Gothic, issuing 
 in one broad stream from the Christian Romanesque, has 
 branched out into so many parallel ramifications, distinct, 
 but still influencing each other, the deeper and broader ones 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 75 
 
 enriching the other branches, and swelling the general tide 
 of progress. 
 
 The Lombard Gothic, it is probable, was carried by mis¬ 
 sionaries and Freemasons all over Europe, and facilitated 
 the progress of all other styles. Of all the Round Gothics 
 the Lombard is least removed in character from its parent 
 style, and resembles some of the Romanesques of the South 
 of France. The Rhenish is more vertical, more pointed— 
 and, in short, more Gothic than the Lombard. By increas¬ 
 ing the elevation of the tower roofs, it probably gave birth 
 to the spire, and, by its numerous towers and pointed roofs, 
 which were most artistically disposed with regard to general 
 composition, it probably originated the Gothic composition 
 which afterwards prevailed, in the Complete period, in 
 Germany, England, and Spain. 
 
 The great period of the Rhenish is coeval with the sway 
 of the Swabian dynasty through their intercourse with Italy, 
 at which time it owes as much to the Lombard architecture 
 as the poetry of the German Minne-Singers owes to that of 
 the Troubadours of North Italy and France. It is inferior, in 
 sculptural beauty and elegance of detail, to its elder sister of 
 Italy, but it exceeds it in grandeur and true Gothic freedom 
 and spirit, and the capability of inspiring those solemn 
 feelings which peculiarly fit it for devotional structures. 
 
 The Burgundian, which is nearest to the Rhenish, geo¬ 
 graphically, most resembles it of all the round Gothics, 
 while the Norman was furthest removed from the character 
 of pure Romanesque architecture, and is remarkable for 
 boldness and greatness of parts, and their full harmony with 
 the masculine and sublime character of the whole. It was 
 the most Gothic in spirit, and ripest for the change into the 
 pointed style which succeeded it. At Auvergne there is a 
 round Gothic style, somewhat similar to the Burgundian 
 which it joins. 
 
 In reference to Spain, the Saracenic art, while it warmed 
 the whole of the northern styles, added, through its location 
 in the Peninsula, to the simplicity and grandeur of the 
 Spanish Gothic, which probably showed as many local 
 
 e 2 
 
76 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 varieties at this period as the French, a tinge of Moorish 
 richness which distinguishes it from all others. 
 
 A peculiar, almost national style, of round Gothic, a 
 plainer and ruder manner than generally practised else¬ 
 where prevailed in Flanders, dating from the end of the 
 eighth century, or earliest period of the Carlovingian 
 dynasty. 
 
 Such is the history of the development of the Found 
 Gothic styles of architecture. It is strikingly similar to 
 that of the modern languages, the formation of which, like 
 that of the styles, may be dated from the beginning of the 
 middle ages. In the fifth and sixth centuries, when the 
 Teutonic barbarians established themselves in the various 
 provinces of the Roman empire, the modern languages first 
 began to assume their form—their deviation from the Latin 
 consisting in the use of articles and prepositions instead of 
 the changes of inflection, and by the employment of auxiliary 
 verbs, to indicate the variations of person and tense. The 
 language of the conquerors blended with that of the con¬ 
 quered, and the barbarous dialects of different tribes contri¬ 
 buted to the composition of the modern European tongues. 
 Thus was the modern Italian formed by the contribution of 
 several barbarous dialects; and modern French is a mix¬ 
 ture, through the conquest of Gaul by the Franks in the 
 fifth and sixth centuries, of the Frankish and Burgundian 
 dialects with the Latin, which, together with the ancient 
 Celtic, had been the common language of the country, while 
 under the Roman domination. 
 
 The Saxons introduced into our island their own dialect 
 of the Teutonic, and this, together with Norman-French, 
 was the grand source of the modern English language. In 
 both language and architecture complexity was substituted 
 for simplicity, which was characteristic of antiquity. 
 
 BARONIAL. 
 
 The Normans may lay claim to the creation of a Castle or 
 Baronial style of architecture of great majesty and grandeur, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 77 
 
 which, whether we consider it as merely an application of 
 the Round Gothic of ecclesiastical edifices to a different class 
 of works, or as a sister-branch of that style, is too important 
 to be passed over without particular notice. It was gene¬ 
 rated by the union of civil and military architecture—the 
 combination of dwelling-house and war-tower in the for¬ 
 mation of that organisation of main edifice and flanking pro¬ 
 tection, known as the Norman or feudal castle or castle- 
 palace of the Norman kings, barons, and prelates, and with 
 which they strewed all Europe. Like the ecclesiastical 
 branch, it owed something, no doubt, both in its rise and 
 after-development, to inspiration and suggestion from the 
 East through the medium of the Crusades. 
 
 The earliest form of the Norman castle was the vast rec¬ 
 tangular Keep, such as the Tower of London. The flanking 
 round-towers which completed the fortress did not appear 
 till the thirteenth century, when the main central work of 
 the castle consisted of a square Keep, with a round-tower at 
 each angle, and, when the scale was great, demi-towers on 
 its faces. 
 
 These buildings were great achievements in science. In 
 their design was involved the leading principle of modern 
 fortification—the protection of the face—-by which they 
 became the parent of the modern bastioned fortifications of 
 Europe, which are but"their further development. But they 
 are more remarkable as objects of art or architecture, in its 
 strict sense, adding, as they do, to all the strength and 
 security of the ancient fortress, the convenience and comfort 
 and magnificence of the palace. They are indeed wonderful 
 developments of combined strength and beauty. The stern, 
 square, central mas?—the flanking round-towers at the an¬ 
 gles, widening gracefully towards the earth, with their varied 
 and picturesque crowning of turrets, battlements, and ma¬ 
 chicolations, all form a combination of surpassing grandeur 
 and beauty, such as architecture but seldom reveals. These 
 qualities are to be found chiefly in the great Keep; tfyey are 
 participated in, however, by many of the outworks, more 
 especially the entrance gateway, with its flanking towers, 
 
78 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 which were important features in the composition, and 
 largely combined strength and dignity with symmetrical 
 beauty. The grandeur and gloom, produced by vaulted 
 ceilings and loophole windows, are a distinguishing pecu¬ 
 liarity of their interiors, the architectural ornaments of 
 which, as well as those of the exterior, were such as are 
 found in the contemporary ecclesiastical edifices. 
 
 The style became fully developed during the reign of 
 Edward I., which is its grand period, and is seen in its 
 perfection in the castles of Caernarvon, Conway, Beaumaris, 
 Caerphilly, and other magnificent piles reared by that 
 monarch. From this time, an increasing regard for mag¬ 
 nificence and domestic convenience and comfort, caused a 
 corresponding growth, or further development, of the civil 
 and palatial elements of the style, as far as compatible with 
 security. Windsor and Warwick Castles, which are still 
 used as residences, are fine and characteristic specimens of 
 the later, and more palatial phase of the style. 
 
 The Castle or Baronial style was succeeded by the Castel¬ 
 lated, when the fortified residences of the feudal barons gave 
 place to the castellated houses, houses which still preserved 
 the appearance of strength, though incapable of resisting a 
 regular force. They had battlements and turrets, but they 
 were more for ornament than defence. Haddon Hall, in 
 Derbyshire, is a well known example of this style. 
 
 To this again succeeded the domestic Tudor style, which 
 cannot but be considered as a descendant of the Baronial. 
 The latter, which must have been the almost universal style 
 of palatial and domestic architecture in Europe in feudal 
 times, had evidently a great and abiding influence on con¬ 
 temporary and subsequent styles, both ecclesiastical and 
 civil, or domestic, into which it breathed much of its vigo¬ 
 rous and majestic spirit. But of the Castellated style which 
 immediately followed it, and, through its medium, of the 
 succeeding Tudor, it may be considered the parent. Its 
 spirit and elements live even in the Elizabethan. 
 
 I have confined my remarks chiefly to the style as it de¬ 
 veloped itself in England ; but the same general style, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 79 
 
 with local variations, is embodied in the feudal castles on 
 the banks of the Rhine, in Normandy, Switzerland, and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Chivalry has shed a halo of poetry and romance, such as 
 attaches perhaps to no other architectural creations, round 
 what remains of these embodiments of feudal power—strong¬ 
 holds of chieftains who once held therein a stern and bloody 
 sway over their trembling dependants, which places them 
 among the most deeply interesting objects in Europe. 
 
80 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 POINTED GOTHIC. 
 
 OR the great step taken by the 
 Gothic, in becoming pointed, it 
 was indebted, as is now generally 
 admitted, to the influence, through 
 the medium of the returned crusa¬ 
 ders, or of the Norman conquerors 
 of Sicily, of the Saracenic style, 
 which some have gone so far as to call 
 the parent of the Pointed Gothic, 
 which is certainly an exaggeration of 
 the part it acted in producing the 
 change. The Saracenic seems to have 
 done little more than breathe into the 
 Gothic a sentiment of Oriental elegance, and impart the 
 pointed arch. The increased measure of the soaring spirit, 
 the principal change to which that feature led, can scarcely 
 be attributed to the agency of a style which had none of its 
 own, and wherein the pointed arch was an isolated and 
 barren feature, that could well have been exchanged for the 
 round one. Besides, it is not the only element to the intro¬ 
 duction of which the Pointed Gothic was indebted for its 
 formation from the Round. The pointed arch had an 
 auxiliary in the operation of working out the style in the 
 painted window, but for which some important features, and 
 characteristic beauties of the style, could not have received 
 their full development. 
 
 The parent of the Pointed Gothic is the Round Gothic—a 
 style in which, prior to the introduction of the pointed arch, 
 the vertical had quite balanced, if it had not over-mastered 
 
OF AttCHMECTURE. 
 
 81 
 
 the horizontal principle, and a degree of solemn and mascu¬ 
 line grandeur had been reached highly befitting the sacred 
 purpose to which it was applied. If it was rude and im¬ 
 perfect, it yet contained within itself seeds of refinement and 
 improvement, which time alone, without foreign aid, could 
 have evolved and brought to maturity. The pointed arch, 
 as applied in Saracenic, might have had but little effect upon 
 the style; but it was developed by the western architects, 
 in whose hands it became, through their true appreciation of 
 its capabilities and assthetic value, a transforming principle to 
 every feature and detail. They invented for it a fitting, 
 varied, and harmonious system of decoration, and made 
 everything sympathise with and assimilate itself to it, in all 
 which there was more honour than there would have been in 
 being its first inventors. 
 
 The pointed arch was a valuable acquisition for its greater 
 strength and less horizontal thrust, and for its variable 
 proportions of height to span, which widened the scope 
 of the style, and rendered it more capable of variety of 
 effect. A variable arch was, of course, more in unison with 
 a variable column or pier, and so gave the style more homo¬ 
 geneousness and consistency; and, while it gave impulse to 
 its aspirings, it rendered it more capable of grandeur, being 
 of a graver form than the round. When, in the round-arch 
 period, the column became clustered, and the style broke 
 away from classical trammels, to acknowledge no law as 
 regards proportion of height to breadth, it became capable, 
 by predominance of height over other dimensions, of effects 
 unknown in Romanesque and Byzantine: the introduction 
 of the pointed arch increased this capability, and removed 
 every obstacle to the endeavours of the architects to make 
 their architecture expressive of the sublime sentiments of 
 Christianity. 
 
 As is now generally admitted, the pointed arch was first 
 adopted by France, and from its central province, the French 
 application of it issued forth, and was adopted in succession 
 by Normandy, England, and Spain on one side, and by 
 Burgundy, Belgium, Germany, and Italy on the other, to 
 
 E 3 
 
THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 the entire and universal revolutionising of the Round Gothic 
 style, whose assumption of the pointed form in the 
 various European nations was simultaneous, or nearly 
 so, with the outburst of modern poetic literature in the 
 same countries. 
 
 It was the signal everywhere for accelerated progress of 
 the various branches of the style towards perfection, which 
 was so great as to make patchwork of their examples. 
 They had been comparatively sluggish streams; now they 
 were deep, impetuous torrents. Constructive science and 
 decorative architecture were taken up together, and hurried 
 on to a pitch of perfection to which they had never before 
 aspired. Painting and sculpture rose to greater perfection as 
 architecture advanced, producing that happy concord of the 
 arts from which the highest and truest beauty springs, till at 
 length the style attained to what has been called, from its 
 being complete in all its parts according to the full idea of 
 the subject, and its being supposed to have reached the limits 
 of attainable perfection, Complete Pointed Gothic. 
 
 To this goal of Complete Gothic which prevailed in most 
 countries of Europe, from about 1280 to 1380, a period 
 which embraces the later geometrical-tracery period and 
 that of the flowing loop or leaf-tracery, the styles in different 
 countries proceeded by different routes, and when they 
 reached it were identical, that is, the Gothic style, owing to a 
 general agreement among the Freemasons and their masters 
 as to the canons of architecture, was everywhere the same, 
 except that from variety of predilection, different features 
 had received their best development and highest beauty in 
 different countries. The French were great in their in¬ 
 teriors ; but though their portals and west fronts are among 
 the noblest of human works, they were behind Germany 
 and England in external beauty generally. The English 
 cathedrals in presenting their most commanding mass 
 at the centre of the pile, became more correct architectural 
 compositions, truer to the nature of the subject than 
 those of France and Germany ; and if to the Germans 
 belongs the merit of fusing the tower and spire, the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 83 
 
 English may boast the idealisation of the tower, and claim 
 superiority over all in the construction and beauty of their 
 groined vaults. 
 
 The Spanish edifices were superior to both French, and 
 German in varied richness of outline. Of the Scotch Gothic 
 I have omitted mention, as it is a fusion of the English style 
 with that of France. It is exemplified in some very noble 
 edifices whose true vigorous Gothic spirit would seem to 
 intimate the presence in Scotland of a far stronger Teutonic 
 feeling than of a Celtic. The Irish Gothic exhibits a more 
 Striking difference from the English, and strong evidence of 
 continental and Oriental influence. 
 
 To this broad lake of Complete Gothic, the English, 
 French, German, and Belgian streams may be considered 
 as flowing in, and also the Spanish, though, to its full com¬ 
 plement of Gothic elements, the Moorish had communicated 
 a Saracenic colouring, which rendered it so far richer than 
 any other. The Italian only is excluded from the list, as it 
 was not perfect Gothic, owing to its non-adoption of the 
 painted window, which was one of the governing features 
 of the Northern Gothic, and to the classic predilections of 
 the Italians. Indeed, though containing the pointed arch, 
 yet, owing to the increasing predominance of the native 
 races over the northern invaders, it is less Gothic in essence 
 than the Lombard it succeeded. So much is it pervaded by 
 a classic spirit, that we may almost consider it a mixed 
 style, like the Renaissance. 
 
 No where is the strong classic feeling of the Italians more 
 marked than in their predilections for classic horizontally 
 in architecture, and their refusal to sympathise with the 
 naturally soaring spirit of the Gothic. But though the 
 Italian Gothic does not bear us up with the northern styles 
 into the regions of the sublime, yet, from its classic refine¬ 
 ment, its harmonious union of beautiful sculpture, a feature 
 which it transmitted to the subsequent Renaissance and 
 Italian, it is a very beautiful style. It strikingly exemplifies 
 the devotion of the Italians to the sister art of sculpture, with 
 excellence in which they perhaps consoled themselves for 
 
84 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 comparative failure in a style of architecture to which they 
 were not and could not be devoted. 
 
 The Gothic of Italy is distinguished from that of the West 
 by the absence of tracery in windows—by fresco painting 
 substituting stained glass—by its panelled and cased walls, 
 its non-development and frequent omission of the buttress; 
 by its precious building materials, and the frequent employ¬ 
 ment of the dome. This style, as might have been antici¬ 
 pated, was the first to die out. 
 
 But to return to the Western styles. Though these had 
 reached completely organised and grown-up Gothic, with all 
 its elements fully developed, its race towards perfection had 
 partaken of the fallibility of human operations, for it had 
 lost on its way some degree of the greatness, both in archi¬ 
 tecture and sculpture, of the early and incomplete Gothics. 
 The Early English, which may be here cited as a type of 
 early Gothic at large, and which was the most harmonious 
 and consistent of all the early styles, inherited more of the 
 grandeur of its Anglo-Norman parent than it transmitted to 
 the succeeding style. The style of our early thirteenth- 
 century monuments lacks the chaste ornament, the exquisite 
 leafage of vine and ivy, and the refined and beautiful sculp¬ 
 ture of the style that followed it; but it exceeded it in gran¬ 
 deur, and it is to be regretted that the utmost grace and 
 refinement could not have been superadded to the utmost 
 grandeur, as it was in the Greek, from the career of which 
 that of the Gothic in this respect differs. But it was still a 
 great system in its complete period, and it had the fullest 
 measure of the aspiring spirit, the new-born principle which 
 distinguishes it from all the styles of the world, its chief 
 glory, and what renders it by far the most important and 
 interesting issue of the architecture of antiquity. The ten¬ 
 dency of the pointed arch, and the harmonious system of 
 decoration which followed in its train, was to woo the style 
 to greater sympathy with herb and tree, and render its pro¬ 
 ductions more plant-like. No edifices of man are so instinct 
 with the wild-life, luxuriance, and romance of nature, or seem 
 more like structures reared by enchantment, than those it 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 85 
 
 embodied. Spires and finials are almost literally emulative 
 of the sublimity of nature’s vertical organic structures. 
 They are nature’s arboraceous productions geometrised, 
 modified by ideas of utility, and the precision and symmetry 
 of human design. 
 
 This natural tendency of the style was accelerated by the 
 endeavour of the style-framers to make the Christian temple 
 expressive of its sacred uses, an endeavour which was emi¬ 
 nently successful. The Pointed cathedrals of England, 
 France, Germany, and Belgium, were surpassed by the 
 Greek temples in refinement and perfection of form; but 
 never before had architecture responded so truthfully and 
 distinctly to the aspiring heart of man as in those edifices, 
 which are, indeed, Christianity set to the “ frozen music ” 
 of architecture, and the most fitting conceivable symbols of 
 the sublime faith that reared them. Divested of some de¬ 
 pressing imagery, too indicative of a superstitious dread un¬ 
 recognised by pure religion, they may be taken as most 
 worthy exponents of the spiritual aspirations of man’s na¬ 
 ture—testimonies in stone of the greatness of the soul, and 
 its relation to the Infinite. Their interiors glow with the 
 heavenward hopes of their builders ; and no spectator with 
 a spark of imagination, can fail at once to recognise the over¬ 
 shadowing spirit of religion, that consecrated them for the 
 solemnities of worship. 
 
 In the creation of all this, architecture was nobly seconded 
 by the sister art. Sculpture, which, among the Greeks, had 
 been but the apotheosis of human beauty, and, among the 
 Romans an element of luxury and ostentation, became in 
 Gothic architecture the expression of a new and spiritual 
 life—an embodiment of the joys and griefs, the hopes and 
 aspirations of humanity, and, along with painting, was em¬ 
 ployed to adorn the new temples with the representations of 
 the events and personages of Scripture story. 
 
 On the other hand architecture, which had never before 
 been called upon for such vivid expression of the spiritual 
 and eternal, was ennobled by the effort, and rose to its 
 highest level. The Greek was inspired by the Iliad, the 
 
86 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Saracenic by the Koran, but the Gothic possessed, in the 
 Bible, the loftiest informing principle. In some of its 
 greatest examples it seems, indeed, as if the inmost heart 
 and soul of architecture had been aroused—as if, in obe¬ 
 dience to a divine call, and actuated by a divine motive, a 
 higher one than any by which it had hitherto been stirred, 
 it had put forth its utmost might, and revealed its sublimest 
 capacities. 
 
 After the Gothic styles had attained to this state through¬ 
 out Europe, the history of which we have pictured by a 
 broad flood, formed as it were by the confluence of several 
 streams answering to the early styles, they again separated 
 to pursue each an independent course. This, unlike the 
 former one which had been the elevation of certain con¬ 
 structive necessities into the condition of art and beauty, 
 was a seeking for novelty rather than excellence, and con¬ 
 sequently a career of decline, a descent from the great and 
 sublime to the merely ornamental, from what aims at 
 striking the soul, to what can merely please the eye, or at 
 best amuse the fancy; and at its close the higher qualities 
 have entirely given place to the lower. Simple and chaste 
 grandeur is lost in a blaze of florid ornament—talent has 
 succeeded to genius, flowery prose to poetry. 
 
 Different vices made their appearance in different coun¬ 
 tries, and the Gothic spirit died out in some, long before the 
 style ceased to be practised. The English and Belgian re¬ 
 tained their purity to a late period. In Germany, where the 
 Renaissance was latest in superseding it, and where its 
 forms continued longest to be executed, Gothic architecture 
 degenerated into unmeaning extravagance, and may be said 
 to have expired earlier than in any other country, except 
 Italy. What we see of German Gothic in the sixteenth 
 century possessed neither life nor beauty. 
 
 The English Gothic, the last phase of which was a modi¬ 
 fication of the ecclesiastical style to the requirements of 
 civil and domestic purposes, though applied to ecclesiastical 
 uses also, called the Tudor, owing to our insular position, 
 which excluded the influence of Byzantine and other styles, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 87 
 
 retained its purity, perhaps, longer than any other. It 
 maintained its pristine vigour till beyond the first quarter of 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 Gothic, of a low, spiritless character, indeed, hut unmixed, 
 continued to be generally used in ecclesiastical buildings, 
 and chapels of domestic buildings, down to the middle of the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 But nearly all the Gothics were over-run at the close of 
 the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, by a 
 style of ornament wherein the place of sculpture is supplied 
 by minute panelling, a species of decoration which produced 
 a magical and captivating effect of richness and magnifi¬ 
 cence. But besides being unmeaning, its richness is only 
 seeming ; it is mechanical not genuine artistic ornament. It 
 is like frothy eloquence, or like the hectic efflorescence on 
 the face of one far advanced in a consumption, and cannot 
 yield the pure gratification which the poetry that real sculp¬ 
 tural embellishment sheds over it can afford. 
 
 This ushered in and led to what was the more immediate 
 cause of the dissolution of the styles everywhere,—namely, 
 the return of a feeling for classic horizontality, which 
 qualifies the vertical, increases the importance of horizontal 
 lines, and causes finials, gables, door and window-heads, all 
 to increase in pitch. 
 
 But though the styles declined the system was enlarged, 
 and the resources of architecture enriched to the end. Valu¬ 
 able features were wrought out in the very latest period. 
 The Perpendicular style in England, though it was the most 
 monotonous of all the After-Gothics, and less conducive to 
 the up-sliooting expression than the Flamboyant of France, 
 brought with it the fan-tracery and other beautiful and valu¬ 
 able elements. It is easy to see how by taking advantage of 
 this, the modern reviver of the style might give a perfection to 
 his works unknown to Mediaeval times. There are elements 
 in all the three styles, or periods, of Gothie, which might 
 be used together in one building; and the beau ideal of a 
 Gothic cathedral would probably be composed from all the 
 styles. But in any one of the styles of Pointed architecture 
 
S8 
 
 TIIE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 much might he done by avoiding its defects. The monoto¬ 
 nous and unmeaning application, for instance, of the orna¬ 
 ment in the Perpendicular style was not inherent in its con¬ 
 stitution ; but attributable more to faults of design in its ex¬ 
 amples than to the style ; and by concentrating the richness, 
 confining the panelling to proper members, and calling in 
 the aid of sculpture, beautiful and artistic works might be 
 produced in the style of the Tudor chapels, buildings of 
 which England may be justly proud. 
 
 I mentioned above the Belgian Gothic as having retained 
 its purity to a late period. This branch claims peculiar at¬ 
 tention from its, more than any other, exhibiting the style 
 applied to purposes apart from sacred and religious. Be¬ 
 sides its ecclesiastical embodiments, which in many respects 
 need not shrink from comparison with those of any other 
 land, Belgian Gothic is embodied in civil and domestic 
 edifices—in town halls, &c., in which Belgium is richer than 
 any other country. 
 
 Before 1400 the Pointed architecture of Flanders did not 
 materially differ from that of other parts of Europe ; but 
 during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it acquired its 
 local characteristics and became distinctly national and 
 peculiar. It was shortly after the beginning of the fifteenth 
 century that almost all the great municipal buildings of 
 Flanders were erected, in nearly all of which there is a 
 great pictorial effect. But the ornamentation in a manner 
 overlies the design, and draws attention from the general 
 effect to the exquisite beauty of the details; in which they 
 resemble the ecclesiastical structures, which betray a marked 
 tendency on the part of the architects to fritter the general 
 effect, and destroy breadth of composition, by overloading 
 the design with ornaments which attract the eye from the 
 mass to the details. 
 
 During this period Flemish architects and artists were 
 extensively employed in other provinces; and in the various 
 highly decorated and Flamboyant buildings of Burgundy, 
 Franche-Comte, and Spain, the influence of the Flemish 
 school may be readily traced. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 89 
 
 Thus ended, about the time of the Reformation, the 
 career of the Gothic system, which, for extent of practice, 
 combined with steady progress and successful aims at 
 perfection, is unrivalled in the history of architecture. As 
 its germinal beginnings followed close on the fall of the 
 Western empire, and its end soon after that of the Eastern, 
 its existence may be said to be about coeval with what is 
 called the Middle Age. 
 
 Its extinction was owing, not so much to the Reformation, 
 as to the Renaissance coming into favour, with both clergy 
 and laity, at the time. That the Reformation had little to 
 do with it, is proved by the fact, that Gothic architecture was 
 superseded in those countries—Spain and Italy—in which 
 there was no Reformation, as completely as in England and 
 Germany, where Protestantism was most dominant. 
 
 Its uniform extent over so many different kingdoms and 
 states of Europe is what, after its rapid and steady progress 
 to perfection, naturally excites most surprise. But it is 
 easily traceable to a sufficient and satisfactory cause. It 
 was owing, doubtless, in part to affinity of race and unity of 
 taste among the Freemasons. But what constituted the 
 lasting bond of unity as well as source of prosperity through 
 the Middle Ages, was the universal power of the Western or 
 Latin Church, and community of religion, which, when the 
 territorial, or political division of Europe was most minute, 
 still preserved a general agreement of style. But for this, 
 notwithstanding the great political ties before referred to, the 
 several countries of Europe might have had styles totally 
 different from each other. Had there been in the Middle 
 Ages a Church of England, a Church of France, and so on, 
 as well as a Church of Rome, we should probably have had 
 no universal Gothic—the architecture of half Christendom, 
 fostered and brought to perfection, as it was by the combined 
 wealth and intellect of Europe. The increase of the spiritual 
 and rise of the temporal power of the bishops of Rome, 
 which, however otherwise detrimental to the interests of 
 religion and humanity, had, in promoting peace and 
 encouraging the arts, the effect of developing and diffusing 
 
90 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Gothic. The Western Church, in truth, was the foster- 
 mother of the arts, by the humanising and subduing influence 
 and control she exerted over the different countries of 
 Europe, pouring the oil of peace on each successive wave of 
 barbarism that spread over them. With the power of the 
 Popes, indeed, the Gothic style seemed to progress; and it 
 was during the time when that power was at the highest— 
 when they disputed with the German potentates the right of 
 creating kings, and trode on the necks of emperors, that 
 Lombard, Rhenish, Norman and other branches of the Round 
 Gothic style were at their highest. And what is note¬ 
 worthy, Boniface VIII., the last of the great Popes, expired 
 with the great thirteenth century, which had also witnessed 
 the institution of the Inquisition, and the establishment of 
 the Mendicant and Dominican Orders. 
 
 In the above account of the different varieties of a style 
 that was universal in Western Europe some important 
 countries will be found unrepresented, and their respective 
 Gothics be looked for in vain. But such countries it may 
 be shown had no claim to the distinction. In Holland, for 
 instance, the Gothic style did not grow up as it did in 
 England and France. The Dutch in the erection of their 
 churches, which are generally of brick, imitated those of the 
 Belgians and Germans, and took no share in the develop¬ 
 ment of the style. Nor can the Gothic architecture of 
 Sweden, Norway and Denmark be said to embody an 
 original and distinct variety of the Gothic style. 
 
 Interesting and unique specimens of Gothic architecture 
 are to be found in Switzerland. But lying as they do 
 between Italy and Germany, and the woi’k of races par¬ 
 taking of the characteristics of each, they are a mixture of 
 Italian and German, and cannot be said to exemplify a 
 distinct variety of either Round or Pointed Gothic. 
 
 VENETIAN GOTHIC. 
 
 In Venice a style of Gothic grew up peculiar to the island- 
 city, into the composition of which, elements so diverse 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 91 
 
 found entrance, that it claims distinct notice. It is 
 a combination in equal proportions of Lombardic, Byzan¬ 
 tine, and Saracenic. The Doge’s Palace, built from 
 1320 to 1350; the Palace Ca d’Oro, about 1350; and the 
 Palaces Foscari and Pisani, about 1400, are its most noted 
 examples. 
 
 It rose in the thirteenth, and was fully developed in the 
 fourteenth century, and died about the same time as the 
 general Gothic of Italy. 
 
 It employs the pointed arch; but is without buttresses, 
 or other aspiring features. It exhibits a fanciful and 
 Oriental luxuriance of ornament, and a picturesque and 
 refined beauty of composition highly befitting domestic 
 edifices. It seems to me more beautiful and harmonious in 
 the Palaces Ca d’Oro, Foscari and Pisani than in the more 
 celebrated residence of the Doge, in which the northern 
 elements seem to have been less softened and subdued by the 
 Oriental than in the later examples. 
 
 MORESCO. 
 
 This singularly elegant and graceful style was formed by 
 a most happy and harmonious combination of elements from 
 the Spanish Gothic, and the elegant style of the Moors, 
 which it was superseding in the southern provinces, when 
 the latter style seems to have received, by an infusion of the 
 Gothic spirit, just those qualities it most needed—a power 
 and vigour that rendered the mixed style superior to its 
 Saracenic parent in vigour and spirit, while it excelled its 
 Gothic progenitor in elegance and refinement. The greatest 
 number of examples are to be found in Toledo and the 
 south. 
 
 It was nipped in the bud before it had time fully to 
 develop its capabilities of beauty. 
 
92 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 INDIAN. 
 
 TS 
 
 start 
 
 first 
 
 LTHOUGH Brahminism is the 
 oldest religion of India, and the 
 parent, probably, of Buddhism, yet 
 arising at a very early period out 
 of pure Monotheism, and allied to 
 Sabaism and the Fire-Worship, 
 which did not recognise or require 
 temples or images, its votaries did not 
 build temples till taught by the Budd¬ 
 hists, and they had become mixed with 
 other races. 
 
 Owing to this the Buddhists got the 
 of the Brahmins in architecture, and 
 invented a style properly called the 
 Buddhist, probably about three or four centuries b.c., which 
 as it still lives, is, perhaps, the oldest practised style in the 
 world being more than 2,000 years in existence. It is, no 
 doubt, the parent of the Indian group of styles, a group 
 which stands completely alone, entirely separated from the 
 other forms of architecture in the world, and before the age 
 of Asoka was, perhaps, embodied in timber buildings, which 
 the earlier cave temples by their essentially wooden forms 
 seem to point to. 
 
 It is supposed that both the Northern and Southern 
 Hindu styles and the Jaina style are modifications of the 
 Buddhist—the Buddhist modified, by adaptation, to altered 
 requirements. Mr. Fergusson refers to buildings called 
 “ Raths,” as transition specimens that link the parent to the 
 off-springing styles. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 93 
 
 The principal Hindu style, the Southern, rose, probably, 
 soon after the commencement of the Christian era, and con¬ 
 tinues almost unchanged to this day, except that the Ma- 
 liommedan influence has strongly affected it in civil 
 buildings. 
 
 The Northern Hindu style appears in maturity in the 
 seventh century. The Jaina arose, perhaps, as early as 
 either; but its flourishing period is the fifteenth century. 
 
 The Indian buildings, for the most part, show remarkable 
 soundness of judgment, vigour of fancy and imagination, 
 and sometimes a purity of taste and artistic feeling equal to 
 what is anywhere exhibited. The whole group of styles ap¬ 
 pears to me to be a true and complete system of architecture 
 worthy to take rank among the great and primary styles of 
 the world, and what we might expect from the high and 
 sublime character of the ancient Indian poetry, philosophy, 
 and mythology, which exhibit the creative fulness of a truly 
 poetical imagination. 
 
 The Jaina temples have not the masculine vigour and 
 grandeur of the great domical topes of the Buddhists, some 
 more than 300 feet in diameter, but they exceed them and 
 other works in the beauty and grace of composition and 
 proportion, and in the elegance of their details and decora¬ 
 tion. In these respects the Jaina style is supreme in India; 
 and to this is owing its finding favour with the Mahomme- 
 dans, and its becoming the parent of the Indian Saracenic. 
 A remarkable feature of the Jaina style is the immense 
 variety in the design of its columns, which is indulged in, like 
 the Egyptian, even in a single portico. 
 
 The modern Hindu has appeared slightly tinctured with 
 the Moslem style since the sixteenth century. 
 
 In the sixteenth century there rose, under the hands of 
 Hindu architects, by their adoption into their own ancient 
 system of the arcades and vaults of the Saracens, a mixed 
 or secondary style, which may be termed the Moslem- 
 Hindu —a style of great beauty, perhaps greater than either 
 of the parent styles had shown. 
 
94 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 CASHMEBIAN. 
 
 There is a style in India which has no connection with or 
 relation to the group above described, practised by a people of 
 an unknown race, and of an unknown religion, and whose 
 examples, chiefly temples, are found principally in the vale 
 of Cashmere. 
 
 It has but lately become known, but has attracted much 
 attention from its striking resemblance to the ancient Greek, 
 the shaft of its order of columns being almost identical with 
 that of the Grecian Doric, and its difference from all others, 
 either in India on one side, or Persia on the other. It 
 is a trabeated style, and numbers among its few elements 
 the tre-foiled arch, which is used over doorways, and is a 
 very prevalent feature. Being unlike anything else in that 
 part of the world, its features must have emanated from 
 some foreign source, and, perhaps, become blended with 
 native principles of construction. 
 
 Mr. Fergusson suggests that it may be a remnant of the 
 Greek Bactrian kingdom, which it very probably is. There 
 can, I think, be little doubt of its Greek parentage, as its re¬ 
 semblance to the Greek style can scarcely be accidental. Its 
 earliest existing example is of the eighth century a.d., but its 
 origin probably extends many centuries farther back. It 
 continued to 1300 a.d., the period of the Moslem conquest, 
 of Cashmere. 
 
 CHINESE. 
 
 It has been usual to refer Chinese architecture to the tent 
 as its prototype; and there is much in the forms and material, 
 which latter is chiefly of wood, to favour the theory. But 
 while unsupported by what is known of Chinese history, the 
 roof curves that remind us of the tent, may be otherwise 
 accounted for—on the principle of utility and beauty. 
 
 Chinese architecture, as Chambers remarks, has, at least 
 the merit of being original, though it would seem as if some 
 of its forms had been hinted at in India. Originality, 
 however, is no great merit when it stands alone, unsupported 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 95 
 
 by others, as is the case in the architecture of the Chinese, 
 which is as remarkable for its ephemeral character and its 
 low grade. 
 
 Of Chinese buildings the pagodas, or towers, the pailoos, 
 or memorial arches, and tombs, are the most satisfactory 
 objects in the eye of an architect, and look most like archi¬ 
 tecture. But the style is a whimsical and senseless one, 
 void of all principle, and innocent of most of the features 
 essential to beauty and grace, and the higher qualities in 
 architecture. And though constructive skill is everywhere 
 remarkable, the best buildings show little or no artistic 
 feeling on the part of their designers, and are utterly 
 unworthy of a people so highly civilized and refined as the 
 Chinese, a people who, ages before the Europeans, made those 
 discoveries in science which have revolutionized the world— 
 the art of printing, gunpowder, and the magnet. 
 
 The cause of this, I believe, will be found in the unpoetic 
 character of the nation: in the Chinese intellect, reason, 
 and not imagination, so essential to greatness in art, or, in¬ 
 deed, to the existence of true art, was the predominant 
 element. 
 
 The poorness of the architecture is in some measure 
 redeemed, in the first-class dwellings, by gaiety and brilliancy 
 of colour, which is the most important element of the style, 
 and pleases us in spite of the want of the higher architectural 
 qualities, owing to its appropriateness to the low grade of 
 the forms it accompanies. 
 
 The temples, which are half monasteries also, partake 
 more of the character of domestic architecture in China than 
 in any other country, and, as architectural objects, may be 
 classed as such. 
 
 PERUVIAN. 
 
 This style is merely Masonic form, without columns, 
 pilasters, or arches, and almost wholly without mouldings or 
 sculptural ornaments. It is an essentially different style to 
 the Mexican, and by a different race, but bears a striking 
 
96 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 resemblance to the Pelasgic of Italy, a resemblance which 
 if accidental, is a very remarkable coincidence. 
 
 The duration of the style was about three centuries, in 
 which time it advanced from the rudest polygonal masonry 
 to as perfect a kind of squared masonry as is anywhere to 
 be found. 
 
 MEXICAN. 
 
 The Mexican style was originated and its more important 
 monuments built by the Toltecs, or Toltecans, or, if these 
 were not aborigines, by some still more ancient nation. 
 The Astecs, by whom the Toltecs were superseded about 
 the twelfth century, and who are believed to have been 
 Red men, were far less civilised; but by mingling with a 
 remnant of the Toltecans they reached a degree of civili¬ 
 sation to which they could never have attained in their 
 native state, and continued the style to the time of the 
 Spanish invasion. It is a trabeated, columnar style, and 
 contains the horizontal arch. It exhibits inordinate exu¬ 
 berance of carving, great variety of sculptured forms and 
 material, and numbered hieroglyphics among its elements ■ 
 from which, and the existence of the pyramids, the style is 
 supposed to have affinity with the Egyptian. How any 
 connection with that style could have arisen does not appear. 
 If it had none it is the most isolated style in the world. 
 
 The style presents itself to us chiefly in Teocallis or 
 temples, and palaces, the former of which are always 
 pyramids, square in plan, with a platform on the top, on 
 which the temple, properly so called, always stood. The 
 palaces are very like the temples, but on lower pyramids, 
 oblong in plan, and of great extent and grandeur. 
 
 The great Teocalli or temple called the “ Pyramid of 
 Cholula,” 1,440 feet base, 177 feet high, resembles the 
 Tower of Belus as described by Herodotus. It is in eight 
 stories. 
 
 The most celebrated temple is the great temple at Palenque 
 supposed by Lord Kingsborough to have been imitated from 
 Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem. It is of Toltecan erection. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 97 
 
 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 
 
 ERE we return, not immedi¬ 
 ately, but through the medium 
 of a very interesting transitional 
 style, to the pure columnar 
 architecture of the ancients— 
 that parent form which origi¬ 
 nating, or at least first present¬ 
 ing itself to our notice in Egypt 
 received its perfection and idea¬ 
 lization in the temples of Greece. 
 Italy, which had been the scene of its 
 application to the varied purposes of 
 life—-where mingling with Etruscan 
 elements it had become crowned by 
 arch and dome, and grown into the 
 main central stream of architectural 
 history, which subsequently branching 
 into Byzantine, Saracenic, and Gothic varieties, 
 gave birth to nearly all the styles of the world-— 
 this poetic and artistic land naturally became the scene of 
 its first revival in Europe. 
 
 This event took place in the thirteenth century—an earlier 
 period than might be thought propitious to that breadth of 
 mind and purity of taste necessary to a perception and ap¬ 
 preciation of the claims of the antique, however favourable 
 to the prosperity of Gothic art, which was a thing of quite 
 a different spirit—a spontaneous creation—a necessary and 
 natural efflorescence, so to speak, of the medieval religion, 
 and which, owing to the skill of the Freemasons, who were 
 
93 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 a semi-ecclesiastical order and an instrument of the papal 
 power, was then in its prime of strength and beauty. It 
 was a book-burning, heretic-hunting age; philosophers and 
 particularly mathematicians, were looked on as dealers in 
 the black art, or at least as of doubtful orthodoxy. Of 
 mathematics and physics even the clergy were ignorant—so 
 ignorant that, as Anthony a Wood says, they knew no pro¬ 
 perty of the circle but to keep out the devil, and thought the 
 points of a triangle would wound religion. But the 
 thirteenth century witnessed a change in more than one 
 department of intellectual enquiry. It is a significant 
 fact that painting, sculpture, and architecture became freed 
 from their thraldom at the same time as physics and mathe¬ 
 matics. Cimabue, Nicola Pisano, and Arnolfo di Lapo, the 
 fathers of painting, sculpture, and architecture, respectively, 
 were contemporary with Roger Bacon, the founder of ex¬ 
 perimental philosophy, by which tyranny and persecution were 
 doomed. The waters of barbarism which had overspread 
 Europe were abating; Italy, the Ararat of the intellectual 
 world, was heaving her head above the floods, and the revived 
 art, like the dove from the ark, could find rest for her foot. 
 
 In the century in question the School-men, with Aquinas 
 and Duns Scotus at their head, were still all-powerful in 
 Europe ; but on the threshold of the next appears the three 
 renowned fathers of Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch, and 
 Boccaccio, whose contemporary was Giotto one of the 
 greatest names of which our art can boast. 
 
 The first awakening of antique art in the West was 
 through the increased intercourse, occasioned by the Venetian 
 conquest of Constantinople a.d. 1203, between the Italian 
 and the Byzantine artists. Among the pupils of the latter 
 was Nicola Pisano, the father of modern sculpture, who 
 chiefly contributed to the great influence which that art 
 exercised over architecture, both Gothic and Renaissance, 
 and which rendered the Gothic architecture of Italy so rich 
 and beautiful in sculptural adornment. The effect of his 
 Byzantine tuition seems to have been to lead him to nature 
 and the ancient models, by reference to which he formed a 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 99 
 
 new style of sculpture which had much of the character of 
 the antique. 
 
 Being architect as well as sculptor, he could scarce fail to 
 exhibit his classical predilections in his architectural works, 
 wherein we probably see the earliest dawn and day-spring of 
 the Italian style of architecture—the earlier phase of which has 
 received the name of the Renaissance, signifying Revival or 
 Re-birth. After the time of Nicola Pisano, though he exer¬ 
 cised great influence on the works of his son, Giovanni, and 
 descendants, Andrea and Nino, yet, owing to the strength of 
 the Gothic spirit at the time, it made but slow progress for 
 many years. 
 
 The strong classic feeling, however, of Arnolfo di Lapo, 
 who was contemporary with Giovanni da Pisa, and has been 
 called the father of modern architecture, affected the style 
 of the Cathedral of Florence, and gave it a transitional 
 character between Gothic and Italian. The transitional 
 style afterwards more vividly exemplified itself in the Loggia 
 dei Lanzi, situated in the chief piazza of Florence. It was 
 designed by Orgagna about the middle of the fourteenth 
 century, in the course of which the style grew to consistence 
 and fully developed itself. 
 
 It was mainly formed as already intimated by the blending 
 in various ways and proportions of the two styles, Gothic 
 and ancient Roman, and in its incipient state would vari¬ 
 ously show itself, I take it in different buildings. In some a 
 mere classic feeling would be seen influencing the Italian- 
 Gothic ; in others the classic detail or orders would be 
 applied to the clothing of Gothic compositions; while in a 
 third incongruous mixtures of the two styles, of details as 
 well as main forms, would take place. Its first step of pro¬ 
 gress would be the ridding itself of Gothic detail, when its 
 career would become more steadily directed to an increase of 
 classic and decrease of Gothic form and character, till at last 
 the classic predominated, and the style appeared as a free 
 application of antique features and details, under the influ¬ 
 ence more or less, as regards composition, of the spirit of the 
 expiring or already departed Gothic, which in the Italian 
 
 f 2 
 
100 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Renaissance, however, was always much fainter than in that 
 of other countries. 
 
 Circular arehivolts, springing immediately from slightly 
 relieved pillasters, with simple hut usually tasteful enrich¬ 
 ments of foliage and carved mouldings ; and plain continuous 
 horizontal cornices between each ordinance, separating the 
 stories, are the most striking characteristics of the general 
 style. Columns are sometimes, when the position requires j 
 them admitted, along with the pilasters ; but columns sup¬ 
 porting entablatures are rarely seen, and when they do 
 appear, play a very subordinate part as compared with 
 arches, with the beautiful diversities and combinations of i 
 which architectural effect was chiefly sought. 
 
 Its system of ornamentation was mainly derived from the 
 gorgeous styles of Byzantium and the Saracens, and gradu¬ 
 ally unfolded itself by the absorption of new elements, among 
 which were many very original conventional forms, till the 
 full/ormation of the style, which at last comprehended scrolled 
 and conventional foliage and tracery, natural foliage, fruits, 
 Hewers, and arabesques, grotesque and natural renderings of ! 
 man and animals, medallions with portraits, cartouches or > 
 scrolled shields and fretwork. It was not till the first half 
 of the fifteenth century that the grottesque or arabesque 
 ornament was introduced, which was the germ of the ara¬ 
 besque style, afterwards more fully developed by Perugino 
 and Raphael from observation and study of the antique. 
 The cartouche or scrolled shield appeared about the middle 
 of the same century. But the chief features of the style 
 throughout its career were its foliage and tracery, which it 
 derived from the Arabians. 
 
 Thus composed, Italian Renaissance was a free but en¬ 
 lightened and graceful adaptation of the ancient forms to 
 modern ideas and purposes. Though compounded of re¬ 
 vived antique and adopted contemporary forms, it was 
 a highly original style that evinced a lively perception of the 
 beautiful, a refined and graceful fancy and a freer play of 
 imagination than the more stately style that followed, 
 and possessed beauties that were not transfused into any of 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 101 
 
 its transalpine branches. It exhibited the most masterly 
 application of sculptural decoration, which it intimately and 
 harmoniously blended with its structural forms. Indeed all 
 its various materials, from whatever sources, and they were 
 many, almost every one then open to it—past and contem¬ 
 porary styles of architecture, Roman, Byzantine, Saracenic, 
 Gothic, with nature’s beautiful creations, were fused down 
 and recast in its formation, with a refinement of feeling that 
 only a study of classic and oriental art could produce. 
 
 Perhaps its most interesting features and those in which 
 consisted its greatest excellence were its mouldings, capi¬ 
 tals, and sculptured ornaments drawn from natural and 
 antique sources, which were artistic, varied, and exceed¬ 
 ingly beautiful. Capitals were not repetitions of all former 
 ones, but original designs on which taste and invention 
 were exercised. 
 
 This style from Florence, where it arose, extended into 
 Lombardy and the Duchy of Urbino, in each place developing 
 itself in a somewhat different manner to the others, giving 
 rise to the more marked distinctions of schools which pre¬ 
 vailed at a later period. In Tuscany its examples were 
 generally massive and plain; in Venice and Lombardy 
 with the same antique basis, we find a freer and more 
 licentious system of design, and the style became rich in 
 beautiful examples, which led to much of the richness and 
 beauty of the French school. In Rome the Umbrian school 
 of architects, which was somewhat more antique in spirit 
 than the others, being influenced by the presence of the 
 Florentine and Lombard artists, who flocked to the eternal 
 city, the style was of a mixed, varied, and somewhat less 
 definite character. In Ferrara and Bologna, and in many 
 Lombard cities, it became somewhat modified by the use of 
 terra-cotta, and exhibited itself in buildings of that material 
 of great interest and beauty. The Campo Santo, at Milan, 
 is an example of the application of the same material, which 
 is therein wrought into a profusion of intricate architectural 
 ornaments. 
 
 In Venice and the Venetian cities, with a stronger tinge 
 
102 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 of Byzantine richness of decoration, some measure of which 
 was carried into the succeeding Italian style, it produced 
 many of its best works, and reached its perfection of beauty 
 in such edifices as the schools of San Rocca and St. Mark, 
 and the Yendramini and old Cornaro palaces, all by the 
 Lombardi, and built in the latter part of the fifteenth 
 century. The Dario Palace and Casa Visetti are exquisite 
 examples of the style applied to smaller works. 
 
 In the church of Sta Maria dei Miracoli in the same city, 
 we have a most graceful and perfect specimen of Renais¬ 
 sance architecture applied to ecclesiastical purposes. It was 
 designed about 1480, by Pietro Lombardo, who, with his 
 sons Tullio and Antonio, and others of the same family, 
 have furnished and decorated the sea-girt city with monu¬ 
 ments of their taste and genius, which gave an impulse to 
 architecture in Lombardy. The church of S. Zaccaria, 
 also in Venice, is by one of the same family. The Certosa, 
 at Pavia, by Ambrogia Fossone, and the great court of the 
 Hospital at Milan, are also advanced specimens of this 
 graceful style. 
 
 Such was the general style of Italy till the end of the 
 fifteenth century, when it gave place to the Cinque Cento, 
 or full Italian. It did not, however, cease to be practised 
 on the introduction of the severer style, but continued in 
 Italy, and was employed concurrently with it as a distinct 
 style through the sixteenth century; and sometimes it was 
 mixed with it. It had a good effect upon subsequent styles: 
 many later productions of the Roman school after the time 
 of M. Angelo are in a bolder and more pictorial manner, 
 through the engrafting of it on the Italian of the day. 
 
 It is out of this later development—this continuation of 
 the style—that the various transalpine versions or offshoots 
 flowed, and not out of the earlier, which had passed away 
 before any Western nation had become a recipient of an¬ 
 tique art, or its influences. Had the Renaissance of Italy 
 died out on the introduction of the full-grown Italian style 
 in the fifteenth century, it is probable neither our Eliza¬ 
 bethan, nor the French, or Spanish Renaissance styles would 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 103 
 
 have existed; and that the various Western nations must 
 either have adhered to their respective Gothics, or have taken 
 at once to the full Italian. 
 
 These off-shoots of the Italian Renaissance stand at diffe¬ 
 rent distances behind the parent style in classic purity and 
 grace of form, and harmony of decoration, as well as in con¬ 
 sistency and truth, through the antique being less understood 
 and felt in the North and West than in Italy, where the 
 Gothic had not, nor could have, the powerful influence it 
 had on this side of the Alps, or so strongly infuse itself into 
 the current style. Indeed, in Italy there was no Gothic 
 properly so called so to infuse itself; the Italian Gothic, 
 especially that of Venice, having little of the essential, as¬ 
 piring spirit of the Northern styles. 
 
 In each country, too, what was derived from the Italian 
 was greatly modified by peculiar national feeling, as well as 
 by artistic disability and inferiority of' resource. As the 
 same seed falling on different soils must produce different 
 fruit, so these Renaissance styles, though they had their 
 source in the same parent style of Italy, soon widely di¬ 
 verged, and became very dissimilar phases of art. Gene¬ 
 rally, each showed the same predilections as regards form 
 and proportion, as well as decoration, which had been ex¬ 
 hibited by its Gothic predecessor, of which, at first, it was 
 merely a reproduction in a new and classic dress. 
 
104 
 
 THE COUKSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ITALIAN. 
 
 U' T is probable that the truly 
 W Classical Italian style first ap¬ 
 peared in the works of 
 Brunelleschi (1377-1444), who, 
 ^ being the first to infuse a 
 
 purely antique spirit into his works, 
 is called the restorer of ancient 
 architecture in Europe. The cu¬ 
 pola of the Cathedral of Florence, 
 the erection of which opened the 
 way to the greatest architectural en¬ 
 terprises of modern Europe, the church 
 of the Holy Ghost, and the Pitti Pa¬ 
 lace in the same city, may be cited as 
 examples of his style. The last-named 
 building is said to exhibit the first use 
 of the balustrade, which is here com¬ 
 posed of small Ionic columns. Brunelleschi was followed 
 by L. B. Alberti, of a noble family of Florence, who emu¬ 
 lated the achievements of bis predecessor, and, in some re¬ 
 spects, excelled them. The churches of St. Francesco at 
 Rimini, and of St. Andrea at Mantua, with the Palace 
 Rucellai at Florence, are among the best of his correct and 
 elegant works, which are characterised by a most judicious 
 and artistic treatment of his materials. His literary work, 
 entitled De Re Ediftcatoria, which shows great knowledge 
 of construction, and a profound study and appreciation of 
 the works of the ancients, did much to promote the success 
 of the new movement; as did also the publication, in 1499, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 105 
 
 of a singular work by Colonra, written with great spirit, 
 and exhibiting high poetic beauty, entitled Polyphili Hyp- 
 nerotomachia, or Dream of Polyphilus. This book had a 
 magical effect in exciting throughout Italy a desire for the 
 full and pure restoration of the architecture of the ancients. 
 
 Michelozzo, a scholar of Brunelleschi, and other Floren¬ 
 tine architects, followed Alberti, and were nobly seconded 
 in developing and applying the new style by Branmnte, a 
 Roman artist, who had practised in the former style. The 
 Belvidere Court of the Vatican; the Court of the Loggia, 
 and the Sora Palace at Rome; the small domed Church at 
 Lodi; and the dome of the Church Santa Maria delle 
 Grazie at Milan, are specimens of his graceful but somewhat 
 timid manner of applying the Antique to modern Italian 
 purposes. 
 
 Peruzzi made a bolder and broader application of the 
 Antique, and showed greater freedom and intelligence in .the 
 use of his materials, as witness the palaces Farnesiana and 
 Massimi at Rome. His works are among the best of the 
 period, and show the purest forms and profiles, and a per¬ 
 fect^harmony of parts. He was seconded by Antonia Sangallo. 
 esteemed for his simplicity of form, real and apparent solid¬ 
 ity, justness of proportion, and tranquillity of decoration: 
 and by Raphael, whose works display the same purity that 
 distinguished those of his uncle, Bramante. In the hands of 
 these, and of Giulio Romano, Sebastian Serlio, Galeazzo 
 Alessi, M. Angelo, Vignola, Pietro Ligorio, with San 
 Michele, Sansovino, and Palladio, the style of ancient 
 Rome was reanimated in all its grace and grandeur, and so 
 modified and applied to modern requirements as to be ren¬ 
 dered a distinct style, and in some of its phases a truer and 
 more consistent one than its Antique prototype. 
 
 This style, the best phase of which being referred to the 
 sixteenth century, has been called the Cinque Cento style of 
 Italian architecture, retained its full meridian splendour dur¬ 
 ing the first 70 or 80 years of that century all over Italy, 
 which was then, as in the two preceding ages, far in advance 
 in art, in poetry, and literature, of all the rest of Europe. 
 
 f 3 
 
106 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Of the creators of this style, the greatest and best were 
 those of the North. The works of San Michele at Verona, 
 and Sansovino at Venice, are amongst the most successful 
 ever reared for harmony and beauty of form, and refinement 
 and elegance of detail. The last-named artist, whose works 
 display a great amount of well-applied sculpture and carved 
 ornament, added to the resources of window decoration by 
 the invention of the coupling of columns within the thick¬ 
 ness of the wall. Palladio’s works exhibit a greater use of 
 insulated columns than is seen in Italian architecture gene¬ 
 rally, with great harmony of composition, elegance of pro¬ 
 portion, and beauty of detail. His happiest invention was, 
 perhaps, the combination of major and minor orders, which 
 is seen to the best effect in the Basilica of Vicenza. Giulio 
 Romano practised a freer style than any of these three 
 artists. Ilis works at Mantua are wanting in purity of 
 form, but they are remarkable for variety and originality. 
 
 Of other masters Vignola alone, perhaps, is entitled to 
 be associated with these Northern ones. His works are 
 distinguished for elegance, combined with solidity, and the 
 absence of all evidence of caprice ; being the issue of a fruit¬ 
 ful imagination, under the guidance of a pure taste and 
 sound judgment, which qualities he possessed in perhaps a 
 greater degree than any architect of his century. M. An¬ 
 gelo, as might be expected, exerted a great influence on the 
 style and works of his con temporaries and successors gene¬ 
 rally. Over some artists, as for instance, G. della Porta, D. 
 Fontana, Annnanati, &c., he ruled with even a despotic sway, 
 and not always for good. He infused a new spirit into the 
 styde by the example of a bolder and more pictorial treat¬ 
 ment, and greater breadth in the disposition of masses ; but, 
 too wild in his conceptions for the sober art of architecture, 
 he became its first corruptor, by setting at naught its essen¬ 
 tial principles. The abuses introduced by him were sown 
 broad-cast by his numerous partisans and imitators, who 
 thus paved the way for the still wilder caprices and absurdi¬ 
 ties of Borromini. 
 
 Besides the pictorial mode of ornamentation, consisting of 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 107 
 
 Fresco pictures, which the style may be said to have in¬ 
 herited from the preceding Gothic and other styles, and 
 which made the picture predominant, the wall secondary, 
 and in which architecture was often too much subordinated 
 to and injured by the sister art of painting, another mode of 
 ornamentation peculiar to the Italian style made its appear¬ 
 ance. It had grown up out of the grottesque, or arabesque 
 ornament, which was introduced in the first half of the 
 fifteenth century, as an element of the Renaissance, and was 
 fully developed and perfected by Perugino, and his pupil 
 Raphael, assisted by Pinturicchio, from study and observa¬ 
 tion of the Antique. It is best exemplified in the Sala di 
 Cambio, at Perugio, by Perugino, and in Raphael’s cele¬ 
 brated decorations of the Loggia of the Vatican; and con¬ 
 sists generally, to quote the Crystal Palace Hand Book, “ of 
 an arrangement of colour, in which a white ground plays a 
 most conspicuons part, serving as a field on which are 
 painted, on a small scale, every variety of objects that can 
 be imagined—figures, fruit, flowers, birds, animals, fish, 
 landscape, shells, curtains, marble and bronze panels, &c., 
 directly imitated from nature, interwoven with scrolls and 
 patterns of a completely conventional character. Ornament 
 is heaped up with an apparently boundless profusion, and 
 yet breadth of style is preserved, by keeping such coloured 
 grounds as are introduced, firm and solid in colour, and by 
 so diminishing every object in bulk, as contrasted with the 
 unoccupied area of the ground colour upon which it is 
 painted, as to allow that colour to predominate, and at a 
 little distance to appear rather fretted with a diaper, than 
 covered with ornament demanding attention. The balance 
 in the best examples, as at the Villa Madama, is so happily 
 maintained, that no one portion of the wall attracts atten¬ 
 tion more than another, no one ornament or portion of the 
 wall starts forward before the rest, and the eye, pleased with 
 an universal richness and intricacy, as in regarding the 
 decorations of the Alhambra, wanders delighted, neither 
 oppressed nor confused.” It is a system of ornament which, 
 while it enabled the general style to emulate the grandeur of 
 
108 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 the Byzantine and Gothic, the Mosaic and gold grounds, 
 and other gorgeous elements of which it superseded, and 
 raised it to the highest splendour, through the addition of 
 colour, to the purer beauty of form, differed from that of pre¬ 
 ceding styles in its forms, being adopted not as symbols and 
 for the purpose of teaching, but to give pleasure by their 
 beauty of composition and colour, wherein full scope was 
 given to the imagination. 
 
 With these two systems of mural painting and decoration, 
 along with the highest efforts of the sculptor in bass-relief 
 and statuary, which the genius of Italian design is also cap¬ 
 able of embracing, a system was formed, surpassingly rich 
 in its constituent elements and resources. Its exclusion, or 
 neglect of symbolism, the application of its Arabesque and 
 other ornaments, as an appeal to the sense of beauty rather 
 than to the intellect, which has been considered by a certain 
 class of critics as its damning defect, was, I consider, the 
 natural result of a new state of things—advanced civilisation 
 —extended education. The msthetic ornament replaced the 
 symbolic of the Gothic, because symbolism was seen, and 
 felt to be, no longer needful. Architecture’s office of teacher 
 had been superseded by the printed page, on the invention 
 of printing, and diffusion of education among the people; 
 and henceforth, the will and the affections would be best 
 operated upon, and doctrinal truths inculcated through the 
 medium of literature. 
 
 Among the numerous examples of the perfected Italian 
 architecture of the sixteenth century throughout the Italian 
 Peninsula, a considerable difference may be observed in the 
 mode or manner of applying the Antique elements to modern 
 purposes, arising from difference in the political condition, 
 and other circumstances, of different cities, as well as variety 
 of taste among the great artists concerned in the revival. 
 Local distinctions became visible during the period of the 
 Renaissance; but now we have three several schools, or 
 sub-styles—the Florentine—the Roman—the Venetian. 
 Some few words in explanation of these schools will be 
 necessary here. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 109 
 
 The first, the Florentine, is distinguished by the confine¬ 
 ment of its decorations to essential features, such as windows 
 and doors, which alone received the orders of columns and 
 pilasters ; and to boldly projecting cornices of an original 
 and grand character. Sculptured friezes, strings, &c., 
 expressing internal division, profuse rustication, and arch- 
 covered windows with a central shaft, are amongst its other 
 characteristics. The city of Florence possesses many stately 
 examples of this style, which evidently grew out of the un¬ 
 buttressed domestic Gothic style of Tuscany ; where, in such 
 buildings as the Palace Buonsignori, at Sienna, which is of 
 the thirteenth century, and still more palpably in the fortress¬ 
 like Public Palace in the same city of the fourteenth, we see 
 the germ of the peculiar characteristics of the Pitti Palace 
 and other productions of the school, in which the Gothic 
 elements of the parent style lingered, showing themselves 
 more particularly in the arch-within-arch and centre shaft 
 of the. windows. The Palazza Ricardi, by Michelozzo, the 
 Pitti Palace, by Brunelleschi; the Palazza Strozzi, by 
 Chronaca, are among its earliest and best examples. 
 
 The Florentine school, which was founded by Brunelleschi, 
 numbered among its members Michelozzo, Alberti, Pallajuolo, 
 surnamed Chronaca, Benedetto da Majano, B. d’Agnolo, B. 
 Ammanati, and others. 
 
 The Roman school, to quote Mr. Garbett’s description of 
 it, “ is less definite, less a style than either of the other two, 
 because often verging on their limits ; its earlier works re¬ 
 sembling the Florentine, and its latest, the Venetian ; but its 
 intermediate and best efforts have a character of their own. 
 It is better adapted for churches than for any other class of 
 buildings, owing to the grand, simple, and uniting effect of 
 one tall order, generally commencing at or near the ground, 
 and including two or three stories. This colossal order is 
 surmounted sometimes by an attic much lower than itself, 
 but never (in purely Roman design) by another order of a size 
 comparable to itself. Square-headed openings and pilasters 
 instead of columns, are among the most common features of 
 this school.” 
 
110 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 The most important monument of the Roman school, and 
 indeed of the Cinque Cento style of Italian architecture, is 
 St. Peter’s, at Rome, commenced in 1506, by Bramante, 
 which may be considered the parent of the domed churches 
 of modern Europe. In it was united the dimensions and 
 plan of the western basilicas with the Byzantine pendentive 
 dome and principle of construction, producing a nobleness of 
 composition emulated in a numerous progeny of subsequent 
 examples, in England, France, and throughout Europe, that 
 neither of the parent models possessed. This building gave 
 the tone to the Roman style and fixed its characteristics. 
 The museum in the Capitol at Rome, by M. Angelo, is 
 another early specimen of the Roman style of composi¬ 
 tion, which, as respects ecclesiastical edifices, may be said 
 to have grown out of the style of the Florentine churches: 
 the cathedral of Florence, and churches of San Lorenzo and 
 San Spirito, being prototypes of St. Peter’s. The idea of 
 enthroning the Pantheon on the temple of Peace, whiah gave 
 birth to the unique and imposing combinations of the Pon¬ 
 tifical church, originated with Bramante, though executed by 
 M. Angelo; but it was the work of Brunelleschi at the 
 church of Sta Maria dei Fiori, at Florence, that furnished 
 the first hint of the domed churches of Rome and other cities 
 of Italy, and through them of all the great ecclesiastical 
 edifices of modern Europe. 
 
 The Roman pilastered style was chiefly confined to 
 churches. Most of the palaces of Rome were astylar, and 
 so far approximated to the Florentine style, of the grandeur 
 of which they largely partook, though they had little of its 
 severity. The Roman palatial style which evidently grew 
 out of the Florentine, may be said to hover in a region mid¬ 
 way between the Florentine and Venetian. 
 
 The chief architects of the Roman school were Bramante, 
 its founder, Sangallo, Peruzzi, Raphael, M. Angelo, Serlio, 
 Vignola, and D. Fontana, with whom it is said to have ended. 
 
 The Venetian school is distinguished by its free applica¬ 
 tion of the antique orders, which were usually piled one 
 above another correspondent to the different stories of a 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 building—by its abundant use of the arch over its openings, 
 and employment of arcades, which latter are very prominent. 
 It is to this school is due the honour of having best succeeded 
 in adapting the antique architecture to modern wants, and of 
 having gone farthest in extending its appropriate applica¬ 
 tions. The works of San Michele, Sansovino, and Palladio 
 exhibit the ancient Homan style, bending itself in every direc¬ 
 tion to modern uses and ideas. Palladio seems to have begun 
 his career with the persuasion that the style would stoop to 
 the humblest purposes of life, and that in extending it to 
 such he was only continuing the applications of their archi¬ 
 tecture began by the ancients themselves, and which they 
 would have made under the like call. His predecessors pro¬ 
 bably considered it as alone fitted for churches, royal and 
 other great palaces and public buildings, for which it had 
 been chiefly used ; but Palladio’s numerous and varied works, 
 chiefly minor palaces and villas, in which the style is grace¬ 
 fully brought down to the wants of every day life, at once 
 suggested that its applications were unlimited. 
 
 In the hands of the Florentine school Italian architecture 
 was chiefly a palatial style, in those of the Roman school it 
 was mainly an ecclesiastical one—in the Venetian school alone 
 it declared itself an universal style—suited to all purposes. 
 
 The Grimani and the great Cornaro palaces at Venice, by 
 San Michele and Sansovino, respectively—the Tursi Doria 
 and Cariga palaces at Genoa, by Alessi—the Tiene, Chieri- 
 cate, and Barbarano palaces at Vicenza—the library of St. 
 Mark, at Venice, are among the most admired works of the 
 best period of the Venetian school. 
 
 In this school is included, besides San Michele and Sans¬ 
 ovino, its founders, and Palladio its great developer; Vin¬ 
 cenzo Scammozzi, Giovanni da Ponte, Alessandro Vittoria, 
 and others. 
 
 It is, however, impossible to distribute all the distinguished 
 architects of this period into distinct schools; for some 
 belong to more than one, while others practised a style com¬ 
 pounded of or holding a middle place between two. Raphael, 
 for example, may be claimed by both Roman and Floren- 
 
112 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 tine; and Vignola belongs as much to the Venetian as to 
 the Roman with which he is usually placed. Serlio, it is 
 said, left the Roman for the Venetian, which he advocated 
 in his work published in France. 
 
 In process of time these schools became less distinct and 
 definable. As the Tuscan or Florentine style arose earliest, 
 so it appears to have been earliest lost. The Florentine 
 palaces imbibed the more sumptuous spirit of those of Rome, 
 which, as I have already remarked, were midway in style 
 between the Florentine and Venetian. The Palazza Bar- 
 tolini, erected about 1520, by Baccio d’Agnolo, shows that a 
 change was coming over the Florentine style, from the 
 influence of Rome, an influence more strikingly apparent in 
 the Pandolfini palace, by Raphael, which had a still greater 
 infusion of the Roman manner. Soon after the middle of 
 the sixteenth century the style lost its own distinctive 
 character altogether. Its posthumous influence was, no 
 doubt, exerted on the subsequent career of the modern 
 Italian ; it is, indeed, traceable in France and elsewhere ; but 
 the style was scarcely revived till the present century, by 
 Barry in his Travellers’ Club-house. 
 
 It is dated by Gwilt from 1400 to 1600: but, in anything 
 like purity, it lasted no more than a century, viz.—from the 
 building of the Ricardi Palace, in 1430, to that of the Pan¬ 
 dolfini, in 1530. 
 
 The Roman style again, except as applied to churches, 
 died away into the fascinating Venetian, having lasted about 
 130 years, from 1470 to 1607. 
 
 The Venetian, which had risen latest, about 1506, and 
 which, from the fact that Palladio had the greatest share in 
 its creation, is sometimes called the Palladian, spread 
 through Lombardy, and thence through all Italy, and be¬ 
 came the chief source of the succeeding Modern Italian, and 
 mainly supplied the various streams of art in transalpine 
 Europe—France, England, Spain, Belgium, Germany 
 equally following in the track of Venice, and founding their 
 style on its great and diverse works.* 
 
 * I have adopted the above usual division of the style of this period in 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 113 
 
 The practice of Italian architecture was continued in 
 Italy in tolerable purity by D. Fontana, whose works 
 evince his great knowledge of construction; by V. Scam- 
 mozzi a follower of Palladio, of great j udgment and taste ; 
 by Carlo Maderno, the last architect employed on the body 
 of St. Peter’s ; by G. della Porta, who imitated M. Angelo, 
 and imbibed much of his spirit ; by Ammanati, Ponzio, 
 M. Lunghi, G. da Ponte, and others, till the time of Bernini 
 and Borromini, whose extravagancies, more especially those 
 of the latter, form an epoch in the history of the art; and 
 the latter part of the sixteenth century and beginning of the 
 seventeenth witnessed the erection of edifices of great merit, 
 though not equal to earlier works : such are the colleges, 
 Della Sapienza, by G. della Porta, the Palazza Strozzi, by 
 Scammozzi, and the courtyard of the great Borghese Palace, 
 at Rome, by Martino Lunghi Sen. Battista Soria, who 
 slightly preceded Borromini, erected several churches at 
 Rome, which are picturesque in composition, and sumptuous 
 in decoration. 
 
 The greatest architectural genius of the seventeenth cen¬ 
 tury was Bernini, whose name is generally associated in 
 architectural history with that of his contemporary, Borro¬ 
 mini, as a corruptor of the style. He was sculptor and 
 architect, and designed several churches, palaces, fountains, 
 and other works at Rome, among which may be noticed the 
 palaces Barberini and de Monte Citorio, the churches del 
 Noviziato de Gesuiti, and Gondolfo, the college of the Propa¬ 
 ganda, and the fountains of the Piazza Navona, the Piazzas 
 Barberini and de Spagna, the colonnade of the Place of 
 St. Peter, and the great staircase between the church and 
 the Vatican. 
 
 Bernini has sometimes displayed the highest art in the 
 arrangement of light, and in overcoming difficulties of situa¬ 
 tion ; and his effects are occasionally inimitable. His style 
 
 Italy with some misgivings as to its entire correctness. Strictly speaking 
 perhaps, we ought only to reckon two distinct schools of Italian Architec¬ 
 ture—the Florentine and Venetian; and consider the Roman as a manner 
 oscillating between the two, or an exhibition of slight modifications of one 
 or the other. 
 
114 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 presents more licences than absolute errors or abuses, and 
 his graces and elegancies go far to atone for his many faults. 
 The porticoes forming the Piazza di St. Pietro, though they 
 were calculated to make the want of ‘■columnar beauty and 
 relief in the church itself more painfully felt than before, 
 are, in themselves, one of the finest creations of Italian 
 architecture. Columns had never before in modern times 
 been employed in such profusion, or to the production of so 
 great an effect. 
 
 No such praise is due to the works of Borromini, who 
 revived and developed the abuses with which M. Angelo 
 and his imitators had infected the style, and trampled on 
 those great and primary principles of form and composition, 
 which cannot be violated without destruction to art. He 
 made war upon reason to produce novelty, which was 
 sought for its own sake, and without regard to truth or 
 beauty, and gave form and substance to every laAvless vagary 
 and wild chimera of his imagination. Under him and his 
 followers extravagance and affectation, which were probably 
 a reaction from the restraints of the purer and more logical 
 style of the preceding age, grew wanton, and reached their 
 climax towards the latter end of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Though the example of the Borrominian school was 
 followed, more or less closely, throughout Europe, its influ¬ 
 ence was by no means universal, even in Italy, for during 
 its prevalence, or soon after, were erected the church Delle 
 Salute, and the palaces Pesaro and Rezzonico at Venice, all 
 by Longhena; the church of Sta. Maria Zobenico in the same 
 city, by Sardi; the Dogana, also at Venice; the facade of 
 the church di St. Ignazio, and the Villa Pamfili at Rome, 
 by Algardi, and the very chaste and beautiful Basilican 
 church of Sta Annunciata at Genoa, by Puget, one of the 
 purest and most elegant works in Italy. De Rossi, who 
 designed several important palaces, and the Chapel del 
 Monte della Pieta, at Rome; showed a pure taste in decora¬ 
 tion, and great skill in lighting his interiors. The works 
 of Carlo Fontana are seldom without merit, but they show 
 the influence of his master, Bernini, by their want of purity 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 115 
 
 in detail, and their sacrifice of essential forms to the spirit of 
 decoration. 
 
 It was during the wild career of Borromini that the style 
 of ornament, called the Louis Quatorze, was introduced 
 from France, where it had been developed and perfected, 
 though originated as it is said at Rome, probably a derivative 
 through the Borrqminian school from the Renaissance. This 
 continued to be employed throughout Italy till the end of» 
 the century, when it was succeeded by, or degenerated into, 
 the Louis Quinze, or Rococo style, which continued till 
 beyond the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 With the eighteenth century a general improvement 
 dawned, and much of the wildness of the preceding period 
 disappeared, but it was replaced by timid mediocrity gene¬ 
 rally, relieved in some measure by the works of A. Galilei, 
 Nicola Salvi, Ivara, F. Fuga, Vanvitelli, and others. 
 
 After Vanvitelli, who designed the palace of the King of 
 Naples, at Caserte, the most important production of the 
 century, and who died about 1770, what is called the 
 classical or academical school made its appearance, and con¬ 
 tinued to the end of the last and during the present century, 
 though the Italians have had no such Greek or Roman re¬ 
 vivals involving wholesale copying as have taken place in 
 this country and Germany. They have always had too 
 much artistic power of their own, too much passion or 
 emotion, which touches and prompts the inventive faculty, to 
 take their art at second hand, even from their forefathers. 
 Though all the periods of their career have not been equally 
 distinguished, though they were sometimes weak artists, 
 sometimes extravagant and corrupt ones, yet they never 
 ceased to be artists to become archaiologists; and the 
 present architectural condition of Italy at this day goes far 
 to attest the fact, and to show that genius and common sense 
 have generally illumined the conceptions of the architect in 
 this beautiful land. In no country do we meet with such 
 abundant fruit of his skill. No other country can vie with 
 Italy in the quality, number, or variety of its architectural 
 examples. It is there alone that the smallest and humblest 
 
116 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 structure betrays the hand of the artist and the stamp of 
 genius; suggesting how relatively great must have been the 
 number of true artists, and how general the power of art- 
 appreciation among the people. 
 
 Italian architecture, however, like everything of human 
 creation had its defects, among the chief of which were the 
 sparing use of insulated columns in the formation of porticoes 
 and loggias; and, when used, the adoption of a thin-set 
 disposition, and a want of freedom and taste in their treat¬ 
 ment as regards proportion and detail, more especially seen 
 in the poor standing Ionic, which it is strange the modern 
 Italians should still adhere to instead of correcting it by the 
 study of Greek examples. 
 
 Such were the principal defects of the Italian style as 
 practised in Italy, not its indulgence in unequal intercolumnia- 
 tions, its coupling of columns, its piling them on each other, 
 its employment of attics, pedestals, pilasters instead of 
 columns, broken entablatures, and stylobates. These were 
 not vices, but legitimate means of variety and originality in 
 architectural composition, wherein, as in poetical, there 
 must ever be some mutual concessions between reason and 
 feeling or emotion, who meet together in the arena of the 
 imagination. 
 
 The chief seats of the development of the Italian style have 
 been Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Bologna, Vicenza, 
 Naples, Genoa. Rome was perhaps the theatre of the 
 greatest architectural enterprises. Florence, the early seat 
 of the style, gave birth to a distinct phase or variety of it. 
 Genoa was a city of palaces. But in no city of Italy has 
 Italian architecture run so remarkable and interesting a 
 career as in Venice, where it was tinged 'with Byzantine 
 richness of decoration from the commencement. First we 
 have during the latter part of the fifteenth century and early 
 part of the sixteenth a most elegant style, transitional from 
 the early Renaissance of Florence, peculiar to the island- 
 city, and embodied there in buildings of singular beauty. 
 Next appeared the grander architectural development of the 
 Cinque Cento lasting about half a century, during which the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 117 
 
 most striking buildings in all Italy, for their beauty and suc¬ 
 cessful adaptation of ancient architecture to modern wants, 
 were produced. During the latter part of the sixteenth, and 
 nearly the whole of the seventeenth, many of the richest of 
 the palaces of the city were erected, though inferior in other 
 respects to those of former periods. After this, Venetian 
 architecture fell into the hands of foreigners, and lost its 
 distinctive character. 
 
 Having now traced the parent trunk of Italian architec¬ 
 ture through its entire length, from its earliest Renaissance 
 beginnings to the present time, we must proceed to an 
 account of its different branches, the earliest phases of which 
 took their rise or derived their first elements from the Italian 
 Renaissance. 
 
118 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN OFF-SHOOTS. 
 
 SPANISH 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN. 
 
 
 PAIN being more exclusively 
 Catholic, and under the influence 
 of the Roman clergy, was the 
 first country that received the 
 Italian Renaissance style, which 
 entered the Peninsula during the 
 reign of Isabella, in the last 
 quarter of the fifteenth century, 
 to pursue a very different course 
 from that it had run in Italy, or 
 was destined to run in France and 
 England. 
 
 The first thing that strikes the 
 attention in a review of the Spanish 
 Renaissance is its dreamlike variety of 
 design, and exuberant and romantic richness of decoration, 
 which are owing as much to the poetic spirit of the time, 
 and to the peaceful condition and financial prosperity of 
 the country, as to any superior aptness on the part of the 
 Spanish architects for architectural conception and design. 
 The spirit and character of the Middle Age, which, coloured 
 by Moorish literature and art, legend and romance, had, in 
 Spain, attained to its utmost perfection, and reached its last 
 exquisite bloom, continued and survived longer in that 
 country, embalmed in manners, ways of thinking, intellectual 
 culture, and works of imagination than in any other. And 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 119 
 
 its inspirations would be proportionably more vivid and 
 potent in the generation, development, and perfecting of the 
 architecture in question; which would be also favoured by 
 the direct and attractive example of the style of the expelled 
 Moors, and by the continued and inspiring demands of the 
 ancient art-loving religion, undisturbed by the convulsions 
 of the Reformation, as well as by the enormous wealth that 
 was poured into the country at the close of the fifteenth 
 century by the discovery and colonisation of America. 
 
 The style in question displays its merit chiefly in its sculp¬ 
 ture, which shows much of poetic and inventive fancy, and 
 embraces a vast and enchanting variety of figures of all 
 kinds, human and animal—beasts, birds, chimeras, &c., all 
 artistically rendered, and exuberantly lavished on doors, 
 windows, and other features. Its architecture, however, is 
 not uninteresting. It displays a very free and original 
 treatment of its classical elements, a lively fancy, and occa¬ 
 sionally great artistic taste and elegance of design; and is 
 pervaded by the spirit of composition of the declining Gothic, 
 many of the most prominent and aspiring features of which 
 it adopted and reclothed, which, with the Moorish feeling in 
 detail and decoration which also clings to it, renders it as 
 completely a Spanish variety of the Renaissance, as the 
 styles it supplanted were of the Gothic and Saracenic. 
 
 One of the earliest examples of this style, to which the 
 name of Plateresco has been given, and which first ap¬ 
 peared, as it is said, in the works of Giovanni de Olotzaga, 
 is the Hospital of Santa Cruz, at Toledo, built early in the 
 sixteenth century. The University of Alcala commenced in 
 1510 by Pedro de Gumiel, and finished in 1550 by Rodrigo 
 Gil Hontanon, is a rich specimen of its progress. The upper 
 arcade of the court of the episcopal palace shows the bracket 
 capital, which is here a beautiful and perfectly wrought-out 
 feature, fit for adoption anywhere. This was followed by 
 the Cathedral of Grenada, which is, in some respects, one 
 of the finest churches in Europe, and embodies rare speci¬ 
 mens of the peculiar character of ornament that distin¬ 
 guishes the style. The Cathedral of Jaen is also a worthy 
 
120 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 example of the style, though inferior to the last in plan. 
 The churches of Malaga and Segovia are also characteristic 
 examples well deserving of being noticed in a history of the 
 art. The fagade of the Alcazar Toledo, and Town Hall, 
 and Casa Zaporta, at Zaragossa, were built about the middle 
 of the same century, and were followed by the beautiful 
 Town Hall of Seville in 1560. 
 
 Alonzo Berruguette, who flourished* about this time, and 
 was architect of Charles V., erected the gate of San Martino, 
 the principal one at Toledo, and many other important works. 
 The palace of Charles Y. at Grenada, though it bears the 
 national impress, and is purely Spanish, is yet more classical 
 than preceding works, and shows the approach of the fully- 
 matured Italian, by which it was superseded. After this 
 the Renaissance died out, towards the close of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 The Italian style was introduced into Spain during the 
 latter half of the sixteenth century, about the same time as 
 in France, by Juan Baptista de Toledo, who designed, and 
 in the year 1563 laid the first stone of the monastery of St. 
 Lorenzo, called the Eseurial, and comprising a monastery, a 
 palace, church, and tomb. It is built on a plan intended, as 
 is said, to resemble a gridiron, the instrument of the martyr¬ 
 dom of St. Lorenzo ; but which does not (how could it, in¬ 
 deed, without sacrifice of convenience or propriety ?) keep 
 very close to its type. It was completed, both as regards 
 design and execution, by the pupil of the first architect, 
 Juan de Herrera, and is one of the finest palaces in Europe, 
 and the great national work of the Spaniards. 
 
 On this followed the cold Greco-Romano style of Herrera, 
 whose designs are characterised by a majestic simplicity 
 and severity, and a total absence of ornament, as if his aim 
 had been to show how independent is the style of sculptural 
 decoration, and how great the qualities that may be reached 
 by the magic of form and proportion alone. After Herrera, 
 whose manner received the name of Stilo Herreresco, owing 
 chiefly to the employment of foreigners, Italian and French, 
 the style became still less original, less Spanish than it was 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 121 
 
 in his hands—it lost the national and modern stamp, and 
 ignored or resisted those influences still rife in the Penin¬ 
 sula, which claimed to be mirrored in the works of the 
 architect, the strength and character of which it was their 
 especial province to reflect, and which had hitherto rendered 
 Spanish architecture so beautiful and peculiar. 
 
 One of the earliest examples of this style, which con¬ 
 tinued past the middle of the seventeenth century, is the 
 cathedral of Valladolid, by Herrera, though it is Spanish in 
 plan ; and within the period it embraced were designed, 
 early in the seventeenth century, the Palace de los Consejos 
 at Madrid, by Francesco Mora, and several buildings at 
 Toledo and Madrid, by Domenico Theotocupuli. The chief 
 work of the latter, who was proficient in painting and sculp¬ 
 ture, as well as architecture, was the church and monastery 
 of the Bernardine monks of San Dominico di Silos. 
 
 The style of Herrera was succeeded by the extravagant 
 and ridiculous style Churrigueresque, the ill effects of which 
 were experienced by most buildings in the kingdom. It was 
 a Spanish version of the Rococo, a rebound from the severity 
 of the school of Herrera, and was named from Don Jose 
 Churriguera and his sons, who flourished in the latter half 
 of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. 
 Besides the sons, it was practised by the Garcias de Qui¬ 
 nones, by Pedro de Ribera, Tome Gabilan, and by Tomas de 
 Jauregui and his disciples, who surpassed even the Churrig¬ 
 ueras themselves in absurdity. 
 
 It was continued, by a long series of architects, beyond 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, notwithstanding the 
 previous introduction into Spain, by Phillip V., of the 
 French architects, Cariier, Marchand and Brachelieu, and 
 of Filippo Ivara, Sachetti, and other Italians, who prepared 
 the way for Ventura Rodriguez, who, in 1750, established 
 the French Academical Italian style. 
 
 Within this almost fatal period, however, was erected the 
 Cathedral del Pilar, at Zaragossa, by Francesca Herrei a, the 
 largest and most celebrated church in Spain, also the elegant 
 tower, or steeple, of the Seo, in the same city; and towards 
 
122 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 its close, the cathedral of Santiago, in 1737, and the palace 
 at Madrid, by Sachetti. One of the most remarkable of 
 the few buildings worthy of notice that have since been 
 erected, is the Museo, at Madrid. 
 
 In Portugal, the Italian style is worthily represented by 
 the palace of Mafra, a larger composition than the Escurial, 
 and, externally, superior to it in design. It was erected 
 about 1725, from the designs of an architect named Ludo¬ 
 vico, said to have been a German. 
 
 FRENCH 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN. 
 
 The next country after Spain that became a recipient of 
 the Italian Renaissance was France, into which it was first 
 brought by some Italian artists in the reign of Charles 
 VIII. It was fully adopted in that of Francis I. from 
 whose great encouragement of it, it has received the name 
 of “Francois Premier,” though its earliest phase is 
 sometimes named, from the preceding monarch, “ Style 
 Louis XII.” Through the patronage of Francis several 
 eminent Italians, Serlio, Vignola, Primaticcio, and others, 
 visited France, and to their agency and influence in the 
 introduction of the style, and its development chiefly in 
 royal and important palaces, much of its distinguishing 
 classic grace and refinement must be attributed. It fell 
 early, however, into the hands of native architects, and 
 in consequence bears a completely national impress, pre¬ 
 senting the same love of elongated proportions which we 
 see in the French Gothic, the last phase of which—the Flam¬ 
 boyant—the French had been gradually fitting for civil 
 and general purposes by the infusion into it of much of the 
 horizontal principle of composition. This Flamboyant style 
 was concurrently practised during the entire Renaissance 
 period, and extends even into that of the succeeding Italian. 
 
 A good example of the “ Style Louis XII ” is the Hotel 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 123 
 
 de Ville, at Orleans. Here classic elements are combined 
 with both Gothic composition and detail, and the Gothic 
 spirit though sobered is still strong. One of the earliest ex¬ 
 amples of the “ Francois Premier ” style is the Bridge of 
 Notre Dame, at Paris, built at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. A somewhat later and very interesting example is 
 the Palace of Justice, at Dijon. After this comes Fontaine¬ 
 bleau, the work of Italian artists, the Chateaux de Bury and 
 de Anet, and the Church of St. Eustache, at, Paris, all more 
 or less successful examples; the first-named work being 
 perhaps the most romantic and picturesque composition in 
 Europe, displaying the utmost variety without deficiency 
 of unity, and provision for an endless play of light and shade. 
 The Palaces Chambord and Chenonceaux, and the Chateau 
 of Madrid, which follow these in order of time, are also im¬ 
 portant and interesting examples ; Chambord, the first 
 named palace, began in 1526, has an air of feudal grandeur, 
 and the Chateau of Madrid, at Paris, built about 1530, but 
 not now in existence, was a graceful and artistic design. 
 
 After these, was begun the Louvre, a block of which built 
 in 1540 by Lescot, with whom was associated Jean Gougeon 
 as sculptor, is singularly pure and correct for the age. The 
 episcopal palace at Sens, and the house of Agnes Sorel at 
 Orleans (facade to the Court), and a house in the Rue Pierre 
 Percee, in the same city, are late and very beautiful and 
 chaste specimens of the style, which it shows in a consistent 
 and perfected state, free from anything incongruous. The 
 Hotel de Ville, at Paris, built in or after the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, is also an advanced and pure specimen of 
 the style, which was superseded by the Italian about 1560, 
 into which, indeed, it had ripened by the gradual adoption 
 of a freer and bolder application of the antique. The two 
 styles are further blended by the descent into the Italian 
 of many features of the Renaissance, some even which that 
 style had inherited from the preceding Flamboyant, such as 
 high roofs, dormers, &c., forms which haunted the minds of 
 the French architects far into the new period. A taste for 
 the new style had been aided and diffused by the works of 
 
 G 2 
 
124 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Serlio, published in France. Indeed, owing to the influence 
 of that artist and other Italians employed by Francis I., the 
 pure Italian seems to have been occasionally practised from 
 the first, concurrently with the Renaissance, which, on the 
 other hand, was not entirely given up on the introduction of 
 Italian, but at least exerted an influence, if not sometimes 
 actually employed, to a late date. Bullant, who from his 
 purity of style, is considered the French Inigo Jones, with 
 Lescot and De Lorme, who had all wrought in the Renais¬ 
 sance, became practitioners of the Italian, which was inaugu¬ 
 rated by the commencement of the Tuileries in 1564, and 
 during the next two or three reigns ran a somewhat wild 
 and capricious career, and showed a grotesqueness and 
 coarseness which had been unknown in the style it suc¬ 
 ceeded. 
 
 The Luxembourg Palace and Church of St. Gervais, at 
 Paris, by De Brosse, who practised from 1600 to 1625, 
 shows the style correcting itself and acquiring the purer and 
 grander qualities of that of Louis XIV. The Luxembourg 
 Palace, being built by Marie de Medicis, betrays an influence 
 from the Florentine school of Italy. 
 
 In 1629 we have the domed church of the Sorbonne, by 
 Le Merrier, and in 1645 that of Yal de Grace, by F. 
 Mansart. In 1646 was built the church of St. Sulpice, by 
 Levau, which possesses some beautiful interior features. 
 About the middle of the century Perrault designed the 
 celebrated colonnade of the Louvre, one of the finest archi¬ 
 tectural objects in Europe; but by no means the only 
 meritorious portion of that great palace, among the ma¬ 
 jestic fagades of which other parts could be pointed to 
 which, for taste and elegance in the treatment and applica¬ 
 tion of the classic orders, have never been surpassed. While 
 there are not wanting those which show the capability of 
 the French architects of producing high qualities indepen¬ 
 dent of pilasters or columns—in which the Florentine or 
 Astylar principle of design has been most successfully carried 
 out, and to the attainment of a high degree of palatial 
 grandeur. In the last half of the century we have the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 125 
 
 triumphal gates of St. Denis and St. Martin, both original 
 designs, also the Chateau of Maisons, by F. Mansart, the 
 Palace of Meudon—the Hotel Soubise and the Hotel de 
 Noailles, a very elegant and pure example; and, lastly, by 
 J. H. Mansart, who practised from 1675 to 1708, the Palace 
 of Versailles and the dome of the Invalides—the former a 
 feelingless and prosaic conglomeration of architectural and 
 sculptural forms, without unity either of style or composi¬ 
 tion ; the latter, on the contrary, one of the most elegant 
 compositions, both externally and internally, that Europe 
 can boast. The great Trianon is by the same artist. To 
 this younger Mansart we owe the idea of grouping a number 
 of private houses together into a single design, so that they 
 wear the aspect, externally, of one great building. The 
 Place Vendome is a good example of it. 
 
 In the next half century, the first of the eighteenth, was 
 erected the Palace Bourbon, and in 1750, by Servandoni, 
 an Italian, the western fagade of St. Sulpice, one of the 
 grandest of modern Europe, and a work which had a 
 purifying influence at the time. Soon after this comes the 
 Ecole Militaire and Garde Meuble, at Paris, by the younger 
 Gabriel. 
 
 During the great age of architecture last described, that em¬ 
 bracing the reigns of Louis XIV. and his successor, there de¬ 
 veloped itself and flourished in France a style of decoration 
 called the Louis Quatorze, which is probably a descendant, 
 through the degenerate Italian style of Borromini, of the 
 Italian Renaissance ornamentation, though excluding many 
 of its more striking and characteristic elements. It is be¬ 
 lieved to have had its nearest type in the Chiesa del Gesu at 
 Rome. Though recognising the classic orders, and com¬ 
 prising many beautiful adaptations of their mouldings and 
 ornaments, yet, being unconstructive and not the growth ot 
 any structural necessity, it is essentially an ornamental style, 
 distinct from the general style with which it is associated, 
 and adapted only to interiors, the peculiar requirements of 
 which it was designed to meet. Styles there are in which 
 interiors have scarcely received their due recognition : the 
 
126 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Elizabethan style of interior decoration, for instance, was 
 identical with that of the exterior, and not sufficiently 
 modified to meet the difference of position, the interior de¬ 
 manding greater delicacy of proportion and ornamentation 
 than the exterior. The Louis Quatorze style, on the con¬ 
 trary, was too much detached—too unlike that employed 
 on the exterior. It was a radically distinct style from the 
 general style, of which it ought only to have formed an 
 element. 
 
 The chief aim of the style was effect by an infinite and 
 brilliant play of light and shade, produced by gilt stucco¬ 
 work, and which was the characteristic and leading element 
 of beauty, to which beauty of form was secondary. In the 
 decoration of walls, colour, unless in flat tints, was omitted, 
 and gilt stuccowork for a time almost superseded decorative 
 painting. 
 
 This style was followed by the Louis Quinze or Rococo 
 style of ornament, which was devoid of the grace of the 
 former style, of which it may be considered a corruption and 
 debasement—an inartistic and extravagant development of 
 its worst features. Exact symmetry was not essential in the 
 first style, but in this it was systematically disregarded. 
 
 The interior of the Palace of Versailles is the chief 
 example of the Louis Quatorze style, which commenced 
 with the reign of Louis XIV., in 1643, and was soon after 
 received in Italy, and diffused throughout Europe. It was 
 employed by Wren at St. Paul’s ; and, with the succeeding 
 Louis Quinze or Rococo style, which began with the reign 
 of Louis XV., in 1715, and ended in France in 1774, still 
 lives among cabinetmakers and carvers and gilders. 
 
 If not superseded, the taste for Rococo was undermined by 
 the purer style exhibited in the Church of St. Genevieve, 
 called the Pantheon—an edifice which, notwithstanding some 
 errors in judgment (the chief of which is the discrepancy in 
 point of scale between the order employed on the body of 
 the church and that surrounding the rotunda of the dome), 
 in chaste elegance, in classic grace and beauty, exceeded all 
 former efforts, and marked a great stride in advance. It 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 127 
 
 was designed and built by Soufflot in 1755, and shows the 
 style throwing off Yitruvian fetters, and purifying itself at 
 the Greek fountain-head of beauty. It has a very noble 
 interior, to the formation and adornment of which classical 
 features were correetly and effectively applied. 
 
 In 1768, the School of Medicine—-a consistent application 
 of the same pure style—was designed and built by Gondouin, 
 contemporary with whom was Antoine, the architect of the 
 Mint at Paris, who is said to have been the first who in¬ 
 troduced the Grecian Doric order in France. 
 
 The chaste Graaco-Roman style of the great work of 
 Soufflot fostered the taste for classic purity, till literal copy¬ 
 ing of the Antique was deemed necessary, and France 
 became the centre and chief seat of a purely Classic, or, as it 
 is sometimes called, Academic style, which more or less 
 influenced all Europe. Its first fruits appeared with the 
 present century, and the empire of the first Napoleon, in the 
 Bourse and the Madeleine. It was, however, short-lived in 
 France, which soon returned to originality, and only shows 
 itself in these and a few other public buildings. 
 
 The street architecture of this century is very artistic, and 
 seems to have suffered less than usual from the absurd re¬ 
 quirements of shopkeepers. Everywhere we perceive great 
 aim at originality, as well as the higher qualities of architec¬ 
 ture, and are reminded of the French Renaissance, into 
 which the French-Italian seems to be gradually transform¬ 
 ing itself. 
 
 The French, in their Renaissance and Italian, the former 
 of which, combining the picturesqueness of the Gothic with 
 the elegance of the Classic to a greater extent than is found 
 elsewhere, and the latter characterised by great grandeur 
 and beauty, have gone nearer to rival the Italians than any 
 other nation. The French Renaissance, while it luxuriates 
 in sculptural beauty, exhibits less of the grotesque and 
 barbarous than the English and Spanish. In it, generally, 
 the Classic details are made to harmonise with the Gothic 
 composition, without losing their Classic elegance of character, 
 which is a somewhat rare merit. In one or two early build- 
 
128 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ings, it is true, as in the Cathedral of Dijon, the orders are 
 so treated that they might as well have been buttresses, the 
 Classic spii'it having evaporated ; but in most others the com¬ 
 bination is highly satisfactory. At Chambord, for example, 
 the Chateau Madrid, Chateau de Bury, &c.,the Classic features 
 retain their full power in the composition, and charm the eye 
 as much as in any example of the subsequent style. In the 
 Italian style, generally speaking, the French treated their 
 materials in a freer and more original manner, and more fully 
 localised and nationalised them than we did, and can show a 
 larger number and variety of successful applications of the 
 style to modern purposes. We have a few public buildings, 
 as Whitehall, St. Paul’s, St. Stephen’s (Wallbrook), Bow- 
 steeple, Ratcliffe Library (Oxford), Somerset House, &c., 
 that will bear comparison with the buildings of a corre¬ 
 sponding class in any country. But the French have a 
 longer, a more unbroken, series of great and original edifices. 
 The career of French architecture has been more steadily, 
 more uniformly splendid than that of either Spanish or 
 English. The French seldom swerved from the true path— 
 seldom turned into the dry track of the arcliaiologist, or in¬ 
 dulged in Borrominian vagaries, but have gone on from 
 strength to strength ; and even at the present day are in 
 advance of other nations in originality. Their style was 
 awhile corrupt and grotesque at the close of the Renaissance 
 period, in the reign of the third and fourth Henries; but it 
 soon recovered itself, and rose to great grandeur and purity 
 under the rule of the Grand Monarque, which it retained 
 down to the Revolution, when the classical mania seized 
 upon France, which, however, was so far a sincere feeling 
 in that country that it expressed architecturally what the 
 people desired to manifest politically and socially—Roman 
 austerity. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 129 
 
 ENGLISH 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN. 
 
 The Renaissance style of architecture appeared later in 
 England, and was more slowly developed there than in 
 France or Spain. But nowhere did it receive more fully 
 the national impress. It was completely localised and 
 nationalised, and though influenced by Flanders, became 
 very distinct in character from any continental variety, even 
 from that of France, notwithstanding its embodiment in 
 edifices chiefly of a like class, namely, palaces and mansions 
 of the nobility and gentry; and not in churches. From the 
 name of the sovereign in whose reign it chiefly flourished it 
 is called Elizabethan. Like its Italian parent it was a 
 fusion of the Gothic and Classic styles—the orders and 
 details of the latter arranged according to Gothic principles 
 of composition; in its earlier phases not excluding even 
 Gothic detail. Its decorative elements, like the general 
 style, were also a derivation from the Italian Renaissance, 
 not of the earlier Renaissance, or Tre-Cento, for that had 
 passed away, and never appeared in France or England, but 
 of the style after it had undergone some changes. Owing 
 to further changes in the parent style from the time of 
 throwing off its English branch, they soon diverged in 
 character; and whilst, in the style of Italy, the cartouches 
 and strap-work ceased to appear, in the Elizabethan they 
 became prominent elements, and combined with conventional 
 foliage, and modified forms of the orders, and with ornaments 
 of prismatic character. 
 
 The English Renaissance, therefore, more nearly resembles 
 that of France and the Netherlands, than it does the style of 
 Italy. Its rise in England was entirely owing to foreigners, 
 Italian, German, and Flemish, whose respective works and 
 influences are easily traced. To the Flemish much tha tis 
 peculiar in the enrichments of the style may be referred. 
 Torrigiano, who visited England in 1518, was the first to 
 introduce it, in his tomb of Henry VII., where it combines 
 and coalesces with the Gothic. 
 
130 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 Holbein, an eminent German painter and architect, came 
 here in 1526, aud designed many important buildings— 
 through which he diffused a taste for the Renaissance, which, 
 however, was only occasionally adopted before the erection 
 of Somerset-place, London, 1546-49, attributed to John of 
 Padua, from which time it became gradually developed and 
 employed throughout England. 
 
 About the same time as Somerset-place, or, perhaps, 
 earlier, and during the reign of Henry VIII., the celebrated 
 Nonsuch Palace, Surrey, was commenced. In 1544 the 
 last-named architect, John of Padua, who wrought in a 
 chaste Italian manner, appears as architect to the King, and 
 practised in the new style, which a few years after was 
 taken up by John Thorpe, Theodore Heaves, of Cleves, 
 Thomas Holt, Inigo Jones, and exemplified in a long series 
 of important domestic edifices in different parts of the 
 country, among which we may particularise—the gateways of 
 Cains College, Cambridge, some of which are very beautiful 
 structures; Longleat House, probably by John of Padua, it 
 being one of the largest and purest specimens of the style 
 in England, with little of Gothic feeling about it, almost an 
 anticipation of the subsequent Italian; "Wollaton House, 
 which is a more genuine specimen of Elizabethan archi¬ 
 tecture, and a more grotesque and picturesque application of 
 the orders ; Holland House; Hardwick Hall; the chapel of 
 St. Peter’s College, Cambridge ; the gateway of schools at 
 Oxford, by T. Holt, a very noted specimen; Longford 
 Castle, a pure English building; Audley Inn ; Crewe Hall; 
 the quadrangle of Clare College, Cambridge, and fronts of 
 St. John’s College, Oxford, by Inigo Jones. All these are 
 more or less characteristic examples of the style, which died 
 out some time in the reign of Charles II., having had a 
 longer career, and lived to a later period, than either the 
 French or Spanish branches. It may be said to have 
 flourished from the accession of Edward VI. to the death 
 of James I., when it began to lose ground, though it did not 
 cease to be practised, through the erection of Whitehall 
 Banquetting House in 1620. During the reign of James I. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 131 
 
 all Gothic detail had vanished, and it became consistent and 
 pure. But it exhibited Gothic and English feeling to the 
 last, which feeling died with it, and did not enter into the 
 subsequent style as was the case in France, where the 
 Italian seems a continuation of the Renaissance, and merely 
 a more classic development of that style. 
 
 The style we have been considering, though by no means 
 the purest branch of the Italian Renaissance, though it too 
 frequently exhibited a grotesque and barbarous application 
 of the Classic orders and ornaments, is, nevertheless, one of 
 the most picturesque and interesting of styles, and is deserv¬ 
 ing of the attention that it has of late years received. If we 
 take it as it existed in its Jacobean period, when purified 
 from all Gothic detail, except what was involved in the 
 retention of oriel and bay windows, we shall discover in it 
 much that is logical and inti’insically good. Its many- 
 mullioned bay and oriel windows and porticoes, and verti¬ 
 cally-clustered masses, give a peculiar lightness and elegance 
 to its several aspects, in keeping with arboraceous features 
 around. Its gables, turrets, and cupolas, enriched and 
 perforated parapets and balustrades, grouped chimneys and 
 pinnacles, give a beautiful roofline to a rich and effective 
 composition •, while its terraces, which are peculiarly useful 
 in this humid climate to elevate the building above the damp 
 earth, unite the entire composition with the foreground of 
 the surrounding park or garden. About some of the more 
 important examples of the style there is something stately 
 and even noble. Their picturesque lines weave themselves 
 into intimate and harmonious connexion with the surround¬ 
 ing scenery, and become at home in coppice and garden, or 
 ancient park. 
 
 The same feeling pervades their interiors, which show 
 much of the same bold and enlightened application of paint¬ 
 ing and carving to wall and ceiling embellishment that 
 characterised their Italian prototypes, though, of course, far 
 behind them in artistic taste. 
 
 It may be noticed here, that from the beginning of the 
 sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century, there 
 
132 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 flourished a very peculiar Baronial Style in Scotland, 
 generated by the engrafting of certain bold features of the 
 French and Flemish domestic Renaissance architecture on 
 the Castellated style of Gothic and native growth. It is 
 embodied in buildings, remarkable for both picturesqueness 
 and originality. 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century the Italian style was 
 introduced into England, by Inigo Jones, by the erection of 
 the Banqueting-house, Whitehall, a very small portion of 
 his design for a royal palace, which, had it been realised in 
 its entirety, would have been, perhaps, the finest edifice of 
 its class in Europe. 
 
 The banqueting-house was completed about 1620. Jones’s 
 other chief works are, St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden ; 
 the river-gate of York-stairs, in the Strand ; Coleshill-house, 
 Berkshire; the Villa, at Chiswick; and Wilton-liouse, in 
 Wiltshire. The latter work shows he had so far mastered 
 the principles and theory of the style as to be able to do 
 something consistent and artistic without the aid of pilas¬ 
 ters, or columns. Inigo Jones, as we have seen, had been a 
 practitioner of the preceding style. 
 
 In 1666, the great fire created an unusual demand for 
 architectural talent, which was ably supplied by Sir C. Wren, 
 whose works are instinct with much of the spirit of the 
 antique, though he could only have known it through the 
 medium of prints. By him was designed, along with a 
 numerous series of churches of great merit, St. Paul’s Cathe¬ 
 dral, the domed Rotunda, and west front of which are among 
 the finest architectural objects in existence ; and seen in 
 conjunction as approached from Ludgate-street, compose a 
 scene of beauty and grandeur that, perhaps, no other edifice 
 in Europe can boast. 
 
 This structure stands out an embodied contradiction of the 
 position that the classical style of architecture is necessarily 
 monotonous and inflexible in its forms ; and that its adapta¬ 
 bility to a purpose different from that out of which it arose 
 consists merely in a mechanical possibility of joining a num¬ 
 ber of naturally unrelated parts ; for, while the porticoes and 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 133 
 
 ordinances of St. Paul’s are a pure expression of the epistylar 
 architecture of the ancients, one uniting and pervading spirit 
 of design animates and informs the whole, and constitutes it 
 an original and true work, distinct from any model or type 
 in foregone art. It fulfilled the calls of Christianity for the 
 highest ministrations of architecture, and remains a monu¬ 
 ment of the capability of the classical system, of embodying 
 the most refined taste, the highest religious sentiments, and 
 the loftiest poetry of the age and nation. The first stone 
 was laid in 1675, and it was completed in 37 years, within 
 the life time of the architect. 
 
 The campaniles, or bell-towers, of the many churches de¬ 
 signed by Wren, are deserving of notice for great originality, 
 and some of them for great beauty of design. His other 
 chief works are, the churches of St. Mary-le-Bow, and St. 
 Stephen’s, Walbrook; Greenwich Hospital; the Library of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge ; the Sheldonian Theatre at 
 Oxford ; Hampton Court Palace ; the Monument ; and 
 Temple Bar. His churches, for the most part, present us 
 with the pleasing phenomenon of geometrical ingenuity and 
 artistic taste, successfully applied to the forming and deco¬ 
 rating, with the most imposing features of the Italian style, 
 of Protestant places of worship. St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, 
 which is chiefly celebrated for uniting every grace of plan, 
 and every form of ceiling, horizontal, vaulted, groined, 
 pendentive, spherical, has the capital merit of exhibiting the 
 grandest features of architecture in an apartment of the com¬ 
 pact form and general proportion required by the Protestant 
 service, and without any obstruction of view or sound, or 
 other sacrifice of convenience. Greenwich Hospital has a 
 truly noble appearance, and forms a very grand architec¬ 
 tural group, though it owes its effect almost solely to colon¬ 
 nades and domes, and is independent of sculptural decoration, 
 of which scarce any is visible. 
 
 Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren, designed St. 
 George’s, Bloomsbury, which has a fine portico ; also St. 
 Mary’s, Woolnoth, chiefly remarkable for its unique interior, 
 which is probably an adaptation of the ancient peristylar 
 
134 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 hall, or atrium, perhaps, the Corinthian atrium of Vitruvius, 
 and which, both in composition and style, is conceived in the 
 true spirit of the subject; being chaste, dignified, and im¬ 
 pressive, despite a large and useful gallery, which is not in 
 the least obtrusive, or in any degree injurious to the artistic 
 effect of the whole. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, Sir John Vanbrugh exhibited 
 a very bold and pictorial style, examples of which are 
 to be seen in the mansion erected for the Duke of 
 Marlborough, at Blenheim; at Castle Howard, Yorkshire ; 
 and at Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire. He aimed at pictur¬ 
 esqueness and grandeur in his works, but by the means he 
 chiefly employed to secure the former quality, namely, the use 
 of orders of different heights in the same story, and the dis¬ 
 continuance of his entablatures, he greatly interfered with, 
 if he did not exclude, the latter ; to the creation of which 
 greater simplicity and unity is essential than generally 
 appears in his works. 
 
 James Gibbs designed St. Martin’s Church-in-the-Fields, 
 whose noble and classic exterior is an emphatic expression 
 of the arrangement of the interior. The steeple is badly 
 placed, but has the merit of greater simplicity than most of 
 Wren’s. Gibbs also designed the Ratcliffe Library, at 
 Oxford, a graceful domed rotunda of a serene and monu¬ 
 mental character appropriate to its purpose. 
 
 Contemporary with Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh, was Dean 
 Aldrich, whose steeple of All Saint’s Church, at Oxford, a 
 circular Corinthian peristyle, surmounted by a small and 
 graceful spire, is at least equal for classic beauty and ele¬ 
 gance, to any work of its class in England. 
 
 The practice of Anglo-Italian architecture was ably car¬ 
 ried on by Colen Campbell, who designed Wanstead-house, 
 1715, and Mereworth-house, in Kent; Richard Boyle, Earl 
 of Burlington, who designed Burlington-house; and William 
 Kent, whose style is best seen at Holkham-house, Norfolk, and 
 the Treasury-buildings, London ; by Wood, of Bath, whose 
 works in that city, and the Liverpool Town-hall, are fine spe¬ 
 cimens ; by Carr, of York, who designed Ilarewood-liouse; 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 135 
 
 by Sir Robert Taylor, and James Stewart, who produced 
 works, in which the influence of Greek models is visible; 
 by the Adams, who were original from inspiration of the 
 Roman architecture of the Dioclesian age, but not very 
 beautiful: Robert Adam designed Keddlestone-liall. 
 
 Sir William Chambers designed Somerset-house, the great 
 Courtyard and external facades of which are, perhaps, 
 unrivalled even in Italy. Among English edifices it is 
 for nothing more remarkable than for its completeness- 
 completeness, not only in architectural embellishments, but 
 in appropriate sculptural accessories, executed by eminent 
 artists, and of a high class of art. Its spectator feels 
 no want; all is perfect and satisfactory around him, and 
 he enjoys the pleasure arising from the presence and in¬ 
 fluence of unity and harmony of proportion and form, just 
 relation and balance of parts, and a due measure and distri¬ 
 bution of decoration. The river-front, seen from the water, 
 in conjunction with the massive open arcade of rustic-work 
 supporting its terraces, has a degree of grandeur possessed 
 by no other fagade in London, except the west front of 
 St. Paul’s. 
 
 Mr. Fergusson, who has in his recent “ Hand Book of 
 Modern Architecture,” spoken somewhat disparagingly of the 
 works and abilities of Chambers, thinks this fagade too low; 
 and certainly, additional height would have increased its 
 majesty of character; but it would, at the same time, by en¬ 
 tailing additional height elsewhere, have rendered the rest 
 higher than sufficient, and probably have had the effect of 
 diminishing the apparent magnitude of the great court. 
 
 Somerset-house shows how eminently suitable is the 
 Venetian-Italian style for a building of public offices—a 
 building requiring architectural greatness of character exter¬ 
 nally, but minutely divided within into several floors, and 
 many apartments. 
 
 The elder Dance designed the Mansion-house, and his son 
 the fagade of Newgate prison, which possesses great merit 
 for its truthful expression of its purpose, which is only 
 marred by the common dwelling-house character of the 
 
136 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 centre compartment—from which all due solidity and repose 
 is excluded by the numerous window openings. 
 
 A passion for Roman architecture in its virgin condition, 
 unwarmed by Italian genius, was engendered by the ap¬ 
 pearance, in 1750, of Dawkins and Wood’s “Illustrations of 
 Palmyra and Baalbec,” and led to the pure classic revival, 
 which, instead of prompting English architects to achieve 
 or attempt to achieve for themselves, that modification and 
 adaptation of the Roman architecture, which they had 
 hitherto allowed the Italians to make for them—to a direct 
 translation of the Roman into English, had in most cases 
 the contrary effect, and brought with it a vast amount of 
 copying from ancient examples, substituted for designing 
 and exercise of invention. The farther acquaintance with 
 the Greek acquired by the publication of Stuart’s “ Athens,” 
 which should have had no other effect than that of refining 
 the resuscitated Roman, only made matters worse, and in¬ 
 creased the servile adherence to precedent. 
 
 In the revived style or styles was Soane’s Bank of England ; 
 Carlton House, by Holland ; the London University, and 
 University Club House, Suffolk Street, both by Wilkins and 
 Gandy ; St. Pancras’ Church, by the In woods ; Fitzwilliam 
 Museum, Cambridge, by Basevi; faqades of British Museum, 
 by Smirke ; National Gallery, by Wilkins ; Custom House, 
 and St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, respectively, by J. Foster 
 and Elmes; and the Castle, Prison and A ssize Courts, Chester, 
 by Thomas Harrison ; the Birmingham Town Hall, &c. 
 
 Some of the works belonging to this period are as ridicul¬ 
 ous objects as could well be conceived—mere copies of 
 ancient examples, without adaptation to time or purpose, 
 and as unrelated to anything around them, as if they had 
 fallen from the moon ; generally an extravagant and senseless 
 lavishment of columns, applied with neither taste nor pro¬ 
 priety. There are others, however, which show that their 
 authors better understood the nature of their art, and were 
 capable of improving their opportunities. The Bank of 
 England, by Sir John Soane, who was an earnest seeker 
 after originality, though he sometimes sacrificed beauty to 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 137 
 
 novelty, was an enlightened application of antique architec¬ 
 ture, and evinced a glorious stride out of the beaten track, 
 while it showed the artistic capabilities of Graeco-Roman 
 architecture of new phases. 
 
 The Bank is not the only building deserving of high 
 praise : Carlton House, and other works by Henry Holland ; 
 the Fitz william Museum, at Cambridge ; the London Uni¬ 
 versity; the National Gallery; St. George’s Hall, Liverpool— 
 though they have their faults, and bear the marks more or 
 less distinctly, of imperfect conception of the architect’s 
 vocation on the part of their designers, are all nevertheless 
 true works. They are indeed Italian architecture in a 
 greater and nobler manner. 
 
 In Dublin the style is illustrated by several fine build¬ 
 ings, which, had they been erected in the English metropolis, 
 would have attained to a great celebrity:—The Bank of 
 Ireland, formerly the Parliament House, was designed, about 
 1735, by Penrose, architect to the Board of Works; the 
 Royal Exchange, about 1770, by T. Cooley; the Four 
 Courts, about the same time, by T. Cooley, succeeded by 
 J. Gandon ; the Customs House, 1799, by J. Gandon; St. 
 George’s Church, with a beautiful spire, and the Post Office, 
 1815, both by F. Johnstone. 
 
 In Edinburgh the style is no less worthily represented by 
 structures of the last and present century, designed by J. 
 Craig, R. Reid, J. G. Graham, W. H. Playfair, and others. 
 The Royal Infirmary, built in 1738, is said to have been 
 designed by William Adam, father of the brothers of that 
 name; the College, by Robert Adam, was begun in 1789, 
 and is one of the best of his works. 
 
 GERMAN 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN. 
 
 The Renaissance style penetrated into Germany later than 
 elsewhere; owing to which, it is a farther-advanced and 
 
138 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 riper style than any other. One of its earliest examples is the 
 part of Heidelberg Castle engrafted on the older buildings, 
 1556-59—a work that may vie with the best specimens of 
 Renaissance in any country. Its style is founded somewhat 
 on the Lombard Renaissance, though with a well-marked 
 character of its own. 
 
 Another good specimen is the Belvidere at Prague. The 
 portal of the Town Hall of Cologne, built a few years after, 
 is a most judicious and artistic application of the style, and 
 one of the finest works in Germany. St. Michael’s Church, 
 Munich, by Muller, built about 1590, is an early ecclesias¬ 
 tical example, and one of the most remarkable churches of 
 the age. The Dom, at Salzburg, was built in 1614, and 
 shows the style ripening into Italian. Next comes, the 
 Town Halls of Augsburg and Nnremburg, and, in the same 
 age, the Martinsburg, at Mayence. 
 
 After this, a gap occurs in the architectural history of 
 Germany, which is accounted for by the devastating in¬ 
 fluence of the thirty years’ religious war, occasioned by the 
 Reformation, from 1618 to 1648. In 1685, we have the 
 Arsenal at Berlin, by Nehring, one of the best works of 
 the day. In 1699 were erected portions of the Royal Palace 
 at Berlin, by Andreas Schliiter; and close to the same time, 
 the Palace at Schonbrunn, near Vienna, for the Emperor 
 Joseph, and the Palace of Prince Eugene at Vienna, by 
 Fischers, whose works, though not without merit, show too 
 much of the influence of the school of Borromini. Those 
 here named have not escaped it. 
 
 In 1711 was erected the fragment of the Zwirner Palace, 
 Dresden, the style of which is an exaggeration of the Rococo 
 style of Louis XV. In 1716 appeared the Japanese Palace, 
 Dresden, a very artistic and rationally-conceived design. 
 Contemporary with this was the Church of San Carlo Bor- 
 romeo. In 1726 was built the Liebfrauen Kirche, Dresden, 
 which is a square-domed church, with circular colonnaded 
 interior. It is a most graceful and beautiful composition, 
 and of a form and plan eminently suited to Protestant wor¬ 
 ship. By John B. Neumann was designed the Episcopal 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 139 
 
 Palace at Wurzburg (1720-44). In 1737 appears the Hof 
 Kirche, Dresden; in 1750 the Cathedral at Berlin; and in 
 1760 the New Palace of Frederick the Great, at Potsdam. 
 H. G. W. von Knoblesdorf was employed on many works 
 by Frederick II.; he died in 1753, and was succeeded by 
 Langhans, whose chief work is the Brandenburg Gate at 
 Berlin, built in 1784, which owes too much to the Propylea 
 at Athens to be classed with original works, and entitled to 
 the praise that has been lavished on it. It marks, however, 
 the improvement of taste in Germany, though the credit is 
 due to Knoblesdorf, the predecessor of Langhans, of having 
 prepared the way for it. 
 
 During the last quarter of the eighteenth and first of the 
 nineteenth century flourished the two Fischers, by whom 
 some good works were designed. 
 
 Germany suffered so much from the struggles of the 
 Reformation that we can scarcely expect to find the German- 
 Italian vieing in artistic excellence with the corresponding 
 style of either France, England, or Spain. It is to this that 
 any deficiency is owing, and not to incapacity on the part of 
 the Germans, who did great things in Gothic, both Round 
 and Pointed. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, they have not made a good use 
 of the splendid opportunity, afforded them within the pre¬ 
 sent century, by the munificent patronage of architecture 
 shown by Ludwig of Bavaria. They went, indeed, to the 
 fountainhead for their models; to the same source as 
 the Italians themselves, namely, the pure Classic of Rome 
 and Greece. But the immense wealth and patronage has 
 been spent in ignoring originality, by the reproduction, for 
 modern uses, of almost every celebrated building of Classic 
 antiquity, and without advancing the style one step in 
 its proper application and adaptation to the purposes of 
 the day. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the predilections of the King, it 
 is, I think, the architects who are chiefly to blame, who, had 
 they rightly represented the matter to their Royal patron, 
 would not have been required to go against their convictions 
 
140 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 of what was the true course of art, and the proper use and 
 application of the architecture of the past. 
 
 The Prussians have done better, as witness the Museum, 
 and other public buildings, by Schinkel, Stiller, &c., at Berlin, 
 where, during the present century, the Classical architecture 
 has been ably adapted to the requirements of modern 
 German habits and modes of life, and elegantly and suc¬ 
 cessfully applied to most purposes, especially domestic. 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN IN THE 
 NETHERLANDS. 
 
 The Renaissance was introduced into Belgium about the 
 middle of the sixteenth century. The town-halls of Ant¬ 
 werp and Ghent are good specimens of it. The former was 
 built by C. Van Vriendt, in 1564. This was followed by the 
 church of San Carlo Borromeo ; the church of St. Anne 
 Bruges; the church of the Carmelites, Ghent, and others; 
 nost of them showing the over decorated style of ornamen¬ 
 tation generally employed by the Jesuits of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 In civil and in military buildings, owing to Spanish domi¬ 
 nation, the Spanish Plateresco was employed in Belgium, as 
 seen in some town-halls and many of the private houses, as 
 well as in military structures built between the middle of 
 the sixteenth and the end of the following century. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the Italian style was intro¬ 
 duced from France, in which, though considerable talent is 
 exhibited, there is a deficiency of originality, and too faint a 
 trace of the national impress. The legislative palace, at 
 Bruxelles, begun by Guymard in 1799, is a specimen of this 
 style. During the present century, at least since 1815, con¬ 
 siderable activity in architectural operations has been shown 
 in Belgium, and many important works erected, but little 
 that can call forth the admiration of the judicious critic, or 
 is deserving of particular notice in a history of the art. 
 
 The Flamboyant style, which prevailed in Holland during 
 the Burgundian period of its history, was superseded, after 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 141 
 
 its declaration of independence, by the Renaissance, which 
 style presents itself in the Hotels de Ville, at Alkmaar, Veer, 
 and the Hague, in the Huis den Hoofden, at Amsterdam, 
 &c., which were built about the period of the long war, 
 and exhibit a quaintness and peculiarity of design, and a 
 picturesqueness of outline, which go far to redeem their 
 general heaviness of elfect. 
 
 The Dutch Renaissance, which prevailed from about 1600 
 to 1700, was an effective, picturesque, and truthful style— 
 a truly national and original variety of the Renaissance, 
 exactly suited to Dutch habits,,and a reflex of Dutch modes 
 of thought. 
 
 Henry de Keyser, who was a zealous advocate of Classical 
 architecture, and author of one of the earliest modern trea¬ 
 tises on the subject, published in North-Western Europe, 
 designed and built the town-hall at Delft, with the Oude 
 and Zuyder churches, at Amsterdam. Yan Kampen erected 
 the town-hall at Amsterdam; and Pierre Post, author of 
 Ouvrages d’Architecture, designed the museum, at the Hague, 
 the town-hall, at Maastricht, &c. Vingbooms erected the 
 museum at Amsterdam, and many of the best residences 
 upon the Kaisers and the Heeren Grach ten, at Amsterdam. 
 
 This style was succeeded about the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, by the Italian, which, being introduced 
 from France, brought with it too much of French taste and 
 manner, and too much imitation of Parisian edifices for its 
 healthful and vigourous development, and adaptation to 
 Dutch requirements. Dutch architecture is, however, be¬ 
 ginning to assume a more original aspect, which is observ¬ 
 able in some new churches, and other buildings, in Rotter¬ 
 dam and Amsterdam. 
 
 RENAISSANCE AND ITALIAN IN SCANDINAVIA. 
 
 The Renaissance style arose in Scandinavia early in the 
 seventeenth century. The exchange at Copenhagen, erected 
 and said to have been designed by Christian IY. (1622-4), 
 who has the reputation of having been a good architect, is a 
 
142 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 characteristic specimen of it, as is also the castle, or chateau, 
 of Rosenborg, in the same city, attributed to Inigo Jones. 
 The castle of Fredericksborg, built by Christian IV. in 1630, 
 is a palatial and picturesque edifice, in good Renaissance. 
 
 In 1700, was built the palace of Fredericksboi’g, Copen¬ 
 hagen, in the full Italian style, which the new portion of the 
 city of Copenhagen, built in the early part of the last cen¬ 
 tury, shows successfully applied to street architecture. 
 
 The royal palace, at Stockholm, erected by Charles XTL 
 in 1608, is in the Florentine, or Astylar-Italian style, and 
 is justly admired for its truly palatial qualities—its simpli¬ 
 city and grandeur in composition—its artistic elegance and 
 purity of detail. 
 
 The Italian style is further illustrated in Copenhagen and 
 Stockholm, by theatres, churches, royal and other great 
 residences, and various classes of structures. 
 
 ITALIAN IN RUSSIA. 
 
 The Italian style was introduced into Russia in the reign 
 of Peter the Great, some time early in the last if not within 
 the seventeenth century, and in it Quarenghi, Tressini, 
 Rastrelli, and other Italian architects, and some French, 
 English, and German ones have erected many fine buildings, 
 chiefly at St. Petersburg, the truly palatial appearance of 
 which beyond that of almost any other European capital, 
 and which has been constantly increasing from the time of 
 Peter the Great, shows the grandeur the Venetian or Palla- 
 dian style (the style almost universally adopted in Russia) is 
 capable of producing. 
 
 The church in the Citadel of St. Petersburg, begun by 
 Peter the Great, from designs by Tressini, is an early ex¬ 
 ample. It is on the plan of the Latin basilica, and shows 
 the style already influenced by Russian national character¬ 
 istics. Smolnoy Monastery, St. Petersburg, built 1734, by 
 Rastrelli, bears much more of the national impress. It is a 
 good general design and composition, and has a very solemn 
 expression, appropriate to its destination, but it is coarse, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 143 
 
 inelegant, and feelingless in its details, and is moreover 
 disfigured by its grotesque Tartar domes, which are far too 
 large for the masses they surmount. 
 
 In 1754 was built the winter palace of the Empress 
 Elizabeth, also by Rastrelli, in praise of which but little can 
 be said. 
 
 The church of St. Nicholas and the church of Our Lady 
 of Kasan, at St. Petersburg, are important and original 
 works, the former is remarkable for its unique plan, and the 
 latter for its semicircular colonnade, and the fifty-six granite 
 columns with bronze capitals of its interior. It is by a 
 Russian architect? Varonikin. 
 
 Other important churches of this century are the Church 
 of the Greeks, the Church of St. Catherine, and the Great 
 Church of St. Isaac, by the Chevalier de Montferrand. The 
 last-named is poor and common-place in design, and without 
 beauty, except what it has borrowed from our St. Paul’s, and 
 the prostyles of the antique, which latter, however, are 
 applied in the most feelingless and prosaic manner possible. 
 The dome, and the rotunda which it surmounts, are literally 
 copied from the great work of Wren. 
 
 The palace of the Grand Duke Michael, built in 1820, 
 the Admiralty, by ZucharofF, and the Bourse, are fine ex¬ 
 amples of the style : the palace has great elegance and a 
 truly palatial air, and the Admiralty is an original and 
 poetic design. 
 
 What is called the revival of pure classic, or the abandon¬ 
 ment of the Italian stream of art for its antique fountain 
 head, does not seem to have reached Russia till within the 
 last twenty or thirty years. The great monument of this 
 movement is the new museum, St. Petersburg, by Klenze, 
 which is one of his best and most original productions, being 
 a refined and artistic work, carried out with great taste and 
 feeling in applying the pure Greek style to a modern 
 purpose. 
 
 The Russian branch of the Italian architecture, though 
 chiefly practised by foreign architects, has not been unin¬ 
 fluenced by local circumstances and by national predilec- 
 
144 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 tions and character. The Tartar feeling that still lingers 
 among the Russians, and the love for Muscovite forms, has 
 shown itself in their works, and adds great interest and 
 beauty to it. But when the architecture gets into the hands 
 of native artists, and we believe such are now springing 
 up, these circumstances must still further colour and enrich 
 it; and render it more peculiar than it has hitherto shown 
 itself. In Russian architecture we should naturally expect 
 to see traces of the style of the Greek church, which would 
 have a beautifying influence on it, and also of the severity 
 of the climate, which should thicken the walls and steepen 
 the roofs, and further show itself in the creation everywhere 
 of covered and enclosed porches, all of which processes 
 would influence the decorative character of the style. 
 
<0F ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 145 
 
 COROLLARY. 
 
 URSUANT of our purpose, we have 
 traced, however imperfectly, the en¬ 
 tire history of architecture from its 
 Oriental fountain-head in Egypt and 
 Assyria, through Greece, Etruria, and 
 Rome, and its numerous mediaeval 
 ramifications, on to the renewal of its 
 youth in the Renaissance and Italian, 
 which have been also followed through 
 all their various changes, and exa¬ 
 mined in all their branches. Be¬ 
 sides these, we have rapidly glanced 
 at the outlying or alien styles, whose 
 origin and relations cannot be traced to 
 the main family of styles, as the Indian 
 and Central American groups. We have entered, more 
 or less fully, into the history of all known styles; but a 
 review of the history of the world must convince us that 
 these are far from being all that have existed, and that 
 not only edifices innumerable must have perished, but 
 that styles must have passed away, and become either 
 utterly lost, or are sleeping in the bowels of the earth, 
 waiting for another Layard and Rawlinson to recall them to 
 the light. 
 
 We have the style of the most ancient nation, the Egyp¬ 
 tians, and know something of that of the Assyrians, Baby¬ 
 lonians, and Persians. But where are the styles of the 
 Phoenicians, Carthagenians, Syrians, and other of the early 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 nations ? The style of the Phoenicians, which they gave to the 
 Jews about 1000 b.c., was no doubt, from the description of 
 Josephus, very similar, if not identical, with that of the Assy¬ 
 rians, but in process of time it would receive the Punic stamp, 
 and be made their own. The Carthagenians, again, would 
 receive their style from the Phoenicians, as they did their 
 religion, and make it theirs by modification, and adaptation to 
 local conditions. But where is this style—the style of the 
 great Carthage ; and where is its Phoenician parent ? It is 
 not probable that a people of the commercial and maritime 
 enterprise of the Phoenicians, who, thirteen centuries b.c., 
 colonised and introduced letters, music, and the art of work¬ 
 ing metals, and many of its religious ceremonies into Greece, 
 and the workmanship of whose artists was celebrated in the 
 Greek towns of Asia Minor, as early as the time of Homer, 
 Avould be satisfied with a borrowed architecture developed 
 by another nation, and which had received no artistic pecu¬ 
 liarities and characteristics from themselves. Such a people, 
 I think, must have had a style which they could cal) their 
 own, and a noble one too, though it might betray its Assyrian 
 parentage, and show besides the strong influence of Persia 
 and Egypt, if not of Greece. 
 
 Where is the architecture of the Lydians; of the Phry¬ 
 gians ? What was the style of the palaces and temples, beaten 
 down by the Greeks at the siege of Troy ? Where are the 
 styles ofPergamus, Bythinia, Galatia; of the great Mithri- 
 dates, at Pontus ; of Cappadocia; of ancient Sicily, before 
 they became Roman provinces ? Where is the architecture 
 of the Iberians and Carthagenians, in Spain ? What was 
 the Celtic style of the Gauls and Britains, of which the 
 cromlechs and huge stone circles, at Stonehenge and Aubry, 
 are mysterious relics ? Where are the styles of all these 
 nations, and others in the ancient world, which must have 
 had as many styles, or varieties, and off-shoots of styles as 
 the modern ? The styles, or varieties of styles, of the Medi¬ 
 aeval and modern world are as numerous as the nations, and 
 so should we find those of the ancients, had we the means of 
 tracing them. The universal monarchies, the Assyrian, Baby- 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 147 
 
 Ionian, Persian, Macedonian, &c., would each, no doubt, 
 spread for a time their own styles, which we have. But 
 these monarchies were of short duration ; and the conquered 
 nations, on being freed from their yoke, would return, gene¬ 
 rally speaking, to their own methods and principles of con¬ 
 struction. Where are the exemplifications of these. Some 
 of them, let us hope, are where the ancient palaces of 
 Nineveh and Persepolis were till lately, awaiting architec¬ 
 tural and archaiological enterprise to exhume and restore 
 them to the world. Such will be forthcoming in due season. 
 In the meantime, we must be content with what we have; 
 and with reference to these, or the styles they illustrate, I 
 trust, I have fulfilled my self-imposed task, which was to 
 show the laws of relation, by which they may be united, 
 and for the most part traced to their great fountain-head, or 
 heads, in antiquity. 
 
 A careful review of the ground we have traversed will 
 show us, I think, that the most potent influences that have 
 been brought to bear upon the career of architecture are those 
 of religion and race. Certainly the most marked diversities 
 of styles are the result of religious and national distinc¬ 
 tions. While climate, local scenery, and geological struc¬ 
 ture only give rise to varieties, religion and race produce 
 different species, and even genera. The two greatest 
 styles of the ancient world, the Egyptian and Greek, were 
 chiefly embodied and reached their perfection in edifices 
 arising out of the needs of religion; and though it is, as I 
 believe, a mistake to suppose that, because its earliest known 
 monuments are temples, that architecture itself was born in 
 the service of religion—as the temples of paganism could 
 only have originated in the corruption of pure religion into 
 idolatry—it is, nevertheless, religion which guided and de¬ 
 termined the form and course of development of all ancient 
 styles, and is the potent cause why, while temples are almost 
 the entire architectural manifestation in one country, temples 
 do not appear at all in others. In the earliest ages men 
 believed in and worshipped one supreme God, though they 
 paid adoration at the same time to the stars or angels and 
 
 h 2 
 
148 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 intelligences which they supposed to reside in them, and to 
 govern the world under the Sovereign Ruler. When and 
 where this worship prevailed, which it did to a great extent 
 in Arabia, and Mesopotamia, and ancient Babylonia, whose 
 priests were called Chaldees, no temples would be built, and 
 the architecture would flow into other channels, chiefly 
 palatial. But in course of time this pure Sabsean worship of 
 the stars became corrupted. Images were made to represent 
 the angels or spirits of the planets, and the consequence was 
 that the unthinking came to worship them as gods, which 
 led to the polytheism and temples of the Egyptians, Greeks, 
 and Romans. The palaces, however, to which Sabasism con¬ 
 fined architecture at an early period in some countries, were 
 not uninfluenced in their form and character by religion, for 
 both in Egypt and Assyria, as men believed, not only in the 
 divine right but in the divine nature of kings, regal state 
 partook in some measure of religious adoration, which caused 
 the palaces to assume much of the temple character. The 
 Magian religion, or Fire-worship, which some writers errone¬ 
 ously confound with Sabseism, though it probably grew out 
 of that belief, which encouraged also a veneration for fire, 
 did not degenerate into idolatry, and this caused the perpetual 
 absence of temples, properly so called, among the Medes and 
 Persians and others of its votaries, and even influenced 
 the earlier ages of the architecture of the Mahommedan 
 Persians, who did not begin to build mosques till the 
 thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. 
 
 The distinctions of religion distributed the styles of the 
 world, as they existed in the middle ages, into four groups or 
 species of styles, each showing many varieties, namely, the 
 Gothics and Romanesques, the styles of the Western or 
 Latin Church; the Byzantines, the styles of the East or 
 Greek Church ; the Saracenics, the styles of Mahommedan- 
 ism; the Indian and Chinese, the styles of Paganism. And 
 there are no instances of any community adopting, for any 
 length of time, the style of another religion unmodified, 
 though styles of different religions sometimes mingled their 
 elements, namely, the Moresque, a cross between Spanish- 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 149 
 
 Gothic and Saracenic; Norman-Sicilian, formed by the 
 engrafting of Italian-Romanesque on the Sicilian-Saracenic, 
 and a mixed Indian style, which, from its constituents, may 
 be called Moslem-Hindu. 
 
 But man has given expression in architecture to his national 
 feelings as well as to his religious; and the influence of the 
 inherent mental peculiarities of race is everywhere seen, and 
 makes as broad a general distinction in the chart of architec¬ 
 tural history. Races incapable of the loftier flights of artistic 
 inspiration have had a comparatively humble architecture, 
 whatever their religion may have been. But those nations 
 in whose mental organisation the higher faculties have had full 
 development have given the highest material expression to the 
 nobility of man’s nature ; in other words, have produced archi¬ 
 tecture of the loftiest and sublimest qualities. It was an in¬ 
 fusion of energy from new races, uncorrupted by the luxuries 
 and vices of old civilisations, into Italy and France, that gave 
 vigour to the Lombard and Norman styles. It was distinctions 
 of race that chiefly caused the difference between the Gothic 
 and Byzantine styles, which were for very similar versions 
 of the same religion. The architectural revolution, produced 
 by the Norman invasion of Apulia and Sicily in each of these 
 countries, were the result of race. It was the propensities 
 of race which led several cities of Italy, though their Celtic 
 populations were of the same religion as the Gothic tribes, to 
 preserve along with Roman civilisation their Romanesque 
 architecture in its classic spirit, centuries after the same 
 architecture had become Gothicised elsewhere. It was the 
 same national propensity of the Italians which infused so 
 much of classic feeling into the Italian-Gothic, and rendered 
 it so dissimilar in spirit to that of Germany, France, and 
 England. The round towers of Ireland, and the dismantled 
 churches with which they are connected, are foot-prints in 
 that country of the influence of race upon architecture. It 
 was the tomb-building propensity of certain races to which 
 we owe the pyramids of Egypt, and nearly all that remains 
 of the architecture of the Pelasgi and Etruscans. The pro 
 pensity to build tombs, which are the most durable monu- 
 
150 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 ments erected by man, rendered the style of the Pathan, and 
 Mogul-Tartars, in India, one of the noblest and richest 
 architectural systems in the world ; while the absence of such 
 structures, and of the stone domes, which are the offspring 
 chiefly of the round tomb, from the architecture of the 
 Spanish Moors, who had no Tartaric blood in their veins, 
 imparted to their whole style its very fragile and ephemeral 
 character. 
 
 Difference of race, like difference of religion, has divided 
 the styles of the world into groups, so that they have a general 
 ethnographic arrangement as well as a theological, which 
 may be expressed thus from West to East:—Teutonic, 
 Celtic, Slavonic, Arabian, Tartar: the Teutonic branches 
 being those of the Gothic styles; the Celtic of the Roman¬ 
 esque ; the Slavonic of the Byzantine; the Arabian of the 
 earlier varieties and developments of the Saracenic; the 
 Tartar of the later. 
 
 The generation and development of all the great styles of 
 the world—West and East—Christian Romanesque, Byzan¬ 
 tine, Gothic, Saracenic, from the great Roman stem, was 
 indeed almost entirely the achievement of the influences of 
 religion and race. The introduction of Christianity among 
 the Romans, who were already possessed of architecture, in 
 engendering a spirit of hatred to Paganism and all its asso¬ 
 ciations, and originating new material wants, in the shape 
 of a new kind of temple, gave a new direction to the style, 
 and produced, from the womb of the Pagan Romanesque, 
 the early Christian Romanesque ; which was not, however, 
 so new a style as was afterwards generated when, added to 
 the genius of the new religion and its architectural require¬ 
 ments, the moral energies and characteristics of new races 
 were brought to bear upon the classic element. These pro¬ 
 duced the Byzantine and the Gothic, which were completely 
 new architectural creations. From a desire on the part of 
 the architects of Constantinople to raise their architecture to 
 the height of its great subject, operating on Greek feeling 
 and Oriental imagination, came the electric spark which 
 gave life and motion to the former—a style peculiarly fitted 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 151 
 
 by its great solemnity of expression and other attributes for 
 devotional erections. And from the genius, moral energies, 
 and national peculiarities of the various Teutonic tribes who 
 overthrew the Roman empire, and established themselves 
 within its different provinces, on their conversion to Chris¬ 
 tianity, came the various Gothics of the north. It was the 
 national characteristics of new races, combined with the 
 spirit, creed, and requirements of a new religion, that called 
 out of the wombs of the Byzantine, Roman, and Roman¬ 
 esque, Middle Persian, or Sassanian, and Hindu—the various 
 Saracenics; which were generated by the mighty influence 
 of Mahommedanism, operating in various countries, among 
 various nations, and on various prototypes, influenced no 
 doubt by principles and elements of more ancient Oriental 
 arts and literature—Egyptian, Assyrian, Persepolitan, Ara¬ 
 bian, and others, of which we have neither vestige nor 
 record ; while the later modifications of Arabian architecture 
 were owing to the introduction into the Mahommedan com¬ 
 munity of nations, of new races—-Seljukian and Ottoman 
 Turks, Pathan and Mogul Tartars, &c. 
 
 If either the fate of religions or the migrations of races 
 and tribes had been different, it is plain that the career of 
 architecture had been different also. If, for instance, Ma¬ 
 homet had never assumed the prophetic office, the Saracenic 
 styles would never have existed, and we should see on the 
 east side of the great central stem of architectural history so 
 many more branches or varieties of Byzantine, the style of 
 Eastern Christianity, or of Middle Persian, the style of the 
 Fire Worship, which would, like their respective religions, 
 have probably divided the East between them; while, in 
 the absence of the influence of Saracenic architecture from 
 Western Europe, the Gothic would, perhaps, have retained 
 more of the attributes of Lombardic and Norman simplicity 
 and grandeur, qualities which were too much overlooked in 
 the progress of its Pointed development. 
 
 If, on the other hand, Charles Martel had not stemmed 
 the tide of Mahommedan conquest in Europe in the eighth 
 century, by his victory at Tours, the Gothic might have 
 
152 
 
 TIIE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 been nipped in the bud, or never have existed; and we 
 should find, instead of its numerous branches, so many 
 western counterparts of the Saracenic styles. But the 
 Gothics would never have existed had Rome retained her 
 power in the West a few centuries longer. The place they 
 occupy would have been supplied by so many Romanesques, 
 which we can scarce doubt would have been elaborated by 
 a succession of Classic architects, whom reverence for their 
 great predecessors would never have suffered to take sufficient 
 liberties with the proportions of the Greek style for its con¬ 
 version into anything approaching to what we recognise as 
 Gothic—a styie so different in its spirit and principle of 
 composition from the Classic. Great and beautiful as is 
 the Gothic system of architecture, it could never have come 
 to us but through the artistic darkness and barbarism of the 
 middle ages; for none but men who knew nothing of Classic 
 canons of art, and over whom Greek and Roman tradition 
 had no authority, could have made so bold a departure from 
 the architectural style, that was at the time all but universal, 
 as the Lombard and other Teutonic tribes made. We are 
 indebted to an outburst of barbarism in the fifth century, 
 which destroyed the civilisation of the ancient world, and 
 plunged Europe for ages in mental gloom, for the greatest 
 system of architecture that has arisen since the Hellenic 
 Greek ; and to the rise of an illiterate Arab in the seventh, 
 calling himself a prophet, and propagating his doctrines 
 by the sword, for another which beautified and gave ad¬ 
 ditional charms to the fairest countries of the globe, and 
 which, if not so great and sublime as the Gothic, is never¬ 
 theless an art framed in the true spirit of poetry, wherein 
 purity and elegance of form and detail, splendour and 
 perfection of colouring have been carried to their utmost 
 limits. 
 
 I have already alluded to the influence of styles upon 
 each other, which is a powerful agent in their development. 
 Next to that of religion and race upon styles, the most 
 potent influence is the mutual one of contemporary styles. 
 A remarkable instance of this is seen in the effect of the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 153 
 
 Oriental styles upon those of the West through the medium 
 of the Crusades, which, emptying all Europe into Asia, 
 must have brought back much of Asia in return. The re¬ 
 miniscences of Saracenic art in Syria and Palestine, and of 
 Byzantine in Constantinople, of the soldiers of the Cross 
 who brought home with them on their return from Asia a 
 taste for that gorgeous use of colour in architecture which 
 the Greeks and Arabians had so successfully made in the 
 various countries which they respectively ruled, may be 
 looked upon as an orb which, though its light was but a 
 reflected one, exercised a powerful influence on European 
 architecture. It led to the introduction of the pointed arch, 
 and to the perfection of the Gothic styles in the various 
 European nations-—events which were simultaneous, or 
 nearly so, with the outburst of modern vernacular poetic 
 literature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the same 
 countries. In Spain, Saracenic art, through its actual exist¬ 
 ence in that country, had a more direct power on the Gothic, 
 which drank so deeply into the spirit of the Moorish art as to 
 show a striking difference from the contemporary styles of 
 England, France, and Germany. But in other countries be¬ 
 sides Spain, styles have shown evidence of the insensible action 
 upon them of other styles practised in their neighbourhood, 
 or of the intercourse of artists through that of nations prac¬ 
 tising different styles. The Sassanian style, it is believed, 
 owed much to inspiration and enrichment from Constanti¬ 
 nople, between which and the Court of Persia great inter¬ 
 course existed at the time, while it had an influence in 
 return on the Eastern Christian style. The influence which 
 the latter exercised on the formation of the Round Gothic, 
 and which is chiefly exhibited in the Lombard and Rhenish 
 churches is well-known. The intercourse of the Scotch with 
 continental nations, especially France, rather than with 
 England, caused their Gothic style to show more affinity to 
 the French than the English. And it is probably for like 
 reasons that Irish Gothic exhibits a similarly foreign phy¬ 
 siognomy. The close proximity of the revived architecture 
 of the Romans in Italy to the Italian Gothic pervaded it 
 
 h 3 
 
154 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 with a Gothic feeling, and produced what is strictly and 
 properly the Renaissance. 
 
 Events involving changes in man’s political and social 
 condition or literary or scientific status exert, for good or 
 evil, an influence on styles. The iconoclastic persecution in 
 the Eastern empire, which depressed the arts of decoration 
 in the East, and drove out over Europe a host of artists to 
 propagate them elsewhere ; the rise and progress of Venice 
 and the Italian Republics ; the Norman conquest in France 
 and England; the crusade against the Albigenses; the capture 
 of Constantinople by the Venetians in 1203, and by the 
 Turks in 1453, which caused each time a migration of 
 Greek artists to the West; the revival of ancient literature, 
 which awakened a taste for ancient art; the discovery of 
 America, an event that gave to Spain almost unlimited 
 means of architectural enterprise ; the Reformation, which 
 was something besides a religious revolution; the invention 
 of printing—all these have had an influence, some of them 
 an immense influence, on the career of mediaeval and modern 
 architecture throughout the world, though we may have 
 found it very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to trace the 
 footprints of their respective agencies. A style cannot but 
 receive the impress of surrounding circumstances, either for 
 the better or the worse : as the immortal spirit of man 
 writes his own character on the walls of its clay tenement 
 and /chronicles from time to time its heavenward aspira¬ 
 tions or its grovellings in the dust, so does the spirit of an 
 age or a country communicate itself to the works of the 
 architect, in which it may be said to be petrified, and which 
 are its most characteristic and enduring creations. 
 
 In the multifarious mutations of architecture in different 
 countries and ages we have reflexes of human feelings and 
 human genius, as influenced by the various circumstances 
 under which man is placed in the world. If their history is 
 not identical with the history of the world, it is at least an 
 efflorescence of human history, and constitutes an interesting 
 illustration thereof. A knowledge of it is, I think, highly 
 necessary to the architect, not only for the light it sheds on 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 155 
 
 the principles of architecture, but for the inspiration and 
 suggestion it yields. Suggestions and lessons of high import, 
 I am persuaded, may be gathered from it by him who brings 
 to the subject that philosophical spirit which sees in the 
 changes of the past, principles and laws for the guidance 
 of the future. 
 
 After what has been advanced above, the following table, 
 which presents a view of the styles, such, so far as the 
 writer’s knowledge extends, as will not be found elsewhere, 
 can need no especial introduction or explanation. 
 
156 
 
 THE COURSE' AND CURRENT 
 
 A SYNOPTICAL 
 
 OF THE STYLES OF 
 
 NAME OF STYLE. 
 
 Approximate Date. 
 
 Rise . . Extinctn. 
 
 Egyptian. 
 
 
 Assyrian. 
 
 .... B.C. 6th c. 
 
 Persian. 
 
 b.c. 7th c. B.C. 330 
 
 Pelasgic. 
 
 
 Greek ....... 
 
 B.C. 8th c. B.C. 146 
 
 Etruscan . 
 
 B.C. 9th c. B.C. 300 
 
 Roman . 
 
 B.C. 6th c. A.D. 400 
 
 Christn. Rom’esque 
 
 4th c. 
 
 • Italian Romanesque 
 
 
 Apulian Rom’esque 
 
 
 Pisan Romanesque. 
 
 lithe. . . 13th c. 
 
 FrenchRomanesque 
 
 . 13th c. 
 
 Spanish Rom’esque 
 
 . . . . , 13th c. 
 
 Sassanian. 
 
 
 Early Byzantine . 
 
 4th c. 
 
 European Byzant. . 
 
 4th c. . . 18th c. 
 
 West. Asiatic Byz. 
 
 4th c. . . 12th c. 
 
 Armenian Byzant. 
 
 4th c. . . 1500 \ 
 
 Georgian Byzant. . 
 
 12th c. . . 18th c. i 
 
 Russian. 
 
 10th c. . . . 1700 
 
 Ancient Irish . . . 
 
 5th c. . . . 1176 
 
 Religion 
 of its 
 
 Practitioners. 
 
 
 Paganism ... 
 
 • 
 
 Sabseism, &c. . . 
 
 b 
 
 Fire-Worship . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 d 
 
 
 e 
 
 Paganism .... 
 
 s 
 
 Primitive Christi¬ 
 anity . 
 
 h 
 
 Latin Church . . . 
 
 J 
 
 
 k 
 
 Latin Church and 
 Albigenses (?) . . 
 
 l 
 
 m 
 
 Fire-Worship . . 
 
 0 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 9 
 
 Greek Church . . 
 
 s 
 
 Greek Church (?) . 
 
 t 
 
 Parent Style 
 or 
 
 Styles. 
 
 Unknown . . . . 
 
 Unknown . . . . 
 Assyrian . . . . 
 Unknown . . . -j 
 
 Pelasgic, Egypt¬ 
 ian, &c. 
 
 Pelasgic . . . . 
 Etruscan, Greek . 
 Roman .... 
 
 Christian Roman¬ 
 esque .... 
 
 Italian Roman¬ 
 esque, Byzan¬ 
 tine, Saracenic . 
 
 Italian Roman¬ 
 esque, &c. . . 
 
 Christian Roman- 
 esque . ... I 
 
 Christian Roman- l 
 esque . ...) 
 
 Persian, Roman . . 
 
 Christian Roman- ^ 
 esque .... 
 
 Early Byzantine . 
 
 Early Byzantine . 
 
 Early Byzantine 
 und Sassanian . 
 
 Armenian, Sara¬ 
 cenic .... 
 
 Byzantine,Christian 
 Romanesque . . 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE, 
 
 157 
 
 TABLE 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 
 "Race 
 of its 
 
 Practitioners. 
 
 Embodied in 
 
 Leading Principle 
 of 
 
 Construction. 
 
 EXAMPLE. 
 
 a 
 
 Turanian (?) . . . 
 
 Pyramids, Palace- "| 
 temples, Temples j 
 
 
 Temple of Kamac. 
 
 b 
 
 Semitic, &c. . . . 
 
 Palaces . . . . ^ 
 
 
 Palace of Senacherib at Koyunjik. 
 
 c 
 
 Indo-Germanic . . 
 
 Palaces .... 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 Palace of Xerxes. 
 
 d 
 
 Turanian (?)... 
 
 Tombs, City Walls, 
 &c. 
 
 Trabeation and Ho¬ 
 rizontal Arcuation 
 
 Tomb of Atreus at Mycenae. 
 
 e 
 
 Indo-Germanic and 
 Turanian .... 
 
 Temples, Theatres 
 
 
 Trabeation . . . 
 
 Parthenon, Erechtheium. 
 
 f 
 
 Turanian (?)... 
 
 Rock-cut Tombs 
 Tumuli, &c. . . 
 
 
 Trabeation and Ho¬ 
 rizontal Arcuation 
 
 Tombs at Castel d’Asso. 
 
 S 
 
 h 
 
 
 
 Basilicas, Amphi¬ 
 theatres, Baths, 
 Temples, Palaces . 
 Basilican Churches, 
 Baptistries, Tombs 
 
 Arcuation and Tra¬ 
 beation .... 
 
 Arcuation Supplant¬ 
 ing Trabeation. . 
 
 Basilica of Trajan, Flavian Am¬ 
 phitheatre, Pantheon. 
 
 Basilica of St. Peter at Rome. 
 
 i 
 
 
 Indo-Germanic, 
 
 &c. 
 
 Cathedrals, 
 Churches . . . 
 
 
 
 Church of San Miniato at Florence. 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 Cathedrals, 
 Churches . . . 
 
 
 Arcuation .... 
 
 Cathedral of Bittonto. 
 
 k 
 
 
 
 Cathedrals, 
 Churches . ... 
 
 
 
 Cathedral of Pisa. 
 
 l 
 
 m 
 
 ! 
 
 ■ Celtic, &c. . . . 
 
 Churches, Cathe 
 drals .... 
 
 Cathedrals, 
 Churches . . . 
 
 
 Round and Pointed 
 Arcuation . . . 
 
 Arcuation .... 
 
 Cathedral of Angers. 
 
 n 
 
 Indo-Germanic . . 
 
 Palaces .... 
 
 
 Arcuation & Doming 
 
 Talc Kesra at Ctesiphon. 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 Cnurches . . . 
 
 
 
 Church of S. Sophia at Constanti¬ 
 nople. 
 
 P 
 
 1 
 
 
 Churches . . . 
 
 
 
 Church of S. Mark, Venice. 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Churches . . . 
 
 
 
 Church at Trabala. 
 
 r 
 
 
 Indo-Germanic, 
 
 &c. 
 
 Churches and 
 
 Tombs .... 
 
 
 Doming & Arcuation 
 
 Cathedral of Ani. 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 Churches and 
 
 Tombs .... 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 Churches, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 The Kremlin, Moscow. 
 
 u 
 
 Celtic. 
 
 Churches, Round 
 Towers .... 
 
 Arcuation .... 
 
 Cormac’s Chapel at Cashel. 
 
158 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 
 Approximate Date. 
 
 Parent Style 
 
 Religion 
 
 
 NAME OF STYLE. 
 
 
 
 or 
 
 of its 
 
 
 
 Rise. . . 
 
 Extinct 
 
 Styles. 
 
 Practitioners. 
 
 
 Saracenic : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Syrian. 
 
 650 .. . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Armenian, Sassa- 'l 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 man. 
 
 
 
 
 Egyptian. 
 
 650 .. . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Byzantine, Sassa- 
 nian. 
 
 
 
 b 
 
 Persian. 
 
 650 .. . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Sassanian, Arme- 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 
 nian. 
 
 
 
 
 Spanish.. 
 
 750 . . . 
 
 . 1492 
 
 Spanish Roman¬ 
 esque, &c. . . 
 
 
 Mahomedan . . . 
 
 d 
 
 Indian. 
 
 
 Extant 
 
 Jaina, Persian Sa- 
 
 
 
 e 
 
 
 
 
 racenic .... 
 
 
 
 
 Turkish. 
 
 1453 . . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 European Byzan- 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 tine, &c. . . .) 
 
 
 
 Norman Sicilian . 
 
 1090 . . . 
 
 . 1400 
 
 Christian Roman 
 
 
 Latin Church . . 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 
 esque, Byzan 
 
 
 
 
 Pound Gothic : 
 
 
 
 tine, Saracenic 
 
 
 
 Lombard ...... 
 
 6th c. . . 
 
 . 1250 
 
 Christian Roman- 'i 
 
 
 h 
 
 
 
 
 esque .... 
 
 
 
 
 Rhenish.. 
 
 8th c. . . 
 
 
 Christian Roman- 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 esque and Lom- 
 
 
 
 
 [Burgundian . 
 
 7th c. . . 
 
 . 1160 
 
 bal'd. 
 
 Christian Roman- 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Fr. j 
 
 
 
 esque, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 
 [Norman . . . 
 
 10th c. . 
 
 . 1160 
 
 Christian Roman- 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 esque, &c. 
 
 
 
 
 fSaxon. . . 
 
 6th c. . . 
 
 . 1066 
 
 Christian Roman- 
 
 
 
 l 
 
 Anglo- -i 
 
 [Norman. . 
 
 
 
 esque .... 
 
 
 Latin Church. . . 
 
 
 1056 . . . 
 
 . 1200 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, 
 
 
 
 in 
 
 
 
 French, Norman 
 
 
 
 
 Spanish. 
 
 6th C. . r 
 
 . 1240 
 
 Christian Roman¬ 
 esque, Moorish . 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 Belgian.. 
 
 8th c. . . 
 
 . 1240 
 
 Rhenish and 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 
 Frankish . . . 
 
 
 
 
 Scotch. 
 
 
 
 Anglo-Norman 
 
 
 - 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 and French Nor- 
 
 
 
 
 Baronial. 
 
 lithe. . . 
 
 15th c. 
 
 man. 
 
 Ancient Castle, 
 Round Gothic . 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 Pointed Gothic : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Italian ....... 
 
 1225 . . 
 
 . 1400 
 
 Lombard, Ger- 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 man and French 
 
 
 
 
 Venetian . 
 
 1225 . . 
 
 . 1450 
 
 Pointed . . . 
 Lombard, Byzan- 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 tine, Saracenic . 
 
 
 
 
 German ...... 
 
 1220 . . . 
 
 17th c. 
 
 Rhenish and Fr. 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 Pointed . . . 
 
 
 
 
 French ....... 
 
 1144 . . . 
 
 17th c. 
 
 Bui'gundidh, Nor- 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 man, Saracenic . 
 
 
 
 
 English ...... 
 
 1175 . . . 
 
 . 1560 
 
 Anglo-Norman 
 and Fr. Pointed. 
 
 
 Latin Church. 
 
 ” 
 
 Spanish ...... 
 
 1220 . . . 
 
 16th c. 
 
 Round Spanish, 
 Pointed German, 
 
 
 
 
 Belgian .. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1220 . . . 
 
 16th c. 
 
 Round Belgian, 
 French Pointed . 
 
 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Scotch ....... 
 
 
 16th c. 
 
 Round Scotch, 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 French Pointed . 
 
 
 
 
 Irish . .. 
 
 
 16th c. 
 
 English Gothic, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 &c. 
 
 
 
 
 Moresco. 
 
 12th c. . . 
 
 . 1500 
 
 Spanish Gothic, 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 Moorish ... 
 
 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE, 
 
 159 
 
 
 Race 
 of its 
 
 Practitioners. 
 
 Embodied in 
 
 Leading- Principle 
 of 
 
 Construction. 
 
 EXAMPLE. 
 
 a 
 
 | 
 
 Mosques ... 1 
 
 
 Mosque of Khalif el Walide at 
 Damascus. 
 
 b 
 
 j. Semitic .... 
 
 Mosques . . . | 
 
 Pointed Arcuation . 
 
 Mosque and Tomb of Kaitbey at 
 Cairo. 
 
 c 
 
 1 
 
 Mosques, Palaces J 
 
 
 Great Mosque at Ispahan. 
 
 d 
 
 y ' 
 
 Palaces, Mosques . 
 
 Round and Pointed 
 Arcuation . . . 
 
 Alhambra. 
 
 e 
 
 1 Turanian . . . 
 r 
 
 Tombs, Mosques. . 
 
 Pointed Arcuation 
 
 Tomb of Mahomet at Beejapore. 
 
 t 
 
 J ■ 
 
 Mosques, Fountains 
 
 Doming. & Pointed 
 Arcuation . . • 
 
 Mosque of Soliman. 
 
 S 
 
 Indo-Germanic . . 
 
 Churches . . . . 
 
 Pointed Arcuation . 
 
 Church at Monreale. 
 
 h 
 
 
 Cathedrals, 'J 
 
 Churches, &c. . 
 
 
 Church of San Michele at Pavia. 
 
 i 
 
 
 Cathedrals and 
 Churches . . . 
 
 
 Cathedral of Worms. 
 
 j 
 
 ^ Indo-Germanic . 
 
 Cathedral and 
 Abbey Churches 
 
 
 Abbey Church at Cluny. 
 
 k 
 
 
 Cathedral and 
 
 Abbey Churches j 
 
 
 Church of St. Stephen, Caen. 
 
 l 
 
 
 Churches ... 
 
 
 Earl’s Barton Church, Northamp¬ 
 tonshire. 
 
 m 
 
 
 Cathedral and [ 
 
 Abbey Churches 
 
 Arcuation .... 
 
 Durham Cathedral. 
 
 n 
 
 Indo-Germanic, &e. 
 
 Cathedrals, &c. . j 
 
 1 
 
 
 Church of St. Isidoro at Leon. 
 
 0 
 
 Indo-Gennanic . . 
 
 Churches, &c. . . 
 
 
 Church of St. Vincent at Soignies. 
 
 P 
 
 Celtic, &c. 
 
 Churches, &c. . . 
 
 
 Church of Jedburgh. 
 
 Q 
 
 Indo-Germanic . . 
 
 Feudal-Castle- 
 Palace, and j 
 
 Mansions . . 
 
 
 Caernarvon and Warwick Castle6. 
 
 
 1 ■ 
 i 
 
 Cathedrals, Town *) 
 Halls, &c. . . 
 
 
 Cathedral of Sienna. 
 
 s 
 
 i 
 
 Indo-Germanic . 
 
 Palaces .... 
 
 
 Palace Ca d’Oro, &c. 
 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 Cathedrals . . . 
 
 
 Cathedra! of Cologne. 
 
 u 
 
 Indo-Germanic, &c. 
 
 Cathedarls . . . 
 
 
 Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris. 
 
 • 
 
 Indo-Germanic . . 
 
 Cathedral and 
 
 Abbey Churches . 
 
 Pointed Arcuation . 
 
 York Minster. 
 
 
 Indo-Germanic, &c. 
 
 Cathedrals, &c. 
 
 
 Cathedral of Seville. 
 
 X 
 
 [ndo-Germanic . . 
 
 Cathedrals, Town 
 Halls, &c. . . 
 
 
 Cathedral of Antwerp. 
 
 y 
 
 j 
 
 Celtic, &c. . . . 
 
 Cathedrals, &c. 
 
 
 Cathedral of Glasgow. 
 
 z 
 
 ! 
 
 Cathedrals and 
 Monasteries 
 
 
 Cathedral of Dublin. 
 
 a 
 
 Indo-Germanic . . 
 
 Church-towers, 
 
 &c. 
 
 
 Chapel of Humanejos in Estre- 
 madura. 
 
1G0 
 
 TIIE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 NAME OF STYLE. 
 
 Approximate Date. 
 
 Parent Style 
 
 
 Religion 
 
 
 Rise . 
 
 Extinct. 
 
 Styles. 
 
 
 Practitioners. 
 
 
 Buddhist . 
 
 B.C. 3rd 
 
 I. Extant 
 
 Unknown . . . 
 
 
 Buddhism . . . . 
 
 a 
 
 Southern Hindu. . 
 
 
 
 Buddhist (?). . . 
 
 i 
 
 Braliminism . . . 
 
 b 
 
 Northern Hindu . 
 
 
 
 Buddhist (?). . . J 
 
 
 c 
 
 Jain a. 
 
 
 
 Buddhist, Hindu 
 
 
 Jainaism . . . . 
 
 d 
 
 Moslem-Hindu . . . 
 
 A.D. 16th c. Extant 
 
 Hindu and Sara 
 
 
 Braliminism . . . 
 
 e 
 
 
 
 
 cenic .... 
 
 
 
 
 C ASHMERIAN . 
 
 
 
 Unknown . . . 
 
 
 Unknown .... 
 
 s 
 
 rllTTNF.SE . 
 
 
 
 Unknown . . . 
 
 
 Confucianism, Bud- 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 
 
 dhism, &e. . , . 
 
 
 Peruvian . 
 
 A.D. 1200. 
 
 A.D.1534 
 
 Unknown . . . *| 
 
 Unknown . . . J 
 
 Paganism .... 
 
 h 
 
 Mexican . 
 
 A.D.300. 
 
 A.D. 1519 
 
 
 1 
 
 Xtxl. Renaissance . 
 
 13th c. . 
 
 1600 
 
 Ancient Roman, 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 Italian Gothic . 
 
 
 
 
 El Plateresco. . . . 
 
 1480 . . 
 
 1585 
 
 Ital. Renais., Span. 
 Goth. 
 
 j. 
 
 Roman Catholic . . 
 
 k 
 
 Francois Premier . 
 
 1490 . . 
 
 1585 
 
 Ital. Renais., Fr. 
 Goth. j 
 
 
 l 
 
 Elizabethan . . . . 
 
 1518 . . 
 
 1660 
 
 Ital. Renais., Tudor 
 
 Protestant .... 
 
 m 
 
 German Renais. . . 
 
 1556 . . 
 
 1700 
 
 Ital. Renais., Germ. 
 
 Lutheran .... 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 Gothic .... 
 
 
 
 
 Netherlandish . . . 
 
 1560 . . 
 
 1700 
 
 Ital. Renais., Belg 
 
 
 Protestant.... 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 
 Gothic .... 
 
 
 
 
 Scandinavian. . . . 
 
 1625 . . 
 
 1700 
 
 Ital. Renais., Scan. 
 
 Lutheran .... 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 Gothic .... 
 
 
 
 
 j Florentine . . 
 
 1400 . . 
 
 1600 
 
 Ancient Roman . 
 
 
 
 Q 
 
 Ital. -j Roman .... 
 
 1470 . . 
 
 1607 
 
 Ancient Roman . 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 [Venetian . . . 
 
 1506 . . 
 
 1616 
 
 Ancient Roman . 
 
 
 Roman Catholic. . 
 
 s 
 
 Modern Italian. . . 
 
 1616 . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 French . 
 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 Spanish. 
 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. . .. 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 English. ...... 
 
 1620 . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. 
 
 
 Protestant .... 
 
 w 
 
 German . 
 
 1690 . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. 
 
 
 Lutheran and Ca- 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 
 
 tholic . 
 
 
 Netherlandish . . . 
 
 1690 . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. 
 
 
 Protestant and Ca- 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 tholic . 
 
 
 Scandinavian. . . . 
 
 1700 . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. 
 
 
 Lutheran .... 
 
 * 
 
 Russian . f 
 
 1700 . . 
 
 Extant 
 
 Venetian, &c. 
 
 
 Greek Church . . 
 
 a 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE, 
 
 1G1 
 
 
 Race 
 of its 
 
 Practitioners. 
 
 Embodied in 
 
 Leading Principle 
 of 
 
 Construction. 
 
 EXAMPLE. 
 
 • 
 
 Indo-Germ., &c. 
 
 Topes, Cave 1 
 
 Temples, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 Cave-temple of Karli. 
 
 b 
 
 Turanian .... 
 
 Temples, Cave 
 
 Temples . . . 
 
 
 Trabeation.... 
 
 Temple of Tiruvalur. 
 
 c 
 
 Indo-Germ., &c. . . 
 
 Temples .... 
 
 
 
 Temple at Barrolli. 
 
 d 
 
 Indo-Germ., &c. . . 
 
 Temples, Towers.. 
 
 
 
 Temple of Vimala Sail, Mount 
 Abu. 
 
 e 
 
 Indo-Germ. and Tu¬ 
 ranian .... 
 
 Palaces, Chuttries . 
 
 Trabeation and 
 
 Arcuation . . . 
 
 Garden Palace of Deeg. 
 
 f 
 
 Unknown .... 
 
 Temples . . . •' 
 
 
 
 Temple at Martund. 
 
 S 
 
 h 
 
 Turanian (?)... 
 
 Turanian (?).., 
 
 Pagodas, Poiloos, 
 &c. ..... 
 
 Fortifications, 
 Tombs .... 
 
 
 Trabeation.... 
 
 Porcelain Tower, Nankin. 
 
 House of Virgins of the Sun. 
 
 i 
 
 Turanian (?)... 
 
 Teocallis, Palaces, 
 &c.. 
 
 
 
 Great Temple at Falenque. 
 
 3 
 
 k 
 
 
 
 Palaces, &c.. . .' 
 
 Townhalls, 
 
 Palaces, &c. . . 
 
 
 Arcuation, &c. . . 
 
 Old Comari Palace, and School of 
 San Rocca, Venice. 
 
 Town-hall of Seville. 
 
 l 
 
 
 
 Palaces, Chateaux . 
 
 Arcuation and 
 
 Trabeation . . . 
 
 Hotel de Ville, Paris. 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 Mansions, &c. . .' 
 
 
 
 Wollaton House. 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 Townhalls, &c. 
 
 
 Trabeation, &c. . . 
 
 Part of Heidelberg Castle. 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 Townhalls, &c. . 
 
 
 
 Town-hall, Antwerp. 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 Churches, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 Exchange, Copenhagen. 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 Palaces, &c. . . . 
 
 Arcuation, &c. . . 
 
 Pitti Palace. 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 Churches, &c. . . 
 
 Trabeation.... 
 
 St Peter’s Church at Rome. 
 
 s 
 
 
 ■ Indo-Germ., &c. 
 
 Minor Palaces, 
 
 Villas, &c. . . . 
 
 Arcuation, &c. . . 
 
 St. Mark’s Library. 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 Palaces, Churches 
 
 
 
 Palace Barberini. 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 Churches, Palaces, 
 &c . 
 
 
 
 Church of the Invalides. 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 Palaces, Churches 
 
 
 
 Escurial Palace. 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 Churches, Palaces, 
 &c. ..... 
 
 Palaces, Churches, 
 &c. . N . . . . 
 
 
 Trabeation, &c. . . 
 
 St. Paul’s Cathedral. 
 
 Church of St. Charles Borromeo 
 at Vienna. 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 Churches, &c. . . 
 
 
 
 Church of St. Jacques Sur Couden- 
 berg at Brussels. 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 Churches, Palaces, 
 &c. 
 
 
 
 Palace at Stockholm. 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 Churches, Palaces, 
 &c. ..... 
 
 
 
 Church of Our Lady of Kazan at 
 St. Petersburg. 
 
162 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 NOTE ON THE FOREGOING TABLE. 
 
 The Egyptians, so far as we know, invented the column and entabla¬ 
 ture, which the Greeks perfected. The Pelasgi and Etruscans produced 
 the arch, which the Romans wrought into an artistic feature, and the 
 Saracens pointed and cusped. And the most prominent distinction between 
 styles of architecture arises from the diversity of constructive features, and 
 is into beamed and arched* . 
 
 All ancient styles, or all before the Christian era, were beamed, or tra- 
 beated—that is, their columns supported an horizontal member—epistylium 
 or architrave. All mediaeval and modern styles, or all subsequent to the 
 Christian epoch, on the contrary, were arcuated—that is, their columns 
 immediately supported arches springing from column to column. The 
 Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Pelasgic, the Etruscan, and Greek, were all 
 trabeated styles. The Roman architecture in the time of Augustus was 
 pure trabeation ; but it gradually gave way during the period of the Empire 
 to the inroads of the arch. The Pagan Romanesque, which immediately 
 preceded the Christian Romanesque, was the first arcuated style, and all its 
 numerous descendants, down to the present day, were on the same prin¬ 
 ciple. 
 
 The above division into beamed and arched styles applies to all the great 
 classic family, or group of related styles, of Europe, Western Asia, and 
 Egypt: but not to the systems detached from these, or the out-lying styles 
 —the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Chinese, Peruvian, and Mexican, which 
 were all beamed, whether ancient or modern. It is also made irrespective 
 of the Revived Styles. 
 
 Of the arched styles, two were pointed-arched—namely, the Pointed 
 Gothic and the Saracenic ; the rest were round-arched. 
 
 Again, two of the arcuated styles, the Byzantine and the Saracenic, were 
 remarkable for the use they made of the dome, the corollary and comple¬ 
 ment of the arch, which in these styles was the chief constructive feature. 
 Other styles occasionally employed the dome; but in the Byzantine and 
 Saracenic it was an essential element. 
 
 Pure Greek and Complete Gothic are the opposite poles of the sphere of 
 architecture. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 163 
 
 THE STYLE OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 O one who feels, what is now pretty 
 generally admitted, that we are not, as a 
 nation, in the right path with re¬ 
 gard to architecture, a contempla¬ 
 tion of the styles of the past 
 naturally suggests the question, 
 What. is to be the style of the 
 future ? If we can settle what it 
 will be in our own country, there 
 will be no great difficulty in 
 guessing its nature in other lands. 
 
 The most prevalent opinion or notion 
 on the subject, perhaps, is that we must 
 have a new style if we are to hold any 
 original relation to architecture such as 
 was maintained by ancient and mediaeval 
 artists; but those who entertain such an opinion have either 
 not read the history of old styles, or have not read it aright. 
 To me all history of the rise and mutations of styles con¬ 
 spires to show the folly of our hankering after a new style ; 
 every style of whose origin we have any knowledge having 
 arisen not from an act of the will, or some one setting about 
 the invention of a new style, but, spontaneously, out of new 
 circumstances, brought on by some great political, intellectual, 
 or religious revolutions, as the rise of new or mingling of old 
 nations, propagation of new religions, revival of letters and 
 kindred arts—events which do not characterise the present 
 age. The tendency of the entire teaching of the past, in 
 reference to architecture, is to make us content with our 
 present style. Whatever is to be the future career of archi- 
 
164 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 tecture amongst us, our present position is to be its starting 
 point. We have neither to apply ourselves to the invention 
 of a new style, nor to go back and begin from any past style, 
 but to start from where we now are, and from that point go 
 on, taking hints, lessons, warnings, from all past and contem¬ 
 porary styles that will yield them. Every work of genius is 
 unique, or genius has never breathed on it; but it may be 
 wrought out of the elements or symbols in use in the day and 
 nation of its production, and present itself in the style of the 
 period. It needs not a new style, which is no more essential 
 to it than is a new language to an original poem. If a new 
 style is wanted it will come ; but we have not to seek it, but 
 simply work truly and sincerely in our present one to pro¬ 
 duce original and true works. 
 
 But, What is our present one ? I shall be asked, and the 
 question is natural enough, for so many styles have been 
 followed during the present century that few people 
 would know what we meant in speaking of our present 
 style. By our present style, I mean the English branch or 
 division of that great group of styles last noticed in our 
 history, called Italian, which is our style, because it arose 
 naturally amongst us out of circumstances of the times, and 
 in the way most resembling the rise of the various ancient 
 and mediaeval styles among their respective nations (1). To 
 borrow the metaphor of our “ Chart of Architecture,” it 
 flowed out to us naturally from the parent stream of Italy, 
 who had just recovered the ancient obscured but not effaced 
 track of her forefathers (2), and from whom the current of art 
 and literature and science was then setting over every part 
 of Europe, which was in religious connexion with Rome. I 
 say naturally, for as Italy was in advance, in every depart¬ 
 ment of intellectual pursuit, of all the rest of Eui’ope, and 
 led the way to us, as indeed to all other Western nations, in 
 literature and science, it was natural that she should lead us 
 in art also, and become to us what Greece had been to 
 Rome, and Egypt to Greece. 
 
 By Italian style, however, I mean a broader style than is 
 
 (1.) This and the following numbers refer to notes at the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 165 
 
 generally understood by the term, I mean a style composed 
 of all styles of classic family—ancient Greek and Roman, 
 Florentine, Venetian, Modern Roman, with all the additions, 
 modifications, and adaptations that modern Italy or other 
 countries may have introduced—that is, a purified, advanced, 
 expanded Italian style which has absorbed all Greek and Ro¬ 
 man feeling and sentiment, such as was indeed aimed at, in a 
 few instances, by some of our best and most enlightened archi¬ 
 tects of the last and present century,—as by Soane, in his 
 Bank of England ; by Holland, Gandy, Papworth, and 
 others, whose works, though they are generally considered 
 as deviations from true Italian design, are, in reality, but 
 further legitimate developments of it, and only show the 
 style refining, and regenerating itself at the Greek fountain¬ 
 head of architectural purity. 
 
 By Italian, I mean a style in which all its natural and 
 legitimate resources from the arts of Egyptian and Assyrian 
 downwards—ancient, mediaeval, modern, contemporary, 
 Oriental, and Occidental—have been drawn upon ; a style 
 whose decorative development has been heightened by the 
 breath of everything beautiful in the works of the Arabian, 
 Persian, Indian, and other Mahommedan creations, which 
 may be styled the architecture of the imagination, and an 
 infusion of which into our style must operate as a refining 
 and beautifying principle, and be “ like a vernal air impart¬ 
 ing an odour of flowers.” 
 
 If such a style cannot strictly be said to exist, yet, from the 
 elements alluded to, one may easily be imagined to arise, 
 evolved like Venus, from the froth of the sea, more broad and 
 grand and beautiful than anything that Italy, or any Euro¬ 
 pean country, has yet seen. The most perfect and beautiful 
 styles in the world are those which have drawn their exist¬ 
 ence and inspiration from many and various parent styles, 
 as the Venetian, Spanish, and other Gothics ; the Norman 
 Sicilian, the Saracenics, and the Italian Renaissance ; and our 
 style may be, and should be, similarly derived from nume¬ 
 rous and diverse sources. The true use of all styles, and of 
 all things else to the architect, is to supply hints, principles, 
 elements, materials, to the formation and perfecting of his 
 
1G6 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 own architecture ; for this all the outward forms and images 
 of things, and all their inner processes through the entire 
 compass of nature, and the whole circle of the arts, should 
 be laid under contribution. 
 
 So should our style be composed. Its fixed and perma¬ 
 nent framework and basis, however—that which is to give 
 it its key-note—should be the classical columnar architecture 
 retained in its integrity and purity; (3) that is to say, without 
 loss of its antique beauty of detail, or forfeiture of its enta¬ 
 blature, which is as useful and as beautiful at this hour as at 
 any former period of the world. Invented, responsive to 
 unchanging and universal laws of nature and the human 
 mind, and possessed of a perfection of formal grace which is 
 found in no other architecture, an all-satisfying beauty of 
 outline that renders it independent of extraneous ornament, 
 and a capability of every phase of beauty, this architecture 
 can never lose its significancy, or cease-to charm. Like 
 some great luminary of literature or science—some Homer, 
 Plato, or Shakespeare, whose broad humanity breaks down 
 ail geographical and chronological barriers—it possesses that 
 universal beauty that appeals to all unprejudiced minds, and 
 renders it a denizen of every age and clime. 
 
 That this columnar architecture can become artistically 
 and logically united in its entirety to the Roman or 
 Etruscan elements of arch and dome, that is without the 
 Greek column throwing off its entablature, as it did in the 
 decline of the Roman system, is proved by the architectural 
 achievements of the Romans themselves, as well as by those 
 of their modern representatives. The placing of the Greek 
 column under the Roman arch as an arch-pillar was a true 
 marriage of the two styles^ and resulted in a beautiful off¬ 
 spring ; but it by no means involved the whole theory of 
 progress in architecture. The styles in question can be 
 unexceptionably brought together with artistic consistency 
 and harmony, and constructive propriety in other and nobler 
 ways. They were so in the best works of the Romans 
 themselves, as the interior of the Pantheon, which, while it 
 is one of the grandest of architectural spectacles, presents as 
 homogeneous a display of architectural features as any 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 167 
 
 building in Europe ; and in buildings innumerable of modern 
 times, which acquit the style from the charge of being a 
 compound of unwillingly yoked parts, and exhibit the classic 
 orders applied with perfect truth and propriety in a manner 
 to satisfy the judgment, as well as to please the eye ; expres¬ 
 sing, at the same time that they beautify, prosaic features 
 and requirements. 
 
 I say in nobler ways, for a system of architecture, in 
 which the arch is introduced in connexion with the entabla¬ 
 ture, must have great advantage in an artistic point of view 
 over any system in which the arch takes the place of the 
 entablature, as the latter feature contributes to unity and 
 simplicity, and gives a grandeur that must be wanting in 
 purely arcuated buildings. 
 
 The Greek columnar architecture in thus uniting bodily 
 with the Roman arch-system gave it shape and consistence, 
 and raised it at once into the region of art, and no other 
 forms or devices can be imagined that would worthily have 
 substituted it. The veil of attached columns (or pilasters) 
 and entablature cast over the arcade, gives a unity and beauty 
 to the design that alone might excuse its introduction in a 
 work which aims at a fine-art character. 
 
 There are still nobler ways, I suspect, than have yet been 
 hinted at in any edifice, in which the fine forms of arch and 
 dome, and the l’efined column and entablature of Greece and 
 Rome, would mingle as sweetly as the most delicately orga¬ 
 nised eye and educated taste could desire. 
 
 The system so formed, while it possessed greater columnar 
 majesty than the Byzantine or Gothic could ever reach, would 
 embrace at the same time the crowning glory of those styles— 
 their vaulted and domed ceilings, which, in stretching the sub¬ 
 stance of the wall over the area or space to be enclosed, com¬ 
 ply more faithfully with the conditions of perfect architecture 
 than the wood truss, and render the whole a more complete and 
 uniform structure than could be realised in purely trabeated 
 architecture. 
 
 There lurks an impression, too often acted upon, that in 
 its loftier and purer moods (4) the columnar architecture, 
 which I have made an essential element of this style, cannot 
 
168 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 assimilate those indispensable features indigenous to England 
 —the chimney—the window: that the window in connexion 
 with a pure classic colonnade must he suppressed, and that 
 the chimney cannot be allowed to show itself above a fagade, 
 to which much classic character and symmetry has been 
 imparted. If this impression were well founded then I 
 should give up the style at once ; for these features can 
 never be given up, and to hide them would be subterfuge 
 and falsity. Though there are some edifices in which 
 windows may occasionally be omitted, and light obtained 
 through the roof, as churches situated in noisy busy parts of 
 a town, concert-halls, lecture-rooms, picture galleries, and 
 the like, where their place in the walls may be occupied by 
 niched statues, and internally by painting; yet, from their 
 many advantages, their pleasantness and cheerfulness, as 
 well as from their English association, they have taken such 
 a hold upon the heart of the people, that, except in such 
 cases as I have just named, where the company are occupied 
 by some absorbing subject, and where the best light is 
 obtained through the roof, we shall never be allowed by 
 public feeling to omit them. The window is indispensable 
 to render any building quite satisfactory to the English eye ; 
 and the same may be said of the chimney, than the full 
 recognition and display of which, as part of the design, there 
 is nothing more essential to the expression of the domestic 
 character in a human habitation in this country. When it 
 is in use the chimney gives outward signs of internal life and 
 occupation—a breathing expression to the pile, which seems 
 to speak and declare its character and purpose through the 
 chimney, which consequently must add intense and touching 
 interest to any domestic structure ; while there is nothing 
 more useful in regard to composition for the production of 
 picturesqueness of skyline, as it affords a finial or finishing 
 point to the designer, of far more interest than any object 
 created merely for beauty and to break the roof-line could give. 
 
 The chimney therefore cannot be given up as part of 
 the visible design any more than the window. But the 
 notion that either of them must be so given up is absurd, 
 and can only have arisen from timidity or inability on the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 169 
 
 part of architects in their treatment, and not from any 
 
 features on the part of the 
 
 symptom 
 
 Btyle. Windows in the back ground of a portico are dis¬ 
 turbing to the quiet that should reign there, and are besides 
 condemnatory of the portico which they accuse of obstructing 
 the light from them. But in other situations so far from ne¬ 
 cessarily violating the classic feeling of a building, I believe 
 they are susceptible of being so treated, as to enhance the 
 classic charm, and furnish opportunity for its more satis¬ 
 factory display. The window, through its beautiful crystal¬ 
 line substance reflecting the hues of earth and sky—the 
 glories of rising and setting sun, bears striking analogy to 
 the organ of vision in animals, and may contribute as much 
 to beauty in an edifice, as does that feature through which 
 the soul most vividly beams forth, and which kindles up the 
 face divine into light and life, to the human countenance. 
 The window is the part of a facade most capable of variation 
 in expression. The most rapid mutations of an April 
 heaven are reflected in the window, which receives from the 
 sky and atmosphere effects, analogous to the revealings and 
 changes of emotion in the human orb, and thus, as it were, 
 spiritualizes the aspect of the building it looks out from. 
 The great church of Soufflot, at Paris, St. George’s Hall, and 
 other works of their stamp, where the window has been 
 omitted as unfit for association with the grander and purer 
 phases of the style, might each have been pierced with win¬ 
 dows such as would have been perfectly homogeneous with 
 and undisturbing to the portico, and increased the vitality and 
 satisfactory beauty of the whole of which they were a part. 
 
 As to chimneys, though they are too often in classic com¬ 
 positions, either blockish unadorned masses, or when adorned, 
 put in such guise of pilasters, frieze, &c., as to parody the 
 style of the building, they are susceptible of such graceful 
 shape, and such classic embellishment, as to become pleasing 
 graceful finials, adding to the richness and beauty of the 
 composition. 
 
 Another objection urged against the style, is that it is not 
 adapted, or cannot adapt itself to our climate. Now, 
 
 i 
 
170 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 the natural tendency of obedience to the demands of our 
 cold, windy, rainy climate, is to thicken walls, steepen 
 roofs, widen cornices, develope door-canopie3 and porches, 
 and throw out over windows the utmost shelter from 
 weather, consistent with non-obstruction of light, than 
 which operations, indeed, there is nothing more important 
 in architecture, as there is nothing more clearly taught by 
 nature. In every zone, the earth, from the equator to either 
 pole, assumes a different dress, and adopts a different fashion 
 in her vegetable mantle. Every region has its special kind 
 of plants, and general type of form, which no other pro¬ 
 duces ; the distribution of organic forms over the globe, 
 and the arrangement of its floral decorations, being uner¬ 
 ringly regulated according to the degree of heat and 
 cold, of drought and moisture; so that each land has the 
 vegetable clothing most suited to the character of its at¬ 
 mosphere, and best adapted to the health and comfort of its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 But none of the operations alluded to, need infringe the 
 beauty of the style, or detract from its classic purity and 
 integrity. While they would give it a peculiar and local 
 character, and so increase its interest, they would pour a 
 new stream of life into it and bring out its latent charms, 
 which, I believe, are more displayed in the formation of 
 recessed porticoes or loggias, and close porches, than in open 
 porticoes. Nowhere, I have observed, does the Italian style 
 seem more rationally, or more sucessfully applied than in 
 the Rows of Chester; while, on the other hand, among the 
 many styles employed in that city, the Italian seems the 
 most appropriate, for no other so readily, so naturally, or so 
 sweetly shapes itself into those unique features, which are 
 admirably adapted to the exigencies of our climate, and 
 pregnant with suggestions for the reform of our street and 
 shop architecture. 
 
 And as there is no necessary English feature, but what 
 the style can embrace, and admit into its architectural drama; 
 nor no needful modification from climate, or other influence, 
 but what it can adopt, so there is no required kind of 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 171 
 
 building but what it can apply itself to. While it can invest 
 with its grandeurs the temple and the palace, it will give a 
 befitting dignity and grace to a dwelling house, or other 
 ordinary structure called for by our present commercial 
 and social condition, and these are by far the most numerous 
 class of edifices, and the class on which the character of 
 our towns and cities depend. Nothing could so readily and 
 appropriately form and embellish the small amount of solid 
 left by the large perforations of our shop fronts, and their 
 overhead show-rooms, as the columnar orders of a broad 
 Italian style, whose variety, variability, and capability of 
 modification and adaptation to new and diverse purposes is, 
 I believe, unequalled by any other style. It is, probably, 
 the only style that has sufficient scope and malleability 
 to yield and invest the multiplicity of forms that will be de¬ 
 manded from architecture by the exigencies of the future (5) 
 —the only style capable of receiving and recognizing the 
 new influences and agencies born of the present century, and 
 of preparing itself for universal application. 
 
 If when called upon as her handmaid to minister to the 
 requirements of Religion, it could not soar so high as the 
 Gothic, and show so much of the aspiring spirit in com¬ 
 position, it would be all the more in harmony with the 
 present temper of the national and prevailing religion, to 
 harmony with which a less measure of the vertical expres¬ 
 sion, and more of the horizontal, together with lower and 
 broader proportions than what prevails in the Gothic seems 
 necessary. The edifices of the 13th and 14th centuries 
 were the expression of a religious enthusiasm, a public zeal, 
 or rather furor in those times which no longer exists, and 
 their modern representatives are anything but a correct index 
 and reflex of our calmer and more enlightened experience. 
 The horizontal spirit of our style would give it true analogy 
 with a religion, which instead of calling upon its votaries 
 to fly from the world and immure themselves in cloisters, 
 demands to be applied as a moving and regulating principle 
 to the proper and necessary business of life; and ren¬ 
 ders it peculiarly fitted for places of worship, in which 
 
 i 2 
 
172 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 we are to wait for inspiration as well as to indulge our 
 aspirations. (6) 
 
 Since the day the religious apprehensions and feelings of 
 which the Mediaeval Gothic truly reflected, the religious views 
 of the world have expanded in a degree that arithmetic 
 could scarce express. However skilful as architects and 
 sculptors were the Freemasons or their masters, yet in the 
 religious intelligence, which was the presiding genius of their 
 operations, they were inferior to babes of the present gene¬ 
 ration. Since the most flourishing and illustrious period of 
 their career, floods of inextinguishable light have been shed 
 upon creation. Philosophy, rescued from the shifting quick¬ 
 sands of hypothesis and speculation, has made gigantic strides. 
 The microscope has enabled us to look down the scale of 
 being into undreamt-of depths, the telescope to look upwards 
 into illimitable heights. Copernicus and Gallileo, and Kepler 
 and Newton have “ unwound the eternal dances of the sky,” 
 and constructed a true system of the universe ; and while 
 new planets have been added to the solar system, our own 
 has been practically enlarged by the discoveries of the navi¬ 
 gator, and rendered more available for civilisation and human 
 intelligence and happiness by the railway and the telegraph. 
 The geologist has pierced the strata of the globe, and re¬ 
 vealed to us beings that peopled the earth before the creation 
 of humanity. The sun has been forced to become our por¬ 
 trait painter, the winged lightning our messenger. The 
 subtilest of elements—light—has been analysed, the air 
 weighed and measured, and the ocean fathomed. 
 
 This expansion of the intellectual world, with which the 
 fairy realm of the imagination, peopled by the deathless 
 progeny of the poet, has kept pace, has widened our moral 
 and spiritual vision. Chemistry, phrenology, electricity, 
 geology, astronomy may be considered as so many new re¬ 
 velations vouchsafed to us, not in aid of Divine Revelation, 
 but for the purpose of throwing fresh light upon it and on 
 man’s relations to the Infinite, by which our religious views 
 and feelings are enlarged and purified, and our faith refined 
 and exalted. 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 173 
 
 Though a condition of the style I have endeavoured to in¬ 
 dicate, is that it should retain its classic purity, there would 
 be no lack in it, I conceive, of the seeds of change and 
 progression. Thoughtfully practised and applied, and ope¬ 
 rated on by native impulse and inspiration, it would move 
 onwards, and at a much greater rate than it has hitherto 
 done, and show increased divergence from its Italian parent, 
 which arose beneath brighter skies, and more glorious sun¬ 
 shine than ours. What immense field for variation on the 
 style, as at present practised, in the proportions of the 
 orders ! (7) I believe different climates, as they have greater 
 or less action on the material, demand different strengths 
 and proportions in the columns, which should be thicker in 
 the north than in the south, as they should be stouter out¬ 
 side than inside of a building ; then we make Doric plain, 
 and Corinthian rich; but must a rich ordinance be of 
 necessity attenuated, and a strong one plain ? Why cannot 
 Corinthian richness—I allude more particularly to that 
 which is imparted by the foliated capital—be combined with 
 Doric proportions, as it was in Egypt? Why should not 
 historic sculpture be applied to more aesthetic architecture 
 than the Doric of Greece ? It is no doubt true that the 
 Greeks, in their Doric temples, considered architecture as 
 the subordinate, and sculpture as the principal art, and used 
 every means to subdue and keep down the architecture, 
 which was intended only as a framework to the sculptor’s 
 art. But this gives no law to us, nor furnishes any reason 
 why we should look upon the Doric as the sculptural order, 
 and the others, because more aesthetic in themselves, as 
 merely masonic, and incapable of properly combining with 
 historic sculpture. My belief is that the Greeks treated 
 architecture as subordinate in their Doric temples because 
 the object of these structures was not to exhibit the capa¬ 
 bilities of architecture, but the glories of sculpture, and, 
 perhaps, painting, which were made to display the actions 
 of their gods and heroes ; and that had they wished to produce 
 the highest possibilities of architectural art, they would 
 have made architecture the principal, and painting and 
 
174 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 sculpture, though the highest class of each were employed, 
 entirely subordinate to it. 
 
 Architecture, in its highest sense, includes historic sculp¬ 
 ture and painting, which may be so treated as to become an 
 integral part and parcel of the edifice, and is therefore 
 greater than these arts which thus enter into its composition. 
 And the greatest building would be that in which the highest 
 possible architecture was combined with the highest class of 
 sculpture it was capable of embracing. 
 
 New elements would inevitably grow out of the masterly, 
 feeling, and truthful use of what we have, on the nature 
 and meaning of which our researches into other styles must 
 be constantly throwing new light, and increasing the 
 force of their appeal to the intellect and judgment, just as 
 our vernacular is expanded by our discoveries in the material 
 and intellectual worlds and by our progress in science and 
 civilisation. But our art-elements would also he changed 
 and enlarged by the natural love of novelty for its own sake, 
 by the devotion to the study and advancement of the art 
 of artistic and inventive genius, and by the operation of 
 another cause, which it is difficult to describe, but which is 
 analagous to the tendency in human language, to the abbre¬ 
 viation and modification of original sounds, and, from poetic 
 warmth of feeling in speakers, to the reversal of the order 
 of words for the sake of a musical or rythmical effect. 
 Each new mind will enrich and expand the art. The man 
 of genius, in looking beyond the mere element, and break¬ 
 ing through all received canons of art, must naturally ex¬ 
 pand it; for no language, however capacious or variously 
 derived, but must stretch in such operations of intellect, 
 and each succeeding artist of the true metal in building, as 
 he must Ampliion-like to the music of his soul and the em¬ 
 bodiment of images of beauty born of his own mind, is sure 
 to enlarge the vocabulary of his art, create for it new symbols 
 and characters, supply its deficiencies, strengthen its weak 
 points, and leave it richer and more perfect than he found it. 
 
 Each important work of a true master will be almost 
 sure to go, in some measure, beyond the hitherto recognised 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 175 
 
 system, and boast some new element. And this is its na¬ 
 tural mode of expansion ; something every now and then 
 appears that has not been seen before : if it be uncongenial 
 to the style, its spirit will reject it; its seed will not ger¬ 
 minate, but like a plant blighted by the air of a strange re¬ 
 gion, it will vanish from its place, though Michael Angelo 
 had introduced it. But if, on the contrary, the entire 
 work in which it inheres is found to be in accordance with 
 the unerring laws of art, and all its parts are in unison, the 
 innovating feature will soon be absorbed into the system, 
 and form a part of it. Great artists as they originate, 
 so do they develop and renew the style; and thus, 
 from time to time, remove the barriers of architecture 
 something further into the undiscovered deeps of thought 
 and beauty. 
 
 Hitherto our style has shown greater resemblance than 
 true English architecture ought to show to the Italian. We 
 are a graver, a more abstract, and withal a more domestic, 
 fire-side loving people than the natives of Italy ; a country 
 wherein those mysterious relations which exist between the 
 various beauties of nature and the deep emotions of the soul 
 must be more vividly felt than in our less genial clime ; 
 and such differences must of necessity lead to different utter¬ 
 ances in the way of art. The Venetian school of Italian 
 architecture, from which ours more especially flowed, grew 
 up amid scenes and circumstances very different from those 
 which exist and operate here ; and as might be expected 
 from the character and habits of its authors, its aim was mag¬ 
 nificence, luxury, pomp, and gay floridity of ornamentation, 
 qualities which those of a sincere Anglo-Italian architecture 
 would be almost diametrically opposed to. Chaste grandeur 
 of form and proportion, concentrated decoration, contrasting 
 with masses of plain wall, and breadth and power of effect, 
 would be the most natural to and best express the English 
 feeling and character. 
 
 Further localisation, growth, and expansion of the style, 
 may be sought in the recognition and appropriation of every 
 material, new or old, and of every really scientific principle 
 
176 
 
 TIIE COURSE ANB CURRENT 
 
 of construction that it can make use of, and of every element 
 it can invent, revive, or borrow from the past. 
 
 Our style would be too broad to be confined to one prin¬ 
 ciple of construction or statical uniformity of design, and 
 would resort to the iron or wood truss, made part of the 
 visible design, as well as to the stone vault, over which it 
 would have the advantage of greater facility and less expen¬ 
 siveness in covering those broad unobstructed areas, which, 
 as places of public assembly, auditoria, theatres, lecture- 
 rooms, &c., will in future be more called for than the narrow 
 lofty aisles in which the vault delights. The constructive 
 skill shown in the roofs and domes of our railway sheds and 
 exhibition buildings, structures which have no types in an¬ 
 tiquity, and are the entire creation and the glory of the 
 present age, is deserving of higher application than it has 
 hitherto received, and should be made available in more 
 architectural and monumental works. 
 
 What enormous, and at the same time, beautiful ceiling 
 trusses could now be constructed of wood, by which, or by 
 arched trellis-ribs, a great hall might be as artistically if not 
 as nobly spanned as by any vaulting ever executed. It is 
 only by applying it to such features as these that you call 
 fully into play the noble capabilities of timber and iron, 
 which may be wrought into trusses and girders that might 
 laugh to scorn your contracted vaults. Wood is combustible, 
 it is true, and this must in some measure limit its use, or 
 subject it to conditions from which other and less capable 
 materials are exempt. Iron, however, is free from this 
 disadvantage ; and among the changes that will come over 
 the spirit of our architecture, not the least will be that 
 arising from the increased use of wrought and cast iron in 
 roofs, ceilings, and floors ; and this, the desire of making 
 our edifices fire-proof, will in a great measure promote. 
 And not in these interior features only, but in exterior ones 
 will iron, I think, become an important element in future 
 architecture. Nor can any style adopt it with less sacrifice 
 than the one I am advocating, which is not better adapted 
 to stone than it is to iron or wood—materials which might 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 177 
 
 be used in strict accordance with their own conditions, both 
 being naturally suited either for columns or entablatures. 
 Nay, such substances are more readily and naturally formed 
 into beams and columns than stone. Iron, I conceive, is 
 destined to play a very important part in the art of the 
 future. We cannot, I think, except in very few cases, have 
 edifices all iron and glass; and in no case can we have a 
 truly noble—that is, a high-class—-edifice confined to these 
 two materials. Masonry or brickwork is essential to such a 
 structure, of which it must at least form the main body and 
 bulk, and give stability to the whole, while uniting it to the 
 ground. But iron may be very extensively employed not¬ 
 withstanding ; and, though every new material must be used 
 according to its natural properties, yet I do not see the 
 difficulty in harmonising iron with stone that some antici¬ 
 pate. The fact is, while iron is being moulded and rendered 
 meet for union with the more massive material, the same 
 preparatory process must be undergone by the stone, that 
 they may meet esch other half-way. If this were done, I 
 feel convinced that we could have very noble and beautiful 
 edifices, into the composition and ornamentation of which 
 iron should enter in a much larger proportion than it has 
 ever done, giving them a certain aerial and fairly-like effect, 
 of which masonry alone is incapable. 
 
 On exteriors—in the shape of verandahs, porticoes, 
 porches, loggias, balconies, niches, canopies of windows and 
 doors, bay and oriel windows, and balustrades, finial and 
 actroterial figures, pediment and other decorations—iron, 
 treated as to proportion, and form, and details, in exact 
 accordance with its own properties, may, I feel assured, be 
 brought to unite, and make entire harmony with forms of 
 bricklaying or masonry, treated also not inconsistent with the 
 nature of those arts. Assuredly it is in the power of art- 
 genius so to embrace these two materials into one work, a 
 work in which the lighter and more aerial material will seem 
 the effloresence of the heavier,—a characteristic which will 
 not be without countenance from the analogy of nature in 
 various of her productions. 
 
178 
 
 THE COURSE ANT) CURRENT 
 
 An element now much employed, and from which good 
 results might be rationally expected, as to form and colour 
 in our future architecture, is molded and coloured bricks, 
 both for giving emphasis and beauty to structural features, 
 and for relieving and decorating the surface of walls. 
 It is chiefly, however, for the element of form, that such 
 bricks will be valuable in this country. Beyond one or two 
 colours, to contrast with the main surfaces, in the molded 
 and projecting bricks, colour is not required from bricks. 
 The use of colour, it is plain is a legitimate as well as an 
 effective means of architectural decoration, since it is one so 
 largely employed by nature, in which it is the assistant,— 
 the auxiliary of form in rendering objects more distinct, 
 more characteristic and expressive in their use, and withal, 
 more beautiful. In this country, however, it is with inte¬ 
 riors alone that we have to do in reference to colouring. 
 And whatever has been the practice of the ancients, or may 
 now be the practice of other countries with regard to ex¬ 
 ternal colouring, I believe it would be ridiculous to attempt 
 it in this humid climate, which, though in some respects so 
 ungenial and destructive to art, is itself (the climate,) a 
 colourist as respects the exterior of a building, which must 
 bear the palm from Egyptian and Greek, or any artist that 
 ever held pencil. 
 
 It is this that gives the ancient English edifice, grown 
 over with the moss and lichen, and other vegetable deposits, 
 and bearing traces of the sunshine and storm of centuries, its 
 transcendant charm,—a charm to which each revolving 
 season can only add some new grace; and renders the 
 broken Gothic gable and ruined arch, festooned with ivy 
 and other fantastic wreaths, objects of beauty greater, per¬ 
 haps, than they could boast in their palmiest days when, 
 wearing their youth’s first bloom, they enshrined whatever 
 could minister to the pleasures and enjoyments, elegancies 
 and refinements of their original founders. 
 
 A good deal, too, may yet be done with cement, legiti¬ 
 mately employed, and not made to imitate another material— 
 used either as a covering of the entire surface of a building, 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE.. 
 
 179 
 
 or partially as a decorated border or fascia to windows and 
 doors. Great injustice has of late been done to this material, 
 which may play a very prominent part in architecture with¬ 
 out any violation of constructive truth. The practice of 
 cementing is exactly parallel with the Italian one of in¬ 
 crustation by thin slices of marble on brickwork; and 
 neither of them is to be condemned, because we are not 
 obliged to show the anatomy of a building, but only to give 
 what indication of it the nature of the coating material as 
 an integument or skin covering the bone and muscle of 
 ruder materials, will permit. It certainly does not seem 
 improper, when we have two materials which, taken sepa¬ 
 rately, are insufficient for the purposes of architecture, but, 
 which combined, will answer the entire end of the art, to 
 make use of them conjointly; the rude brick answers the 
 purpose of strength—the marble or cement, of beauty. The 
 coloured and precious marbles could not be applied to a 
 better purpose than lining the walls, or forming decorative 
 panels in the interiors of important or monumental works. 
 
 But the chief resource for expansion and enrichment of 
 our style lies, I believe, in turning our knowledge of all 
 other styles to account. And if, instead of attempting to 
 revive styles that can never live again, we would try what 
 we could borrow from them, we should do more for the 
 cause of art than if we succeeded in resuscitating all that 
 were ever practised. For amongst them all, few would be 
 found fit for any single purpose, at the present day. But 
 there are none but what would yield us some hint or lesson, 
 or from which we could not derive some element or princi¬ 
 ple by which to improve and advance the style of the future. 
 
 Like plants and animals, in regard to their mode of sus¬ 
 tenance, a living style has a natural tendency to feed on the 
 decomposed substances of other styles. The “ thing of 
 beauty,” either in nature or art, never dies, but is for ever 
 reproductive of its like. It re-forms itself in the mind, not 
 for mental improvement only, but for re-creation ; and true, 
 architectural progress lies in the direction of extracting what 
 is good and still vital in the constructive principles and 
 
180 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 decorative constituents and elements of all styles, and recom¬ 
 bining them in a new and original manner, in conformity 
 with those aesthetic laws by which they will properly unite 
 to serve new physical purposes, and minister afresh to 
 artistic pleasure and cultivation. Even in the Egyptian 
 style, the oldest and perhaps furthest removed from our 
 sympathies of any, and which we could no more revive and 
 set to modern work than we could revive an Egyptian 
 mummy, there are elements, and features, and details innu¬ 
 merable, on which no architect, who uses his own eyes, 
 feelings, and understanding, could look without profit. Such, 
 for example, are its variously formed and proportioned co¬ 
 lumns and capitals, and their thick-set disposition ; their 
 cylindrical untapered form, which was not without its 
 motive, the Osirid pillars, so superior as architectural fea¬ 
 tures to the Caryatic Order, which they suggested to the 
 Greeks; the low inter-columnar screen, the piquant effect 
 of which introduced into our columnar architecture, is seen 
 at St. George’s Hall; the simple form and beautiful decora¬ 
 tion of the epistylium and cove-cornice, which are standing 
 illustrations of the value of simplicity in architecture; the 
 mixture of round and square columns in the same court; the 
 absence of round columns from salient angles suggesting the 
 portico in antis of the Greeks ; the mode of lighting interiors; 
 the Colossi, Obelisks, and Dromos of Sphinxes, which 
 are imposing in themselves, and true accessories to the tem¬ 
 ple, as they truly heighten its effect; the indissoluble union 
 of sculpture and painting with architecture, which pressed 
 into her service her sister arts, and absorbed and assimilated 
 them to such a degree as to render all three one indivisible 
 art, in which painting and sculpture were not merely auxili¬ 
 aries, but architectural elements ; the plans of porticoes and 
 halls of columns, which involve refinements and subtleties, 
 with regard to arrangement and disposition of columns, 
 which have never been emulated in subsequent styles. 
 
 What extraordinary diversity of form, proportion and de¬ 
 coration, of character and design, is seen in the columns, (8) 
 which, though wanting the admirable truth and fitness of 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 181 
 
 form which the Greeks attained, displayed elements of 
 beauty which the Greeks might have emulated, and which 
 would have added to the completeness and perfection of their 
 system ! Their leaf and sculpture-bound shafts should make 
 us, I think, ashamed of our naked forms, in which all de¬ 
 coration has been generally confined to the head or to the 
 head and foot, an arrangement scarcely consonant with 
 that of nature, and even excite a suspicion that some¬ 
 thing more agreeable than a score or so of similar flutes 
 from top to bottom might be devised for their relief (9). 
 What beautiful use might be made of the human head or 
 face in the formation or embellishment of the capital is 
 suggested by the Isis-headed columns of Dendera, an idea 
 which the Greeks, if they used it, by no means exhausted. 
 Then, while the Greek temples are absolute nullities, with 
 respect to composition, the Egyptian are excellent studies in 
 that branch of design. Even the small buildings called 
 Mammeisi, or temples to the mysterious accouchment of the 
 mother of the gods, from which the idea of the Greek perip- 
 tery is evidently derived, the Greeks, much as they took 
 from Egyptian architecture, did not exhaust of suggestion. 
 They yet present features and arrangements by which many 
 great modern works might be corrected. Nay, the Dromos 
 of Sphinxes, Obelisks, Colossi, &c., of Egypt, though no fea¬ 
 tures could be more unfit for literal reproduction, are all 
 suggestive for the forming and arranging of accessorial 
 outworks in great national and important edifices, where 
 magnificence is aimed at in the present day; while the 
 Osirid pillar, and the sitting figures in front of some rock- 
 cut tombs, give hints for the application of the human figure 
 more grand and appropriate than anything shown in Greece, 
 and along with the winged bulls and other colossi of the 
 Assyrians intimate the greatness of our resources for the 
 production of the sublime in architecture. 
 
 Scarcely less suggestive than Egyptian is the architecture 
 of ancient India, which contains an unrifled mine of mate¬ 
 rials, many of them not only new to the architecture of the 
 day, but beautiful as anything that has since been imagined. 
 
182 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 No shape more beautiful or appropriate to its office could be 
 conceived for the shaft of a column than that combination of 
 prismatic forms which presents itself to us in the edifices of 
 the Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. The bracket-capital which 
 crowns these forms, and which only re-appears in Spanish 
 Renaissance, is here a most artistic and perfect feature com¬ 
 pletely worked out (10). 
 
 The proportions of Egyptian and Indian columns are 
 obviously too Herculean generally for our purposes, but the 
 attachment shown in these great styles to such massive pro¬ 
 portions is worthy of attention, and may at least induce a 
 suspicion that ours may be usually too slender, and that 
 considerations of climate have not sufficiently modified the 
 antique amongst us. I believe an exterior column of 
 Corinthian type in our atmosphere, which is so much more 
 corrosive of stone than that of Greece or Italy, should never 
 exceed nine diameters in length, and seldom eight; while 
 interior ones might bq more attenuated than any ancient 
 example. The architects of the future, if they are wise, 
 will make glorious pillage of Egyptian and Indian archi¬ 
 tecture. 
 
 But we should be doing gross injustice to the Gothic styles, 
 Round and Pointed, were we not to rank them among the 
 highest sources of instruction and inspiration to the Archi¬ 
 tect. Indeed, the great spirit of the styles just alluded to, 
 the Egyptian and Indian, was best caught by the Round 
 Gothic architects of Germany, France, and England, whose 
 style, as exemplified in the cathedrals of Worms and Spires, 
 and our own on the rock of Durham more strikingly than 
 any other, seems to have combined Egyptian columniation, 
 in its mighty columnar proportions ^uid thickset disposition, 
 with the Roman vaulting, and to be what the Egyptian 
 style, had it coalesced with the Etruscan elements of arch 
 and dome on the conquest of Egypt by the Romans, would 
 naturally have grown into. 
 
 Of the almost infinite variety in the modes of decorating the 
 shaft of a column, consistently with its office of bearer, only 
 the Pointed Gothic style seems to have availed itself. The 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 183 
 
 variety of situation in which the entire column may be applied 
 with beautiful effect, the numerous combinations of which 
 it is capable—-how completely it may be incorporated with 
 the wall, and made an essential element of the construction 
 in the formation and decoration, division and grouping of 
 doors or windows, the Ecclesiastical and Domestic Gothic 
 can tell. 
 
 The same style suggests, perhaps, better than any other, 
 where and how to make a home by niches and canopies 
 for statues; and what various and beautiful applications 
 may be made of the human and animal figure. It sug¬ 
 gests to us that magic element of interior embellishment 
 which grew up in her service, and which she even mo¬ 
 dified herself to receive—stained glass; and which is 
 too beautiful a thing ever to be abandoned, or excluded 
 for any length of time from any prevailing or successful 
 style. While in the churches of Italy and Sicily we prob¬ 
 ably see the highest and most beautiful of mural deco¬ 
 rations—namely, linings and panellings of coloured and 
 precious marbles forming a basis for historic painting above, 
 which, as well as glass mosaic, might have a modern deve¬ 
 lopment, and be made to run a new career. Painting and 
 sculpture have with us been long divorced from architecture, 
 but if they are to recover their ancient power over the heart 
 and spirit of man, it must be united with or in the service of 
 architecture, as in ancient and mediaeval times, that they 
 must do it. ' 
 
 If we thus turn to account our knowledge of other styles— 
 if we aim at the loftiest ways of combining the diverse ele¬ 
 ments of our architecture, and endeavour to bring every 
 elevating and beautifying influence to bear upon it, we shall 
 then be emulating in the use of the materials that providence 
 has placed in our hands the example of the most artistic of 
 the ancient and medieval nations. We shall be doing with 
 Greek and Roman architecture what the Greeks did with 
 that of the Egyptians and Assyrians, and with the early art 
 of the Pelasgi and Etruscans, nations widely different from 
 their own in race, religion, and political institutions. We 
 
184 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 shall be doing with our materials what the early Byzantine 
 and Christian-Roman architects did with Roman architec¬ 
 ture in their conversion of it to the service of the new 
 religion, and acting as true to our instincts and the circum¬ 
 stances in which we are placed as the Lombard or Gothic 
 architects themselves. 
 
 But what, I may be asked, in so broad a style, and with 
 elements so variously derived is to secure that unity of aim 
 and action among architects, which distinguished ancient 
 practice, and the want of which in modern times has made 
 patch-work of our streets and cities ? Principle, I answer, 
 is to do this—the universal and practical recognition among 
 architects, of the existence of those fixed and immutable 
 laws of beauty in art, which are founded on those of 
 nature, and embodied in the works of the Greeks, and the 
 great artists of mediaeval times. Principle is the northern 
 star by which the vessel of architecture may, in all countries 
 and ages, be safely steered—and it is a star that is ever 
 visible. It guided the growth and formation of all great 
 architectures, and, however styles may rise and fall, it can 
 never grow obsolete, or lose one atom of its obligation. 
 
 Principle will strike root and spring up, for it is power, 
 and wisdom, and beauty ; and it will not only cause a general 
 and external unity to reign among our works, but it will 
 unite all the arts of decoration from the highest branches 
 of poetical design down to the lowest link between design 
 and manufactures : it will unite the upholsterer, the weaver, 
 the potter, to the architect, and sculptor, and painter, and 
 make them one, as they were in all great art periods. 
 
 It is the non-recognition of guiding principles in our art 
 —of the existence of an inner standard of beauty and per¬ 
 fection in the human soul, and the promulgation and pre¬ 
 valence of the doctrine that beauty is a thing of accident— 
 a mere phantasm, or chimera of each man’s brain, arising 
 solely from certain variable habits or associations of the 
 mind; it is this, and the looking to the ever-shifting clouds 
 of fashion that has caused the want of a general unity, 
 and most other of the evils complained of in our national 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 185 
 
 architecture. It was similar views of art that led to the 
 triumph of the schools of Borromini, in Italy, and Chur¬ 
 riguera, in Spain, and whenever and wherever they prevail 
 they must be productive of mischief. Without principle 
 there can be no true practice—nothing but discord and 
 confusion, which no agreement among architects as to style, 
 nor interference of Government, or of a Royal Academy, or 
 Institute could remedy. If our architectural works were 
 individually good, produced on right principles, the entire 
 result, as exhibited in our streets and cities, would be har¬ 
 monious, no matter from what diversity of sources its com¬ 
 ponent elements were drawn. Having a common origin in 
 truth and nature, its parts would fully respond to each 
 other, and we should have, in an inexhaustible variety of 
 form, like what we see around us in external nature, an equal 
 unity in diversity, rivalling that of the Hebe-mother herself. 
 
 Were our Anglo-classic buildings fully Anglicised and 
 embellished from sources of inspiration at home, properly 
 adapted to modern requirements, and divested of all obsolete 
 device and detail, and above all, composed according to those 
 immutable principles which are common to all styles, and to 
 all branches of art, we should hear but little complaint of the 
 want of a new and national style. The opinion is highly 
 probable, and worthy of our earnest attention, that philo¬ 
 sophy was the mother of art in Greece, and originally 
 bestowed on her those aesthetic principles which guided her 
 in her peerless career, and led to such gorgeous and sublime 
 results. 
 
 Confident that art in the British Isles will lack no element 
 or principle essential to success in her future career, I 
 would ask, in conclusion, with an architecture combining 
 greater elements and having vaster resources than any 
 former style,—based on everything great and glorious in the 
 foregone, is there aught extravagant in predicting that in 
 general results we shall outstrip both Greek and Medi¬ 
 evalist ? However styles may pass away, there should, in 
 the long run, be a progression in architecture. The world, 
 to whose destinies it is linked, it is certain is ever pro- 
 
186 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 greasing, though empires moulder, and forms of govern¬ 
 ment expire ; and as the destruction of states and empires 
 has ever been but as the falling of leaves in autumn, 
 enriching the soil for a more luxuriant vegetation in future, 
 so in architecture, the dissolution of old styles may have 
 been but preparation for new and more glorious ones, and 
 not the general decline of architecture in the world. I be¬ 
 lieve, moreover, that it is not to be always a dying out and 
 renewal of styles. I see no inevitable necessity for a style 
 to die out at all. I can conceive one so flexibly constituted, 
 so modelled on the demands of a progressive state of society, 
 that instead of coming into opposition with, and being cast 
 aside by the main stream of progress, it may allow every 
 scope for man’s intellectual energies, and be receptive of all 
 possible elements of change for any period of time. There 
 is, 1 imagine, no more necessity for a style to die out 
 every century or two than for the human race itself to die 
 out; no reason why it should not involve in its constitu¬ 
 tion a power to endure coeval with the globe itself, and 
 survive amid all the changing institutions of the world. 
 
 That this is not altogether a dream will be apparent, if we 
 consider that the Mohammedans are at this day practising 
 the self-same architecture that grew up with their religion 
 and civilisation in the seventh century, and which has in 
 1,200 years weathered the storms of many important political 
 and other changes ; and that the Buddhists and Hindoos for 
 a much longer period, the former more than 2,000 years, have 
 maintained the same mode of architecture, though their 
 civilisation has been steadily retrograding for centuries. 
 
 But how happens it, it may be asked, that great styles 
 have died out—the Greek, for example, the Roman, the 
 Christian Romanesque, the Rhenish, the Lombardic, the 
 Norman ? I question if these, the classic styles, and the 
 great styles that link them historically to the Pointed Gothic, 
 can be rightly said to have died out at all. The Etruscan 
 and Greek were continued in the Roman—the Roman in the 
 various Romanesques which merged in the Gothic or Re¬ 
 naissance ; and the Persian, which was a continuation of the 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 187 
 
 Assyrian through the Babylonian, only ceased to be prac¬ 
 tised through the destruction of the Persian Empire by 
 Alexander the Great, if it did not in some sort linger and 
 become revived in the Sassanian, which again lived on in 
 the Persian-Saracenic, Armenian, and Russian; while the 
 style of Sicily, the Gothic of Venice, and various Italian 
 Romanesques, were superseded by the Renaissance, to which 
 they were so similar that they may be said to have faded 
 into it rather than to have died out. 
 
 The only great primary style that can be fairly said to 
 have died out is the Pointed Gothic, and that expired from 
 causes not internal but external—namely, the introduction 
 among the people of Europe generally about the time of the 
 Reformation of a taste in art directly hostile to it, I mean a 
 taste for everything classic, which brought it into unmerited 
 disesteem. It had its vices, it is true, which no doubt were 
 assisting to this ; but it could have purified itself from these, 
 and girded up its loins for a new and brighter career. 
 
 Our style may fail from want of artistic and original 
 talent it is true, but this is extremely unlikely in the country of 
 Shakespeare and Milton, of Hogarth and Reynolds, of 
 Wilson and Gainsborough, of Flaxman and Chantrey, and 
 that in architecture itself has produced a William of Wyke- 
 ham, a Waynflete, an Inigo Jones, a Wren, a Chambers, 
 a Soane, a Barry. Those who fear it will, or take de¬ 
 sponding views on the subject from the fact of our being 
 of Teutonic race, a race presumed to be ungifted with 
 the artistic aptness of the Celtic, as well as the poetic 
 temperament of the Semitic, forget that the blood of a score 
 of different tribes of mankind is flowing in our veins as 
 well as the Teutonic, and that we are perhaps as much 
 mixed in blood with the more artistic Celts as was the 
 Dorian Greeks with the ancient Pelasgi, to whose connexion 
 with the former all that is great in the intellectual manifes¬ 
 tations of Greece, whether in literature or art, is attributed. 
 
188 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 (1). This is not all: the Italian style may claim the pre¬ 
 ference over all others in virtue of its length of possession. 
 I know not what may be the feelings of others on this point, 
 but to me a modern Gothic building, however unique a 
 combination of elements it may boast, always looks like a 
 reproduction of a mediaeval one; while an Anglo-Italian 
 example, though of as recent a date as the other, and 
 without one original feature, has an air of genuine and 
 entire modernness. Why is this ? It is, I believe, because 
 the style of the former work, discontinued ages ago, was 
 only resumed within our own recollection, and because its 
 original examples are amongst us to remind us of the gap 
 between their date and that of their nineteenth century 
 representatives; whereas the style of the latter, however it 
 originated, was in operation centuries before our time, and 
 its example of to-day is therefore as it were one of an appa¬ 
 rently interminable series, coming down from the past, and 
 leading on to the future, to which it more significantly and 
 eloquently appeals, and to which it has as much reference 
 as to the past. 
 
 (2). Though in the preceding history I adopted the term 
 usually employed to designate the great artistic movement 
 in question, I used it rather in the sense of revival than of 
 Renaissance, which means re-birth, for I do not believe 
 there was any re-birth properly considered. Revival, signi¬ 
 fying thereby up-raising from lethargy, arousing from 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 189 
 
 slumber there was something resembling; but Renaissance 
 or re-birth, there was none, for classical Roman architecture 
 had never been dead at any period since the fall of the 
 Roman Empire. Italy, which the Lombards and other 
 Teutonic barbarians had never entirely conquered, and 
 which feudalism had never obtained much footing in, had 
 been the refuge of Roman civilisation at a time when other 
 parts of Europe were enveloped in mental darkness; and 
 with Roman civilisation was included Roman architecture, 
 which had here lived on in the various Italian Romanesques 
 which had all more or less retained a natural vitality, sinew, 
 and strength, and a large measure of the true classic spirit, 
 despite the influence of their powerful rivals, the Gothics 
 on one hand, and the Byzantines and Saracenics on the 
 other. 
 
 Among these Italian Romanesque branches was one 
 central one practised at Rome, which we have elsewhere 
 called the Roman Christian Basilica style, and which was so 
 pure that some writers have asserted it to be Roman, and 
 not Romanesque at all, as it was certainly more Roman than 
 Romanesque, pure Roman being involved in it. This style, 
 which was fully practised and exemplified at Rome down to 
 the twelfth or thirteenth century, was more than capable 
 of originating that classic branch of Romanesque which was 
 embodied in the cathedral and baptistry of Pisa, the city in 
 which classic architecture was afterwards revived by 
 Nicola Pisano, Arnolfo di Lapo, &c. May not the revival 
 be almost looked upon as merely an impulse given to Pisan 
 Romanesque, which was a living style in the time of Nicola 
 Pisano, and a continuation of the movement that pro¬ 
 duced it ? 
 
 But leaving this particular branch out of the question, the 
 Renaissance, and the Italian, which flowed naturally from it, 
 seem more a continuation of the Romanesque than a revival 
 of the Roman ; so similar to the Romanesque is the Renais¬ 
 sance that it is not always distinguishable from it, and we 
 lose sight of the former in the fifteenth century, when it 
 became identified with and merged into the new style. The 
 
190 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 career of the Renaissance seems, indeed, the Romanesque 
 gradually recovering the purity which it had lost in its 
 downward course, by reference to earlier and purer exam¬ 
 ples than what the style then existing reflected. 
 
 (3.) In accordance with the taste of the day. The ancient 
 civilisation has descended into the modern : Italian litera¬ 
 ture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which had 
 been derived from the classic Roman, Proven gal, Byzantine, 
 and Arabian fountains of inspiration, is the main source of 
 the broad flood of our present European literature. Our 
 tastes have been purified by drinking into the spirit of 
 classic poetry and literature, and contemplating classic 
 works of art; and this classically refined taste, with the 
 knowledge of and feeling for classic architecture that at 
 present exists in the community, if naturally exerted, should 
 secure the preservation amongst us in its integrity of Italian 
 architecture, perseverance in which, as the virtual continu¬ 
 ation of antique Roman, and the imbuing it with the new 
 spirit of the times, appears to me the only way to bring 
 architecture into harmony with our literature and the rest 
 of our civilisation, based as is the latter on that of the 
 Romans; and it is the way to that point where art and 
 science, literature, and religion would meet in full harmony. 
 
 (4.) It will be seldom that anything like what is under¬ 
 stood by pure Greek architecture will be called for in this 
 country. Its application should be limited to occasions 
 where means are adequate to its complete and worthy 
 rendering, possessed of all its pure and lofty attributes, and 
 where, under the magic hand of sculpture, its full soul of 
 beauty may be revealed. What has hitherto been done has 
 been little else than caricature and libel on the Greek genius, 
 modern attempts at pure Greek architecture being no more 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 191 
 
 the Greek of Phidias and Ictinus than the language of the 
 present inhabitants of Athens, with its copious alloy of 
 barbarous words and modern constructions, is that of Plato 
 and Euripides. And even where it has been worthily con¬ 
 ceived and executed, its effect is often found marred and 
 neutralised by its absurdity of position and situation ; exam¬ 
 ples of which may be seen in the edifice that crowns the 
 Calton-hill at Edinburgh, and in the additions made within 
 the present century to the ancient castle at Chester, in each 
 of which instances every architectural relic, and every 
 historical association, breathing earnestly and eloquently of 
 another and a feudal age, are against it; and the outraged 
 genius of the place stands warning it from its precints. 
 
 (5.) Even those vertical sky-piercing structures, in which 
 the genius of Gothic design is supposed most to rejoice— 
 lofty towers and steeples, no style will better form; as 
 witness Bow Steeple, and other works of the class by Wren, 
 Gibbs, and others. The objection that the different stages 
 of those structures, are not united by all-embracing vertical 
 features as is the case in the corresponding creations of the 
 Gothic style, should be directed against the designs rather 
 than the style, for it was as easy to have interwoven and 
 united the different stages, or stories, in those structures as 
 in Gothic steeples. The absurd objection to the piling of 
 classic orders on each other, seems to be dying away, as 
 well it may; orders piled on orders being as rational as 
 story above story, or arch above arch, in buildings of the 
 pointed or any other style. 
 
 (6.) Thosewho would be offended at the idea of classicalfea- 
 tures or qualities, in the architecture of a sacred edifice, should 
 be reminded that the Bible itself, to an Oriental sublimity, 
 in accordance with its great subjects, unites many of the 
 
192 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 graces and elegances that charm us in the best classic writers. 
 Isaiah, to the fire of Homer, adds many of the graces of 
 Virgil, and abounds in such literary beauties and charms, as 
 cannot fail to gratify the most refined and cultivated taste ; 
 and not only to captivate the imagination, but even to 
 please the ear, seems to have been kept in view in its 
 composition. 
 
 (7.) The Italian masters had no right to give canons for 
 the proportions and profiles of the orders, which were 
 neither more nor less than recipes for designs to supersede 
 thought, and the exercise of taste and feeling, and artistic 
 ingenuity, which they were calculated to do, whether they 
 were so intended or not. Classic proportions might vary to 
 suit the properties of different building materials, as well as 
 different climates, and different situations in a building. An 
 elegant elongated columnar ordinance, that is an attenuated 
 Italian style, not altogether devoid of classic grace of detail? 
 might, I fancy, be composed and proportioned for execution 
 in iron. 
 
 (8.) This, the Romans, in some respect may be said to 
 have imitated, and one of the greatest short-comings of the 
 modern Italians, in which they were followed by their 
 best Transalpine emulators, is seen in the omission in their 
 treatment of the orders to profit by the example of their 
 forefathers, in whose works we see that an almost infinite 
 diversity of design, was imparted to a feature, the Corin¬ 
 thian capital, which has been treated by us, and by modern 
 architects generally, as all but a stereotyped and unvarying 
 pattern form. I say an almost infinite diversity, for such, 
 I think, a comparison of Roman remains, with a considera¬ 
 tion of the extent of the Roman empire, and vastness of 
 Roman architectural enterprise, will show it must have been. 
 
OP ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 193 
 
 “That what the Romans made of this order,” writes Mr. 
 Leeds, in “ A vindication of the Italian Renaissance,” “ is 
 not to be judged of by the comparatively few examples of 
 it to be gathered from still existing buildings, is tolerably 
 apparent from the innumerable fragmentary specimens of it 
 which are to be met with scattered through different 
 museums and repositories of works of art, each of which 
 is distinguished by some peculiarity. How many others 
 have totally perished, it is impossible to say ; but when the 
 Solomon of the west, the magnificent Abderahman HI. 
 erected his palace at Zahra, near Cordova, he collected for 
 its embellishment no fewer than 4,300 Roman columns, 
 the greater part of which were obtained from Africa, a 
 considerable number from other parts of Spain, 146 from 
 Constantinople, and not a few from Rome itself. * * * To 
 columns plundered from Roman edifices, not a few mediaeval 
 buildings in the South of Europe were indebted for a 
 species of magnificence that, in many instances, contrasted 
 very forcibly with the rudeness and poverty of the rest of 
 the architecture; and although only fragments from a larger 
 wreck, such transplanted columns afford tolerably plain 
 evidence that the Romans understood how to impart great 
 diversity of character to what conformed to the same 
 generic type.” 
 
 There is another lesson yielded by Egyptian architecture 
 which I am not so sure the Romans profited by. In the 
 Egyptian foliated capital generally, a little of the plain solid 
 bell was allowed to peep forth, as if to give guarantee of its 
 sufficiency of bearing strength—a thing usually very much 
 wanting in our Corinthian capital—which, by having its 
 solid ground entirely hidden, looks as if it were the whole 
 head of the column, through its entire thickness, broke into 
 foliage. The Gothic and Byzantine styles are equally in¬ 
 structive with the Egyptian on this point. 
 
 But, perhaps, the most beautiful and valuably suggestive 
 feature of Egyptian architecture is the variation of capitals 
 in the same portico, which it is wonderful the Romans did 
 not appropriate, for nothing could be more applicable to a 
 
 K 
 
194 
 
 THE COURSE AND CURRENT 
 
 classic colonnade, or more heightening to its effect. As 
 suggested some years ago by the writer, in a paper on the 
 subject, there is no more need of haying the capitals of a 
 portico all alike than there is of having all porticoes alike. 
 Capitals may be all distinct designs, united by a general 
 similarity and harmony in composition ; while they may 
 embrace for their materials as wide a range of the vegetable 
 kingdom as the corresponding features of Byzantine and 
 Gothic; with which styles, or any other, the classic, 
 indeed, may vie throughout in life, and freshness, and grace, 
 and the manifestation of the profoundest sympathy, with 
 the variety and fullness of the material creation. 
 
 A vast field, I am persuaded, of originality and beauty 
 lies also in the variation of the intercolumniations of the 
 same portico, from the centre on either hand, a principle as 
 applicable to the Italian, or pure classic, as it was to the 
 Byzantine. The alternation of coupled and single columns, 
 as in the Alhambra courts, is not unpleasing. 
 
 (9) The Greek architecture proper seems deficient in the 
 richness of Egyptian and Gothic, as it is in the flexibility of 
 those and many other styles, and would have been different, 
 would have combined more eye-beauty with its mind-beauty, 
 had it not been destined to become the receptacle of the 
 highest offerings of historic sculpture, which is to the Greek 
 architecture what the musical accompaniment was to the 
 Greek tragedy. 
 
 It is important to bear this in mind in the treatment of 
 a columnar style based on the Greek, and that is to be placed 
 under conditions very different from those of the original 
 style. There appears to me to be great scope left for us in 
 the treatment of the shaft, as to division by bands into 
 stages, and the various application of sculptural relief, and 
 even as regards profile or contour. The balluster column, 
 or what is sometimes called the “ bed-post column ” of the 
 Spanish Plateresco, in certain situations, would be an ap- 
 
OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 195 
 
 propriate and pleasing feature. There certainly are situations 
 even in external architecture, where something in contour, 
 between the column and the balluster—something more 
 sensuous and elegant than the column, and yet graver than 
 the balluster, would be desirable and agreeable. As to pro¬ 
 portion of height to diameter, the classic column ought to 
 be capable of as great a variety of proportions as the un¬ 
 clustered or detached Gothic one. 
 
 (10.) Perhaps, however, the Ionic Volute may be con¬ 
 sidered a species of bracket-capital. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 A DAY, PRINTER, NEW COURT, LINCOLN’S INN, W.C. 
 
4- J*- 
 
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