The Press.
London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

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Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture,
Present and Future. By George Gilbert
Scott, A.R.A. London : Murray.
THIS volume is a very interesting one. It is
the product of a warm heart, a religious mind,
and a fertile but not undisciplined imagina-
tion. It is pervaded by a single-minded and
sincere spirit; and the entire absence of pre-
tension, of all sneers at rival architects or un-
professional critics, is a refreshing contrast to
the lofty scorn with which some of Mr. Scott's
brethren treat the unfortunate layman who is
audacious enough to have an opinion on the.
fitness of the church in which he is to worship
or of the house in which he is to live. Nor
have we any reason to suppose that the author
himself is belied by these prominent and
agreeable characteristics of bis work. No one,
we believe, is in his:professional capacity more
patient in explanation, more liberal-minded in
entertaining fresh ideas, or more ready in
accepting suggestions, than the accomplished
writer of the pages before us ; and we have
little doubt but that these qualities will, with
his extended knowledge and correct taste,
afford him many more opportunities of putting
into practical form the ideas he has here laid
before the public.
In his opening chapter, " The Present State
of Domestic Architecture in its Vernacular
Form," Mr. Scott insists with crushing empha-
sis on the lugubrious ugliness or tasteless
finery of almost all houses built at the present
day. Down to the Great Rebellion, he con-
siders that England possessed a national ar-
chitecture ; but that, owing to the revival of
classical associations and " the long sojourn
" of our nobles on the Continent," it has since
that time gradually declined, till the war from
1193 to 1815 swept it away altogether. He
does not more precisely indicate the causes
which have substituted flattened roofs for
overhanging gables, and square white Palla-
dian mansions for picturesque Elizabethan
manor-houses. We should be rather inclined
to ascribe the change to the writers of the
eighteenth century, who, without perhaps
having a word to say on the subject of archi•
tecture, were imbued with a classical spirit
which could not but have its effect in other
departments besides those of poetry and phi-
losophy. The spirit of the French Revolution,
tending to produce equality in man, a forced
symmetry in institutions, and a general dead
level in everything, must have felt itself in-
stinctively and radically opposed to a form of
art which long continued to embody many of
the feudal influences under which it had come
into being. What true democrat could endure
to see a house such as that described by Mr.
Scott in Chapter VI., where the domestics
should be restricted to a minor court only, and
where the apartments in which one citizen
cooked the dinner should he offensively dis-
tinguished by its external character from that
in which another citizen consumed it? But
whatever may be the cause of the decay of
Gothic architecture among us, the fact re-
mains the same; and, probably, few persons
of taste will be inclined to dispute the justice
of Mr. Scott's strictures on the greater portion
of that by which it has been displaced.
What, then, is to be the remedy ? Eccle-
siastical architecture has been already revolu-
tionised " whereas forty years ago no one
" dreamed, if a new church were to be built,
" of assimilating it in style to those bequeathed
" to us by our forefathers, the reverse is now
" the case; no one now entertains the idea of
" building one in any style but those of our
"old churches." It remains to revolutionise
civil and domestic architecture to the same
extent. We are not to suppose that there is
one style for a church and another for a house,
and that Gothic isto be confined to the former,
while Venetian, Roman, or builder's compo-
site will do well enough for the latter. The
only question, according to Mr. Scott, is, what
style of Gothic are we to choose ? The answer
Is, no style in particular, but one based prir
eipally on the works of the fourteenth century
with unlimited power of adaptation to the rc
qturements of our own time. We have bee,

prin. *The shareholders of the London and Eastern Bank will long
have reason to remember the view of Branksea Castle which He has also great sense, and some wit. With
ftury, figured on the walls of the Royal Academy a year or two since, these qualifications, therefore, and the corn-
le rc-
If anything could aggravate the loss of their money, it would be wand of a brisk,
the knowledge that it had been spent on building of so smart style, we need not
been childish and absurd a character. wonder that in " The Three Clerks" he has