The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-06 00:00:00

POLICE IN2,IFrig!GEN,,CII.,-(21118 1).4 4)

Share 1 Railways.

Paid.' Closing Business
Price. Done.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

STEALING A GOLD SNUFF-BOX, RING, SEALS, &C.,
BY WORKMEN.—George Ash, a plumber, and John Green-
ham, a labourer, were charged before Mr. Beadon, with
stealing a gold snuff-box, two gold seals, a gold ring, and an
opera glass, of the value of £l2, the property of Major
Claude Boucher, of 25, St. James's-street.

Mrs. Emily Edensor, lodging-house keeper, of 25, St.
James's-street, said the two prisoners, who were in the
employ of Mr. Bywater, a plumber, were at her house on
the previous Tuesday and Wednesday, repairing a cistern,
and on Thursday she missed from Major Boucher's bod-
room a gold snuff-box, a ring, seals, and opera glass, which
she had seen safe on the looking-glass after the Major left
town on Monday. The room door was not locked at the
time, and no one but her mother and servant, besides the
prisoners, had access to the room.

®Ruth Hutt, servant to Mrs. Edensor, -vas called, but
merely proved letting the prisoners in, and seeing them to
the roof of the house.

The prisoners, who denied all knowledge of the robbery,
were then remanded for further inquiries.

House of Commons.

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 6, 1860.

(From the Times.)

.z6bo42f
,r FOREIGN OFFICES.

Lord Palmerston of course laid his account for
a. hard 'struggle when he nailed his colours on
Thursday night to the Italian pilaster. Perhaps
thore is no subject whatever upon which there is so
much difference and so much strength of opinion
as the rival claims of Italian and Gothic architec-
ture. Buildings are the outsides of our institu-
tions. People judge of a thing by its exterior, and
suppose the quality to be inseparable from the
visible form. The building stares you in the face ;
its outline cuts the sky ; its form stands distinct on
the memory, and survives a thousand changes. It
undergoes no alteration, except what a mason can
make or set right, and it exerts a sort of domina-
tion over minds that may not be very susceptible
to the higher charms of action, movement, and
tone. No doubt the muse of architecture is apt
to be cold, dull, and material; and it is no wonder
that the more vivacious a :d spiritual minds become
im patient of her pedantry, her stiff grammar,
her idle crotchets, and her inexorable disregard
of human wants and feelings. Lord Palmerston
is just the man to rebel against the impertinence of
an Art which insists on housing, lighting, warming,
airing, and surrounding him on what he considers
Les. thetical principles; which cuts his daylight
with mullions and cinquefoils, and obtrudes some-
thing quaint or grotesque at every step ; and
which will not let him warm himself at the fire, or
look out of his window, or open a door, without
arresting his attention to some detail of colour or
form. Certainly it is high time there should be
some protest against the tyranny of an Art which
thinks man made for it, not itself for man. Never-
theless architecture, even when it comes to us in
stiff mediaeval garb, ought to be allowed not only
a bearing, but an opportunity of reform. When
evOy madman and every knave may get admission
to it Reformatory and try the effect of gentle in-
fluences, why should not Gothic architecture ? As
a Matter of theory, and as an historical fact, Gothic
architecture is net only the most pliant and accom-
*dating of all styles, but it is actually the accom-
-thodation of the original Greek and Roman styles
to the various wants of man and the ever improv-
ing style of life. Yet the very statement will
provoke a smile. Why is that ? The sad truth is
that we have to deal, not with architecture, but
with architects. Put yourself into the hands of a
Gothic architect, tell him what you want, let him
invoke his muse and his clerks, and know the
result. You will not have what you want, but
what he wants. You will be an example of Gothic
architecture ; the architect may refer to your
house with pride; but you will not occupy
it with comfort, especially when you have to pay
the bill, and remedy one by one his mistakes and
its deficiencies.

There is absolutely no reason whatever why Lord
Palmerston, or any other man, should not sit down,
and, taking proper advice, state fully and peremp-
torily all that he wants for use and comfort, and
insist on an. architect embodying these require-
ments in a plan. For this purpose we will venture
to say—for it is demonstrable—Gothic architecture
is as amenable as Palladian. It admits of windows
of all sizes, all shapes, anywhere ; it compels no
exact balance of parts, no level line, no mere uni-
formity ; its very pliancy renders it only too sub-
servient to the crotchets of the architect if he be
allowed to be master, A Gothic structure may be
a dungeon or a birdcage ; a closet or a conserva-
tory; a tower, a cloister, anything you please. But
unfortunately—and here is the fatal admission
which truth compels us to make—not even Parlia-
ment itself can control the wilfulness of the archi-
tect when it has once put itself in his hands. He
will stuff in ornaments wherever he can find space,
—for has he not a thousand books and drawings,
and must he not use them ? Has he not a hundred
models of fire dogs, and a menagerie of griffins,
lions, and unicorns P Is he not a herald ? You
ask for so much window, and he gives it ; but
it is at the end of a deep and narrow bay, or
darkened by an external buttress—for there
must be twenty buttresses though not one
be wanted ; and when all is done much
firmness of mind is necessary to save the
light that there is from being darkened with
painted glass. There, in fact, is the greatest trial
to an unaesthetic' 1 member of Parliament. Wearied

with innumerable mullions and niches, ribs-and

bosses, blue, red, and yellow tiles, brasswork and
woodwork, hangings and wainscotings, frescoes and
statues, with a monster of some sort grinning at
him from every corner, he looks at the windows,
and, like poor Dido, it may be said, " Quasivit
ccelo lucem, ingemuitque reperta," for there too
thrust themselves between him and the sky all
sorts of unearthly or ridiculous associations. There,
too, are nondescripts, rampant or passant, uncouth
symbols, and illegible scrolls. The very source of
truth itself seems to be infected, and light and
nature quite shut out when even in the sky you
must read some foolery. These things are well in
their way, but there is too much of it. It is a whole
world of nonsense. You feel yourself reduced to
too slavish a subservience to the fancies of an archi-

eet. You must see everything with his eyes, and,
S he so wills it, not see at all, for painted windows

give but an uncertain and sickly light. Human
nature rebels at last, and it is rebelling in the

But let Gothic architecture speak a word for
itself. The Houses of Parliament, from the very
beginning, never were regarded as a good speci-
men of Gothic architecture. Nobody ever thought
the latest " perpendicular," as it is uncouthly
called—that is the style of Henry VII.—
the best phase of the style. The design was
very early stigmatised as one of Classic outline
clothed with Gothic detail, and requiring an
excess of detail to make up for fault of design. The
other errors of the building are not those of style,
for they are found in all styles. In these days, no
matter what style, no matter what the intention of
the building, if the contract turns £20,000, the
architect will insist on giving you several towers,
and abundance of other things wholly useless, for
the sake of which he will starve the real wants of

the building. Look at Colney Hatch Asylum, with
a dozen towers and a bad foundation. What can
be more absurd than the magnificent facade of the
British Museum, which answers no purpose what-
ever but to contract and darken every room in the
south and principal front ? Contrast with this vain
extravagance, perpetrated by our countrymen, the
airy, cheerful, comfortable, and not the less beauti-
ful reading room suggested and contrived by the
Italian gentleman now at the head there ! liven
Sir Christopher Wren's vast pile is an architectural
folly, the showy shell of a dark and dingy interior.
The entire outside there is a sham. There is not a
single Gothic folly but has its Italian rival. The
new Museum at Oxford is a curious extravagance ;
but not more so than the Randolph Gallery. The
Bodleian and the Schools Quadrangle, built in Laud's
Chancellorship, are far more sensible and useful
structures than the classic dome of the Ratcliffe.
There is scarcely a portico, a dome, or a turret, or
a cornice, that is, not worse than useless, and a
sacrifice to mere fancy. Whatever the sins of
Gothic architecture, they are not greater than those
of the dull Georgian style in which many of our
large churches are built, at a cost incredible in
these days.
But the cost the extravagance, and the introduc-
tion of useless features in the exterior design are
not the faults which have set Lord Palmerston so
strongly against tha Gothic style. It is, as we un-
derstand, the crotchetings, the puerility, and the
affectation of the style. To one who is simply
engaged in business, reading, writing, or talking,
an ordinary room in an ordinary building, of Palla-
dian architecture, is pleasanter than a Gothic room,
as Gothic rooms commonly are. We are disposed
to admit the fact. There is no doubt that any
architect put upon Gothic feels his profession more
of an amusement, and considers himself invited to
sacrifice convenience to fancy. He is asked to write
a romance, and he writes one accordingly. Mr.
Barry considered himself retained to build an epic,
and that is what he has given us. But the remedy
is in our hands. It is our fault if we do not say
exactly what we want, whether in a plain style or
an ornate one, and make the architect follow our
instructions. Our old village churches are well
adapted to the purpose; they are dignified, com-
modious, and cheerful. The style in which they
are all built ought not to be rejected because there
are some new churches in the same style so full of
decoration, so over-furnished, so dark, and so
quaint, that your eye is always catching some
oddity or other, and they are obliged to have
lights at midday.. Most of the colleges at Oxford and
Cambridge are in the latest phase of the Gothic
style, and, except that a mullioned window is not
a good one to sit at and look out from, College
rooms are generally free from the objections alleged
against the Gothic style. But we need only look
at the infinite variety of structures comprised undor
the general title of Gothic to be satisfied of the
pliancy of the style. Beginning with the first cor-
ruption of the Roman—the Romanesque—and what
else is the Coliseum ?—and arriving at the English
Tudor, and the French " Flamboyant," we may
count a dozen different grades, each one more ac-
commodating than the last, and, in fact, following
the cluinges of custom and taste. Mr. Scott takes
up what is technically, and absurdly, called the
" decorated" at the point when it was suddenly,
supplanted by William of Wykeham's stern crea-
tions, and he developes it with the originality of
an architect who might have been born in those
days. The most accomplished foreigners have
added their tribute to his success in this revival.
No doubt, like all other architects, he wants a tight
rein, and we hope to see it in Lord Palmerston's
hand. But if he is to be employed at all, it should