The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-19 00:00:00

DISCOVERIES IN THE TEMPLE.

(From the Critic.)

The demolition of Dr. Johnson's house and the
adjacent houses on the west side of narrow Inner
Temple-lane, and. the erection in their place of a '
row of well-arranged suites of chambers in external
appearance bald and repulsive-looking, has lately
been followed by similar demolitions (sweeping
away Goldsmith's house, No. 5) and new buildings
on the eastern side, on the part of Middle Temple,
whose property they are. The houses now removed
completely concealed the north-west of the Temple
Church, and some in fact actually abutted on it, one
being built over the porch, and the wayfarers had
to go through an archway under it to pass from the
lane into the Inner Temple. The demolition has
revealed a portion of the church which has not seen
the light of day for two or three centuries, and which
had escaped the destructive hand of the restorer,
viz., the western wheel-window of plate tracery over
the porch, three of the long, narrow, round-headed
windows of the Round, with the capitals remain-
ing, but attached shafts gone ; the original corbel-
stones (at a lower level than in the restored portion
of the church), and the original masonry of the
whole of the north-west wall of the Round in a per-
fectly fresh state, though rough and seamy from the
usage received by the builders of the now demo-
lished adjacent houses. Striking and suggestive is
the contrast presented by this solitary genuine
fragment of the church with the spurious work of
the restorers of 1827, who refaced the whole exte-
rior then accessible to them with large blocks of
Portland stone, and made the whole look as little
like an early English, or ancient church, as might
be. This stone, by the way, is already, in parts, de-
cayed, while the Godstone firestone of the 12th cen-
tury still remains—mutilated but not decayed. Be-
sides revealing an authentic buried portion of the
original church in all the eloquence of its pictu-
resque effect and honest construction, the demolition
has thrown open to view, in all its naked deformity,
what was built not to be seen of man—the paltry
and abortive quasi-transept and excrescence, dating
from the grand restoration of 1841, when it was
built to receive the organ, &c. A side view of the
master's house (a 17th-century building), to the east
of the church, is also opened up. Much of the exte-
rior of the porch is of brick, of the same date as the
demolished houses ; as also is the brick parapet at
the lower part of the roof of the Round. The houses
in Inner Temple-lane, next the church, and those
forming the south side of what was Church-court,
are not to be replaced. Those on the north side of
Church-court (facing the church), and at the corner
of Inner Temple lane, are being replaced by a row
of brick houses with stone dressings, in a kind of
sublimated gin-palace style—that showy, bullying
vulgarly-pretentious style, essentially marked by a
brutal emptiness of all art and all feeling, which may
rank as one of the styles of the day, the one that
addresses itself to practical men. The open space be-
tween the houses and church is being lowered by the
removal of accumulated earth, and will remain an
open flagged terrace, borne on arches, as a safeguard
against damp. The exposed roof of the porch has
been protected by a temporary pent-house roof. We
believe the benchers of the two inns have still to
decide what to do with the newly-discovered exte-
rior portion of the Round. Would that it could re-
main as it is ! Every restoring touch will rob us of
something of the real work of the 12th century
masons. But above all things, let the benchers be-
ware of imitating the example set by their prede-
cessors and Sir R. Smirke in 1825.27, and substitut-
ing a case of smooth stone for the mixed surface of
rough wall-work and finished ashlar-work, which
forms so great a charm in this fragment of the ori-
ginal structure.

IHE KING OF PRUSSIA.

(From the Times.)