The Washington times., 1901-08-11

OF the subject year ago. and all tina
could be said officially was that the mon
ey appropriated for the tomb ran shor
and the work had been arrested ''in Its
present stage of development" Yet $780,
Oco was appropriated for this tomb fifty
years ago. Nobody seems to care now
whether 1t Is ever completed or not Aft.
er the lapse of half century patriotism
Is not easily transmitted into money. The
iron duke. however, no doubt sleeps very
soundly without his equestrian statue
perched above him.
London is in a much more half-made
| state than New York anyway, and evil
| cences of incompleteness meet one on
every hand, although your true Briton is
1 never tired of talking about British
| thoroughness." An empty pedestal in
! trafalgar Square stands 'proclaiming dali
iy to wondering world that England
| has now no hero to stand with Nelson,
| Gordon, Napier. Havelock, ard George
| "! Save the mark, And will somebody
| put clock in st. Paul's tower. which was
| evidently designed for one, and place the
statues on the pedestaIs along Blackfr.ars
Bridge. as was originally intended? Then
| there is Westminster Abbey which was
| meant to have spire. and the much-dis-
| cussed marble arch. which was designed
to have a statue on top of it,
The abbey is perhaps the most widely
known specimen of an IT completed edifice
in the world. Wherever the English
tongue is spoken THE abbey makes US
We" yet it never has been finished and
probably never will be. The disastrous
attempt at completing II made by Sir
Christopher Wren when he put up the two
homogeneous square towers on the west
front is wel!-known architectural crime,
the results of which are enough to fright
en- of any other architect from trying his
hand on the ancient edifice The existing
abbey is. in a great degree. the building
erected by Henry III after he had pulled
down most of the Confessors building. 1t
was Henry who erected the chapel of the
Confessor, which forms the rounded end
OF the choir. or the apsis of the building.
the four chapels in the ambulatory that
extend around the choir, a considerable
portion of the choir itself, a small por-
ton of the transepts, and probably the
chapter house. The nave thus begun was
carried forward further in the reign of
Edward l. and gradually finished with
other portions of the ediiice in the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries. and the
grand close of the whole work took place
in the reign OF Henry VII by the erection
of the chapel which bears that monarch's
name. The great central tower and the
western towers were. however. still I'M
buiit, although the work had been in
progress for three centuries. knight
says: The great central tower and the
western towers were still unbuilt, and so
TO this time the former remains; the lat
ter have been added to by the architect of
St Paul. in style that makes us regret
that he did not contine himself to ST
Paurs and works of a kindred character.
Most assuredly he was profoundly ignor-
ant OF the character ana merits of the
productions to which he presumptuousiy
applied the epithet of Gothic crinkIe-
crankle.'
The first church was built on the site of |
the present abbey in ISL A D., and so. |
with rebuilding, tearing down, and add i
ing to, the work of the making of West
minister Abbey has been going on for III
years and the edifice is still incomplete.
so it will. In all probability, always re-
main. chief among the worlds Great Tn
finished.
Within the enclosure of the Alhambra
At Granada stands the unfinished palace
Of Charles | Of Spain. structure which
he monarch fondly imagined would out
vie the palace of the Moorish kings to
which it stands adjacent. Charles died
before the building was completed, and
here 1t stands today after the centuries
nave swept by, still incomplete.
Near London stands a modern example
If unfinished things. 1t is the so-calIed
Nembley tower, which its protector de-
igned to be $50 feet higher than the EifeI
Tower in Paris. 1t was to cost Sl,0o0ela
The lower platform is all that has ever
'een built for the structure. This lower
PLATFORM occupies the same space as St
'aufs Cathedral So the list might De
tretched out Nearly everyone will re-
member something to add to it. But
hese few examples cited show what
alfmade world this is after all