the hypothenuse of each of the triangles which the length of the diagonal determined as sides of octagons, we found the different circles inscribed on these octagons, and consequently the diame ters. In order to perform this with precision, the person who applied the square to the different parts of the shaft held the level on the square, which the others assisted him to place horizontally, lowering or raising at pleasure from the top of the column, the extremities of the two arms, where were fixed two cords. By these different processes we took the measurement with great exactness. Several members of the commission of the arts were present at the operation, and most of them were afterwards hoisted up to the top of this enormous capital, on which six or seven of us stood at one time. It remains for me to add a few words respecting the situation, division, principal dimensions, nature of the substance, propor tions and duration of this monument. It is situated on a gentle eminence, and placed on a sub-base which the barbarians have undercut, leaving only a newel of one mètre 28 centimètres (four feet six inches) square as its only support. This newel is formed of a fragment of an Egyptian monument which appears to be of the nature of a siliceous substance and which has itself been brought to that place, as the hieroglyphics on it are reversed. On examining the part cut away below the pedestal, it is easy to discover that an equal pressure upon the foundation has occasioned the column to incline 21 centimètres, and it is undoubtedly owing to this that there is a deep rent of about four mètres 87 centimètres (15 feet) in length, in the lower part of the shaft of the column. This monument is of the Corinthian order, and is divided into four parts-the pedestal, base, shaft, and capital. From there being a circle of 2 m. 2 c. (six feet three inches) diameter, and sunk 6 c. (two inches) it would appear that there has been formerly on the top of it a pedestal, upon which was placed, probably, the statue of the hero to whose memory this column was erected; but this is only conjecture. The pedestal (plate, fig. 1) is 3 m 24 c. (ten feet) in height; the base 1 m. 78 c. (five feet six inches three lines), the shaft 20 m. 48 c. (sixty-three feet one inch three lines), the capital 3 m. 21 c. (nine feet ten inches six lines). The diameter of the column is 2 m. 70 c. (eight feet four inches) at the lower part, and 2 m. 49 c. (seven feet two inches eight lines) near the astragal; the total height, as I have already mentioned, is 28 m. 73 c. (eightyeight feet six inches). All the parts of the monument are of thebaic granite. Although this order may in some measure be considered as Corinthian, from its capital, it is not of Grecian proportions; for the shaft is nearer to the lonic. Besides, it is evident that the different parts of which it consists are the production of different ages. The shaft, which is of an admirable form, and of very fine polish, except on the side towards the desert, that has suffered from the sand, appears to be the workmanship of the Greeks, probably under the Ptolomis; the other parts are evidently inferior. The profiles are pretty similar to those of the lower empire of the Romans. The capital is but grossly embossed, the pedestal is exceedingly low, and the colour of the granite even is different from that of the shaft. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that this shaft having been made prior to the cther parts, has been reerected at some extraordinary epoch. It is probably the largest column of a single block in the world. It is much to be regretted that the inscription which was upon one of the sides of the pedestal is not legible, as it would clear up the uncertainty of this monument, which some authors attribute to the memory of Pompey, and others to that of Septimius Severus. ANTIQUITIES OF ENGLAND. By an Antiquary. [Continued from Page 432 of our last.] A REVIVAL of the ancient architecture of this kingdom, is a cry that is gone abroad to assail the ears of those men of property who are fond of giving way to the habits of building: professional men catch at the auspicious sounds, hoping that a new turn in public taste will bring them new jobs and new emoluments: thus, all from the prince to the humble artizan, are on the edge of expectation to begin the new order of architectural things, by bringing forward once more that style of building which erst surprised and delighted the eyes of all. Impenetrable bulwarks to time's wide wasting power, but not to man's destroying force, ye cathedrals, castles, colleges, mansions, hospitals, and all other works, dating your origin from remote antiquity, do ye not tremble, at the insulting promulgation of a system that will perpetrate your intire disfigurement and destruction, masked under the specious pretext of bringing into notice your wonderful properties? This deep laid scheme against your further claims on the admiring few, ye, the antiquary's resource, and the historian's records, has been insidiously carrying on for some years back, by a foisted-in sort of pervertion of your beauties, shewn in public works, termed our ancient architecture improved, which I now drag from their usurped situations, to shew them as they are, odious, wretched, and deformed! Take some of these principal blots staining our national structures. The front of the courts of justice in Wesminster-hall,-stalls in the choir of the neighbouring abbey church;great part of St. Margaret's church adjoining;-chapel of the heretofore palace of the bishop of Ely, in Holborn;-south front of Guildhall; St. Bartholomew the less, Smithfield;-St. Catharine's, by the tower;-St. Mary Overe's, London-bridge:-screen Rochester cathedral, cathedral, choirs of Salisbury and Litchfield cathedrals, and in a variety of other ancient edifices, both religious and civil. We may likewise hunt this conjestion out from many of our late constructed villas, lodges, and snug boxes; from the lofty roof to the lowly smoking seat; from theatric palaces of canvased state to the procenium of a tin cascade. When snuffers, stove grates, fire-screens, chairs, tables, looking-glasses, stools, paper-hangings, and clock-cases, all thrust into our presence, to shew their part of universal transformation into this improved state of our ancient art. These absurd and ridiculous images of a vitiated and phrensicd taste, calling on novelty to support their tyranny, has but too well carried into execu tion the desperate blow levelled at our antiquities, by the sacrilegious immitation, disgusting and misguiding the eyes and understandings of the possessors of such our country's wonders, either to doom their downfall, or consign them to a more fatal destiny, by being made the prostituted objects to bear the squalid frippery of modern decoration; or standing half curtailed of their proper attachments, or bound in the irretrievable cearments of new facing, according to present adornmental principles. Is it possible for men, bred up in the practice of studying from the models of the works of Greece and Rome, who have been forbid, under the penalty of barbarism, to cast a glance on our national architecture, who have been decoyed to prostrate themselves before the altars of the heathen schools of architecture, and who have been pushed back from venting one ejaculation in praise to our ancient professional attributes of the christian faith, under the terrors of superstition and ignorance, to be believed, when they affirm that they admire such efforts of English art? To pagan perfection these professors' arms are for ever held forth in blind adoration, and to compleat imitation, while against our rifled and debased monuments of antiquity the maddening rage of infidelity and ingratitude is constantly aimed; the bug-bears of "dark ages, gothic manners, and monkish science," are also for ever held up to drive the affrighted student to shun such shades of sorcery, insanity, and eccentricity. Thus shut out from the rays of architectural truth, it is not to be wondered at, that in all these attempts at something in the way of such its divine characters, that they appear so truly despicable, having for the cause the fatal reasons just declared. Reverting back to the announced presumptive ordonance, the revival of our ancient architecture, we hear of designs, "purely gothic," springing up under the direction of the favourite and fashionable architects of the day, in every corner of the land, to greet our wondering eyes. Thus, in the very onset of their pretended emancipating from oblivion our former splendor, they wound the cause with disgrace and obliquy. What does this word Gothic mean? Why, something vile, savage, low, contemptible, and horrid! Is it not now well understood, that this vulgar nick-name was first in use when Sir Christopher Wren stood, like the destroying angel, over the ruins of old St. Paul's,* which, till his night of architecture darkened our hemisphere, was called the admiration of the christian world?* Then, why do. these revivers of an art, thus in our sight, usher in their labours. with a designation, the very declaration of which turn into suspicion all they bring before us? 66 "A gothic abbey at Fonthill," described out by a "noble. gothic arch;" [which, from the accompanying plate, is but a mere hole in a wall] a groined gothic hall," [the characters of our ancient halls were all of the same mode as Wesminster-hall, shewing open timber worked roofs] a "cardinal's parlour," [good; the Pope's drawing-room is not specified, unlucky] a "library," [something new; books in our ancient monasteries were always deposited in chests, or the like, and taken out as wanted] a "gallery," [a modern apartment for pictures, a term for a part of the House of Commons, the Play-houses, &c. &c.] filled up with with "mysterious" characters, running about as link-men, "substantial dinners, ebony chairs, shrines, wax-lights, candelabras, plate glasses," &c. &c. "A religious service, suggested to recall the ceremonies of Catholic times," a "collation," and a theatric representation of "Agripina, bearing the ashes of Germanicus." This undisguised illustration of the Fonthill abbey shews the universality of the learning and skill both of the possessor and the architect; the first, in not being fettered in principle to suppose the manners of his ancestors wholly worthy to be followed; but that it was more the part of a man of real taste, to let the world know he was well acquainted with the felicities of each æra, christian as well as heathen; and the latter contributer to the " magic dream," well evinces how well he profited in his rudiments of the Roman and Grecian schools, his travelled conceptions of science, and his homedrawn commixture of "gothic," hashed up in the trammels of the refinements of the present day, so universally decreed by our general architectural consistory, to be superior to the "dull and melancholy" science of our professional forefathers. "A gothic palace" next comes in state supreme, to create an interest in our minds to hail the royal residence. Kew, the blissful region, where royalty loves to dwell, you will soon draw me to thy destined mound, to see thy mighty walls, thy pondrous towers arise. Say, will your forms tell out the Saxon pride, the Norman pomp, the Edwardian splendor? or will the Tudor's multitudinous shapes mark your quarternion pile? Yet stay, anon, and I will come; your walls shall answer for themselves, and then for tributary praise, so says my laudable intents. "A gothic House of Lords:" this is "to be, or not to be." Two candidates for architectural fame, and for the honours of "directing the whirlwind, and guiding the storm," of taking down the present buildings, and for setting up a new House, have each dared the scientific field; their powers are strong and mighty: one, arrayed in royal appointments, presents his devices of plans, *See Sir W. Dugdale's Hist. of Old St. Paul's. Sce Gentleman's Magazine for April, p. 297. Alluding to the public announced ground line of the intended palace. elevations, and sections, emblazoned in the colours of our ancient architecture, without one [it is to be supposed] illegitimate "bar" to shew the unfaithfulness of professional imitation. The other comes forth with auxiliary force from distant climes; precedents from Egypt, Rome, and Greece, fill in his ranks, and on his banners wave this portentious motto; "Ancient English architecture are modes of constructure unfit for public speaking."* Thus, plan to plan, taste to taste, they have, in many an inky charge, convinced the world how ready each other is to begin the more dreadful part of triumphing in the overthrow of Westminster's remnant palace, whose great hall so wonderfully confirms the avowal of that king who began the original palace itself," that it should exceed all other kingly structures in the world."+ Citing this list of public works no further at present, let me advance in turn my standard-my standard of defiance in aid of antiquity. I long have stood on the out-works of its remaining magnificence; my fellow combatants, it is true, are not formidable for their numbers; but then they are dreaded for their firmness, constancy, and true love for that power they have sworn to defend: bribes cannot relax their watchfulness; threats cannot drive them from their posts; or death itself, in all its terrors, make them give up the noble conflict; their country's architectural glory is their cry-to battle, to conquer, or to fall! However, being willing to listen to any parly that may advance the future good or safety of my ancestors' unexampled productions in architecture, sculpture, and painting, I propose the following conditions to the consideration of my adverse professors in the art and mystery of reviving our ancient architecture, whereby these united kingdoms at large, united as we are now, in a moral as well as in a political sense, will be enabled to decree who are the most fit champions to obtain immortal honour in so noble and so meritorious an achievement. The men who thus bravely stand forth should be free from foreign prepossessions, independent in their natures, firm in their professions, impervious to the wiles of avaricious inclinations : they should have a strong attachment to our history, an enthusi astic joy in listening to the legendary custom of past times, and an entranced extacy of sensation at beholding our ancient works. They should have sought round our sea-girt isle, for every vestige of these scientific charms, surveyed them in every station, measured their various lines, drawn from their inexhaustible beauties, till their mass of delineatory patience swells their collections, and their capacious minds, to an infinity of information adequate to the cause they mean to serve. Thus gifted, armed, and inspired, let them throw the gauntlet to challenge the professional pretender. Open foes will not abide their presence, and the dark assassin will shrink from the crests of truth beaming on their helms, and fly the ignoble strife set up by the envenomed hate conceived against all our ancient piles, imbibed from innovation's maw, from jobs of demolition, improvement, and annihilation. * Sce a paper stuck up in the Prince's chamber, Westminster. + Stow's Survey of London. Origin |