by distracting the eye, have interfered with unity of effect. A handsome lodge was added with a central tower, through which the main approach passed.

But the glory of Shrubland lay in its gardens, and it is in them that the traces of his hand are most plainly seen. Beautiful in themselves, they seemed to agree too little with the house, which had now assumed some architectural pretensions.

The upper garden near the house was therefore rearranged, and enclosed by balustrades. A handsome flight of steps led from the upper to the lower garden. At the foot of the steps an open loggia was placed, and the adjoining ground laid out with architecturally formed beds.

The works show in a very marked manner the refined taste and exquisite finish which distinguished all his designs. The whole principle, indeed, of his arrangements was dictated by the desire of perfect finish and harmony, against which the original scheme, bringing an ordinary flower-garden up to the very walls of the house, appeared to him to militate. Few works produced so much effect, considering their scale, and certainly few were so entirely after his own heart, as those at Shrubland Park.

Cliefden House.—Of all his conversions of existing buildings, this was the one which approached most nearly to the conditions of an original design. But his work was still in some degree fettered by the circumstances of the case.

The house was originally built, in a fashion very prevalent some years ago, having a centre with two distinct wings, which were virtually separate buildings, and were only joined to the central mass by connecting corridors on the ground-floor. Such a plan produces much external grandeur; but this advantage, and some others which belong to it, are dearly purchased at the cost of internal convenience, especially when, as at Cliefden, the servants’ rooms are placed in one of the wings. A fire destroyed the central mansion, but spared the wings; and to Sir C. Barry was assigned the task of rebuilding what had been destroyed, without sacrificing the portions remaining, and of rebuilding it on the old foundations, which were still intact, and which it was desired to utilise.

The first design which he prepared was set aside for economical reasons. It differed materially from Cliefden as it now is. It was an astylar Italian design, comparatively simple in detail, and having the angles raised into towers, so as to be prominent features. Thus, although designed on symmetrical principles, it would have presented far greater variety of outline than the building actually erected. Considering its magnificent position, and considering also the different points of view and the great distances at which the house can be seen, the architect greatly regretted the necessity which forbade the realisation of his original design. He thought that a more vertical tendency and more varied outline would have contrasted better with the horizontal line of the beautiful bank of wood, out of which it rises.

The present house is built on the old

foundations,[55] the centre being the only new portion of the building. The plan is that of a first-rate Italian villa, and is remarkable for uniting elegance to great convenience of arrangement. For the great charm of Cliefden is its lovely view over the valley of the Thames, and it was absolutely necessary to bear this in mind in the arrangement of all the living-rooms. At the same time it was necessary to provide such access for the servants’ wing as should in some degree mitigate the inconvenience of the old plan of the house, and to arrange the staircase and corridors with due regard to dignity and architectural effect. The solution of the problem may be deemed highly successful, and will have some interest to the professional student.

In the external design Sir Charles adopted (what was unusual with him) an engaged order with unbroken entablature. In regard to the design generally, it may be doubted whether the house is of sufficient size to justify the use of an order of two stories, which, as seen from a distance, gives some impression of a want of breadth in the design. But, bearing in mind the circumstances alluded to above, we may conclude with some probability, that Sir Charles contemplated the enlargement of the design, by carrying up and rendering prominent the low side buildings, containing the dining-room and the private apartments. Such an addition would exemplify a method of treatment of which he was fond, viz., the employment of a central mass with two slightly elevated angles, and would certainly add greatly to the effect of the garden-front.

The house, however, as it stands, may claim attention on its own merits. It was one of his latest Italian buildings, though showing much of the simplicity of his earlier designs.

Trafalgar Square.—Of all Sir C. Barry’s works, the one which is generally considered as least successful was the laying out of Trafalgar Square. On this subject he was consulted by the Government in 1840, and his chief idea in the arrangements, which he suggested, was to improve the effect of the National Gallery.

A plan was already under consideration, which contemplated the raising the whole square to the level of the pavement in front of the new building, and finishing it with a terrace and balustrade towards Cockspur Street. To this he had a strong objection. In common with the world at large, he considered the National Gallery to be already greatly deficient in importance and unworthy of its magnificent site. Such a terrace as was proposed, seen in the foreground on approaching from Whitehall, would throw it back into utter insignificance. He advised, therefore, that the level of the square should be kept down to that of Cockspur Street, instead of being raised to that of the base of the building, and the terrace thrown back so as to make it appear a part of the building, thus increasing instead of diminishing its height. This plan was adopted, but greatly injured by the erection of the Nelson Column, against which Mr. Barry protested in vain. Not only did it cut up the building, but it interfered with a grand flight of steps, which he contemplated in the centre of his terrace, of the width of the whole portico of the gallery, and appearing from a distance to be a part of it. Its own design would be no compensation: for to the use of columns, as pedestals for statues, he objected on principle. He would have had the Nelson and Wellington Monuments (treated in a different style as grand designs in sculpture) placed on either side in the position of the present fountains. When this proved to be impossible, he introduced the fountains as a last resource. He intended them to be far larger; he wished them, indeed, to be of the scale of the grand fountains in front of St. Peter’s at Rome; but for this funds were not forthcoming, and an unexpected difficulty was found in obtaining a full supply of water. But, though fully aware that they were too small, he never felt the justice of the severe criticism which has been so unsparingly lavished upon them. For in this case, as in others, the architect’s work is criticized in ignorance of the limitations imposed upon it by necessity, and the interferences from without to which it has been subjected.

Besides these buildings, for which he was entirely responsible, there were several instances in which he gave general designs to be carried out by others; for, as his own time was more and more occupied, superintendence became difficult. But he never much liked this; in the buildings which he actually erected he was as fastidious in regard to details, as he was careful in studying the great lines of the design; imperfection in detail was to him as a discord at all times, but doubly painful when it seemed to mar an idea originally his own, and he could hardly rest till it was removed.

Thus in 1847 and 1848 he made some extensive designs for the Government, to be carried out at Keyham Factory. They were intended to give some architectural character to the buildings, planned by the Government engineers for the execution of work for the steam fleet. These included foundries, smithies, turning-shops, &c., buildings necessarily of great extent and inconsiderable height. The designs made were Italian—simple, of course, but effective in character. They deserve notice not so much in themselves, but as being the only example of his treatment of a class of buildings, which it has been common to despair of artistically, and to surrender to the domain of plain and even ugly utilitarianism. In the same year he modified the design for the Ambassador’s palace at Constantinople, to an extent which greatly determined its general effect.

It will be seen from this brief description of Sir C. Barry’s principal Italian works, that, not merely by their number and size, but by their variety of character, and the existence in almost all of some special features of design or construction, they exercised a very powerful influence on the Italian architecture of the country.

They certainly appear to have carried out, to as great an extent as practice can ever carry out the dictates of theory, the principles which have been described at the close of Chapter II., as deduced by him from his original studies in Italy, except so far as these were modified by the powerful though indirect influence of the Gothic revival. This did not arise from any deficiency in power of originating novelty. There were few cases in which ideas were not conceived, and designs made, embodying more unusual forms and details than those finally adopted. Nor does it appear to have been due to his adoption of a formally defined system of principles—a kind of confession of architectural faith. It may be doubted whether he himself could have given an analysis of his own principles of design, as clear and as precise as that which has been given by others. Perhaps few men, who have much originative power in art, have also the power of such scientific analysis. He himself would constantly adopt what he conceived to be new “first principles,” and for a time mould every line of a design in obedience to their dictates.

But yet in almost every case he reverted eventually to his original principles. If the comparison of the old with the new was fatal to the latter, in respect of beauty or convenience, he was not the man to seek apparent originality at the cost of real excellence. The temptation to depart from the old methods, and the study of the methods by which such departure could be made, only tended to confirm them in his mind, and to show (what most practical men sooner or later discover in all provinces of thought) that the prevalence of old forms is generally due, not to arbitrary and pedantic convention, but to their inherent truth and vigour.

It maybe added that, in his Italian work especially, harmony and completeness seem to have been the great objects of endeavour. Repose, rather than what artists call “movement,” was the characteristic of his designs. Whether successfully or unsuccessfully, he laboured principally to realize the conception of the whole, as having unity and perfect interdependence in its parts, and was not compensated, in his own works or those of others, for any violation of this unity, even by individual features of startling and original excellence.[56] A consequence of this feeling was that special attention to refinement and elegance of detail, which has been noticed by most critics of his works. He felt strongly that, when detail, however bold or beautiful in itself, attracts an undue share of attention, and brings into prominence what should properly be subordinate, an error in taste is committed, proportionate to the vividness of the impression produced. Another consequence was the paramount importance which he attached to beauty of proportion as compared with richness or originality of decoration. He was fond of pointing out in Sir C. Wren’s western towers of Westminster Abbey how this beauty of proportion seemed all but to annihilate the painful impression, produced by the badness of the details. In his own designs he would take the greatest pains, would sponge out and redraw a whole elevation, if he detected in its leading lines any defect in this his crowning virtue.

It is evident that this principle may assume so tyrannical an influence as to extinguish originality, and tone down a whole design to respectable and consistent tameness. But it cannot be denied that it is a principle of paramount value, and few will question that it is largely manifested in his existing works. Not indeed that he allowed this desire of unity and stateliness of design, or his determination to make even the least work a real work of Art, to interfere with the thought of practical convenience, especially as regards the requirements of English climate and modern life. His Italian architecture was therefore singularly free from artistic pedantry; it was no artificial exotic, but a style thoroughly naturalized, and therefore one having an inherent principle of vigour and life. On it his architectural fame must still in great measure rest.

CHAPTER V.

MINOR GOTHIC WORKS.

While Mr. Barry was thus engaged almost incessantly on Italian buildings, he did not neglect the mediæval style, which was every day becoming better understood and more popular. In this style his works (after 1829) were comparatively few, until he engaged in the competition for the New Palace at Westminster. But the interest and study, which he at this time bestowed on Gothic architecture, must not be measured by the number of works which he actually carried out. He could not but be aware of the increasing power of the “Gothic Revival,” and, though he never wavered in his allegiance to the Italian, though to the last he maintained, against the pure Gothicists, its intrinsic beauty and peculiar appropriateness for certain classes of buildings, yet he viewed the Gothic movement with the greatest sympathy. With his early Gothic designs he had already learnt to be greatly dissatisfied; and, before he ventured on any further attempts in the same style, he not only gave much attention to the writings of the Gothic School, but studied carefully every English example of the style, which could be quoted as an authority.

Birmingham Grammar School.—The effect of this thought and study was seen in the design for the Birmingham Grammar School in 1833. Greatly admired at the time of its production, it did not, of course, escape criticism in after days from its author as well as from others. But it certainly indicated an extraordinary advance in knowledge of Gothic, and in power of handling the style, both as to principles and as to details, and proved that its author was at least keeping pace with the architectural taste and knowledge of the time.

The site was such as to allow only of a street-front, and this fact had great effect on the design. The building was to contain, not only the Great Schools and Class Rooms, but also two residences, which of course needed the advantage of street frontage. The elevation adopted was regular and symmetrical. Simple as it is, it was the result of considerable study. The central portion was of course devoted to the Great Schools (placed on the first floor,[57] with an entrance cloister and class rooms on the ground floor), and the residences were made to form the wings of the building. Their two-storied oriels ranged with the great windows of the school; the parapet was unbroken, except by raised battlements over the centre of the wings.

Mr. Barry was inclined to raise these wings into towers, and would have done so, had the building been isolated; but in its confined position he thought that towers would be ineffective, or perhaps even detrimental. Still he desired greater variety. He proposed a clock tower at one end of the front, which would also have had the additional advantage of giving greater importance to the building as seen down the street. A lantern was also designed, to rise from the centre of the roof, and relieve the flatness of the skyline. But these could not be carried out, the expense already incurred being very great, and the design remained without the relief proposed.

Another variation was at one time thought of with a view to giving more prominence to the main entrance. To a mere porch Mr. Barry had always an objection. It appeared to him a mere excrescence. Accordingly he tried the effect of advancing the centre, inserting a bay window over the entrance, and raising the centre of the parapet into a gable. But he never could make up his mind to advance the centre of an architectural composition. He maintained that the advanced portion must destroy, by its effect in perspective, the apparent size of the building, and this he considered an unpardonable artistic fault. At Birmingham this feeling was increased by his consciousness that the frontage was already somewhat small, and accordingly he felt compelled to leave the entrance as it now appears. He

was not altogether satisfied with its effect; but nothing would have compensated him for the loss of breadth and unity in composition.

The plan of the interior is perfectly simple. Almost the whole of the centre is occupied by two grand school-rooms, which are probably almost unequalled in magnificence of size and proportion. Few class-rooms were required by the original instructions, but some have been recently added by Mr. E. M. Barry.

Of the two principles of school arrangement, the architect will naturally prefer that, which throws most of the space into great school-rooms, and so gives greater scope for artistic effect. In practice the two systems may claim a certain balance of advantages. But in a grammar-school, where from the nature of the case many of the assistant masters are likely to be young and inexperienced, the preponderance of advantage seems to incline in the same direction which architectural taste would suggest. For in this case the advantage, both in guidance and support, to be derived from the presence of the head, and the “swing” of the great machine, probably outweighs all considerations on the other side of greater quiet and convenience. How far the plan at Birmingham was due to the architect, and how far determined by the instructions which he received, I do not know.

The school was completed in 1836. It attracted great attention and considerable admiration from the public and from the critics. The architect himself felt that the study of Gothic principles and details, for which it was the occasion, had been of the greatest service to him, especially in the competition for the New Palace, on which he was even then preparing to enter.

There was also another reason which made him look back with pleasure to this work. It was in connection with it that he first made the acquaintance of Mr. Pugin, whose assistance he secured in making out some of the drawings for details. The acquaintance ripened into friendship, a friendship unclouded by a single misunderstanding, and closed only by the death of his gifted coadjutor. Here, also, it was his good fortune to discover Mr. Thomas (afterwards so well known for his work at the New Palace of Westminster) working as an ordinary stone-carver. Mr. Barry at once saw his remarkable talent, and resolved to give it a more worthy sphere for development.

Alterations at Dulwich College.—His other Gothic works were of minor scale and importance. In March 27th, 1830, he was appointed to the surveyorship of Dulwich College, an office then less important than it has now become by the extraordinary increase of the value of the college property, but one in which he always took great pleasure, and experienced great kindness from the Master and Fellows of the old foundation. In the next year, 1831, he was called upon to design and carry out the erection of a new wing to the College, and of a small school for the education of the twelve foundation boys and others. The wing then erected has been since so much altered and enlarged as altogether to change its character. For the new constitution given to the College in 1858, by which the small school contemplated in the original foundation has been expanded into a large public school, absorbing the greater part of the endowment, has necessitated changes and enlargements on every side. Sir C. Barry’s own office expired with the old constitution, but the new Board of Governors elected from a number of candidates his eldest son Charles, who had for several years previously assisted him at Dulwich. He has been called upon, not only to erect the new schools on a scale of considerable grandeur, but also to remodel the whole existing College buildings for the accommodation of additional almspeople. In the course of this process it has been necessary greatly to alter the wing built by Sir Charles, which in itself was simple, and presented no marked features of design.

Unitarian Chapel at Manchester.—In 1837 Mr. Barry designed and erected an Unitarian chapel in Manchester. The scale of the building was small, and the design accordingly simple enough. The only notable point in it is that its chief front is almost occupied by a lofty arch, behind which the great window is recessed. The object was probably to obtain depth, and as much vigour of design as the size admitted. The effect is certainly successful.

Additions to University College, Oxford.—In 1839 he was called upon to carry out some work at Oxford. He added a wing looking on the High Street, and containing only living-rooms, to University College. It was, of course, necessary that this should harmonize with the old building, of which it forms a part. But it is distinguished by the careful attention to refinement of detail, which marks all his works, giving evidence of the study which he thought it worth while to bestow, even on buildings comparatively insignificant in scale. He naturally took a more than usual interest in this work, for it was the only one he ever did in an university town (some designs for Worcester College in 1837 having led to no result), and it stood in a prominent position in the High Street, which he always regarded as in some respects the finest street in Europe.

Hurstpierpoint Church.—At a much later period (1843) he erected a church of considerable scale at Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, standing in a position of some importance, as being visible both from the high ground of the Devil’s Dyke and the rich plain country which opens out below. The old church was inadequate for the increasing population, enlargement was difficult and expensive, and a new church was resolved upon, the parish granting a comparatively small portion of the sum required, and the landed proprietors, Mr. Borrer and Mr. Campion, and the rector, the Rev. C. H. Borrer (on whose exertions, as usual, the main work depended) guaranteeing the rest.

The first design made was on a scale too magnificent for their means, and in the Perpendicular style. This was perforce put aside, and the church actually erected in the Early Pointed style.

The whole design shows the remarkable progress of church architecture, since the time when his hand was formerly employed in its service. The plan is cruciform, with nave, aisles, transepts and chancel, the latter being thoroughly spacious, and open to the body of the church, though well raised above it. The scale is considerable, for it provides for a thousand people, without galleries. The details and ornaments are simple, but (a point on which he always laid great stress) carried out with consistency and harmony of style throughout the whole design.[58] The materials are all of the best and most durable kind, and there is no instance of false pretension in any quarter. Externally the effect depends, as usual with his buildings, very greatly on beauty of proportion, and here, for the first time, he was able to carry out his predilection for a handsome spire in stone—in this case specially needed, as the church rises out of the level plain, and its spire is a prominent object for twenty miles round. Yet the cost (about 10,000l.) was not so great as that of each of his Islington churches in former days.

The work gave him great pleasure, though it came in the very busiest time of the New Palace at Westminster, and though (as has been said) church architecture was not the work to which his professional life was devoted. With greater care for Gothic detail, with a far more thorough grasp of the principles of the old Gothic architects, he did not, however, lose sight of the fundamental ideas of the Church of England’s Service, and secured the effect of space, openness, and unity, which he conceived to be its paramount requirements.[59]

Canford Manor.—In Gothic, as in Italian, he was called upon to exercise his remarkable power of modification and reconstruction.

Canford Manor, the house of Sir John Guest, was one of the examples of this process.

In 1826 Lord de Mauley, who then owned the house, consulted Mr. Blore as to some necessary alterations, and the house was almost rebuilt from his designs between 1826 and 1836, with the exception of the old kitchen, which is named by tradition after John of Gaunt. Of the old house therefore very little remains. Of Mr. Blore’s building there remain, with many modifications, the dining-room and rooms over it on the east front, and the whole of the south front. The rest is the work of Sir C. Barry, who was consulted in 1848 by Sir John Guest. The plan will show clearly the extent of his operations.[60] Alterations had been already begun, and the removal of the principal staircase, entrance hall,

and billiard room had cleared the space which the great hall now occupies.

The main object which Mr. Barry had in view was to give unity, and therefore grandeur, to a building, the effect of which was hardly commensurate with its size. It will be seen by the plan that he built the great entrance tower and corridor, completed the great hall, built the conservatory, and the Nineveh porch for the reception of some Assyrian marbles, presented by Mr. Layard to Sir John and Lady Charlotte Guest. The old kitchen he restored, uniting it to the main building, and remodelled or rebuilt the whole of the offices of the house. Besides this, he carried out several external works. The gardens were laid out with his usual care and interest, and with the objects which in such work he invariably sought. He also added lodges and other external works, besides the arch under the railway embankment for the main approach, which was executed after the death of Sir John Guest.

As the extent of his work on the main building is given by the plan, so its effect externally may be appreciated from the other illustration, which represents the south front, and so contains both old and new work. There can be no doubt that here, as elsewhere, that effect amounts to a re-creation. It is interesting, as being the best example of his treatment of a large Gothic house, and a proof that he could, on what seemed to him the proper occasions, value the variety and picturesqueness of grouping, on which so many authorities insist as the one thing needful.

Internally the plan shows, as in other cases, how perfectly real comfort and convenience can be united with much architectural grandeur. It should be observed that, unfortunately for the effect of the interior, the decorative portions of the work have not been fully carried out; and there is, therefore, observable in them some want of that beauty of finish and careful attention to minute detail, which is everywhere characteristic in his designs. With the exception of this drawback, he felt satisfied with a work, which he had carried out with great pleasure, and which is ordinarily considered as exemplifying most successfully his power to remodel existing buildings, with all the vigour and effect which belong to original designs.

Gawthorpe Hall.—The only other Gothic house of any importance, which Sir C. Barry had the opportunity of restoring and remodelling, was Gawthorpe Hall, near Burnley. The nature of the work here was different. He had to deal with a fine old house of the Elizabethan period, built about the year 1600, on the site of an older building, probably of the “Peel” or border-castle character, and presenting considerable variety of style in its different fronts. On one side it retained some of the stern and bare simplicity of the old border Peel; on another, the irregularity in position and size of the characteristic mullioned windows produced a quaint and picturesque effect; the principal front on the other side had greater regularity of fenestration, but was broken by two polygonal bays at the angles and one square bay

projecting from the centre front, in which a low-arched porch gave entrance to the house.

There was so much in the exterior of picturesque variety and quaintness, that, when Mr. Barry was consulted by Sir James P. K. Shuttleworth, in 1849, he felt unwilling to make any considerable alterations. All he thought needful was to give importance to the tower and chimneys, by raising them so as to produce greater boldness in the sky-line, and to surround the building with a pierced parapet of the characteristic Elizabethan style. The old grass terraces round the house had disappeared; these he carefully restored, and carried out the same principle of architectural gardening, which he had so often exemplified in his Italian buildings, by surrounding the house with a formal garden, designed according to the geometrical patterns of the Elizabethan period. The changes were not great, but they all tended to perfect and render more striking the original character of the building; and the work was carried on con amore, for he was a great admirer of the Elizabethan style for domestic purposes, and inclined to prefer it for such purposes to the purer Gothic forms.

In the interior he had somewhat greater scope. It had been modernized by successive owners, yet so that it still retained, almost untouched, the dining-hall and the richly decorated ceiling and carved panellings of the drawing-room. The problem therefore was simply to preserve and carry out the old style of decoration, to sweep away modern excrescences, and at the same time to give that greater convenience and adaptation to present requirements, which these additions had been intended to supply. It was not one likely to cause him much difficulty, and, though all his suggestions have not been carried out, it was certainly solved very successfully, and the house is now a picturesque and beautiful specimen of its peculiar style.

Dunrobin Castle.—A work of considerable importance, for which Sir Charles Barry was consulted, although his designs were to a great degree modified, and were carried out by others, was Dunrobin Castle.[61] The castle, belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, overlooks the Dornoch Firth, and has the advantage of a fine position. It was a very old building, with some points of interest, but little pretensions to grandeur. Alterations were begun upon it in 1845, growing, as usual, in scale and magnificence, especially when the prospect of a royal visit stimulated the owner’s interest in it, and increased his requirements.

In 1844 designs were furnished by Mr. Barry at the request of the Duke; but it was found by Mr. Leslie that the information, on which they were based, had been inaccurate, and that the designs could not be carried out, without greatly enlarging the plateau on which the house stands, at an enormous expense, and without more alteration of the old castle, than the Duke was prepared to sanction. Some necessary alterations were therefore suggested, and the designs returned for further consideration. It would appear also that ideas of a design of totally different character were entertained by the Duke. These would have altered the building from the chateau-like treatment suggested by Mr. Barry to a regular “castellated” style, with flat roofs and embrasured towers. Subsequently however this design was altogether set aside, and a set of drawings prepared by Mr. Leslie, with the characteristic high roofs of Scotch castle-architecture, returning in great measure to Mr. Barry’s original design as a basis. These were submitted to him for his approval, and some alterations made by his suggestion.

The work was then begun. In the course of it Mr. Barry was frequently consulted on points both of principle and of detail, and furnished drawings of ornaments and internal arrangements, as well as of external design. In 1848 he visited Dunrobin, when the work was nearly complete. He then advised some considerable alteration of the great tower, and designed a terrace garden, both of which were carried out.

It will be seen therefore that the work is partly Sir C. Barry’s and partly Mr. Leslie’s. The original designs of Sir Charles were made the basis of the work, and several alterations of principle and detail were made by him, as “consulting architect,” during its progress. But, of course, plans made at a distance must require much alteration, and the work, growing as it proceeds in capabilities and requirements, calls for much, of which the actual superintendent of the work must have the credit and the responsibility.

On the whole, the north or entrance front is very much like Sir Charles’s original design, except that this design had no attics nor basement story. The southern and eastern fronts have far less resemblance to what was at first proposed by him, as it was here that the inaccuracy of the information supplied to him did the greatest mischief.

It was the only work of any size, with which he was connected in Scotland. He had given designs for an alteration of Drummond Castle in 1827, and for alterations of Drumlanrig Castle in 1840. But in neither case were his ideas carried out.

It will be seen from this enumeration, that his Gothic works, though not numerous, were varied in character, embracing buildings of collegiate, ecclesiastical, and domestic style. After 1837 his Gothic study was devoted to, and almost absorbed by, the works at the New Palace at Westminster. The progress visible in these lesser buildings, both in detail and in power of treatment, was partly introductory to the greater work, and partly derived from it. In it mainly his Gothic architecture must be tested. The other works merely show that his studies in Gothic were not confined to that one style, or to those principles of arrangement and composition, which he there considered to be rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case.

CHAPTER VI.

THE NEW PALACE AT WESTMINSTER.

The description of the greatest work of Sir C. Barry must necessarily occupy a considerable place in the narrative of his life. Independently of its intrinsic importance, both in a historical and architectural point of view, it was undoubtedly that, to which the best twenty years of his life were devoted, which gradually absorbed his attention, almost to the exclusion of other work, and which, not so much by its labour as by the anxieties, disputes, and disappointments arising during its execution, at last exhausted the health and strength of his iron constitution.

It would be needless to give a detailed description of a building, which tells its own story to the eyes of the public; it would be entirely out of place to attempt a general criticism on its merits. But the points, to which it seems needful to direct attention, are partly historical, and partly descriptive or critical. In the historical part of the notice, contained in the present chapter, it will be necessary to give some particulars with regard to—

The next chapter is reserved for a descriptive and critical notice, and must refer to—

Section I.—On the night of October 16th, 1834, Mr. Barry was returning from Brighton on the coach, when a red glare on the London side of the horizon showed that a great fire had begun. Eager questions elicited the news, that the Houses of Parliament had caught fire, and that all attempts to stop the conflagration were unavailing. No sooner had the coach reached the office, than he hurried to the spot, and remained there all night. All London was out, absorbed in the grandeur and terror of the sight.

The destruction was so far complete, that preservation or restoration was out of the question; the erection of a new building was inevitable, on a scale, and with an opportunity for the exercise of architectural genius, hitherto unexampled in England. The thought of this great opportunity, and the conception of designs for the future, mingled in Mr. Barry’s mind, as in the minds of many other spectators, with those more obviously suggested by the spectacle itself.

The opportunity occurred at a critical time in the progress of architecture, when the long empire of classicism was being broken, and the claims of Gothic began to be recognised. There were all the energy and enterprise abroad, which belong to a period of change. The whole artistic world was on the alert, and the public generally were eagerly desirous that the opportunity should be used to the utmost.

Nor were these desires disappointed. At first, indeed, there was some inclination to keep to routine, and Sir R. Smirke was desired to prepare designs for a new building. But this course was felt to be unsatisfactory. The Government were called upon (by a published letter from Sir E. Cust to Sir R. Peel) to open a competition and appoint a Royal Commission to award the prizes. They readily responded to the call; and in accordance with the recommendations of a Committee of the House of Lords presented in June, 1835, the terms of competition were published. The style was to be “Gothic or Elizabethan;” the drawings were to be sent in (without formal estimates) and the decision pronounced before January 20th, 1836; and four premiums of 500l. each were promised, it being understood that the architect receiving the first premium should carry out the work, unless some grave cause to the contrary should be discovered, in which case he was to receive an extra premium of 1000l.

The period of competition was short; only by unremitting exertion could drawings of such a building be prepared within six months; and certainly by the successful competitor such exertion was unsparingly bestowed. Four or five hours’ sleep was the utmost which he allowed himself during this time, and he paid the penalty of his over-exertion in a short and sharp attack of illness, when the work was done. The drawings were sent in on December 1st, 1835. There were ninety-seven competitors, and Mr. Barry’s plan was No. 64. When once the strain was over, his mind most characteristically threw off its anxiety, until rumours began to ooze out that No. 64 was among the first, and not unlikely to be the chosen design. Then followed a short time of vehement excitement, till on February 29th, 1836, the award was published, and the first premium assigned to Mr. Barry.

The Report of the Commissioners was published. It stated that the imperfect state of knowledge as to sound and ventilation had prevented their giving much weight to these points in their decision; and that therefore they had confined themselves “to the consideration of the beauty and grandeur of the general design, to its practicability, to the skill shown in the various arrangements of the building, and the accommodation afforded; to the attention paid to the instructions delivered, as well as to the equal distribution of light and air through every part of the structure.” On these grounds they assigned the palm to Mr. Barry, and continued as follows:—