OF

PAINTING, &c.

CHA P. II.

Architects and other Artists, in the Reign of GEORGE I.

HE ftages of no art have been more

THE

distinctly marked than those of architecture in Britain. It is not probable that our masters the Romans ever taught us more than the conftruction of arches. Thofe, imposed on clusters of difproportioned pillars, compofed the whole gramF 2

mar

mar of our Saxon ancestors.

Churches

and castles were the only buildings, I should suppose, they erected of stone. As no taste was bestowed on the former, no beauty was fought in the latter. Maffes to refift, and uncouth towers for keeping watch, were all the conveniencies they demanded. As even luxury was not fecure but in a church, fucceeding refinements were folely laid out on religious fabrics, till by degrees was perfected the bold fcenery of Gothic architecture, with all its airy embroidery and penfile vaults. Holbein, as I have fhewn, checked that falfe, yet venerable style, and first attempted to fober it to claffic measures; but not having gone far enough, his imitators, without his tafte, compounded a mungrel fpecies, that had no boldness, no lightnefs, and no fystem. This lafted till Inigo Jones, like his countryman and cotemporary Milton, disclosed the beauties of ancient Greece, and esta

blished fimplicity, harmony, and proportion. That school however was too chafte to flourish long. Sir Chriftopher Wren lived to fee it almost expire before him; and after a mixture of French and Dutch ugliness had expelled truth, without erecting any certain ftyle in its stead, Vanbrugh with his ponderous and unmeaning maffes overwhelmed architecture in meer masonry. Will pofterity believe that fuch piles were erected in the very period when St. Paul's was finishing?

Vanbrugh's immediate fucceffors had no taste, yet some of them did not forget that there was such a science as regular architecture. Still there was a Mr. Archer, the groom-porter, who built Hethrop, * and a

temple

* St. Philip's church at Birmingham, Cliefdenhoufe, and a house at Roehampton, (which as a specimen of his wretched taste may be seen in the Vitruvius Britan

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temple at Wreft; and one Wakefield, who gave the defign of Helmsley; each of whom feemed to think that Vanbrugh had delivered the art from fhackles; and that they might build whatever feemed good in their own eyes. Yet before I mention the ftruggles made by the art to refume its just empire, there was a difciple of Sir Chriftopher Wren that ought not to be forgotten; his name was

NICHOLAS HAWKSMOOR.

At eighteen he became the scholar of Wren, under whom during his life, and on his own account after his master's death, he was concerned in erecting many public

Britannicus) were other works of the fame perfon; but the chef d'œuvre of his abfurdity was the church of St. John, with four belfrys in Weftminster.

edifices.

edifices. So early as Charles's reign he was fupervisor of the palace at Winchester, and under the fame eminent architect affifted in conducting the works at St. Paul's to their conclufion. He was deputy-furveyor at the building Chelfea-college, and clerk of the works at Greenwich, and was continued in the fame poft by king William, queen Anne, and George the first, at Kensington, Whitehall, and St. James's; and under the latter prince was first surveyor of all the new churches and of Weftminfter-abbey from the death of Sir Chriftopher, and defigned feveral of the temples that were erected in pursuance of the statute of queen Anne for raifing fifty new churches; their names are, St. Mary Woolnoth, in Lombard-ftreet; Chrift-church, Spital-fields; St. George, Middlefex; St. Anne, Limehouse; and St. George, Bloomfbury; the steeple of which is a masterftroke of abfurdity, confifting of an obelisk, crowned

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