THE DEFEAT OF THE GOTHS.
LORD Palmerston and the genius of light, air, common sense, and whatever else is characteristic of Palladian architecture, has triumphed over the audacity of Mr. Layard, the dilettantism of Mr. Charles Buxton, the poetry of Lord John Manners, and all the gloom, glory, and romance of mediaeval art. The clerks in the new Foreign Office will at least write their despatches in broad daylight, and without the juxtaposition of the mullions of the Gothic tracery, the broken lights and picturesque fantasies which would be more appropriate if their only duty was to study St. Augustine, to intone the Church Service, or to transcribe the biogra- phies of mediaeval saints. We cannot, indeed, wonder that a Conservative Government should have preferred a Gothic building to anything less imaginative and irregular. Lord Malmesbury's despatches would have caught an additional air and tone of Tory fervour from a dreamy light, a fretted ceiling, a panelled wall, accompanied or unaccompanied, as the case might be, with the radiance of painted glass. Lord Palmerston, on Monday night, in the course of his speech, reminded the House of Commons that Parliament was not going, after all, to live in the new Foreign Office. The resi- dence would have suited some among his audience well enough if Lord John Manners had had his way. It would have been by no means a bad idea for the Conservative party, if they ever had returned to office, to have taken up their quarters in some spot of the kind, in which Mr. Scott's in- ventive genius had been allowed full swing. The poetical unreality of the atmosphere would have been adapted to all that is delightful, and sentimental, and beautifully untrue in Conservatism itself. Beneath a Gothic roof, and lit by the irregular daylight streaming through saintly windows, Mr. Disraeli might have devoted himself to another Tancred or Sybil, or dreamt out the gorgeous plan of turning England into a country of peaceful villages and country-houses, occu- pied by solemn country gentlemen and a contented peasantry. Lord John Manners would have been able to write poetry to his old " Woods and Forests" in repose. Mr. Sotheron Estcourt might have worked out some new compromise, which would reconcile a converted nation to church rates, with the help of all the local sentiment that an almost eccle- siastical edifice would have given him. Lord Malmesbury, encouraged by the mystical gloom of the place to hope on even against hope that knowledge of reference may after all be knowledge in itself would devote himself meanwhile to restoring the spelling of the nineteenth century to what spelling was many hundred years ago, and to addressing circulars to foreign courts which breathed all the religious spirit of extinct Toryism ; while the rising hopes of the party might have been grouped dexterously about the rooms, as was best suited to the light and to their own tastes, in atti- tudes expressive at once of perfect mediaeval piety and ex- treme intellectual exhaustion. Nothing could have been more charming or more beautiful than such a picture—a happy and untroubled Tory family, illuminated, perhaps, by the rays of the setting sun, and seated hand in hand in a Gothic public office. It might have been realized in sober fact had not Lord Palmerston rescued the Foreign Office from its impending fate, and put a veto upon the introduction of these quaint and imaginative novelties which are so little suitable for business purposes. In the name of all that is cheerful, airy, and commodious, be is to be thanked. We by no means wish in our public buildings to have what M. Walewski last week pompously congratulated the French nation on pos- sessing, namely, "miracles of tedility." The very notion of Lord John Manners, or any other poetical Tory nobleman in connexion with the design for our public offices; is enough to scare all London. It is true that the advocates of Gothic deny that there is any necessity for introducing into the pro- jected building those semi-religious decorations which ought to be reserved for consecrated places of worship.. We may have, we are told, plain windows, which, unlike the majority of Gothic windows, shall exclude the wind and not exclude the light—doors that fasten properly, and chimneys that do not smoke, upon a Gothic plan as well as any other. Gothic, it is said, is as comfortable a style as Palladian, and far more tasteful. The public fancy, we are admonished, sets strongly just at present in the direction of Gothic. At Liverpool they are building Gothic ; there is a beautiful Gothic edifice on Blackfriars-bridge, and the romantic and unromantic are joining hands and agreeing to a delightful compromise over thid happy architectural style, which is at once practical and poetical, which is suited not only for ecclesiastical, but for profane uses, and has won the heart of a Lord John Manners no less than of a Mr. Layard. To all this we can only say that at present Gothic in our public buildings, for any but religious purposes, would be a very dangerous ex- periment. If it is so very easy to make Gothic buildings comfortable as well as ornamental, why is it not oftener done ? It is easy to profess moderation in these things, but it is not so certain that all promises will be performed. From a style that is plain, simple, and severe, it is impossible to deviate in any way that will interfere with the object for which a public office is designed. But Gothic artists are dangerous people to deal with. Their imagination often outruns their own judgment, the taste of the public, and the purses of their employers. In private life Gothic architecture is found to be fanciful and expensive. For business purposes we want just the reverse of this. What Pope remarked in the last century of the age for Pal- ladian art, may now with equal propriety be applied to the sudden desire of the rival Gothic which Lord John Mane ners and his friends wish not only to patronize at the public expense, but to force down the public throat : " Something there is more needful than expense, And something previous e'en to taste—'tis sense !"
The clamour for Gothic has been so loud, and its parti- sans have purposely been so authoritative in their tone, that the voice of the partisans of common sense has been partially, if not completely, drowned. We are con- vinced, however, that Lord Palmerston has public opinion, as he certainly has public custom, entirely for him. The custom of this country has hitherto been to admit Gothic into buildings devoted to religious worship, or into great state edifices which, owing to historical and moral associations connected with them, may be said to have a partly religious character. For business, trade, and every-day life, we should habitually prefer the Italian, which does not pretend to solemnity, and is content with aiming at convenience. To advocate the adoption of Mr. Scott's favourite style because it is more national than the Italian, is exceedingly absurd. In one sense neither are national, for both come to us from abroad. But Italian has at least long been naturalized among us, and a Gothic Foreign Office would neither be in keeping with our other public buildings, nor with the in- structive preferences of business men. London, a city built almost entirely for business purposes, is not built in the pointed, but in the horizontal style. A business-like people requires light, good ventilation, and substantial-looking hairnets of a good eleWitioh. These conveniences are no where to be found combined so inexpensively as in Italian architecture. When we inquire what Gothic public Wirt- ings give us in the place of these excellent advantages, we are told that they give us the pictutesque. We prefer, we confess, Lord Pa'Mei-sten and the commodious to the picturesque, even coupled with the name of Lord John Man- ners. A picturesque Foreign Office, even though it be, in the beautiful language of Mr. Buxton, "radiant with grace and beauty," is very much to be distrusted. The advocates proceed upon an erroneous hypothesis. It is not neces- sarily desirable to build what is the most picturesque build- ing possible upon every occasion. A Palladian Fbieign Office, even if less romantic, will better suit the architecture round it. But while Lord John Manners and a few enthusiasts were in raptures about the tracery And the stilted roofs, and the decorated work of their favotritestyle, we suspect that most other people Would pronounce such a building ill-placed, even if they allowed that it was not ungraceful. And there is some truth in Lord Palmerston's view, that in Gothic it is possible to sin in it thousand ways for Avery single fault committed in an Italian design. It is a great thing in such matters as these, trifling as they may seem, to steer clear of all sentimental dilettantism and amateur fancifulness. If we are to start off in pursuit of the pictukesqiie and the romantic, why should we stop at architecture ? Why should not Lord Jahn Manners, when he next conies into office, inaugurate a plan for arming all policemen with rapiers instead of truncheons, and insist upon their wearing pointed hats, vandyke beards, and long hair ? We can imagine how he would prove that long hair was more economical and More graceful than shoirt, while it was not less airy and cheerful. Mr. Charles Buxton would draw an enthusiastic picture of a long-haired constable met- ing through London, "radiant with beauty and with grace ;" and remind us that shaving was not necessarily classical, because beards were romantic. Lord Elcho might expatiate on the advantages of introducing variety into the national dress, and bring forward statistics to show that a head of hair was no obstacle to activity, and was quite as convenient as no hair at all in the streets. All We should be able to say would be that we preferred to remain unconverted, and to have the heads of the metropolitan police force left in a condition of undecorated ugliness. Beauty, we should think, was not so essential in a policeman as other qualities ; and we shmild recommend pointed hats and peaked beards to be tried on somebody whose duties were of a less practical and matter- of-fact character.
MediteValisin in music and architect-tire has its place, to which it should be confined. Gothic gables and Gothic mullions are as much out of place in a public office as song would be in a committee of the House of Coimnons. We do not want to see experiments made at the public cost for the sake of converting the nation to a love of sentimental architecture. Let us have what is useful and convenient in our Government offices, and then, if possible, and if there is money left, what is beautiful. There is no object, we would beg to assure the advocates of Gothic, in being unconven- tional or poetical, unless it is absolutely necessary. It is very likely that the new Palladian design may not be BO fantastical, so ornamental, or so gorgeous as Gothic tastes might wish. The existence of the Foreign Office officials will be more prosy than it might otherwise have been, but as the days of tournaments and romance are past, we do hot know that the objection is it very great one. These are the days of ventilation, of comfort, and day- light ; and though we may have lost something by becoming practical, we have reason, on the whole, to be content. At all events, we may be glad that the enthusiasm of a few amateurs has been tempered by the good sense of the sober majority. And as, in spite of sinister auguries, We believe that Italian architecture is not necessarily Ugly, let us look forward to a sensibly built Foreign Office, hoping that it may also be one which will be an addition to the architec- tural beauties of the metropolis.
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