Heav'n vifits with a Taste the wealthy fool,
And needs no Rod but Ripley with a Rule.
See! fportive fate, to punish aukward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and fends him fuch a Guide: 20
A standing fermon, at each year's expence,
That never Coxcomb reach'd Magnificence!

You show us, Rome was glorious, not profufe,
And pompous buildings once were things of Ufe.

VARIATION S.

After 22. in the MS.

Muft Bishops, Lawyers, Statesmen, have the skill
To build, to plant, judge paintings, what you will?
Then why not Kent as well our treaties draw,
Bridgman explain the Gofpel, Gibs the Law?

NOTES.

l

VER. 18. Ripley] This man was a carpenter, employed by a firft Minifter, who raised him to an Architect, without any genius in the art; and after fome wretched proofs of his infufficiency in public Buildings, made him Comptroller of the Board of works. P.

VER. 19. See! Sportive fate, to punish aukward pride,] Pride is one of the greatest mifchiefs, as well as abfurdities of our nature; and therefore, as appears both from profane and facred Hiftory, has ever been the more peculiar object of divine vengeance.

But aukward Pride intimates
fuch abilities in its owner, as
eafes us of the apprehenfion
of much mischief from it; fo
that the poet fuppofes fuch a
one fecure from the serious re-
fentment of Heaven, though
it may permit fate or fortune
to bring him into the public.
contempt and ridicule, which
his native badness of heart fo
well deferves.

VER. 23. The Earl of Bur-
lington was then publishing the
Defigns of Inigo Jones, and the
Antiquities of Rome by Palla-
dio. P.

Yet fhall (my Lord) your juft, your noble rules 25 Fill half the land with Imitating-Fools;

Who random drawings from your sheets fhall take
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load fome vain Church with old Theatric state,
Turn Arcs of triumph to a Garden-gate;

39

NOTES.

Reverse your Ornaments, and hang them all
On fome patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall;

NOTES.

1:.

When the Saxon kings became | cient art appeared in the circuchriftian, their piety, (which lar arches, the entire columns, was the piety of the times) conthe divifion of the entablature, fifted in building Churches at into a fort of Architrave, Frize home, and performing pilgri- and Cornich, and a solidity emages to the Holy Land: and qually diffufed over the whole thefe fpiritual exercises affifted mafs. This, by way of diftincand supported one another. tion, I would call the SAXON For the moft venerable as well Architecture. as moft elegant models of religious edifices were then in Palestine. From these our Saxon Builders took the whole of their ideas, as may be feen by comparing the drawings which travellers have given us of the churches yet standing in that country, with the Saxon remains of what we find at home; and particularly in that fameness of style in the later religious edifices of the Knights Templars (profeffedly built upon the model of the church of the holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem) with the earlier remains of our Saxon Edifices. Now the architecture of the Holy Land was entirely Grecian, but greatly fallen from its ancient elegance. Our Saxon performance was indeed a bad copy of it, and as much inferior to the works of St. Helene, as her's were to the Grecian models fhe had followed: Yet ftill the footsteps of an

But our Norman works had a very different original. When the Goths had conquered Spain, and the genial warmth of the climate, and the religion of the old Inhabitants, had ripened their wits, and inflamed their mistaken piety (both kept in exercife by the neighbourhood of the Saracens, thro' emulation of their science and averfion to their fuperftition,) they ftruck out a new species of Architecture unknown to Greece and Rome; upon original principles, and ideas much nobler than what had given birth even to claffical magnificence. For having been accustomed, during the gloom of paganism, to worship the Deity in GROVES (a practice common to all nations) When their new Religion required covered edifices, they ingeniously projected to make them refemble Groves, as nearly as the

Then clap four flices of Pilafter on't,

That, lac'd with bits of ruftic, makes a Front.

NOTES.

diftance of Architecture would I interfection with one another?
permit; at once indulging their Or could the Columns be other-
old prejudices, and providing wife than fpilt into distinct
for their present conveniencies, fhafts, when they were to re-
by a cool receptable in a fultry prefent the Stems of a group of
climate. And with what art Trees? On the fame principle
and success they executed the was formed the spreading rami-
project appears from hence, fication of the ftone-work in
That no attentive obferver ever the windows, and the ftained
viewed a regular Avenue of glafs in the interftices; the one
well grown trees intermixing being to represent the branches,
their branches over head, but it and the other the leaves of an
presently put him in mind of opening Grove; and both con-
the long Vifto thro' a Gothic curring to preferve that gloomy
Cathedral; or ever entered one light inspiring religious horror.
of the larger and more elegant Laftly, we see the reason of
Edifices of this kind, but it their ftudied averfion to appa-
represented to his imagination rent folidity in these stupen-
an Avenue of trees, And this dous maffes, deemed so ab-
alone is that which can be truly furd by men accustomed to
called the GOTHIC ftyle of the apparent as well as real
Building.
ftrength of Grecian Architec-
ture. Had it been only a wan-
ton exercise of the Artist's
fkill, to fhew he could give
real strength without the ap-
pearance of any, we might in-
deed admire his fuperior science,
but we must needs condemn his
ill judgment. But when one
confiders, that this furprizing
lightness was necessary to com-
plete the execution of his idea
of a rural place of worship, one
cannot fufficiently admire the
ingenuity of the contrivance.

This too will account for

Under this idea of fo extraordinary a fpecies of Architecture, all the irregular tranfgreffions against art, all the monitrous offences against nature, difappear; every thing has its reafon, every thing is in order, and an harmonious Whole arifes from the ftudious application of means proper and proportioned to the end. For could the Arches be otherwife than pointed when the Workman was to imitate that curve which branches make by their

Shall call the winds thro' long arcades to roar, 35 Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door

Confcious they act a true Palladian part,
And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.

NOTES.

the contrary qualities in what I call the Saxon Architecture. These artifts copied, as has been faid, from the churches in the holy Land, which were built on the models of Grecian architecture; but corrupted by prevailing barbarifm; and ftill further depraved by a religious idea. The first places of Chriftian worship were Sepulchres and fubterraneous caverns, places, of neceffity, low and heavy. When Chriftianity became the Religion of the State, and fumptuous Temples began to be erected, they yet, in regard to the first pious ages, preferved the maffive Style: which was made more venerable by the Church of the holy Sepulchre: This, on a double account being more than ordinary heavy, was for its fuperior fanctity generally imitated.

VOL. III.

Such then was GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. And it would be no difcredit to the warmeft admirers of Jones and Palladio to acknowledge it has its merit. They muft at least confefs it had a nobler birth, tho' an humbler fortune, than the GREEK and ROMAN AR

CHITECTURE.

VER. 30. Turns Arcs of triumph to a Garden-gate ;] This abfurdity feems to have arisen from an injudicious imitation of what these Builders might have heard of, at the entrance of the antient Gardens of Rome: But they don't confider, that those were pubftillic Gardens, given to the people by fome great man after a triumph; to which, therefore, Arcs of this kind were very suitable ornaments.

VER. 36. Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;] In the