Heav'n vifits with a Taste the wealthy fool, VARIATIONS. After 22. in the MS. Must Bishops, Lawyers, Statesmen, have the skill NOTES. VER. 18. Ripley] This man was a carpenter, employed by a firft Minister, 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 such a one fecure from the serious refentment of Heaven, though it may permit fate or fortune to bring him into the public contempt and ridicule, which his native badness of heart so well deferves. VER. 23. The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Defigns of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio, P. Yet fhall (my Lord) your juft, your noble rules 25 Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, NOTES. VER. 28. And of one beauty many blunders make;] Because the road to Taste, like that to Truth, is but one; and those to Error and Absurdity a thousand. VER. 29. Load fome vain Church with old Theatric ftate,] In which there is a complication of abfurdities, arifing both from their different natures and forms: For the one being for holy fervice, and the other only for civil amusement, it is impoffible that the profufe and lafcivious ornaments of the latter fhould become the retenuë, reverence, and fanctity of the other. Nor will any examples of this vanity of ornament in the facred buildings of antiquity juftify this imitation; for those ornaments might be very fuitable to a Temple of Bacchus, or Venus, which would ill become the fobriety and purity of the present Religion. Again, we fhould confider, that the ufual form of a Theatre would only permit the ar 3o chitectonic ornaments to be placed on the outward face; whereas those of a Church may be as commodiously, and are more properly put within ; particularly in great and clofe pentup Cities, where the inceffant driving of the fmoke, in a little time corrodes and destroys all outward ornaments of this kind; efpecially if the members, as is the common taste, be fmall and little. OurGothic ancestors had jufter and manlier notions than these modern mimics of Greek and Roman magnificence: which, because the thing does honour to their genius, I fhall endeavour to explain. All our anci ent churches are called, without distinction, Gothic; but erroneoufly. They are of two forts the one built in the Saxon times; the other during our Norman race of kings. Several Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of the first fort are yet remaining, either in whole or in part; of which this was the Original: Reverse your Ornaments, and hang them all NOTES. When the Saxon kings became christian, their piety, (which was the piety of the times) confifted in building Churches at home, and performing pilgrimages to the Holy Land and thefe fpiritual exercises affifted and fupported one another. For the moft venerable as well as most 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 ftanding in that country, with the Saxon remains of what we find at home; and particularly in that famenefs of ftyle 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 cient art appeared in the circular arches, the entire columns, the divifion of the entablature, into a fort of Architrave, Frize and Cornich, and a folidity equally diffused over the whole mafs. This, by way of diftinction, I would call the SAXON Architecture. 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 miftaken piety (both kept in exercife by the neighbourhood of the Saracens, thro' emulation of their science and averfion to their fuperstition,) 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 accuftomed, during the gloom of paganifm, 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. permit ; at once indulging their old prejudices, and providing for their prefent conveniencies, by a cool receptable in a fultry climate. And with what art and fuccefs they executed the project appears from hence, That no attentive obferver ever viewed a regular Avenue of well grown trees intermixing their branches over head, but it presently put him in mind of the long Vifto thro' a Gothic Cathedral; or ever entered one of the larger and more elegant Edifices of this kind, but it represented to his imagination an Avenue of trees. And this alone is that which can be truly called the GOTHIC ftyle of Building. diftance of Architecture would interfection with one another? Or could the Columns be otherwife than fpilt into distinct fhafts, when they were to represent the Stems of a group of Trees? On the fame principle was formed the spreading ramification of the ftone-work in the windows, and the ftained glafs in the interftices; the one being to represent the branches, and the other the leaves of an opening Grove; and both concurring to preferve that gloomy light infpiring religious horror. Laftly, we fee the reason of their ftudied averfion to apparent folidity in these ftupendous maffes, deemed fo abfurd by men accustomed to the apparent as well as real ftrength of Grecian Architecture. Had it been only a wanton exercise of the Artist's fkill, to fhew he could give real ftrength without the appearance of any, we might indeed admire his fuperior science, but we must needs condemn his ill judgment. But when one confiders, that this furprizing lightness was neceffary to complete 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 species of Architecture, all the irregular tranfgreffions against art, all the monftrous offences against nature, disappear; every thing has its reason, 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 C Shall call the winds thro' long arcades to roar, 35 Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door ; Conscious they act a true Palladian part, NOTES. 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 must at least confefs it had a nobler birth, tho' an humbler fortune, than the GREEK and ROMAN AR CHITECTURE. the contrary qualities in what I call the Saxon Architecture. These artists 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 firft pious ages, preferved the maffive Style: which was made ftillic Gardens, given to the peomore venerable by the Church |ple by fome great man after a triumph; to which, therefore, Arcs of this kind were very fuitable ornaments. the holy Sepulchre: This, on a double account being more than ordinary heavy, was for its fuperior fanctity generally imitated. VOL. III. VER. 30. Turns Arcs of triumph to a Garden-gate ;] This abfurdity feems to have arisen from an injudicious imitation of what thefe Builders might have heard of, at the entrance of the antient Gardens of Rome: But they don't confider, that thofe were pub VER. 36. Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;] In the |