He had little advantage of education. He went with his brothers to various private schools, such as schools then were. The first seems to have been a mere preparatory school; of the second, the only account preserved is that the “master paid little attention to it, being very dissolute, and absenting himself for weeks together;” and the last school, though perhaps rather better than the rest, was apparently one of those which attempted only mechanical teaching and severe discipline. Education, in the highest sense of the word, seems hardly to have been dreamt of. He carried away from it little except a superficial knowledge of English, a good proficiency in arithmetic, and a remarkably beautiful handwriting.
The account of his early days speaks of him as merely a warm-hearted and spirited boy, handsome and engaging in appearance, not very studious, full of fun, and by no means averse to mischief. His only remarkable talent was his taste for drawing; in this he was taught by a most incompetent man, and his best practice was in caricatures, especially of his drawing-master. The imperfection of his early training he always felt and regretted, in spite of his zealous efforts to supply its deficiencies. For, not to speak of the external difficulties which it threw in his way, it is obvious enough that his impulsive disposition, quick observation, and susceptible mind, especially needed the bracing and strengthening influence of a good education.
On leaving school, at the age of fifteen, he was articled to Messrs. Middleton and Bailey, architects and surveyors, of Paradise Row, Lambeth. With them he remained six years. Both took a strong and affectionate interest in him, and from them he received all the professional training which he ever enjoyed. Their business was mainly that of surveying; he could have learnt little with them of the artistic element of architecture. But his time was not wasted; for he studied accurately and industriously the “business” of his profession. Lists of prices, calculations of dimensions, methods of measuring and valuation, crowd his note-book, side by side with studies from Chambers’ Architecture, and sketches of such details and ornaments as struck his own fancy. In the later part of his time much responsibility was thrown upon him, and responsibility he never refused. The fruit was seen in after life in his excellent habits of business, and his ability to prepare his own working drawings, make out his own specifications and estimates, and form a sound judgment of materials and work. This knowledge stood him in good stead; he never failed to impress its importance on young architects; and, though he would not for a moment have allowed it to take equal rank with artistic power, he regarded the frequent neglect of it, and the increasing tendency to separate it from the higher province of art, as a serious evil, both in theory and in practice.
But he could not be satisfied with this semi-mechanical work. His name appears regularly in 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815 in the architectural part of the catalogue of the Royal Academy. His first drawing, there exhibited when he was seventeen years old, still remains. It was a drawing of the interior of Westminster Hall, the building which (as has been well said) “was in after-days to give the key-note to his greatest work.” His other designs “For a Church,” “A Museum and Library,” “A Nobleman’s Mansion,” &c., have all perished. They had served their purpose, and were no doubt destroyed by himself, for he was always ruthless both in his criticism and his treatment of his early designs.
At an earlier age (about fifteen or sixteen) his artistic taste had found a much more curious development. There was much of the boy in him still (as indeed there was in all his after-life), and he did not disdain boyish fancies and amusements. Accordingly he resolved to transform his small attic bedroom into a “hermitage,"—“a rocky interior,” “with openings looking out on a sunny landscape.” The mechanical work and the painting he did entirely himself, working at it in all his spare time with constant delight; and when it was done, he kept up its character by using it as a painting-room, and drawing constantly figures of all kinds on a large scale on its walls. His family noticed all this with some wonder and amusement; he himself, though he used to laugh at it in after-life, remembered it with a kind of pleasure. These details may seem trivial, but they were certainly characteristic. The work must have given boldness to his hand (as scene-painting has done to some of our great painters); it may not improbably have helped to kindle and foster his imagination, and at the same time to satisfy that delight in alteration and contrivance which always was conspicuous in him.
In every respect his home was a simple and a happy one. If it did not stimulate artistic tastes, it certainly allowed them perfect freedom, and gave them the support of admiration and sympathy. His character, in spite of his fondness for change and amusement, was always strongly domestic. In his work, and the society of his mother (for so he always esteemed her) and his brothers, he found all the interest he cared for. Such are the records of his early days. They are scanty enough; but they are corroborated by the recollections of his later life, for his was a character that changed but little.
It is evident from these that he was in every sense of the word a self-educated man, and the recognition of this fact is most important, for the true appreciation of his character, and a right understanding of his career.
Even in general education this was strikingly the case. He carried away very little from school. His very journals show that he had to acquire for himself not only a knowledge of French and Italian (which he mastered sufficiently for all practical purposes), but even correctness and fluency of English. They show, during his foreign journey, almost as great progress in style as in thought—a progress gained, as usual with him, not so much by systematic study as by a certain “readiness of mind” and an unwearied practice. Mathematics and theoretical mechanics he had studied but little, and in fact he had little taste for such study. Their practical conclusions, as bearing on his own profession, he knew familiarly enough; and his mind was not only quick in its deductions from them, and bold even to the verge of rashness, but singularly fertile in all kinds of mechanical contrivance. But of systematic study of theory he was impatient. He could often, though at some risk, supersede it for himself by a kind of intuition, and he perhaps never estimated it at its true value.
But much more was this the case in all that regarded his own profession. No powerful mind had by its contact fired and influenced his; no deep course of study had imbued him with profound and systematic principles. He had gained “business” experience and practical knowledge; his strong natural tastes and powers had been cordially and kindly recognised, but in all that concerns the higher element of his profession he was left alone to find his way by his own observations and inductions to the first principles of Art. His natural character—vigorous, impulsive, and energetic—was allowed to grow by its own power, and to choose for itself both the method and the direction of growth.
The chief consequence was, as usual, an intense and absorbing devotion to the art which he had chosen as his work in life. He found it difficult to take any deep interest in anything else. In the political and social questions of the day he would often adopt the opinions of others. All his originality and his thought were already pre-occupied. In the service of architecture he held everything cheap; time, labour, and health were sacrificed as a matter of course; and keenly sensitive as he was to blame, yet he would defy the opinion of the world in search of what he deemed perfection.