Holland House, built in 1607 by Sir Walter Cope, where many men of genius have congregated, and Hatfield House, the residence of the Cecils, for whom it was built in 1611, are more familiar examples still, though Sutton Place, near Guildford, is said to be the finest example in England, and is built of brick entirely without the aid of stone, and it shows what may be accomplished in this fine material. “Its doorway is surmounted by a panel of moulded bricks representing Cupids within enriched borders, and flanked by small octangular turrets, entirely covered with tuns in relief—the device of the builder, or with his initials. The walls are occasionally diversified with reticulated patterns in black bricks, and the string-courses and even mullions of the windows, also of brick, are ornamented with richly moulded patterns, in which the family tun has a conspicuous place. The whole façade, after having been much diversified by bay windows and boldly projecting features, is surmounted by an elaborately decorated parapet and slender octagonal pinnacles, etc.”
Sutton Place has been beautifully illustrated in Nash’s Mansions in the Olden Time, and is a perfect storehouse of instruction for modern architects.
The grammar-school at Hull, now vacant and crumbling, is another excellent example of brickwork on a more moderate scale. The gable and chimney here shown are well broken up into light and shadow, and beautifully proportioned. The date of the foundation is 1486, and probably the portion illustrated is of nearly the same antiquity. The whole of this is brick unassisted by stone, and even the coping is ingeniously contrived by one brick overlapping another. The mullions and window-heads also are of brick not moulded, but the ordinary rectangular ones are contrived to answer all the purposes of the architect.
Mr. Trollope in his admirable paper points out that Babylon at a very early period practised brick-making, as did also Assyria and Egypt; whilst the Romans, whose powers of adaptation are yet a wonder to us, became so enamoured of bricks for constructive purposes that they used wide bricks in arches and vaultings, on account of their utility in shaping, even where stone was plentiful. Indeed bricks have been used by our Saxon forefathers, as in the church of Brixworth and elsewhere; and in the twelfth century the preference seems almost to have been given to brickwork in many important European buildings. During the fourteenth century stone seems to have the preference over brick in England, though on the Continent many important buildings were built of the latter material.
The principles which, after comparing many examples of different dates, seemed to me the true ones, in order to successfully use bricks, are few and simple, and it is a great pleasure to find them in many respects identical with those Mr. Trollope has laid down in the excellent paper to which this chapter is so much indebted.[6]
Martel, in his Principles of Colouring, published by Winsor & Newton, says that in the present state of our knowledge it is difficult to offer a satisfactory explanation of the cause of the peculiar colours of different substances—that is, why grass is green, or copper red, or silver white; and he adds that it is usual to account for them by saying that all bodies absorb certain colours and reflect others, the colour absorbed being always complementary to that reflected. Thus if a body is green it is said to absorb the red rays, and reflect blue and yellow, and so with others. He further says that if the eye sees red it is immediately called up to see another colour, namely green, which is the exact contrast; and states that if a red flower is placed on a sheet of white paper and suddenly withdrawn, a green image will faintly appear to the eye.
Now a broad red wall is one of the most dreary objects of modern civilisation, and, indeed, the side of a square, broken only by rectangular windows, as exhibited in London squares, has doubtless had a depressing and injurious effect on the duration of human life. Russell Square and Bedford Square are familiar instances of this; and how unfavourably they contrast with old Lincoln’s Inn buildings, in the same city, the engraving will show, yet the same architecture that prevails in Lincoln’s Inn would abundantly serve all the purposes of a London square of modern times. The corbelling out of the chimney, and the way in which the octagon and gables blend together, is artistic to a passing degree, and well the designer knew the value of the material he had in hand. Probably it was erected in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
Lincoln’s Inn was equal in importance, it is said, to the Temple, and had its annual revels. The Temple master of these was a “Lord of Misrule,” till the better feeling of the members stopped all these saturnalia. “Assumed characters,” it is said, were so numerous that they required limitation in the edicts of the Benchers, and “Jack Straw” and his train were banished under pain of any one who assumed the character paying five pounds; and though Charles II. visited Lincoln’s Inn to see the revels, they were doomed to disappear.