The Horse Guards.
If Inigo Jones, steeped in Italian art, was severely Palladian in style, Wren, his successor, "a giant in architecture," was a versatile and original genius. The quantity and the quality of his work may well overpower a later age. "He paved the way," says Fergusson, "and smoothed the path"; none of his successors have surpassed if, indeed, equalled him. During the eighteenth century, the Renaissance still held sway in architecture; James Gibbs, in 1721, built the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, of which the Grecian portico, says Mr. Hare, "is the only perfect example in London"; the brothers Adam, of "Adelphi" fame, flourished, giving, with their doorways, their fireplaces, their curves and arches, a new impulse to the domestic architecture of their day; Sir William Chambers erected Somerset House; and Sir John Soane, who in 1788 designed the present Bank of England, was, with others of his contemporaries, a pioneer of the coming classical revival. With the beginning of the nineteenth century the change came, and architectural design in England completely changed. Now the "new Greek lines" that, say the French, "go so ill with our northern climate," became all the rage; the mild Gothic of Wren, itself a "last dying echo," completely disappeared, and Greek temples, "orders," pediments, columns, grew everywhere like mushrooms. Nash, the architect of the Regency, the "Apostle of Plaster," planned out Regent Street, a new road to extend from the Prince's colonnaded mansion Carlton House, to the new Park named after him: hence arose the Quadrant, and the Regent's Park terraces already alluded to. All was Greek, everything was colonnaded, at that day:
"Once the fashion was introduced it became a mania. Thirty or forty years ago no building was complete without a Doric portico, hexastyle, or octastyle, prostylar, or distyle in antis; and no educated man dared to confess ignorance of a great many very hard words which then became fashionable. Churches were most afflicted in this way: next to these came gaols and county halls, but even railway stations and panoramas found their best advertisements in these sacred adjuncts; and terraces and shop-fronts thought they had attained the acme of elegance when either a wooden or plaster caricature of a Grecian order suggested the classical taste of the builder."
Nash was the chief introducer of "stucco" (the covering of brick with cement to imitate stone), which has since become so vulgarised everywhere, and especially in the fashionable West End squares and streets. Nash's tastes in this respect gave rise to the following epigram:
"Augustus at Rome was for building renowned,
And of marble he left what of brick he had found;
But is not our Nash, too, a very great master?
He finds us all brick, and he leaves us all plaster."
All the great public buildings of the time shared in the classic revival. The British Museum, built by the Smirkes in the first half of the last century, at enormous expense, is the most successful imitation of Ionic architecture in England. The style of the pediment is after that of the Athenian Acropolis. Though critics object to it that it has no suitable base, it is, nevertheless, an imposing structure. The Greek portico of the London University Buildings, in Gower Street, erected by Wilkins in 1827, is, says Fergusson, "the most pleasing specimen of its class ever erected in this country." But it is so secluded and recessed from the street, as to be hardly seen. Its architect, Wilkins, had the misfortune to be chosen to erect our much-abused National Gallery building, with its condemned "pepper-boxes" of cupolas; the designer, however, was so hampered by conditions and restrictions, as to be almost helpless in the matter. The National Gallery, nevertheless, still stands on the finest site in London, an object of scorn to visitors and foreigners.
But the ultra-classic craze, in London, burnt itself out at last in one final flare. Of the innumerable buildings that still tell of the extent of the mania, perhaps the most exaggerated is the church of New St. Pancras, built after not one but several Athenian temples. It is a strange medley of forms, a real nightmare of Greek art. Its tower is a double reproduction of the "Temple of the Winds," one temple on the top of the other: while its interior and its caryatids are modelled on the Erechtheion. Poor caryatids, designed for the bright sunlight of the Acropolis, and imprisoned, blackened and ogre-like, in the dreary and muddy Euston Road! "Calm" you may be, in your pre-surroundings, but hardly "far-looking"; for your view is restricted (even if fog does not restrict it yet further) to the uninspiring buildings of Euston Station opposite! Truly, they who placed you here must have been somewhat lacking in sense of humour! The double Tower of the Winds is not so unhappy as the poor caryatids; it even looks well, in its height and its silvery greyness, seen over the Tavistock Square trees, which hide its inadequate portico. The failure of this incongruous church, added to its vast expense, brought the final reaction from the classical fever; yet, from one extreme, men directly rushed to the other.
The Gothic revival, as might be expected, set in severely; the classic sculptors changed their style and became Gothic; new Gothic sculptors, Pugin, Britton, and others, arose on the artistic firmament. Then, in 1840-59, Sir Charles Barry built the chief modern architectural feature of London, the New Palace of Westminster, in the mediæval and Tudor style. The small chapel of Henry VII. gave the idea for this vast edifice. The enormous structure, so often criticised, is yet, to judge by the many photographs and views annually sold of it, the most popular building in London.
Even M. Taine, who consistently falls foul of all London architecture that is not Gothic, speaks thus of it:
"The architecture ... has the merit of being neither Grecian nor Southern; it is Gothic, accommodated to the climate, to the requirements of the eye. The palace magnificently mirrors itself in the shining river; in the distance, its clock-tower, its legions of turrets and of carvings are vaguely outlined in the mist. Leaping and twisted lines, complicated mouldings, trefoils and rose windows diversify the enormous mass which covers four acres, and produces on the mind the idea of a tangled forest."