But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ye dine?
I find by all you have been telling
That ’tis a house but not a dwelling.”
How strong the fashionable taste of the day was for Gothic, Chinese and French decorations is gathered from the indignant writings of contemporaries who could not bear to see their pet Classic neglected. We learn that by the middle of the century the craze for the French and Chinese had somewhat abated. In 1756, Isaac Ware has much to say on the late tendencies. He speaks bitterly of the degeneracy of modern taste, and attacks those who “flew into every absurdity that the scope of things could afford. Of this we see instances in many expensive works which stand, and will stand to disgrace our country: and we have models of them, and of others as ridiculous, proposed for imitation.... We have seen architecture, a science founded upon the soundest principles, disgraced by ignorant caprice, and fashion very lately attempted, and it would be well if we could not say attempts now, to undermine and destroy it by the caprice of France, and by the whims of China.
PLATE XXV
“How must a man of true taste frown to see in some of the best buildings of that country, as it would pretend for the encouragement of arts, Corinthian capitals made of cocks’ heads. It is called the French (order) and let them have the praise of it; the Gothic shafts and Chinese bells are not below or beyond it in poorness of imagination.
“It is our misfortune to see at this time (1756) an unmeaning scrawl of (Cs) inverted, turned and hooked together take place of Greek and Roman elegance, even in our most expensive decorations. This is not because the possessor thinks there is or can be elegance in such fond, weak, ill-jointed and unmeaning figures: it is usually because it is French; and fashion commands that whatever is French is to be admired as fine.
“While these French decorations were driving out from the inside of our houses those ceilings which a Burlington had taught us to introduce from Roman temples, and those ornaments of doors which a better taste under Inigo Jones had formed upon the models of the best Roman structures; the Goths seemed to have seized upon pavilions, and the Chinese on rooms of pleasure. The jointed columns rose without proportion for the support of the thatched roof in some lower ground, while bells dangled from every corner of the edifice that caught the traveller’s eye upon an elevation.
“True taste and good admonitions have got the better of these; and they are left for cake-houses for Sunday apprentices. The French are more difficult to conquer; but let us rouse in every sense the natural spirit against them; and no more permit them to deprave our taste in this noble science, than to introduce among us miseries of their government or fooleries of their religion.”