INTERIOR OF DINING HALL.
The Common Room over the great Entrance Hall is fifty feet long by nearly thirty feet broad, with a number of pictures of distinguished Fellows hung round the walls—Provost Barrett, by Joseph, and Provost Wall, by Catterson Smith; the great Bishop Berkeley, by Lathem, with an engraving of the same by Brooks, and a letter relating thereto framed and hung under the portrait;[161] Dr. Townsend; the present Provost—Dr. Salmon, Dr. Haughton, and Dr. Longfield, by Miss Purser; the late Provost, Dr. Jellett, by Chancellor; Dr. Magee, Archbishop of Dublin, and grandfather of the late Bishop of York, by Sir Martin Archer Shee, P.R.A.; Archbishop Palliser, by an unknown artist. A copy of a portrait of the Earl of Mornington, sometime Professor of Music in the University, and father of the great Duke of Wellington: the original, by Yeats, is now at Apsley House. And the last acquisition is a portrait of the first Provost, Adam Loftus,[162] presented to the College by Lord Iveagh in 1891. There is also hung in the ante-room another smaller portrait of Provost Loftus in an oval frame.
THE ENGINEERING SCHOOL, FROM COLLEGE PARK.
THE ENGINEERING SCHOOL.
The modern Venetian Palace in which the Engineering School of the College is so nobly lodged—a building which called forth the hearty commendation of Mr. Ruskin—was designed by the firm of Sir Thomas Deane, Son & Woodward, who subsequently were the architects of the University Museum at Oxford. The contractors were Gilbert Cockburn & Son. The building was erected in 1854-5, at a cost of £26,000. The carving of the capitals and other stone-work was done by two Cork workmen of the name of O’Shea, who were afterwards employed by the architects in the elaborate carvings executed for the Oxford Museum. The style has been described as Byzantine Renaissance of a Venetian type; but the building is in truth a highly original and beautiful conception worked out into a harmonious and satisfactory whole. The base is, critically considered, perhaps the best part. The exterior may suggest Venice, and the interior certainly suggests Cordova; and yet there is nothing incongruous with the very different surroundings, nor is there in the work any of that patchiness so often apparent in adaptations of foreign styles. It is something in itself complete, dignified, and appropriate. The general dimensions are—length, 160ft.; width, 91ft.; height, 49ft. to the eaves. The building is faced with granite ashlar, with Portland stone dressings elaborately carved. The building, as is shown in the accompanying drawing of the southern façade, looking on the College Park, is of two stories, with a broad and richly carved string course marking the division. The round-headed windows are disposed most effectively in groups: in the façade there is a group of four in the centre, one on either side, and a group of three at either end; in the east and west fronts there is a group of three in the centre, and one on either side. The arches of all these spring from square pilasters carved in florid style in Portland stone, and under the windows of the upper story are low balustrades. Between the groups of windows in either façade are discs of coloured marble let into the masonry, and with a circular bordure of carved Portland stone and smaller pieces of marble; the whole harmonising with the windows and forming a most effective ornament—simple, original, and interesting. At each corner of the building are scroll pilasters of great beauty. The roof is low pitched, and an Italian cantilever cornice forms the eaves.
