Fig. 23.—St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. West Front.
From an Engraving by Thomas Sandby.
Fig. 24.—The Piazza, Covent Garden.
From an Engraving by Thomas Sandby.
Fig. 25.—Ground Plan, Queen’s House, Greenwich, 1635.
The amount of Jones’s own work in architecture is scarcely so large as has hitherto been supposed. In regard to the various buildings with which he has been credited, some of the attributions are supported by contemporary evidence in the shape of drawings or of references in letters and documents; others by the direct enumeration of his staunch admirer, John Webb, who was his pupil and assistant, who married a kinswoman of his, and was the executor of his will. Others rest upon tradition or upon the opinions of critics. Tradition is not altogether reliable, owing partly to a natural tendency to attribute any outstanding piece of work to the most celebrated artist of the time, and partly to the natural desire of owners to attach a well-known name to their possessions. The value of a critic’s opinion obviously depends upon that uncertain factor—the ability and equipment of the critic for his task, and although the opinion of a competent critic will always count for much, it cannot count for so much as direct evidence. The evidence in this case consists of allusions in contemporary letters, not very numerous or helpful; of architectural drawings by Jones, which are helpful but not numerous; and of the testimony of Webb, who was in the best position to know what his master actually designed. Webb has occasion in his “Vindication of Stone-Heng Restored,” to mention Jones’s principal works, which he thus enumerates: The west portico of St Paul’s Cathedral, and the reducing-of the body of it “from the steeple to the west end, into that order and uniformity we now behold”;[13] St Paul’s, Covent Garden (Fig. [23]), “built likewise with the porticoes about the Piazza there by Mr. Jones” (Fig. [24])[14]; the royal chapels at Denmark House and St James’s;[15] the Banqueting House at Whitehall; the royal house at Newmarket;[15] and the queen mother’s new building at Greenwich.[16] The inscription on Jones’s monument which was put up by Webb, designated him as “architectus celeberrimus,” and recorded merely that he built the Royal White Hall (Aul. Alb. Reg.) and restored the Cathedral of St Paul.[17]
