Campbell’s designs were actuated by similar motives. In his “Vitruvius Britannicus,” published in 1717, he describes a small essay of his invention for the ingenious gentleman, Tobias Jenkyns, Esq. On the “first storey, extending 120 foot,” he says, “here is the double and single cube, the hall being 27 by 54; here is 18 by 27, which is the sesqui altera, and 21 by 27, the sesqui tertia, and you pass gradually from the larger to the lesser.” The front was to have “a rustic basement and two orders of pilasters in the theatrical, which admits of more gaiety than the temple or palatial style.”
Such were the principles underlying the house design of professed masters in architecture in the first half of the eighteenth century, and it was by publishing their designs that they commended themselves to the public. They had travelled far from the virility of Inigo Jones and the splendid common-sense of Wren. Not that Wren had left much of a legacy in house design. He was an architect of the first rank, but his work had been chiefly concerned with St Paul’s Cathedral in London, with the city churches, with palaces and public buildings. There are but few houses among his preserved drawings, and what there are throw little illumination on the subject; he never pursued it so as to make it his own. A few houses here and there are attributed to him, but it has always been the fashion to attribute unknown work of exceptional merit to some master of the period on little or no sound authority. But although he left no direct legacy, a man of such wealth in architectural power could hardly die and leave nothing behind him; and doubtless to his influence may be traced much of the spirit which characterises the vernacular work of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER XIII.
Eighteenth-Century Exteriors—The Palladian Style.
Architectural design having become an elegant occupation founded on so impracticable a basis, it is not surprising to find it pursued by amateurs. Lord Burlington was the most eminent of these, and he tried his hand, according to contemporary accounts, at a number of houses as well as at some semi-public buildings, such as the Assembly Room at York. Kent includes several in his book on Inigo Jones, where they suffer somewhat by comparison with the genuine work of the master. The well-known house in Burlington Street for General Wade was another of his creations, of which Walpole recounts that being ill-contrived and inconvenient, yet having a beautiful front, Lord Chesterfield said that as the General could not live in it to his ease, he had better take a house over against it and look at it. The villa at Chiswick was yet another of his designs, borrowed, as Walpole says, from a villa of Palladio’s. Though faulty in plan and arrangement, as that chronicler admits, yet these blemishes could not “depreciate the taste that reigns in the whole.” He then adds an observation which throws much light on the motives that underlay the architectural design of the time. “The larger court,” he says, “dignified by picturesque cedars, and the classic scenery of the small court that unites the old and the new house, are more worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur, which our travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long voyages.” It would seem that to have a bit of architectural grouping that really reminded you of Italy more than compensated for damp, draughty, and inconvenient rooms.
Henry, Earl of Pembroke, according to Walpole, was another of the “men of the first rank who contributed to embellish their country by buildings of their own design in the purest style of antique composition.” William, Earl Fitzwilliam, designed a new front to Wentworth Castle; General Conway erected a rustic bridge, of which every stone was placed by his own direction; but from a reference in one of Walpole’s letters to George Montagu, it was hardly a piece of architecture, but rather a mere piling up of large stones; this, however, the writer regarded as much superior to a regular Palladian structure. Mr Chute, at his seat of the Vyne, in Hampshire, designed and erected a theatric staircase. Dean Aldrich and Dr Clarke at Oxford, and Sir James Burroughs at Cambridge, were also amateurs, but they appear to have had more claim as designers than some of those whom Walpole extols. The amateur architect of the eighteenth century had, indeed, a long and even illustrious ancestry. Already in Charles II.’s reign Sir John Denham, a poet, had been surveyor of the works to the King. Wren, who succeeded him, was himself an amateur, in the sense that he received no early training in architecture, and that his reputation as a scientist was fully established before he turned his attention to art. But Wren was a man of exceptional genius and capacity, and soon mastered the technicalities of his new calling. Sir John Vanbrugh was a poet before he was an architect, yet to him we owe houses of the first importance, such as Blenheim and Castle Howard. Besides these amateurs there were men who had received a definite training as architects, John Webb, the nephew and son-in-law of Inigo Jones; Nicholas Hawksmoor, the assistant of Wren; James Gibbs; Colin Campbell; Thomas Ripley, of whom Walpole says that “in the mechanic part, and in the disposition of apartments and conveniences,” he was superior to Lord Burlington himself; and William Kent, the protégé and friend of the same munificent and gifted nobleman. But even among these professional architects the amateur spirit prevailed, and their clients had to adapt themselves to the houses provided for them, instead of the houses being adapted to the wants of the clients.
Other designers might be named of this period and of the preceding half-century, as well as of later times, but the present object is to trace in a brief way the gradual changes which took place in houses themselves, without burdening the reader with many particulars concerning their architects. The immediate source of inspiration for all designers of this period was the Italian, Andreas Palladio; and no designation has been more aptly bestowed on a phase of architecture than Palladian upon that of the eighteenth century. Every type of plan that was employed, every type of elevation, almost every kind of feature that was adopted, has its prototype among Palladio’s designs. In one instance, Mereworth “Castle” in Kent, Campbell, who designed it, states that he copied it from a villa by Palladio built near Vicenza for Signor Paolo Armerico. It is true that he introduced a few variations, but substantially it is the same design; a design which had already been adapted, with other variations, by the Earl of Burlington in his villa at Chiswick. This is the most notable instance of direct copyism; but a comparison of any of the published plans of that period with those given by Giacomo Leoni in his “Architecture of A. Palladio,” will show that they were all founded on Italian models, and derived little (except the names of some of the rooms) from English tradition.
161. House in St James’s Square, London (1772).
This planting of Italian villas on English soil, where they were subjected to a climate wholly different from that of the land of their origin; this handling of the plan and elevation with a view to architectural effect, instead of with a view to the comfort of daily life, was of a piece with the artificiality of the age in other directions. Among the letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne is one written in 1739 to a friend whom he designates Philotes. In it he describes how he had lately visited another friend (Euphronius), who was shortly going to the wars in Flanders. As the warrior was not one of those who preserve the chance of fighting another day by running away, there was some probability of his never returning. Accordingly he had caused his portrait to be taken after a manner designed by his father-in-law. He was portrayed as Hector, his wife as Andromache, his sister-in-law and little boy as the nurse holding Astyanax. So much was the writer pleased with this “uncommon family-piece,” that he could wish it were the fashion to have all such pictures executed in some such manner. Architects, it is clear, were not the only designers who drew their inspiration from classic sources.
But however mistaken their ideals were, the architects of George I.’s time went a long way towards achieving them. Stateliness within and without, noble proportions, careful and refined detail—all these they produced in plenty. Possibly their noble clients, the “persons of quality,” the “persons of distinction,” were satisfied with the results, and were content to forego the comforts of home for the opportunity of living the stately life. Yet from contemporary observers we get occasionally a word of protest. After hearing a description of Blenheim, Pope says,