of the firm by a very significant expression, viz.: “Mr. —— is an architect.” And I am constrained to discriminate with equal severity when I see the illustration or the usual “modern American house,” so called, placed in “deadly parallel column” beside a Colonial exemplar erected a century ago. Nobody, as a rule, can inform us who made the drawings of our fascinating prototype. Both name and identity of its designer have, in all probability, been irretrievably mislaid in oblivion; but he was an architect! (See [Plate XIII]).
In some recent and necessary researches for this and other work I have run across the names of a few of these architects. Their biographies are not to be found in libraries, though they merit shelf-room beside those of our greatest heroes, statesmen and authors. Samuel McIntyre of Salem, Massachusetts, and Russell Warren of Bristol, Rhode Island, respectively, are two I could mention in particular that should be done up in full levant with notes and comments upon their work and times, edited by Mr. Russell Sturgis or some one else equally competent to do so. And then the fun of it was that many a most refined and skilful artificer of the ancient régime never considered the propriety of adding the word “Architect” to his subscription. I suppose he fancied he lacked his diploma or the requisite reputation afforded by some stupendous public work. Yet, Fouquet with his celebrated Vaux le Vicomte, or Louis XIV at Versailles had no better architectural advice than had the colonists of America. The greatest architects of the world really directed the planning of the Colonial houses. Unseen, the masterhands and minds were working through the agency of deferential and obedient apprentices.
These apprentices essayed no—what boys denominate—“stunts” ([see Plate XV]), and their masters, to whom they frequently served life-long apprenticeships, affected no “stunts” either. Sir Christopher Wren, himself, and Inigo Jones never tried “stunts” nor did Palladio in Italy, before them, nor even the great Michelangelo. Now, if there ever was an architect justified in exploiting “stunts” it was Michelangelo, to whom marble or pigments, chisels or brushes were as subservient as to magic. But what did this
THESE APPRENTICES ESSAYED NO STUNTS.
Munro-French House, Bristol, R. I. A. D. 1800.
AN ANCIENT FARMHOUSE AT DURHAM, CONN.