“Even down to the reign of James I. the domestic architecture of England, as exemplified in the country-houses of the nobility, was Gothic in spirit, and frequently contained more real elements of a mediæval character than many which have been built in modern times by the light of archæological orthodoxy. Inigo Jones himself required a second visit to Italy before he could thoroughly abandon the use of the pointed arch. But its days were numbered when in 1633 the first stone was laid for a Roman portico to one of the finest cathedrals of the middle ages, and Gothic architecture as a practical art received what was then no doubt supposed to be its death-blow.”[[101]]
From this period the practice of Gothic art gradually died out. Classic and Italian architecture, which had received a fresh impulse from the French Renaissance, rapidly came into fashion. Architects studied no other style, for the very good reason that the public admired no other. It was henceforth considered the criterion of good taste to abuse as barbarous all the productions of mediæval art, and the test of good Protestantism to look upon them as superstitious and popish. It is indeed surprising that so many of the wonderful productions of a period no longer understood or appreciated should have been allowed to come down to us unaltered by “classical” remodelling. What saved them and at the same time preserved the spirit of the old art from total extinction is thus told by Sir C. Eastlake:
“By a strange and fortunate coincidence of events, however, it happened at this very time, when architects of the period had learned to despise the buildings of their ancestors, a spirit of veneration for the past was springing up among a class of men who may be said to have founded our modern school of antiquaries. Sometimes, indeed, their researches were not those of a character from which much advantage can be expected.... But, luckily for posterity, the attention of others was drawn in a more serviceable direction. Up to this time no work of any importance had been published on the architectural antiquities of England. A period had arrived when it was thought necessary, if only on historical grounds, that some record of ecclesiastical establishments should be compiled. The promoters of the scheme were probably little influenced by the love of Gothic as a style. But an old building was necessarily a Gothic building, and thus it happened that, in spite of the prejudices of the age, and probably their own æsthetic predilections, the antiquaries of the day became the means of keeping alive some interest in a school of architecture which had ceased to be practically employed.”[[102]]
Amongst the earliest names that attained to a certain celebrity by their researches and writings may be mentioned those of Mr. R. Dodsworth and Mr. W. Dugdale, joint authors of the Monasticon Anglicanum, a work first published in 1655, and which still retains much interest for the modern student, as it includes many records and views of buildings which have long since perished. Another writer whose name deserves mention was Antony à Wood, born 1611, whose History of the Antiquities of Oxford was a book of considerable importance, connected as it was with a university where Gothic architecture was so nobly illustrated and where the traditions of the style lingered long after its true principles were forgotten.
During the next two hundred years the annals of Gothic art are indeed meagre; from time to time we have the record of some antiquarian research, and at rare intervals we hear of some uncouth attempts at Gothic building remarkable only for the egregious mistakes they display.
Early in the eighteenth century we find the name of a remarkable man connected with one of these crude attempts at mediæval art—that of the celebrated Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford, the author of the first work of modern fiction whose scene is laid in the middle ages. His labors in the fields of literature and art were not profound. Eccentricity seemed the most marked feature of his taste; and, as may be well imagined, his famous Gothic house, Strawberry Hill, which has remained almost unaltered to the present day, is a strange monument of what debased art can achieve. The fact, however, that a man of his position, and enjoying the reputation he did, could patronize a form of architecture which had fallen into almost universal contempt could not have been without a powerful effect on the public mind—an effect which may be traced in the erection during the next fifty years of a certain number of mansions throughout the country in that style which Pugin loved so much to call “Brummagem Gothic.”
Towards the end of the century some useful books on architectural archæology appeared, such as Carter’s Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting, Hearne’s Antiquities of Great Britain, Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments, Halfpenny’s Gothic Ornaments of the Cathedral of York, B. Willis’ History of Gothic Architecture in England.
“It was something at least to draw attention to the noble works of our ancestors, which had long been neglected and despised; to record with the pencil or with the pen some testimony, however inadequate, of their goodly form and worthy purpose; to invest with artistic and historical interest the perishing monuments of an age when art was pure and genuine.”[[103]]
When the nineteenth century opens, we find these works already producing practical fruits; for we see several architects of note, such as Wyat, Nash, and Smirke, attempting, and not without some success, the erection of edifices of Gothic design. Nearly always, however, their efforts were confined to domestic structures for private individuals—a proof how completely the taste was confined to the upper classes and was still unappreciated by the general public. If they did not often attempt to build new churches, unfortunately they did not hesitate to restore and improve the venerable cathedrals and churches of the past. Wyat in particular has a heavy burden of responsibility to bear on this score; for many were the noble buildings that long bore the traces of acts of vandalism and ignorance associated with his name.
How, indeed, could we expect better things in ecclesiastical architecture at a time when religion was at so low an ebb in England? As each generation had passed away the lingering memories of the old faith and the old ritual had vanished one by one; the last remnants of Catholic feelings and practices had disappeared under the influence of the cold formalism of the Puritans and the colder indifferentism of those who succeeded them. When we read the following description, given by Sir C. Eastlake, of a Protestant church and Protestant worship as he recollected them during the early years of the present century, we cannot feel surprised that there was a lack of inspiration among church architects: