“There are a superabundance of inverted torches, cinerary urns, and pagan emblems, tastefully disposed by the side of neat gravel walks, among cypress-trees and weeping willows.
“The central chapel is generally built on such a comprehensive plan as to be adapted (in the modern sense) for each sect and denomination in turn as they may require its temporary use; but the entrance gate-way is usually selected for the grand display of the company’s enterprise and taste, as being well calculated from its position to induce persons to patronize the undertaking by the purchase of shares or graves. This is generally Egyptian, probably from some associations between the word catacombs, which occurs in the prospectus of the company, and the discoveries of Belzoni on the banks of the Nile; and nearly opposite the Green Man and Dog public-house, in the centre of a dead-wall (which serves as a cheap medium of advertisement for blacking and shaving-strop manufacturers), a cement caricature of the entrance to an Egyptian temple, two and a half inches to the foot, is erected, with convenient lodges for the policeman and his wife, and a neat pair of cast-iron hieroglyphical gates which would puzzle the most learned to decipher; while, to prevent any mistake, some such words as 'New Economical Compressed Grave Company’s Cemetery’ are inscribed in Grecian capitals along the frieze, interspersed with hawk-headed divinities, and surmounted by a huge representation of the winged Osiris bearing a gas-lamp.”[[107]]
In 1844 he published his next important work, The Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume. It is a thoroughly practical book, designed to supply correct descriptions and patterns for the use of those who manufacture the various ornaments employed in the ritual of the church, which were at that time of the most incorrect forms and in the worst taste.
His other literary productions were numerous but of less importance, being for the most part of a controversial character, and we pass on to examine, as far as our limited space permits, Pugin’s career and influence as a practical architect. Catholic emancipation, in freeing the church from the galling restraints to which she had been so long subjected in England and Ireland, opened for her a new era of liberty and prosperity in those countries. True, she did not regain that wealth which had been sacrilegiously torn from her at the Reformation; still, she was enabled, through the generosity of her children, to expend large sums in the construction of churches somewhat more worthy of the august mysteries she celebrates than those poor edifices she had been so long forced to use.
As a Catholic of undoubted talents, Pugin soon found that his architectural capacity was appreciated by his co-religionists, who entrusted to him the construction of all their principal churches. Few among them, indeed, were, by their size or importance, calculated to give full scope to Pugin’s genius; nevertheless, to the smallest building he always devoted long study and attention and a scrupulous fidelity to the principles he had laid down in his writings, although in many cases it was extremely difficult to do so, owing to the small amount of money that could be expended on the work. Among the many churches he designed we may mention, as the best specimens of his skill, the cathedrals of Birmingham, Southwark, Nottingham, Killarney, and Enniscorthy; the churches of St. Wilfrid’s, Manchester; St. Marie’s, Liverpool; St. Giles’, Cheadle; St. Bernard’s Abbey, Leicestershire; St. Augustine’s, Ramsgate.
In all these churches the exterior beauty has been more or less sacrificed to interior ornament and decoration, Pugin preferring to devote all the money possible to beautifying those parts which were most closely connected with the presence of his God, when the funds did not permit him to adorn fully both exterior and interior. This has often led his critics to misjudge his capacity as an architect; even Sir C. Eastlake falls into this error, and, though a sincere admirer of Pugin, does not hesitate to assert that “of constructive science he probably knew but little.” That his greatest power lay in ornament and detail may no doubt be true; still, we are fully convinced that had he found the same opportunities of displaying his knowledge as a scientific architect, and had he not been trammelled by the constant necessity to keep down expense, he would have amply proved to the world how unfounded were these accusations.
In comparing Pugin with the architects who have succeeded him people often forget the difficulties he had to contend against. He had to revive and educate the whole series of artisans whose combined labors are required to construct the smallest Gothic edifice—sculptors, carvers, iron-workers, painters, and decorators. When he began his career as a practical architect he had to design every smallest item required for his buildings, and, what is more, often personally to superintend their manufacture; a lock, a screw, a nail of correct pointed design were then things that had no existence.
If we take up now a book of that period, we can scarcely believe that ignorance and absurdity could go so far as to call Gothic the designs we see there depicted under that appellation. It is solely to Pugin’s untiring energy, to his conscientious love of his art, and to his wonderful fertility of invention—gifts which even his adversaries cannot deny him—that we owe the change that has been wrought in a few years.
The important progress in metal work, which now places at the disposal of the architect and builder material and designs almost equalling the best products of the middle ages, is completely due to him; in this, as in another long-lost branch of art—glass-staining—he found in Mr. J. Hardman, of Birmingham, one thoroughly competent by his practical knowledge and refined taste to assist him in carrying out his reforms.
How many other branches of industry, connected directly or indirectly with mediæval art, could be mentioned in which the influence of Pugin’s labors can be traced!—the production of encaustic tiles, silk embroidery, wood-carving, the manufacture of church plate and furniture of all kinds, even household articles and jewelry. Sir C. Eastlake truly remarks: “Those establishments which are known in London as ecclesiastical warehouses owe their existence and their source of profit to Pugin’s exertions in the cause of rubrical propriety.”[[108]] He might have added with equal truth that the many beautiful objects we admire in them owe their existence to the principles he established by his writings and to the endless models which his unrivalled facility of invention placed at the disposal of the public.