Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London: With Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each Ediface, Volume 1 |
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aisles altar ancient angles appear arches architect auditory beauty building buttresses Cathedral ceiling centre chapel choir church circle circular columns compartments Corinthian Corinthian order cornice courts Covent Garden crowned cupola decorated ditto dome doorways east end EDIFICES of LONDON Edward the Confessor effect elegant elevation enriched entablature entrance erected exhibits exterior feet front gallery Gothic Gothic architecture Grecian hall height Henry hexastyle High Holborn Inigo Jones intercolumniations interior Ionic order John Weale Architectural lantern latter light monument nave niches octagonal ornamented painted panels Parentalia parish Paul's pediment peristyle piers pilasters placed Plate portico present principal private boxes proportions proscenium recess roof sculptured semicircular side Sir Christopher Wren spectator spire square stage staircase steeple stone Street style surmounted taste temple theatre tion tower transept upper vaulting vestibule walls Weale Architectural Library Westminster whole width
Popular passages
Page 76 - I can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold above two thousand persons, and all to hear the service, and both to hear distinctly and see the preacher.
Page 39 - Italy itself can produce no modern building that can vie with this in taste or proportion : there is not a beauty which the plan would admit of, that is not to be found here in its greatest perfection ; and foreigners very justly call our judgement in question for understanding its graces no better, and allowing it no higher a degree of fame *." The first account we have of the church of St.
Page 109 - Walpole), of which I want taste to see the beauties. In the arcade there is nothing remarkable : the pilasters are as arrant and homely stripes as any plasterer would make. The barn-roof over the portico of the church strikes my eyes with as little idea of dignity and beauty, as it could do if it covered nothing but a barn.
Page 98 - The portico is at once elegant and august ; and if the steps arising from the street to the front could have been made regular, and on a line from end to end, it would have given it a very considerable grace : but, as the situation of the ground would not allow it, this is to be esteemed a misfortune rather than a fault.
Page 44 - I must satisfy myself, therefore, with observing in general, that, in all the fine arts, that composition is most excellent, in which the different parts most fully unite in the production of one unmingled emotion, and that taste the most perfect, where the perception of this relation of objects, in point of expression, is most delicate and precise.
Page 86 - ... gone far enough, his imitators, without his taste, compounded a mongrel species, that had no boldness, no lightness, and no system. This lasted till Inigo Jones, like his countryman and cotemporary, Milton, disclosed the beauties of ancient Greece, and established simplicity, harmony, and proportion. That school, however was too chaste to flourish long. Sir Christopher Wren lived to see it almost expire before him ; and after a mixture of French and Dutch ugliness had expelled truth, without...
Page 109 - When the Earl of Bedford sent for Inigo, he told him he wanted a chapel for the parishioners of Covent Garden ; but added, he would not go to any considerable expense. " In short," said he, " I would not have it much better than a barn.
Page 9 - Measure is that which perfecteth all things, because every thing is for some end, neither can that thing be available to any end which is not proportionable thereunto, and to proportion as well excesses as defects are opposite.
Page 206 - ... in two stories, with their pillars and arches. The cross building^ contrived to contain the quire in the middle, and the better to support the lofty tower, rose with a plainer and lower vaulting ; which tower, then spreading with artificial winding stairs, was continued with plain walls to its timber roof, which was well covered with lead.
Page 76 - James, Westminster, which I presume is the most capacious with these qualifications that hath yet been built ; and yet at a solemn time, when the church was much crowded, I could not discern from a gallery that two thousand were present.