Arrows of the Chace, vol. 1/2

[From “The Witness” (Edinburgh), September 30, 1857.]

EDINBURGH CASTLE

To the Editor of “The Witness”

My Dear Sir: I see by some remarks in the Literary Gazette130 on the letter of mine to which you gave a place in your columns of the 16th, that the design of the proposed additions to Edinburgh Castle is receiving really serious consideration. Perhaps, therefore, a few words respecting the popular but usually unprofitable business of castle-building may be of some interest to your readers. We are often a little confused in our ideas respecting the nature of a castle—properly so called. A “castle” is a fortified dwelling-house containing accommodation for as many retainers as are needed completely to defend its position. A “fortress” is a fortified military position, generally understood to be extensive enough to contain large bodies of troops. And a “citadel,” a fortified military position connected with a fortified town, and capable of holding out even if the town were taken.

It is as well to be clear on these points: for certain conditions of architecture are applicable and beautiful in each case, according to the use and character of the building; and certain other conditions are in like manner inapplicable and ugly, because contrary to its character, and unhelpful to its use.

Now this helpfulness and unhelpfulness in architectural features depends, of course, primarily on the military practice of the time; so that forms which were grand, because rational, before gunpowder was invented, are ignoble, because ridiculous, in days of shell and shot. The very idea and possibility of the castle proper have passed away with the arms of the middle ages. A man’s house might be defended by his servants against a troop of cavalry, if its doors were solid and its battlements pierced. But it cannot be defended against a couple of field-pieces, whatever the thickness of its oak, or number of its arrow-slits.

I regret, as much as any one can regret, the loss of castellated architecture properly so called. Nothing can be more noble or interesting than the true thirteenth or fourteenth century castle, when built in a difficult position, its builder taking advantage of every inch of ground to gain more room, and of every irregularity of surface for purposes of outlook and defence; so that the castle sate its rock as a strong rider sits his horse—fitting its limbs to every writhe of the flint beneath it; and fringing the mountain promontory far into the sky with the wild crests of its fantastic battlements. Of such castles we can see no more; and it is just because I know them well and love them deeply that I say so. I know that their power and dignity consists, just as a soldier’s consists, in their knowing and doing their work thoroughly; in their being advanced on edge or lifted on peak of crag, not for show nor pride, but for due guard and outlook; and that all their beautiful irregularities and apparent caprices of form are in reality their fulfilments of need, made beautiful by their compelled association with the wild strength and grace of the natural rock. All attempts to imitate them now are useless—mere girl’s play. Mind, I like girl’s play, and child’s play, in its place, but not in the planning of military buildings. Child’s play in many cases is the truest wisdom. I accept to the full the truth of those verses of Wordsworth’s131 beginning—

But I cannot apply the same principles to more serious matters, and vary the reading of the verses into application to the works on Edinburgh Castle, thus:

Therefore, though I do not know exactly what you have got to do in Edinburgh Castle, whatever it may be, I am certain the only right way to do it is the plain way. Build what is needed—chapel, barracks, or dwelling-house—in the best places, in a military point of view, of dark stone, and bomb-proof, keeping them low, and within the existing line of ramparts. That is the rational thing to do; and the inhabitants of Edinburgh will find it in the end the picturesque thing. It would be so under any circumstances; but it is especially so in this instance; for the grandeur of Edinburgh Castle depends eminently on the great, unbroken, yet beautifully varied parabolic curve in which it descends from the Round Tower on the Castle Hill to the terminating piece of impendent precipice on the north. It is the last grand feature of Edinburgh left as yet uninjured. You have filled up your valley with a large chimney, a mound, and an Institution; broken in upon the Old Town with a Bank, a College, and several fires; dwarfed the whole of Princes Street by the Scott Monument; and cut Arthur’s Seat in half by the Queen’s Drive. It only remains for you to spoil the curve of your Castle, and your illustrations of the artistic principle of breadth will be complete.

It may appear at first that I depart from the rule of usefulness I have proposed, in entreating for the confinement of all buildings undertaken within the existing ramparts, in order to preserve the contour of the outside rock. But I presume that in the present state of military science, and of European politics, Edinburgh Castle is not a very important military position; and that to make it a serviceable fortress or citadel, many additional works would be required, seriously interfering with the convenience of the inhabitants of the New Town, and with the arrangements of the Railroad Company. And, as long as these subordinate works are not carried out, I do not see any use in destroying your beautiful rock, merely to bring another gun to bear, or give accommodation to another company. But I both see, and would earnestly endeavor to advocate, the propriety of keeping the architecture of the building within those ramparts masculine and simple in style, and of not allowing a mistaken conception of picturesqueness to make a noble fortress look like a child’s toy.

[From “The Daily Telegraph,” December 22, 1871.]

CASTLES AND KENNELS

To the Editor of “The Daily Telegraph.”

Sir: I was astonished the other day by your article on taverns, but never yet in my life was so much astonished by anything in print as by your to-day’s article on castles.132

I am a castle-lover of the truest sort. I do not suppose any man alive has felt anything like the sorrow or anger with which I have watched the modern destruction by railroad and manufacture, helped by the wicked improvidence of our great families, of half the national memorials of England, either actually or in effect and power of association—as Conway, for instance, now vibrating to ruin over a railroad station. For Warwick Castle, I named it in my letter of last October, in “Fors Clavigera,”133 as a type of the architectural treasures of this England of ours known to me and beloved from childhood to this hour.

But, Sir, I am at this hour endeavoring to find work and food for a boy of seventeen, one of eight people—two married couples, a woman and her daughter, and this boy and his sister—who all sleep together in one room, some 18 ft. square, in the heart of London; and you call upon me for a subscription to help to rebuild Warwick Castle.

Sir, I am an old and thoroughbred Tory, and as such I say, “If a noble family cannot rebuild their own castle, in God’s name let them live in the nearest ditch till they can.”

Denmark Hill, Dec. 20.

[From “The Daily Telegraph,” December 25, 1871.]

VERONA v. WARWICK

To the Editor of “The Daily Telegraph.”

Sir: Of lodging for poor and rich you will perhaps permit a further word or two from me, even in your close columns for Christmas morning. You think me inconsistent because I wanted to buy Verona, and do not want to restore Warwick.134

I wanted, and still want, to buy Verona. I would give half my fortune to buy it for England, if any other people would help me. But I would buy it, that what is left of it might not be burned, and what is lost of it not restored. It would indeed be very pleasant—not to me only, but to many other sorrowful persons—if things could be restored when we chose. I would subscribe willingly to restore, for instance, the manger wherein the King of Judah lay cradled this day some years since, and not unwillingly to restore the poorer cradle of our English King-maker, were it possible. But for the making of a new manger, to be exhibited for the edification of the religious British public, I will not subscribe. No; nor for the building of mock castles, or mock cathedrals, or mocks of anything. And the sum of what I have to say in this present matter may be put in few words.

As an antiquary—which, thank Heaven, I am—I say, “Part of Warwick Castle is burnt—’tis pity. Take better care of the rest.”

As an old Tory—which, thank Heaven, I am—I say, “Lord Warwick’s house is burned. Let Lord Warwick build a better if he can—a worse if he must; but in any case, let him neither beg nor borrow.”

As a modern renovator and Liberal—which, thank Heaven, I am not—I would say, “By all means let the public subscribe to build a spick-and-span new Warwick Castle, and let the pictures be touched up, and exhibited by gaslight; let the family live in the back rooms, and let there be a table d’hôte in the great hall at two and six every day, 2s. 6d. a head, and let us have Guy’s bowl for a dinner bell.”

Denmark Hill, S.E., 24th (for 25th) December.

[From “The Daily Telegraph,” January 19, 1871.]

“NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.”

To the Editor of “The Daily Telegraph.”

Sir: It may perhaps be interesting to some of your readers, in the present posture of affairs round Paris, to know, as far as I am able to tell them, the rank which the Church of Notre Dame holds among architectural and historical monuments.

Nearly every great church in France has some merit special to itself; in other countries, one style is common to many districts; in France, nearly every province has its unique and precious monument.

But of thirteenth-century Gothic—the most perfect architectural style north of the Alps—there is, both in historical interest, and in accomplished perfectness of art, one unique monument—the Sainte Chapelle of Paris.

As examples of Gothic, ranging from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, the cathedrals of Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Rheims, and Bourges, form a kind of cinque-foil round Notre Dame of Paris, of which it is impossible to say which is the more precious petal; but any of those leaves would be worth a complete rose of any other country’s work except Italy’s. Nothing else in art, on the surface of the round earth, could represent any one of them, if destroyed, or be named as of any equivalent value.

Central among these, as in position, so in its school of sculpture; unequalled in that specialty but by the porch of the north transept of Rouen, and, in a somewhat latter school, by the western porches of Bourges; absolutely unreplaceable as a pure and lovely source of art instruction by any future energy or ingenuity, stands—perhaps, this morning, I ought rather to write, stood135—Notre Dame of Paris.

[From “The Pall Mall Gazette,” March 16, 1872.]

MR. RUSKIN’S INFLUENCE: A DEFENCE

To the Editor of “The Pall Mall Gazette.”

Sir: I receive many letters just now requesting me to take notice of the new theory respecting Turner’s work put forward by Dr. Liebreich in his recent lecture at the Royal Institution.136 Will you permit me to observe in your columns, once for all, that I have no time for the contradiction of the various foolish opinions and assertions which from time to time are put forward respecting Turner or his pictures? All that is necessary for any person generally interested in the arts to know about Turner was clearly stated in “Modern Painters” twenty years ago, and I do not mean to state it again, nor to contradict any contradictions of it. Dr. Liebreich is an ingenious and zealous scientific person. The public may derive much benefit from consulting him on the subject of spectacles—not on that of art.

As I am under the necessity of writing to you at any rate, may I say further that I wish your critic of Mr. Eastlake’s book137 on the Gothic revival would explain what he means by saying that my direct influence on architecture is always wrong, and my indirect influence right; because, if that be so, I will try to exercise only indirect influence on my Oxford pupils. But the fact to my own notion is otherwise. I am proud enough to hope, for instance, that I have had some direct influence on Mr. Street; and I do not doubt but that the public will have more satisfaction from his Law Courts138 than they have had from anything built within fifty years. But I have had indirect influence on nearly every cheap villa-builder between this139 and Bromley; and there is scarcely a public-house near the Crystal Palace but sells its gin and bitters under pseudo-Venetian capitals copied from the Church of the Madonna of Health or of Miracles. And one of my principal notions for leaving my present house is that it is surrounded everywhere by the accursed Frankenstein monsters of, indirectly, my own making.

March 15.

[From “The Pall Mall Gazette,” March 21, 1872.]

MR. RUSKIN’S INFLUENCE: A REJOINDER

To the Editor of “The Pall Mall Gazette.”

Sir: I am obliged by your critic’s reply to my question, but beg to observe that, meaning what he explains himself to have meant, he should simply have said that my influence on temper was right, and on taste wrong; the influence being in both cases equally “direct.” On questions of taste I will not venture into discussion with him, but must be permitted to correct his statement that I have persuaded any one to prefer Venetian to English Gothic. I have stated that Italian—chiefly Pisan and Florentine—Gothic is the noblest school of Gothic hitherto existent, which is true; and that one form of Venetian Gothic deserves singular respect for the manner of its development. I gave the mouldings and shaft measurements of that form,140 and to so little purpose, that I challenge your critic to find in London, or within twenty miles of it, a single Venetian casement built on the sections which I gave as normal. For Venetian architecture developed out of British moral consciousness I decline to be answerable. His accusation that I induced architects to study sculpture more, and what he is pleased to call “expressional character” less, I admit. I should be glad if he would tell me what, before my baneful influence began to be felt, the expressional character of our building was; and I will reconsider my principles if he can point out to me, on any modern building either in London or, as aforesaid, within twenty miles round, a single piece of good sculpture of which the architect repents, or the public complains.

March 21.

[From “The Liverpool Daily Post,” June 9, 1877.]

MODERN RESTORATION 141

My Dear Sir: It is impossible for any one to know the horror and contempt with which I regard modern restoration—but it is so great that it simply paralyzes me in despair,—and in the sense of such difference in all thought and feeling between me and the people I live in the midst of, almost makes it useless for me to talk to them. Of course all restoration is accursed architect’s jobbery, and will go on as long as they can get their filthy bread by such business. But things are worse here than in England: you have little there left to lose—here, every hour is ruining buildings of inestimable beauty and historical value—simply to keep stone-lawyers142 at work. I am obliged to hide my face from it all, and work at other things, or I should die of mere indignation and disgust.

[From “The Kidderminster Times,” July 28, 1877.]

RIBBESFORD CHURCH

To the Editor of “The Kidderminster Times.”

Sir: It chanced that, on the morning of the Sunday, when the appearances of danger in the walls of Ribbesford Church began seriously to manifest themselves (according to the report in your columns of the 21st inst.),143 I was standing outside of the church, listening to the singing of the last hymn as the sound came through the open door (with the Archer Knight sculptured above it), and showing to the friend who had brought me to the lovely place the extreme interest of the old perpendicular traceries in the freehand working of the apertures.

Permit me to say, with reference to the proposed restoration of the church, that no modern architect, no mason either, can, or would if they could, “copy” those traceries. They will assuredly put up with geometrical models in their place, which will be no more like the old traceries than a Kensington paper pattern is like a living flower. Whatever else is added or removed, those traceries should be replaced as they are, and left in reverence until they moulder away. If they are already too much decayed to hold the glass safely (which I do not believe), any framework which may be necessary can be arranged to hold the casements within them, leaving their bars entirely disengaged, and merely kept from falling by iron supports. But if these are to be “copied,” why in the world cannot the congregation pay for a new and original church, to display the genius and wealth of the nineteenth century somewhere else, and leave the dear old ruin to grow gray by Severn side in peace?

This circular will be given to visitors to the Old Water-color Society’s Exhibition, Pall Mall East, or on application to the Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street.

My friends have expressed much surprise at my absence from the public meetings called in defence of St. Mark’s. They cannot, however, be too clearly certified that I am now entirely unable to take part in exciting business, or even, without grave danger, to allow my mind to dwell on the subjects which, having once been dearest to it, are now the sources of acutest pain. The illness which all but killed me two years ago145 was not brought on by overwork, but by grief at the course of public affairs in England, and of affairs, public and private alike, in Venice; the distress of many an old and deeply regarded friend there among the humbler classes of the city being as necessary a consequence of the modern system of centralization, as the destruction of her ancient civil and religious buildings.

How far forces of this national momentum may be arrested by protest, or mollified by petition, I know not; what in either kind I have felt myself able to do has been done two years since, in conjunction with one of the few remaining representatives of the old Venetian noblesse.146 All that now remains for me is to use what time may be yet granted for such record as hand and heart can make of the most precious building in Europe, standing yet in the eyes of men and the sunshine of heaven.

The drawing of the first two arches of the west front, now under threat of restoration, which, as an honorary member of the Old Water-color Society, I have the privilege of exhibiting in its rooms this year, shows with sufficient accuracy the actual state of the building, and the peculiar qualities of its architecture.147 The principles of that architecture are analyzed at length in the second volume of the “Stones of Venice,” and the whole façade described there with the best care I could, in hope of directing the attention of English architects to the forms of Greek sculpture which enrich it.148 The words have been occasionally read for the sound of them; and perhaps, when the building is destroyed, may be some day, with amazement, perceived to have been true.

In the mean time, the drawing just referred to, every touch of it made from the building, and left as the color dried in the spring mornings of 1877, will make clear some of the points chiefly insisted on in the “Stones of Venice,” and which are of yet more importance now.149 Of these, the first and main ones are the exquisite delicacy of the work and perfection of its preservation to this time. It seems to me that the English visitor never realizes thoroughly what it is that he looks at in the St. Mark’s porches: its glittering confusion in a style unexampled, its bright colors, its mingled marbles, produce on him no real impression of age, and its diminutive size scarcely any of grandeur. It looks to him almost like a stage scene, got up solidly for some sudden festa. No mere guide-book’s passing assertion of date—this century or the other—can in the least make him even conceive, and far less feel, that he is actually standing before the very shafts and stones that were set on their foundations here while Harold the Saxon stood by the grave of the Confessor under the fresh-raised vaults of the first Norman Westminster Abbey, of which now a single arch only remains standing. He cannot, by any effort, imagine that those exquisite and lace-like sculptures of twined acanthus—every leaf-edge as sharp and fine as if they were green weeds fresh springing in the dew, by the Pan-droseion150—were, indeed, cut and finished to their perfect grace while the Norman axes were hewing out rough zigzags and dentils round the aisles of Durham and Lindisfarne. Or nearer, in what is left of our own Canterbury—it is but an hour’s journey in pleasant Kent—you may compare, almost as if you looked from one to the other, the grim grotesque of the block capitals in the crypt with the foliage of these flexile ones, and with their marble doves—scarcely distinguishable from the living birds that nestle between them. Or, going down two centuries (for the fillings of the portico arches were not completed till after 1204), what thirteenth-century work among our gray limestone walls can be thought of as wrought in the same hour with that wreath of intertwined white marble, relieved by gold, of which the tenderest and sharpest lines of the pencil cannot finely enough express the surfaces and undulations? For indeed, without and within, St. Mark’s is not, in the real nature of it, a piece of architecture, but a jewelled casket and painted reliquary, chief of the treasures in what were once the world’s treasuries of sacred things, the kingdoms of Christendom.