portions, so as to produce rooms twenty by ten, twenty-five by twelve and a half, or even thirty by fifteen, and you have I think surely that which none will approve.

The parts of saint Peter's church, then, I admit, are admirably proportioned to one another, so far that, vast as they are, nothing appears monstrous; even the figure of a child representing a cherub, six feet high, though very near, does not strike the eye as extravagantly large. I be bold to say it, I reckon a rangement. The figure of a child six feet high, near the point of vision, ought to look gigantic. In the largest Plantagenet cathedral it would look so, almost equally as in the smallest room. happens this? I will endeavour to say.

But that, may fault in the ar

How

The vast length of the nave of saint Peter's church is divided between, I think, only five arches. These arches, in exterior building, the unchecked ray of the sun being contrasted with strong shade, might have a magnificent effect; but it would be of a gloomy character. - In the interior it is otherwise; for there the light, entering, nearly equally, through windows on each side, is so diffused that there can be no strong contrast'; and the eye wanders over the void of the arch, and across the space of the pier to the next arch, and so on, meeting with as little to direct as to interrupt its course, or to decide

either the measure or number of its steps. You have seen the church of saint Paul without the walls at Rome. How different the effect of its colonnades! There the eye, directing its flight along the nave, gathers the magnificence of length from the multitude of pillars, at easy intervals; the magnificence of loftiness, from their unbroken lines, conducting it from the bases to the capitals. Hence, though all the rest, even the upper portion of the nave itself, is barbarous, some eminent critics have not scrupled to avow a preference of the interior of saint Paul's to that of saint Peter's. Our Plantagenet cathedrals are of a character between the two; giving effect of height beyond either, and, in their power of giving effect of length, having far more of the advantage of saint Paul's than the deficiency of saint Peter's.

Effect in saint Peter's then, in my humble opinion fails, as in the square room beyond a certain size. On the contrary the Plantagenet cathedral proportions operate as, in a great room, the gallery proportions. Of our cathedrals, Lincoln is among the most admired, and, I think justly. No where, perhaps, is the proof of principle, admirable principle, guiding the architects of the Plantagenet ages, more clearly to be detected. The builder there has evidently been limited in his plan to the foundations, and in part to the walls, of an old church in the Saxon or Norman style; and thus his nave has been con

fined to a disadvantageous narrowness. Dignity, such as was desired, could be given only by carrying the height beyond the usual proportion to the width; so that, had not the architect had talent and judgement to soften the discordance, the loftiness would have struck the eye as extravagant. But, dividing his pillars by a molding, he has given them, in some measure, the effect of column raised on column. Some following builders in the same style, adopting the thing, without attention to the principle, have introduced deformity in their works, by the very same measure by which the able architect of Lincoln has converted disproportion into gracefulness. So in the moral world, the same action, well-timed or ill-timed, in proper place, or in improper, may be decorous or indecorous, virtuous or vicious. I am far from meaning so to impute deformity to the interior of saint Peter's, but I do venture to impute defect; inasmuch as fine forms, so proportioned to each other that, on a smaller scale, they would be highly gratifying, on their vast scale are disappointing. Is it otherwise than by proportions and divisions well adapted to dimensions, that York minster strikes the eye as large, even larger than the reality, while saint Peter's, the largest church in the world, strikes it, in the confession of all, as less?

LETTER XXII.

Roman Architecture in England.-Wren.-Vanbrugh.-Lord

Burlington.Gibbs.

My last letter was long. I will compress what farther occurs on the revived Roman architecture. . The wide destruction, made by the great fire of London, provided for Wren an uncommon variety of opportunities. His churches are numerous, and show a great extent of invention. The interior of saint Stephen's Walbrook has procured hin, most justly, a wide renown, and indeed his purest praise. It is perhaps the most ingenious attempt, and the most successful, ever made, to accommodate the graces of the Grecian column to the needs of interior building. His little church of saint Benet Fink is a curiosity. I remember hearing an architect, now many years dead, whose talents I respect, and some of whose works I admire, speak of it with unqualified applause. In` this I cannot join. Whether the oval dome and cupola were borrowed from Italy I cannot tell : it is since Wren's time that they have been emulated there, in the twin churches, which greet the traveller from the northward, in entering Rome by the gate del Popolo. The form happened to suit the odd nook in which saint Benet's church

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stands; but it is otherwise, I think, little worthy of the architect of saint Stephen's.

Notwithstanding the fashion of Wren's age to despise the architecture of the Plantagenet era, a considerable degree of public favor remained attached to that kind of building, between pyramid and obelisk, which we call a steeple, or spire; which the Plantagenet architects, apparently gathering the idea first from the east, designed, in their own style, often with considerable elegance. Wren, whether chusing or required, in several instances used his ingenuity in accommodating that oriental appendage to churches of Roman architecture. His success, like that of most others in the same attempt, generally failing, has been, however, in one instance, extraordinarily great The steeple of Bow church in Cheapside, though so unfortunately situated as to be but ill seen, deserves nevertheless the notice, and I am inclined to add, the admiration, of every lover of architecture. The solid simplicity of the lofty basement, the lightness and richness of the aspiring superstructure, the elegance of each portion se parately, and the harmony of all, combine to make it a structure of its kind that never, has been, and perhaps never will be equalled.

The Theater at Oxford, a singular building, largely gifted with the vices of the Italian style of its day, yet for the ingenuity of the design alto