MISCELLANEOUS.
There is a consideration which entitles architecture to a decided pre-eminence amongst the other arts. It is itself the parent of many separate professions, and requires a combination of talents and an extent of knowledge for which other professions have not the smallest occasion. An acquaintance with the sciences of geometry and mechanical philosophy, with the arts of sculpture and design, and other abstruse and elegant branches of knowledge, are indispensable requisites in the education of a good architect, and raise his art to a vast height above those professions which practice alone can render familiar, and which consist in the mere exertion of muscular force. From these considerations it appears there is some foundation in the very nature of architecture for those extraordinary privileges to which masons have always laid claim, and which they have almost always possessed—privileges which no other artists could have confidence to ask, or liberty to enjoy.—Ency. Brit., Vol. XIV., p. 280.
Alison on French Architecture.—In France we find that public works have been reared at an expense not exceeding that of edifices of little or no excellence in our own country, even although the charges of building are not materially different in the two countries. So true it is, that the most essential elements in architectural beauty—genius and taste in the architect, are beyond the power of mere wealth to command—that it is not money to construct beautiful edifices, but the mind to conceive them, which is generally wanting. It would seem, therefore, that it is the pure taste and noble conceptions of the artists of Southern Europe, rather than in any great excellence in the materials at their command, or the wealth of which they have the disposal, to which we must ascribe their remarkable superiority to those of this country.
Devonshire House, Piccadilly.—The additions and alterations which are being made to this fine old mansion, the residence of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, are proceeding rapidly, and will add considerably to the extent as well as to its internal arrangements. Mr. Decimus Burton is the architect, and Messrs. Woolcott and Son are the contractors, for these works, which will yet take many months to complete. The Duke is for the present staying at his princely abode, Chatsworth.
Church Extension.—There are now twelve new churches building, or about to be commenced, in various parts of the metropolis; one in the Kent-road, in the parish of St. George, Southwark; one in the parish of Paddington; another on the site of the Old Broadway Chapel, Westminster; a large church, with a lofty Gothic tower, in which a musical peal of bells is to be placed, in Wilton-square, Knightsbridge; three in Bethnal-green parish, and a church in St. Pancras parish. Sites have been chosen for a new church in the Waterloo-road district of Lambeth parish; another in St. Botolph Without, Aldgate, in the county of Middlesex; and a third in St. George’s-in-the-East. The new parish church of St. Giles’s, Camberwell, building on the site of the old edifice, which was destroyed by fire, is progressing rapidly, and will be a noble and spacious edifice. The new church at Paddington will be a great ornament to that neighbourhood. The University of Durham has granted 400l.towards the erection of a new church at South Shields. It is intended to build a new Roman Catholic Church in the eastern part of the metropolis. The site chosen is a large piece of ground on the south side of the Commercial-road, and it is expected that the total cost of the edifice and the purchase of the ground will not fall short of 30,000l.