






The Augustan Reprint Society






The Art of Architecture

A POEM

In Imitation of Horace's ART OF POETRY

(Anonymous)

(1742)

       *       *       *       *       *

  _Introduction by_
  William A. Gibson

       *       *       *       *       *

  PUBLICATION NUMBER 144
  WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
  University of California, Los Angeles
  1970




GENERAL EDITORS

  William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
  George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_


ASSOCIATE EDITOR

  David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_


ADVISORY EDITORS

  Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_
  James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_
  Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_
  Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
  Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
  Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
  Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
  James Sutherland, _University College, London_
  H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_
  Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_


CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

  Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_


EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

  Roberta Medford, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_




INTRODUCTION


John Gwynn, generally accepted as the author of _The Art of
Architecture_ (1742), is best known to students of English literature
as one of the founders of the Royal Academy and as a friend of Samuel
Johnson, who undertook in 1759 to win the Blackfriars Bridge commission
for Gwynn with a series of three letters in the _Daily Gazeteer_[1].
To  architectural historians Gwynn is best known as the architect whose
proposals for regularizing the street plans of London and Westminster
(in _London and Westminster Improved_, 1766) were prophetic both of the
plan which eventually emerged from the land speculation and building
boom of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and of the prominence
subsequently given to city-planning.[2] But like Dr. Johnson, Gwynn
looked as much to the past as he anticipated the future. This is almost
inevitable since he too spans the years which saw the last expressions
of humanist principles of art and the first struggles to find new bases
for aesthetic judgments. Although the date of Gwynn's birth is unknown,
he must have been almost an exact contemporary of Dr. Johnson, for he
also began his literary career in the 1730's, gained public recognition
in the 1750's, associated with members of the Literary Club in the
1760's, and died slightly over a year after Johnson, probably on 27
February 1786.

Their careers exhibit two more instructive parallels. Both began
as amateurs, possessed of no specific training, and ended as
self-supporting "professionals," able to exercise their skills on
demand and fully conscious of the qualifications needed for membership
within their professions.[3] Second, both began with the hope of
"fixing" the rules of their arts, but ended by disavowing the intention
or by implicitly contradicting it. Johnson records his disillusionment
with one such attempt in the "Preface" to his _Dictionary_ (1755).
Gwynn's continuing interest in the attempt is evident in his early
proposals for establishing an art academy (_An Essay on Design_, 1749)
and in his serving as a representative of the architectural profession
in the founding of the Royal Academy. However his efforts late in his
career to accommodate his early principles to the needs of a nation in
the midst of an economic and a building boom reveal a considerable
shift from his dogmatic support of the rules of art in _The Art of
Architecture_.

The poem is significant in a number of ways. It is the work of a young,
inexperienced architect, with literary ambitions, who has learned most
of what he knows about the principles of his art from published
sources--treatises, pattern books, and measured drawings--rather than
in an architect's studio or in a master mason's stone-cutting yard.
Take, for example, one of his lists of architects worthy of study:
"With _M----s, F----ft, G----s, L----i, W----e_,/ Let ADMIRALTY,
or CUSTOM-HOUSE compare" (p. 18). Four of these architects published
treatises or translations of treatises which Gwynn certainly knew:
Robert Morris, _Lectures on Architecture_, 1734-36[4]; James Gibbs,
_Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture_, 1733; James
Leoni, translations of Palladio, 1715-16, and of Alberti, 1726; Isaac
Ware, translation of Palladio, 1737. The other architect referred to is
Henry Flitcroft. The poem is, secondly, an unusually clear expression
of the architectural principles--and dilemmas--of a man who is
sensitive to changes in taste and in artistic practice, but unaware of
the causes of the changes, and probably incapable of grasping their
significance. This is precisely what makes _The Art of Architecture_ a
valuable document in the history of eighteenth-century criticism. The
poem provides a brief but rather full summary of the major precepts
of humanist architectural theory accepted in the first half of the
century, and introduces an important English innovation. At the same
time it reveals the passionate desperation of a man confident in his
rules of art but powerless to impose them upon a society enamored of
novelty. Gwynn never gave up his youthful ambition of improving English
building, but he did give up the positiveness evident in this poem.

Gwynn's general critical bias is readily identifiable because it is
consistent with that of many conventionally trained architects of the
1720's and 1730's, and with that of most propagandists for English
Palladianism. Like the Earl of Burlington, William Kent, Colin
Campbell, Morris, Ware, and Alexander Pope, Gwynn venerated Inigo Jones
as England's Palladio, as the architect who showed how Palladio's rules
could be naturalized for the English climate (pp. 14, 25). Similarly
orthodox is his opinion of the fanciful baroque architecture of Sir
John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, both of whom are held up as
perpetrators of tasteless, licentious innovation (pp. 14, 26). The more
chaste baroque architects--Sir Christopher Wren, Gibbs, and Thomas
Archer--Gwynn generally admires, although he recognizes occasional
flaws in the works of Gibbs and Archer (pp. 14, 29). In remarking on
his other "villain" architects, Gwynn reveals his political preferences
and some acquaintance with current scandals. At least two of them were
aligned with the court party. Thomas Ripley, a one-time carpenter who
was one of Pope's targets of satire, erected Houghton for Robert
Walpole in accordance with designs by Campbell (pp. 15, 17).[5] Edward
Oakley dedicated his _Magazine of Architecture_, _Perspective and
Sculpture_ (1730) to Walpole, but received no posts such as those which
Ripley, Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh, or John James enjoyed under the Walpole
administration (p. 28). Two more architects whom he mentions, besides
Gibbs, Vanbrugh, and Ripley, were employed on the notorious projects of
the Duke of Chandos--John James and Andrew Shepherd (pp. 10, 23).[6]
Gwynn's taste and principles were those of an educated elite to which
he did not belong--conventional in their moral and aesthetic
implications, and conservative in their political ones.

But the significance of _The Art of Architecture_ is not merely as
evidence of contemporary attitudes toward Hawksmoor or James, Chapman
or Banks. It is rather what Gwynn believes they indicate: the failure
to establish in England a building practice firmly based upon a body of
principles which architects and men of letters in the first half of
the eighteenth century had wanted to believe inviolable. The Palladian
revival had helped to subvert the medieval crafts tradition in building
(which had been vigorous through the seventeenth century) and had
contributed to substituting for the pomp and flamboyance of the baroque
a taste for regularity in outline, clear relationship of parts, and a
relative simplicity of surface and ornament. Accompanying it was an
unprecedented deluge of publications, all of which helped to create a
greater popular consciousness of humanist architectural principles than
had previously existed. Yet the revival was proving ineffectual, and
perhaps the clearest evidence is in Gwynn's attack on Kent: "See
the  old GOTHS, in _K----_'s Designs survive;/ And Modern FOOLS, to
imitate his strive" (p. 26). Kent edited the drawings of the English
Palladio for the Earl of Burlington (_The Designs of Inigo Jones, With
Some Additional Designs_, 1727); but at Esher Place, Surrey (ca. 1730),
and again in Merlin's Cave, erected at Richmond Park for Queen Caroline
(1735), he "anticipate[d] by twenty years the rococo Gothic of the
1750's."[7] The latter design was even published with some by Jones two
years after _The Art of Architecture_ in John Vardy's _Some Designs of
Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent_ (1744). Clearly Vitruvius's rule
of _decor_ had not restrained even the publicists of Palladianism.

Humanist architectural theory was losing its authority even as it was
being widely disseminated; it was also, as was only half clear to
Gwynn, becoming increasingly unintelligible. Wealthy patrons of the art
looked more and more upon exact knowledge of it as unbefitting the
learning of a gentleman. Archaeological studies of antiquities, instead
of helping to fix the rules of proportion, were contributing to
aesthetic relativity by demonstrating the disparity between ancient
practice and Vitruvius's rules. Claude Perrault attempted to resolve
these disparities by a system of mathematical averages, but the result
of his empirical method is only to substitute one source of relativity
for another.[8] By the 1740's what Rudolf Wittkower has called the
"break-away from the laws of harmonic proportion"[9] was well under
way, and it represented but a part of the collapse of the several
systems of arithmetic and geometric proportion which had dominated
humanist theory. Developments in the history of thought made this
collapse inevitable. The old aesthetics were based upon correspondences
between divine and human artifacts. Thus in designing a building the
architect emulated the Divine Architect who "ordered all things in
measure and number and weight" (Wisdom 11:20). The geometric forms and
the systems of mathematical and harmonic proportions of a building
answered to those of the cosmos; likewise the aesthetic attributes
of the cosmos--with their attendant moral ones--such as symmetry,
uniformity, regularity, and fitness had their correspondences in
architecture. Such assumptions provided immutable bases for the rules
external to the individual work of art, but the breakdown of analogical
reasoning in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries necessarily
undermined such philosophical-theological foundations. The new
epistemology, further, shifted attention from the external world--the
previous source of the rules--to the mind perceiving it.

By the 1740's consciousness was growing of threats against the ethical
and aesthetic values of Renaissance humanism (best expressed in Pope's
_Dunciad in Four Books_), and of the consequent need for new sources
of  authority for the rules of art. One highly eccentric quest for
authority was published just a year before _The Art of Architecture_:
John Wood's _The Origins of Building_; or, _The Plagiarism of the
Heathens Detected_ (1741). Wood reconstructs the history of
architecture to make it conform to Old Testament chronology. Thus he
attributes the major tenets of Vitruvius's architectural theory to
various patriarchs and ancient Jewish heroes, or, when he finds
any justification for doing so, directly to God. Gwynn's attempt
to buttress the rules is far more mundane. He seeks support from
contemporary philosophy; for example, he introduces the epistemological
and ethical systems of Shaftesbury to account for some principles of
decorum, but without perceiving the subjectivity he was imposing on
them. He rationalizes some of Vitruvius's analogies between natural
and architectural forms. But even more clearly indicative of the
futility of his effort are his appeals to authority. He implores such
aristocratic patrons as Pembroke, Chesterfield, and Burlington to "Be
to my _Muse_ a Friend; assist my Cause;/Be Friend to _Science_, fix'd
on _Nature's_ Laws" (p. 30). Perhaps most important, however, is the
authority of Horace himself, who provides the model for the poem.

Although neoclassical critics generally accepted the reality of
correspondences between architectural and literary criticism, Gwynn did
not find the _Ars Poetica_ an entirely manageable model.[10] Horace's
figures of the mad painter and the mad poet which frame the poem at
either end serve Gwynn well, for his imitations of them as the mad
painter and the mad architect emphasize the personal, social, and
artistic consequences of attempting to build without rules, talent, or
even a clear need to build. But within the poem, allusions to Horace
are often much more elusive. He usually succeeds best in keeping close
to Horace when citing the most general principles. Thus Horace's attack
on bombast and timidity ("professus grandia turget;/serpit humi tutus
nimium timidusque procellae," 11. 27-28) occasions an attack on
misunderstood magnificence and on stodginess:

  Others affect _Magnificence_ alone;
  And rise in large enormous Heaps of Stone;
  Swell the huge _Dome_, and _Turrets_ bid to rise,
  And Towers on Towers; attract the Gazer's Eyes.
  Some dare not leave the old, the beaten Way,
  To search new Methods, or in Science stray ...

                                               (p. 8.)


Similarly clear are Gwynn's adaptations of such commonplaces as the
need to subordinate parts to the whole (p. 8) or for consistency of
style (p. 15). Again, Horace asks whether a good poem is the product of
nature or art--of native talent or of training--and denies that either
is adequate alone (11. 408-418). Gwynn raises the same question about
the architect, although in the first person, and answers,

  If _Art_, or _Nature_, form'd me what I am;
  If one or both, assisted in the Plan,
  It is beyond, my utmost Power to say:
  Whether I _Art_, or _Nature_' s Laws obey.

                                               (p. 31.)


Since such ambivalence as this is not appropriate to his purpose, he,
unlike Horace, begins almost immediately to stress a course of study
that will result in mastery of the rules.

This last rhetorical tactic points to one serious problem which Horace
poses for Gwynn--that of assuming an appropriate stance for defending
the rules. The tone of Horace's epistle to the Pisos is familiar
without being condescending. He writes as an experienced poet and
critic to fellow writers, delivering his pronouncements freely and
confidently, but without dogmatism. Gwynn is neither an equal writing
to equals nor an experienced architect, confident of his qualifications
to instruct the world. At one moment he acknowledges the "Judgment's
Height" of the addressee (p. 28), the next he holds himself up as
possessing a skill worthy of emulation, and proceeds to deliver a
lesson in the tone of a schoolmaster: "Those Things which seem of
little Consequence,/ And slight and trivial ..." (p. 32). Horace's wit,
his reliance upon his audience to grasp the implications of his many
examples, and his avoidance of positiveness subvert Gwynn's purpose,
as he reveals frequently in contradictory outbursts and in shifts in
tone. Yet in one important passage Horace provides him with a stance
and a theme which help him prop up the rules. After discussing
pardonable faults (11. 347-365) Horace addresses Piso's elder son,
compliments him for his wisdom and training, and _reminds him_ of the
activities in which mediocrity may be tolerated. This serves as a
contrast to poetry: "mediocribus esse poetis/ non homines, non di,
non concessere columnae" (11. 372-373). For once Horace is almost
uncompromising enough for Gwynn's purposes. He adopts a similarly
magisterial tone, but reorders Horace's materials so that the emphasis
is more fully on this principle:

    But yet, _my Lord_, this _one_ important Truth,
  This Law of _Science_, which we teach our Youth
  Even THIS, no Mediocrity admit,
  _Rules_, _Nature_, _Reason_, _all_ must jointly fit:
  A _Painter_ may RAPHAEL'S Judgment want,
  And yet, we some Abilities will grant: ...

  In BUILDING, there's no _Laws_ of human Kind,
  Admit a _Medium_; to the Artist's Mind,
  _All_ must be perfect, or 'tis understood,
  Excessive _Ill_,----or else sublimely _Good_.

                                               (pp. 29-30.)


Especially significant here is his insistence that the "Law of
_Science_" will "no Mediocrity admit," for Horace discusses poetic
practice rather than the rules which aid it. Secondly, the belabored
inference drawn from the principle in the final couplet has no
precedent at all in Horace. Gwynn has made every effort to place the
rules outside the realm of human eccentricity and to give them the
stature of "_Nature's_ Laws."

Considering that the tenets of humanist architectural theory are
traditionally classified very differently from those of literary
criticism, as Gwynn acknowledges in his "Preface" (p. iii), he manages
to accommodate them surprisingly well to the organization of the _Ars
Poetica_. A good example is his treatment of Horace's discussion of the
transitoriness of language, as of all things, and the necessary dominance
of the rules of usage (11. 46-72). The most obvious parallel is the
inevitable ruin of the pompous buildings which men erect (p. 11).
But he develops none of the botanical analogies which Horace used to
illustrate the rhythms of life and death (11. 60-69), for his purpose
is to emphasize instead the parallel between _usus_ and the
architectural concept of "use." Horace insists, "multa renascentur quae
iam cecidere, cadentque/ quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet
usus" (11. 70-71). Gwynn elaborates on this:

  But Use has rais'd the _Greek_ and _Roman_ Rules,
  And banish'd GOTHICK Practice from the Schools.
  Use is the Judge, the Law, the Rule of Things,
  Whence ARTS arose, and whence the SCIENCE springs.

                                               (p. 11)[11]


Horace and Gwynn both think of "use" operating as a kind of historical
necessity causing the resurrection of a rule or a form. Gwynn adds to
this the concept, drawn from Vitruvius and his commentators, that the
rules of architecture prescribe forms which satisfy particular uses and
reflect directly the strengths and limitations of building materials
and techniques. These are the major premises of Gwynn's assertion
that "on _Nature's_ perfect Plan,/ I form my SYSTEM" (p. 31). To
buttress this confidence in rules he develops the parallels between
Horace's history of poetry (11. 73-98) and the history of architecture.
Cecrops, the first king of Athens, is to architectural practice what
Homer is to heroic poetry. Daedalus is to the theory of architecture
what Archilochus is to the meter of dramatic poetry (pp. 11-12). The
emphasis on the giving and systematizing of rules, although without
precedent in Horace, reflects the same preoccupation with the authority
of origins as John Wood's _Origins of Building_, Pope's _Essay on
Criticism_, or even Locke's _Two Treatises on Government_ for that
matter.

Horace provides less precise correspondences for one of the most important
rules. Vitruvius's rule of _decor_ (_De Architectura_, I, ii, 5) is
only generally parallel to the rules governing decorum of language,
characterization, and genre. Gwynn nevertheless introduces all of its
major implications. It dictates the observing of clear correspondences
between a building's form and its use, inhabitant, and site (or
"situation," to use the eighteenth-century term). It is based upon the
notion that architectural styles have recognizable social, ethical,
religious, and aesthetic attributes. The attributes, which evoke
predictable psychological responses, express the _uses_ which the
styles were created to satisfy and the cultures in which they were
developed. One brief passage beginning "If to adapt your Fabrick, you
would choose,/ To suit the _Builder's_ Genius, or his Use" (pp. 15-16)
effectively summarizes the primary dictates of _decor_. The architect
has to choose forms and ornaments having attributes in common with the
social station and character traits of the builder of a residence,[12]
with the deity to whom a temple is dedicated, with a building's
function, or with the landscape in which it is placed. Thus, for
example, the heavy, plain Tuscan order is appropriate for "A _little_
Structure; built for Use alone," the "gaiety" of the middle Ionic order
for a country villa, and the "delicacy" of the Corinthian order for an
elegant church or palace (p. 25). An architect's skill is most often
measured in the poem by his adherence to _decor_.

One violator of _decor_ serves as a focus in an important passage
wherein Gwynn tries to integrate Vitruvius and Horace while making a
transition to one of his central concerns, the peculiarly English
reinterpretation of decorum of situation. In discussing the difficulty
of treating traditional subjects in novel ways, Horace compares an
erring "scriptor cyclicus olim" with Homer, summarizes some general
principles, and then turns to a consideration of how to win public
applause (11. 119-178). Gwynn is more suspicious of originality than
Horace (p. 17), and uses Ripley as an example of one who erred in
trying to avoid customary forms. Ripley's Custom House (1718) and
Admiralty building (1723-26) become the equivalent of the Cyclic poet's
bad verse, while Morris, Flitcroft, Gibbs, Leoni, and Ware become the
modern Homers of architecture (p. 18). Gwynn ends the verse paragraph
with Horace's theme of suiting the parts to the whole. With Ripley's
performance as a background Gwynn turns to architecture's most
fundamental rules:

    CRITICKS, attend the Rules which I impart;
  They are at least; _instructive_ to the Art:
  Mark how _Convenience_, _Strength_, and _Beauty_ join:
  With these let _Harmony of Parts_ combine.

                                               (p. 18.)


These lines may be construed as the architect's equivalent of Horace's
advice for winning applause. But in fact the entire verse paragraph
which these lines introduce is simply a paraphrase of Vitruvius (I,
iii, 2. Cf. Wotton's remark, "_Wel-building_ hath three Conditions,
_Commodity_, _Firmnesse_, and _Delight_").[13] The leap which follows
the introduction of these three principles has no precedent in Horace,
but it does in Vitruvius, whose _De Architectura_ is notorious for its
eccentric organization and abrupt transitions. Immediately following
this passage in Vitruvius is his chapter on the "salubrity of sites"
(I, iv).

It is ironical that where Gwynn is closest to Vitruvius in one respect
he departs most radically from him in another. Vitruvius's attention
is almost exclusively on the physical requirements of sites for
maintaining men's health and comfort; Gwynn's is on the requirements
for maintaining men's psychological well-being. His conceptions of
decorum of situation begin with Vitruvius and the Renaissance demands
that a site be healthy, that it permit efficient transportation, and
that, if possible, it provide raw materials for building, rich lands
for crops and pastures, and natural beauty conducive to ease and
contemplation. Gwynn emphasizes this last point, building upon
perceptions of nature nourished on Thomson's _Seasons_, and upon a
psychology drawn largely from the Earl of Shaftesbury (pp. 19-22).
In his earlier _Essay on Harmony_. _As it relates chiefly to Situation
in Building_ he quotes Shaftesbury on the title page, acknowledges
his debt to Thomson, and quotes long passages from _The Seasons_ to
illustrate various rural "situations."[14] In _The Art of Architecture_
he follows Morris's example in writing his own verse in language
imitative of Thomson's (except for one direct quotation, "From the
_moist Meadow_; to the _brown-brow'd Hill_"). The verbal precision of
his poetic epithets, and the analysis of perception which they imply,
help to distinguish the sensory, aesthetic, and emotional effects of
a wide variety of disparate experiences, and thus make possible the
identification of those attributes that guide an architect in choosing
a _mode_ appropriate to a site. The perfect fitting of a building
to its site, as of the parts to a whole, will result in what Gwynn
calls "Ideal Harmony," for it "ariseth from such Numbers, Parts, or
Proportions, which may be resolved in the Mind, and ranged together
in Order, by Contemplation."[15]

For Gwynn such harmony still has quite clear religious and moral
implications, although he does not, like Morris, attribute to it a
specifically religious function. Yet since the rules are supposedly
based upon natural laws, violations of them betray a failure to
appreciate divine harmony, the highest object of human contemplation.
This accounts for the indignation Gwynn reveals in attacking mad
architects and patrons at the end of the poem, even if it also reveals
his obtuseness in failing to perceive the causes of his outrage.
But, then, Gwynn was no Alexander Pope, either as a poet or as a
thinker.[16]

The Ohio State University




NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION


1. Both James Boswell and Sir John Hawkins briefly discuss Johnson's
relations with Gwynn in their biographies of Johnson. The fullest
accounts of Gwynn's life and professional activities are those in
the _DNB_ and in H. M. Colvin, _Biographical Dictionary of English
Architects_, 1660-1830 (London, 1954), pp. 254-256. Both attribute the
poem to him. I am much indebted throughout this introduction to Colvin
for information on the architects mentioned in the poem.

2. For an estimate of the significance of Gwynn's perceptions
see chapter nine of John Summerson's _Georgian London_, rev. ed.
(Harmondsworth, 1962). His perceptiveness was recognized by the early
nineteenth century. Gregg International published a facsimile reprint
of _London and Westminster Improved_ in 1969.

3. A work which shows Gwynn's awareness of the differences between the
casual and perhaps well-read dilettante and the dedicated professional
is his essay _The Qualifications and Duty of a Surveyor_ (London,
1752). For discussions of the development of the architectural
profession in eighteenth-century England, see Colvin, pp. 10-25,
and, in spite of his excessively narrow definition of "profession,"
Barrington Kaye, _The Development of the Architectural Profession
in Britain, A Sociological Study_ (London, 1960), pp. 39-67.

4. One indication of Gwynn's admiration for Robert Morris is the title
page of _The Art of Architecture_. The elevation used as an ornament is
not just modelled on a design by Morris; the plate used to print the
elevation is the very plate, slightly reworked, which printed the
design facing p. 209 in Morris's _Lectures_. Most of the original
dimension lines have been obliterated, and the original pyramidal roof
has been truncated.

5. _Epistle to Burlington_, II. 17-18; _Imitations of Horace_, II, i,
185-186; _The Dunciad in Four Books_, III, 327-328.

6. C. H. Collins and Muriel I. Baker, _The Life and Circumstances of
James Brydges_, _First Duke of Chandos_ (Oxford, 1949), pp. 115-120,
146, 300, 387-389.

7. Colvin, p. 342.

8. _A Treatise of the Five Orders of Columns in Architecture_, trans.
by John James (London, 1708).

9. Rudolf Wittkower, _Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism_,
3rd ed. (London, 1962), p. 142. For a summary of England's part in this
"break-away" see pp. 150-153.

10. Parenthetical references to the _Ars Poetica_ are to the Loeb
edition, trans., H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, Mass., 1929).

11. Cf. Pope, "You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse,/ And
pompous buildings once were things of Use" (_Epistle to Burlington_,
11. 23-24).

12. See Sir Henry Wotton, "Elements of Architecture" (1624), in
_Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (London, 1651), pp. 304-305.

13. Ibid., p. 201.

14. _Essay on Harmony_ (London, 1739), pp. 27-31.

15. Ibid., p. 9.

16. This work was supported, in part, by the Ohio State University
Development Fund through its Faculty Summer Fellowship program, and by
a grant from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society.
I should like to express my gratitude for both of these grants.




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


    This facsimile of _The Art of Architecture_ (1742)
    is reproduced from a copy in the British Museum.




THE

Art of Architecture,

A POEM.

In Imitation of HORACE'S Art of POETRY.

Humbly Inscribed to the R^{t}. Hon^{ble} the Earl of ----

       *       *       *       *       *

      _Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
  Emollit mores, nec finit esse feros._

                                     OVID.

[Illustration]

_LONDON:_

  Printed for R. DODSLEY, at TULLY's Head in _Pall-Mall_; and
  Sold by T. COOPER at the _Globe_ in _Pater-noster-Row_, 1742.

[Price, One Shilling.]


[Illustration]




THE PREFACE.


_The great Freedom with which_ HORACE _has been used, I hope will be in
some Measure an Excuse for the Liberty I take in this Essay._--_The Art
of_ Cookery, _and_ Harlequin-Horace _are two glaring Instances, not to
mention Numberless_ Translators, Commentators, &c. _upon his Works; in
which some have so Remark'd and Revis'd, that they have explain'd the
Sense of_ Horace _quite away_.--_I for my Part, either as a Poetical_
ARCHITECT, _or an Architectural_ POET, _profess myself to be only an
humble_ IMITATOR _of him_: _I have seldom lost sight of the_ Original,
_at least as far as the Subject will permit_.---_But_ ARCHITECTURE
_is a barren Theme, and a Path so beaten, that to step out of it,
though purely to avoid the Crowd, is looked upon as an unpardonable
Singularity. How far I may have strayed in this_ Poetical Excursion,
_I  know not; but of this, I am certain I can with Truth say with_
HORACE,

    ----Si quid novisti rectius istis,
  Candidus imperti; si non, his Utere Mecum.


[Illustration]




[Illustration]




THE

ART of ARCHITECTURE,

In Imitation of HORACE'S Art of POETRY.


    Should you, my LORD, a wretched Picture view;
  Which some unskilful Copying-_Painter_ drew,
  Without Design, Intolerably bad,
  Would you not smile, and think the Man was mad?
  Just so a tasteless Structure; where each Part
  Is void of _Order_, _Symmetry_, or _Art_:
  Alike offends, when we the Mimick Place;
  Compare with _Beauty_, _Harmony_, or _Grace_.

    PAINTERS, and ARCHITECTS are not confin'd
  By _Pedant-Rules_ to circumscribe the Mind:
  But give a Loose, their Genius to improve;
  And 'midst the pleasing Fields of _Science_ rove.
  But then the Laws of _Nature_; and of Sense,
  Forbid us with Contraries to dispense:
  To _paint_ a Snake, engend'ring with a Dove;
  Or _build_ a Prison 'midst a shady Grove.

    At setting out, some promise mighty Things,
  _Temples_ they form, and _Palaces_ for Kings;
  With a few _Ornaments_ profusely drest,
  They shine through all the _Dulness_ of the rest.
  At some long _Vista's_ End, the Structure stands;
  The Spot a Summit, and a View commands:
  The wide-extended Plain appears below,
  And Streams, which through the verdant Meadows flow.
  Here _Towns_, and _Spires_, and _Hills_ o'er Hills extend;
  There _shady Groves_, and _Lawns_, the Prospect end.
  Through lavish _Ornaments_, the Fabrick shines
  With wild Festoons of Fruits, and clust'ring Vines:
  Luxuriant Decorations fill each Space,                       }
  And vast Incumbrances, void of _Rules_ or _Grace_;           }
  Without Coherence, crowded in each Place.                    }

    Should you require a little rising Pile,
  The Parts appropriate to the fertile Soil:
  Where _Neatness_, _Order_, and _Proportion_ join;
  Where _Strength_, and _Art_, and _Nature_ should combine:
  The mimick _Architect_ perhaps would be                      }
  As much to seek in his Design; as HE                         }
  Whose only Talent was, to paint a _Tree_.                    }
  With such gay Structures, why do they begin
  Such _Glare_ of Ornament to usher in?
  Why such external needless Dress and Show?
  The End impropriate, and the Meaning low.
  Form to each _Clime_, each _Place_, a _Modus_ still;
  But use the same Proportions at your Will.
  Change, modify your Form: Transpose, divide;
  The same unerring Rules the _Science_ guide.

    Most ARCHITECTS in something do offend,
  When led by, aim'd-at-Excellence; to mend--
  By striving to be plain, they sometimes fall,
  So _Mean_, so _Dull_, so _Tasteless_: they spoil all.
  Others affect _Magnificence_ alone;
  And rise in large enormous Heaps of Stone;
  Swell the huge _Dome_, and _Turrets_ bid to rise,
  And Towers on Towers; attract the Gazer's Eyes.
  Some dare not leave the old, the beaten Way,
  To search new Methods, or in Science stray:
  Others with wild Varieties engage,
  And build a Seat to face the _Ocean's_ Rage;
  Carve _Fruit_ and _Flowers_, to face the raging Floods,
  Festoons of Shells, or Fish, for shady Woods.
  Thus willful Erring, join'd with Want of Skill,
  Is the most certain Way of Erring still.

    The meanest Workman, may attempt to place
  A little Dress to decorate a Space;
  May put an Ornament about a Door,
  Or decorate a Window, and no more:
  But then to _finish_, is beyond his Skill,
  And we suppose the rest, exceeding ill.
  And 'tis ridiculous for one good Part,
  Where what remains are Scandal to the Art;
  Where only one is luckily adorn'd,
  And all the rest remarkably deform'd.

    Let _Architects_ attempt their Skill to show
  In _small_ Designs at first; in what they know.
  Then as they find their Genius rise, to try
  How much their Structures they can magnify.
  Shew how _Convenience_, _Beauty_, _Symmetry_,
  How _Method_, _Art_, and _Nature_ will agree.
  Rules well appropriate will ever please,
  And proper Dress, is plac'd with greatest Ease.
  First study _Nature_, where, and how to fill
  The various Voids, and ornament with Skill.
  Chuse the _just_ Emblems for the Pile and Spot;
  The Dress of _Temples_ suit not with a _Grot_.
  The _Palace_, and the _Villa_ differ wide,
  For both, a proper Ornament provide,
  Perhaps in _this_, you must Profuseness spare;
  When _that_; requires you to be lavish there.

    If from the usual Taste your Building springs
  Magnificently great, a Seat for Kings,
  Let your exalted Fancy, tho' 'tis new,
  Keep the great Arts of _Greece_ and _Rome_ in View;
  From thence your Fabrick form, your Genius flow,
  Thence bid the _Ravish'd Gazer's_ Bosom glow.
  Can an impartial Critick justly blame
  A Fault in JONES, (or FL-T-FT, is the same;)
  And yet approve in HAWKSMOOR, or in J----s,
  The same wild Error, or the same Extremes?
  Why should the few, the Rules which I impart,
  Be construed ill, be Scandal to the Art?
  When GIBBS, so copious, so enrich'd has been,
  No Part's obscure, but all are useful seen.

    Men always had, and ever will, Pretence,
  At least with Method, to improve our Sense:
  And the last Laws, however just or true,
  Must give the Palm to such which are more new.
  One Year, a Train of Images arise,
  The next a gayer, newer Form supplies.
  One Scene improv'd, must to another yield,
  And all resign to FATE, and quit the Field.

    The fam'd St. HELLEN's, and the fam'd TORBAY,
  Where GEORGE's GLORIOUS FLEETS, in _Safety_ lay.
  The _Bank_, the _Meuse_, the _Treasury_ will fall,
  One common Ruin overwhelming all:
  Nay this great CITY may be lost in Flames,
  And what are _Villa_'s, may be desart _Plains_.
  The _Bleating Flocks_, on ruin'd _Fabricks_ stray,
  And what were _Temples_, now in _Ashes_ lay:
  The _Groves_ arise where _Gilded Turrets_ shone,
  And what are _Gardens_ now, were Heaps of _Stone_.
  Yet THOSE, and THEY, will in Oblivion lye,
  And all, in future Times, forgot, and die.
  Why then should _Artists_ challenge future Praise,
  When Time devours their Works so many Ways?
  But Use has rais'd the _Greek_ and _Roman_ Rules,
  And banish'd GOTHICK Practice from the Schools.
  Use is the Judge, the Law, the Rule of Things,
  Whence ARTS arose, and whence the SCIENCE springs.

    At ATHENS first the rising Art began;
  CECROPS, the King, first modell'd out the Plan.
  The studious Youth; pursued with ardent Care
  The Infant Rules, unpolish'd as they were,
  Till banish'd DÆDALUS Protection sought,
  _There_ well receiv'd, the stricter Rules he taught;
  Their _Arts_, their _Sciences_, were learn'd in Schools,
  And all their _Precepts_ were confin'd to Rules.

    The swelling _Tree_, as it unpolish'd grew
  Undecorated, _Native_ Graces shew;
  From thence the COLUMN, in its purer Dress,
  The Work of _Nature_, must the Form confess:
  The _wreath'd_, the _fluted_, or th' _encumb'ring_ Vine,
  With plenteous _Branches_ round the Pillar twine;
  Yet still its pure Simplicity you see;
  The Shaft of _Art_, resembles still a _Tree_.

    But how to appropriate, to embellish still
  Justly, the Space to decorate and fill,
  To give proportion'd Beauty to each Part,
  To make the whole subservient to the Art:
  The Inborn-Traces of the Mind pursue,
  For Nature teaches how to find the Clue.

    The _silent Groves_ a little Pile must grace;
  Nor yet too grave, or lavish for the Place.
  We find the middle Path, the Way to please,
  And decorate the Parts with greater Ease.
  But when the Opening to some distant Scene,
  Where _Lawns_, and _liv'ning Prospects_ intervene;
  Where _Vista's_ or delightful _Gardens_ charm;
  Where _verdant Beauties_ all our Senses warm:
  Let _Flow'rs_ and _Fruit_ in seeming Wildness grow;
  And there let lavish _Nature_ seem to flow.
  _There_ let the Parts, the Gazer's Eye surprize;
  And with the _Glebe_ the _Structure_ HARMONIZE.
  Where _Severn_, _Trent_, or _Thames's_ ouzy _Side_,
  Pours the smooth Current of their easy Tide:
  Each will require a Sameness to the Spot,
  For this a _Cell_, a _Cascade_, or a _Grott_.
  The _Moss_, or _gliding Streams_ productive Store,
  To grace the _Building_ on the _verdant Shore_:
  There the rough _Tuscan_, or the _Rustick_ fix,
  Or _Pebbles_, _Shells_, or calcin'd _Matter_ mix.
  The _frozen Isicle's_ resembled Form,
  Or _Sea-green Weed_, your GROTTO must adorn.

    Near some _lone Wood_, the _gay Pavilion_ place;
  Let the CORINTHIAN MODE the Structure grace:
  Carve here _Festoons_ of lovely Flowers and Fruit:
  And with the Spot, let the _Enrichments_ suit.
  On some Ascent, the plainer Fabrick view;
  The Dress IONICK, and the SCULPTURES few.
  Few are the Ornaments, but plain and neat,
  The _least_ REDUNDANT are the _most_ COMPLEAT.
  GIBBS may be said, most Times in Dress to please,
  And few can decorate with greater Ease:
  But JONES more justly knew the Eye to charm,
  To please the Judgment, and the Fancy warm;
  To give a Greatness to the _opening Glade_,
  Or pleasing Softness to the _solemn Shade_;
  To suit the _Valley_, or the rising _Hill_,
  Or grace the _Flow'ry Mead_, or _Silver Rill_.

    In _H--k--r; V--b--'s_ very Soul you trace,
  The same _unmeaning_ Dress, in every Place;
  The same _wild Heap_ of inconsistent Things:
  From whence the PRISON, or the Palace springs;
  A _Tuscan Portal_ for a _Palace Gate_,
  And a _Corinthian Column_ in a LAKE.
  For disproportion'd Columns _R--l--s_ see,
  Where neither _Art_, or _Rules_, or Form agree;
  Absurdly bad, and grown a publick Jest:
  By far too HIGH--too HEAVY all the rest.

    Would you the Sister-Arts improve in Schools?
  In _Sculpture_ follow RYSBRACK's chosen Rules;
  In _Portrait_ seek for AMICONI's Force:
  _Humour_ in HOGARTH: WOOTEN for a _Horse_:
  In _Landscape_, LAMBERT; or in _Crayons_, see
  The Charms of _Colours_ flowing from GOUPEE.
  In _Eloquence_, you see young MURRAY shine;
  In _Musick_, HANDEL's Graces are divine.

    If to adapt your Fabrick, you would choose
  To suit the _Builder_'s Genius, or his Use:
  Consider well his _Station_, _Birth_, or _Parts_,
  And make for each the _Quintessence_ of Arts.
  Here to the MUSE, a proper Part assign,
  To BACCHUS there, direct the _golden Vine_;
  To VENUS, fix a little _silent Cell_,
  Where all the LOVES and GRACES choose to dwell:
  Where the young _Wantons_, revel, sport, and play;
  And _frisk_ and _frolick_ tedious Time away.
  The PRISON's Entrance, _massy Chains_ declare,
  The loss of Freedom, to the Wretched there.
  Thus every Spot assumes a various Face;
  And _Decoration_ varies with the Place.
  The TUSCAN or the DORIAN Modus here;
  Th' IONICK, or CORINTHIAN Modus there.

    The _Temples_, _Baths_, or solemn _sacred Urn_,
  Requires Attention, and our Skill in turn.
  The _weeping Statue_ to the HERO lend;
  True to his _Country_, _Family_, or _Friend_:
  So place the Figure, that as you draw near,
  You join his Grief, and drop a silent Tear.
  So _fine_, so _just_, the _Attitude_ is made,
  The faithful _Marble_ bids you mourn his Shade.
  If you advent'rous, try your utmost Skill
  To tread unbeaten Paths, be _Lofty_ still;
  Keep up the _Strength_, the _Dignity_, and _Force_
  Of _stated Rules_; let those direct your Course.
  New Methods are not easy understood;
  And few will step in an untrodden Road.
  'Tis better to pursue the Rule that's known,
  Than trust to an Invention of your own.
  But then, be sure your Choice direct you right;
  Vary, but keep the Original in sight:
  The Orders just proportion; strict observe,
  The Variation; various Uses serve.
  Perhaps the Waste, which every Pile endures,
  May make the Copy, justly pass for yours.
  You need not slavish Imitators be,
  Exact in Copy; but your Fancy free:
  THIS Ornament omit, or THERE express
  The changing Modus, by a different Dress.

    _R----y_, in _Rustick_ heavy Buildings still,
  Attempts in vain to please, or shew his Skill;
  How far he strays from the pure _Roman_ Stile,
  And labours on in DULNESS all the while!
  With _M--s, F--ft, G---s, L--i, W--e_,
  Let ADMIRALTY, or CUSTOM-HOUSE compare.
  You'll see the wretched Structure's sinking State,
  Blam'd to Futurity, their certain Fate.
  He with a Glare of Gaiety extends
  The lengthen'd PILE, and still with DULNESS ends:
  But THOSE without your Expectation rise;
  And dazzle the Beholder with Surprize.
  Nothing is vain, or ill-expos'd to sight;
  No Part too _heavy_, nor no Dress too _light_.
  So certain are the Methods they have fix'd,
  So just proportion'd, and so aptly mix'd,
  That all seem Graceful, Uniform, and Neat;
  Each Part is _perfect_, and the _Whole_ compleat.

    CRITICKS, attend the Rules which I impart;
  They are at least; _instructive_ to the Art:
  Mark how _Convenience_, _Strength_, and _Beauty_ join:
  With these let _Harmony of Parts_ combine.
  Appropriate well the _Structure_ to the Place;
  And give each Part a _Symmetry_ and _Grace_.
  Make RULES your Guide, your Fancy to controul;
  And make _each_ Part subservient to the Whole.

    But choice of Place must be the BUILDER's Care,
  For various _Climates_, various _Modes_ prepare.
  To some a _pleasing Vale_; (the Poet's Song)
  Where _silver Streams_ in Eddies glide along;
  A little rising Hill, with Woods o'ergrown,
  And at the Foot, a verdant Carpet thrown:
  Where the soft _vernal Bloom_ beneath is spread;
  Where the tall _Poplar_ hangs its _drooping Head_.
  Where, on the Bank, the _Flowers_ and _Oziers_ green,
  Shade the smooth _Current_ as it runs between;
  The _fertile Meads_, enamell'd all around,
  And the _rich Glebe_ with _yellow Harvest_ crown'd.

    Others in long-extended Views delight,
  Where _gilded_ Objects catch the Gazer's Sight.
  Where the _wide Plain_, or _lawny Prospect_ lye,
  In mingled Sweets, to chear the _ravish'd Eye_.
  Where the VALE, winding round the _rising Hill_;
  The LILLY drinks beneath; the latent RILL.
  The _Lawns_, the _silver Streams_, the _opening Glade_,
  The distant _solemn Grove's_ collected Shade:
  Charms of the _verdant_, or the _flow'ry_ Plain;
  The rising _Mountain_, or the distant _Main_.----
  Where _rugged Rocks_, in wild Disorder rise;
  Where _unprolifick Nature_, naked lies;
  Where the vast _craggy Summit_ seems to shew,
  A _falling Precipice_ to those below:
  Expos'd to scorching Heats, or piercing Wind,
  May more delight another's changing Mind;
  Or the rude _Billows_ of tempestuous Seas,
  Another's Eye, perhaps, may chance to please:
  View on the Summit of a foaming Wave,
  The unhappy _Sailor_ try's himself to save;
  The floating Wreck, the Vessel's shatter'd Side,
  Dash'd on the Shore, by the resistless Tide:
  The foaming _Surge_ the Shore repells again;
  And beats alternate, back upon the Main:
  View the abandon'd, helpless Wretch's State;
  Sinking, bemoans his LAST unhappy Fate.

    All these the ARCHITECT must study well;
  From the proud _Palace_ to the humble _Cell_.
  The barren _Mountain_, and the rural _Shade_;
  The mingled gay Profusion, Nature made,
  To fit and tally, Art requires his Skill,                    }
  From the _moist Meadow_; to the _brown-brow'd Hill_,         }
  The silent _shady Grove_, or _silver Rill_.                  }
  To give a Grandeur to the _Opening Lawn_;
  And pleasing Softness, to the _solemn Dawn_;
  To join the _vivid_, with the _vernal_ Bloom;
  Where scarce a Sun Beam wanders thro' the Gloom.
  This is the Art's Perfection well to know;
  To charm the Sense, and bid the Bosom glow:
  Teach us to imitate the ANCIENTS well;
  And where the _Moderns_ we should still _excell_.

    Make the _Pavilion_ proper for the Spot,
  Or the _gay Temple_, or the _graver Grot_.
  Adorn your _Villa_ with the nicest Art,
  And let your Dress, be just in every Part;
  Appropriate well, the Ornaments you choose;
  But not alone for Gaiety; but Use.

    In a warm Climate where the _Tyber_ flows;
  Where in the Soil, the obdurate _Marble_ grows,
  There on the Spot, make choice of what you will,
  But HERE to use it, would be want of Skill:
  And 'tis an equal Fault of those alone;
  Who vainly imitate a _Portland-Stone_,
  The dryer Climates, cherish _Stucco_ there,
  But Rains, and colder Snows, destroy it here.
  Avoid, as much as in you lyes, to place,
  _Festoons_, or looser Ornament for Grace:
  Few let the _Carvings_ be; for outside Dress:
  A Boldness rather should your Thoughts express,
  Redundancy, and Neatness will be lost:
  And but to finish HIGH; is needless Cost.
  But then, regard to Distance must be had:
  If near the Eye, the Fault would be as bad.

    S----D, in Spite of Reason and of Sense,
  With all those Faults, and Follies will dispense;
  _Carv'd Fronts_, and STUCCO decorated still,
  Without Regard to place, the Fabrick fill:
  'Tis meant perhaps some _Fracture_ to conceal,
  Though frequent so; the more it does reveal:
  Such are the Reasons, should our Practice sway,
  And where the strongest plead, we should obey,
  The _most_ demonstrative, the _safest_ are;
  And what are not, we should avoid with Care:
  As you'd fly SCYLLA, or CHARYBDIS shun,
  Or Tricks of SCAPIN, HARLEQUIN, or LUN.

    _Convenience_ first, then _Beauty_ is a Part,
  And _Strength_ must be Assistant to the Art.
  A _little_ Seat, a Neatness will require:
  A PALACE claims a more majestick Fire,
  _That_ made for Decency; for Grandeur _this_,
  And even Profuseness, may be not amiss.
  _Here_ a long vista'd Chain of Rooms of State,
  To entertain the Attendants on the Great,
  The glittering Dress, to _catch_ the Gazer's Sight,
  At once to give Surprise; and to delight.

    The GREEKS to three, confined the stated Rules,
  And only _those_, were known in public Schools;
  Till Rome the _Tuscan_, and _Composite_ join'd,
  To enrich the Art, and to improve Mankind,
  From these alone, all _Modes_, all ORDERS spring
  To build a _Cell_, or _Palace_ for a KING.

    First the grave DORICK Mode; for Use was form'd,
  When in its Infant-State, and unadorn'd:
  'Twas Entertainment for the _sager_ Few,
  And pleas'd the Times, till something started new:
  Then the gay, _Lydian Mode_; in Order rose,
  And Art to Art, they wantonly oppose:
  For Men grew fickle by Prosperity,
  Study'd new Arts, and Ease and Luxury.
  At length the rich CORINTHIAN's gayer Dress
  The Artist's Decorations, well express.

    The GOTHS first introduc'd the frantick Way
  Of forming Apes, or _Monsters_, wild as they
  Because the Tumult, fond of Tricks and Apes,
  Lov'd such Variety, and antick Shapes.
  But K----T has no Excuse, to copy these,
  Unless he has; NO other Way to please.

    The _Modern_ Artists, all their Genius show
  In a _Venetian-Window_, or a Bow.
  The _Cell_, the _Temple_, _Palace_, _Villa_, all             }
  Must have a Window, they _Venetian_ call,                    }
  Or Bow; to grace a _Grotto_, or a _Hall_.                    }

    A _little_ Structure; built for Use alone,
  Requires no Dress, nor Ornament of Stone:
  The _Plainest_, _Neatest_, Method is the best:
  One simple Modus, governs all the rest.
  The _Villa_ next with Ornament you blend;
  The _gay_ and _pleasing_ through the whole extend;
  The TEMPLE, or the GAYER-PALACE will,
  In Decoration, try your utmost Skill.
  Learn of PALLADIO, how to deck a Space;
  Of JONES you'll learn Magnificence, and Grace:
  CAMPBELL will teach, the Beauty they impart;
  And GIBBS, the Rules and Modus of the Art:
  Keep still these Rules, and Methods, in your Sight;
  Read them by Day, and meditate by Night.

    But V--B--H was admir'd, in _Anna_'s Days,
  And even his _Blenheim_, would excite some Praise.
  And H--S--R travell'd in the same _dull_ Road,
  And trod the Footsteps, which his _Master_ trod:
  But BOYLE and PEMBROKE, have the Art restor'd;
  And _distant_ Ages will their Fame record.

    See the old GOTHS, in K----'s Designs survive;
  And Modern FOOLS, to imitate his strive:
  Renouncing all the _Rules_ the ROMANS had,
  Are past reclaiming, obstinately mad.
  Drunken N--C-A, with a Front direct,
  Or stupid B----S, makes such an Architect;
  Unhappy I!----But _Fortune_ stept between:
  And proper _Physick_ cur'd me of the Spleen.
  And now I'm satisfy'd to keep my Sense:
  Make RULES my Guide, to plead in my Defence:
  Give to the _Roman Sciences_ their Due:
  And _write_, to whet that Appetite, in you.
  Tell what the Duty of a BUILDER is,
  Point out what's _Right_ in Practice; what's amiss.
  Shew _where_, and _how_ to decorate with Skill,
  What _Ornaments_ are just, and what are ill.
  Shew how the _Judgment_, should conduct the Art,
  And where _Judiciousness_, directs the Part;
  Where proper _Situation_ claims our Care;
  Where RULES should guide; and where most _useful_ are.

    The ARCHITECT, all Ranks of Men should know,
  And when, and where, to bid his Genius flow
  To swell the _Rules_, for MAJESTY, and State,
  To equal all the Grandeur of the Great;
  To serve the Use of SENATORS, or KINGS,
  And be the Source, from whence all _Science_ springs.

    Sometimes in _old_ Designs, you _Grandeur_ view,
  And even in _Negligence_, find something new.
  But modern Youth are taught to _sing_, and _dance_,
  And learn the FOLLIES, and the _Modes_ of _France_;
  Neglecting _Method_, _Order_, _Time_, or _Sense_,
  With all their JARGON, and their _Modes_ dispense.
  They make the _Dorick_, and _Corinthian_ mix;
  And with th' _Ionian_, the _Composite_ fix.
  The _Grave_ and _Gay_, in one long Range extend;
  And with the _Solemn_, the _Profusive_ blend.
  Can Structures, built by such a _Builder_, live?
  Will _A--f--y_, think you; _C--p--n_ survive?
  Will _O--k--y_, _B----s_, and some whom I could name?
  Whose Works already; DAMN them into Fame.
  Will they, or _not_, all Rules, all Modes deface.
  Invert all ORDER, and the Art _disgrace_?
  Will _B--f--w_; _M--d--n_; FOOLS by Nature made
  Will they encrease, or will they ruin Trade?

    'Tis you, MY LORD, who know your Judgment's Height,
  Your Precepts, and Instructions, are of Weight;
  Clear, and succinct, the _lower Class_ to teach,
  And oft, above the _towring_ Artists Reach;
  Where the gay Ornament you please to place,
  And where it gives a _Majesty_ and Grace.
  These are the _Rules_, will live in _future_ Days,
  The Youth's Director, and the _Poet's Lays_,
  'Tis these will shine when in Oblivion lay'd:
  The GOTHS forgotten, and the MODERNS dead.

    The skillful Archer, may his Aim mistake;
  And the best Hand in Musick, Jarring make:
  So that, the Frailty of our Nature will,
  Excuse as Accident, nor construe ill.
  But if the Impertinent, their _Faults_ are told,
  And _still_ persist; and _still_, their Follies hold:
  Let them _abandon'd_, _senseless_, _stupid_ be,
  And, past reclaiming, still be DULL for me.

    In some great Structures, _Lowness_ is exprest;
  And SLEEP even sometimes, HOMER lull'd to Rest;
  _Building_, like _Painting_, proper Point of Sight,
  Requires to view it, in its clearest Light;
  And some tho' aim'd at _Grandeur_; or at Ease,
  Even please but _once_, and some will EVER please.

    But yet, _my Lord_, this _one_ important Truth,
  This Law of _Science_, which we teach our Youth,
  Even THIS, no Mediocrity admit,
  _Rules_, _Nature_, _Reason_, all must jointly fit:
  A _Painter_ may RAPHAEL's Judgment want,
  And yet, we some Abilities will grant:
  He may, perhaps, a skillful Painter be,
  Tho' not so great, yet great in some Degree.
  In BUILDING, there's no _Laws_ of human Kind,
  Admit a _Medium_; to the Artist's Mind,
  _All_ must be perfect, or 'tis understood,
  Excessive _Ill_,--or else sublimely _Good_.
  In Things where Reason, seems but to subside,
  Men learn to stem, the Torrent of the _Tide_;
  They _dance_, or _fence_, or vainly wish to _fly_,
  But if they fail, contented cease to try.
  But all in BUILDING, universal run,
  Undoing others, and themselves undone.

    Oh B----LE! or S--N--PE, P--M-KE; any Name,
  That ARTS, or VIRTUE; raises into Fame,
  Be to my _Muse_ a Friend; assist my Cause;
  Be Friend to _Science_, fix'd on _Nature_'s Laws.
  On that alone, on _Nature_'s perfect Plan,
  I form my SYSTEM, as I FIRST began.
  By YOU inspir'd, I boldly lay the Line,
  And ev'n am vain to call the Subject mine.
  So ORPHEUS, once by more than human Sway,
  Tam'd _savage Beasts_, or Men as wild as they;
  And when AMPHION, built the THEBAN WALL,
  The Stones, by Magick Power, obey'd his Call.
  So _Ancient_, even in EGYPT's pristine State,
  Recorded ARCHITECTURE, has its Date.

    Since thus, my Lord; what GODS and KINGS inspire,
  _What_ bids my Bosom glow with _arduous_ Fire;
  This _Noble Art_, disdain not to protect;
  If not the Art, at least the ARCHITECT.
  If _Art_, or _Nature_, form'd me what I am;
  If one or both, assisted in the Plan,
  It is beyond, my utmost Power to say:
  Whether I _Art_, or _Nature_'s Laws obey.
  Without each other, we in vain should strive;
  To BUILD, or keep the SCIENCES alive;
  _Each_ mutually assist, and _each_ will need,
  The other's Help, as NATURE has decreed.

    He that intends an _Architect_ to be,
  Must seriously deliberate, like me;
  Must see the _Situation_, _Mode_ and _Form_,
  Of every _Structure_, which they would adorn:
  All Parts _External_, and _Internal_, view;
  Before they aim to raise, a something new.

    Ask _G----s_, or _F--tc--t_, to correct your Plan,
  They'll freely, where you err, instruct the Man,
  In what's amiss, with Judgment, and with Care,
  Where needful _add_; and where profusive; _spare_.
  But if you selfish; foolishly defend;
  Your glaring Faults, and will not strive to mend,
  To his own Folly----leave the Wretch alone,
  And without Rival, let him BLUNDER on.

    Those Things which seem of little Consequence,
  And slight and trivial; know; you some time hence,
  When you are made ridiculous; will find,
  They are important, and instruct the Mind:
  If in a _Building Fit_, a FRANTIC Man:
  Should _wildly_ scheme, a bad, or monstrous Plan,
  Not minding _where_, or _how_, or _what_, to lay,
  For a Foundation, or his _Workmen_ pay:
  If he should find, a Prison for his Pains,
  (Misfortune justly suited to his Brains)
  No one would _pity_, or _condole_ his Fate,
  But think he merited, the _Bedlam-State_.

    EMPEDOCLES, with Madness sought the Flame,
  And thought by that; to gain immortal _Fame_.
  Let ARCHITECTS, and BUILDERS, _mad_ as they,
  In Folly; run, and make themselves away;
  Why should it be a _Sin_, such Men to kill,
  More than to keep alive, against their Will?
  It was not _Chance_, but _Choice_, the Poet made,
  To seek _Divinity_, in LETHE's Shade;
  For if he was, from PLUTO's _Sable Plain_,
  Return'd to _Earth_,----He'd ÆTNA seek again.

    'Tis hard to say, whether the _Gloomy Clime_,
  Or _Murder_, _Incest_, or some heinous Crime,
  Sends _Building-Fiends_, into the _Madding World_,
  Govern'd by _Frenzy_; by Confusion _hurl'd_,
  Seize all they meet; and----like the baited BEAR,
  Without Distinction, _Range_, and _Rend_, and _Tear_:
  No one escapes them: from Lord O--R--D: down,
  To _B----s_, and every errant Fool in Town:
  They _build_, or teach; are leading, or are led;
  And never cease, till they're in Jail, or dead.


_FINIS._

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       *       *       *       *       *




WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

[Illustration]

The Augustan Reprint Society

PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT




The Augustan Reprint Society

PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT

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1948-1949

16. Henry Nevil Payne, _The Fatal Jealousie_ (_1673_).

18. Anonymous, "Of Genius," in _The Occasional Paper_, Vol. III, No. 10
    (1719), and Aaron Hill, _Preface to The Creation_ (1720).


1949-1950

19. Susanna Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709).

20. Lewis Theobald, _Preface to the Works of Shakespeare_ (1734).

22. Samuel Johnson, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), and two
    _Rambler_ papers (1750).

23. John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681).


1950-1951

26. Charles Macklin, _The Man of the World_ (1792).


1951-1952

31. Thomas Gray, _An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard_ (1751), and
     _The Eton College Manuscript_.


1952-1953

41. Bernard Mandeville, _A Letter to Dion_ (1732).


1963-1964

104. Thomas D'Urfey, _Wonders in the Sun; or, The Kingdom of the Birds_
     (1706).


1964-1965

110. John Tutchin, _Selected Poems_ (1685-1700).

111. Anonymous, _Political Justice_ (1736).

112. Robert Dodsley, _An Essay on Fable_ (1764).

113. T. R., _An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning_ (1698).

114. _Two Poems Against Pope_: Leonard Welsted, _One Epistle to Mr. A.
     Pope_ (1730), and Anonymous, _The Blatant Beast_ (1742).


1965-1966

115. Daniel Defoe and others, _Accounts of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal_.

116. Charles Macklin, _The Covent Garden Theatre_ (1752).

117. Sir George L'Estrange, _Citt and Bumpkin_ (1680).

118. Henry More, _Enthusiasmus Triumphatus_ (1662).

119. Thomas Traherne, _Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation_ (1717).

120. Bernard Mandeville, _Aesop Dress'd or a Collection of Fables_ (1704).


1966-1967

123. Edmond Malone, _Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to
     Mr. Thomas Rowley_ (1782).

124. Anonymous, _The Female Wits_ (1704).

125. Anonymous, _The Scribleriad_ (1742). Lord Hervey, _The Difference
     Between Verbal and Practical Virtue_ (1742).


1967-1968

129. Lawrence Echard, Prefaces to _Terence's Comedies_ (1694) and
     _Plautus's Comedies_ (1694).

130. Henry More, _Democritus Platonissans_ (1646).

132. Walter Harte, _An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad_
     (1730).


1968-1969

133. John Courtenay, _A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral
Character of the Late Samuel Johnson_ (1786).

134. John Downes, _Roscius Anglicanus_ (1708).

135. Sir John Hill, _Hypochondriasis, a Practical Treatise_ (1766).

136. Thomas Sheridan, _Discourse ... Being Introductory to His Course
     of Lectures on Elocution and the English Language_ (1759).

137. Arthur Murphy, _The Englishman From Paris_ (1736).

138. [Catherine Trotter], _Olinda's Adventures_ (1718).


Publications of the first fifteen years of the Society (numbers 1-90)
are available in paperbound units of six issues at $16.00 per unit,
from the Kraus Reprint Company, 16 East 46th Street, New York, N.Y.
10017.

Publications in print are available at the regular membership rate of
$5.00 yearly. Prices of single issues may be obtained upon request.
Subsequent publications may be checked in the annual prospectus.


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The Augustan Reprint Society

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

2520 Cimarron Street (at West Adams), Los Angeles, California 90018

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_Make check or money order payable to_

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA


William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California, Los Angeles

The Augustan Reprint Society

2520 CIMARRON STREET, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90018


_General Editors_: William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library; George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles;
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles

_Corresponding Secretary_: Mrs. Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library

       *       *       *       *       *

The Society's purpose is to publish rare Restoration and
eighteenth-century works (usually as facsimile reproductions).
All income of the Society is devoted to defraying costs of
publication and mailing.

Correspondence concerning memberships in the United States and Canada
should be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary at the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles,
California. Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be
addressed to the General Editors at the same address. Manuscripts of
introductions should conform to the recommendations of the MLA _Style
Sheet_. The membership fee is $5.00 a year in the United States and
Canada and £1.19.6 in Great Britain and Europe. British and European
prospective members should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street,
Oxford, England. Copies of back issues in print may be obtained from
the Corresponding Secretary.

Publications of the first fifteen years of the Society (numbers 1-90)
are available in paperbound units of six issues at $16.00 per unit,
from the Kraus Reprint Company, 16 East 46th Street, New York, N.Y.
10017.

       *       *       *       *       *

Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA


REGULAR PUBLICATIONS FOR 1969-1970

139. John Ogilvie, _An Essay on the lyric poetry of the ancients_
     (1762). Introduction by Wallace Jackson.

140. _A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling_ (1726) and _Pudding burnt
     to pot or a compleat key to the Dissertation on Dumpling_ (1727).
     Introduction by Samuel L. Macey.

141. Selections from Sir Roger L'Estrange's _Observator_ (1681-1687).
     Introduction by Violet Jordain.

142. Anthony Collins, _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in
     writing_ (1729). Introduction by Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom.

143. _A Letter from a clergyman to his friend, with an account of the
     travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver_ (1726). Introduction by Martin
     Kallich.

144. _The Art of Architecture, a poem. In imitation of Horace's Art of
poetry_ (1742). Introduction by William A. Gibson.


SPECIAL PUBLICATION FOR 1969-1970

Gerard Langbaine, _An Account of the English Dramatick Poets_ (1691),
Introduction by John Loftis. 2 Volumes. Approximately 600 pages. Price
to members of the Society, $7.00 for the first copy (both volumes),
and $8.50 for additional copies. Price to non-members, $10.00.

       *       *       *       *       *


Already published in this series:

1. John Ogilby, _The Fables of Aesop Paraphras'd in Verse_ (1668), with
   an Introduction by Earl Miner. 228 pages.

2. John Gay, _Fables_ (1727, 1738), with an Introduction by Vinton A.
   Dearing. 366 pages.

3. _The Empress of Morocco and Its Critics_ (Elkanah Settle, _The
   Empress of Morocco_ [1673] with five plates; _Notes and Observations on
   the Empress of Morocco_ [1674] by John Dryden, John Crowne and Thomas
   Snadwell; _Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco Revised_
   [1674] by Elkanah Settle; and _The Empress of Morocco. A Farce_ [1674]
   by Thomas Duffett), with an Introduction by Maximillian E. Novak. 348
   pages.

4. _After THE TEMPEST_ (the Dryden-Davenant version of _The Tempest_
   [1670]; the "operatic" _Tempest_ [1674]; Thomas Duffett's
   _Mock-Tempest_ [1675]; and the "Garrick" _Tempest_ [1756]), with an
   Introduction by George Robert Guffey. 332 pages.


Price to members of the Society, $3.50 for the first copy of each
title, and $4.25 for additional copies. Price to non-members, $5.00.
Standing orders for this continuing series of Special Publications will
be accepted. British and European orders should be addressed to B. H.
Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Transcriber's Notes:= Spelling is retained as in the original.
_Contact information and pricing for the Augustan Reprint Society is
presented solely as content original to the physical volume from which
this transcription was produced and should not be considered current
or reliable._






