says of him: "Never was protection and great wealth more judiciously diffused, than by this great person, who had every quality of a genius and artist except envy. . . . Nor was his munificence confined to himself and his own houses and gardens. He spent great sums in contributing to public works; and was known to choose that the expense should fall on himself rather than that his country should be deprived of some beautiful edifices." 3 The refined tastes of the Earl of Burlington were cultivated in his earliest youth. Before he attained his majority he had travelled much in Italy, and had there acquired his taste for architecture by viewing and studying the grand relics of antiquity, and the noble works of Palladio. These foreign travels brought forth fruit soon after his return to England. "While you, my lord, bid stately piles ascend." It was his desire to build in London a palace after the manner of those he had seen in Italy, and for that purpose he instructed Colen Campbell, the architect, to plan a new house for him. Before describing what were the alterations intended, it will be necessary to take a glance at the old building; and this we are able to do, as L. Knyff has sketched, and J. Kip engraved, a very excellent representation of it. This engraving is not dated, but as the house is stated to be in the possession of Charles, Earl of Burlington, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, it must have been printed somewhere between the years 1702 and 1704, and the drawing itself must have been made at the very beginning of the century, little more than thirty years after the house was first erected." It was built of red brick, and had two principal floors, the first floor with thirteen windows along the front, and the ground-floor with twelve windows, six being on either side of the entrance door. There 3 * WALPOLE'S Anecdotes of Painters, ed. Dallaway, 1827, vol. iv. p. 216. GAY'S Epistle to the Earl of Burlington. 4 The woodcut at the head of this chapter is taken from a brilliant copy of a reduction of this engraving in the Delices de la Grande Bretagne, Leide, 1707. was also a garret-floor, with nine windows in the roof. The ends of the building projected forward, and formed two wings: the whole appearing to have been a large comfortable old house. There were two small buildings in the front, joining the house at one end and the Piccadilly wall at the other. Before this wall was a row of trees, which, with the addition of posts, divided the foot from the carriage-way. The gardens, which extended back to a good distance, contained a plantation of trees, and all the walls were covered with fruit-trees. Beyond the garden wall at the back were fields, in one of which stood Trinity Chapel. This was a chapel originally erected on wheels at the camp on Hounslow Heath, in the reign of James II., in which mass was daily. performed. At the Revolution the chapel was removed to this spot, and reconsecrated for the Protestant service. 1725, when Conduit Street was built, the present chapel was erected on its south side. The Frenchman, Misson, thus refers to it"The late King James built a large handsome chappel, all of carpenters' and joyners' work, with a very pretty steeple, which might be taken to pieces and carry'd to the camp, or anywhere else at his pleasure. At present 'tis fixed, and the established form of service performed in it as in other churches."7 In A silly story was promulgated by Horace Walpole, that Lord Burlington built his house so far out of town because he was determined to have no building beyond him. This we know is absurd, as Clarendon and Berkeley Houses were built at the same time, and both were to the west of Burlington House, and therefore farther in the country. Pennant, and many other writers, follow Walpole in the dissemination of this ridiculous fiction; but Pennant is so unfortunate as to 6 This is shown in the woodcut at the head of this chapter. 7 MISSON'S Travels over England, p. 31. Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway, vol. iv. p. 218 (note). Walpole makes another blunder when he says that Richard, Earl of Burlington, "new-fronted his house in Piccadilly, built by his father." It was built by his great-grandfather. fall into two blunders in one paragraph; for he says that Piccadilly was completed in 1642 as far as Berkeley Street, and in the same breath that Lord Burlington built his house because no one should build beyond him. About fifty years after the first erection, the whole place was altered as we now see it. The old house was not destroyed, but a coating of stone entirely changed the south front. The design, which is very elegant and well-proportioned, is taken from the palace of Count Viericati at Vicenza, by Palladio. "While Burlington's proportioned columns rise, Does not he stand the gaze of envious eyes? Doors, windows, are condemn'd by passing fools, The credit of the improvements has been usually given to the third Earl of Burlington, but evidently by mistake, for Colen Campbell claims them as his own in the third volume of his Vitruvius Britannicus, published in 1725, and if his claim had been false, we cannot doubt but that the Earl would have contradicted it. Campbell writes :— "The following designs of my invention are contained in two single and one double plate. In the first you have the general plan of the House and Offices; the Stables were built by another Architect before I had the honour of being called to his Lordship's service, which obliged me to make the offices opposite conformable to them. The front of the house, the conjunction from thence to the offices, the great gate and street wall, were all designed and executed by me. In the double plate you have the principal front, where a bold rustick basement supports a regular Ionick collonade of columns, 2 feet diameter. The line is closed with two towers, adorned with two Venetian windows in front, and two niches in flank, fronting each other, where the noble patron has prepar'd the statues of Palladio and Jones, in honour of an art of which 9 The alterations appear to have been completed in the year 1716, as that date is still to be seen above the Earl's arms on the top of the leaden rain-water pipes at each end of the building. 19 GAY'S Epistle to the Right Hon. Paul Methuen. he is the support and ornament. the great Gate, adorned with 4 In the next plate you have columns of the Dorick order, 2 feet diameter, agreeable to the colonade in the Court." Walpole says that Campbell "assumes to himself the new front of Burlington House and the gateway, but as he takes no credit for the colonnade, which is in a style very superior to his designs, we may safely conclude it was the Earl's own."" THE COLONNADE OF BURLINGTON HOUSE (TAKEN DOWN IN 1868). This elegant colonnade has been the theme for much, and perhaps exaggerated, praise. Walpole was enraptured with it, and Sir William Chambers considered it and the house as specimens of "one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe." It is the most characteristic portion of the whole structure, and it is impossible not to regret that so charming an erection should now be a thing of the past. At the same time people of taste are greatly indebted to Mr. Beresford Hope, who, by his timely appeal to Lord John Manners, has saved it from being sold as old stone. It is to 12 "Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway, vol. iv. p. 218 (note). 12 The numbered stones are now deposited in Battersea Park; but it is to be hoped that they will not be allowed to remain there for ever, but will be re-erected in some suitable place as soon as possible. be hoped that it will be erected in a suitable position in one of the London parks, where it would serve as a shelter from rain and sun. Perhaps the most suitable position would be the Kensington end of the Broad Walk in Kensington Gardens. PICCADILLY WALL OF BURLINGTON HOUSE (TAKEN DOWN IN 1868). The brick wall which fronted Piccadilly has not had justice done to it, "ugly" and "old" being the favourite adjectives applied to it.13 "In London many of our noblemen's palaces appear from the streets like prisons or gloomy convents; nothing is seen but high black walls, with one, two, or three ponderous castle gates, in one of which there is a hole for the conveyance of those who aspire to get in, or wish to creep out. If a coach arrives, the whole gate is indeed opened, but this is a work of time and hard labour; the more so, as the porter exerts his strength to shut it again immediately, either in discharge of his duty, or for some other reasons. Few inhabitants of this city suspect, and certainly few strangers ever knew, that behind an old brick wall in Piccadilly there is, notwithstanding its faults, one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe; and many very considerable, some even magnificent, buildings might be mentioned that were never seen by any but the friends of the families they belong to, or by such as are curious enough to peep into every out-of-the-way place they happen to find in their way." 14 13 Malcolm was especially indignant with the wall, for he says:-" As this noble family have fortified themselves within a most tremendous wall, I have never had in my power to see the house fairly."-Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv. p. 330. 14 SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS'S Civil Architecture, ed. Gwilt, p. 350. |