CHAPTER X.

PRIVATE LIFE AND DEATH.

Leading events of his life--General habits of work--Domesticity

and privacy of life--Acquaintances and friendships--Distaste of

publicity--Leading features of character--Personal appearance--Failure

of health--Death--Funeral in Westminster Abbey--Erection of Memorial

Statue--Conclusion 323

APPENDIX.

(A.) List of Architectural Designs 355

(B.) Letter to his Royal Highness the Prince Consort as to the South

Kensington Scheme 358

(C.) Papers on the Remuneration Controversy 369

(D.) List of Subscribers to the Memorial Statue 405

ERRATA.

(Corrections made by etext transcriber.)

Page 109, line 23, _for_ “Berkshire” _read_ “Hampshire.”

Page 147, line 12, _for_ “November” _read_ “December.”

Pages 195, 196, transpose paragraphs beginning “As soon as,” &c.,

and “The first aid,” &c.

Page 259, line 32, _for_ “twenty-five” _read_ “twenty-nine,” and

_for_ “thirty” _read_ “forty-three.”

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PORTRAIT OF SIR CHARLES BARRY _Frontispiece._

PAGE

1. Plan of Travellers’ Club 82

2. View of Travellers’ Club 82

3. Plan of Reform Club 93

4. View of Reform Club 95

5. Plan of Bridgewater House 97

6. View of Bridgewater House 98

7. View of Halifax Town Hall 103

8. College of Surgeons (as altered) 106

9. Plan of Walton House 109

10. Highclere House before alteration 110

11. Highclere House after alteration 110

12. Board of Trade before alteration 111

13. Board of Trade after alteration 112

14. Plan of Trentham Hall 113

15. View of Trentham Hall 114

16, 17. Views of Shrubland Park and Gardens 119

18. Plan of Cliefden House 121

19. View of Cliefden House 121

20. View of Birmingham Grammar School 130

21. Plan of Birmingham Grammar School 131

22. Plan of Canford Manor 137

23. View of Canford Manor 137

24. View of Gawthorpe Hall 139

25. Plan of New Palace of Westminster 238

26. General View of River Front 251

27. View of Victoria Tower 254

28, 29, 30. Plans of Clumber House 269

31, 32. Views of Clumber House (as existing, and as proposed) 270

33. View of Crystal Palace (as existing) 284

34. View of Crystal Palace (as proposed) 284

35. Plan of Pall Mall Continuation (as proposed) 286

36. Plan of proposed Extension of New Palace at Westminster, to enclose

New Palace Yard 292

37. View of the same from Great George Street 292

38. Lithographed Plan of proposed Westminster

Improvements (_in pocket_) _see_ 294-299

39. Facsimile of drawing of the same (_in pocket_) _see_ 294-299

MEMOIR

OF

SIR CHARLES BARRY, R.A.

CHAPTER I.

1795-1817.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION.

Object of the work--Birth of Charles Barry--His childhood,

schooldays, and apprenticeship--His early efforts and

amusements--His self-education and its effects on his

character--His determination to travel--His matrimonial engagement.

In the compilation of this memoir of my late father I have endeavoured

to keep two objects in view. It is desired, on the one hand, to preserve

for his family and his many personal friends some record of his private

life and character. It is thought, on the other, that there will be some

public value and interest in a notice of his opinions, designs, and

works, and a general record of his professional career.

Even to the public at large it is conceived that his life, though it

presents but little variety of incident, may yet be worth telling. He

started with no advantages of birth, and with an imperfect education;

he was supported by no influential connection or school of art, and was

aided by no patronage except that which his own merit commanded. He won

for himself a place among the foremost architects of Europe, not more by

his talents than by a life-long devotion to his art, and an

extraordinary power of work. Having earned this high position, he paid

its usual penalty in the many difficulties and misrepresentations, which

are inevitable to a professional career, and which, though they may be

stoutly met, tend, far more than any mere work, to wear out the energies

and shorten the life. The interest of biography seems to lie, not so

much in variety of event, as in its illustration of human character, and

the ordinary conditions of human life. It is hoped that this interest

may not be altogether wanting in the following pages.

By his professional brethren it will probably be thought, that the

history of so many public and private works, and of the questions raised

and decided in connection with them, may bear on some points important

to the profession at large, and that the grounds and the nature of the

architectural principles, which he maintained, may excite interest, even

where they do not secure agreement. It is not unlikely that the record

of such a life as his may throw some light on the remarkable progress

and diffusion of artistic taste, which appear to mark our own time,

transforming the whole aspect of our country, and not indirectly

affecting our national character. Since he entered on his career the

forms of Art have changed, and its principles have been developed or

modified. With some of these changes he strongly sympathized; others he

strenuously resisted. But, in either case, the record of a life of

ceaseless architectural activity, and of a mind keenly alive to artistic

influences--readily impressible, and bound to no special school--must

tend to illustrate the movements which have taken place, and are taking

place still, in his own special province of Art.

It is for these reasons that the following memoir has been undertaken.

In performing such a duty, it would be useless and unbecoming in a son

to affect a position of independent criticism, or to claim credit for a

strict impartiality. It can only be expected that he should record his

father’s career as it was seen from his own point of view, and sketch

his character as it appeared to those who loved him best. It can only be

required that he observe strict truthfulness and accuracy as to facts,

and due consideration for the feelings of others. If these limitations

be observed (and I trust that in the following pages they will be

observed most sacredly), experience has shown that such a record is

likely to contain at least a large and essential portion of the whole

truth. There will be subjects indeed on which it can only give the

materials for judgment; for, where criticism is precluded, eulogium is

at least equally out of place. But such correction and completion as it

requires may be safely left to the impartial judgment of its readers.

In most cases its influence on the reputation of its subject is but a

secondary one. The true and lasting reputation of a man will depend very

little on any other memorial than the work which he has done, and the

influence which he has exerted in his life-time; and on the results

which he has thus left behind for the use and the verdict of posterity.

* * * * *

CHARLES BARRY, the fourth son of Walter Edward and Frances Barry, was

born in Bridge Street, Westminster, on the 23rd of May, 1795, in a house

which (until last year) lay under the shadow of the Clock Tower of the

New Palace at Westminster.

His father was a stationer of great respectability and some wealth,[2]

as is seen by the fact that he supplied, in the course of his business,

the materials used at the Government Stationery Office. His mother died

in 1798, when he was a little more than three years old; but her place

was supplied (so far as a mother’s place can be) by the care and

affection of his stepmother, Sarah, to whom his father was married

shortly after, and to whom, at his death in 1805, he left the care of

his children, and of the business which was to support them. Most

thoroughly did she fulfil the charge, and reap her due reward of respect

and gratitude. Of the whole family he alone, even from his childhood,

manifested artistic taste and capacity, and chose for himself, in spite

of all difficulties, a new path in life. These difficulties were then

far greater than they would be now, in a less stationary condition of

society, with greater facilities for change and travel, and greater

opportunities of artistic and general education. There was little in his

home life to foster any high aspirations, although perhaps its

wholesome atmosphere of honesty and regularity, of steady industry and

“habits of business,” supplied a corrective influence much needed by an

enthusiastic and artistic temperament.

He had little advantage of education. He went with his brothers to

various private schools, such as schools then were. The first seems to

have been a mere preparatory school; of the second, the only account

preserved is that the “master paid little attention to it, being very

dissolute, and absenting himself for weeks together;” and the last

school, though perhaps rather better than the rest, was apparently one

of those which attempted only mechanical teaching and severe discipline.

Education, in the highest sense of the word, seems hardly to have been

dreamt of. He carried away from it little except a superficial knowledge

of English, a good proficiency in arithmetic, and a remarkably beautiful

handwriting.

The account of his early days speaks of him as merely a warm-hearted and

spirited boy, handsome and engaging in appearance, not very studious,

full of fun, and by no means averse to mischief. His only remarkable

talent was his taste for drawing; in this he was taught by a most

incompetent man, and his best practice was in caricatures, especially of

his drawing-master. The imperfection of his early training he always

felt and regretted, in spite of his zealous efforts to supply its

deficiencies. For, not to speak of the external difficulties which it

threw in his way, it is obvious enough that his impulsive disposition,

quick observation, and susceptible mind, especially needed the bracing

and strengthening influence of a good education.

On leaving school, at the age of fifteen, he was articled to Messrs.

Middleton and Bailey, architects and surveyors, of Paradise Row,

Lambeth. With them he remained six years. Both took a strong and

affectionate interest in him, and from them he received all the

professional training which he ever enjoyed. Their business was mainly

that of surveying; he could have learnt little with them of the artistic

element of architecture. But his time was not wasted; for he studied

accurately and industriously the “business” of his profession. Lists of

prices, calculations of dimensions, methods of measuring and valuation,

crowd his note-book, side by side with studies from Chambers’

Architecture, and sketches of such details and ornaments as struck his

own fancy. In the later part of his time much responsibility was thrown

upon him, and responsibility he never refused. The fruit was seen in

after life in his excellent habits of business, and his ability to

prepare his own working drawings, make out his own specifications and

estimates, and form a sound judgment of materials and work. This

knowledge stood him in good stead; he never failed to impress its

importance on young architects; and, though he would not for a moment

have allowed it to take equal rank with artistic power, he regarded the

frequent neglect of it, and the increasing tendency to separate it from

the higher province of art, as a serious evil, both in theory and in

practice.

But he could not be satisfied with this semi-mechanical work. His name

appears regularly in 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815 in the architectural

part of the catalogue of the Royal Academy. His first drawing, there

exhibited when he was seventeen years old, still remains. It was a

drawing of the interior of Westminster Hall, the building which (as has

been well said) “was in after-days to give the key-note to his greatest

work.” His other designs “For a Church,” “A Museum and Library,” “A

Nobleman’s Mansion,” &c., have all perished. They had served their

purpose, and were no doubt destroyed by himself, for he was always

ruthless both in his criticism and his treatment of his early designs.

At an earlier age (about fifteen or sixteen) his artistic taste had

found a much more curious development. There was much of the boy in him

still (as indeed there was in all his after-life), and he did not

disdain boyish fancies and amusements. Accordingly he resolved to

transform his small attic bedroom into a “hermitage,"--“a rocky

interior,” “with openings looking out on a sunny landscape.” The

mechanical work and the painting he did entirely himself, working at it

in all his spare time with constant delight; and when it was done, he

kept up its character by using it as a painting-room, and drawing

constantly figures of all kinds on a large scale on its walls. His

family noticed all this with some wonder and amusement; he himself,

though he used to laugh at it in after-life, remembered it with a kind

of pleasure. These details may seem trivial, but they were certainly

characteristic. The work must have given boldness to his hand (as

scene-painting has done to some of our great painters); it may not

improbably have helped to kindle and foster his imagination, and at the

same time to satisfy that delight in alteration and contrivance which

always was conspicuous in him.

In every respect his home was a simple and a happy one. If it did not

stimulate artistic tastes, it certainly allowed them perfect freedom,

and gave them the support of admiration and sympathy. His character, in

spite of his fondness for change and amusement, was always strongly

domestic. In his work, and the society of his mother (for so he always

esteemed her) and his brothers, he found all the interest he cared for.

Such are the records of his early days. They are scanty enough; but they

are corroborated by the recollections of his later life, for his was a

character that changed but little.

It is evident from these that he was in every sense of the word a

self-educated man, and the recognition of this fact is most important,

for the true appreciation of his character, and a right understanding of

his career.

Even in general education this was strikingly the case. He carried away

very little from school. His very journals show that he had to acquire

for himself not only a knowledge of French and Italian (which he

mastered sufficiently for all practical purposes), but even correctness

and fluency of English. They show, during his foreign journey, almost as

great progress in style as in thought--a progress gained, as usual with

him, not so much by systematic study as by a certain “readiness of mind”

and an unwearied practice. Mathematics and theoretical mechanics he had

studied but little, and in fact he had little taste for such study.

Their practical conclusions, as bearing on his own profession, he knew

familiarly enough; and his mind was not only quick in its deductions

from them, and bold even to the verge of rashness, but singularly

fertile in all kinds of mechanical contrivance. But of systematic study

of theory he was impatient. He could often, though at some risk,

supersede it for himself by a kind of intuition, and he perhaps never

estimated it at its true value.

But much more was this the case in all that regarded his own profession.

No powerful mind had by its contact fired and influenced his; no deep

course of study had imbued him with profound and systematic principles.

He had gained “business” experience and practical knowledge; his strong

natural tastes and powers had been cordially and kindly recognised, but

in all that concerns the higher element of his profession he was left

alone to find his way by his own observations and inductions to the

first principles of Art. His natural character--vigorous, impulsive, and

energetic--was allowed to grow by its own power, and to choose for

itself both the method and the direction of growth.

The chief consequence was, as usual, an intense and absorbing devotion

to the art which he had chosen as his work in life. He found it

difficult to take any deep interest in anything else. In the political

and social questions of the day he would often adopt the opinions of

others. All his originality and his thought were already pre-occupied.

In the service of architecture he held everything cheap; time, labour,

and health were sacrificed as a matter of course; and keenly sensitive

as he was to blame, yet he would defy the opinion of the world in search

of what he deemed perfection.

His art was scarcely at any time absent from his mind, even in times of

social relaxation or of more serious employment. He could hardly enter a

room without seeing capabilities in it, and longing to develope them.

But when an important design was in progress, it seemed to take entire

possession of his mind. It was his custom to work it out almost wholly

for himself, in its scientific and financial as well as its artistic

bearings. His extraordinary rapidity of execution and untiring industry

enabled him to keep up this custom to a great extent, even in his

busiest times. In fact, when a design was once conceived--when it had

once taken possession of his imagination--hard work at it was a relief.

The idea of it would occur to him at his first waking, and he could not

but rise, however early the hour, and set to work. Adverse criticism at

such a time was rejected or disregarded, but a few days later it would

be found to have sunk into his mind unconsciously; then it would be

rapidly seized upon as if original, and its results, often greatly

modified and reconstructed, would be produced in the most perfect good

faith as new, perhaps to the very person who had first made the

criticism. Difficulties were forgotten or defied in the attempt to

perfect the idea conceived; drawings of the more important parts of the

work altered scores of times until his fastidious taste was satisfied.

He could not conceive the idea of resting contented with what was

acknowledged to be defective, and he held that the word “impossible” was

to be erased from his dictionary. In this absorbing devotion to his art

lay the cause of infinite labour, many troubles, and much

misapprehension, but in it lay, as usual, the secret of success.

Another effect of this early freedom and self-direction was a vigorous

growth of self-reliance and originality. It perhaps entailed some want

of philosophic symmetry and largeness of view, especially at a time when

there was comparatively little study of great principles of art as based

on substantial reason. Grounds of criticism were then sought by the

generality in conventional rules, and by the more active minds in

arbitrary conceptions of “taste,” till society was divided into the

connoisseurs, who were to pronounce their arbitrary judgment, and the

“ignobile vulgus,” who were obediently and ignorantly to accept their

conclusions. Yet it gave him the power of progress, and it kept him also

free from any tendency to bigotry and copyism. There is indeed the

highest kind of originality, which combines philosophic knowledge and

study with the power of a true development. But in practice, especially

in the domain of art, the most important steps of progress are probably

due to men of a happy intuition and an unscientific audacity, and such

men are usually men who have guided and educated themselves.

He himself was avowedly and on principle an eclectic. He could not help

recognising the excellences of various schools: but he knew too much to

be satisfied with any single one, as if it were all-comprehensive, and

to conclude accordingly that to it alone praise and devotion are due.

His principles of design and construction had been worked out for

himself, the fruit of many crude conceptions in theory and many trials

in practice. For that very reason they became so deeply rooted in his

mind, that, when he attempted to change his course, he found himself

insensibly returning to them. His early study of Greek architecture did

not prevent his appreciation of Italian and Gothic; and so he stood

apart from the exclusive devotion to one or other style which now seems

to divide the architectural profession. Such a position is a difficult

and dangerous one, in art, as well as in politics or theology, but those

who occupy it supply the chief resisting influence to stagnation, and

open some of the chief avenues of progress. In his case it was all but

inevitable; his natural character, and his early freedom from the

trammels of any school of art, forbade his taking any other course. For

even in his early days those characteristics were fixed which determined

his after career.

With these capabilities, and with a fixed and hopeful resolution to cut

out a path for himself, he passed through his time of pupilage, and

attained his majority in 1816. He now began to act for himself, and he

at once conceived, or perhaps after long consideration declared openly,

a determination on which much of his future success depended. He was

naturally formed to make his way in the world. To the mental qualities

already enumerated he added the advantages of a handsome person, great

fascination of manner, high spirits, and a sanguine temperament, which

was well calculated to inspire confidence and win affection. He believed

that he had the elements of success in him, and that he only needed

freedom of scope and a more extended sphere than he could obtain at

home. The result verified his belief. Perhaps the prophecy fulfilled

itself.

By his father’s will, he and each of his brothers had inherited a

certain sum of money, and the remainder of this inheritance, diminished

by the expense of his education and his articles, now came into his

hands. The sum was not a large one, and it was his all, for he had

little expectations of assistance from without in entering on the risks

of a professional career. He resolved to devote the whole, or the

greater part of it, to an architectural tour.

The Continent was just opened by the peace of 1815. All English society

was awaking from the torpor and isolation of the great European war.

Architecture was receiving a fresh stimulus by the cessation of external

difficulties, and fresh principles and models from abroad were breaking

in upon its stereotyped forms. He naturally felt, with all the

impressibility of his character, the influence of this universal

movement; and at the same time, from deliberate consideration, he saw

that his only chance of developing the power and satisfying the desires

of which he was conscious, his only chance of gaining a thorough grasp

of his art, and taking a high stand in his profession, lay in foreign

travel. His mind wanted objects which the narrow and prosaic character

of his home life could not supply. It wanted the intercourse of a

society from which conventional barriers shut it out in England; it

wanted scope for activity, and models by which its activity might be

guided. Without foreign travel he might have had the certainty of a

respectable position and sufficient emoluments in his profession; with

it he took the risk of delay and difficulty, and the chance of a noble

career.

The choice was not likely to cause him much hesitation. He decided at

once, and kept to his decision firmly, in spite of the natural

remonstrances of his family, who felt the risk, but did not understand

the necessity. Travel was then comparatively rare, and thought by many

to be needless. It seemed madness to risk on it so much of his slender

resources. His stepmother alone was led by her own strong good sense,

and by her unlimited confidence in him, to give him her decided support.

At last his plans were fixed, and his journey, the length of which he

did not anticipate, or at any rate did not disclose, was determined

upon.

Before he left England he was engaged to Miss Sarah Rowsell. Her father,

Mr. Samuel Rowsell, was employed in the same line of business which his

own father had followed. After about a year’s acquaintance, the

engagement was made on the eve of his departure; and with this fresh tie

to home, and fresh incentive to exertion, he left England in June,

1817.

CHAPTER II.

1817-1820.

TRAVELS IN FRANCE, ITALY, GREECE, EGYPT, AND THE EAST.

I. FRANCE AND ITALY.--General effects of travel--Study of classical

architecture--Observation of natural scenery--Universality and

accuracy of examination. II. GREECE AND CONSTANTINOPLE.--Growth of

artistic power--Impressions of Athens and Constantinople--Contrast

of the Turkish and Greek characters. III. EGYPT AND THE

EAST.--Great effect of Egyptian architecture upon him--Mehemet

Ali’s government--Dendera, Esneh, Edfou, Philæ, Abousimbel,

Thebes--Return to

Cairo--Palestine--Jerash--Baalbec--Damascus--Palmyra. IV. SICILY

AND ITALY.--Syracuse, Messina, Agrigentum, and Palermo--Return to

Rome--Meeting with Mr. J. L. Wolfe--Systematic architectural

study--Effects of Egyptian impressions--Italian palaces at Rome,

Florence, Vicenza, and Venice--Italian churches--St. Peter’s, the

Pantheon, the cathedrals at Florence and Milan--The Bridge of La

Santa Trinita at Florence--The growth of his architectural

principles--Return to England.

On June 28th, 1817, Mr. Barry left England, and remained abroad for more

than three years. During that time he travelled, first, chiefly alone,

in France and Italy; next with Mr. (afterwards Sir C.) Eastlake, and

Messrs. Kinnaird and Johnson, in Greece and Turkey; thirdly, with Mr. D.

Baillie, Mr. Godfrey, and Mr. (afterwards Sir T.) Wyse, in Egypt,

Palestine, and Syria; and lastly, chiefly in company with Mr. J. L.

Wolfe, in Sicily and Italy, returning alone through France in August,

1820.

His travels had, at the time, a considerable interest of their own: few

had gone so far as the second cataracts of the Nile; still fewer had

added to their Egyptian experiences so great an extent of Eastern and

Western travels. Accordingly, on his return to Rome, he was one of the

lions of the season, and his portfolio of sketches excited unbounded

interest, as much by their novelty as by their intrinsic excellence. All

this is, of course, greatly changed; scenes then little known have

become almost hackneyed; what were then difficult and even hazardous

journeys, are now pleasant summer excursions. The intrinsic interest of

any narrative of his travels (such as might easily be drawn from his

copious journals) is therefore to a great extent lost. But the

importance of their effect on his own mind can hardly be exaggerated,

and it is to this, therefore, that attention must here be drawn.

In the first period of his travels, the point most deserving notice is

the exciting and enlarging effect of novelty and beauty on a mind, which

had hitherto been cooped up within narrow limits, and had lacked its own

congenial food. The change was infinite, after the narrowness of home

experience, and the depression of all artistic and scientific energy in

England by the long war. It seemed to be the entrance on a new life, one

day of which (to use his own constant expression) was “worth a year at

home.” His frank and buoyant spirit, his love of adventure, and

good-humoured determination in all his purposes, answered readily to its

call.

There is little at first in his journals of a strictly professional

character; the architect is merged in the artist; and even the artistic

element has by no means an exclusive dominion; observations of all kinds

throng his journals, as impressions of all kinds evidently crowded on

his mind. The external aspect of the country, both as to its scenery and

its life, social peculiarities, and differences from English customs,[3]

political feelings and tendencies, aspects of individual life and

character--all claim their place, side by side with the records of

sketches taken and buildings criticized.

Such a process, as it was the most natural, was also probably the most

beneficial, if travel was really to enlarge his mind and to educate his

whole nature. The work of life would soon narrow, and so deepen, the

stream of thought and observation; and, indeed, at all times, he

possessed the power of subordinating all his various interests and

enjoyments to his one important business. He always liked the greater

freedom of foreign life and foreign society, as compared with the

conventions and formality which, then especially, clung to the social

system of England. But Paris and Rome, with all their various

enchantments fully appreciated and enjoyed, never drew him away from the

hard work which was the real object of his travels.

At first, of course, all study was devoted to classical architecture

alone. It is curiously characteristic of the time, that at Rouen, while

he thought it worth while to sketch and criticize a small Corinthian

church, all the glories of the cathedral and of St. Ouen are dismissed

in one line, as being “examples of a rich florid Gothic;” and at Paris,

the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are noticed in the

same spirit, as having an antiquarian interest, and a certain irregular

beauty of their own; but not as deserving any high admiration or study.

Milan Cathedral is noted for its grandeur and richness, but with no

criticism as to its architectural details. All this gradually changed as

the revival of mediæval architecture began. On his return over the same

ground the contrast seen in his journals is remarkable; and Gothic,

though not studied or understood as it would be now, was regarded by him

with keen interest and deep respect.

Art of all kinds, not exclusively architectural, attracted him at once.

At Paris the Louvre occupied him for days together; and it was

characteristic of his taste (which always inclined to the real rather

than the ideal) that, on the one hand, he passed by at once as “showy

and unnatural” the then popular school of David and Gérard, and, on the

other, devoted more attention to the grand historical series of Rubens’

pictures, the Claudes, and the Dutch pictures (which reminded him of

Wilkie), than to those of a higher and more imaginative kind. At Rome

(thanks to the kindness of Canova, to whom he had letters of

introduction) he spent whole days in sketching among the antiquities,

the sculptures, and the paintings of the Vatican, and of other

galleries. In fact, at this time he often seemed to turn aside from

architecture to woo the sister arts, although afterwards his own art

gradually asserted an almost exclusive dominion, and he was accused,

with some truth, of looking at the others as merely her handmaids.

Travelling as he was in Italy, he could not fail to be impressed by the

artistic influences of painting, sculpture, architecture, and, above

all, of music, which the Church of Rome presses into the service of her

religious ceremonies. He first saw these displayed (and he could hardly

have seen them more gloriously) when he entered Milan Cathedral on the

feast of St. Carlo. He had fuller opportunities still, in his long

sojourn at Rome, of witnessing all the splendours of Christmas and

Easter. They could not but appeal to his artistic tastes, and especially

to his great love of music; but they seem never to have laid hold of his

mind. The sense of the artificiality and cumbrousness of ceremony spoilt

the effect to his taste; and neither the time nor his own disposition

was such as to appreciate any devotion, in which superstition might

appear to lurk, whether in the wayside chapels of Switzerland or under

the dome of St. Peter’s itself. He felt in it occasionally “something

awful and divine;” but his feeling was marred by the prevailing sense of

unreality. Even his friend Pugin’s enthusiasm in after days, though it

commanded respect, could win no real sympathy from him.

With regard to natural scenery, though his observation of it was always

keen, he delighted in what was rich and beautiful, rather than in the

highest forms of grandeur. The love of mountain scenery was not then a

fashion, which few, even in a Journal, would dare to disregard. His

admiration of it was blended with the notion of something strange and

almost grotesque in it. He speaks of it as exhibiting “the freaks and

outrageous effects of Nature” in its wilder features, and the beauties

of an Alpine pass seemed to him to present something “appalling,”

calculated to excite a kind of awe, too oppressive for genuine

admiration. He delighted more in the Apennines, rising in mountains of

equal height “like the waves of the sea,” and disclosing in their

lateral valleys scenes of quiet beauty and richness, or in the scenery

of the Saronic Gulf, with its bright colour and picturesque variety.

Colour, indeed, at this time, seems to have impressed him more than

form: sunsets, or moonlight effects, and the contrasts of white cities

with the verdure surrounding them, are constant themes of notice and

admiration. He cared for what was bright and beautiful more than for any

sombre and awful grandeur; and he was always master of his impressions

rather than overmastered by them.

His examination of buildings was always comprehensive, and his

criticisms, even from the first, audaciously defiant of all fashion and

authority.[4] In entering a town he always estimates its general effect

before proceeding to details; and his impressions seem often divided

between an artistic love of the picturesque and a determined

architectural preference for regularity. In proceeding to greater

particularity, no buildings came amiss to him. Besides the churches and

palaces, which have a prescriptive right to precedence, he seems to have

had a special taste for two most opposite specimens of architectural

effect. Cemeteries, on the one hand, always attracted his notice, both

as to their arrangement and their accompanying buildings, and in their

case he had a strong dislike of over-embellishment. The sombre solemnity

of a Turkish burial-ground was his ideal. The same taste which attached

brightness and cheerfulness in buildings that ministered to life,

inclined to solemnity and sadness in all that suggested the idea of

death. On the other hand, theatres greatly interested him at all times,

from the Scala at Milan to the little theatres of Italian country towns.

He thought that they gave a grand opportunity for architectural effect,

which was generally frittered away. And his note-books abound in plans

and criticisms of existing buildings, and ideas as to their best

theoretical construction. It was curious enough that a theatre was

almost the only kind of public building which it never fell to his lot

to execute.

Perhaps the one point especially to be noticed in all his examinations

of buildings is the extreme care for accuracy which distinguishes them;

measurements are always given, plans generally accompany the

descriptions in his journals; he would take any trouble to obtain

measurements and details, even if it risked his neck, or threw him into

the hands of the police.[5] What was vague seemed to him worthless, and

difficulties rather excited than daunted him.[6]

In this way the first nine months of his travels passed over--a good

preparation, but only a preparation, for professional study. It became a

question whether he should return home, or visit Greece in the congenial

company of Mr. (afterwards Sir C.) Eastlake, already distinguished as an

artist; Mr. Kinnaird, an architect, afterwards editor of the last volume

of Stuart’s ‘Athens;’ and Mr. Johnson, afterwards a Professor at

Haileybury College. Home ties and considerations of economy drew him

back; he consulted his friends at home, and especially his future

father-in-law, Mr. Rowsell, and by his sensible advice he determined to

disregard difficulties, and give full scope to his tastes and powers. It

was a wise resolution; he had left England inexperienced and unknown; he

was now recognised as an artist of talent and promise, and was to travel

with men of acknowledged ability, generally his superiors in education

and knowledge both of books and men. His journals show clearly the

effect of his past experience in greater maturity of judgment, greater

taste for antiquity, and general growth of mind.

Athens and Constantinople were their two main objects. The season was

rather advanced, so they hurried on, paying but a hasty visit to

Naples[7] and Pompeii, then across Calabria to Bari, while he made the

most of his time by sketching incessantly under a great umbrella, and

managing to give careful descriptions and rough plans of all that he

visited. Thence they crossed to Corfu;[8] and there first the richness

and picturesque beauty of the island seem to have captivated him, and

stirred up anew the artistic power within. His pencil was never out of

his hand, but it was employed almost entirely on the beauties of nature,

and his delight in the scenery itself evidently increased with his power

of representing it.

This was even more strikingly the case in a visit to Parnassus and

Delphi, where they spent some ten days in the hut of a poor cottager,

and were richly compensated for their disappointment at finding no

traces of the old temple, and no remains worthy of notice, by the

extraordinary beauty of the country, and the opportunity which it gave

them for countless sketches. They even offered a reward from the minaret

of the village for one of the great vultures of the mountain, and

obtained, for sketching purposes, a magnificent bird, measuring nine

feet from tip to tip of his wings. “I drank,” he says, “deeply of the

Castalian spring, but did not find my poetic faculty improved thereby.”

Yet the _genius loci_ did not fail him entirely. It was here more

especially that a change and growth of artistic power in him struck his

fellow-travellers.[9] Before he left Rome, his drawings had been only

careful and elaborate; now there began to show itself in them that

indescribable power of insight and imagination, which distinguishes the

true artist from the mere draughtsman. Conventionalities were shaken

off, and nature represented as it was; laboured and ineffective drawing

gave place to a bold and masterly grasp of the leading lines, and the

general effect of the scene represented; and his journals show an

ever-increasing admiration for natural and artificial beauty, and an

absorbing delight in the task of representing it. The progress, once

begun, never ceased. Every day witnessed a progress in his power, till

his sketches in Egypt showed those powers in full maturity, and

astonished those who had known him only in Italy and in Greece.

At Athens they stayed about a month, in despite of some danger of plague

which hung over the city. Here unfortunately his journals fail us for a

time, and there is no means of supplying the deficiency. It is easy to

imagine his intense delight in seeing the buildings which he had so long

considered not only as the masterpieces of Greek art, but as the highest

forms in which the architectural idea of beauty had clothed itself. We

know, what might easily have been conceived, that his admiration did

not evaporate in mere enthusiasm, but gave rise to careful study and

thoughtful criticism; and that such study, while it deepened his

original admiration, yet led him to feel that changes of circumstances,

needs, and conceptions might well limit that imitation of Greek models,

which had hitherto exercised a despotic influence over modern

architecture. But beyond this, there is no memorial of what he perhaps

at that time felt to be the crowning pleasure of his architectural tour,

except some sketches, made always entirely on the spot, and remarkable

for uniting great accuracy and truthfulness of effect to free and

spirited drawing.

He left Athens on June 25th, 1818, with Mr. Johnson, and passed by

Ægina, and through the Cyclades, touching at Delos, to Smyrna, and

thence by land to Constantinople. The voyage was “one continued

delight;” full of architectural and antiquarian interest, and even

fuller of natural beauty, seen under cloudless skies and glorious

sunsets.

They were now having their first experience of countries under Turkish

rule, just at the beginning of Mahmoud’s reign, when lawlessness was at

its height, scarcely kept down by his bloody justice, or awed by the

suspicions of the coming revolution. It is not uninteresting to gather

from the journals the impressions made upon the travellers even then by

the Turkish and the Greek characters.

The Turks seemed essentially barbarians, not without some excellences

(which probably have been deteriorated in late years), such as

simplicity and sincerity of religious devotion, dignity, truthfulness,

and even generosity of character. They appeared to occupy rather than

inhabit the country, allowing its richest regions to fall into

desolation, and its commerce (except where the Greeks or English[10]

sustained it) to languish and decay. The relics of its former grandeur

were transformed for their own purposes, or watched over as antiquities

with a jealous and ignorant churlishness;[11] their general insolence

and violence were unbridled. At Constantinople Mr. Barry, by attempting

a panorama of the city from the Galata tower, grievously offended the

Turkish women, who, after abusing him with all their powers of

vituperative eloquence, called up the guard to dismiss him summarily,

and incited a mob of boys to pursue him with stones, and cries of

“Giaour” through the city. Such insults were common then, and had to be

borne patiently even by those under ambassadorial protection.

The Greeks, on the other hand, wherever, as at Iverli, Scio, and Patmos,

they managed to secure self-government by payment of tribute, appear to

have shown that activity and intellectual capacity which the modern

kingdom of Greece, with all its defects, has since exemplified. They had

schools and universities, in spite of the jealousy and ill-will of the

Turks, libraries ancient and modern, and even scientific instruments

from Paris. It was a matter of regret, but, after ages of slavery,

hardly a matter of surprise, that their honesty and truthfulness did not

keep pace with their intellectual progress. But there seemed then

grounds for hope of improvement in them, and none for their Turkish

masters.

Constantinople itself surpassed even his high-wrought expectations, as

seen, first from the Asiatic heights, and afterwards on approaching it

from the water. His journals are full of enthusiastic description; and

in after life he often spoke of it as “the most glorious view in the

world.” In spite of all difficulty he managed to see it thoroughly, both

as to its architecture, and as to its Turkish life: but again his pencil

was too busy to give much time for the use of his pen. Except to testify

his impression of the magnificence of St. Sophia, there is little record

or criticism of individual buildings. He spent a month of

never-forgotten interest and enjoyment in the city, and then prepared to

turn homewards, in August, 1818.

Once more an opportunity presented itself which could not be passed by.

Mr. David Baillie, whom he had met at Athens, was preparing for a

journey to the East; and, struck by the beauty of Mr. Barry’s sketches,

he offered to take him, at a salary of 200_l._ a year, and to pay all

his expenses, in consideration of retaining all the original sketches he

might make. The artist was to be allowed to make copies for himself. The

offer was too tempting to be refused,[12] for it gave him his only

opportunity of visiting Egypt and Syria, and of doing so with a man of

high cultivation and refinement, who treated him at all times with great

kindness and liberality. He hesitated but little; and set out on

September 12th, full of delight and expectation.

The third period of his travels was more important to him than all which

had gone before. “Egypt,” he remarked, “is a country which, so far as I

know, has never yet been explored by an English architect.” Besides the

members of the French Institute, only Captains Irby and Mangles, and

Belzoni, had gone before him. He felt keenly the novelty and

magnificence of the scene thus opened to him. The remains of Egyptian

architecture made a far deeper impression upon him than all Italy and

Greece combined; and from this time architectural study seems to have

assumed in his mind that predominant and almost exclusive influence

which it never lost. His journals are kept with far greater accuracy and

copiousness. Every great temple is described in outline and in detail,

with notes of its present condition, and of the traces of its former

greatness. His observation seemed to be stimulated, without being

overwhelmed, by the inexhaustible profusion and magnificence of the

Egyptian remains. He must certainly have thought of publishing to the

world the information he had so carefully collected on a field hitherto

little known, and engrafting on it the criticism and evolution of

principles, which in the whirl of ceaseless change and activity he had

no time to record in his journals. That intention bore no immediate

fruit; but the effects of the study sank deep in his own mind. It is

hardly too much to say that he entered Egypt merely under the influence

of vague artistic interest, and left it with the leading principles of

his architectural system fixed for ever.

They passed first through the Troad, and thence by Assos and Pergamus to

Smyrna, a brief journey, but one which was remarkable for the varied

associations of legendary, classical, Byzantine, and modern times, such

as perhaps no other part of the world can offer. Thence they sailed

(with Messrs. Godfrey and Wyse) to Alexandria.

The impression then made by Mehemet Ali’s government of Egypt was very

much the same which after experience has confirmed. It was a wonderful

contrast with Turkish lawlessness; the country was well ordered, and

perfectly open to Europeans; public works of all kinds were progressing;

commerce and agriculture were pushed on under the guidance of European

science, and with all the power of a despotic government. But there was

another side to the picture: the pasha urged on his work in utter

disregard of the rights, happiness, or lives of his subjects; “in fact,”

he was “the chief merchant in Egypt, and did not mind sacrificing all

other interests to his own.” The natural results among the people were

infinite distress, and a deep though impotent hatred of the Government,

solaced only by the common belief that the English (whose glory in Egypt

was still fresh) would soon seize and emancipate the country.

Cairo itself was a remarkable evidence of the state of Egypt. The busy

crowds of all nations which streamed through its streets, “from the

stately Turk to the half-naked and miserable Arab,” gave proof of a

vigour and activity very different from the listless and apathetic

aspect of most Turkish cities. In the city itself, though it seemed

peculiarly Oriental in its general sombreness of aspect, relieved by

“bursts of Saracenic magnificence,” yet buildings in European style, and

silk and cotton manufactures under European guidance, indicated the

quarter whence this vivifying influence came. There was no danger of

molestation in sketching here, for, though the city was full of

rejoicing and illuminations for Ibrahim Pasha’s victory over the

Wahabbees, the strong hand of the Government, which left its bloody

traces here and there visible in the streets, effectually checked the

spirit of turbulence. The whole country was full of life and energy and

progress, but its progress was maintained by force and purchased by

misery.

From this point the journals contained a careful and elaborate

description of the journey up the Nile. The first place noticed

especially is Siout (Lycopolis?), where they landed to obtain permission

from Ibrahim Pasha to visit Upper Egypt, and to examine the great

catacombs; of these Mr. Barry made a careful ground-plan, as well as a

sketch of the frontispiece. To the S.E. of the catacombs they saw “a

kind of amphitheatre formed by the mountains, the whole of which was

perforated for tombs, one range rising above another.” There was a

beautiful contrast between the “gloom of this city of the dead” and the

view from the height overlooking it, over the “rich plain of the Nile,

level as water, and in the highest cultivation, mostly covered with the

rising crops, now of a beautiful green, and laid out” (as of old) “with

geometrical exactness.”

From this point the ruins of temples began to show themselves, and on

November 29th they came in sight of the great temple of Dendera, lying

“on a low ridge of land all in shadow, with a pretty foreground of

palm-trees, and the Libyan mountains in the distance.” Full of

excitement they hurried on shore to see this first specimen of Egyptian

grandeur. “It astonished us,” he says, “by its unexpected magnitude, and

gave me a high idea of the skill and knowledge of the principles of

architecture displayed by the Egyptians. There is something so unique

and striking in its grand features, and such endless labour and

ingenuity in its ornaments and hieroglyphics, that it opens to me an

entirely new field. No object I have yet seen, not even the Parthenon

itself (the truest model of beauty and symmetry existing), has made so

forcible an impression upon me. The most striking feature of the

building is its vast portico, six columns in front and four in depth,

giving a depth of shadow and an air of majestic gravity such as I have

never before seen.”

As soon as the first impressions of the grandeur of the great temple had

passed away there followed, as usual, a most accurate examination of the

whole. The three temples are described with the greatest exactness,

every dimension, even of the details, being carefully recorded. All

stood before them in complete preservation, in spite of the 4000 years

which had passed over the scene. “Even the hieroglyphics and the most

delicate parts of the ornamentation were as sharp and vigorous as when

they were first executed.” All was studied _con amore_. He seems to have

been especially struck with the variety and beauty of the Egyptian

capitals, all of which he sketched and criticised, evidently seeking to

emancipate himself from the limits of the five orders, and longing for

greater variety and scope for imagination.

The impression made on him by the mixture of general grandeur of outline

and dimension with profuse richness of detail was never effaced. It

seems at this time to have kindled in his mind an intensity of devotion

to his art hitherto unknown, and to have stirred him up to extraordinary

labour and study. Temple after temple opened upon him till the view of

Philæ crowned the magnificence of the whole. Sketching for Mr. Baillie,

copying sketches, where possible, for himself, elaborately describing in

his journal what was then an almost unknown treasure-house of ruins, “in

comparison with which even those of Greece and Rome sink into

insignificance, although the Parthenon and the Pantheon still keep their

places as models of architectural excellence"--he drank in deeply the

influence of the scene, and seemed in three months to have lived through

whole years of study.

Esneh, their next halting-place, appeared then less striking than

Dendera; but his second visit corrected the impression, and led him to

think the great portico “the finest of all he had seen in Egypt,” half

concealed though it was by rubbish and by modern excrescences. Both at

Esneh and at Dendera he gives an elaborate description of the remarkable

zodiacs, which appeared to show a knowledge of the precession of the

equinoxes, and which were then little known except from the Memoirs of

the French Institute, a work of which he remarks elsewhere that he found

it “full of glaring and unpardonable errors.”

Edfou was then being excavated by M. Drouetti, sufficiently for

examination; the sculpture appeared to be of a high order, but the

general effect of the temple with the grand peristyle of columns

(enclosing an area of 146 ft. by 108 in front) unsatisfactory in spite

of its size, for want of due proportion and symmetry in its parts. On

the other side of the river they visited the ruins of the temples at

Eleithias, some half-excavated in the rock, and the famous tombs, which

had then recently been opened, and had given by their hieroglyphics and

painting a new glimpse of the life of the ancient Egyptians.

A few days now brought them to Assouan, whence they visited the islands

of Elephantina and Philæ. At the former the ancient Nilometer attracted

their attention, and was accurately measured and described. The latter

island, now, and at his return in January, was felt by him to be the

centre of attraction. He felt “it impossible to conceive anything more

magnificent than Philæ in the zenith of its prosperity; when all,

Egyptians and Ethiopians alike, venerated it as the burial-place of

Osiris, and lavished on it the treasures of ages.” He speaks of the long

ranges of columns as the characteristic features of the ruins, and as

producing even now an “enchanting effect,” and notices the traces of

painting in the great portico, as showing great taste in the harmonizing

of colours, and giving some idea of the brilliant effect which must have

been produced in the days of its splendour. Even then, when the island

was a mass of ruins, they lingered over it, carefully examining it at

every step; and when at last they left it, it was with deep regret, and

a feeling that only in leaving it could they fully appreciate its

grandeur. The natural beauty of the view of the first cataracts, far

superior in his opinion to that of the second cataracts, or to any point

of the Nile, claimed its due share in their delight, and it was

evidently the one spot in Egypt to which he most delighted to recur.

At Philæ they left their large vessel and proceeded in four small boats

up the river. The whole scenery was now changed: mountains bounded the

narrow strips of cultivated land on the banks of the river, and

occasionally approached close to the water’s edge; villages numerous,

but miserable enough, fringed the banks; and the finer barbarian race of

Nubia contrasted favourably with the abject and miserable Egyptians. The

ruins still showed themselves in almost uninterrupted series on either

side, interesting in themselves, but still more interesting as memorials

of the various civilisations which had passed over the country. Most

belonged to the earlier Egyptian days: but, combined with these, or

superimposed upon them, were the signs of the Greek and Roman dominion;

and these in their turn were remodelled or defaced by Christian hands.

Greek, Latin, and Coptic inscriptions were mingled with the

hieroglyphics; ancient deities were transformed into saints; and a rough

daub of the Madonna was often seen on the very plaster which covered the

symbols of old Egyptian idolatry.

They proceeded slowly, both in their ascent and return, and found

abundant occupation by the way. Above all others, the ruins of

Abousimbel claimed careful examination and accurate description. The

temples, as being entirely excavated from the rock, and having the

greater portion of their fronts occupied by colossal figures, were

entirely new to them, and produced as great an effect on their minds as

those of Dendera or Philæ. The entrance to the great temple, opened the

year before by Mr. Salt, was now again closed by sand and rubbish, and

had to be re-opened with much labour. The sculpture of the interior

struck them greatly as spirited, and free from the conventionality of

most of those which they had seen. The painting was in most places fresh

and bright, but the intense heat (98°) and moisture of the interior had

made the surface soft, and threatened rapid decay. He was even obliged

to sketch on a board, because the paper was so soft that the pencil

could not be used upon it, and to work with light almost insufficient

for accurate examination. He carried away a drawing of the exterior,

seen by a bright moonlight, and partly lit up by the fire of their Arab

crew, as a memorial of a place which made a permanent impression on his

mind.

A few days brought them to the second cataracts, where they stayed only

long enough to admire the picturesque aspect of the scenery, wilder,

though less beautiful, than that near Philæ; and then they returned

leisurely down the stream, stopping generally rather longer than on the

ascent.

At Koum Ombos they now stayed to visit the great temple, with its many

traces of crocodile worship, and to examine some of the mummies there

found in abundance.

Thebes, which they had passed before, now detained them several days.

The ruins of Luxor and Karnac, by their overwhelming magnitude and

variety, seemed to throw all others into the shade; and at Medinet

Habou, the temples and the recently discovered Tombs of the Kings

possessed hardly inferior interest. Even Dendera, which had seemed so

marvellous at first, now held only a secondary place. In fact, the rich

abundance of architectural treasures presented to their eyes seems

almost to have outstripped all attempt at description, and to have left

neither time nor room for criticism.

Finally they arrived at Cairo on March 1st; thence duly ascended the

great pyramids of Ghizeh, and penetrated into their interior; and on

March 12th, 1819, Mr. Barry left Egypt. Little more than four months had

elapsed since he first entered Cairo; but the fruits of that short time

had been valuable beyond all description.

Their journey across the desert to Gaza, and thence to Jaffa and

Jerusalem, with excursions to Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and the convent

of St. Saba, lay over a more beaten track, and produced far less effect

upon his mind. It could not fail to be full of interest, and gave

opportunity for numberless sketches;[13] they carried on their

examination with their usual vigour, visiting all the “Holy Places,”[14]

and, as they arrived at Easter, had abundant evidence of the feuds of

the Greeks and Latins, and witnessed the notorious miracle of the “Holy

Fire.” They carried away from the Latin Patriarch certificates of their

presence at the Easter ceremonies (which gave them a certain sacred

character as pilgrims), and rosaries, blessed at the Holy Sepulchre,

which were highly prized in Italy and France; but the journal adds, “I

wish I could say that my faith had been strengthened by a pilgrimage in

the Holy Land,” and goes on to express the predominant feeling of

disgust at the superstitions and impostures, which swarm on that sacred

ground, and mar its holy associations.

A visit to Jerash, in Arab costume and under Arab guidance, had in it

more of novelty. They found its remains situated in a well-wooded

valley, and embosomed in trees. The ruins were then carefully examined,

and some sketches made, but disputes between their Arab guards, and

strong symptoms of violence, hastened their departure. “The remains (all

of Roman origin) much resemble those of Antinoöpolis, and are probably

of the same age; there is too great a profusion of ornament and

feebleness of general design; but the effect of the great street, 740

yards in length, flanked by long colonnades of Roman, Ionic, and

Corinthian, crossed by triumphal arches, and terminating in a circus

surrounded by a peristyle of Ionic columns, must have been magnificent,

in spite of many faults of detail.”

Their journey northward, through the Lebanon country, to Beyrout, was

highly interesting, not only for the grandeur and beauty of the scenery,

but because it brought them in contact with the Maronites and Druses.

Among the Maronites they always found industry, especially silk-weaving

and the raising of silkworms, and considerable prosperity, wherever they

enjoyed a quasi-independence of Turkish rule. At Deh-el-Kams the Emir

(who was secretly a Christian) was full of interest in the West, a man

of taste[15] and energy, who, like other Orientals, worshipped the

memory of Sir S. Smith. The great Maronite convent of St. Anthony had a

printing-press at work, and was a centre of cultivation and industry.

They heard much of the Druses, and the jealous care with which they

guarded the secret of their religion, the Acchals, or stricter Druses,

living a recluse and ascetic life, the Jechaird Druses mingling with

all, and professing themselves indifferently Christian or Mohammedan.

Their relations were then peaceful; but the peace was jealous and

precarious, and the Turkish authority (as usual) seemed weak to protect,

and powerful only to oppress.

Baalbec, Damascus, and Palmyra, were their chief objects of attraction.

The situation of Baalbec, in the midst of its forest of walnut-trees,

delighted the eye of the artist, but accurate plans and descriptions of

the magnificent ruins (then but little known, and even now described

with much discrepancy of authorities), gave evidence of more elaborate

architectural study. The great encircling wall of the citadel, within

which the ruins stand, formed of huge blocks of stone, some as much as

30 feet long, 13 feet high, and 10 feet thick, the fragments of the

Greater Temple (of the Sun?), 270 feet by 165 feet, the extensive

remains of the Smaller Temple (of Jupiter?), and a third circular

Corinthian temple, with their decorations and masterly bas-reliefs, in

which the Roman eagle was conspicuous, gave them the idea of that union

of power with richness, which well deserves the title of

“magnificence.”[16]

It was a curious transition from the silent grandeur of Baalbec to the

bustle and life of Damascus. The first view of the city struck them, as

it strikes all travellers, as one perfectly unique in its beauty,--“a

boundless plain, with surface and horizon level as the sea,” but covered

with masses of dark verdure, out of which the city of Damascus rises,

“bright as the whitest marble.” The city itself hardly corresponded

with this glorious appearance. The travellers were probably taken for

Turks, and so were able to see, without molestation, all the parts of

this city,--the very home of Turkish fanaticism; but with the exception

of a few of the larger buildings, which were full of Oriental

magnificence, there was little to justify the glowing descriptions of

former travellers. They quitted it without regret; for Palmyra lay

before them.

In this expedition they encountered their only noteworthy adventure. The

country was beset with the Bedouin Arabs, half obedient, half hostile to

the Turkish Government. Every city and village was in a “state of

siege;” and when the travellers arrived at the village of Kâl, they were

taken for Arabs, and received with a dropping fire of musketry, till the

presence of the Aga of Baalbec put an end to the mistake. However, they

arrived safely at Homs; and there their dangers began. By the help of

the Governor, who treated them most kindly and honourably, a negotiation

was made with two Bedouin Arabs, professing to be envoys from the chief

of the neighbouring tribe, for their safe conveyance to and from

Palmyra.

They set out accordingly, eight in number, with an escort of twelve

Arabs, who soon began to play them false, and led them out of the way to

a large encampment of their tribe, where they were kept prisoners, and

assailed with all kinds of lies and threats to extort money. The Arabs,

of course, could not conceive the true object of their visit to Palmyra;

but settled at once that they must be seekers of hidden treasures, and

that Mr. Baillie’s eye-glass, which excited their greatest astonishment,

was the talisman, by which the treasures were to be revealed. The whole

party had, for some extraordinary reason not mentioned, come out

unarmed; there was not even a pistol among them; and they were therefore

wholly in the power of the Arabs. However, they stood firm with true

English coolness, till, after long negociation, they found proceeding

hopeless, and resolved to return with their escort to Homs.

This they did at full speed, starting about 4 p.m., and galloping over

the desert all night by starlight, the Arabs hurrying on in order to

leave them under the walls of Homs before daybreak, and so to escape the

vengeance of the Governor. About two hours before sunrise, they arrived

at Dehr Balbah, near Homs. Here the Arabs by their signal made the

dromedaries kneel down, and then tried, first to induce, and then to

force, the travellers to dismount. This they refused to do, and, unarmed

as they were, resisted for some minutes, wresting the spears and

matchlocks from the hands of the Arabs. One or two of the party were

slightly wounded, and the thrust of an Arab spear from behind at Mr.

Barry would have been serious, and perhaps fatal, had it not been turned

aside by the loose burnoose which he wore; as it was, it passed under

his arm, and merely grazed his hand. A short struggle proved that the

odds were too great, and so the Arabs gained their point, and galloped

off to the desert.

Next morning the travellers went on to Homs, having previously sent a

despatch to the Governor. On their way they met droves of camels and

Bedouin drivers, hastening with all speed to the desert, and cavalry of

the Turkish Governor in pursuit. Several Arabs were killed, and three

heads brought into Homs in triumph. The Governor behaved most

honourably; he felt the danger of provoking the Arabs (for, in fact, out

of this incident arose a petty war), but felt also that his own faith

had been pledged to the Englishmen, and that it must not be violated

with impunity. Some of the money still in his hands he insisted on

returning, and, though full of anxiety as to the consequences of the

affair, he dismissed them with all honour and courtesy. So ended the

only failure, and almost the only serious danger, of their journey.

At Tripoli (June 18th, 1819) Mr. Barry’s engagement with Mr. Baillie

terminated; and they parted with mutual regret. Nothing could have

exceeded the kindness and liberality of Mr. Baillie’s conduct. About 500

drawings, by far the best which have been preserved of Mr. Barry’s

sketches, remained with him, as evidence of the zeal and ability with

which the other part of the contract had been performed.

Mr. Barry returned alone, touching at Cyprus, and thence coasting along

Asia Minor. Rhodes naturally attracted his notice by the curious

contrast of its former and present aspects. The old church of St. John

(then a mosque), the Grand Master’s house still bearing traces of its

original character, the old escutcheons embedded in the walls, spoke of

the days of Christianity and Western civilization. The docks and trade

of the place, engrossed by Greeks and Europeans, and the insolence and

ignorance of the Turkish soldiery, gave a melancholy picture of the

present. At Boudroon (Halicarnassus) he managed, not without difficulty,

to see the famous marbles embedded in the walls. Yerunda brought back a

reminiscence of Egypt by a temple with an avenue of seated figures, 600

yards in length, “clearly Egyptian in origin, but only a feebly executed

copy of the original.” Patmos, at which they next touched, was entirely

Greek. The great convent near the “Cave of the Apocalypse” was the first

object of interest. A good library neglected, with curious MSS. very

carelessly kept, was its reproach; a flourishing Greek school its best

evidence of activity. Thence he made his way to Smyrna, passing the

ruins of Ephesus; and at last (August 16th, 1819) he bade farewell to

the East, and sailed (with Messrs. Godfrey and Wyse) to Malta and

Sicily.

A quarantine of twenty days at Malta left him only time for a hasty

examination of Valetta and its buildings, before passing on to Syracuse.

In Sicily he spent two months of great activity and enjoyment, studying

the superimposed strata of Greek, Roman, Saracenic, and Gothic

architecture, which give a visible epitome of the history of the island.

Syracuse attracted notice for the sake of the past rather than the

present. The very cathedral was formed out of the old temple of Athene;

the fountain of Arethusa, shorn of its glories, appeared only as “a

great pool, full of washerwomen;” the town itself, shrunk to the little

island of Ortygia, was but a symbol of the wretched and degraded state

in which the island then was.[17] The two harbours (“the smaller paved

with marble, with rings for the fastening of galleys”) and the distinct

traces of the other quarters of the old city were the only objects of

much interest.

Taormina (Tauromenium) struck them more forcibly by its magnificent

position, and its strange juxta-position of the great Greek theatre,

Roman baths, Saracenic tombs, and Franciscan convent.

Messina, putting aside its beauty of situation, showed them little

except the great hospitals (grand in conception, scale, and revenue, but

miserable in arrangement, and restricted in usefulness), and the great

prison, with its horrible dungeons and torture chambers, full of

memories of recent cruelty, and even then unworthy of a civilized

Government.

At Girgenti (Agrigentum) the profusion of remains, and the magnificent

scale of the temples, especially the great temple of the Olympian Zeus,

invited very careful study and criticism, in which are clearly seen the

effects of his Egyptian travels.

But of all places in Sicily, Palermo was clearly far the richest in

interest, and not unworthy “of one of the finest situations in the

world.”[18] The cathedral at Palermo, and the palace and chapel at

Monreale, gave him his first introduction to that peculiar

architecture, full of Saracenic and Byzantine influence, which is so

interesting to all students of the early Gothic styles. He was much

struck with its picturesque character, and especially with the richness

of the mosaic decorations, and the use of external colours. It hardly

approved itself to his taste; for it was too irregular, and too merely

picturesque. Still it was examined with a care and respect, which showed

the growing importance of Gothic in his mind, and the recollection

probably bore fruit in after-times. But the choicest records of his

Sicilian expedition were unhappily lost. A large portfolio of sketches

(probably some of the best he ever made) was stolen from the vessel in

which he was to return home; and, in spite of all inquiry and search, no

trace of it was ever recovered.

He crossed over to Italy, passed through Naples, again visiting Pompeii,

and arrived at Rome at the end of January, 1820, under very different

auspices from those under which he left it. In fact, he was one of the

lions of the day, especially in the English society of Rome; and his

letters show that he heartily enjoyed his condition, and entered with

great zest into the occupations and amusements which it afforded. It was

not his nature to do things by halves; his spirits were naturally high

and sanguine; and he could not but feel proud in the thought, that his

position had been fairly won by his own talent and exertion. But, as

usual, he did not allow all this to interfere for a moment with his main

object. All dissipation was kept for the evening: the day was sacred to

work, and that work was now entered into with matured taste and new

powers, both of origination and criticism. In this work he found an

unexpected coadjutor. In a letter (dated Feb. 24th, 1820) he says,--“A

Mr. Wolfe, an architect and pupil of Mr. Gwilt, has just arrived, and I

have made his acquaintance with great pleasure. He is an enthusiastic

admirer of art.” The acquaintance went on apace. At Easter, 1820, he

continues--“In my first interview with him, I saw immediately that he

was a man with whom I could coalesce and become intimate; and the result

is that I now reckon him among the few sincere friends that one can hope

to obtain in the world.” Never were anticipations more fully realized.

The friendship, there begun, continued till the day of his death, with a

rare warmth and perfectness of sympathy. The very dissimilarities of the

two friends (as is usually the case when there is identity of principle

and feeling) only strengthened their union, by giving each power to help

the other. Art was the one thought of both; but it was pursued in very

different ways. Mr. Wolfe’s mind was more educated, was naturally more

scientific and philosophical, and pre-eminently distinguished by cool

and well-balanced judgment. It was exactly the mind to influence Mr.

Barry’s at this stage of his professional career, and to induce him to

study, systematically and with a view to first principles, the treasures

of Italian architecture which were before his eyes, find the rich

variety of ideas and objects, with which his travels and his sketches

had stored his mind.

He was often oppressed by the idea (apparently a very groundless one)

that he had wasted much of his time by the discursiveness of his

occupations, and especially by his preference of the artistic to the

scientific element of study. The truth probably was, that the materials

were gathered, and that the task of arrangement and organization now

alone remained. In that task the two friends resolved to work in common;

and each altered his arrangements that they might be together in their

study of Rome, Florence, Vicenza, Venice, and Verona.[19]

The devotion to Greek architecture with which he left England had been

somewhat shaken by his intense admiration of the Egyptian. Although he

looked upon the latter as a thing essentially of the past, yet

recollections of it would haunt his imagination and influence his

principles of design.

“I know not[20] (says his friend) whether the taste for ornament, for

which he subsequently became remarkable, was natural or acquired. But he

was full of admiration for the Egyptians’ practice of completely

covering their buildings with sculptured hieroglyphics or painting; and

he exulted in the (then recent) discovery, that the Parthenon, the model

of Greek purity, was itself overlaid with ornament. His opinion was that

ornament should be so limited in size as to increase the apparent scale

of the building, and that it should be so kept down by lowness of

relief, or by marginal framing, as not to interfere with the main

outlines. These rules observed, he seemed to think that enrichment

could never be overdone--an opinion which he continued to hold to the

end of his career.

“This principle of subordination of ornament was paramount with him.

Perfection of design and workmanship were lost upon him, where ornament

destroyed the essential outlines. To the Corinthian capital he had a

positive dislike: even its finest specimens failed to satisfy him. For

his idea was that in large capitals, however enriched by foliage, the

apparent capability of supporting the entablature should still be

preserved. The germ of this idea was probably found in the Egyptian

capitals, many of which he very carefully studied and sketched. For

years a new Corinthian-like order floated before his mind; but, as he

had no opportunity of attempting it on a grand scale, his ideas were

never carried out; for it was the rule with him, that without the spur

of reality his genius slept.”

Italian architecture had hitherto attracted him but little in comparison

with Greek; but he began to perceive how much more capable it was of

adaptation to modern requirements, and to study it in that view. “By

degrees its beauties grew upon him, although he long retained the

opinion that it should be purified and refined, in fact treated _à la

Grecque_. He delighted in every example of what he considered Greek

feeling, and, as a notable one, in the grand fragment of entablature in

the Colonna garden, the so-called ‘frontispiece of Nero.’ It was some

years before the traces of this Greek influence disappeared from his

designs.”

The building, which first inspired him with admiration for the Italian

style, was the Farnese Palace. The principal front he greatly admired;

he considered that the “imposing effect of its vast mass was greatly

enhanced by the unbroken lines of the entablature and string-courses,

the number and relative smallness of the windows, the complete

subordination of all horizontal divisions to the crowning cornice, and

the consequent full effect of the entire height.” The rear front seemed

to him to be spoilt by the centre, which did not harmonize with the

rest, and (by “a most unwarrantable wickedness”) broke the general

entablature, and moreover outraged his feelings by the superposition of

three orders (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian). The interior courtyard he

liked less still; and, among other criticisms, he noticed here what

seemed to him at all times offensive, the solidity of the upper story,

resting on two arcaded courses below.

The Florentine palaces, especially the Strozzi, confirmed the general

impression made by the Farnese, “and from this time a grand cornice,

without an order, became his beau-ideal of a street front;” but he

noticed that few façades had the feature, which he thought all but

necessary, an important basement, to serve as a kind of pedestal and

“balance” the great cornice. The Strozzi Palace, “vast and imposing” as

it was, was, however, rather a study than an example; its enormous

height and masses of solid wall between the tiers of windows were unfit

for use in England; and the characteristic windows, with their central

mullions, he thought inconvenient for use, and perhaps inadmissible in

pure Italian architecture.

Two of Bramante’s palaces at Rome, the Cancelleria and the Palazzo dei

Rei d’Inghilterra, at first pleased him much by their general character

of solidity and breadth, and in the former case he noticed with delight

the delicacy both of design and execution in the ornaments, and the

perfect finish of every detail. There appeared, however, a want of

boldness in the low relief of the great fronts, which seemed tame after

the Farnese. “But his great objection was to the use of two orders, even

when they were in low relief, and when the unity of the height was

preserved by the importance of the upper cornice. The best examples of

North Italy could not reconcile him to this ‘piling of house upon

house.’ In later days the beauties of the Banqueting-house at Whitehall

so prevailed with him, that he frequently used order upon order in his

own designs: but hardly ever without breaking the entablatures. By the

continuous vertical lines so produced the two stories were united, and

his love of unity satisfied. But at Rome this expedient would have

shocked him as barbarous.”

Before he left Italy he acquired a taste for greater luxuriance of

ornament and greater boldness of outline, and looked on the style of

Bramante as fit only for small works and for interiors. “The Villa

Pandolfini at Florence proved to him how much could be done, even in a

front of small extent, by means of a good frieze and cornice. He noticed

as defects the stunted proportions of the windows and the continuation

of the entablatures across the piers between them; but above all he

disliked the great projection of the lower story. For this so

distinctly broke up the elevation into two stories that the cornice and

frieze, well-proportioned to the entire height, appeared overpowering.

But notwithstanding these defects, when he was at work on the

street-front of the Travellers’ Club, no building had so much influence

in determining its general style as the Villa Pandolfini.”

The palatial fronts at Vicenza and Venice did not take the same hold

upon him as those at Rome and Florence. “The Library of St. Mark at

Venice, the greater Porto Palace by Palladio at Vicenza, and others of

the same kind, had not only the cardinal vice of superimposed orders,

but were offensive by the multiplicity and prominence of their

details.... To engaged columns--’colonnades walled up’--he had a great

dislike; and when, as at the Board of Trade, he had to employ them, he

always relieved them from the wall by grounds or margins. Even then they

never thoroughly satisfied him. The disposition of the windows (grouped

in the centre) in some of the smaller Gothic and other palaces at Venice

was noted by him with approval, and was not forgotten when he was

designing the garden-front of the Travellers’ Club. Of palace fronts, in

which an order was employed, he was most struck with those of the public

prisons at Venice and Palladio’s Thiene Palace at Vicenza.”

The Ducal Palace, magnificent as he felt it to be, did not satisfy him.

Of the beauty of the arcaded stories he was fully sensible, nor did he

object to arcaded exteriors in general. “But no consideration could

reconcile him to arcades or colonnades supporting, as here, a heavy

mass of building. Whatever might be the character of the superstructure,

he required that the lower part of the building should be comparatively

solid and plain; the reverse appeared unnatural. In the finest portico

he was not satisfied unless the basement (or the steps) was equal in

mass to the pediment above. Even in the river-front of his new Palace at

Westminster he rejected the idea (once entertained) of introducing a

cloister; and was so jealous of the solidity and plainness of his

basement, that he grudged every window and would hardly enrich a

gateway.”

In the study of details of arrangement he was somewhat discouraged by

considerations of the great differences between Italy and England as to

climate and life. “The open _cortile_, surrounded with arches or

colonnades, was a feature which delighted him, and which he often longed

to introduce. There was one in his first design for the Reform Club. But

in England he felt that a central hall had the advantage both in

convenience and in effect. He suggested in after years the covering in

of the area of the Royal Exchange and of the still more spacious area of

the British Museum. His delight in a great central hall became a

passion.”

The great staircases might have served more immediately as models; but

he had peculiar ideas on this subject, which interfered with his

admiration of those usually deemed most excellent. “Where scenic effect

was given by various flights of steps, arcades, and columns, he seemed

to think that space was sacrificed and a grand hall spoilt. He did not

like to see ‘steps hanging in the air’ or supported by cumbrous walls;

and sudden changes in the direction of the flights annoyed him. His

ideal staircase was a grand straight flight, the whole space, however

great, being occupied by the steps; but if this were impossible, he

required that all that could be seen at one view should be straight, and

preferred the staircase, so common in Italy, where each separate flight

is enclosed in solid walls.”

In Italy he first acquired that liking for visible roofs, which he

afterwards showed, both in his Italian and Gothic works. He approved of

them, because, being essential features, they ought not to be concealed;

because, in fact, their visible appearance was the proof that the

building was covered and was not a mere shell.

“To rustic work he had at first a great aversion. In substruction it

might be tolerated, but elsewhere its employment seemed to him

indefensible, and a rusticated column monstrous.” His admiration for

Sanmicheli’s works, especially that at Lido, first shook his

determination; at home his delight in the work of Inigo Jones carried on

the process of conversion; and he himself afterwards used what at this

time he would have proscribed.

His study of the Italian palaces was minute and elaborate, and produced

the greatest effect upon his own future works. The great churches,

though not less carefully studied, had less direct influence. The Gothic

revival in England had begun to make itself felt, and his thoughts were

already turned in that direction, although he had probably at this time

less knowledge of Gothic than of any other style. He was not then, nor

did he ever become, an admirer of Italian Gothic. None of its forms

appeared to him to be free from the characteristics of other recognised

styles; some appeared corrupt Roman, others impure Gothic; and not even

the eloquence and ability of their modern advocates could make him

approve their revival.

But the great churches, though they could hardly be models for

imitation, yet demanded admiration and criticism.

St. Peter’s disappointed him greatly in its elevation. He thought it had

“a confused appearance and want of simple grandeur;” that “the openings

in the centre were too crowded,” and that “the three-quarter columns,

always objectionable, did not afford sufficient relief.” The details he

greatly disliked. He noticed especially the want of apparent size in a

building, one of the largest in the world, and accounted for it by the

presence of colossal figures on the top of the façade, without anything

to give the true scale,[21] by the want of sufficient projection in the

front, and the enormous size of the windows, and by the impossibility of

seeing any great part of the dome from the piazza, whence alone the

whole substructure was visible. On the whole he much preferred the

exterior of St. Paul’s, in spite of the “piling of order upon order,”

which was a departure from Wren’s original design; he preferred its

regularity of design to “the complicated front and lofty attic of St.

Peter’s;” he thought the circular peristyle of columns under the dome

far finer than the corresponding substructure in the other case; and, if

only the churchyard could be enlarged, he thought that its complete

insulation, and the fine perspective views which it offers, gave it a

decided advantage in position and apparent grandeur.

It was far otherwise with the general effect of the interior of St.

Peter’s. Its magnificent size, satisfying his love of spaciousness, its

beautiful proportions and simplicity of design, its richness and

completeness of decoration, producing a sense of harmony and perfection,

seized his imagination at once, and seemed to “leave nothing to be

desired.” Its details he thought unworthy of special notice; but not so

its decoration. The decoration of the dome delighted him; but the gem in

his eyes was the baptistery. There the arrangement of marbles and

mosaics seemed perfect, both in colour and form; it constantly recurred

to him in designing, and had much to do with fixing his taste for that

gorgeous kind of decoration. He delighted also in the gilding of the

vault. Being wholly gilt (either dead or burnished gold), it seemed not

gilt, but golden. This was to him real magnificence; “parcel-gilding”

was gaudy, and he held it in contempt. This vault and the ceiling of

Sta. Maria Maggiore were models which he would have gladly followed in

his designs, and it was with reluctance that he gave up the idea of

making the roof of his House of Lords all gold.

The piazza in front of St. Peter’s, with its semicircular colonnades and

magnificent fountains, greatly impressed him. The remembrance of it

constantly floated before his memory as the ideal of the proper

treatment of such a spot; and he long cherished a hope of realizing his

ideal in London.[22]

The portico of the Pantheon he thought perfect in plan, and magnificent

in effect. He admired its great depth, the increase of this in the

centre, and above all the disposition of the inner columns, which gave

apparent stability and variety of effect, without confusing the eye or

obstructing the approach. He never could endure a portico which was

shallow, or which had no inner columns, or which had the wall, the

background of the columns, broken up by windows. But the junction to the

circular building appeared to him unhappy. In fact he objected _in toto_

to the treatment of a portico as a mere porch, thinking that in all

cases the portico should be a continuation of the main building.[23] The

interior he used to quote as the finest example in the world of the

grandeur of a dome, when sufficiently large, and sufficiently near the

eye to be comprehended in one glance. Domes like that of St. Peter’s,

which could only be seen by a painful throwing back of the neck, seemed

to him wrong in principle. For at all times he held, that interiors

should be so contrived that a spectator on entering should see enough of

the design to enable him to comprehend the whole, and that, when this

was not the case, there was a distraction of thought, fatal to any

striking effect.

The exterior of the cathedral at Florence seemed to him grand only in

size, “unworthy to be compared with our best Gothic cathedrals;” and the

arrangement of black and white marbles such as to destroy both

massiveness of general effect and beauty of form in its various parts.

The dome, as the largest in the world, and the first constructed after

St. Sophia, called for attentive study, especially in construction; but

it convinced him that “polygonal domes should be avoided, especially

when ribbed and of few sides. If, on looking directly at the dome, you

do not see exactly an equal portion of the two remote sides, the

perspective gives an untrue figure; and when the ribs are prominent and

far removed from each other, this effect is increased.” The general

architecture seemed to him a vicious mixture of Roman and Gothic, though

details, especially the beautiful external cornice running round the

building, were worthy of study and admiration.

On entering he acknowledged that the effect was simple and imposing, in

apparent size grander than St. Peter’s, and even approaching the

sublime. But the details appeared to him unworthy of special notice.

The Campanile was one of the few specimens of Italian Gothic which

commanded his warm admiration. He longed for the spire (which had been

rejected as savouring of “la brutta maniera Tedesca”): but the lofty and

graceful proportion of the tower charmed him. What he admired above all

was the simplicity and distinctness of outline, which, he complained,

was wanting in many of the finest Gothic towers. Nothing compensated him

for a ragged or uncertain outline. His constant reference to this great

work of Giotto showed that the impression was one neither weak, nor

unfruitful of results. A liking for towers grew upon him; designs for

them became the most cherished creations of his imagination, till he

seemed to think that no design could be complete without them.

His notices of Milan cathedral are chiefly interesting as showing the

growing importance of Gothic architecture in his mind. At his first

visit he was merely struck with the elaborate richness of its material

and workmanship, and the solemn magnificence of its interior. At his

return in 1820, an accurate plan and section of the church are given;

the grandeur of the interior is still more deeply felt; and some points,

such as the introduction of the tabernacle-niches and statues over each

cluster of shafts, noticed as interfering with it. But, while justice is

still done to the richness and elaboration of the exterior, it is

severely criticised. The “pinnacles are noted as rising too suddenly out

of the solid mass to an enormous height;” the lantern-spire “as far too

slender for the substructure;” the general design noted as “unhappy;

much of its laboured enrichment is mis-applied; there is a want of

harmony and continuity in its parts; and the sensation created is rather

that of wonder at the treasures lavished upon it, than of genuine

admiration.”

At Florence the Bridge della Trinita was an object of especial interest

to him. “As it was still a question what was the exact form of its

arches, and particularly whether they were or were not pointed, he

determined to measure two of them, and, as time and means were wanting

to accomplish this from below, he ingeniously set out level lines on the

outside of the parapet, and let fall a series of ordinates to the fillet

of the archivolt. After a long and careful investigation, he came to the

conclusion that the arches were not designed to be pointed; but the

original curve had been so crippled by irregular settlement, that its

exact nature could not now be ascertained. He greatly admired the

elegance of proportions in the arch and superstructure. To the curve

itself, however, he had a decided objection. He had, and always

retained, an antipathy to the ellipse and all which he considered

irregular curves. Whether in single arches or vaulting, no curves

pleased him that were not portions of circles, and whenever in the

course of his practice semicircular vaulting would have destroyed

proportion, he would adopt a coved ceiling, or any other expedient,

rather than resort to the hated ellipse. In his first design for the new

Westminster Bridge, the arches were segments of circles, and it was not

without difficulty that he could be induced to substitute the ellipse.

Even in Gothic work he never willingly employed a Tudor arch; but, where

cramped for height, he preferred the arch formed by two flat segments of

circles, making an angle with the jambs (as seen in certain windows at

Winchester). Irregularity in curves excited in him a feeling that was

absolutely painful.”

In this indefatigable study and criticism he passed the last few months

of his sojourn abroad. They were months of intense enjoyment: for his

spirits were buoyant, his disposition frank and genial. Work he always

loved for its own sake, and difficulties he rather enjoyed.[24] But they

were also months of serious thought and study. “It was evident” (says

his friend) “that the leading principles of composition which influenced

him throughout his career were already rooted in his mind.”

First and foremost came a love of truth. “The false in architecture he

abhorred; and all external features, which did not at least indicate the

internal design, he condemned ruthlessly. Even a blank window offended

him. The showy but screen-like façades, so often applied in Italy to

comparatively mean buildings, were to him impostures, worthy of

contempt.”

Next came a love of unity and regularity. “That he had an artist’s eye

for the picturesque was certain from the happy choice he was sure to

make of the best points of view for sketching. But actually to plan

irregularity, because it was picturesque, he thought unworthy of the

dignity of art.” Every feature, especially every ornamental feature, he

would rigidly subordinate to the preservation of the main outline and

the main principle of the design, sometimes even at the cost of boldness

and variety. Unity rather than multiplicity of effect he thought the

object of human art--a lower beauty indeed than that which results from

the unstudied harmony of Nature, but the only one which seemed to him

really attainable. This view he continued to maintain, and, though he

saw much beauty in works designed on the opposite principle, yet the

observation of their general effect tended to confirm him in his theory.

Connected with this was his great love of the effect of spaciousness.

The church “degli Angeli,” in the Baths of Diocletian at Rome, made a

lasting impression upon him. “Its noble proportions and simplicity of

design satisfied this instinctive desire of space, for the loss of which

no variety of plan and no picturesque effect could compensate. No sooner

did he enter a building than he measured with a glance its utmost

capacity; and all that stood in his way,--piers, columns, and sometimes

even the vault itself,--became obstructions which he longed to clear

away.” In the grand nave above referred to the same feeling led him to

dislike the position of the entrance at the side. In all great oblong

halls he would have the door at the end, that the whole might be seen at

first entrance. Except by necessity, he never gave up this principle.

Probably the next point most evident in his criticism was the love of

perfection and completeness in detail. Nothing disturbed him so much as

incongruity or want of keeping in the various parts of a design; the

mingling of grandeur with pettiness, and of rich decoration with bare

and unadorned features,[25] seemed an offence against harmony; and he

held that the hand of a master of his art was almost as much shown in

the study and adaptation of every detail, as in the conception of a

great general design. With this was connected his keen sense of symmetry

and proportion. “The least offence against either--a single feature out

of scale, an opening too narrow, or even a moulding too heavy--jarred

upon him like a discord.” This sensitiveness was in fact carried to

excess; “a single fault in a composition would blind him to its

beauties; it needed to be overcome by an effort on his part or even the

promptings of others; and it necessarily made him hypercritical, for, no

building being perfect, he was rarely heard to praise any.” It is but

fair to add that in this same hypercriticism he never spared his own

designs, whether past or present, and often incurred by it almost

endless labour.

These principles fixed in his mind, he left Italy, well acquainted with

Greek, Egyptian, and Italian architecture, and with his interest and

attention already attracted to the reviving Gothic. The work of life was

now to commence in earnest; he was resolved to enter it fettered by the

traditions of no single school, ready to think and work for himself.

It will be easily seen that the hopes with which he had gone abroad had

been fully realized. The very fact of his travels gave him a position in

the eyes of the world, of which he might easily have made much more, had

he carried out his intention of publication. He had gained acquaintances

in the artistic world and in ordinary society, and his character and

talents excited a general expectation that he would achieve fame and

success. But the really important advantage was the kindling in himself

of artistic energy and a sense of power, and the extraordinary

development of his mind in knowledge, criticism, and ideas. Most men are

conscious of some period in their life on which such an awakening

influence acts, when the boundaries of thought seem to expand, when new

ideas and powers make themselves felt, and the idea of some great object

in life is definitely grasped. Such a period is one of intense happiness

and of priceless value. It came to him during these three years of

travel, and he returned to England a changed man.

CHAPTER III.

EARLY PROFESSIONAL LIFE.

1820-1829.

Early difficulties and failures--Thought of

emigration--Non-publication of his sketches--Holland House--Revival

of Gothic--His Manchester churches, and their

peculiarities--Marriage--Church at Oldham--Alarm at Prestwich

Church--Designs for King’s College, Cambridge--Royal Institution at

Manchester--Gradual relinquishment of Greek architecture--St.

Peter’s Church, Brighton--Sussex County Hospital--Petworth

Church--Queen’s Park, Brighton, his first Italian design--Islington

churches--His relations to church architecture generally--Removal

to Foley Place--Subsidiary work--Travellers’ Club--General

character of his life at this period.

In August, 1820, Mr. Barry returned to England to commence his

professional life. He took a small house in Ely Place, Holborn, a

position of no great pretension, but one recommended by its quietness,

centrality, and cheapness. There he began the struggle of life in real

earnest, with little external advantages of patronage or connection. It

was a great, and not a pleasant, change from the brightness of his

foreign life, during the latter part of which at least he had earned a

high artistic reputation, and enjoyed the society to which such a

reputation is the passport. He had warm friends of his own and his

future wife’s family of the middle class, but they had little power,

though much will, to help him. He had attracted at Rome the notice of

men of high rank and influence; from them he received much courtesy and

even kindness, but their patronage brought as yet little substantial

fruit.

With regard to the leading members of his own profession, of Mr. Nash,

the Wyatts, and Sir R. Smirke, he knew little or nothing; of Sir J.

Soane he had some slight knowledge, and from him on one occasion (that

of the Islington churches) I believe he received some recommendation; of

his own contemporaries he knew best Mr. Cockerell and Mr. Tite, and

afterwards (partly through Mr. Wolfe) Messrs. Donaldson, Angell, and

Poynter--all beginning life, as he was, and struggling, with more or

less of advantage, against the same obstacles.

Perhaps a more serious difficulty still was the great change of

architectural style in general, and of his own architectural taste in

particular, which seemed likely to render valueless much of his

professional study, begun when the ascendancy of the Greek style was

still undisputed.

All these obstacles were of course incapable of hindering that ultimate

success, which must depend essentially on a man’s own intellect and

character. But they delayed its attainment, long enough to cause him

disappointment, and the occasional despondency which belongs to the

reaction of a sanguine character. He had begun, as almost all young

architects must begin, by the harassing and thankless work of public

competition; in it he had, as usual, his share of failures, embittered

perhaps occasionally by the inevitable suspicions of incompetency or

partiality of judgment. At times he even thought of leaving London, and

settling in a provincial town; at one time of leaving England, and

trying his fortune in the more open field of America. His want of

success had also the effect of delaying his marriage, and continuing the

difficulties and the discomfort of an already long engagement. For after

paying the expenses of his foreign travels, he had little money of his

own to fall back upon, while waiting for the first gleam of fortune. All

these causes made the first years of his professional career a time of

anxiety and struggle, his first real entrance (in fact) on the battle of

life. During this critical time he received much encouragement and much

substantial help from his old masters, Messrs. Middleton and Baily, who

still preserved their kindly feeling towards him, and felt proud of the

reputation he had already achieved.

A natural way to public notice would have been opened to him by the

publication of his Egyptian sketches. They were unique at the time, and

had attracted much notice; his travelling companions, especially Mr.

Wyse, urged him to bring them out.[26] His careful notes would have

enabled him to give them something more than an æsthetic value. It is

clear that he had cherished the idea of bringing them before the public.

But it happened that in Egypt he had made the acquaintance of Mr.

William Bankes of Kingston Hall; and he appears to have entertained the

idea of some publication in conjunction with him. He probably needed a

literary coadjutor, and he had been much attracted by Mr. Bankes’s

brilliancy and talent. But after much delay and trouble, circumstances

prevented the realization of the plan; and by this time, he probably

found that the favourable opportunity had been lost. At any rate he gave

up all idea of publication, and to a great extent all care for those

sketches which remained in his own possession. For his books are full of

blank spaces, and many sketches have been altogether lost to his

family.[27]

For the sake of the world, as well as for his own sake, it must be a

subject of regret that he abandoned his project. The Egyptian field has

been occupied by men of high talent and extensive knowledge. But

probably there are few who would have brought to bear on the subject so

much clearness and accuracy of observation, and so entire a freedom from

prejudice. All that he ventured to publish would have been substantial,

practical, and trustworthy, and might have been a sure basis for future

study and speculation.

At Rome he had made the acquaintance of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who

continued to be at all times one of his kindest patrons and friends.

Through him he was introduced to Lord and Lady Holland, and became a not

unfrequent visitor in the society for which Holland House was then

famous. There he first met many noblemen of the Whig party, who showed

him great kindness, and many of the distinguished literary men and

artists of the day. He appreciated most highly these intellectual and

social influences; for his interest was keen and comprehensive, though

his study was chiefly confined to his own profession. He enjoyed

literary and scientific, at least as much as artistic society, and

certainly possessed the faculty, peculiar to men of quick observation

and clearness of conception, of understanding rapidly, and of seeing in

their most important bearings, subjects on which he had no special

experience or knowledge. Holland House therefore gave him great

enjoyment and encouragement, and produced occasionally some substantial

results of work. From his host and hostess he received such kindness as

he could never forget.

Still, however, he was working on without much success. The Gothic

style, though as yet little understood in its real principles, was now

asserting its claims, especially for ecclesiastical purposes; and some

stimulus had been given to ecclesiastical architecture (such as it then

was) by the erection of the “Commissioners’ Churches.”[28] To this style

he had never paid sufficient attention; he had now to become a student;

and he threw himself into the new study with characteristic diligence

and perseverance. His first essays were not very successful, though

certainly not below the average of the time; he used to think and speak

of them afterwards with a humorous kind of indignation; he carefully

destroyed every drawing relating to them, and would have still more

gladly destroyed the originals. Up to the day of his death he felt that

he was continually advancing in knowledge of Gothic, and was unsparing

in the criticism of his own earlier work.

The event proved that he had judged rightly. His first works of any

consequence were two churches built for the Commissioners, one at

Prestwich, and the other at Campfield, Manchester.[29] His letters show

the exultation with which he hailed the first success, and the

complacency with which he regarded his first church designs, a

complacency justified by the high opinion formed of them by others, but

destined to undergo a woful change in after years, when these churches

served as a continual subject of laughter to his friend Mr. Pugin and to

himself.[30]

The first stone of the Prestwich Church was laid by Lord Wilton,[31] on

the 3rd of August, 1822, and that of the Manchester Church (Campfield)

by the Bishop of Chester, on the 12th of the same month. The designs

seem to have been then well received, and to have given him his

introduction to Manchester, where he found warm friends (especially the

late Sir J. Potter), and afterwards did a good deal of work. They, of

course, showed little acquaintance with the spirit of Gothic detail. But

they were considered to have elegance of proportion, and some

originality of design. The fronts of churches appeared to him deficient

in extension, and he attempted to obtain this by means of an arcaded

porch at Manchester, as afterwards at Brighton by spreading the lower

part of the tower. In this, as in other points, he carried out

principles fixed in his own mind, without shrinking from ecclesiological

heresies. On the other hand, in spite of his admiration for the

horizontal lines and regular forms of Egyptian and Greek architecture,

he entered so thoroughly into the vertical principle of Gothic, that he

felt unsatisfied in carrying out any Gothic building without a spire. In

his first church at Prestwich, as afterwards at Brighton, he did his

utmost to secure the erection of one, though in both cases economical

considerations prevailed against the architect’s protest. In his last

work at the New Palace at Westminster, as soon as he felt himself

“master of the situation,” the castellated character of the original

design faded away, and a forest of spires sprang up, which he at times

longed to complete by some spire-like erection on the Victoria Tower

itself.

His success with regard to these churches was the more welcome, inasmuch

as it enabled him at last to conclude his marriage, on the 7th of

December, 1822, and thus to enter on the domestic life which he so much

desired and prized. The small house in Ely Place continued for a time to

be his home. Economy was still a necessity, and in that economy he had

a prudent and affectionate coadjutrix. But, indeed, except for his art,

he was never lavish; and in spite of his enterprising and sanguine

temperament, he had a horror of embarrassment and debt.

The work at Manchester seemed to be the first entrance on his long

career of professional success. He was appointed, in March, 1823,

architect for the erection of another church at Oldham, somewhat on the

same scale and style as those already built. A commission was also given

him to prepare drawings and plans for some alterations and enlargement

of St. Martin’s, Outwich, which were afterwards carried out under his

superintendence.

In the midst of it there came an alarm which would have overwhelmed a

nervous architect, though it failed to disturb his equanimity to any

serious extent. Soon after the opening of his church at Prestwich there

came an express from Manchester, stating that one of the galleries had

shown signs of falling during service, that the congregation had rushed

out in panic, and that many were seriously hurt. By the time the then

tedious journey to Manchester was over, the report had grown into “Stand

Church fallen, 300 killed and wounded.” It turned out that a small hair

crack had appeared in the plaster in consequence of too rapid drying. A

man under the gallery perceived it, and fancied that it widened rapidly,

whereupon he shouted out, “The church is falling!” The consequence of

this sapient proceeding was a sudden rush to the doors, at one of which

the steps had not yet been fixed. Down went the temporary steps, and the

congregation over them. Happily but few were hurt, and those not

seriously; so the architect’s reputation escaped.

Meanwhile he was constantly at work. In the year 1823 he entered into

the competition for the new buildings at King’s College, Cambridge, his

friend Mr. Wolfe being also a competitor. The building was to be either

Grecian or Gothic. In spite of the _genius loci_, he proposed a Greek

building, thinking that a classical style (for which the Fellows’

Building afforded a precedent) would be less likely to invite comparison

with the overwhelming grandeur of the chapel. Besides, in Gothic he was

still weak, and somewhat inclined, after the fashion of the day, to

restrict its employment to ecclesiastical purposes. In this competition

he experienced a failure, probably fortunate enough for his reputation;

for he never looked back on his design with any satisfaction, and, in

fact, his attachment to Greek was gradually giving way. He felt that,

for modern purposes, the style was not sufficiently plastic. Except on a

grand scale, and in a commanding position, with full command of

polychromy and of sculpture, the Greek portico seemed to him to lose its

original effect, and become flat and insipid.

He did not indeed suddenly relinquish the style which in his early days

he had regarded as the perfection of beauty and truth, nor did he fail

to show that he had really grasped the principles on which this truth

and beauty depended. In 1824 he built the Royal Institution of Fine Arts

at Manchester, an edifice of considerable size and importance. On this

building it was remarked, in the ‘Builder’ of May 19th, 1860, shortly

after his death,--“The building was of great importance, historically

speaking, and in the results which it produced. By contrast with the

pseudo-Greek, which was general in public buildings, and which in

Manchester had even degenerated from the time of Harrison, it presented

what was at once Greek derivatively, or Greco-Roman in details and

impress, and yet was work new or original--work of art and mind. The

portico, as a feature of architecture, was used and not spoiled; that

feature and remainder of the building were grouped together, whereas in

Greek of that day a portico was often tacked on to a many-windowed

façade; the staircase hall, grand in proportions within, and culminating

to a central feature of the exterior, was the forerunner of later

efforts of the kind by the same architect and by others.” And even after

he had given up the erection of buildings in the Greek style, it was

remarked, with great truth, that “his feeling for the subtle beauty of

Greek architecture never left him, and probably contributed in no slight

degree to give that air of finish and refinement to his works which so

greatly distinguished them.”

In 1831 he made a Greek design, of great massiveness and grandeur, for

the Birmingham Town Hall--a building which had the needful advantages of

scale and position.[32]

But with these exceptions, he did little in the style to which his early

studies had been given. Practical experience confirmed the doubts which

had already been suggested by theory; and he saw that Gothic and Italian

had the mastery of the field.[33]

His most important work of this period in the former style was St.

Peter’s Church at Brighton. The opportunity was considerable; the

competition exceedingly severe, and his victory was a subject of great

delight and encouragement to him. A hurried note to his wife announced,

August 4th, 1823, the day when the result was proclaimed, as the

“proudest day of his existence,” likely to be the “entrance on a

brilliant career.” Nor were these expectations altogether groundless.

The church was much admired at the time, not undeservedly, for it was a

decided step in advance, though the greater knowledge of Gothic in the

present day will hardly altogether endorse contemporary criticisms. He

himself in after days naturally felt dissatisfied with the faults of

detail and the mixture of styles admitted therein; and his architectural

conscience felt a strong and characteristic repugnance to the aisle

windows, on the ground that, being in one height, they sinned against

“truth” in giving no indication of the galleries within. But his

greatest cause of regret always was the absence of the spire, with a

view to which the tower was expressly designed. He did his best to fight

against the economical veto put on its erection, and always considered

that the want of it did much injustice to his first important Gothic

design.[34] But he had, on the whole, little reason to be dissatisfied.

The design showed a marked advance, as compared with those of the

earlier churches, and secured to him a good position in the ranks of

church architects.

The erection of this church opened a new field to him at Brighton.

Several minor works gave scope to his activity, and supplied welcome aid

to his exchequer. He built Brunswick Chapel for Dr. Everard, a gentleman

who appreciated his talents, and showed him very great kindness. Some

other chapels and dwelling-houses he built or altered; of the Sussex

County Hospital he designed the centre, to be at once erected as a

portion of a larger design. The first stone was laid by Lord Egremont in

March, 1826. Large additions were, however, made by other hands in the

shape of wings, which entirely altered the proportions of the whole

mass. He became also known to Lord Egremont in August, 1824, and was a

not unfrequent partaker of the generous hospitality of Petworth Castle.

For him he almost rebuilt Petworth Church in 1827, and added a new spire

to the restored building.

At this time he also became acquainted with Mr. Attree, a solicitor of

considerable eminence and influence in Brighton, who was, then and

afterwards, one of his sincerest friends. For him he undertook the

laying out of a considerable tract of land as a park, to be called the

Queen’s Park, and to be portioned out in villas--all designed in the

Italian style. Of such detached villa residences there was great

scarcity, and the scheme had every prospect of success. But the

co-operation of the owners of adjacent property could not be gained, and

in consequence no good access from the cliff was possible. Hence the

Queen’s Park has never been so well known and frequented, as from its

beautiful situation might have been expected. Only Mr. Attree’s house

was built, on the plan of an Italian villa, excellently adapted to

modern English requirements. Near it was a circular tower in the same

style, intended to cover a horizontal wind-wheel for raising water. The

work deserves notice as his earliest essay in the style in which he

first gained his fame, and which to the last (in spite of the

Gothicists) he maintained to be in some respects peculiarly fit for

mansions of the present day. Small as it was, it was designed with as

much care and finish as any of his larger works. In it for the first

time he had an opportunity of carrying out his ideas of “architectural

gardening,” as the house was set in a terrace-garden, with small

fountains and pretty loggie, after the Italian manner. It led indirectly

to a larger work of the same kind. The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland

(to whom he had been introduced at Holland House) saw it, and were

struck with the elegance and refinement of the design. From this

impression resulted his subsequent employment to carry out the greater

works at Trentham.

Meanwhile the church-building movement continued, and in that movement

he found much occupation. In 1826 he was employed by the Rev. Daniel

Wilson, Rector of Islington (afterwards Bishop of Calcutta), to erect

three churches in Islington--at Holloway, Ball’s Pond, and Cloudesley

Square. These were churches of considerable scale, and no small

expense;[35] but in them, as in so many other churches of the time,

little was effected compared with what could now be done for the same

sum. In 1829 he built a chapel and schools at Saffron Hill, London.

It was at this time only of his professional career that he was much

employed in the building of churches. The consequence is that, although

his churches were fully up to the mark of their period, they cannot take

their place among his important works, or be considered to form any

important step in architectural progress.

It was not merely that at this time Gothic detail and Gothic principles

of design were comparatively unknown. But church architecture, as such,

was only in the infancy of its revival, inasmuch as its symbolism was

neglected, and the true proportion and meaning of its various features

ill understood. Churches were regarded very much as “auditoria,” or

preaching-houses--for the sermon still usurped a pre-eminence obscuring

the other great elements of public worship. It was not wonderful that in

their design a want of power to enter into the true principles of

church architecture was often betrayed, either by slavish adoption of

that which was now meaningless, or by innovations which outraged the

whole harmony of its grand idea. The minds of men have since been

awakened to truer conceptions of the church and of its worship, and the

progress of thought is seen in that advance of art, which has left

behind the works of an earlier period. But architects, unlike other

artists, cannot destroy the crude conceptions, which are their steps

towards perfection.

Mr. Barry’s architectural career soon led him in another direction. This

was probably not a mere accident, for it may be doubted whether his mind

was such as to enter very deeply into the principles of church

architecture, or at any rate into the particular development which such

architecture has received. He himself felt strongly that the forms of

mediæval art, beautiful as they are, do not always adapt themselves

thoroughly to the needs of a service which is essentially one of “Common

Prayer.” Deep chancels, high rood-screens, and (in less degree) pillared

aisles, seemed to him to belong to the worship and institutions of the

past rather than the present. Time-honoured as they were, he would have

in some degree put them aside, and, accepting Gothic as the style for

church architecture, he would have preferred those forms of it, which

secured uninterrupted space, and gave a perfect sense of unity in the

congregation, even at the cost of sacrificing features beautiful in

themselves, and perhaps of interfering with the “dim religious light”

of impressiveness and solemnity.[36]