Stuart and Revett: Their Literary and Architectural CareersAuthor(s): Lesley LawrenceReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1938), pp. 128-146Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750086 .Accessed: 22/04/2012 05:04

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STUART AND REVETT: THEIR LITERARY AND ARCHITECTURAL CAREERS

By Lesley Lawrence

James Stuart and Nicholas Revett first became generally known in the artistic world through that survey of the ancient buildings of Greece and Pola upon which they were engaged from 1750 to 1755, and the results of which were afterwards published as the Antiquities of Athens. The "Proposal" of the scheme must have been fairly widely known, because it was published no less than four times before the appearance, in 1762, of the first volume of the work itself, three times in England, and once in Italy. (By Colonel George Gray in 1751, by Samuel Ball in 1752, by Dawkins and Wood at some slightly later date, in London; and by Consul Smith, in 1753, at Venicel). In this prospectus Stuart and Revett stated their intention of recording systematically what yet remained of the ancient monuments of Greece in the same way that "Rome, who borrowed her Arts, and frequently her Artificers, from Greece, has by means of Serlio, Palladio, Santo Bartoli, and other Ingenious men, preserved the memory of the most Excellent Sculptures, and Magnificent Edifices, which once adorned her," and doubted not "but a Work so much wanted will meet with the Approbation of all those Gentlemen, who are Lovers of Antiquity, or have a taste for what is Excellent in these Arts, as we are assured that those Artists, who aim at Perfection must be infinitely more pleased, and better instructed, the nearer they can draw their Examples, from the Fountain-head."2

From the first, therefore, the work was intended not only to attract antiquarians, but actually to influence current practice in building, and its conception was a perfectly logical development in that movement towards a purer architecture which had led Inigo Jones to seek inspiration in Palladio's designs, and Burlington to go back still further to Palladio's antique sources. So natural, indeed, did such a step seem, that after the Greek revival really got under way in the early nineteenth century, Stuart was hailed as the spiritual heir of Jones and Burlington, and acquired a posthumous fame which was probably greater than his contemporary one. Gwilt, in his Encyclopedia of Architecture, (first published 1842), says: "The chasteness and purity which the two last-named architects (Stuart and Revett) had, with some success, endeavoured to introduce into the buildings of England, and in which their zeal had enlisted many artists, had to contend against the opposite and vicious taste of Robert Adam, a fashionable architect whose eye had been ruined by the corruptions of the worst period of Roman Art." James Elmes, writing in the Civil Engineer in 1847, says that "no event that ever occurred in the history of architecture in England, and thence throughout all Europe, produced so sudden, decided and beneficial an effect as did the works of James Stuart."3 The fact that Josiah Taylor

1 James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, The Antiquities of Athens, Vol. I, note to preface.

2 Ibid.

3 James Elmes, "History of Architecture in Great Britain," in The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, I, 1847, p. 339-

128

STUART AND REVETT I29

thought it worth while to buy up whatever Stuart's descendants still possessed of his notes and drawings, and to issue them, in 1816, as a fourth volume of the Antiquities of Athens, shows that interest in his work must have grown rather than diminished. It is even probable that such an interest may earlier have suffered a lapse, for papers in the British Museum,1 connected with the preparation of this volume, show that its editor had considerable difficulty, and only partial success, in tracing Stuart's and Revett's careers, and was never able to compose a full list of their works. Stuart's posthumous son, Lieutenant James Stuart, the compiler of a manuscript memoir in the British Museum,2 implies, by an inscription of the fly-leaf of this work, that his father's memory had hitherto been insufficiently honoured : "When all jealousy shall have smouldered out," he writes, "then will 'the Athenian Stuart' receive the honour so justly his due." It may therefore be of some interest to attempt to disentangle the contemporary opinion of Stuart and Revett's work from the fame which followed on a later and more general adoption of their ideas, and to establish how far they deserved credit for the introduction of a purer architectural style.

The early careers, both of Stuart and Revett, are extremely obscure. Stuart went to Rome in 1741, Revett in 1742, and in the preface to the first volume of the Antiquities of Athens Stuart says they had "employed six or seven years in the study of painting" before hitting on the scheme of surveying Greece. Revett must, however, have put in a good deal of study as an architect, because it was he who carried out the measured drawings both for the Antiquities of Athens and for the Antiquities of Ionia published by the Dilettante Society, while the author of an article on Stuart in the Gentleman's Magazine of March 1788 says that "Mr. Revett was by profession an architect, and it was from him Mr. Stuart first caught the ideas of that science, in which (quitting the painter's art) he afterwards made so conspicuous a figure." Stuart, however, soon showed his antiquarian bent by the publication in Rome, in 1750, of his pamphlet: De Obelisco Casaris Augusti, and may possibly have acquired an early interest in classical archi- tecture during his employment in England under Louis Goupy, the fan- painter, who, Horace Walpole says, in his Anecdotes of Painting, "had attended Lord Burlington into Italy." Both Stuart and Revett were considered connoisseurs of painting, for Dr. Sleigh wrote to James Barry in 1765 : "I had the good fortune to be two or three times in the company of Mr. Stuart at Paris on his return home, and once to go over the Duke of Orleans' collection at the palais-royal with him, where his observations on those noble pictures gave me singular delight."3 A note-book of Stuart's in the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects contains numerous

1 British Museum, MS. Add. 22, 152. 2British Museum, MS. Add. 27, 576.

"James Stuart, surnamed Athenian, by his son Lieut. James Stuart, R. N., 1856." It appears that the memoir itself is the transcription of a draft used in the preparation of the fourth volume of the Athenian Antiquities. Lt. Stuart apparently

transcribed it, adding articles from the Gentleman's Magazine, etc. and various notes of his own, for the use of the publisher of a "Biographical Dictionary," which I have not yet identified.

3 The Works of James Barry Esq., I809, Vol. I, p. I8.

130 LESLEY LAWRENCE

remarks about painting, particularly that of Rubens. James Dawkins, Junior, in the postcript of a letter written to Josiah Taylor in 1815, says that "Mr. Revett was considered a very good judge of the hands of the different schools of Italian painting,"' so although there is no proof, it seems extremely likely that both Stuart and Revett supported themselves in Rome by acting as ciceroni to travelling Englishmen, and that it was in this way they came into contact with some at least of the distinguished patrons who financed their journey to Greece. It is known that they had met Dawkins and Wood, the explorers of Palmyra and Baalbec, and communicated the scheme to them, before renewing their acquaintance in Athens,2 and Stuart's work on the Obelisk is dedicated to Lord Malton, afterwards, as Lord Rockingham, his friend and patron in England.

The wide publication of the "Proposal" made something of a name for Stuart and Revett before the belated appearance of their book, and Winckelmann himself was awaiting the latter with some impatience in 176o when he wrote the preface to his "Observations on Ancient Architecture,"3 while in a letter to Volkmann, dated March 27th, 1761, he reported, incor- rectly, that the first volume was out but had not yet reached Rome. They were proposed as members of the Dilettante Society while still only on their way to Greece, and seem to have been given all possible help in their enterprise. They were protected by Sir James Porter, Ambassador at Constantinople and a member of the Society, and seem to have met with comparatively little hindrance from the inhabitants of Athens during their investigations, one gentleman even pulling down his house to give them a better view of the Tower of the Winds.4 Such contretemps as they describe, a quarrel with a Greek consul whom Stuart was "provoked" to knock down, Stuart's narrow escape from being murdered,5 and an outbreak of plague which forced them to leave Athens sooner than they meant, were incidents which the foresight of their friends could hardly have averted, and the account of their experiences reads very differently to those of some earlier travellers who had attempted to survey the Acropolis.6

On their return in 1755 James Dawkins again befriended them and seems to have taken both artists into his house in London,' but this can only have been up till 1757 at latest, for Dawkins died prematurely in that year. They continued, however, to prepare their work for publication, and made certain changes in the original scheme for which the reasons are not altogether clear. It was decided to alter the table of contents

1 British Museum, MS. Add. 22, 152. 2 Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra,

1753. Note to preface. 3 Anmerkungen fiber die Baukunst der Alten,

1762. "Vorbericht." * The Antiquities of Athens, Vol. I, p. I7. 5 "An Account of the Extraordinary Escape

of James Stewart Esq., commonly called Athenian Stewart, from being put to death by some Turks, in whose company he happened to be travelling. Communicated by Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore,

as related to his Lordship by Stewart him- self." European Magazine, November 1804-

6J. P. Babin, Relation de l'JEtat Prisent de la Ville d'Athines, 1674; Letter from Francis Vernon in Philosophical Transactions, April 24th, 1676; etc., etc. 7 Note on Revett by Josiah Taylor or Joseph Woods, editor of the fourth volume of the Antiquities of Athens. "Mr. Dawkins was his particular friend and patron-used to reside in Mr. D.-house also Stuart the same." British Museum, MS. Add., 22, 152.

STUART AND REVETT 131

published in the "Proposal," and to include in the first volume not the buildings of the Acropolis, but the smaller ones in the town. In the Advertisement to the second volume (dated 1787, but actually published after Stuart's death in 1788) Stuart says : "When Mr. Revett and I returned from Athens, and received Subscriptions for our first Volume, uncertain whether we should be encouraged to proceed further with this Work, we selected such Buildings for our proposed publication, as would exhibit specimens of the several kinds of Columns in use among the ancient Greeks; that, if, contrary to our wishes, nothing more should be demanded of us concerning Athens, those who honoured us with their Subscriptions, might find in it something interesting on the different Grecian modes of decorating Buildings." This seems to suggest the abandonment of the first intention radically to alter the contemporary style of major architecture, and the substitution of an attempt merely to enrich the stock of decorative motifs. In the meanwhile Stuart had bought out Revett, who, although his name appears on the title page of all four volumes, resigned his interest in the work before the publication even of the first.

Whatever may have been the reasons behind it, the change of plan must have profoundly affected the general influence of the Antiquities of Athens. This first volume (1762) simply did not contain the material for a Greek revival on a grand scale, and Winckelmann, while expressing disappointment at the triviality of its contents, suggests, for what it is worth, that it had met with small success even in England.1 It was therefore grossly untrue that "on the publication of the first volume, the knowledge of Grecian art burst upon the public in all its splendour,"2 for the second volume, illustrating the glories of the Acropolis itself, did not appear until after Stuart's death in 1788. In the meantime its effect had perhaps been anticipated by the publication, in the Antiquities of Ionia and in various works on Paestum,3 of several major examples of Greek architecture, while Le Roy's Les Ruines des plus beaux Monuments de la Grece (1758), so bitterly attacked by Stuart for its inaccuracy, had already given some idea of the greatest Athenian buildings.

Stuart, however, had other means of spreading some knowledge of Greek architecture. He contributed water-colour drawings of Athens to the exhibitions of the Free Society of Artists,4 and presumably did something of a trade in such things, for when James Barry came to London in 1764, Edmund Burke got him employment under Stuart in copying water-colours in oil.5 All the accounts show him to have been a sociable person, with a large circle of friends, and his conversation was perhaps in itself an inspira- tion, for Gandon, who knew him, says : "Stuart frankly acknowledged that the fine blue sky, the constant sunshine, with the bleaching of the stone and

1 Winckelmann to Heinrich Fuessli, 22nd Sept. 1764.

2 The Antiquities of Athens, Vol. IV, Preface. 3John Berkenhout, The Ruins of Pewstum

or Posidonia, I767. Thomas Major, Engraver to his Majesty, The Ruins of Pestum otherwise Posidonia, 1768.

4 Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists. 5 Works of James Barry, Vol. I, pp. 14

and 23. Many of Stuart's gouache drawings, from which the general views in the Antiquities of Athens were engraved, are preserved in the R.I.B.A Library. (P1. 22a)

132 LESLEY LAWRENCE marble to a pure white colour, combined with the exquisite beauty of the different existing remains of Grecian structures, combined to render their appearance truly impressive."' Yet these activities could promote neither the exact nor general knowledge of Greek art which his completed work contained, nor could his own designs in architecture be widely famed or imitated unless he published them. And Stuart, unlike many of the celebrated architects of his time, never troubled to publish his own works, a complete list of which was unobtainable twenty-five years or so after his death. It is recorded that, Lord Spencer's house at Wimbledon having been burnt down in 1783, the owner applied some time later to Stuart's widow for the drawings of the work he had done there, and that they were not forthcoming.2 Stuart's son resented the assertion, made in the fourth volume of the Antiquities of Athens, that he neglected his own designs, and attributed their disappearance to the carelessness or dishonesty of the relative who acted as guardian to Stuart's children.3 Lieutenant Stuart further says that the only possessions he himself inherited were miniature portraits of his father and mother, and two letters which he transcribes, while he remembers as a child playing among bales of paper, presumably Stuart's notes and drawings, which lay neglected in the stables of the house in Southampton Place, near Euston Square, where the family lived after Stuart's death.

In spite, however, of his son's defence, Stuart's dilatoriness and lack of method had been notorious long before this. The commissions he received as an architect seem to have been executed with reluctance and, in some cases, to have been completed by other hands. The work at Spencer House must have been one of his first large undertakings, because he is known to have begun work there before 1761," and yet, in 1765, Lord Villiers was writing to Lady Spencer : "I called upon Stuart the other morning; he said he was going to St. James's Place immediately and that he hoped the Bow Window would be finished this week, but I fancy he sometimes says the thing which is not, for I understood him that he had been several times there lately, and upon enquiry, I learnt of Ben, the porter, that he had never seen him since your ladyship was in town."5 This sort of thing is indeed typical of Stuart's relations with his patrons. In the extraordinary dearth of drawings and documents connected with his architectural activities almost the only fragments which have survived are records of his unsatis- factory behaviour. Mrs. Montagu, for whom he built 22 Portman Square (now Portman House) wrote an exasperated letter to Leonard Smelt in 178O complaining of the architect's failure to deliver designs to his workmen, his mendacity, and his carelessness over accounts. She observes, further,

1 The Life of James Gandon edited by T. J. Mulvany, I846, p. '99.

2 Letter from Elizabeth Anne Stuart (Stuart's daughter) to Josiah Taylor, 4th May I8I5. British Museum, MS. Add. 22, 152.

3 This man, according to the notes attached to the manuscript memoir in the British

Museum which has already been mentioned, was called Bayne, was the husband of Mrs. Stuart's sister, fell into profligate ways and was the boon companion of George Morland. 4 Earl Spencer, "Spencer House," Country Life, Vol. LX, p. 700.

5 Ibid.

STUART AND REVETT 133

that Sir Sampson Gideon had much the same trouble, for, she says, he "was obliged to take many precautions to prevent being imposed upon by the workmen whose bills he assented to."' The fullest history of Stuart's connection with any one building is a voluminous correspondence in the Public Record Office,2 in the course of which his clerk of the works at Greenwich accuses him of much the same faults as does Mrs. Montagu.

Stuart's biographers assert that he could have had as much employment as an architect as he wished, but that he preferred to live on the income he received from other sources. This perhaps was not so ample as they suggest, and the writer of the obituary notice in the Gentleman's Magazine was certainly wrong when he said that Stuart died possessed of a considerable fortune, for he obviously left his family in low circumstances. From 1758, however, until his death, he received ? 2oo a year as Surveyor to Greenwich Hospital; Thomas Anson, who died in 1772, left him an annuity of ? Ioo,3 and he must have received something from the office of Sergeant-painter in which, James Barry says, he succeeded Hogarth. It is not known that he did any work in this capacity but the post must have offered some advantages, since it was for financial reasons that Barry himself wished to obtain it on the death of Stuart.4 He evidently supplemented this income by fees for small jobs, many of which must be unrecorded. He made several designs for sculpture, in many cases executed by Scheemakers, designed Admiralty passes, two of which are in the Print Room of the British Museum, and medals for the Incorporated Society of Artists. He wrote one review, and presumably others, for the press,5 while a most entertaining pamphlet called Critical Observations on the Buildings and Improvements of London (1771) is attributed to him in the British Museum Catalogue. In these miscellaneous activities he shows himself at all times a mediocre artist, but he evidently found a varied life more congenial than steady architectural practice, and it is indeed probable that his patrons exploited his versatility. He was evidently regarded as a court of appeal in matters of taste, and Gavin Hamilton recommended Lord Shelborne to seek his advice in the designing of a library,6 while a correspondent of Mrs. Montagu's mentioned him in the same breath with Robert Adam and Capability Brown,' which suggests that he must have been something of a lion.

Stuart had always been the leading spirit in the production of the Antiquities of Athens, Revett, apparently, having devoted himself solely to the architectural drawings, and it was Stuart alone who received the nickname "Athenian." At first, however, their names were bracketed together, they were elected at the same time to the Society of Dilettanti, (although only Stuart achieved membership as well of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries), and were received together into Mr. Dawkins' house on

1 Reginald Blunt, Mrs. Montagu, QLueen of the Blues, Vol. II, p. 83.

2 Add. 65, I00. 3 Information given by Lord Lichfield to

whom I am also indebted for permission to photograph at Shugborough.

4 The Works of James Barry, Vol. I, p. 274. 5 "Review of Sir Joshua Reynolds' Fourth

Discourse in the Monthly Review for May 1772," mentioned by F. W. Hilles, The Literary Career of Sir Joshua Reynolds, p. 282.

6 Letters of Gavin Hamilton edited from the MSS. at Lansdowne House, 1879, p. 28. 7 Lord Bath to Mrs. Montagu, May 25th 1764 in R. Blunt, op. cit., I, p. Io2.

134 LESLEY LAWRENCE their return from Greece. Revett, however, seems to have dropped into relative obscurity very soon after he had severed his connection with Stuart, and the only part which the Dilettanti assigned to him in the production of the Antiquities of Ionia was the preparation of measured architectural drawings.' Chandler was responsible for the text, and Pars for the general views. Revett was absent from England from 1764 to 1766, on the expedition to Greece and Asia Minor which this enterprise entailed and comparatively little is heard of him again. He was probably engaged to some extent by the arrangement of the material for publication, for the first volume of the Antiquities of Ionia appeared in 1764, and the second not till 1797. Like Stuart, he may have had a good many irons in the fire, but there is no record, apparently, of his having received any official appointments. He designed tombs, however, for James Dawkins at Chipping Norton, and for Alexander Ballantyne, M. D., in Salisbury Cathedral,2 so it is probable that he received other commissions of this kind. The sole evidence about his works in architecture and sculpture seems to be a letter written in 1815 by James Dawkins,3 son of the purchaser of Standlynch, which was used by Josiah Taylor and Joseph Woods in the preparation of the memoir attached to the fourth volume of the Antiquities of Athens. Although Dawkins says he did other works than those enumerated these must presumably have been minor ones, for it seems unlikely that any important buildings should not only have escaped identification to-day, but have been unknown to the son of one of Revett's principal patrons only nine years after the artist's death.

Stuart's failure to complete more than one volume of the Antiquities of Athens during his lifetime, his refusal to build up a large architectural practice or to publish his own designs, the obscurity of Revett's career and the paucity of his buildings, makes it only too evident that whatever posterity might say about them, Stuart's and Revett's contemporary influence must have been a limited one. The evidence of their work is too scanty to be conclusive, but it seems certain that they owed their principal architectural commissions almost entirely to members of the Dilettante Society and their friends, or to acquaintances made in the first years of success. Lord Rockingham, who employed Stuart at Wentworth Woodhouse, Lord Spencer, for whom he decorated rooms at Wimbledon and in the Green Park, Lord Holdernesse whose house in Hertford Street (now Londonderry House) was largely decorated and perhaps completely designed by him, Thomas Anson and Lord Eardley, for whom he built important houses, were all members of the Society, and so was Admiral Anson, who procured him the Survey- orship at Greenwich Hospital. Mrs. Montagu had known him early in his career, and he probably owed her patronage in the first place to Lord Lyttleton, also a patron, who took Stuart to see her before 1758," and who, though not himself a Dilettante, was closely acquainted with Thomas Anson.

x Lionel Cust, History of the Society of Dilettanti, 1914, p. 82.

2 Tablet in South wall of Nave of Salis- bury Cathedral, design in white and grey marble, of no great distinction. The

inscription shows it was put up in 1783. 3 British Museum, MS. Add. 22, 152. 4 Arthur T. Bolton, "Hagley Park," Country

Life, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 524-

STUART AND REVETT 135

Through this circle too, Stuart probably made his connection with the Hardwicke family (for the first Earl was a great friend of Lord Lyttleton),V and received the commission from the second Earl to design his Father's tomb in the church, and a "Prospect House" since pulled down, in the grounds at Wimpole.2 Stuart may have had a wider clientdle for his designs for sculpture, for the Dictionary of the Architectural Publication Society mentions tombs by him in Westminster Abbey, Bristol Cathedral, and Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, while Mrs. Esdaile has kindly communicated a list which includes examples at Eastnor, Chiswick, Atherstone and Wimborne St. Giles, but for the present there is only space to consider his contribution to architecture.

The few of Revett's patrons that are known seem to have been drawn from much the same circle. He worked at West Wycombe Park for Lord Le Despencer, one of the founders of the Society, and at Standlynch (now Trafalgar) for Henry Dawkins, not himself a member, but brother of one of the most distinguished, the explorer of Palmyra. The connection with the Dawkins family was evidently a close one, as the list in the British Museum of papers lent by Revett's heirs for the preparation of the fourth volume of the Antiquities of Athens, includes mention of the Dawkins' family tree, and Revett moreover, designed the tomb of James Dawkins, father to the explorer of the same name, and to Henry, of Standlynch. Only Sir Lionel Lyde, for whom Revett designed the church at Ayot-St. Lawrence, appears to have been unconnected with the Dilettante Society, and very little seems to be known of him at all. He was, however, the first occupier of I Bedford Square,3 built by Leverton, and was therefore presumably something of a connoisseur in neo-classic architecture.

While the work of Stuart and Revett aroused the admiration of this comparatively small coterie, there are indications that in another quarter there was not only indifference but hostility to their ideas. It is not improbable that Piranesi was ultimately responsible for this, since his works, which were so immensely popular in England, contained much adverse criticism of Greek art, and many English architects in Rome must, besides, have come under his personal influence at a tender age. Chambers,4 Dance and Mylne5 at least are known to have been acquainted with him. As Winckelmann's work was still comparatively new, and as his conclusions, in any case, were based largely on Hellenistic and Greco-Roman examples, it is likely enough that Piranesi had very little idea of what Greek art was really like, but James Barry, perhaps rather characteristically, gives a baser reason for his criticism. "The dealers play into one another's hand," he says, "and he (Piranesi) has heaped together a great profusion of marbles of one sort or another, which he would be glad to sell; but as nobody will be ever likely to mistake them for Greek workmanship for a very obvious

1 Ibid., p. 526. 2 Christopher Hussey, "Wimpole Hall," Country Life, Vol. LXI, p. 812.

3 Christopher Hussey, "I, Bedford Square," Country Life, Vol. LXXI, p. I54.

4 Letter from Sir Wm. Chambers to

Edward Stevens I774 in Arthur Bolton, Portrait of Sir John Soane, pp. I0-12.

5 The R. I. B. A. Library has a long letter from Piranesi to Robert Mylne (Rome, I Nov. I76o), in which the former refers to Dance.

136 LESLEY LAWRENCE

reason, the reviving and carrying into extremes his old prejudices against the Greeks will be still the more grateful, should it contribute to facilitate the selling of his collection."'

James Paine, very likely, was echoing Piranesi, for whose work he expressed admiration on another page, when he observed that "if in consequence of modern travelling knowledge, convenience and propriety are to be sacrificed to the modes of the most despicable ruins of ancient Greece, it is greatly to be lamented."2 A more vehement and notorious attack on Greek architecture and its imitators was, however, the one contained in the third edition of Sir William Chambers' Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture, which was published in 1791. On the face of it, this onslaught seems harmless to Stuart and Revett themselves, for by the time it appeared Stuart was dead, and if Revett had not yet made his name and his fortune as an architect, he was never going to. Yet Chambers, as he says in the third edition,3 had intended to include his condemnation in the second, which had appeared in 1768, and certain papers in the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects prove that he had indeed formulated it at about this date.

These papers include complete drafts of two lectures "written for the use of the Royal Academy soon after its institution at a time when the indisposition of the Professor of Architecture (i.e. Chambers) rendered him unfit either to compose or deliver lectures." The first consists of general remarks on the science of architecture, but the second contains, in almost identical form, the famous passage incorporated into the third edition of the Treatise in which Chambers denies the Greeks the honour, even, of being the inventors of the orders, and says they did nothing which the Egyptians had not done before them. In the lecture, however, the work of Stuart and Revett is specifically attacked, and it may be of interest to insert some of the pithier phrases here, although the fact that Chambers, apparently, was too indignant adequately to punctuate his remarks, makes it difficult to quote them except in full. However, he says :

a General Outcry of Artists and Connoisseurs would perhaps bring even the Gothic Architecture into Vogue again, and might cheat us into a reverence for Attic Deformity, but the Opinions of two or three or half a dozen can have but little weight in a matter of this Nature, they might with equal Success oppose a Hottentot and a Baboon to the Apollo and the Gladiator as set up the Grecian architecture against the Roman the Ton in anything is not easily given and it would be as absurd to suppose that Monsieur or Mr. such a one should turn the torrent of Prejudice in any particular Branch of Art as it would be to imagine that a Peasant could set the Fashion of a dress

It hath afforded Occasion of Laughter to every intelligent Architect to see with what Pomp the Grecian antiquities have lately been ushered

1 The Works of James Barry, Vol. I, pp. I60o- I6I.

2 James Paine, Plans Elevations and Sections

of Noblemen and Gentlemen's Houses, 1767, p. ii, note.

3 Op. cit., p. 26. Cf. also below, p. i50.

STUART AND REVETT 137

into the World and what Encomiums have been lavished upon things that in Reality deserve little or no Notice

A few Remarks upon some of these celebrated Trifles may here be permitted they are not made with any invidious Design but merely to set them in a proper light, and with an Intent to undeceive such as have been led astray by fine words and elegant Publications.

The celebrated Lantern of Demosthenes or Choragic Monument of Lysicrates or the Temple of Hercules with all its other Names is in reality not quite so large as one of the Centry Boxes in Portman Square its Form and Proportions resemble those of a silver Tankard excepting that the Handle is wanting. Messrs. Steward and Ryvet have given twenty-six Plates of this Edifice well-drawn and well-engraved in which all its Parts are represented with the utmost Accuracy and from an Inscription upon the Architrave it appears that this Monument was erected in the Days of Alexander the Great when the Grecian arts were at the highest Pitch of Excellence so that we may look upon this Building as a Cryterion of the Grecian Taste in architecture when at its Utmost Perfection, which, as the learned Architect will perceive, bore a very exact Resemblance to the Taste of Boromini universally and justly esteemed the most licentious and Extravagant of all the modern Italians. The Royal Academy have no records to show whether these lectures

were ever delivered, but even if not, it seems unlikely that a man of Chambers' temper would have kept such views to himself, particularly as Stuart's hostility to the newly founded Academy' may have been the subject of a personal grievance.

So strong a prejudice against Greek art, probably originating in, and certainly supported by, so illustrious a figure as Piranesi, must have had a considerable effect upon the general success of Stuart and Revett's work, and it remains to be seen, from an analysis of their architecture, how far their rivals' criticisms were justified or refuted. It is, however, remarkable that Robert Adam, who perhaps owed more to Piranesi and the Romans than any artist of his time, shows no signs of having entered, on one side or the other, what appears to have been something of a controversy. In his "Works" he simply paid Stuart a generous tribute for his efforts "towards introducing the true style of antique decoration," and then did him the doubtful honour of absorbing his cherished Greek motifs into a style which was fundamentally the very antithesis of Stuart's ideals.

Stuart's architectural work, as at present known, from lists in the 4th volume of The Antiquities of Athens, Architectural Dictionary, etc. consists, firstly, of a few buildings designed as a whole by him : these are 45 Harley Street, 15 St. James's Square, the Infirmary at Greenwich Hospital, Belvedere, and 22 Portman Square. Secondly, the decoration of some rooms in houses built by other architects, as at Hagley Park, Spencer House, Wimbledon Park, Wentworth Woodhouse, Holdernesse House, and possibly Shugborough;

1 J. T. Smith, Nollekens and his Times, 1920, Vol. I, p. Io.

138 LESLEY LAWRENCE to this class also belongs Greenwich Hospital Chapel, which was reconditioned under his direction. Thirdly, the design of small ornamental buildings in the grounds of Hagley, Shugborough, and Wimpole. Most of these survive, in varying states of preservation, but 45, Harley Street, renumbered in 1866 as 89, has been pulled down and entirely rebuilt, Wimbledon Park was burnt in 1783, and the building at Wimpole removed when it became ruinous.

Although placed last in order of size and apparent importance, some examples in the third group were among the first of his works, and seem in some respects the most striking because their main structure is directly derived from Greek models. Their significance must not be over-estimated, since the architecture of garden building was, not unnaturally, far more experimental than that of major works, and a few imitations of Greek temples in the grounds of a few country houses do not make a Greek revival any more than the Pagoda at Kew makes a Chinese one. Neverthe- less, the distinguishing sign of neo-classic architecture is not the acknow- ledgment, but the quality, of imitation from the antique, and Stuart's garden buildings show in an exaggerated form that changing attitude towards classical models which marks the cleavage of the leading architectural style of the first half of the century from that of the second.

The first work of Stuart's that can be exactly dated is a small Doric temple which he built for Lord Lyttleton in the grounds of Hagley in I758.1 It does not appear to be an exact reproduction of any one Greek building, but as it is Doric hexastyle, with a column at each side of the cella entrance, behind the front colonnade, the Theseum probably inspired it. The order is a very fine Greek Doric, and Stuart has relied solely on the excellency of its proportions and the advantages of a magnificent site to create an effect which is really impressive, and indeed strangely reminiscent of Greece. This illusion may have been even stronger when the red sandstone of which the temple is built was covered over with the coat of stucco which the columns were roughened to receive, but which, except for a few traces on the more sheltered parts of the frieze, has now entirely disappeared.

After examining this very conscientious essay in the Greek style it is strange to find the paintings which Stuart did at about the same time in the house itself, of a style more akin to the contemporary French or Italian. He painted a centre-piece, representing Flora with Cupids, and four corner- pieces, representing the Seasons, to be inserted into a plaster ceiling of a delicate rococo type, designed by someone else and already in place.2 The composition of the Flora suggests that Stuart was hardly equal to designing on so large a scale, but the Seasons are charming of their kind, and show that his works were not always, as Horace Walpole describes the Wimbledon ones, "villainously painted."3

1 Lord Lyttleton to Mrs. Montagu, Oct. I758, quoted in Arthur T. Bolton, "Hagley Park," Country Life, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 528.

2 After the fire at Hagley in 1925, the centre piece, executed in oil on canvas, was so damaged that it had to be replaced by a

copy, but the "Seasons," which were in tempera, only had to be slightly restored. (Information received from Lord Cobham).

3 "A Closet ornamented and painted by Stuart-the ornament in a good antique taste. I. Hymen, the Allegro and Pen-

STUART AND REVETT 139 Stuart is known to have been employed at Spencer House (now the

Ladies' Army and Navy Club) before 1761, because Adam sketched a detail "for the Dressing-Room of Mr. Spencer's house by Mr. S.," which shows work had begun there before the owner became a peer in that year.' The house itself has been very fully described and illustrated in Country Life, which has also published an article on furniture designed by Stuart and now removed to Althorp.2 His work at Spencer House is all on the first floor, and consists of an ante-room, Lord Spencer's dressing-room, Lady Spencer's bedroom and dressing-room, the ball-room, and painted room. The smaller rooms are decorated in a very restrained manner, and the simple dado and cornice of the ante-room (now the card-room) show designs very similar to ones used at Londonderry House and 15 St. James's Square. The ball-room and Painted Room, however, are extremely magni- ficent productions, and in spite of the Greek type of detail, the whole character of the scheme rather suggests the inspiration of Rome. This effect may have been intentional, since a copy of the Aldobrandini Nuptials is inserted over the fireplace of the Painted Room.

At about the same time that he was working at Spencer House, Stuart was designing decorations for Lord Holdernesse at the house he had built in 176O in Hertford Street, and which now forms part of Londonderry House.3 The proof of Stuart's having worked here is contained in a sketch-book (in the print-room of the Victoria and Albert Museum), by John Carter, an architectural draughtsman born in 1748, who was probably employed in some subordinate capacity during the building of the house. His book is dated 1766, and contains several drawings of details, which he describes as being designed by Stuart at Holdernesse House. It is possible that Stuart himself was the architect, but this has not been proved, and in the reconstruction of the house in 1825, and the incorporation of another with it, much of his work must have been destroyed. The ceilings and cornices of the drawing-room, which now consists of two rooms knocked into one were evidently designed by him and the one at the southern end strongly resembles that of the board-room at 15 St. James's Square. The other end has a coved ceiling, of which the central part has a design in circles rather reminiscent of some of Adam's designs, and the cove an oddly naive and stiff arrangement of painted vases and trophies. An ante-room between the drawing-room and boudoir has a cornice with alternate rosettes and vases very similar to that already noted in the ante-room of Spencer House, and a ceiling indifferently painted in grisaille. The boudoir has a very elaborately gilt coved ceiling, the cove showing a coffered design reminiscent of the one in the 'office' at Belvedere and the library at Portman House. Even allowing for its present dinginess, the painted decoration

seroso, on the ceiling and in compartments, villainously painted." Quoted in Earl Spencer, "Spencer House," Country Life, Vol. LX, p. 7o01. The paintings, which, with some interior decorations, must also have been among Stuart's earlier com- missions, were destroyed when Wimble-

don Park was burnt down in 1783. 1 Ibid., p. 700. 2 Ibid., pp. 660, 698. M. J. "Furniture

designed by James Stuart at Althorp," Country Life, Vol. LXXVIII, p. 204.

3 Arthur Oswald, "Londonderry House," Country Life, Ioth July, 1937-

140 LESLEY LAWRENCE

appears never to have been equal in quality to the plaster-work, and, bearing in mind Stuart's paintings at Hagley, one hesitates to attribute these worse than mediocre designs to his own hand.

Another building, of about the same date, is the Infirmary at Greenwich, now the Royal Dreadnought Hospital, but this was evidently a purely utilitarian affair, which Stuart would automatically be called upon to design, in his capacity as official surveyor. This was built in 1763, and among Stuart's rare surviving architectural drawings are the front and rear ele- vations for it, preserved in the Library of the National Maritime Museum.

The first private house known to have been designed as a whole by Stuart, was Lichfield House, or 15 St. James's Square, begun probably soon after I763, when the old Lichfield House was pulled down, and substantially finished by 1766, when the owner, Thomas Anson, began to live in it.' The interior decoration was still incomplete in I771, and accounts in the possession of the Clerical, Medical and General Life Assu- rance Society, which now occupies the house, show that Bartoli, Biagio Rebecca, and .others were working there under James Wyatt in and after 1791. Only some of the rooms therefore were decorated by Stuart, but the drawing-room, or present board-room, must be substantially his work, and contains a fine marble mantelpiece (P1. 23a) echoed at Wentworth Wood- house2 and in the ball-room of Spencer House. The ceiling here strongly resembles the one at the south end of the drawing-room at Londonderry House, and it therefore seems probable that its main design is the work of Stuart, rather than of Wyatt, to whom it is sometimes attributed. The accounts, already referred to, include payments in i794 to Biagio Rebecca for the paintings of the ceiling, and to Cornelius Dixon for the decoration of the pilasters, but none for the plaster work, so Stuart may have completed the ceiling except for the painted panels, or left drawings which Wyatt followed. The two front rooms on the ground floor, which have now been knocked into one, have cornices very characteristic of Stuart's work, and a marble mantelpiece moved from one of these rooms into the 'Agency' (formerly the Library) is almost certainly his. The remaining decoration of the house seems more likely to have been Wyatt's, and the fine scagliola columns of the 'Agency' are shown by the accounts to have been supplied to his orders by Bartoli in 1791. The most remarkable feature of the house is the fagade, inspired by that of a Greek Ionic temple, and the only example of Stuart's demonstrating his theories in an important exterior design.

Soon after, or at the same time, that he had commissioned Stuart to plan his London house, Thomas Anson employed him to erect buildings in the park, and possibly to decorate some of the rooms in the house at Shugborough in Staffordshire. Family tradition attributes to him the design of the library and of the dining-room, but neither seems very characteristic of his style, and a room which more nearly suggests his handiwork is one on the first floor, screened at one end by columns, and having an admittedly not very distinctive dado motif which appears in several of Stuart's houses. The buildings in the park attributed to him in Neale's Seats (I82o, Vol. III),

1 A. I. Dasent, The History of St. James' Square, 1895, p. 283-

22

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a-Stuart, Arch of Hadrian. Athens. Gouache. Royal Institute of Brit. Arch., London (p. I31)

b-Arch of Hadrian, from the Antiquities of Athens, III, 3, Pl. 4. (p. I41)

c-Stuart, Shugborough, "Triumphal Arch" (p. 141)

d-Stuart, Shugborough, "Monument of Lysicrates" (p. 141)

e- Monument of Lysicrates, from the Antiquities of Athens, I, 4, P1. 3 (P. 141)

23

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STUART AND REVETT 141

are the Triumphal Arch, Monument of Lysicrates and Tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, while family tradition again credits him also with a small Doric temple, and, rather less plausibly, a mock ruin in the Roman style and the statue of a cat on a pedestal said to commemorate a pet of Admiral Anson's. The work at Shugborough was produced, according to Neale, after the death of the Admiral in 1762 had brought his elder brother increased wealth and enabled him to improve the family place. The Triumphal Arch was erected in 1764, and the other ornamental buildings presumably at about the same time.

The Doric temple, which it seems must have been one of Stuart's works, is somewhat similar to the one at Hagley, but lacks inspiration, and is far less impressive, both by reason of its site and its structure, than its predecessor. The Triumphal Arch is very closely derived from the design of Hadrian's Arch at Athens, and as in the temple at Hagley, he has shown too much respect for his model to sacrifice its true qualities to a meretricious pictures- queness (P1. 22a-c).1

In the reproduction of the Tower of the Winds, Stuart has also copied the original as closely as his materials would allow (P1. 25a, b). He could not, of course, with only brick and stucco at his disposal, reproduce the sculptured figures of the Winds, but in the porticoes, which are of stone, he has imitated exactly the rather curious capitals of his model, and the apsidal projection which contains the staircase preserves its ground plan. For the interior, naturally, Stuart was thrown on his own resources, and designed, on the first floor, a very graceful octagonal room, with an odd mixture of classical and rococo ornament in green, blue, white and gold (P1. 23e). The window- casings have been removed, and the marble mantelpiece transferred to the house, but, although in bad condition, with paint and plaster flaking off, the coffered ceiling, with its elaborate central feature, still remains. The monument of Lysicrates, a little way off, is carried out in wood and stucco, and every important feature is imitated except the frieze of sculptured figures (P1. 22d, e) and the square pedestal, which is shown in the engraving in his book, but which was not normally visible in the Athens of his day. The elaborate Corinthian capitals and roof ornaments were finely carved in wood, but are now unfortunately getting split and broken.

Another early commission of Stuart's was some work he did at Wentworth Woodhouse for Lord Rockingham. This included a marble mantelpiece similar in design to those in the ball-room and drawing-room respectively of Spencer House and 15 St. James's Square (P1. 23a), and some relief panels in the hall, which have been illustrated in Country Life.2 These must have been finished in 1768, because Arthur Young visited the house in that year, and noticed "very elegant relievos in pannels, from the designs of Mr. Stewart," but they cannot have been long in place then, because Young describes the hall as still unfinished.

Stuart does not appear to have received any important new commissions 1 The sculptured ornament, the urns, busts

and trophies commemorating the Admiral's career are said to have been executed by Scheemakers.

2 H. Avray Tipping, "Wentworth Wood- house," Country Life, Vol. LVI, pp. 513- 514.

142 LESLEY LAWRENCE

in the late sixties, and his next essay in architecture was perhaps the "Prospect House" at Wimpole, which is said to have been built about 1775, but soon to have become ruinous, and later to have been entirely removed.1 At about the same time, however, he was employed to design a large country house for Sir Sampson Gideon, afterwards Lord Eardley, at Belvedere, near Erith.2 The present house was built on the site of an older one bought in 1751 by Lord Eardley's father, who had added to it the elaborate 'gold drawing-room.' This room was left as an annexe to the east side of the new house, but has been considerably renovated at some later date, "gilded enrichments" having been added in the nineteenth century by Lord Saye and Sele.3

Stuart must have begun work at Belvedere at some time before 1776, for Symonds, in his Survey of Kent of that year, mentions that building was proceeding there and an engraving dated I7774 shows the exterior of the house complete with portico (P1. 24b). Mrs. Montagu, in the letter to Leonard Smelt already quoted, says that Stuart was building a house for Sir Sampson Gideon when he began hers, upon which work is known to have started in I777, so that both may have been on hand at the same time. It is impossible to say, from the present condition of the house, to how complete a stage Stuart brought the decoration. As Lord Eardley possessed a famous collection of pictures, which, according to Waagen, must have covered the walls of all the principal rooms, Stuart's work may have been confined mainly to the ceilings and mentelpieces. It is, however, evident, that the dining-room must once have been far more elaborately decorated, for Waagen, who visited Belvedere in I854 or 1857, describes "thirteen pictures by Angelica Kauffmann, let into the walls, and which, by their pleasing composition and cheerful colouring, have an agreeable effect."5 Of these only six now remain, so darkened with successive coats of varnish that they can only with caution be accepted as support of Waagen's attribution.6 Both the outer and main dining-rooms have mantelpieces which it is tempting to assign to Stuart (P1. 23b), particularly as the columns which flank one of them seem to be directly copied from those of the Erechtheum, while the ceiling, mantelpiece and cupboards of the 'office' (P1. 24a), the wrought-iron banisters and the decoration of the 'recreation room,' may also tentatively be attributed to him, in view of their resemblance to designs in other houses in which he is known to have worked.

Mrs. Montagu's house, 22, Portman Square, was perhaps the most celebrated of Stuart's achievements, and Horace Walpole was enthusiastic about it, at Adam's expense, when he dined there in 1782.' It was,

1 Christopher Hussey, "Wimpole Hall," Country Life, Vol. LXI, p. 812.

2 The Royal Alfred Home for Merchant Seamen now occupies it and I am greatly indebted to the House Governor of that Institution for permission to take photographs and for much general assistance.

3 Harris, The Parish of Erith in Ancient and Modern Times. (Copy in Erith Public Library).

4 Antiquarian Repertory, Vol. III, p. I80.

5 Dr. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in GreatBritain, 1857, P-275. (Supplementary Volume to "The Treasures of Art in Great Britain"). 6 It is of some interest to note that An- gelica's work at 22 Portman Square is not necessarily the only instance of her collabo- ration with Stuart.

7 Horace Walpole to William Mason, Feb. 14th, 1782.

24

a-Stuart, Belvedere, The Office (p. 142)

b-Stuart, Belvedere. South Front (p. 142)

c-Revett, Trafalgar. Drawing-Room (p. 142)

Reproduced by permission of the National Maritime Museum d-The Chapel, Greenwich Hospital (p. I43)

STUART AND REVETT 143

however, still unfinished at that time, since he commented on the absence of gilding, and it is now as elaborately gilt as any of Adam's creations. In spite of Walpole's praise for this "noble simple edifice," as he calls it, one cannot help feeling that Stuart.missed rather than seized a great oppor- tunity here. In proportion to the whole block the rooms seem small, and unduly cramped by the staircase, which occupies too much of the centre of the house. The hall is dignified, with its simple Ionic columns and half-columns, and there are good wrought-iron banisters identical with those at Belvedere. The doors and door-frames upstairs are beautifully designed, and the drawing-room has, at one end, a particularly fine screen of pale yellow scagliola columns (P1. 23d), with an arched central feature rather similar to one sketched by Carter at Londonderry House, in the notebook in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The ball-room, the principal room in the house, is not outstandingly successful; the barrel-vaulted ceiling gives a rather heavy effect, and the design of the inlaid scagliola mantelpiece is singularly clumsy. In some of the other rooms it is evident that Stuart, if indeed he completed them himself, was strongly influenced by Adam's work at 20, Portrnan Square, which was finished in the year Portman House was begun, and the decoration of the 'Reception Room' is only too evidently an echo of the 'Music-room' at No. 20. The exterior of the house is unin- teresting, but taken as a whole, the house is a very magnificent one, and, with Spencer House, contains the best preserved of Stuart's decorative work.'

What is usually accepted as one of the most complete and satisfactory of Stuart's buildings, is the Chapel at Greenwich Hospital (P1. 24d), but there is some question as to whether it may fairly be included among his works. The old Chapel was gutted by a fire in I779 and Stuart, in his capacity as surveyor, was required to reconstruct the interior. Differences at once arose between Stuart and his clerk of the works, Robert Mylne, an architect of considerable repute but "as hot as pepper and as proud as a lucifer."2 The Public Record Office has the very entertaining corres- pondence in which Mylne complains to the Board of Stuart's failure to make adequate drawings or to deliver them to the right quarter, and Stuart counter-attacks by accusing Mylne of undue precipitancy and an attempt to substitute his own designs. Whatever may have been the truth of the matter, the Board dismissed Mylne in 1782 and appointed in his place William Newton, the translator of Vitruvius, who had been acting as assistant to Stuart for the past six months. After this everything seems to have gone peaceably and on the Surveyor's death in 1788 Newton applied for permission to finish the work according to Stuart's designs, without interference from the newly appointed surveyor, Sir Robert Taylor.3 Some time after this, however, Newton attempted to assume credit for the whole design, and inserted a note in his Vitruvius, published in 1791, in which he says that owing to Stuart's infirmities he made all the drawings for the

1 The Ionic portico, which is a conspicuous feature of the front on the square, is not Stuart's, but a later addition. Cf. Frances Gerard, Angelica Kauffmann, 1892, P- 376.

2James Elmes, "History of Architecture in Great Britain," Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, Vol. X, p. 340.

3 Public Record Office, Add. 65, Io6.

144 LESLEY LAWRENCE

chapel, which was not completed until I790, and that "the only parts of the building in which Mr. Stuart had any share, were the ornaments of the ceiling, the frame of the altar-picture, and the balusters used in the two side galleries : these with the carving of some stone mouldings, taken from Greek examples in his "Antiquities of Athens," were all that he deter- mined." As Mylne says he received no drawings until after May 1782, and Newton had been appointed Stuart's assistant in February of that year, it may well be true that Newton supplied nearly all the drawings, but an architect of the Palladian school, who had moreover shown such a marked interest in Vitruvius, must have been strongly influenced by Stuart when he produced so developed a Neo-Greek conception. Whatever his part in it, this was apparently the last important work which Stuart undertook, whether or not it is true that he was as infirm by this time as Mylne and Newton made him out to be.

So far, only three of Revett's architectural commissions appear to be known, and the date of the most considerable is doubtful. James Dawkins, in the letter already mentioned, attributes to him the Eastern and Western porticoes, a small temple near the latter, the Temple of Flora, and the Temple on the Island, all at West Wycombe. The Western portico was built in any case after Lord Le Despencer became a peer in 1763, and is said to have been the last of his additions, while Thomas Daniell's series of views, painted in 1771, shows that the work at West Wycombe was completed by then.' It seems probable that the Western portico dates from after Revett's return in 1766 from his second expedition, and that this very magnificent Ionic colonnade is inspired by some of the examples of that order illustrated in the Antiquities of lonia (P1. 25c). The extent of Revett's debt to Greece, and its chastening effect upon his style may be appreciated by comparing the present portico with the design by Adam to which it was preferred.2 The eastern portico is more Roman in feeling, with the bold projection characteristic of the porches of Roman rather than of Greek temples (P1. 25d). The buildings in the garden are of less importance. The temple on the island, though its general appearance is delightful, is somewhat awkwardly planned, with the back end cut off abruptly square, and with its ill-defined capitals faintly suggestive of Egyptian ones. The Temple of Flora I have not seen, but the little building near the western portico strongly resembles the small pavilions flanking the colonnade of the church at Ayot-St. Lawrence, and is austere but rather nondescript in style.

Of Revett's work at Standlynch, now Trafalgar, near Salisbury, only the Eastern portico is specifically attributed to him. James Dawkins says he designed as well "the ceilings, chimney pieces and many internal decorations of that house." Woolfe and Gandon, in their Vitruvius Britan- nicus of I771, say that the portico, "together with some internal decorations,

1 Arthur Oswald, "Wycombe Park," Coun- try Life, Vol. LXXIII, p. 470.

2 Illustrated in Arthur T. Bolton, "West Wycombe," Country Life, Vol. XXXIX, p. 24.

25

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c-Revett, West Wycombe Park, West Portico (p. I44)

d-Revett, West Wycombe Park, East Portico (p. I44)

26

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STUART AND REVETT 145

have been lately added by Mr. Rivett," and Colt Hoare' mentions the two wings and portico as being added by Henry Dawkins in 1766, but ascribes only the portico to Revett. As the interior decoration of the main block, which was built by John Wood of Bath in 1733, appears mostly to be of the date of the structure, Revett's work must have been confined to the two wings. Of these, the south one was burnt out in 1888, but the north one has a hall with Doric columns, and a drawing-room with a plaster ceiling which may well be attributed to him (P1. 24c). Family tradition connects him with the building of the wings themselves, and it is indeed hard to believe that when he was doing so much work at the house he had no hand in their design; the windows, of a modified Palladian type, at the north and south ends, certainly seem in harmony with what is known of his style (P1. 23c).

The portico itself, however, remains by far the most important, as well as the best documented, of his work at Trafalgar. The closeness with which he followed antique models is shown in his imitation here of the presumably unfinished pillars of the Temple of Apollo at Delos, in which the fluting is begun only at top and bottom of the shaft (P1. 26b, c). The arrangement of the columns is, however, particularly happy, the projection of the four central ones giving an interest which he was to exploit again at Ayot-St. Lawrence.

This little church was built in 1778, and is therefore the latest of Revett's known architectural works, although he lived until 1804. It is the only complete building attributed to him, but in fact the treatment of the body of the church is somewhat perfunctory, and he seems to have given his chief attention to the portico and screen of columns (P1. 26a). Local gossip has it that Sir Lionel Lyde pulled down the parish church as he thought it would look more picturesque in a more ruinous condition, and that the bishop, discovering what he was at, induced him to build a new one. So that Revett's exclusive interest in the external effect of his building may have merely reflected that of his patron. Revett has repeated here the columns seen at Delos, and. although in the central portico he attempts a reconstruction of a Greek temple front, the flanking screens seem rather to recall the bare ruins of colonnades as he must so often have seen them.

This brief study of Stuart's and Revett's architectural works reveals these as neither numerous nor consistently first-rate. Except in one highly successful fa?ade at 15 St. James's Square, Stuart showed little enterprise in his adaptation of the Greek style to major buildings, and in other houses, such as Belvedere and 22 Portman Square, shows himself indeed a rather conservative architect, cleaving to the style of his less progressive contem- poraries such as Paine. It was only in minor ornamental buildings that he attempted actually to reproduce Greek monuments. In his interior decoration, however, the purity of the detail gives a distinctive quality which some of his contemporaries evidently valued, although he often appears

1 Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart., The Modern History of South Wiltshire (The Hundred of Downton, 1834).

146 LESLEY LAWRENCE

unresourceful and inflexible in his application of motifs. His style is marked by the use of a larger unit in design than the fashionable tendency indicated, and an avoidance of the flowing lines which Adam was popularizing. It is something of a problem whether the stiffness and heaviness of Stuart's manner are due to incapacity, to a failure to absorb what he had learnt into a coherent personal style, or to an innate respect for the essential artistic qualities of his models. One is tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt, for he seems, in his exterior work, resolutely to set his face against the merely picturesque attractions of what some of his contemporaries imagined was the classical style. The Triumphal Arch at Shugborough creates no illusion and completes no vista, but stands uncompromisingly on its own merits, while the temple at Hagley, much as it owes to its magnificent site, is in itself an accurate and honest reconstruction of the Doric order. Revett showed himself bolder in the external use of Greek models, but never, apparently, designed any complete building larger than the church at Ayot-St. Lawrence, and his architecture remains only as a Greek garnish to existing structures, so that, no more than Stuart, can he be said to have transformed the fashionable taste.

It is evident, from a consideration of Stuart's and Revett's literary and architectural careers, that both their theories and their practise can have had only a limited contemporary popularity. From the avidity with which the public seized on Adam's innovations, it seems that the times were ripe for acceptance of a new style, and that Stuart and Revett, who had a good start of Robert Adam, lacked the capacity rather than the opportunity to be leaders of fashion. They hardly, therefore, deserve the fulsome praise which some nineteenth century critics accorded to them as the makers of the Neo-Greek movement, but they are nevertheless entitled to honourable recognition for a genuine appreciation of the real qualities of Greek art, and a steady if limited ambition to reproduce them-an ambition which seemed especially praiseworthy when Adam's superficially more accom- plished classicism had degenerated, in the hands of such as Nash, into a purely scenic rendering of the more obvious features of the antique.

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Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1938), pp. 85-190Front MatterTranslation from the Ancients in Seventeenth-Century France [pp. 85-104]King Charles II's Own Fashion: An Episode in Anglo-French Relations 1666-1670 [pp. 105-115]The Revolution of History Painting [pp. 116-127]Stuart and Revett: Their Literary and Architectural Careers [pp. 128-146]Piranesi's "Parere su L'Architettura" [pp. 147-158]Monuments to 'Genius' in German Classicism [pp. 159-163]Hoffmannsthal's "Elektra". A Graeco-Freudian Myth [pp. 164-175]Miscellaneous NotesWieland's and Gluck's Versions of the "Alkestis" [pp. 176-177]God and Prince in Bach's Cantatas [pp. 178-182]"Borrowed Attitudes" in Reynolds and Hogarth [pp. 182-185]Shaftesbury as a Patron of Art [pp. 185-188]Domenico Guidi and French Classicism [pp. 188-190]