Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 13 No. 365 April 11 1829 by Various

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

Pennant says, "Inigo Jones built the back-front and water-gate about the year 1623;" but it may be questioned whether these were not the new buildings spoken of as having been previously raised by Anne of Denmark. Pennant likewise speaks of the chapel which was begun by Jones in the same year.

Inigo Jones died at Somerset House, July 21, 1651.

In 1659, the Commons resolved that Somerset House, with all its appurtenances, should be sold for the partial discharge of the great arrears due to the army; and Ludlow states, that it was sold for 10,000l. except the chapel; but the restoration of King Charles prevented the agreement from being fulfilled.

From a description about 1720, we learn that "the stately piles of new brick houses on both sides of Somerset House, much eclipse that palace." At the entrance from the Strand, "is a spacious square court, garnished on all sides with rows of freestone buildings, and at the front is a piazza, with stone pillars, and a pavement of freestone. Besides this court there are other larger ones, which are descended towards the river by spacious stairs of freestone. The outward beauty of this court appears by a view from the water, having a good front, and a most pleasant garden, which runs to the water side. More westward is a large yard adjoining to the Savoy, made use of for a coach-house and stables; at the bottom of which are stairs, much used by watermen, this being a noted place for landing and taking water at." The water gate was ornamented with the figures of Thames and Isis, and in the centre of the water-garden was a statue. The principal garden was a kind of raised terrace, in which there was a large basin, once dignified with a fountain. The ground was laid out in parterres, near the angles of which statues were placed; one of them, a Mercury, in brass, had been appraised, in 1649, at 500l.

In the year 1761, the second of his late majesty, Somerset House was settled on the queen consort, in the event of her surviving the king; but in April, 1775, in consequence of a royal message to Parliament, it was resolved, that "Buckingham House, now called the Queen's House," should be settled on her majesty in lieu of the former, which was to be vested in the king, his heirs and successors, "for the purpose of erecting and establishing certain public offices." An act was consequently passed in the same year, and shortly afterwards the building of the present stately pile was commenced under the superintendence of the late Sir William Chambers. Extensive, however, as the buildings are, the original plan has never been fully executed, and the eastern side is altogether unfinished. The splendour of the building is, however, shortly to be completed by the erection of another wing, to be appropriated as the King's College; and surveys have already been made for this purpose.

The print represents the original mansion, or, we should rather say, city of mansions, with its monastic chapel, and geometrical gardens, laid out in the trim style of our forefathers. The suite of state apartments in the principal front was very splendid, and previously to their being dismantled by Sir William Chambers, they exhibited a sorry scene of royal finery and attic taste. Mouldering walls and decayed furniture, broken casements, falling roofs, and long ranges of uninhabited and uninhabitable apartments, winding stairs, dark galleries, and long arcades--all combined to present to the mind in strong, though gloomy colours, a correct picture of the transitory nature of sublunary splendour.

In the distance of the print is the celebrated Strand maypole, although its situation there does not coincide with that marked out in more recent prints. The original of our Engraving is a scarce print, by Hollar, who died in 1677.

JERUSALEM.

City of God--thy palaces o'erthrown-- Thy nation branded--tribes o'er earth dispersed: Thy temple ruin'd, and thy glory fled,-- Speak of thy impious crimes, thy daring guilt, And tell a tale whose lines are traced in blood.

No more from hence ascends The sacrificial smoke; the priest no more Sheds blood of lambs, to expiate thy crimes-- Crimes foul as hell--crimes which the blood of Him, Who came from heaven to die for guilty man, Alone could purge,--and innocence impart. Here holy David tuned his harp to strains Sublime as those of angels, when he sung In dulcet melody the praise of Him Who should redeem from guilt the sons of man, And rescue who in Him believed from death-- That second death--of which the first is type. Here lived--here died--whom prophets long foretold, Whom angels worship and whom seraphs praise, The Son of God, mysterious God-Man: He was rejected by the Jew; and here-- To fill the awful measure of their guilt-- At noon, a deed was done, without a peer; A deed, unequalled since the world began, The masterpiece of sin, of crime the chief; At which the sun grew dark, earth's pillars shook, Chaotic gloom as erst o'erspread the land, And nature frowned at insults paid her God-- The crucifixion of His only Son.

Here now the banner of the prophet false, Unfolds its silken folds to taunt the Jew; The moslem minarets lift high their heads. And raise their summits in the placid sky-- As tho' to rouse from his deep lethargy The hardened Jew; to wrest from Paynim hordes The Holy City, once the abode of God.

S.J.

PARLIAMENTS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Or Wittenagemote, i.e. assembly of wise men.

In Edward the Third's time, an act of parliament, made in the reign of William the Conqueror, was pleaded in the case of the Abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, and judicially allowed by the court. Hence it appears that parliaments or general councils are coeval with the kingdom itself.

P.T.W.

FINE ARTS.

THE COLOSSEUM.

The legitimate name of Mr. Hornor's colossal edifice in the Regent's Park, we believe, was first set forth as the Gyr?rama, Girorama, Panopticon, or General View. The Catholic Church of Berlin, although diminutive in proportion to the Marylebone wonder, is, with the solitary exception of the Pantheon at Rome, the only structure, perhaps, that bears any resemblance to it in form and feature.

The porch, or, more properly speaking, the ?ropylaion, or fore-temple, is about the height of our Pantheon facade in Oxford Street; and the apex of the dome may probably correspond in elevation with the roof of that building. The whole effect, however, when viewed from the great square in front of the opera house at Berlin, is extremely pleasing; and, associating itself by general outline with the ideas of the grand prototype of the eternal city, derives a degree of importance which a minuter inspection would not confer. There are numerous churches in Berlin, but three only which lay claim to particular notice, St. Nicolas, the French Church, and the Catholic Church. The architecture of these is not pure in any single instance; it having been the prevailing taste of the period when they were erected to over-charge the building with ornament, and substitute one or more gorgeous embellishments as appendages to the design, for that chaste and elegant simplicity which is so essential a part of grandeur. Accordingly we find several of the largest ecclesiastical edifices, the site and contour of which would otherwise entitle them to distinction, disfigured by some overpowering frontispizio, and presenting a complication of decorative details which distort the outline, and, in spite of toilsome and finished sculpture, mar the truth and elegance of classic design.

There are seven doors surmounted by tablets of tolerably good sculpture from scriptural history, five in the front and two at the sides of the porch, the pediment of which rests on six columns of the Ionic order, and is enriched by alto relievos, illustrative of our Saviour's ministry, as also by marble statues representing the Virtues, &c. The entablature bears an inscription relative to the occasion and date of this building being erected in the last century. The interior is plain, and more conspicuous for an accumulation of dirt and dust than of ornament; the four-and-twenty Corinthian columns, however, which contribute their support to the dome are imposing in their appearance. The high altar and sacristy are constructed in a recess formed by the annexation of a small chancel to the rotunda. This church, built of freestone, stands in an angle of the Place des Gens d' Armes, immediately behind the great Salle des Spectacles or theatre, in one of the finest squares of Berlin. With the exception of a few small chapels, it is the only Catholic place of worship in that city, the religion of Prussia being chiefly Lutheran.

J.R.

HOGARTH.

Of this house, we have given an accurate Engraving at page 8 in the present volume.

Mr. Soane, the architect, upon hearing of the present condition of the pictures, said, that he in early life, while at Rome, knew that various attempts had been made for the purpose of removing oil paintings from walls, but without success, and expressed himself highly gratified at the result of the exertions of the persons who bought and removed them at no small risk and expense, viz. Mr. Lyon, 5, Apollo-buildings, East-street, Walworth, and Mr. H.E. Hall, a Leicestershire gentleman of great ingenuity; who have placed them for sale in the gallery of Mr. Penny, in Pall Mall.

A CONSTANT READER.

OLD POETS.

AMBITION.

Ambition is a vulture vile, That feedeth on the heart of pride, And finds no rest, when all is tried, For worlds cannot confine the one Th' other lists and bounds hath none And both subvert the mind, the state, Procure destruction, envy, hate.

S. DANIELL.

HEAVEN.

TH. STOKER.

DEATH.

Is't not God's deed whatever thing is done In heaven and earth? Did not he all create To die again? all ends that were begun; Their times in his eternal books of fate Are written sure, and have their certain date, Who then can strive with strong necessity, That holds the world in his still changing state? Or shun the death ordain'd by destiny, When hour of death is come, let none ask whence or why.

SPENSER.

FRAUD.

SIR J. HARRINGTON.

VIRTUE.

What one art thou thus in torn weeds yclad? Virtue, in price, whom ancient sages had-- Why poorly clad? for fading goods past care-- Why double fac'd? I mark each fortunes rare; This bridle, what? mind's rages to restrain-- Why bear you tools? I love to take great pain-- Why wings? I teach above the stars to fly-- Why tread your death? I only cannot die.

WYAT.

TEMPERANCE.

Of all God's works which doth this world adorn, There is none more fair and excellent Than is man's body, both for power and form, Whilst it is kept in sober government, But none than it more foul and indecent, Distempered through misrules and passions base, It grows a monster and incontinent, Doth lose his dignity and native grace.

SPENSER.

PLEASURE.

Never have unjust pleasures been complete In joys entire: but still fear kept the door. And held back something from that hell of sweet, To intersour unsure delights the more For never did all circumstances meet With those desires that were conceiv'd before, Something must still be left to cheer our sin, And give a touch of what should not have been.

DANIELL.

MAN.

He that compar'd man's body to a host Said that the hands were scouts discovering harms, The feet were horsemen thundering on the coast, The breast and stomach foemen, huge in swarms, But for the head in sovereignty did boast, It captain was, director of alarms, Whose rashness if it hazarded any ill, Not he alone, but all the host did spill.

MARKHAM.

SOLITARINESS.

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