THE ECLECTIC REVIEW. MDCCCXLIII. JULY-DECEMBER. 11843 Φιλοσοφίαν δὲ οὐ τὴν Στωικὴν λέγω, οὐδὲ τὴν Πλατωνικὴν, ἢ τὴν Ἐπικου- NEW SERIES. VOL. XIV. LONDON. THOMAS WARD & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. W. OLIPHANT AND SON, EDINBURGH; JAMES ΜACLEHOSE, GLASGOW. THE ECLECTIC REVIEW FOR JULY, 1843. Art. 1. 1. The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, set forth in Two Lectures delivered at St. Marie's, Oscott. By A. Welby Pugin, Architect and Professor of Ecclesiastical Antiquities in that College. 4to. pp. 68. 1841. London: Weale. 2. Two Lectures on the Structure and Decorations of Churches. By the Rev. George Ayliffe Poole, M.A., Incumbent of St. James's Church, Leeds. [The Christian's Miscellany, No. I.] London: Rivingtons; Burns; and Houlston and Stoneman. Leeds: Green. VARIOUS causes have recently combined to extend the interest of architectural publications, and even to diffuse throughout the country a disposition to reproduce, in both public and private buildings, the forms in which our forefathers delighted. Among these causes, prominence may be given to two,-the church extension movement, and that mystic reverence for ancient forms and ordinances, which, never wholly extinguished in the established communion, has of late been so powerfully revived by the efforts of the Oxford tractarians. New churches are rising up in every part of the kingdom; and their erection has as naturally drawn public attention to the characteristics of ecclesiastical architecture, as the demand for them has, for a season, directed the study of architects themselves rather to the ecclesiastical than the general branch of their professional business, and to ecclesiastical rather than classical models. The clergy have, of course, been largely interested in this building movement; and possessing, as many of them do, from their station in society and. elaborate education, a highly-cultivated taste, it was to be expected that this would induce, as it certainly would qualify, them to master both the principles to be applied, and the details to be exemplified, in structures dependent on their patronage. As one of the fine arts, architecture possesses great interest, even as an abstract study, cultivated through the medium of books and drawings only; but this interest is much enhanced to those who have the opportunity of witnessing the gradual execution of ideas with which they were familiar, when as yet they had no expression but on paper, especially if these ideas were to any extent their own. We may be wrong, but cannot avoid ascribing to this interest of the clergy, the altered and certainly more appropriate characters of recent ecclesiastical structures in this country. The churches erected in the reign of Anne-all of them, if we mistake not, without exception, applications of Roman or civil architecture-will witness for the fashion prevalent in that age; and classical models of a somewhat better character continued to be followed even to our own, as the new church, Marylebone, that erected some years ago in Euston-square, and, to mention no others, those in Langham-place and Regent-street, sufficiently show. But a new era has at length arrived; the pointed, or Gothic architecture, as it is variously called, is now in vogue-a style admirable for the beauty and variety of its forms, its scientific adaptation of building materials, and above all, its exhaustless power over the imagination; although we must concede that it is in the church system of the middle ages-the system of the period when it was first fully developed, and which the Oxford tractarians would revive-that it finds its most elaborate expression, and, as a style, its most ample justification. Our readers will not suppose that we admire that system, because we are unable to withhold our admiration from edifices which, but for it, might never have existed. The most perfect examples of the style being produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and some of the most impressive features of them deriving their origin from ecclesiastical principles and usages which cease to satisfy the reason, wherever the pure light of Scripture has been appreciated, it must be allowed that, as the offspring of art, this style itself cannot be fairly criticised without considering the relation in which it stands to ancient errors and corruptions. Full æsthetic truth, therefore, requires that it should be so discussed; neither could justice be done in any other way to the literature of the subject. On the other hand, it may be said, that if the style in question be consistently applicable only to the principles and usages of the Roman and revived Anglican communions, it is to other religionists of no value-its art is meretricious-and the various associations it supplies to memory, taste, imagination, and feeling, only render it a more seductive snare. This is a subject which, though not unconsidered by us, it will not be necessary to discuss now. We shall, for the present, confine ourselves to some of the more limited topics which occur in the publications |