Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

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I have lived Mr Urban, 27 to see the range of monuments which lined the choir shut out by a wainscoting of stalls, in a style of Gothic which the members of the chapter now begin to be ashamed of, and overloaded with heavy galleries; and those tombs which could be seen only from the side ailes, [sic] shut up in wainscot presses. But this year has completed the plan, which, under pretence of giving uniformity to the building, by laying the Lady Chapel into the choir, already of a length adapted to every purpose, has removed the monuments from the chapel…I am sensible that the profession of the Antiquary is an object of the contempt and obloquy of modern connoisseurs; but I have the pleasure to inform you, Mr Urban, and you may proclaim it to the world at large, that what is doing to this fabric, and what be done away from it, shall live as long as printing or engraving can contribute to its immortality. 28 The subject of Gough’s fury was the alterations taking place under the auspices of the architect James Wyatt (1746-1813). The precise details of Wyatt’s interventions have been discussed elsewhere and will be described in more detail later. 29 What is significant about Gough’s letter in this context is the shift that it marked in the role of antiquary who now steps out, self-consciously, from the limited sphere assigned to him in late eighteenth-century culture. With Gough’s acknowledgement of the antiquary’s lowly status, both intellectually and socially inferior, like Foote’s Matthew Mite, to the ‘connoisseurs’, comes a refusal to accept such constraints. In attempting to intervene directly Gough was clearly aware that he was over-stepping the mark of what was considered proper to the antiquary but it was not his first excursion. He had floated the idea that antiquarian knowledge might be applied in such a way the year before in another letter to the Gentleman’s Magazine that has been described as ‘perhaps the most neglected milestone of the early Gothic Revival, and the first coherent preservationist manifesto’. 30 In it he suggested that instead of being content, or at least resigned, to recording monuments the antiquary should take positive steps to preserve them. It was ‘a critical moment of transformation’ in the perception of historic buildings, arguably in the perception of history itself. 31 Gough hoped that if the custodians and owners of buildings were better informed about them they might desist 27 ‘Sylvanus Urban’ was the editorial pseudonym. 28 Gentleman’s Magazine, 59, (1789), p. 873 29 Most importantly in Buchanan, ‘“Wyatt the Destroyer ”: a vandal at Salisbury Cathedral?’ 30 Frew, ‘Richard Gough, James Wyatt, and Late eighteenth-century Preservation’, p. 367. 31 Buchanan, ‘“Wyatt the Destroyer”: a vandal at Salisbury Cathedral?’, p. 123. 42
from altering them in ways destructive to the historic fabric and he proposed a system for doing it. I think the Society of Antiquaries might be of great use in this behalf. An opinion of theirs, laid before the owners of antiquities, would certainly be heard in many instances, and would tend greatly to the preservation of those objects which it is the business of the Society to explore and explain. 32 With this suggestion its director unwittingly set the Society on a collision course with some of the most energetic and effective of its members. As he predicted Gough attracted ‘contempt and obloquy’. It was not long before ‘An Enthusiastic Admirer of Salisbury Cathedral’, who was almost certainly William Dodsworth, 33 one of the cathedral vergers and a keen supporter of the latest interventions, wrote in to contradict him at length. 34 The row rumbled on but it was only in 1797 that matters came to a head. By then Wyatt had, to the dismay of Gough and others, worked his way through Lichfield and Hereford cathedrals and was busy at Durham, where John Carter was campaigning to stop him from demolishing the twelfth-century Galilee porch. Wyatt had also recently reported on Ely. He was now the clergy’s favourite architect. As Charles Eastlake reflected ruefully: ‘Artistic reputation has a rapidly accumulative quality. Everybody had employed him and therefore everybody continued to do so.’ 35 Wyatt was also Surveyor General to George III, who was patron of the Society of Antiquaries. In 1797 Wyatt was proposed for membership of the Society. To the fury and astonishment of his sponsors, led by the Earl of Leicester, Carter and his allies blackballed Wyatt. The King was insulted, the Society embarrassed. Knowing that Wyatt would be proposed again, John Milner one of the opponents, wrote a paper outlining the reasons why he believed the Surveyor General should not be elected and submitted it to the Society who promptly confiscated it. They refused either to let Milner read it or to 32 Gentleman’s Magazine, 57, (1788) pp.689-691. 33 This plausible suggestion is made in Buchanan, ‘“Wyatt the Destroyer”: a vandal at Salisbury Cathedral?’, p. 127. 34 Gentleman’s Magazine, 59, (1789), pp.1064-6. 35 Eastlake, A History of the Gothic Revival, p.93. 43
Page 1 and 2: Antiquaries in the Age of Romantici
Page 3 and 4: Abstract The thesis concentrates on
Page 5 and 6: List of Illustrations 1 The Antiqua
Page 7 and 8: Acknowledgements I would like to th
Page 9 and 10: Definitions Chapter One Don Quixote
Page 11 and 12: It was a change of emphasis that wa
Page 13 and 14: e but a Crosse or stone footstool i
Page 15 and 16: embankment or fortification. Perhap
Page 17 and 18: part of the understanding of the pa
Page 19 and 20: classical antiquity, was increasing
Page 21 and 22: e performed in historic costume.
Page 23 and 24: transformation. The eccentric, obse
Page 25 and 26: But wad ye see him in his glee, For
Page 27 and 28: interesting to him and his readers
Page 29 and 30: actor Charles Kemble on historic co
Page 31 and 32: considered view of Noviomagus, that
Page 33 and 34: eplaying the episode in The Antiqua
Page 35 and 36: Chapter Two ‘To stones a moral li
Page 37 and 38: Within architectural history there
Page 39 and 40: workings of this little commonweal
Page 41: Salisbury Cathedral and Wyatt ‘th
Page 45 and 46: philosophy of the Picturesque which
Page 47 and 48: about his protests at Salisbury, a
Page 49 and 50: within Milner’s position’. 51 H
Page 51 and 52: about Gothic architecture and its m
Page 53 and 54: Figure 10 St Peter's Chapel, Winche
Page 55 and 56: In addition to his Dissertation and
Page 57 and 58: Bright and cheerful mornings are no
Page 59 and 60: unning battle between the proprieto
Page 61 and 62: It constitutes at once a beautiful
Page 63 and 64: face amidst solemn azure and fleecy
Page 65 and 66: Britton could not resist pointing o
Page 67 and 68: Figure 16 Salisbury Cathedral from
Page 69 and 70: Secretary he addressed the third se
Page 71 and 72: measured details of medieval buildi
Page 73 and 74: exhortations to accuracy and appeal
Page 75 and 76: Some years later in 1840, when he w
Page 77 and 78: Figure 18 Toddington Manor, Glouces
Page 79 and 80: study of the last forty years’ of
Page 81 and 82: towards academic architectural hist
Page 83 and 84: expensive and elaborate.’ 170 Tha
Page 85 and 86: a small doorway in the south east c
Page 87 and 88: Her criticism of Michelangelo’s L
Page 89 and 90: The iconography of the east end of
Page 91 and 92: a church was a symbolic building, a
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Willis became the first academic an
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its annual congress that he began t
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admired, however. His lack of inter
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Chapter Three Revolution to Restora
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at least one French scholar. 5 Ther
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centered on the Louvre as it was tr
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Norman troubadour manuscripts of th
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est, for the Tapestry remained inac
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des Monumens Français. They were n
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esult, albeit unintentional, was th
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calculated to produce effect & to i
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not survive for long. It was disman
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strewn with debris, was Lenoir’s
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heroes and demigods of Greece and R
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tower, surmounted by, or rather end
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made, not at the time depicted. Sin
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The British in Normandy: architectu
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Dawson Turner could set out the sam
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You remember how admirably the Lay
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historic buildings were either put
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and equal administration of the law
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‘veritable épopée de notre âge
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Scott’s complicit audience that t
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details seriously. Delacroix was am
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Costume balls were wildly popular b
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1830s, however, the exploration of
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chapter that Hugo omitted from the
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to the past, the abstract argument
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occasions he wove fiction and narra
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[The dead, wrapped in their shrouds
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Figure 34 Frontispiece to Langlois
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gouffre qu’on appelle Angleterre,
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The demolition of Les Andelys was r
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It has been suggested that the effe
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shaking the long branches of the wi
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C’est ainsi que peu à peu, se d
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imagination will reveal the hidden
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layer of dark stain to make it look
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novels and poetry; the sporran of R
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emarkable Stonehenge Cabinet that B
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close to accidental satire. The jux
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With the Sobieski Stuart brothers,
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inaccurate. 34 What they themselves
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novels a real manuscript is describ
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Figure 40 Charles Edward Stuart, ca
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the gold, the armour and blazonry,
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and its contents. He began work on
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equire his text in order to be able
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chassis couvert de papier en lambea
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A most extraordinary place, looking
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fragments and objects not only into
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the Blessed Virgin and the four Lat
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domestic culture, more people than
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Chapter Five ‘Nothing but a Popis
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The first part of this chapter will
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surrender my crozier into the hands
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Milner’s relationship with histor
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which Edward designed, was Gothic.
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From sacred emblem of the division
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evealed to him increasingly his dis
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prying eyes of his household; and w
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so dangerous’. 41 In a very simil
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view of the Reformation, had caused
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e-discovery and presentation of his
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oyal regalia. It was only in the lo
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Figure 42 The Honours of Scotland,
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Prebble points out, was just about
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First saw them from the window; two
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An article he sent to Mac Millans M
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and the exhibition at the British M
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order to satisfy the taste of a lat
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Illustrations of Shakspeare and its
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could be earlier and that the title
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his own particular ‘fairy system
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Figure 47 Douce's illustrations of
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Although Field demanded that his or
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manners and habits’ to fill the l
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It discovered King John dressed as
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Not surprisingly perhaps this ambit
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novelist, the painter, and the acto
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from meretricious commercial produc
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Kenilworth, the novel in which Shak
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Sir Walter has found out... that th
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had created monuments for Garrick
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The more I look at it the more I fe
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Their infinite variety. 130 It conj
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Figure 50 Shakespeare's monument at
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attempt at an antiquarian excavatio
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I was not prepared to see it look s
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It was in 1849, when Brunel’s Sha
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While Alexandrina Buchanan is certa
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to have no acknowledged part. 11 Th
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Britton, John, An Address from John
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Gunn, William, BD, An Inquiry into
Page 281 and 282:
Pugin, A.W.N., Collected Letters, e
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Auberbach, Jeffrey A., The Great Ex
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Couve de Murville, M. N. L., John M
Page 287 and 288:
_____ ‘Stitched Up: Eliza Stothar
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_____ Richard Parkes Bonington, The
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Strong, Roy, And when did you last
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Appendix John Britton (1771-1857) T
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were published posthumously. His ma
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foundation of the British Archaeolo
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distinction in the universities, Wi
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