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

unning battle between the proprietors, who wanted the usual hack compilation of ‘fine
seats, picturesque scenery &c’ copied from secondary sources, 88 and the authors who
were increasingly convinced of the ‘necessity of visiting places, in order to describe
them, and of studying and analysing every account’. 89 They were also determined to
include the ‘antiquities’. Eventually Britton left the Beauties to produce his own series of
Architectural Antiquities (1805-14), returning to the Beauties only when his editor was
dead. As he did not scruple to point out his sense of the market was justified and the
Beauties, with their breadth and depth were ‘singularly successful’. 90 The attempt to
chronicle every county in this way was not repeated until Pevsner began on the Buildings
of England. Britton’s last major series was The Cathedral Antiquities (1814-35), which
was a great critical success and, eventually, a financial one.
A brief comparison, among the dozens of volumes Britton produced, of two of
his treatments of Salisbury cathedral, that touchstone for the antiquarian debate of the
period, serves to show how much ground he covered intellectually, how circumspect he
was obliged to be personally and how thoroughly the Picturesque continued to permeate
his ideas. Both accounts appeared in 1814, one in the Wiltshire volume of the Beauties,
Britton having returned to the series as it neared its end, and the other constituting the
first part of the Cathedral Antiquities. The passage in the Beauties is, naturally, shorter
and was undoubtedly written some considerable time before. The plate that illustrates it
dates from 1811 and the text probably dates from before 1805, the year Britton quit the
project. It presents the cathedral in its topographical context, embedded in the description
of Salisbury ‘Or NEW SARUM...a City of peculiar interest and importance, in the
topographical annals of this county and of England’. 91 More than twice as much space is
given to the monuments as to the building itself which is described briefly and
unsystematically with much emphasis on the height of the spire and details of the modern
stained glass. These are the concerns of the passing tourist rather than the serious
antiquarian visitor. Most telling of Britton’s still uncertain ideas, is the way in which the
88
Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales, 1, p. xxxvi.
89
Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales, 1, p. xxxv.
90
Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales, 1, p. xxxvii.
91
Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales, 21, p.97.
59