The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is placed in the public domain.
Vol. II.—Entered accordingto Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by Samuel Sloan, in the Clerk’sOffice of the District Court of the United States, in and for theEastern District of Pennsylvania.
In a tolerantly critical notice of the Review recentlypublished in the Builder, we find an effort to substantiate acharge formerly made by it, and replied to by us, on the subject of“trickery” in the construction of the exteriors of American buildings.The Builder reiterates the charge and points to Grace Church, NewYork, in proof of the truth of it. That marble edifice, he avers, has awooden spire, crocketted, etc., painted in imitation of the material ofwhich the body of the church is constructed. Alas, we must acknowledgethe wood. And we will make a clean breast of it, and still fartheracknowledge that at the time that Grace Church was built, our land ofwooden nutmegs, and other notions, had not an architectural idea beyondthe wooden spire, and that our city and country churches, that aspiredat all, were forced to do so in the national material of the day. Thatsaid sundry spires of wood were of necessity, painted, is most true;and furthermore, white-lead being a great favorite with the peoplegenerally, [when our manners, customs, and tastes were more immaculatethan in these degenerate days of many colors,] that pigment wasthe ruling fashion. That the color of the marble, of which GraceChurch’s body is constructed, should be similar to that with whichsaid ecclesiastical edifice’s spire was coated, is unfortunate; but,that the resemblance goes to prove any attempt at a cheat, we moststrenuously deny. Grace Church is of a by-gone taste,—an architecturalera which we now look back to in order to see, by contrast, how farwe have advanced in architectural construction. Trinity Church, NewYork, was the first great effort at a stone spire which our Architectsventured to rear. And although hundreds have followed its lead, none inthis soaring republic have gone so near to heaven as that yet. But thething once effected is sure to be improved upon.
We are not at all abashed then, to own to the wooden spire painted toimitate stone, which crowns the steeple of old Grace Church, New York.And the less annoyance should it give our most sensitive feelings, when[Pg 66]we reflect that the dome of the great St. Paul’s,London, is no less a delusion and a cheat, it being of wood, coated with leadand painted on the outside, having a false dome on the inside, considerablysmaller than the external diameter would naturally lead the confidingobserver to expect. The body of St. Paul’s is of stone. Why, accordingto the requirements of the Builder, is not the dome, like that of thePantheon at Rome, likewise of stone?
Do we suppose, for an instant, that Sir Christopher Wren was guiltyof a deliberate cheat in so constructing it? Certainly not. He usedthe material which he considered best suited to his purpose and hismeans. And so we should, in charity, suppose did the Architect of GraceChurch, New York.
The Builder, like too many of our English cousins, who do us thehonor of a visit, falls into error in supposing that woo