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34 THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. [February to the honours which devolve upon it, extending even to the peerage, in which.it has founded so many great houses. Medicine is scarcely less cared for, as in one shape or another it has scarcely less at the present moment than a score of Sirs, many of them baronets, and since the commencement of the present century it has numbered more nearly half a handred than any lower number. The artists come next in number, their president is always knighted, and their several depart ments of painting, sculpture, architecture and engraving have nothing to complain of, having half a score knighthoods among them, six in the Royal Academy. We will now skim over some of the other classes which at different times in the last fifty years have been noticed, and of course in such a list, we must be guilty of many omissions. We find of astronomers and philosophers Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., G.C.B. and Privy Councillor, Sir W. Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Bart., Sir James Hall, Bart., Sir David Brewster, Sir John Robison, &c.; of che mists, Sir Humphry Davy, Bart.; of naturalists, Sir James Edward Smith, Sir William Jackson Hooker, &c.; of agriculturists, Sir John Sinclair, Bart.; of musicians, Sir George Smart, Sir John Stevenson, &c. Antiquaries have as heralds and keepers of records political op portunities of promotion, and accordingly come off pretty well, they number Sir Win. Woods, Sir W. Betham, Sir Harris Nicolas, Sir Nicolas Carlisle, Sir Henry Ellis, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, &c. Tra vellers and discovers also have a similar relation, and boast their Sir Edward Parry, C.B., Sir John Franklin, C.B., Sir John Ross, C.B., Sir Alexander Burnes, Sir James Alexander, &c. Literary men have not been so lucky, Sir Walter Scott’s baronetcy being their principal. We think we have thus run over a list which will satisfy any rea sonable man that affairs are not so badly offin old England, and that in the countiy where William Cobbett rose from the impasse of the army to share in the legislation of the greatest empire of the world, that there is something to be looked forward to by every man who lias talents to do good and diligence to exert them. We have thus defended our authorities from the general charge of neglecting scientific rewards, but we cannot so easily acquit them of indifference towards a profession which has the fairest claim upon their attention. The military engineers come in with the rest of the army, the naval engineers have had their Sir Robert Seppings, and Sir Edward Symonds, but the civil engineers have received only one knighthood, and that too conferred for what was considered an archi tectural labour. We think that the profession has just ground to com plain of this, they are rising in public estimation, possess good general rank, have performed most important public services, and yet have been passed over as to the most coveted reward. The Institute has received a royal charter, engineering is a recognized educational fa culty, for which a regius professorship has been founded, honorary degrees have been conferred upon its members, and the president has received a seat in the senate of the great university of the empire, so that certainly as far as qualification goes, there is not the least ground for this holding back of favour. Two years ago we had to complain of this, aud we are sorry to renew our murmurs now'. In other pro fessions there are certain defined offices, the holders of which generally receive honours, and we do not see why it should not be so with the engineers. The Presidents of the Royal Society have had a baronetcy, as also the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the President of the Linnaean Society, and the President of the Royal Academy knighthood. The government lawyers, medical men, painters, sculp tors, architects, musicians, heralds, naval engineers, &c., both in Eng land and Ireland are generally knighted, so that so far from a precedent being wanted, an omission only seems necessary to be supplied. If we look at our triumphant progress in railways, bridges, steam navi gation, &c., in which we are almost without rivals, we think that there can be no difficulty in selecting such of the authors of them as are fully deserving of anv honour the government can bestow. We think the President of the Institute, and the government engineer both in England and Ireland should always be knighted, and we think the same honour should be conferred on the most distinguished railway and marine engineers. James Watt has had more public statues erected to him than the Duke of Wellington. The nation has expressed its opinion, let its representatives confirm it. A Cornish engine lias been recently erected on the New Southwark Water Works, in the Battersea Fields, by Mr. W. West, and manufactured by Messrs. Harvey & Co., of Hayle f oundry, on the same principle as that erected by those gentlemen on the East London Water Works, at Old Ford, and described in the Journal. Her cylinder is 61 inch diameter, length of stroke 101 ft. in the cylinder, and 10 ft. in the pump, working a 32 inch plunger pole, with the patent valves by Messrs, Harvey & West, which are so constructed, and the operation so easy, that it would be difficult to per suade a common observer of the existence of a valve therein. CANDIDUS’S NOTE-BOOK. FASCICULUS XXIII. “ I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the winds, To blow on whom I please.” I. Speaking of Versailles, Theodore Hook says: “as to its extent, its galleries, its saloons and all that sort of thing, it is internally strik ing ; but any thing more hideously frightful as a building—speaking of it architecturally—never was seen. The front, as you approach it from Paris, is indescribably mean. The garden front is bald and grace less—the associations connected with it, and the splendour of its in ternal decorations may and do give it a palatial character: but it is an exceedingly ugly affair.” This criticism is not at sill too severe, for the exterior is in fact the very maximum of littleness,—so far miraculous as it shows that it is possible to contrive a building of great extent and enormous cost that shall nevertheless be altogether destitute of effect, and possess no more grandeur—that is, artistical grandeur and dignity, than a huge barrack of the same size. So far Versailles well deserves to be styled—as it has been before now, one of the wonders of the world. II. Among the qualifications usually insisted upon as requisite to an architect—of some of which, by the by, the necessity is not very apparent—we do not find enumerated the one which of all others would seem to be the most indispensable, that is, when we some to something more than mere building and construction, and consider architecture as a fine art. The qualification thus accidentally overlooked, as if it were the least important of any,—something which it is very well to possess, but which an architect can contrive to make shift without, is what for want of a definite term in our own language to express it, we must call “ Kunstsinn,” which word implies a good deal more than our English “ Taste.” It would seem that this and this alone distinguishes the architect from the builder—taking those names not in their pro fessional and technical meaning, but in the sense of artist, and non artist, or at best artist at second hand, a mere plodder who stands in the same degree of relationship to the other that a mechanical rhymer, a scribbler of Album verses does to a true poet, cui mens divinior. Heaven knows! it is not every one who confidently writes himself architect, that has legitimate pretensions, or indeed, any pretensions at all to such title, if it is to be taken in its nobler meaning. Which being the case, it is by no means very difficult to understand why so many of them affect to hold artistical talent in their profession so very cheap, treating it as something of an altogether secondary consideration. Nothing is more common than to hear such people exclaim “ O ! that is all mere matter of taste and opinion.” Most true, yet it is not every one who can distinguish between good and bad taste,—much less who is able to display superior taste in his own productions. It is true, taste is not absolutely indispensable on every occasion; never theless it is of paramount importance in edifices laying claim to be considered works of fine art, for in such case wanting Esthetic value, thev want what, in that character is most essential to them. So far therefore, there is a very material difference between being a most ex cellent builder and an accomplished architect—and master of the art: not that excellence in construction is no merit in itself, or one that may be dispensed with at pleasure, but it is one which is negative as far as the Esthetic value of an edifice is concerned. Health and strength of body do not constitute beauty : in themselves, indeed, they are more essential requisites, but still they are distinct qualities from the other, although they, to a certain extent, contribute to it. In like manner does good building—able construction contribute to the value of an architectural production, but it cannot be received as an equiva lent for Esthetic beauty, where this latter exists not, or perhaps, is most obviously and offensively deficient. This distinction between the Useful—the Necessary, and the Beautiful ought never to be lost sight of: least of all in these our mechanical, engineering times, when they are apt to be confounded together; and when it not unfrequently hap pens that mere utility and economy alone are considered all in all, and all-sufficient; and taste to be something which it is as well to have as not, provided it comes of itself, and can be had without trouble, but which is not worth any study or pains to secure it. III. Architects are somewhat unjust and inconsistent in depreciating a class of artists whom they themselves have called into existence, namely, those styling themselves Decorators ; for the latter would cer tainly not possess the control they now do, were it not that the others have, in a manner, surrendered up to them one entire and certainly very important province of their own art,—that one, in fact, where