himself, we will not now venture to suggest. But in the present edifice, at least, we may look in vain for any confirmation of the sentiment of Cowper, that "Art thrives most Where commerce has enriched the busy coast: And stirs his own to match them, or excel." The High School, erected in Bedford street during the past year, is another exemplar of the worst taste.. Though it presents only one front to the eye, that towards the street, on which the architect has bestowed all the pretension of the building, it yet contains, in that one, nearly as many faults as it is possible, by any ingenuity, to collect in so small a space. The lower story is in rusticated work, which, when properly executed, is susceptible of a high degree of appropriate effect. But that which is here employed is copied from the manner of the vicious French school, — consisting only of shallow horizontal stripes, as meagre and unmeaning as they are offensively monotonous. They really contribute nothing towards the intended expression of solidity, having rather the effect of weak places in the masonry. The simple introduction of vertical joints, with a different tooling of the raised surface, admitting, as it does, great diversity of arrangement and distribution, would have produced a very different result, and changed the whole character of the basement, from utter tastelessness to characteristic and pleasing beauty. any door in the front, so that all entrance to it are entirely wanting. progress of its erection may indeed constructed in the sides; but to one who sees it for the first time, there is no evidence of any such fact; and we can conceive, that an intelligent foreigner would be sadly puzzled to find his way into the apparently impregnable stronghold. "Scamozzi," observes Sir William Chambers, "compares the door to the mouth of an animal, and as nature," says he, has placed the one in the middle of the face, so the architect ought to place the other in the middle of the front of the edifice; that being the most noble situation, the most majestic and convenient." But when it is left out of the design altogether, it is almost useless to pass a censure This edifice is also without visible means of obtaining Those who watched the know, that the doors are upon an example of so low a character. If an increased convenience in the plan be assigned as the reason for this strange proceeding, we are satisfied, that every person of common discernment will peremptorily disallow it. A considerable degree of inconvenience should be submitted to, before such a gross violation of rule is committed. Nor would this result have been inevitable; for, by a little painstaking and contrivance, the architect might have avoided any ill arrangement of the interior. Such flimsy excuses are becoming by far too common. "When the Devil can't swim,” says the old proverb, "he always lays the fault on the water." It is, at the best, but a very feeble apology for ignorance; and we insist, that the door should in all cases be placed in the principal front, though it only find a place in one corner of it, as in Mr. Barry's exquisite Traveller's Club House. Thus, the architect, though unable to conform exactly to recognized principles, shows, at least, that he entertains some little respect for them. "Si Non videtur meruisse laudem, culpâ caruisse." The windows of the principal floor are adorned with handsome facings; but this species of decoration is wholly omitted in the next, or highest story. We are presented, therefore, with a row of plain apertures, over windows properly executed in themselves, but thus thrown wholly out of keeping, and appearing quite foreign to the taste displayed in all the rest of the weak composition to which they are attached. A mixture of apertures with and without dressings, in the same façade, is one of the most glaring solecisms that can be committed. These blunders, however, are even surpassed by the highly original pediment, finished, as it is, in bold defiance of every recognized principle of building, and capping this small front with a perfect climax of absurdity. There is no horizontal entablature, but in its place, a profuse display of costly flourishes in granite, overhung by a bold, raking cornice, that appears in no way improved by its most unjustifiable divorce from its horizontal companion. In short, we believe, that there are very few offences, that can be committed against the simplest principia of architecture, which have been overlooked, or left out of this design, so that it seems to have been composed, not with any intention of conforming to rules, but by way of a pleasant defiance to all of them. Yet all the mouldings employed are savagely Grecian in profile, and even the contraction of the architraves to the windows is rigorously copied from Athenian examples. Where this excess of pretension exists on the one hand, it is natural to expect some little excellence of performance on the other; but we fear it will be found, that the present age stands not more apart from all others for the vain boasts of its architecture, than for its real and immeasurable inferiori ty. We have abundant reason to cry out against the defect of the prevailing system, when we find its consequent evil thus coming home upon ourselves. The front of the Tremont theatre was noticed in a fo mer number of this Journal,* as one of the best proportione and most agreeable structures in Boston. But since the publication of the article referred to, it has undergone a fearful change. The rusticated arcade of the lower story has been destroyed, the arched openings being filled in with long, straight blocks of stone, and the solid wall which flanked them, at the extremities of the façade, receiving a similar kind of treatment. This was done to adapt them to shop fronts, while the next or principal story has fared, if possible, somewhat worse. From the niches, where stood the statues of the tragic and comic Muses, statues, pedestals, and wall, have alike been pulled away, and the circularheaded spaces filled up with flaring glazed windows, divided into two lights by a floor cutting them across the middle. It can be imagined, how well these assimilate with the handsome, square-headed windows, which open in the central intercolumns. Five recessed panels next above these have also been opened and glazed, making a kind of mezzanine story, which could nowhere be more unsightly than in its present situation. The granite front, having begun to acquire a few picturesque tints from the action of the weather, has been scrubbed, and hammered, and pointed, until it looks like a staring geometrical drawing in an architect's portfolio. The interior has been barbarized into a lath and plaster hybrid of church and concert-hall, an ingenious reconciliation of God and Mammon which it remained for the liberal and enlightened nineteenth century to discover. The superb Corinthian columns, which formerly adorned the * See North American Review, Vol. XLIII., p. 364. VOL. LVIII. NO. 123. 50 the judges, "that it was the sense of the people, that the courts should not sit." "They thought themselves," says Minot, the historian of the insurrection, "they thought themselves to be a majority of the people, as some pretended, and so vested with a supreme power of altering whatever appeared to them to be wrong in the polity of the country." Washington was asked to use his great personal influence to stay the mad proceedings of the rebels. He replied: "You talk, my good Sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found; nor, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for these disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government, by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once." "Let the reins of government then be braced," he continued, "and held with a steady hand; and every violation of the constitution be reprehended. If defective, let it be amended; but not suffered to be trampled upon while it has existence." Mr. Madison, also, in a number of the "Federalist," alluding to this very rebellion, says: "At first view, it might not seem to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force, to subvert a government; and, consequently, that the federal interposition can never be required, but when it would be improper. But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice. Why may not illicit combinations for purposes of violence be formed as well by a majority of a State, especially of a small State, as by a majority of a county, or a district of the same State; and if the authority of the State ought, in the latter case, to protect the local magistracy, ought not the federal authority, in the former, to support the State authority?” At last, by great exertions on the part of the government and the well affected citizens, an army of four thousand men, under General Lincoln, was fitted out, and after a very severe campaign in the midst of winter, this dangerous insurrection was suppressed with but little loss of life. Not one *If our brethren in Rhode Island have had some cause to complain of the laxity and unfriendliness of the government of Massachusetts, in not affording them sufficient aid and countenance during the recent disturbances, we may refer them to the Shays rebellion, as showing the other side of the picture, and proving that they were not always very active in their of the rebels suffered capital punishment, though many had richly deserved that fate. We cannot dwell upon the history of the rebellion in Pennsylvania. There, too, a great majority of the people in the disaffected country were banded together in open opposition to the government and the laws. Their conduct was such, says Pitkin, "that no alternative was left, but either to surrender the government into the hands of the lawless and disobedient, or compel submission by military force." President Washington issued a proclamation, declaring "that the very existence of the government, and the fundamental principles of social order, are materially involved in the issue," and requiring the insurgents to disperse and retire to their homes. When this had no effect, by calling out the militia of the neighbouring States, he assembled a force of over twelve thousand men, and with its aid effectually quelled the insurrection. Mercy was again shown to the vanquished. But what chiefly distinguishes the rebellion in Rhode Island both from the one in Massachusetts, and from that in Pennsylvania, and which aggravates the criminality of the former in the highest degree, is the fact, that redress of the only grievances, of which the disaffected party complained, was offered to them in the incipient stages of their revolt, and was refused. They were permitted to vote, in February, 1842, upon the "Landholders' Constitution," which would have established a government in every respect unexceptionable, and they rejected it. For the first time, per duties towards us. After the main body of the insurgents was defeated and dispersed, parties of them took refuge in the neighbouring States, and continued to keep up the alarm and excitement in the border towns, by returning to Massachusetts from time to time, and resuming their former measures. Governor Bowdoin applied to the executive authorities of these States to put an end to such irregular proceedings, and to apprehend and deliver up the refugees. In most instances, the application was successful, but not in all. The historian Minot shall tell the rest. "But the authority of Rhode Island was far from taking steps to secure the fugitives from justice, who publicly resorted there. When a motion was made in their Assembly, upon the act of Massachusetts for apprehending the principals of the rebellion being read, that a law should be passed, requesting the Governor to issue a proclamation for apprehending them, if within that State, it was lost by a great majority; and one of the very refugees was allowed a seat within their chamber." Minot's History of he Insurrection. p. 152. "Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur." |