IT has been objected to my predecessor, Mr. Brown, that he fancied himself an architect. The many good houses built under his direction, prove him to have been no mean proficient in an art, the practice of which he found, from experience, to be inseparable from landscape gardening: he had not early studied those necessary, but inferior branches of architecture, better known, perhaps, to the practical carpenter than to Palladio himself: yet, from his access to the principal palaces of this country, and his intercourse with men of genius and science, added to his natural quickness of perception, and his habitual correctness of observation, he became acquainted with the higher requisites of the art, relating to form, to proportion, to character, and, above all, to arrangement *.
*[Mr. Brown's fame as an architect seems to have been eclipsed by his celebrity as a landscape gardener, he being the only professor of one art, while he had many jealous competitors in the other. But when I consider the number of excellent works in architecture designed and executed by him, it becomes an act of injustice to his memory to record, that, if he was superior to all in what related to his own peculiar profession, he was inferior to none in what related to the comfort, convenience, taste, and propriety of design, in the several mansions and other buildings which he planned. Having occasionally visited and admired many of them, I was induced to make some inquiries concerning his works as an architect, and, with the permission of Mr. Holland, to whom, at his decease, he left his drawings, I insert the following list:- For the Earl of Coventry. Croome, house, offices, lodges, church, &c., 1751. The same. Spring Hill, a new place. Earl of Donegal. Fisherwick, house, offices, and bridge. Earl of Exeter. Burleigh, addition to the house, new offices, &c. Ralph Allen, Esq. near Bath, additional building, 1765. Lord Viscount Palmerston. Broadland, considerable additions. Lord Craven. Benham, a new house. Robert Drummond, Esq. Cadlands, a new house, offices, farm buildings, &c. Earl of Bute. Christ Church, a bathing-place. Paul Methuen, Esq. Corsham, the picture gallery, &c. Marquis of Stafford. Trentham Hall, considerable alterations. Earl of Newbury. House, offices, &c., 1762. Rowland Holt, Esq. Redgrave, large new house, 1765. Lord Willoughby de Broke. Compton, a new chapel. Marquis of Bute. Cardiff Castle, large additions. Earl Harcourt. Nuneham, alterations and new offices. Lord Clive. Clermont, a large new house. Earl of Warwick. Warwick Castle, added to the entrance. Lord Cobham. Stowe, several of the buildings in the garden. Lord Clifford. Ugbrooke, a new house. To this list Mr. Holland added: "I cannot be indifferent to the fame and character of so great a genius, and am only afraid lest, in giving the annexed account, I should not do him justice. No man that I ever met with understood so well what was necessary for the habitation of all ranks and degrees of society; no one disposed his offices so well, set his buildings on such good levels, designed such good rooms, or so well provided for the approach, for the drainage, and for the comfort and conveniences of every part of a place he was concerned in. This he did without ever having had one single difference or dispute with any of his employers. He left them pleased, and they remained so as long as he lived; and when he died, his friend, Lord Coventry, for whom he had done so much, raised a monument at Croome to his memory." Such is the testimony of one of the most eminent and experienced architects of the present time; and, in a letter to me from the Earl of Coventry, written at Spring Hill, his lordship thus mentions Mr. Brown:- "I certainly held him very high as an artist, and esteemed him as a most sincere friend. In spite of detraction, his works will ever speak for him. I write from a house which he built for me, which, without any pretension to architecture, is, perhaps, a model for every internal and domestic convenience. I may be partial to my place at Croome, which was entirely his creation, and, I believe, originally, as hopeless a spot as any in the island." I will conclude this tribute to the memory of my predecessor, by transcribing the last stanza of his epitaph, written by Mr. Mason, and which records, with more truth than most epitaphs, the private character of this truly great man:- "But know that more than genius slumbers here: Virtues were his which art's best powers transcend; Come, ye superior train, who these revere, And weep the Christian, husband, father, friend."]
