ROMANTIC MOVEMENT FROM 1760 TO THE PRESENT DAY
Greek, the marked tendency in archeological publications to prefer
the Greek to the Roman, and there is, if not in Adam, in his contem-
porary James Stuart, "Athenian" Stuart (1713-88), the actual copy-
ing in earnest of complete Greek structures on Northern soil and the
putting up of Doric temples for Northern patrons. If this is not a
genuine Greek Revival, what is 2 But once again, if we forget about
associations and intentions and simply use our eyes, we see miniature
pavilions in Doric forms placed into landscape gardens—picturesque
pieces of garden furnishing. Such a Doric temple of Stuart's, e.g.,
graces the grounds at Hagley, near Birmingham, and close to it the
same owner put up at the same time a Gothic ruin as a keeper's
lodge and a rustic seat to the memory of Thomson of the Seasons.
The only difference between the Doric and the Gothic of Hagley
is that the one is tolerably correct and the other is not. The owner,
owing to his classical education, watched the one, but ct>uld not
watch the other. Architects too and even country builders knew by
1760 enough of the orders and the details of antiquity to be able to
reproduce a Pantheon en miniature or a half-broken Roman aque-
duct without too many blunders. But in the case of the earliest
Gothic Revival antiquarian knowledge was still scanty. Thus while
the result in the Greek and Roman copies tends to be somewhat dry,
the innumerable Gothic seats, hermits' cells, "umbrellos" and sham
ruins (fig. 95) are charmingly naive and lighthearted—a Gothic
Rococo, as Adam's was a classical Rococo.
To Horace "Walpole belongs the credit of having inspired and
commissioned the first complete country house in the Gothic style:
Strawberry Hill, near London, begun in 1747. Walpole was ahead
of his day in insisting on correct details, especially in his interiors,
where fireplaces or wall panelling were copied from engravings
after mediaeval tombs and screens. He evidently admired other
qualities in the Gothic style than we do. In letters of 1748 and 1750
he talks of "the charming venerable Gothic" and the **whimsical air
of novelty" which Gothic motifs give to contemporary buildings.
And charming and whimsical Strawberry Hill is indeed with its
thin, papery exterior work and the pretty gallery inside whose gilt
fan-vaults and tracery have mirrors set in as panels. This playful use
of Gothic forms is closer in spirit to Chippendale's Chinese furniture
than to Wordsworth's feelings at Tintern Abbey or to Victorian
Neo-Gothic churches. Walpole himself was against the fashion of
the Chinoiserie; but for a generalising view of the style of 1750 a
192