NOTABLE MEN OF WALES.

INIGO JONES.

The celebrated Inigo Jones is claimed by Wales as one of her most distinguished sons, yet no place in the Principality can boast of being the spot where first he saw the light, for he seems to have been by birth a Londoner, the son of Ignatius Jones, a cloth worker, and was born in the year 1572, in the immediate neighbourhood of St. Paul's Cathedral, close upon the site of one of his great works. His father is said to have been a native of Llanrwst, in Denbighshire, who had gone to London in quest of occupation, the manufacture of woollen cloths receiving at that period much encouragement from the Kings of England; even during the civil wars, this most valuable source of wealth throve and became firmly established. Of Inigo Jones's mother, that parent whose influence is often said. to determine the career of great men, there is no record to be found. Inigo's real Christian name was the Welsh one of Ynyr, which, when sent to Italy, he changed to the more euphonious Inigo, by which he has ever since been known. This name of Inigo is still preserved to the present day in the family which claims to be descended from the great architect. Little has unfortunately been preserved of young Jones's early history. He appears to have been apprenticed as a youth to a joiner, and to have soon attracted attention to himself by his fondness for drawing and designing, and for his skill in landscape painting, in preference to carpentering.

William Earl of Pembroke, one of the most powerful noblemen of the time, and who, besides taking a very active part in public affairs, both as a statesman and a soldier, had also a great taste for the fine arts, observing the talents of the subject of this sketch, sent him abroad for four years, with a handsome allowance, to study the masterpieces of art in France, Germany, and especially in Italy. Andrea Palladio, the renowned Italian architect (born at Vincenza in 1508, died 1586), was then in the zenith of his fame. Palladio had made drawings of the principal works of antiquity in Rome, and had published in 1570 a Treatise on Architecture. Inigo Jones became his disciple, and so distinguished himself by his abilities under this

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great master, that he was invited by King Christian IV. of Denmark to go to Copenhagen and to become his architect. Of the works on which Jones was there employed no account has been kept. Certain it is, however, that when James VI. of Scotland (James I. of England) went thither in 1593 to woo and win Ann of Denmark, he found Inigo Jones at the Danish Court, and he was afterwards taken back by the Scottish King and Queen to Great Britain.

In 1605 we find Inigo Jones employed by James I. in arranging and painting the scenery for the masques (as the plays of Ben Jonson were then called)-those magnificent spectacles which were at that time the chief amusement of the Court and nobility. Their production cost vast sums of money and took place under the special patronage of the King's consort, Ann of Denmark. Inigo was appointed architect to the Queen and to Prince Henry, whose death at the age of nineteen destroyed the hopes of his country. At the decease of this prince Inigo Jones revisited Italy to further improve his style; but he made no long stay there, and on his return to London he received the appointment of Surveyor-General of the Royal buildings, with a salary of eight shillings and fourpence a day, and an allowance of forty-six pounds a year for house rent, besides a clerk and incidental expenses. On succeeding to this office Inigo found it extremely in debt, and with a generosity worthy of the old Roman, whose works he had been studying in Italy, he gave up the profits of his office and persuaded the comptroller and paymaster to do the same till the debt was paid off. In 1619 Inigo Jones commenced the beautiful Banqueting House and Palace of Whitehall. The former, often considered his masterpiece, was finished in about two years, at a cost of seventeen thousand pounds; but it is only a small part of the grand design of the splendid edifice projected by the architect, the completion of which was prevented by want of funds owing to the extravagance of James I., and the misfortunes which befell his ill-fated son. In this beautiful Banqueting House, under James I. and his Danish Queen, were enacted the masques of Ben Jonson, with Inigo Jones to paint the scenes and invent the decorations, and Lanière and Ferabosco to compose the symphonies. There also Charles I. in his halcyon days dined with beauteous Henrietta Maria of France; and thither a few years later the same unfortunate monarch was led on his way to execution. Here Cromwell sat with his Parliament; and here after the Restoration the "Merry Monarch" danced with the fair and frail ladies of his Court. The Banqueting House is now a chapel, and a pulpit hides the spot where passed to the scaffold the ill-fated king. The ceiling of the Banqueting House was painted by Rubens in 1630, at a cost of three thousand pounds, at the command of Charles I., who also

knighted the great painter. The masonry was executed by Nicholas Stone, a famous statuary of that date, who died in 1647.

In the year 1620 King James employed Inigo Jones to investigate and examine the Druidical temple that exists near Wilton, on Salisbury Plain, and is known by the name of Stonehenge, and to try and discover its origin. Jones's ideas were all taken from his residence in classic Italy, and he therefore arrived at the extraordinary conclusion that Stonehenge was a Roman Temple! In the same year (1620) our architect received a much more important appointment, that of Commissioner for the Repair of St. Paul's Cathedral, the work on which was not commenced till 1633. King James I. died in the meanwhile in 1625, but his son and successor, Charles, early displayed a love of the fine arts, and a desire to encourage and patronise genius. William Laud, born at Reading in 1593, a man of great ability and ambition, after holding the Bishoprics of St. David's and of Bath and Wells, was at this time Bishop of London. One of Laud's first objects was the Restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, and he easily persuaded the good-natured King to interest himself in its adornment. Inigo Jones was now at the height of his renown, and was accounted the first architect in England. Funds for the restoration of St. Paul's flowed rapidly in, and the work commenced without delay. Bishop Laud himself contributed twelve hundred pounds, a large sum for those days, and laid the first stone of the new building, the fourth being laid by Inigo Jones. The King undertook to defray the expense of the grand Corinthian Portico, expressing himself much pleased with the plans presented by Inigo Jones. This portico, which the great architect appended to the old Gothic fabric of St. Paul's, was intended not merely as an ornament and completion of the Cathedral, but to be a sort of ambulatory or "Paul's walk" on the exterior, not the interior of the sacred building. Bishop Laud was desirous to reform some of the abuses to which the Cathedral had been put, for, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Charles I., the body or middle aisle of St. Paul's was the fashionable resort of lords, courtiers, gentry, and men of all professions, who met there at eleven o'clock and walked to and fro till twelve, and again after dinner from three to six, discoursing the news of the day and business matters. These loungers were called "Paul's walkers," or "Paul's men." Even more serious abuses bad crept into the sacred building, which was used like the Jewish temple of old, as a "place of money changers, and a den of thieves." "In the restoration of St. Paul's," writes Horace Walpole, "Inigo made two capital faults. He first renewed the sides with very bad Gothic, and then added a Roman portico, magnificent indeed, but which had no

affinity with the ancient parts that remained, and made the Gothic appear ten times heavier." Still, if some few were shocked at the incongruity of a splendid classic front before a Gothic Cathedral, the general impression was one of satisfaction and admiration. This beautiful portico was destroyed by the great fire in 1666. Evelyn, in his Diary, describes how he was "infinitely concerned to find that stately church now a sad ruin, and that beautiful portico (for structure comparable to any in Europe, as not long before repaired by the late King) now rent in pieces, flakes of vast stone split asunder, and nothing remaining entire but the inscription on the architrave, showing by whom it was built, which had not one letter of it defaced." The great architect of the portico had, however, died before the fire, and was thus spared seeing the destruction of one of his finest works.

The chapel at Somerset House was commenced by Inigo Jones in 1623, and intended for the use of the Infanta of Spain, whom King James was anxious to secure as the bride of his son. The front to the river of Somerset House, the Watergate, and the gate of York Stairs, were all from the designs of the same great artist. When the Spanish alliance was broken off, and the marriage of Charles I. with Henrietta Maria of France had taken place, Somerset House was set apart for the young Queen, and in its chapel she was allowed the free use of that Catholic religion which gave such offence to her husband's Protestant subjects. Here, too, Henrietta Maria entertained the King and his Court, and continued to have the masques and plays which owed their celebrity to the united genius of Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. A quarrel between the two composers, Ben and Inigo, threatened at one time to put a stop to these amusements. The cause of it was said to be the successful manner in which Inigo had painted a scene in Snowdonia of the Creigie 'r Eira. The scenery was more admired than the play, and this so excited the envy of Ben Jonson that he vented his anger in verses, which were as ill-natured and spiteful as they were ill-founded. Inigo's selection of these Welsh scenes, which he painted for the masque "For the Honor of Wales," is mentioned by Pennant as bearing some relation to the country from whence he may have derived his origin."

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One of the most admired of Inigo Jones's works is the Arcade of Covent Garden, or Convent Garden, as was its original name, from being the site of what was formerly a large garden belonging to the Abbey and Convent of Westminster. A market was first started there in 1634, and about the same time, Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, commissioned Inigo Jones to erect the piazzas on the north and east sides. It was originally intended to carry them round the whole square, but this was never done. The Church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, was built

also by Inigo Jones at the expense of the Earl of Bedford. Of this church Horace Walpole tells the following anecdote : "The Earl (of Bedford) sent for the great architect, and, telling him that he required a chapel for the parishioners who resided on his property, added that he intended to put himself to no considerable expense; in fact,' he said, 'I would not have it much better than a barn.' Then,' said Inigo Jones, you shall have the handsomest barn in London." This church was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1795. It has since been re-built, but no part of Jones's structure now exists.

But if the piazza of Covent Garden is one of the most admired of Inigo's works, Surgeons' Hall is considered the best. The United Company of Barber-Surgeons was a very ancient one, incorporated by King Edward IV. in 1461-2, and it was not till the reign of King Henry VIII. that the two occupations were regarded as distinct, nor till 1745 that by Act of Parliament they were finally separated. The Barber-Surgeons' Hall was built by Jones in 1636 on the site of an older building, but part of it was destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666. The most beautiful part of the Barber-Surgeons' Hall was the "Theatre of Anatomy," which was unfortunately pulled down by the Barbers on their separation from the Surgeons, and sold for the value of its materials. About this same period Inigo Jones laid out the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the space is said to cover nearly the same number of square feet as the great Pyramid of Egypt. The Earls of Lindsey had a house on one side of the square, called Lindsey House, built after a design of the great architect. The chapel at Lincoln's Inn, also from his plans, is not considered one of his best works, Inigo Jones never excelling in the Gothic style. The Church of St. Catherine Cree, or Christ (this name being added to distinguish it from other churches in London dedicated to St. Catherine), was rebuilt as it now stands in 1629 under Jones's direction. The interior is a strange mixture of Gothic and Corinthian architecture, but very picturesque in general effect. The Church of St. Alban's, Wood Street, was built in 1632, from designs by Inigo, but was destroyed, as were so many of his works in London, by the great fire in 1666. On the east side of Aldersgate Street stands Shaftesbury House, built by Inigo Jones, and with a fine front. This mansion is now converted into a general dispensary. Greenwich Palace, once a favourite resort of so many of our English Sovereigns, owed its beautiful Queen's House to Inigo's plans, and the first idea of the hospital is said to have been taken by one of his pupils, Webb, from his papers.

Amongst the many private residences built from the designs of Inigo Jones may be enumerated Cobham Hall, in Kent, a