Chapter 333

Strawberry Hill, August 24, 1789. (PAGE 435)

I shall heartily lament with you, Sir, the demolition of those beautiful chapels at Salisbury. I was scandalized long ago at the ruinous state in which they were indecently suffered to remain. It appears as strange, that, when a spirit of restoration and decoration has taken place, it should be mixed with barbarous innovation. As much as taste has improved, I do not believe that modern execution will equal our models. I am sorry that I can only regret, not prevent. I do not know the Bishop of Salisbury(666) even by Sight, and certainly have no credit to obstruct any of his plans. should I get sight of Mr. Wyatt, which is not easy to do, I will remonstrate against the intended alteration; but probably without success, as I do not suppose he has authority enough to interpose effectually: still I will try. It is an old complaint with me, Sir, that when families are extinct, chapters take the freedom of removing ancient monuments, and even of selling, over again the sites of such tombs. A scandalous, nay, dishonest abuse, and very unbecoming clergy! Is it creditable for divines to traffic for consecrated ground, and which the church had already sold? I do not wonder that magnificent monuments are out of fashion, when they are treated so disrespectfully. You, Sir, alone have placed several out of the reach of such a kind of simoniacal abuse; for to buy into the church, or to sell the church's land twice over, breathes a similar kind of spirit. Perhaps, as the subscription indicates taste, if some of the subscribers could be persuaded to object to the removal of the two beautiful chapels, as contrary to their view of beautifying, it might have good effect; or, if some letter were published in the papers against the destruction, as barbarous and the result of bad taste, it might divert the design. I zealously wish it were stopped, but I know none of the chapter or subscribers.(667)

(666) Dr. Shute Barrington; in 1791, translated to the see of Durham.-E.

(667) Much discussion on the subject of the injury done to Salisbury cathedral, here complained of by Walpole, took place in the Gentleman's Magazine for this and the following year. "This good," says the writer of a learned article on Cathedral Antiquities, in the Quarterly Review for 1825, "has arisen from the injury which was done at Salisbury, that in subsequent undertakings of the same kind, the architect has come to his work with Greater respect for the structures upon which he was employed, and a mind more embued with the principles of Gothic architecture."-E.