Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/120

 On 16 Nov. 1618 a commission was issued to the lord chamberlain, Jones, and others to reduce Lincoln's Inn Fields ‘to fair and goodly walks,’ ‘as by the said Inigo Jones is, or shall be, accordingly drawn by way of map or ground plot’ (, Fœdera, 1704–1732, xvii. 119). A prospect, painted in oil colours, of the fields, as they were designed to be laid out by Jones, is preserved at Wilton in Wiltshire. But the west side, known as Arch Row, alone appears to have been built under his direction (, Handbook for London, 1849, ii. 483). Lindsey House, built for Robert Bertie, earl of Lindsey, with its façade of stone and its piers of rubbed brick work, still remains in the centre of Arch Row, and fragments of Jones's brick houses, bearing the rose and fleur-de-lys of the king and queen on their stone pilasters, may still be traced on the western side, between the arch and the south corner. Colin Campbell, who published the draught of Lindsey House in the ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’ (i. 49, 50), states that Jones ‘designed it anno 1640.’

The banqueting house (Birch MS. 4174) at Whitehall was destroyed by fire 12 Jan. 1618–19, and Jones was ordered to design a new building for the same site. The first stone was laid 1 June 1619. The work was completed 31 March 1622, at a cost of 15,653l. 3s. 3d., after considerable delay caused by the desertion of the workmen (State Papers, Dom. cxvi. 69, and Hist. MSS. Comm. App. 4th Rep. p. 310). Jones intended this banqueting house, which still remains, to form part of an immense palace which was to take the place of old Whitehall. The design of the projected palace has been preserved in many drawings and prints, which differ somewhat from one another. One series of drawings, apparently by John Webb, is at Worcester College, Oxford; other drawings, many by Jones himself, are at Chatsworth, or in Sir John Soane's Museum. The palace, according to the more authentic designs, was to consist of seven courts, including the famous Persian or circular court, disposed upon a rectangular plan, and the existing banqueting house forms a lateral portion of the east side of the great central court. A figured drawing at Chatsworth shows the fronts towards Westminster and Charing Cross to extend to a length of 1,280 feet, those towards the river and St. James's Park to a length of 950 feet, and the great court to be set out upon a double square of 400 feet (cf., Rubens, 1859).

The single extant letter written by Jones records that he was a member of a commission (appointed in 1619, reconstituted in 1625, and continued till 1642) to control the plans of new houses with a view to reducing streets to uniformity (, Fœdera, 1704–1732, xvii. 143, xviii. 97; State Papers, Dom. passim, 1619–42; Hist. MSS. Comm. App. 5th Rep. pp. 38, 76). In 1620 James I while visiting the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton commanded Jones to investigate the history of Stonehenge. Webb found ‘some few undigested notes’ on the subject after Jones's death, and at the solicitation of Harvey the physician and of Selden issued in folio in 1655 ‘The most notable Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stoneheng, on Salisbury Plaine, restored by Inigo Jones, Esquire, Architect-Generall to the late King.’ Jones's theory was that Stonehenge was a Roman temple, which, ‘if not founded by Agricola,’ yet was erected ‘in the times somewhat after his government,’ and was dedicated to the god Cœlus, and he noticed in the monument a mixture of certain proportions proper to Corinthian and Tuscan work, together with the plainness and solidity of the latter order. Dr. Walter Charleton [q. v.], after corresponding on the subject with Olaus Wormius, the Danish antiquary, condemned Jones's theory in ‘Chorea Gigantum,’ 1663, and Webb replied in ‘A Vindication of Stone-Heng Restored’ (fol. 1665), which is chiefly valuable for its many references to Jones's biography. The three treatises were published together in folio in 1725, with a life of Jones prefixed.

Jones seems to have ‘lost reputation’ by his scenery for Jonson's ‘Christmas,’ the masque performed on Twelfth Night, 1617 (State Papers, Dom. Add. xcv. 10). But he was again employed on Ben Jonson's ‘Masque of Augurs’ (Twelfth Night, 1621–2), and he constructed for Jonson's ‘Time Vindicated,’ 19 Jan. 1622–3, a scene which was ‘three times changed during the time of the masque’ (Sir H. Herbert's office-book, quoted in, Annals of the State, i. 418). The poet omits in the printed copy all mention of the architect.

In the spring of 1623 Jones made ready, ‘with great costliness,’ two chapels at Denmark House and St. James's, among other preparations for the infanta (State Papers, Dom. cxliv. 11;, Vindication of Stone-Heng Restored, p. 123; , Life of Ussher, 1686, p. 89; Harl. MS. 5900, fol. 58). In June he and others arranged for the reception of the infanta at Southampton (State Papers, Dom. cxlvi. 85), and during his visit Jones was elected a burgess of the town (Hist. MSS. Comm. App. to 2nd Rep. pt. ii. p. 24). Jonson and Jones were again responsible for ‘Neptune's Triumph for the re-