Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/115

Rh P U L P U L 103 to learn the alphabet of his chosen style by careful and laborious study of the glorious examples of Gothic, botli ecclesiastical and domestic, in which England was then (far more than now) so extra- ordinarily rich. His i'ather was for many years engaged in prepar- ing a large series of works on the Gothic buildings of England, almost, if not quite, the first which were illustrated with accurate drawings of mediaeval buildings ; the early youth of A. W. Pugin was mostly occupied in making minute measured drawings for his father's books, and in this way his enthusiasm for Gothic art was first aroused. All through his life, both in England and during many visits to Germany and France, he continued to make, for his own instruction and pleasure, great numbers of drawings and sketches, especially in pen and ink, and with sepia monochrome. These are perhaps the most beautiful architectural sketches that have ever been produced, perfect in their delicacy and precision of touch, and masterpieces of skilful treatment of light and shade. They are mostly minute in scale, some almost microscopic in detail. Many of the Continental street scenes and interiors of cathedrals are of especial beauty from their contrasts of brilliant light and transparent shadow, 1 treated with Rembrandt-like vigour. At a very early age his wonderful mastery of Gothic detail was shown by the valuable aid he rendered to Sir Charles Barry in the con- struction of the new Houses of Parliament in 1836 and 1837. 2 For some time he worked as a paid clerk to Barry, and to Pugin is mainly due the very remarkable excellence of all the details in this great building, executed, it must be remembered, at a time when hitherto all examples of the revived Gothic were of the most ignor- ant and tasteless description. Pugin not only designed and even modelled a great part of the sculpture and other decorations of the building, but had actually to train a school of masons and carvers to carry out his designs with spirit and accuracy. 3 While still young Pugin became a Roman Catholic, and this, if possible, increased his intense zeal and enthusiasm for Gothic, or, as he preferred to call it, Christian architecture. His profession became to him a sort of religion, and his study of mediaeval build- ings was closely associated with his love for the mystic symbolism and the highly aesthetic outward form of the old faith. The result of this was that he was almost wholly employed by adherents of the Catholic religion. In one way this was a fortunate circumstance, for it saved him from the temptation of assisting in that great wave of falsification and vulgarization which, under the name of "restor- ation," has devastated the principal mediaeval buildings of Great Britain and Ireland. In another way it was unfortunate, for his Catholic employers were mostly much pinched for money, and at the same time so devoid of all sympathy for the principles of which he was the chief exponent, that they almost always insisted on the greatest possible amount of display being made in the cheapest possible manner. On account of this it is unfair to judge of Pugin's genius from a critical examination of his executed works. In almost every case his design was seriously injured, both by cutting down its carefully considered proportions and by introducing shams (above all things hateful to Pugin), such as plaster groining and even cast-iron carving. The cathedral of St George at Southwark, and even the church of the Jesuits in Farm Street, Berkeley Square, London, are melancholy instances of this. Thus his life was one series of disappointments ; no pecuniary success compensated him for the destruction of his best designs, as in him the man of busi- ness was thoroughly subordinate to the artist. He himself used to say that the only church he had ever executed with unalloyed satisfaction was the one at Ramsgate, which he not only designed but paid for. Pugin was very broad in his love for the mediaeval styles, but on the whole preferred what is really the most suited to modern requirements, namely, the Perpendicular of the 15th century, and this he employed in its simpler domestic form with much success both in his own house at Ramsgate and in the stately Adare Hall in Ireland, built for Lord Dunraven. The cathedral of Killarney and the chapel of the Benedictine monastery of Douai were perhaps the ecclesiastic buildings which were carried out with least deviation from Pugin's original conception. He was a skilful etcher and produced a number of works illus- trated in this way by his own hand, and written with much elo- buildings themselves, and being used simply like " cribs " to an un- known language, are partly accountable for numberless recent build- ings, which, while they are Gothic in forri, are utterly devoid of the refinement, fitness, and true taste displayed in the buildings of the Middle Ages. 1 Three volumes of photographs of these sketches have been pub- lished in a square octavo form, but have suffered from reduction in size. 2 A comparison of the decorations of the Houses of Parliament with other contemporary and even later Gothic buildings shows in a very striking way the remarkable talent and industry displayed by Pugin in the work. 3 A few years ago very ill-judged attempts were made to claim for Pugin the main credit of Barry's design claims which he himself would have been the last to raise. qnence, antiquarian knowledge, and even brilliant humour. This last gift is exemplified in a series of etched plates in his Contrasts : on one side is some noble structure of the Middle Ages, and on the other an example of the same building as erected in the 19th century. 4 His works on Chancel Screens and on The True Prin- ciples of Christian Architecture are very ably written and exquisitely illustrated. Pugin's melancholy and premature end was to a great extent caused by the embittering influence of the constant frustration of his noblest artistic struggles and conceptions. See Ben. Ferrey, Recollections of A. Welby Pugin and his Father, London, 1861. PULCI, LUIGI, Italian poet, was born at Florence on 3d December 1431 and died in 1487. The first edition of his Morgante Maggiore appeared at Venice in 1481. (See ITALY, vol. xiii. p. 507 sq.) PULGAR, FERNANDO DE, Spanish prose-writer of the latter part of the 15th century, born probably at Pulgar near Toledo, was brought up at the court of John II. Henry IV. made him one of his secretaries, and under Isabella he became a councillor of state, was charged with at least one mission to France, and in 1482 was appointed historiographer-royal. His official Chronicle of the reign of the Catholic sovereigns for the period previous to his appointment is loose and inaccurate ; but in the later portion, where he had the advantage of personal know- ledge, he is always precise and often graphic. It is not brought down beyond the year 1492. It was first printed at Valladolid in 1565 under the name of Antonio de Lebrija. Pulgar's Claros Varones de Castillo,, a series of sketches of forty-six of the most celebrated men of the reign and court of Henry IV., is of considerable interest both for its matter and for its style. He wrote, besides, a commentary on the ancient Coplas de Mingo Revulgo ; and thirty-two of his Letters written to various persons of emi- nence, including some to the queen, are also extant. The first edition of the Claros Varones was that of Seville (1500) ; some of the letters did not appear until 1528. PULKOWA. See OBSERVATORY, vol. xvii. p. 714. PULLEY. See MECHANICS and BLOCK MACHINERY. PULTENEY, WILLIAM, EARL OF BATH (1684-1764), a politician elevated by a living historian 5 into the import- ant position in history of the first leader of the opposition, was descended from an ancient family with a pedigree duly recorded in Nichols's History of Leicestershire (iv. 320). His father, William Pulteney, died in 1715, and the future statesman was the offspring of his first wife, Mary Floyd, and was born in 1684. As his grandfather had been inti- mately connected with the city of Westminster, the boy was sent to Westminster school and from it proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, acquiring in these institutions that deep classical knowledge which adorned his own speeches and enabled him to correct his great antagonist when he blun- dered in a quotation. On leaving Oxford he made the usual tour on the Continent. In 1705 he was brought into parliament by Henry Guy for the Yorkshire borough of Hedon, and at the death of that gentleman (a politician who had at one time held the office of secretary of the treasury) Pulteney inherited an estate of 500 a year and 40,000 in cash. This seat was held by him without a break until 1734, and though the family was then dispos- sessed for a time the supremacy was regained in the return of another Pulteney in 1739. Throughout the reign of Queen Anne William Pulteney played a prominent part in the struggles of the Whigs, and on the prosecution of Sacheverell he exerted himself with great zeal against that violent divine. When the victorious Tories sent his friend 4 Pugin's sense of humour was keener than is altogether convenient for a man of business ; on one occasion when a certain Catholic bishop wrote asking him to design a handsome church, which was to cost an absurdly small sum of money, he replied, " My lord, say thirty shillings more and have a tower and spire." 5 Justin M'Carthy, History of the Four Georges, vol. i. (1884).