AND HIS SKETCH-BOOK.

3

certainty from the subjects of two of his drawings, the one a plan of the Church ofVaucelles, an abbey close to Honnecourt, the other a plan of the choir of theCathedral of Cambray.

Like most of the men of his time who pretended to knowledge or cultivation,our architect had travelled. “I have been in many lands,” he writes 0 ; adding,“ as this book shews.” Effectually, the book is an itinerary: his steps may betraced in it through France from north to east, and across the German empireto its extreme limits. Stopping at Laon , he sketches one of the towers of itscathedral, “ the most beautiful that the world contains d .” His careful studies ofthe architecture of the Cathedral of Rheims shew that he remained there a longtime. His passage by Meaux is attested by a plan of St. Stephen, and his visitto Chartres by a drawing of the great western rose-window of the cathedral. Inthe next place we find him before the west front of Lausanne Cathedral , makinga hurried sketch of the rose-window there. Lastly, his Album bears evidenceof a long residence in Hungary .

It is to be regretted that the manuscript of Wilars de Honecort contains solittle information concerning his own architectural works. In fact, there is butone composition distinctly claimed as his own, and he even shares the merit ofthat with a fellow-workman e . It is simply a plan for the presbytery of a churchof the largest class. The choir is circumscribed by a double aisle, with ninechapels radiating outwards, and alternately square and semicircular in plan f .“ Vlardus de Hunecort and Petrus de Corbeia contrived this presbiterium in adiscussion together.” There is no evidence to shew that it was ever actuallyerected.

For lack of direct proofs by which to place our Cambraisian artist amongst thegreat masters of construction of the thirteenth century, we must have recourse toinduction.

One of the allusions to his journey to Hungary is made upon occasion of asketch which he took at Rheims :—“ When I drew this I was under orders to goto Hungary g .” Why under orders, unless commissioned to work as an artist inhis profession ? His reputation must have been so thoroughly established as tohave extended to the confines of Europe ; and as it is improbable that an archi-tect would have been fetched from a distance of four hundred leagues for a trifling

' t’l. 17. not his inventions, but merely copies.—(W.)

■tjdd. f pj 28 . Corbie is a village in Picardy, near Amiens .

The care with which he explains that this is his e PI. 19.

Wn wor k seems to shew that the other drawings are

B 2