JONES, INIGO, a celebrated architect, often but absurdly called "the English Palladio" was born in London in 1572. His father was a respectable cloth-worker in the neighbourhood of St Paul's. Little is known of Jones' early years. According to some accounts he was apprenticed to a joiner; according to others, he received a liberal education. This much is certain, however, that while still very young he exhibited a great turn for drawing. Some of his designs fell into the hands of William, Earl of Pembroke, who was so much pleased with them that he supplied the draughtsman with the means of prosecuting his art-studies abroad for three or four years. Thus provided, Jones travelled through France, Germany, and Italy, carefully examining the best specimens of ancient and modern architecture, and taking measurements and drawings of such as struck his fancy. His progress was of course slow, as every important building, or at least every style had to be studied separately. He had left home without any training for the art-world that now began to open up before him. The Grecian orders had been forgotten in England, if indeed they had ever been known there; and the Italian orders had never been introduced, except in fragmentary details. This though a misfortune for England was an advantage to Jones. The popular Tudor style had begun to fall into disrepute from the many corruptions that had crept into it, and no other had arisen to take its place. To the fact that Jones now stepped in and supplied a long-felt want he owed the fame which he enjoyed in his own life-time, as well as in succeeding ages, and his nick-name (for it is nothing more) of "the English Palladio." In 1604, on the invitation of Christian IV., Jones migrated from Italy to Denmark, and is said to have there furnished the plans for the two royal palaces of Rosenborg and Fredericksborg. These edifices are both still extant, and if they really are due to their reputed architect, merely confirm the idea of his mediocrity. Their
authenticity, however, is more than suspicious. In the following year Christian used his interest on Jones' behalf with his brother-in-law, James I. of England; and Jones on returning to his native country was kindly received at court. Besides being appointed architect to the Queen and Prince Henry, he was entrusted with the conduct of the masques, then a favourite court amusement. From the time, thought, and money, expended on these displays, they seem to have been little inferior in splendour to those magnificent fêtes afterwards given at Versailles by Louis XIV. Ben Jonson supplied the poetry; Jones the designs and decorations; skilful composers the music; while the royal family and the flower of the young nobles danced in the interludes. The best part of Jones' time was squandered on these shows, and accordingly none of his greater works can be referred to this period of his life. In 1612 he paid a second visit to Italy, and there learned the defects of the bastard style of mingled Greek and Gothic which his half-educated taste had led him too often to adopt. On his return home he was made surveyor-general of the royal buildings, and began to draw the designs for a new palace at Whitehall. The plans of the whole work, which is undoubtedly Jones' chef d'œuvre have been published along with many other of his drawings; but the only part of the proposed palace that was ever built is the Banqueting House. While the building was still in progress, Jones was commissioned by his royal patron to examine and report upon Stonehenge. He set about this task with a zeal far beyond its importance, and came to the startling conclusion that these vast and shapeless masses of stone were the ruins of a Roman temple. Posterity has only to regret that so much time and ingenuity should have been thrown away on such a solution of the mystery. Jones' next work was the restoration of old St Paul's. He renewed the sides with very bad Gothic, and completed his blunder with a splendid Corinthian portico. Both were much admired in their day, as were also his designs for the river-front of Somerset House. Not less bepraised were the arcade and church of St Paul, Covent Garden—"two structures," says Walpole, "of which I want taste to see the beauties. In the arcade there is nothing remarkable; the pilasters are as arrant and homely stripes as any plasterer could make. The barn-roof over the portico of the church strikes my eyes with as little idea of dignity and beauty as it would do if it covered nothing but a barn." With reference to the church Quatremer de Quincey, an upholder of Jones declares that the most memorable thing about it is the repute in which it is held. Surgeons' Hall, Lindsay House, Shaftesbury House, and many others both in London and the provinces, attest at once the fertility of their designer's pencil and the uncultivated taste of his employers. Scotland only boasts of two buildings in which Jones is said to have had a hand; these are, Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh, and Glamis Castle in Forfarshire. His claims to the first are now held to be apocryphal; and such repairs as he executed on the second, add little to his credit.
When the civil war broke out Jones clung faithfully to his royal master and his party. Besides being a courtier, he was also a Roman Catholic, and therefore doubly hateful to the victorious Parliamentarians. The heavy fines which he was forced to pay failed to shake his loyalty or his faith, and he died, heart-broken and poor, July 21, 1651, in his seventieth year. Many of his designs were published at intervals after his death by Kent, Colin Campbell, and Isaac Ware; and his Notes on Palladio were published in an edition of that architect's works in 1714.