(Inigo), a celebrated English architect, was the son of a cloth-worker of London, and was born in 1572. He was at first put apprentice to a joiner; but early distinguished himself by his inclination to drawing or designing, and was particularly taken notice of for his skill in landscape-painting. This afterwards recommended him to the favour of William earl of Pembroke, who sent him abroad with a handsome allowance in order to perfect himself in that branch. He was no sooner at Rome, than he found himself in his proper sphere: he felt that nature had not formed him to decorate cabinets, but to design palaces. He dropt the pencil and conceived Whitehall. In the state of Venice he saw the works of Palladio, and learned how beautiful taste may be exerted on a less theatre than the capital of an empire. How his abilities distinguished themselves in a spot where they certainly had no opportunity to act, we are not told; though it would not be the least curious part of his history; certain it is, that, on the strength of his reputation at Venice, Christian IV. invited him to Denmark, and appointed him his architect; but on what buildings he was employed in that country, we are yet to learn. James I. found him at Copenhagen, and queen Ann took him in the quality of her architect to Scotland. He served prince Henry in the same capacity, and the place of surveyor-general of the works was granted to him in reversion. On the death of that prince, with whom at least all his lamented qualities did not die, Jones travelled once more into Italy, and, assisted by ripeness of judgment, perfected his taste. To the interval between these voyages Mr Walpole is inclined to assign those buildings of Inigo, which are less pure, and border too much upon the bastard style, which one may call king James's gothic. Inigo's designs of that period are not gothic, but have a littleness of parts, and a weight of ornaments, with which the revival of the Grecian taste was encumbered, and which he shook off in his grander designs. The surveyor's place fell, and he returned to England; and, as if architecture was not all he had learned at Rome, with an air of Roman disinterestedness he gave up the profits of his office, which he found extremely in debt; and prevailed upon the comptroller and paymaster to imitate his example, till the whole arrears were cleared.

In 1620, he was employed in a manner very unworthy of his genius: king James set him upon discovering, that is, guessing, who were the founders of Stonehenge. His ideas were all Romanized; consequently, his partiality to his favourite people, which ought rather to have prevented him from charging them with that mass of barbarous clumsiness, made him conclude it a Roman temple.

In the same year Jones was appointed one of the commissioners for the repair of St Paul's; but which was not commenced till the year 1633, when Laud, then bishop of London, laid the first stone, and Inigo the fourth. In the restoration of that cathedral, he made two capital faults. He first renewed the sides with very bad Gothic; and then added a Roman portico, magnificent and beautiful indeed, but which had no affinity with the ancient parts that remained, and made his own Gothic appear ten times heavier. He committed the same error at Winchester, thrusting a screen in the Roman or Grecian taste into the middle of that cathedral. Jones indeed was by no means successful when he attempted Gothic. The chapel of Lincoln's-Inn has none of the characteristics of that architecture. The cloister beneath seems oppressed by the weight of the building above.

The authors of the life of Jones place the erecting of the Banqueting-house in the reign of king Charles; but it appears, from the accounts of Nicholas Stone, that it was begun in 1619, and finished in two years—a small part of the pile designed for the place of our kings; but so complete in itself, that it stands a model of the most pure and beautiful taste. Several plates of the intended palace at Whitehall have been given, but Mr Walpole thinks, from no finished design. The four great sheets are evidently made up from general hints; nor could such a source of invention and taste as the mind of Inigo ever produce so much sameness. The whole fabric, however, was so glorious an idea, that one forgets for a moment (says Mr Walpole), in the regret for its not being executed, the confirmation of our liberties, obtained by a melancholy scene that passed before the windows of that very Banqueting-house.

In 1623 he was employed at Somerset-house, where a chapel was to be fitted up for the Infanta, the intended bride of the prince. The chapel is still in being. The front to the river, part only of what was designed, and the water-gate, were erected afterwards on the designs of Inigo, as was the gate at York-stairs.

On the accession of Charles, Jones was continued in his posts under both king and queen. His fee as surveyor was 8s. 4d. a day, with an allowance of 46l. a-year for house-rent, besides a clerk, and incidental expenses. What greater rewards he had, are not upon record.

During the prosperous state of the king's affairs, the pleasures of the court were carried on with much taste and magnificence. Poetry, painting, music, and architecture, were all called in to make them rational amusements. Mr Walpole is of opinion, that the celebrated festivals of Louis XIV. were copied from the shows exhibited at Whitehall, in his time the most polite court in Europe. Ben Jonson was the laureat; Inigo Jones the inventor of the decorations; Laniere and Fara-bosco composed the symphonies; the king, the queen, and the young nobility, danced in the interludes. We have accounts of many of those entertainments, called masques; they had been introduced by Anne of Denmark. Lord Burlington had a folio of the designs for these solemnities, by Inigo's own hand, consisting of habits, masks, scenes, &c. The harmony of these masks was a little interrupted by a war that broke out between the composers, Inigo and Ben; in which, whoever was the aggressor, the turbulent temper of Johnson took care to be most in the wrong.

The works of Inigo Jones are not scarce; Surgeon's-hall is one of his best works. One of the most admired is the Arcade of Covent-garden, and the Church: "Two structures (says Mr 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 would make. The barn-roof over the portico of the church strikes my eyes with as little idea of dignity and beauty, as it could do if it covered nothing but a barn. It must be owned, that the defect is not in the architect, but in the order.—Whoever saw a beautiful Tuscan building? Would the Romans have chosen that order for a temple?" The expense of building that church was 4500l.

Ambrosebury in Wiltshire was designed by Jones, but executed by his scholar Webb. Jones was one of the first that observed the same diminution of pilasters as in pillars. Lindley-house in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, which he built, owes its chief grace to this singularity. In 1618 a special commission was issued to the lord chancellor, the earl of Worcester, Pembroke, Arundel, and others, to plant and reduce to uniformity, Lincoln's-Inn Fields, as it shall be drawn by way of map, or ground-plot, by Inigo Jones, surveyor-general of the works. That square is laid out with regard to so trifling a singularity, as to be of the exact dimensions of one of the pyramids: this would have been admired in those ages when the Keep at Kenilworth Castle was erected in the form of an horse-fetter, and the Escorial in the shape of St Laurence's gridiron.

Colehill in Berkshire, the seat of Sir Matthew Pleydell, built in 1650, and Cobham-hall in Kent, were Jones's. He was employed to rebuild Castle Ashby, and finished one front: but the civil war interrupted his progress there and at Stoke-park in Northamptonshire. Shaftesbury-house, now the London Lying-in hospital, on the east side of Aldersgate-street, is a beautiful front. The Grange, the seat of the lord chancellor Henley in Hampshire, is entirely of this master. It is not a large house, but by far one of the best proofs of his taste. The hall, which opens to a small vestibule with a cupola, and the stair-case adjoining, are beautiful models of the purest and most classic antiquity. The gate of Beaufort-garden at Chelsea, designed by Jones, was purchased by lord Burlington, and transported to Chipwick. He drew a plan for a palace at Newmarket; but not that wretched hovel that stands there at present. One of the most beautiful of his works is the Queen's house at Greenwich. The first idea of the hospital is said to have been taken by his scholar Webb, from his papers.

Inigo tasted early the misfortunes of his master. He was not only a favourite, but a Roman Catholic: in 1646, he paid 545l. for his delinquency and sequestration. Whether it was before or after this fine, it is uncertain, that he and Stone the mason buried their joint stock in Scotland-yard; but an order being published to encourage the informers of such concealments, and four persons being privy to the spot where the money was hid, it was taken up, and reburied in Lambeth-marsh. Grief, misfortunes, and age, put an end to his life at Somerset-house, July 21, 1652. Several of his designs have been published by Mr Kent, Mr Colin Campbell, and Mr Isaac Ware. He left in MS. some curious notes on Palladio's architecture, which are inserted in an edition of Palladio published in 1714.