FGULSTON, JOHN. The name of this architect, who died at Plymouth, January 13, 1812, aged sixty-nine, is especially connected with the history of that town and its neighbourhood, where, during the last thirty years of his life, he enjoyed a very extensive practice, and executed nearly all the public buildings then erected at Plymouth and Devonport (formerly Plymouth Dock), besides various general improvements, ouch as streets, and Estee of uniformly-built houses, I distinguished by the name of Terraces.' Hence be came to be regarded as the architect par excellence, and has been complimented by the title of the Wren of Plymouth,' though that of its Wood [Woon] would have been compliment sufficieut. That he did much for the general appearance of Plymouth and the places in its vicinity, is not to be disputed : he introduced an improved style of building; but those of his buildings which challenge notice as distinct works of architecture exhibit little more than a smattering of style—those super ficial and obvious rudiments of it which at once distinguish one style from another. In the critical meaning of the term, he himself possessed no style, for, applied to the works of an artist, style pre sumes both individuality and generality of expression in that par ticular language of his art which is employed by him ; whereas Foulston'a Greek was little more than the neutralisation of Greek, followed in literal transcripts from it with respect to columniation, columns, and a few details, but essentially un-Greek, or peeudo Greek, in regard to general character. His works in that style aro however characteristic of their time, and serve to show what was admired in this country as genuine and pure' classical architecture during the early party of the present century, when four-columned Parthenons without sculpture and with sash-windows were hailed as marvels worthy of Athens itself.
With the exception of Soane and Laing, Foulston was the only one among his contemporaries who published designs of the buildings executed by him. The collection was at first announced as intended to consist of 200 plates, in 4 vole. 4to ; but it appeared, in 1838, in a single volume, with 116 plates in lithographic outline, executed in a hard and formal manner. Yet, though no fewer than forty-seven plates are devoted to a single edifice, comprising the Royal Hotel and Theatre, there is neither section nor view to give any idea of the theatre itself, hut only drawings explanatory of the carpentry and construction of the stage. However, that publication enables us to do what, highly desirable as it is, is generally most difficult of accom plishment in architectural biography, to give a tolerably full and accurate list of Foulston'a buildings. At Plymouth :—Royal Hotel
and Theatre, begun 1811, Grecian ionic; Exchange. 1813 ; Athsumum, 1818-19, Grecian Doric ; St. Andrew's Chapel, 1823 ; Public Library.
Devonport :—Town Hall, 1821-2, Grecian Doric ; Civil and Military Library, 1823, Egyptian ; Mount Zion Chapel, 1823-4, Hindoo ; Column, 1824, Grecian Doric. Tavistock, Old Abbey Buildings, restored, 1829.
Torquay, Public Ball-room, 1839. Bodmin, Cornwall County Lunatic Asylum, 1818. Besides the above, which constitute his edited designs, Foulston executed several other buildings, public as well as private, including St. Paul's Chapel, Gothic, and Ed:teem:aloe Place, at Stone house ; St. Michael's Terrace, Stoke Damerell; Belmont House; and various villas and cottages in the neighbourhood of Stoke, and in other parts of the county. Greatly as he seems to have prided himself upon the correctness and purity of his taste in classical architecture, Foulston was by no means disposed to coufine himself to the Grecian style, for he attempted every style in its turn, Egyptiess and Hindoo not excepted, and even that of Soaue included. The fact is, Foulaton seems to have discovered that he had exhaueted all his stock of ideas for Grecian designs after employing that style for some of his principal works. It would not do to repeat Grecian Doric and Ionic porticoes, and those mere monoprostyle ones, perpetually, especially in contiguous buildings, and this, no doubt, determined him not only to havo recourse to other and widely different styles, but occasionally to bring them together in direct contrast with each other, as at Devonport, where in the Town-Hall, Column, Library, and Chapel, ho clustered together into one group Grecian, Egyptian, and Hindoo, the two last of a very spurious kind, 000 of them being evidently borrowed from the building in Piccadilly, while for the Hindoo there seems to be no better authority than the architect's ao naming it. Though without more pretensions to design than many other things of the kind that have been erected all over the country, the Devonport Column stands with an air of very unusual dignity, not merely stilted upon a pedestal borrowed from the broken stylo bates of Roman and Italian architecture, but rearing itself upon a lofty substructure of masonry, the whole being on a higher level than the pavement of the street. Yet we suppose the Royal Hotel at Plymouth generally passes for Foulston's chef d'oeuvre, it being his largest building—one rivalling the post-office at London in size, as well as resembling it in design ; for the Plymouth structure measures 268 by 218 feet, the other 390 by 130 feet.