Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/108

 8i COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. be unpleasing; but strictly examined on scientific principles, it is full of faults. The three- quarter columns, supporting nothing but thatch, are absurdities : they are of no use as piers, because the wall is strong enough without them ; and they are the more superfluous, because they are attached to the walls at the angles, which, as we have beforeshown(§74), are the strongest parts of the wall. A column is the noblest member of the architectural body, because it effects, of itselt; and in a simple and striking manner, by one bold and independent form, what could otherwise be only effected by a great number of petty details of masonry or carpentry. As a support, it may be substituted for a wall ; as a monument, it will serve the purpose of either a cone, a pyramid, or a tower ; and placed horizontally over an opening, in the form of a beam, it takes the place of an arch. Of what other architectural member can so much be said ? A column may be considered in architecture what a timber tree is in the vegetable kingdom ; the first is one of the grandest objects of architectural art, and the second, one of the most imposing in the vegetable creation. It is the part of correct judgment always to adjust the means employed 15(J to the end to be attained ; and in attempting to gain any end, never to call forth more energy than the occa- sion requires. When a wall is employed to support a roof, no wise architect will ever join columns to this wall ; since, from what has been said of the uses of columns, it must be clear that, to place them there, would, in point of utility, be a mere waste of strength ; and in point of order and beauty, it would be to de- grade their character. To see a column misapplied in a building, is as offensive to a correct architectural eye, as it is to a well regulated mind to see misapplied wealth or power in the common affairs of life. capitals of the columns in the front of Design XX. they would have had some pretensions to fitness, by appearing to support it, and having thereby an air of completeness ; but merely set against the wall without any conspicuous superin- cumbent member of the roof, and immediately under the projecting thatch, they show an apparent disre- gard, not only of the prin- ciple of utility, but of that of congruity. A second fault is the placing of two false windows in the wings, which, in the elevation, are so shaded that it is impossible to detect them as such. This, in a drawing, is Had there been an architrave of any sort over the 157