Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/207

 COTTAGK DWELLINGS IN VAHIOUS STYLES. 183 321 S'22 c --^ li S23 325 tect ; and erected a cottage of tliree rooms on a floor, fig. 325 ; and these all in a row. His kitchen and common sitting- room, k, is thus rendered a perfect temple of the winds. There are a door and window to the north, and the same to the south ; besides three other doors, making of doors and windows no less than seven in a room only fourteen feet square. He also contrived to have the stairs come do^%Ti by the parlour fire- place, 1 1 and two of the bed-rooms above necessarily became passage rooms to the third. 1 mention this, to show how little notion people of this class have of comfort in houses." 366. Criticism. When different kinds of materials are introduced into the walls of a cottage, some principle of fitness, independent altogether of picturesque beauty, ought to regulate the manner in which they are disposed. Where the specific gravity, hardness, and tenacity of the materials are equal, they may yet differ in their size, and in their form, or in the applicability of their surfaces. In this case, vertical bond in the form of piers, and horizontal bond, in the form of lintels or string courses, ought to be con- structed of the large and flat-surfaced materials ; while those of smaller size and less regular shapes should be used to fill up the blank compartments so formed. In the walls of a house composed of flints and chalks, greater strength will be produced by chalk over chalk, and flint over flint, than either by the mixture of these, or by their position in alternate layers, or squares. The picturesque beauty of such an arrangement will, we tliink, be at least equal to that of fig. 320 ; while it wll have that most satisfactory- beauty in addition, the beauty of fitness. In fig. 326 we have supposed the walls built of the same materials as those of fig. 320; but we have disposed them agreeably to what we consider the principles of architectural fitness, or, in other words, of sound architectural construction. There was no occasion for having the window of the bed- room over the parlour in the roof, when it might have been in the gable end ; and that the fireplace is rather unfortunate in being placed in an outside wall. We should have placed it against the stair, for the sake of the heat to the staircase, and the rooms above ; though we acknowledge that, in point of appearance in the interior of the sitting-room, it has a better effect where it has been put by our contributor. We believe that the greater number of our readers will prefer the fireplace where it is for another reason, and that is, having the chimney shaft as a termination to the gable end. This is good and reasonable, when we look no farther than commonplace ideas of external effect ; but when we look at it with the eye of improved reason, and reflect that all fireplaces and flues in outside walls waste great part of their heat in the external atmosphere, and besides often do not draw well, we discover a reason why it would have been more beautiful, rising from some other part of the building, which might indicate that the flue M as in an internal wall. Thus it is that taste, to be correct, requires to be founded on reason.