Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/924

 900 COTTAGE, FAR3I, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. to the centre, which is rendered of sufficient importance in itself to fix the attention, and prevent any sense of nakedness that might else be occasioned by the display of so much blank surface ; while the latter produces not only the pictorial quality termed breadth, but repose likewise, and thereby relieves and sets off the somewhat floridly decorated centre. Were the same degree of plainness extended upwards, the result would be monotony and baldness rather than simplicity : to avoid this defect, the chimney shafts are made prominent and appropriately characteristic featines in the upper lateral divisions of this front. While they immediately and distinctly announce, even in the mere elevation, that we behold a domestic habitation, they pleasingly diversify the sur- face, carry up the eye to an apex on either side, and serve also, by the moulded splays below them, to lireak the squareness of the lower divisions, and to dovetail, if I may so express it, the inferior and superior portions of the elevation together. The splays, and the ornamental panels with coats of arms immediately above them, are indeed essential points in the composition, unaffected as decoration, and withal congenial to the style here generally followed ; although the particular combination here adopted may pro- bably offer to other eyes than my own much that is questionable. The clusters of enriched chimney-pots which terminate the shafts preserve a due balance in the general scheme of decoration with the porch below ; and, at the same time, in combination with the gables with which they are as it were incorporated, and with the pinnacles that crown the buttresses, produce such a diversity of outline as by that single circumstance alone to impart a more animated character to the ensemble than it would otherwise i)ossess. On the upper floor there is a smaller window on each side, between the chimney shaft and the buttress. As regards the interior, these windows might certainly have been dispensed with without particular inconvenience ; yet, even although the plan had been in every respect as good without them, they are of so much importance to the elevation, that either they, or something similar, ought to be introduced in that situation. Were it not for them, not only would the upper part seem too much a repetition of that beneath, but the centre and sides would appear like three upright divisions, the former of which would be pierced by an opening above and below, while the two latter would be an almost plain surface. By these two windows being thrown in, the eye is directed horizontally, and by the numerical increase in the features a sloije is formed upwards from the porch to the summit of the chimneys, producing an inverted pyramidal figure opposed to the outline of the gables. There is likewise a pleasing kind of numerical harmony, yet without the least formality, obtained by the same means : below, there are three voids combined in the centre compartment, viz. the porch and two niches ; above, there are likewise three, the larger and the two smaller windows, stretched out on a wider line ; and the same system of triplicity is observed also in the composition of the centre window, and in the gables and ornamental embattlement which crowns the middle division of the elevation. Another circumstance, which deserves to be pointed out, is, that these two windows not only give a certain piquancy of expression to the general physiognomy of this front, suggesting the idea of some degree of intricacy within, but serve likewise to produce an agreeable symmetrical irregularity ; for, although each of the side divisions, considered by itself, is not perfectly uniform, the regularity of the whole composition is strictly preserved, and the two antagonistic qualities, harmony and discord, or symmetry and irregularity, completely reconciled. The last observation I shall allow myself on this part of the Design is, that, owing to these two windows, the character of lightness is in a similar manner combined with that of solidity, and the latter at the same time pronounced more decidedly than if these lateral divisions had no apertures whatever ; because, there being only one window between the chimney and the centre, the plain space on the other side of the chimney indicates firmness where it is most wanted, both for actual propriety and artistical expression, namely, at the angles. Were the situation of the window reversed, the alteration would be materially for the worse. 1836. The West, or Drawinproom, Front, shown in fig. 1588, exhil)its a different character, in regard to mere composition and actual physiognomy, from the preceding one, although decidedly of the same cast and style; and, like that, having little extraneous embellishment beyond what arises from the parts themselves. Neither has it that air of pretension so frequently affected in modern Gothic mansions, where almost all possible varieties of feature are huddled together ; and sash windows, with no other badge of the general livery than mere label-mouldings, are mixed up with buttresses, turrets, towers, and embattled projections, till the whole looks more like an assemblage of fragments than parts of one and the same design. For what effect it may possess, this elevation depends chiefly on the windows and their disposition. The five lower ones, which are those of the two drawingrooms, are level with the low terrace upon which they open, and from which there is a grass slope, on the same angle as the steps ; there being no parapet, except at the end ; because the terrace itself is so low, that any sort of parapet, while it would have interfered with the prospect from the rooms, and have been no