Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/146

134 ;" awakening, without doubt, a different idea in the mind of every one who reads the words. Some, accustomed to the appearances of metropolitan villas, will think of brick buildings, with infinite appurtenances of black-nicked chimney-pots, and plastered fronts, agreeably varied with graceful cracks and undulatory shades of pink, brown, and green, communicated to the cement by smoky showers. Others will imagine large, square, many-windowed masses of white, set with careful choice of situation, exactly where they will spoil the landscape to such a conspicuous degree, as to compel the gentlemen travelling on the outside of the mail to enquire of the guard, with great eagerness, "whose place that is;" and to enable the guard to reply, with great distinctness, that it belongs to Squire, to the infinite gratification of Squire , and the still more infinite edification of the gentlemen on the outside of the mail. Others will remember masses of very red brick, groined with stone; with columnar porticoes, about one-third of the height of the building, and two niches, with remarkable-looking heads and bag-wigs in them, on each side; and two teapots, with a pocket-handkerchief hanging over each (described to the astonished spectators as "Grecian urns"), located upon the roof, just under the chimneys. Others will go back to the range of Elizabethan gables; but none will have any idea of a fixed character, stamped on a class of national edifices. This is very melancholy and very discouraging; the more so, as it not without cause. In the first place, Britain unites in added space bet squire and —— (squire xyz) :)