Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/152

140 the only style of villa architecture which can be called English,—the Elizabethan, and its varieties; a style fantastic in its details, and capable of being subjected to no rule, but, as we think, well adapted for the scenery in which it arose. We allude not only to the pure Elizabethan, but even to the strange mixtures of classical ornaments with Gothic forms, which we find prevailing in the sixteenth century. In the most simple form, we have a building extending around three sides of a court, and, in the larger halls, round several interior courts, terminating in sharply gabled fronts, with broad oriels divided into very narrow lights by channeled mullions, without decoration of any kind; the roof relieved by projecting dormer windows, whose lights are generally divided into three, terminating in very flat arches without cusps, the intermediate edge of the roof being battlemented. Then we find wreaths of ornament introduced at the base of the oriels; ranges of short columns, the base of one upon the capital of another, running up beside them; the bases being very tall, sometimes decorated with knots of flower-work; the columns usually fluted, wreathed, in richer examples, with ornament. The entrance is frequently formed by double ranges of these short columns, with intermediate niches, with shell canopies, and rich crests above. This portico