Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/71

Rh hearths, and Christmas blazes; and we should, therefore, expect, à priori, that there would be no soul in their chimneys; that they would have no practised substantial air about them; that they would, in short, be as awkward and as much in the way, as individuals of the human race are, when they don't know what to do with themselves, or what they were created for. But in England, sweet carbonaceous England, we flatter ourselves we do know something about fire, and smoke too, or our eyes have strangely deceived us; and from the whole comfortable character and fireside disposition of the nation, we should conjecture that the architecture of the chimney would be understood, both as a matter of taste and as a matter of comfort, to the ne plus ultra of perfection. Let us see how far our expectations are realised.

Figs. 7, 8, and 9, are English chimneys. They are distinguishable, we think, at a glance, from all the rest, by a downright serviceableness of appearance, a substantial, unaffected, decent, and chimney-like deportment, in the contemplation of which we experience infinite pleasure and edification, particularly as it seems to us to be strongly contrasted with an appearance, in all the other chimneys of an indefinable something, only to be expressed by the interesting word "humbug." Fig. 7 is a chimney of Cumberland, and the north of Lancashire. It is, as may be seen at a glance, only applicable at the extremity of the roof, and requires a bent flue. It is built of unhewn stones, in the same manner as the