Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/74

62 upper part is always dark, owing to the smoke, and tells agreeably against any background seen through the hollow.

Fig. 9 is the chimney of the Westmoreland cottage which formed the subject of the last paper (p. 42). The good taste which prevailed in the rest of the building is not so conspicuous here, because the architect has begun to consider effect instead of utility, and has put a diamond-shaped piece of ornament on the front (usually containing the date of the building), which was not necessary, and looks out of place. He has endeavoured to build neatly too, and has bestowed a good deal of plaster on the outside, by all which circumstances the work is infinitely deteriorated. We have always disliked cylindrical chimneys, probably because they put us in mind of glasshouses and manufactories, for we are aware of no more definite reason; yet this example is endurable, and has a character about it which it would be a pity to lose. Sometimes when the square part is carried down the whole front of the cottage, it looks like the remains of some grey tower, and is not felt to be a chimney at all. Such deceptions are always very dangerous, though in this case sometimes attended with good effect, as in the old building called Coniston Hall, on the shores of Coniston Water, whose distant outline (Fig. 25) is rendered light and picturesque, by the size and shape of its chimneys, which are the same in character as Fig. 9.

Of English chimneys adapted for buildings of a more