Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/79

Rh into the sky; but it is too tall, and attracts by far too much attention, being conspicuous on the sides of all the canals. Figs. 22, 23, and 24 are Swiss. Fig. 23 is one specimen of an extensive class of decorated chimneys met with in the north-eastern cantons. It is never large, and consequently having no false elevation of character, and being always seen with eyes which have been prepared for it, by resting on the details of the Swiss cottage, is less disagreeable than might be imagined, but ought never to be imitated. The pyramidal form is generally preserved, but the design is the same in no two examples.

Fig. 24 is a chimney very common in the eastern cantons, the principle of which we never understood. The oblique part moves on a hinge so as to be capable of covering the chimney like a hat, and the whole is covered with wooden scales, like those of a fish. This chimney sometimes comes in very well among.the confused rafters of the mountain cottage, though it is rather too remarkable to be in good taste.

It seems then, that out of the eighteen chimneys which we have noticed, though several possess character, and one or two elegance, only two are to be found fit for imitation; and, of these, one is exclusively a cottage chimney. This is somewhat remarkable, and may serve as a proof:—

1st. Of what we at first asserted, that chimneys which in any way attract notice (and if these had not, we should not have sketched them) were seldom to be imitated; that