Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/82

70 entirely unnoticed and insignificant, smoking their pipes in peace.

It is utterly impossible to give rules for the attainment of these effects, since they are the result of a feeling of the proportion and relation of lines, which, if not natural to a person, cannot be acquired but by long practice and close observation; and it presupposes a power rarely bestowed on an English architect, of setting regularity at defiance, and sometimes comfort out of the question. We could give some particular examples of this grouping; but, as this paper has already swelled to an unusual length, we shall defer them until we come to the consideration of street effects in general. Of the chimney in the abstract, we are afraid we have only said enough to illustrate, without removing, the difficulty of designing it; but we cannot but think that the general principles which have been deduced, if carefully followed out, would be found useful, if not for the attainment of excellence, at least for the prevention of barbarism.

Oxford, Feb. 10.

now only remains for us to conclude the subject of the Cottage, by a few general remarks on the just application of modern buildings to adorn or vivify natural scenery.

There are, we think, only three cases in which the cottage is considered as an element of architectural, or any other kind of beauty, since it is ordinarily raised by the