266 SKETCHES BY A PRACTISING ARCHITECT. 



be the more vivid by its purification from error and 

 adulteration. You will clarify it with Burlingtonian 

 chasteness, and refine it with Greek simplicity. In 

 a word, you go to work with more confidence than 

 hope : and, on finishing your designs, submit them, 

 perhaps, to the approval you expected. 



Your elevation is neat in outline, delicate in its 

 ornamental drawinsr, and shaded, and coloured, and 

 toned with artistical effect. Your plans are sweetly 

 tinted, and lettered with fascinating niceness. Your 

 sections, to be sure, are rather puzzling — particularly 

 to the ladies — but again and again they turn to the 

 elevation of the front which is deemed even pretty 

 enough for the album of the eldest daughter. A few 

 questions touching the relative localities of the seve- 

 ral rooms are asked with confiding indifference, and 

 answered with a matter-of-course assurance. Thus 

 your " fair drawings" pass muster, and you are com- 

 missioned to prepare all the necessary working plans 

 and specifications. In your youthful enthusiasm, 

 they are executed in the most elaborate manner. 

 Every variety of capital, cornice, frieze, architrave, 

 and base, both for the exterior and interior is made 

 out in detail and " at large." The specification is 

 as long and wordy as a lawyer's brief. One pre- 

 paratory measure yet remains ; the provision of that 

 fearful thing — the Estimate ! 



T is done. Only as much again as the sum 

 alwnys contemplated by your patron, though not, 

 till now, known to yourself. Reduce, reduce, is now 

 the cry ; and away, " at one fell swoop," go all your 

 pretty columns and their pediment ! " Good pati- 

 ence!" cries Sir Anglo Palady, " why, sir, you '11 

 ruin me by the expences of my front and leave me 

 no provisions for my inside. With all my admiration 

 for the splendours of Vicenza, I must still consider 

 the limits of my means. Remember what the great 

 Bacon says ; — Houses are built to live in, and riot 

 to look on ; therefore let use be preferred before uni- 

 formity, except ivhere both may be had. Leave the 



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