A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 



build his own house and plead his own rights to justice satisfactorily — but it must be 

 done in both instances, in the simplest and most straight-forward manner. If he at- 

 tempts to go into the discussion of Blackstone on the one hand, or the mysteries 

 of ViTRUVius and Pugin on the other, he is sure to get speedily swamped, and 

 commit all sorts of follies and extravagancies quite out of keeping with his natural 

 character. 



The two greatest trials to the architect of taste, who desires to see his country and 

 age making a respectable figure in this branch of the arts, are to be found in that class 

 of travelled smatterers in virtu, who have picked up here and there, in the tour from 

 Liverpool to Eome, certain ill-assorted notions of art, which they wish combined in 

 one sublime whole, in the shape of their own domicil ; and that larger class, who am- 

 bitiously imitate in a small cottage, all that belongs to palaces, castles and buildings 

 of princely dimensions. 



The first class is confined to no country. Examples are to be found everywhere, 

 and we do not know of a better hit at the folly of these cognoscenti, than in the fol- 

 lowing relation of experiences by one of the cleverest of English architectural critics : 



" The architect is requested, perhaps, by a man of great wealth, nay, of established 

 taste in some points, to make a design for a villa in a lovely situation. The future 

 proprietor carries him up stairs to his study, to give him what he calls his ' ideas and 

 materials,' and, in all probability, begins somewhat thus; — ' This, sir, is a slight note; 

 I made it on the spot ; approach to Villa Reale, near Puzzuoli. Dancing nymphs, 

 you perceive ; cypresses, shell fountain. I think I should like something like this for 

 the approach ; classical you perceive, sir ; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a 

 sketch by an American friend of mine ; Whe-whaw-Kantamaraw's wigwam, king of 



the Cannibal Islands ; I think he said, sir. Log, you observe ; scalps, and boa 



constrictor skins ; curious. Something like this, sir, would look neat, I think, for the 

 frontdoor; don't you? Then the lower windows, I'm not quite decided upon ; but 

 what would you say to Egyptian, sir? I think I should like my windows Egyptian, 

 with hieroglyphics, sir ; storks and cofl&ns, and appropriate mouldings above ; I brought 

 some from Fountain's Abbey the other day. Look here, sir ; angel's heads putting 

 their tongues out, rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a 

 broomstick, and the devil looking out from the mouth of an alligator, sir.* Odd, I 

 think ; interesting. Then the corners may be turned by octagonal towers, like the 

 centre one in Kenilworth Castle ; with Gothic doors, port-cullis and all, quite perfect ; 

 with cross slits for arrows, battlements for musketry, machiolations for boiling lead, 

 and a room at the top for drying plums ; and the conservatory at the bottom, sir, with 

 Virginia creepers up the towers ; door supported by sphinxes, holding scrapers in their 

 fore paws, and having their tails prolonged into warm-water pipes, to keep the plants 

 safe in winter, &c.' " 



We have seen buildings in England, where such Bedlam suggestions of taste have 

 not only been made, but accepted either wholly or partly by the architect, and where 



This grotesque device is actually carved on one of the groins of RosUn Castle, Scotland. 



