194 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



are frequent instances of want of comfort in the two 

 latter forms. 



No. 7 is a form so generally adopted in modern 

 houses that I will not mention any particular instances, 

 especially as they are the works of living architects; 

 yet I hope I shall be pardoned in also making some 

 observations on their construction. 



This last invented form consists in a compact square 

 house, with three fronts, and to the back are attached 

 offices, forming a very long range of buildings, courts, 

 walls, etc., supposed to be hid by plantation. These I have 

 been often required to hide by planting, while, in fact, 

 during the lives of the architect and the proprietor, 

 the buildings can never be concealed, and in the lives 

 of their successors the trees must be cut down to give 

 a free circulation of air to the buildings. 



Notwithstanding the danger of giving offence, when 

 I am obliged to speak of the works of living artists, 

 I shall venture to point out some objections to the 

 compact form. No. 7, as applied to a large mansion, 

 which have not an equal weight when applied to a villa 

 or a house near the city, where land is valued by the 

 foot, and not by the acre ; for however ingenious 

 it may be in such places to compress a large house 

 within a small compass, or to cover under the same roof 

 a great number of rooms, yet a mansion in a park 

 does not require such management or warrant such 

 economy of space. 



Of all the forms which can be adopted, there is none 

 so insignificant as a cube, because, however large it may 

 be, the eye can never be struck with its length, its depth, 

 or its height, these being all equal ; and the same quan- 

 tity of building which is often sunk underground, raised 

 in the air, or concealed in plantation, might have been 



