82 KENT'S "DESIGNS OF INIGO JONES" 



he aimed not to be found in Webb. Jones's youth had been 

 passed in that atmosphere of freedom and joyous fancy in house- 

 design which was characteristic of Elizabethan days. The 

 intelligent ignorance with which Italian detail was treated he 

 set himself to correct ; but he did not altogether crush out its 

 light-heartedness. His own work, although purer and more 

 severe than that of his predecessors, retained something of their 

 freedom. 



The same, but in a less degree, may be said of Webb. 

 Immersed though he seems to have been in his endeavours 

 to saturate himself with the true rules of proportion, when 

 he came to put his ideas into execution, he showed a pretty 

 play of natural fancy, and much of his detail has a freshness 

 and individuality sadly lacking in the work of fifty years 

 later. 



Apart entirely from the question as to the authorship of the 

 Inigo Jones drawings, the ideas embodied in them are of the 

 first importance. For the purpose of grasping these, the second 

 volume of Kent's " Designs of Inigo Jones " will answer almost 

 as well as the originals. Comparing them with Elizabethan or 

 Jacobean houses, a complete change will be seen to have taken 

 place, both in the plans and the elevations (Fig. 44). There is no 

 resemblance to the older manner. The time-honoured arrange- 

 ment which placed the great hall centrally between the family 

 wing and the servants' wing has been superseded by one 

 which places the kitchens in a basement, devotes the ground 

 floor to the principal living-rooms, abolishes the great hall as 

 a living-room, and substitutes for it a central saloon of great 

 height, which not infrequently reaches from the ground floor 

 to the roof. The orderly straggling of the ancient plan has 

 given way to a trim compactness in the new. The plan, of 

 course, controls the elevation, which is more precise and far less 

 picturesque than of old. There are few, if any, gables ; the 

 chimneys are solid and staid ; the windows consist each of one 

 large opening, instead of being a group of small lights formed 

 by mullions and transoms. It does not need an examination 

 of the elaborate proportions tabulated by Webb on many of the 

 original drawings to realise that here the old instinctive and even 

 haphazard methods have been superseded by a system of care- 

 fully calculated design. The change is apparent at a glance, and 

 one feels at once that the source of inspiration is not English 



