240 CHARACTER OF XVIII. CENTURY HOUSES 



matters as occur in the literature of the time, it is evident that 

 our ancestors of the eighteenth century had deplorable ideas as 

 to cleanliness and sanitation ; and the provisions now made in 

 these respects, which are one of the pivots upon which a modern 

 plan turns, were then undreamed of. When all practical con- 

 siderations were left to take care of themselves, planning a house 

 was a very simple matter, and one which an amateur could 

 undertake with a light heart. The principal aim of designers 

 was to achieve a scenic success. The rooms were to be well 

 proportioned, and so arranged as to produce a stately effect, 

 both in themselves and in the passing from one to the other. 

 They were also so disposed as to result in a fine exterior, where 

 the length should be duly proportioned to the height, the 

 windows should be regularly placed and of a size agreeable to 

 the eye. Every part was to be symmetrical, and the whole was 

 to be a neat piece of architecture. There seems, in looking- 

 through these designs, to be no essential reason why one should 

 have differed from another, except for the sake of variety. Yet 

 every modern architect knows that a house properly planned to 

 meet one set of circumstances can never be utilised for another 

 without drastic alterations ; that every fresh house presents a 

 fresh problem. But this springs from the modern way of look- 

 ing at house-designing, namely, that a house ought to satisfy the 

 wants and even the idiosyncrasies of the owner, and that its dis- 

 position must be modified by considerations of aspect, prospect, 

 soil, surroundings, and a score of other things. 



But the outlook of the eighteenth century being what it was, 

 the designers were successful in compassing their object, and 

 they produced many charming houses, often stately and always 

 dignified. This result was owing in a large degree to a study of 

 Kent's " Designs of Inigo Jones." 



Campbell's " Vitruvius Britannic us" is an epitome of the 

 more important houses of the last twenty years of the seventeenth 

 century and first twenty of the eighteenth. 1 The ideas under- 

 lying it are those which have already been mentioned. There 

 is a short descriptive account of each subject. In these, 

 Campbell dwells on the proportions of his rooms, on the truly 

 classic treatment of the elevations ; he explains how one subject 

 is treated in the " palatial " style, another in the " temple " style ; 

 another in the " theatrical." The principal rooms are all stately, 

 1 The first series, in three volumes, is here referred to. 



