Errors in Walks and in Architecture. 405 



tecture, as of those of landscape-gardening; and, though the 

 architects who design buildings to our taste are not quite so 

 few as the gardeners who lay out grounds to please us, yet 

 by far the greater number of them are as completely without 

 the painter's eye as are the generality of gardeners. The 

 greater number of even the best architects are the slaves of 

 rules drawn from precedents instead of from princi})les ; and 

 this, indeed, is the great bar to improvement in almost every 

 thing. The fundamental principles of architecture are of 

 two kinds, because its objects are two, viz. use and beauty: 

 fitness, strength, and durability compose the first of these 

 principles ; the idea of an expressive whole, the second ; and 

 in an extended sense of the word, this principle will include 

 the other. A whole in architecture, as in landscape-garden- 

 ing, may be regularly symmetrical, or irregularly symmetri- 

 cal. In the one case, as in the other, the test of success is 

 the production of a whole expressive of the purpose for 

 which it is intended. We shall not here, however, dilate on 

 first principles, but rather proceed at once to the details of 

 our objections. 



The first grand error is that of placing houses so that their 

 carriage or main entrance is on the side having the best view. 

 This used to be the practice in building mansions till within 

 the last sixty years ; but, being now almost entirely left off" in 

 that class of dwellings, we are astonished to find it still linger- 

 ing among the architects of villas. This is a criticism, like 

 that just made on the edges of walks and roads, that every 

 possessor of a villa can make for himself. He may rely on it, 

 that where the best landscape, whether of the home scenery 

 or distance, is obtained from the entrance hall-door, an error 

 has been committed either in placing the house or in arrang- 

 ing its apartments. It is easy to make a thousand excuses for 

 an error after it has been committed, and to show, by innu- 

 merable apparently infallible reasons, that the thing could not 

 have been otherwise than as it is ; but one good reason for 

 any thing is enough, and those who feel themselves in the 

 right seldom give more. 



A second error, and one which we have mentioned so often 

 that we shall not here dwell on it, is that of having the archi- 

 tecture and the material of two or three sides of a country 

 house different from that of the fourth or best side. It is not 

 uncommon to see a house with an attempt at a handsome 

 front, by the employment of architectural ornaments, and the 

 use of a superior description of brick or stone on that front, 

 while the sides of the same house are not only of an inferior 



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