RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 303 



necessary feature, should undoubtedly if possible be rendered 

 elegant, or at least prevented from being ugly. 



Much of the picturesque effect of the old English and 

 Italian houses, undoubtedly arises from the handsome and 

 curious stacks of chimneys, which spring out of their roofs. 

 These, while they break and diversify the sky-outline of the 

 building, enrich and give variety to its most bare and unor- 

 namenied part. Examples are not wanting, in all the differ- 

 ent styles of architecture, of handsome and characteristic chim- 

 neys, which may be adopted in any of our dwellings of a 

 similar style. The Gothic, or old English chimney, with 

 octagonal or cylindrical flues or shafts united in clusters, is 

 made in a great variety of forms, either of bricks, or arti- 

 ficial stone. The former materials, moulded in the required 

 shape, are highly taxed in England, while they may be 

 very cheaply made here. 



A Porch strengthens or conveys expression of purpose, 

 because, instead of leaving the entrance door bare, as in 

 manufactories and buildings of an inferior description, it 

 serves both as a note of preparation, and an effectual shelter 

 and protection to the entrance. Besides this, it gives a dig- 

 nity and importance to that entrance, pointing it out to the 

 stranger as the place of approach. A fine country house, 

 without a porch or covered shelter to the doorway of some 

 description, is therefore, as incomplete to the correct eye, as a 

 well-printed book without a title page, leaving the stranger 

 to plunge at once in media res, without the friendly prepa- 

 ration of a single word of introduction. Porches are suscep- 

 tible of every variety of form and decoration, from the em- 

 battled and buttressed portal of the Gothic castle, to the lat- 

 ticed arbor-porch of the cottage, around which the festoons 

 of luxuriant climbing plants cluster, giving an effect not less 



