218 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



tastes." (If the proverb read whims, it would be gospel truth.) 

 Hence we see numberless persons who set about building their own 

 house without the aid of an architect, who would not think of being 

 their own lawyer, though one profession demands as much study and 

 capacity as the other ; and it is not to this we object, for we hold 

 that a man may often build his own house and plead his own 

 rights to justice satisfactorily but it must be done in both instances, 

 in the simplest and most straightforward manner. If he attempts 

 to go into the discussion of Blackstone on the one hand, or the mys- 

 teries of Vitruvius and Pugin on the other, he is sure to get speedily 

 swamped, and commit all sorts of follies and extravagancies quite 

 out of keeping with his natural character. 



The two greatest trials to the architect of taste, who desires to 

 see his country and age making a respectable figure in this branch 

 of the arts, are to be found in that class of travelled smatterers in 

 virtu, who have picked up here and there, in the tour from Liver- 

 pool to Rome, certain ill-assorted notions of art, which they wish 

 combined in one sublime whole, in the shape of their own domicil ; 

 and that larger class, who ambitiously imitate in a small cottage, all 

 that belongs to palaces, castles and buildings of princely dimensions. 



The first class is confined to no country. Examples are to be 

 found every where, and we do not know of a better hit at the folly 

 of these cognoscenti, than in the following relation of experiences by 

 one of the cleverest of English architectural critics : 



" The architect is requested, perhaps, by a man of great wealth, 

 nay, of established taste in some points, to make a design for a villa 

 in a lovely situation. The future proprietor carries him up stairs to 

 his study, to give him what he calls his ' ideas and materials,' and, 

 in all probability, begins somewhat thus : ' This, sir, is a slight note ; 

 I made it on the spot ; approach to Villa Reale, near Puzzuoli. 

 Dancing nymphs, you perceive ; cypresses, shell fountain. I think 

 I should like something like this for the approach ; classical you 

 perceive, sir ; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a sketch by an 

 American friend of mine ; Whe-whaw-Kantamaraw's wigwam, king 

 of tho Cannibal Islands ; I think he said, sir. Log, you ob- 

 serve ; scalps, and boa constrictor skins ; curious. Something like 

 this, sir, would look neat, I think, for the front door ; don't you ? 



