on Gardening and Rural Affdfrs. 77 



is one principal source of the pleasure derived both from Grecian and 

 Gothic buildings. 



Examining the designs before us, in respect to their fitness for dwellings, 

 we should say that the cottages of the lower class were rather deficient in 

 accommodation. For example, the first design for a gardener's house, not- 

 withstanding its elegant exterior, and its " sitting-room, kitchen, and out- 

 house, with a bedroom and seed-loft in the roof," has neither pantry nor 

 closet, oven, pigsty, nor hen-roost. The expense of this building is esti- 

 mated at 255/., which, compared with the accommodation, shows how much 

 more anxious the architect has been to gratify the eye of his employer, 

 than to study the comfort of the occupant. No. 5., a gamekeeper's house, 

 and No. 5., a bailiff's or forester's house, are open to the same objections in a 

 still greater degree, and to the additional one of not having their floors suf- 

 ficiently raised above the adjoining surface. No. 9., an entrance lodge, ar- 

 ranged for "a sitting-room, kitchen, outhouse, and three bedchambers," the 

 estimated expense 490/., is very handsome ; but how is it possible for a 

 family of four or five persons to maintain in the interior any thing like that 

 cleanliness, comfort, and decorum, that are required to correspond with the 

 exterior effect, without the accommodations which we have enumerated ? 



Trying these designs by their expression, we consider them as too highly 

 wrought ; all the architectural details, we have no doubt, are appropriated 

 with historical correctness, and the general effect of each building as a pic- 

 turesque object is good ; but the artist is everywhere too conspicuous : in 

 the language of strict criticism, — the expression of art is greater than the 

 expression of the subject, — the buildings are more an assemblage of Gothic 

 ornaments and forms, than the walls and roofs of cottages. We should not, 

 however, have objected to this, had we seen any thing like a corresponding 

 anxiety about the interiors, and had Mr. Hunt evinced as great anxiety 

 for old English comforts, as he has for the old English Gothic. 



In the designs for parsonage-houses, the author seems more at home. In 

 these we find store-rooms, pantries, entrance-lobbies, closets of various 

 kinds, " places for hats, sticks, &c." porches, vestibules, back vestibules, cor- 

 ridors, book-closet, lean-to's, rustic verandas, cloisters, and, in short, every 

 thing necessary to the comfort of the occupant. With this work we are 

 very well satisfied, and perhaps great allowance ought to be made for the 

 other as a first performance. 



In the preface to Designs, &c, it is observed that, in a work like this, 

 it can scarcely be hoped that plans could be formed " to meet the requi- 

 sites of every taste and every situation. Yet it is presumed, that the fol- 

 lowing designs will enable those who are desirous of erecting houses agree- 

 ably to their own preconceived ideas of beauty and comfort, to direct their 

 professional builders with propriety and intelligence ; and whoever calcu- 

 lates upon acquiring more from books will be deceived : a man not ' cun- 

 ning in the art,' may as safely trust himself with being his own lawyer, as 

 with being his own architect." In this remark we entirely concur ; the 

 chief use of books of architectural designs to country gentlemen is to furnish 

 them with ideas on the subject, and to improve their taste. 



We are happy to learn that Mr. Hunt intends to publish a series 

 of designs in the Italian manner, which, from the simplicity of its outlines, is 

 much more economical in the first erection, less subject to repairs, and far 

 more durable than the multiform surfaces of the Gothic style. (See Gard. 

 Mag., vol. ii. p. 479.) 



As to either the Grecian or Italian style being less adapted for this 

 country than the Gothic, we regard the idea as chimerical. When any one 

 style of building, or gardening, or any other art, comes into fashion, it is easy 

 to find all sorts of arguments in its favour. Much of what is advanced by 

 artists in such cases will not bear the test of rational examination. One 

 style comes into vogue after another, entirely on the principle of novelty ; 



