8 Notes and Reflections during a Tour : — 



disliked ? The reason, we think, can only be, that the archi- 

 tects and their employers of the past age were less refined in 

 their taste than those of the present day. The well founded 

 reasons which we have assigned against high roofs, when they 

 are not necessary or inevitable, were not developed in their 

 minds, because the taste of the age did not call for such a re- 

 finement hi their art. High roofs have many recommendations 

 in point of utility, convenience, and durability, and they afford 

 room for a conspicuous display of timber and carpentry ; the 

 principle of utility, therefore, and the influence of the carpen- 

 ter, seem to have prevailed over the principle of architect- 

 ural expression. In the advancement of art, the progress is 

 from the expression of the subject, or of mere utility according 

 to the nature of the subject, to the expression of design ac- 

 cording to the nature of the art employed on the subject. Low 

 and partially concealed roofs, therefore, are the consequences 

 of a greater degree of refinement in the taste of the architects 

 of the present day and their employers, than existed among 

 the architects of France and their employers at the time the 

 Tuilleries were built. Just before the Revolution this deform- 

 ity of high roofs was felt as an evil in the palace of Versailles, 

 and a small portion of the roof of that palace was lowered and 

 concealed by a parapet during the reign of Louis XVI., a 

 subsequent portion by Napoleon, a third by Louis XVIIL, 

 and the alterations are continued by the present king. 



Another deformity in the buildings of Paris, perhaps even 

 more glaring than hi the street houses of London, consists in 

 the stacks of chimneys. Why is it that so essential a part 

 of every dwelling-house is almost always viewed as a deformity 

 rather than as a beauty ? Simply, because in ordinary street 

 houses the stacks of chimneys are very seldom subjected to ar- 

 chitectural design. A straight row of houses of the same 

 height, or a regular composition of street houses, with all the 

 stacks of chimneys of the same dimensions, and of the same 

 height above the roofs, so far from being injured in effect by 

 the chimneys, is improved by them. If the chimney tops of 

 street buildings were as regular and uniform in distance, size, 

 and form, as the windows of such houses commonly are, the 

 one feature of a house would have as much architectural 

 beauty, and be as much approved of, as the other; because 

 they are both equally essential to habitableness. Whatever 

 belongs to a building is capable of receiving the impression of 

 design, and may be made to cooperate in the cultivated or 

 refined expression of that building as a whole. Even the roof 

 of a dwelling-house produces a better effect when partially 

 seen, that when totally concealed ; because a roof always enters 



