272 The Country House. 



consider as bearing on general principles, and afterwards give our opinion of 

 the design. 



In Letter T. the employer states that he consults the foreign architect 

 from great respect for his talents, and because he is " not likely to be so 

 much wedded to the routine of modern Italian villas, Elizabethan houses, 

 and thatched cottages, as is the case with most of our English professors." 

 He next hints at the sort of house he wants, and gives a short description of 

 the proposed site. " With respect to the offices," he says, " I think we make 

 a great mistake in England, as we manage to hide them, and lose all the 

 benefit of increasing the size and importance of the house by these additions." 

 This remark may have been applicable thirty or forty years ago, but no 

 architect of the present day thinks of concealing the offices of a country 

 house, unless under verj' peculiar circumstances. In Price's Essay on Archi- 

 tecture and Buildings, published in 1798, the following passage occurs: — 

 " Much of the naked solitary appearance of houses is owing to the practice 

 of totally concealing, nay, sometimes of burying, all the offices under ground, 

 and that by way of giving consequence to the mansion ; but though excep- 

 tions may arise from particular situations and circumstances, yet, in general, 

 nothing contributes so much to give both variety and consequence to the 

 principal building, as the accompaniment, aiid, as it were, the attendance, of 

 the inferior parts in their different gradations." (Price on the Picturesque, 

 edit. 1798, vol. ii. p. 215.) 



In Letter IL the architect observes that sixty years ago no one would 

 have thought of proposing to an architect to consider what style was most 

 suitable for the intended situation and purpose. Every architect then, he 

 says, adopted the style in general use, modified by his own particular views 

 of that style. When the Italian mode was prevalent, no architect would have 

 ventured to introduce the Gothic, &c. ; but now we recognise and adopt 

 various styles indiscriminately. " W^e seem to be of opinion that variety of 

 character is attainable only by variety of style," and hence our museums are 

 Grecian, our churches Gothic, and so on. " The adoption of a style pre- 

 viously discarded, though it may suit the vitiated taste of the artist, yet it can 

 never be pleasing to a really cultivated taste." (p. 6.) The contrary of this 

 principle is so obvious, that we think there must be some mistake in the 

 translation ; indeed, there is much in this letter that is obscure. Was not 

 the Grecian style itself at one period discarded ? The following, however, 

 is good. " The most perfect architectural style is that which admits at the 

 same time of a refined style, both of sculpture and painting." " Sculpture 

 and painting," M. de Chateauneuf observes, " are the daughters of architec- 

 ture, not, as is commonly said, the sisters ; and it is only in the Italian style 

 of the 1.5th century, that we meet with all the three arts growing up to com- 

 pleteness together." (p. 7.) The Greek style as modified in the Italian 

 IS what the architect proposes to adopt; "but, at the same time, with a 

 reserved right to the free use of those modes and motives with which later 

 European architecture supphes us. If a determinate name must be given to 

 the style, I propose to call it the Renaissance style of the I9th century." 



To the admirers of Gothic architecture he says, " If you can introduce 

 modern sculpture and painting into Gothic architecture, without prejudice to 

 them or it, I will say that you have attained a great end." In answer to 

 those who imagine that he intends to produce a medley of Grecian and 

 Gothic, he has the following excellent passage : " You misunderstand or 

 pervert my meaning. I have not spoken of a merely mixing up of different 

 styles, but of compounding them together ; between which two processes 

 there is, I conceive, a wide difference, the ingredients being merely put 

 together in the one case, without losing their respective qualities ; while in 

 the other they amalgamate with each other, and produce an entirely new 

 combination ; and it is in accomplishing combinations of this kind that the 

 power of genuine art manifests itself ; and the distinction may be likened to 

 the difference between a mechanical and a chemical combination." (p. 9.) 



