A rKW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 219 



Tten the Iowa- wiudowSj I'm not quite decided upoh ; but what 

 .would, you say to Egyptian, sh ? I think I should like my windows 

 EgypMan, with hieroglyphics, sir ; storks and ooflans, and appropri- 

 ate moulding-s above ; I brought some from Fountain's AWaey the 

 .other day. Look here, sir; angel's, heads puttmg their tongues out, 

 , rplled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each side riding on a 

 broomstick, and the devil looking out from th®, mouth of an alMg'a- 

 tor^ sh.* Odd, I think ; interesting. Then the comere may be 

 turned by octagonal towers, like the centre one in Kenilworth -Gas- 

 tie; with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with cross 

 ^^lits for arrows, battlements for musketry; machiolations for boiling 

 .lead, and a room at the top for drying plums ; and the conservatory 

 at the bottom, sir, with Virginia creepers up the towers ; door sup- 

 ported by sphinxes," holding scrapers in their fore paws, and having 

 f their tails prolonged into warm-water pipes,^ to keep the plants safe 

 in winter, &c.' " 



We have seep, buildings in England, where such Bedlam sugges- 

 tions of taste have not only been made, but accepted either wholly 

 pr partly by the architect, and where the result was,' of. course, both 

 ludicrous and absurd. There is less dictation to architects in this 

 country on one hand, and more independence of any. class on the 

 other, to bring such examples of architectural salmagundies into ex- 

 istence; — though there are a few in the profession weak enough to 

 '.prostitute their talents to any whim or caprice of the employer. 



But by far the greater danger; at the present moment lies in the 

 inordinate ambition of the builders of ornamental cottages. Not 

 contented with the simple and befitting decoration of the modest 

 veranda, the bracketed roof, the latticed window, and the lovely ac- 

 cessories of vines and flowering shrubs, the builder' of the cottage orn6e 

 in too many cases, attempts -to ingrafl: upon his simple story of a 

 habitation, all the tropes and figm-es of architectural rhetoric which 

 belong to the elaborate oratory of a palace or a temple. 



We have made a point of eWorcing the superior charm of sim- 

 plicity-^and the realness of the beauty which grows out of it, in 



* This grotesque de^viee is actually carved on one of the groins of Eoslin 

 Castle, Scptland. 



