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lecture, with finely proportioned and well 

 distributed rooms, and with convenient 

 offices, and looks no further, the assistance 

 of an architect, though always highly use- 

 ful, is hardly necessary. A number of 

 elevations and plans of such houses, of dif- 

 ferent forms and sizes, have been published; 

 or he may look at those which have been 

 completed, observe their appearance and 

 distribution, and suit himself: the estimate 

 a common builder can make as well as a 

 Palladio. 



I am very far from intending by what I 

 have just said, to undervalue a profession 

 which I highly respect, or to suppose it 

 unnecessary ; on the contrary, I am very 

 anxious to shew, that whoever wishes his 

 buildings to be real decorations to his 

 place, cannot do without an architect ; and 

 by an architect I do not mean a mere 

 builder, but one who has studied landscape 

 as well as architecture, who is no less- fond 

 of it than of his own profession, and who 

 feels that each different situation, requires 

 a different disposition of the several parts. 



