ESSA yS CIVIL AND MORAL. 



I ompey well, who, when he saw his stately galleries and rooms, so 

 large and lightsome in one of his houses, said, &quot;Surely an excellent 

 place for summer, but how do you do in winter ? &quot; Lurullus answered, 

 &quot; \Vhy, do you not think me as wise as some fowls are, that ever 

 change their abode towards the winter ?&quot; 



To pass from the seat to the house itself, we will do as Cicero doth 

 in the orator s art, who writes books &quot; De Oratore,&quot; and a book he 

 entitles &quot; Orator :&quot; whereof the former delivers the precepts of the art, 

 and the latter the perfection. We will therefore describe a princely 

 palace, making a brief model thereof. For it is strange to see, now in 

 Kurope, such huge buildings as the Vatican, and Escurial, and some 

 others be, and yet scarce a very fair room in them. 



First, therefore, I say, you cannot have a perfect palace, except you 

 have two several sides; a side for the banquet, as is spoken of in the 

 book of Esther ; and a side for the household : the one for feasts and 

 triumphs, the other for dwelling. I understand both these sides to be 

 not only returns, but parts of the front ; anil to be uniform without, 

 though severally partitioned within; and to be on both sides of a great 

 and st?tely tower, in the midst of the front; that as it were joincth 

 them together on either hand. I would have on the one side of the 

 banquet, in front, one only goodly room above stairs, of some forty 

 foot high ; and under it a room for a dressing or preparing place, at 

 times of triumphs. On the other side, which is the household side, I wish 

 it divided at the first into a hall and a chapel, with a partition between, 

 both of good state and bigness ; and those not to go all the length, 

 but to have at the farther end a winter and a summer parlour, both 

 fair : and under these rooms a fair and large cellar sunk under 

 ground ; and likewise some privy kitchens, with butteries and pan 

 tries, and the like. As for the tower, I would have it two stories, of 

 eighteen foot high apiece, above the two wings; and goodly leads 

 upon the top, railed, with statues interposed ; and the same tower 

 to be divided into rooms, as shall be thought fit. The stairs likewise to 

 the upper rooms, let them be upon a fair open newel, and finely railed in, 

 with images of wood cast into a brass colour ; and a very fair landing- 

 place at the top. Uut this to be, if you do not appoint any of the 

 lower rooms for a dining-place of servants ; for otherwise you 

 shall have the servants dinner after your own : for the steam of it will 

 come up as in a tunnel. And so much for the front. Only I under 

 stand the height of the first stairs to be sixteen foot, which is the 

 height of the lower room. 



lieyond this front is there to be a fair court, but three sides of it of 

 a far lower building than the front. And in all the four corners of 

 that court, fair staircases cast into turrets on the outside, and not 

 within the row of buildings themselves : but those towers arc not to be 

 of the height of the front, but rather proportionable to the lower build 

 ing. Let the court not be paved, for that striketh up a great heat in 

 summer, and much cold in winter ; but only some side alleys, with a 

 cross, and the quarters to gra/e, being kept shorn, but not too near 

 shorn. The row of return on the banquet side, let it be all stately 



