106 



ARCHITECTURE. 



BOOK I. 



advantageous. The symmetry and regularity of the Grecian 

 , style often occasions much loss of space, confines the size, and 

 renders it difficult to give sufficient light to the apartments. 

 If any error of that kind be produced in this style, the fault is 

 entirely in the architect. But though such be the properties of 

 this style, it does not follow that they have always been most 

 advantageously employed ; yet it may be here remarked, that 

 where ornament in the parts was not attempted, houses in this 

 style are generally more commodious and convenient within 

 (taking into view the sera in which they were built), and have 

 more unity of effect externally, than those of the irregular 

 Grecian style. In the attempt at ornament, however, appa- 

 rent fitness has frequentl^be^eh lost sight of, as in many of 

 Inigo Jones's buildings, where small columns are placed against 

 the walls, and piled above each other, evidently for no other 

 purpose'. This is evinced in the principal doorway of that 

 otherwise fine quadrangle Herriot's Hospital, Edinburgh, and 

 Tixall, near Stone in Staffordshire. When the artists did not 

 seek for an opportunity of displaying ornaments, but merely 

 added them to such parts as were necessary, a fine effect was 

 produced ; as in the college of Glasgow, where the rows of 

 windows placed in the eaves are terminated by ornamented tri- 

 angular pediments. But even this has been carried to excess ; 

 first, by increasing the dimensions of these pediments, and then 

 by loading them with heavy acroteria, as in several old houses in 



