80 John of Padua. 



as principal freemason." He was at once engaged by Sir John 

 Thynne. It is impossible to say how far Robert Smithson merely 

 executed work according to plans already provided for him : or how 

 far he may have assisted in arranging and finally settling the plans: 

 but it is remarkable that he was the man who built Wollaton 

 House, in Nottinghamshire, and on his monument in the parish 

 Church there, where he was buried, it is recorded that he was " the 

 Architeetor and Surveyor unto the most worthy House of Wollaton 

 with divers others of great account. 33 



The late Mr. John Britton considered the two houses so re- 

 markably alike that, in his opinion, they must have been the pro- 

 duction of one and the same mind, Another writer 1 sees so many 

 minute differences in details, that he is of a contrary opinion. So, 

 in architecture, as in medicine, doctors differ. It is true that Wolla- 

 ton, having been built a few years later than the other, has more 

 ornament ; still, the general observer cannot help being struck with 

 a very strong resemblance between them : and would probably 

 conclude that they were really the work of one and the same 

 architect, who, naturally, would not make them precisely the same, 

 but would give them the sisterly likeness which Ovid gives to 

 his sea-nymphs," not exactly the same features, yet not very 

 different 93 :— 



" facies non omnibns una 

 Nec diver sa tamen ; qualem decet esse eororum." 



(Metam., II., 1. 13.) 



The word "Architeetor," used on the monument to Robert 

 Smithson, may mean, not the modern architect, but merely the 

 builder. R. Smithson certainly was not employed upon the first 

 Longleat, so that if that first house was (as by the notice of " friezes, 

 architraves, capitals, bases, &c," it appears to have been), of the 

 same Italian-English or English- Italian style as the present "one, 

 Smithson could not have been the original designer. That person 

 must have been, as already suggested, either an Italian, or an 

 Englishman educated in Italy, whose object was to combine both 



1 See " The Builder," 13th May, 1882. 



