108 
GARDEN ARCHITECTURE. 
half glass, additionally shaded and darkened with pillars and pilasters, pediments, 
cornices, and the other appendages of a purely architectural composition ? These, 
then, are the two great and serious grounds of complaint, — always, be it remarked, 
varied and modified to some extent, — that we have to urge against the majority of 
floricultural houses at present standing in Britain. We must enlarge briefly on each. 
The former, from being the most common, requires earliest and longest con- 
sideration. From the dismal dungeon-like buildings constructed by the original 
horticulturists of this country, the most marked change — and a change, too, certainly 
for the better — was to the ordinary lean-to houses, with brick back walls the height 
of the entire erection, and low front ones of similar materials, the slope between, and 
the ends and front to within a certain distance of the ground, being covered with 
glass. When this improvement first occurred, it was doubtless hailed as comprising 
all that could then be wished for. But the taste for architectural symmetry and 
effect has since been so wonderfully diffused, and a regard for exterior appearance 
has become so extremely general, that even the cottages on an estate are now 
designed and built with a view to render them pleasing ; and surely it will not be 
contended that the structures destined to cover, and exhibit agreeably, many of the 
most elegant and lovely objects in creation, should alone be left behind in the flow 
of refinement. 
Nothing can be more easy than to prove that the kind of houses we have just 
been describing are the very reverse of beautiful. They are destitute of one of the 
main constituents of beauty — symmetrical proportion ; and when seen from the end, 
present a contour of the most displeasing figure. They have invariably an ugly 
back wall in the inside ; and the same disagreeableness of outline which marks the 
exterior is equally apparent when the observer is within the house. They always 
call to mind a series of slovenly back sheds, fire-places, &c., and violate a principle, 
which is now never neglected in superior residences, that all sides of the building 
may be gazed upon without meeting anything inferior or repulsive. In fine, if 
looked upon from the front — where alone they are at all tolerable — their slope is 
too long, too steep, too flat, too undiversified, to accord with any true idea of beauty, 
whether natural or acquired. 
With regard to the well-doing of the plants and the waste of material, they are 
further improper. In the long slope of the roof, and the height of the glazed ends, 
much glass is used that might be far more advantageously employed ; while the 
high brick wall at the back excludes light, prevents the passage of heat and 
air through the house in summer, and, by refraction, often, at that season, causes 
the temperature to rise immoderately and suddenly on a trifling temporary period 
of sunshine. A point of even greater moment, however, is the distance at which 
many of the plants are unavoidably kept from the glass, the full influence of which 
circumstance can hardly be conceived. 
These observations all apply with unabated force to what are termed “ ranges” of 
houses, or whatever approximates to them. They are characterized by the same 
