RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 
325 
Much of the picturesque effect of the ola English and 
Italian houses, undoubtedly arises from the handsome and 
curious stacks of chimneys which spring out of their roofs. 
These, while they break and diversify the sky outline of the 
building, enrich and give variety to its most bare and 
unornamented part. Examples are not wanting, in all the 
different styles of architecture, of handsome and character 
islic chimneys, which may be adopted in any of our 
dwellings of a similar style. The Gothic, or old English 
chimney, with octagonal or cylindrical flues or shafts united 
in clusters, is made in a great variety of forms, either of 
bricks 01 artificial stone. The former materials, moulded 
in the required shape, are highly taxed in England, while 
they may be very cheaply made here. 
A Porch strengthens or conveys expression of purpose, 
because, instead of leaving the entrance door bare, as in 
manufactories and buildings of an inferior description, it 
serves both as a note of preparation, and an effectual 
shelter and protection to the entrance. Besides this, it 
gives a dignity and importance to that entrance, pointing 
it out to the stranger as the place of approach. A fine 
country house, without a porch or covered shelter to the 
doorway of some description, is therefore as incomplete, 
to the correct eye, as a well printed book without a title 
page, leaving the stranger to plunge at once in medias res, 
without the friendly preparation of a single word of intro- 
duction. Porches are susceptible of every variety of form 
and decoration, from the embattled and buttressed portal 
of the Gothic castle, to the latticed arbor porch of the 
cottage, around which the festoons of luxuriant climbing 
plants cluster, giving an effect net less beautiful than tho 
richly carved capitals of the classic portico. 
