"One science only will one genius fit,

So vast is art, so narrow human wit."--POPE.

The reason of their adopting this everlasting parallelopiped figure is obvious, it is easier to manage; and they have no idea of a house beyond the square; they have no idea of a varied outline and harmony of parts, the picturesque beauty of masses or the sublime grandeur of a whole; and whenever they have a house to build out of the usual form, such are suffered by the employer, of necessity, to copy from a house already erected: whether that building will accord and harmonize with the intended situation or not, is never taken into consideration. Now, although its prototype may look well where it stands, it seldom fails of appearing the reverse on a con trary site.*

All reasonable deviation in one design from that of another is to be aimed at, as we have before stated; but we are to see that we do not sacrifice convenience to change; this is all that is required. That which is new always pleases more than what is common, because the elegant and uncommon will strike the eye of the refined man of taste, whereas they will neglect to observe the usual and vulgar form. These simple hints are the points at which the architect is to aim; let him therefore well consider these things, consult reason, and call in the assistance of art, which has now established the whole practice upon certain rules, and reduced the flights of wild and erroneous fancy to a regular and noble science, worthy the attention of the greatest genius.

THE CONSERVATORY.

The conservatory is a great acquisition to a gentleman's house. In the country it is situated on the ground-floor, either attached to the drawing-room or the breakfast-room; in London, where the drawing-room is on the first-floor, the conservatory is placed on this level also. This beautiful and enlivening appendage has in some cases glass on all sides, and on the top the roof is framed with iron. In peculiar instances the stage is made to revolve, so as to present all the different plants and flowers alternately to the view of those assembled in the drawing-room, without the necessity of shifting the flowers: it by this means also turns those flowers to the sun which most require its influence. There is a very splendid and imposing conservatory attached to a house on the road to Kensington, belonging to an Irish nobleman, whose name at this time I cannot remember. It has stained and painted landscapes on the glass, which when the sun shines produces a most brilliant and imposing effect. I do not recommend the use of stained glass, as it would be injurious to flowers, but merely to block out unpleasant intrusive scenery.—(Author.)

The conservatory is in most respects similar to a greenhouse; where it is attached to the rooms of a mansion but little heat is required, as the plants should frequently be changed; for this purpose a hothouse is a necessary appendage in the garden to bring the exotics to perfection: these plants, when past their bloom, should be returned to the hot- or greenhouse to be replaced by others. Narrow borders are usually planted with dwarf shrubby flowers to hide the walls instead of showing the hot-air flues, which may be under the floor.-(F. W. L. Ross.)

When a conservatory is glazed on all sides, it should if possible be placed south and north, in order that the plants on both sides of the stage should equally benefit from the sun; when placed against a wall, the glazed side may front any quarter except the north. But as the removal and replacing of the roof of such immense conservatories as are sometimes attached to villas and mansions, are attended with considerable expense, risk of breakage, and what is of still more consequence, risk to the plants if they happen to be removed too soon in spring or left too long unclosed in autumn, we should recommend the Polyprosopic roof as by far the most perfect description of a hothouse roof that has yet been devised. -(Gardener's Encyclopædia.)

It is surprising that gentlemen who generally dislike articles of furniture that are common to others, should nevertheless adopt a plan of a house copied from another building for their place of residence; there is no objection to the idea, or a particular part, but using an expression of Pindar's, "Zounds, you must not take the whole house!"—(A.)

DISSERTATION XXIV.

ON THE GENERAL COMPARTITION OR DISTRIBUTION OF APARTMENTS.

"The architect who is acquainted with genteel life, who has seen the interior of many good houses, and made his observations thereon, is best qualified to lay down a plan. The architect who is not acquainted with these things cannot be considered equal to the task."-DE L'ORME.

Having laid down the general outline of the seat of the house, plan or space which is to be divided into rooms, lobbies, and passages to approach the rooms, and also the stairs to ascend to the upper stories,* the place of the front entrance-door is first to be determined,† and after this we are to proceed to the compartition or inner division of the plan; but for the first consideration we are to proceed with the distribution of the several apartments, according to their destined purpose, position, and use. We are not to take the Romans as our perfect model in this case, because they adapted their buildings to their country and climate, and so must we to ours; for doubtless the principal objects to be regarded in the arrangement and proportions of rooms, are those not only of convenience, but their adaptation for health. With respect to the general distribution of apartments, Palladio, the author of the modern Roman or Italian school, lays down an excellent and universal rule, which is, that "all buildings that are the most beautiful and noble should have their grandest parts placed most in view, and those parts of an inferior kind as much concealed from sight as possible." This is one of the general rules to be adopted in architecture; and though allowed in all countries, yet we see it universally transgressed ; even in a large house, where there is the greatest conveniency for its display, there it is most violated. Where the house is intended for a noble proprietor, and situated in a large municipal town or city, like London, and where there is great depth, the house should always be kept back so as to have a court before it and a garden or pleasure-ground behind-" entre cour et jardin❞—such is Devonshire House in Piccadilly, the town residence of his grace the Duke of Devonshire.§

To pursue therefore this subject, in such places as afford room for it, we shall also refer to the country mansion. These are the edifices in which the distribution of apartments is principally to be considered, because it is there the architect has scope for his genius. It is therefore those structures of which we are properly to speak of here, and on this first general distribution will depend the subsequent divisions of the plan. Though it is needful to speak of large houses on this occasion, there being in them all the variety of apartments, yet so far as small houses are concerned in their distribution, all that is here said may be applied. The young architect will also here find

*To unite the requisites which a good staircase requires, namely, convenience in situation and form, with a sufficiency of light, affords one of the strongest proofs of an architect's skill.—(B.)

When the principal door of entrance is in the middle, its communication with every part of the building is not only the most readily effected, but it contributes so much to the symmetry of the front, that when the plan renders such a position inadmissible, a blank door is frequently substituted for a real one, which is then made in the most convenient place.-(A.)

Before these modes are adopted in practice with a literal exactness, let the architect remember that there is a great difference between the climate of Italy and that of England.—(Author.)

§ I have referred to this edifice because I conceive it to be a good example: the court-walls are low, by which the house is seen, and not hidden like Burlington House. But a screen of columns on a dwarf wall in front of Devonshire House, like as was the façade to Carlton Palace in Pall Mall, would have been still more noble. The screen-wall in front of Burlington House gives the building the appearance of a prison, though built by a reputed architect of that day, Lord Burlington himself. There is an exceedingly imposing colonnade, however, inside the entrance, and up the two sides of the frontcourt of Burlington House, which viewed om the front-door of the mansion, looks like part of an enchanted palace: but what is grandeur when every comfort is sacrificed to it ?—(A.)

all that is required in his subject, which he may take into consideration with respect to every other edifice.* In small houses in the country less will come into consideration, and in the common kind of houses in London very little, because they are naturally confined for room and bound down to a particular situation and plan; yet even in these there will be found use for those rules, established upon a good practice, in those which are largest and most free, for every house has its apartments of separate kinds, and its conveniences as far as they will admit.†

The offices, which will be numerous in proportion as the house is large, must be disposed where they will be least observed: in the distribution of such offices they are always to be considered with the wants and conveniences required by the difference of families of fortune, or uses, and where the architect is to consult the general design of the building, and to adapt his proportion and conveniences. In the principal apartments of the house, proportion is to be the chief consideration, joined with convenience, and such proportions are to be performed by rules. In appropriating rooms to proper uses, this is best done by those who study the best houses, and also consider the wants for which families require them, according to the number and quality of the inmates.‡

Precautions must be taken to prevent the effluvia from the kitchen, bakehouse, brewhouse, and other offices from penetrating to the bedchambers and dining-rooms. The most difficult object to attain of this description, is to prevent the effluvia of the kitchen from annoying the latter, to which the access from it should be as easy, and that as circumstances will allow, for the convenience of servants waiting at table. In country mansions, which admit of the greatest liberty of plan, and where the kitchens are above-ground, this may generally be done, by such an arrangement of the doors and passages of communication, that no current of air from the kitchen can proceed directly towards the dining-room. But in town-houses where the kitchen is beneath the parlourfloor, and therefore not only far nearer in point of situation (though not perhaps of access for persons) than it is usually placed in the country, but on a lower level, the lighter warm air, charged with the smell of the various operations of cookery, is apt to be felt above from its disposition to ascend.§

With respect to the situation of the different parts of a house, the study, libraries, and chief rooms, particularly the bedchambers, should face the east.|| Those of offices which require heat, as kitchens,

*Two things the architect is to aim at in the distribution of his rooms, namely, that the whole building when finished may by that division be rendered graceful and commodious. Gracefulness will depend upon the proportion the rooms have, first, in theraselves; secondly, to one another; and, thirdly, to the whole fabric: commodiousness will arise from their being properly disposed, and having a free communication. Violent drafts through the house must also be guarded against.-(B.)

+ In all good houses in London there are two water-closets, one on the ground-floor for gentlemen, another on the second-floor near the bed-room staircase for ladies. Water-closets were invented about the close of the sixteenth century, attributed to Sir John Harrington.-(A.)

Offices to buildings are variously situated: some are placed in a parallel range with the front of the house, but kept much lower than the body of the main building; others join the house by a circular colonnade on each side, coming forward at the ends; some by a straight arcade placed at right angles to the house, and others again join the main front in the rear. This refers chiefly to town mansions, but in the country, where room is abundant, the architect has space for his fancy: there the offices should be somewhat analogous to the front of the main house, always observing to make them plain; and where decoration and dress adorn a front, that to the offices should be sparingly introduced. If the offices are placed along in a range with the front, they should fall or sink gradually down by breakings along the summit, and terminate as it were in a point, like a landscape, diminishing from the eye by a gradual shade.-(B.)

§ It may however be effectually removed by a small separate tunnel carried up in the stack with the rest, annexed to that of the kitchen. This funnel, to be used for no other purpose, must have its throat or lower opening level with the ceiling of the kitchen. The lighter air, charged with the vapours of the cooking, will then pass off into the external atmosphere by this aperture, instead of accumulating under the ceiling of the kitchen, until it forms a stratum as low as the top of the kitchen-door, and then ascending through the house by the stairs and passages. The opening of this funnel or pipe may be closed by a hinged door, when no operation is going on in the kitchen which can create a disagreeable smell.—(T.)

The south aspect is most preferable for the principal front, if it can be conveniently obtained, in which should be the rooms of state and grandeur. The east is the most proper for a library, because the morning sun gives an enlivening

bakehouses, brewhouses, and distilleries, such should have southern aspects; and those which require a cool fresh air, as cellars, pantries, dairies, and granaries, a northern one, which is also proper for picture galleries, museums, &c., which require a steady light. As to forms, those rooms the plan of which is rectangular, give the greatest facility to convenience of arrangement, without the disadvantage of losing the space, rendered unavoidable by adopting circular or other curved forms, though those are not to be disregarded. A square is an agreeable form, but it is most proper for rooms not exceeding a moderate size, as it cannot well, if very large, be completely lighted from windows in one wall, and the company while ranged on each side are too far apart. For spacious apartments a rectangular paral lelogram or oblong is a more convenient figure; and with regard to beauty, every variation in the proportion, from nearly a square to a square and a half or sesquilateral, may be employed. If the length of the plán be extended materially beyond a sesquilateral, the apartment obtains rather the appearance of a passage or gallery, and it becomes impossible to adjust the height so as to suit both the length and breadth.

It is further necessary to consider that such as libraries, dining- and withdrawing-rooms, principal bedchambers, &c. should be arranged according to existing circumstances, taking care that dressingrooms be attached to the principal bed-rooms, with fireplaces,* and a door from off the staircase or passage into them, as well as from the bed-rooms, that the servant may enter them to put in the fire in the winter season, as he should by no means pass through the bed-rooms for such purpose; and on the ground-floor, if possible, to place the study or library to the east, and likewise the morning- or breakfast-rooms to the same quarter; the dining-rooms are to be in such places as to avoid the morning sun; though upon every house the sun must or ought to shine in some direction, or it will be unhealthy.

In the common way of building in London the offices are all placed underground; but those houses are built on good hard dry gravel, and with front and back areas; they also join each other in rows, which renders them warm and dry; but this mode if entirely adopted in the country would render the house inelegant, inconvenient, and unwholesome. Here then comes in the use of what the architect calls a basement story, which is the floor of the house below the surface of the ground, though not buried underground entirely: it is sunk about three feet below the level of the country, and is usually and very properly built in front with rustic-work. The first-floor apartments are then raised some height above the ground, and a flight of easy steps leads up to the principal door. This is an elegant and very commodious manner of building among the Italians, and there is something of dignity given to those apartments by raising them above the level of the ground; they are also more healthful, as they are out of the reach of the splashing drops of rain on the ground; and the lower floor, which conveniently holds all the common apartments, keeps the servants near the body of the house. The flight of steps in front is also a very great ornament to the edifice, whether they be plain or more decorated. But such houses are best in the Roman style, and when the basement story is faced with French rustic, it gives an air of solidity to the superstructure: it looks as a rock upon which all the rest is raised.+

warmth to nature, and then the spirits are more open, more active and free in the choice of beautiful ideas to furnish the fancy of those whose genius leads them to the study of the curiosities of art or nature.-(B.)

Every chamber in a house should, if possible, have a fireplace, the place of which in those employed as bed-rooms, they are not very spacious, should be about two feet or two feet and a half out of the middle, o allow room for the bed. In apartments of twenty or twenty-four feet a side this arrangement need not be studied, as ne bed can without it be placed sufficiently far from the fire.-(S.)

+ In the first-rate houses in Italy, where there is a garden behind the whole of the back rooms on the first-floor above

Where there is a garden of tolerable extent attached, some of the principal apartments, supposing the situation proper, may very conveniently be placed in the rear of the house. They will by these means be freed from noise and disturbance, and they will have a good light; the garden will also have a good prospect and prove exhilarating, if filled with aromatic plants near the house. Into this garden the best entrance should be by a door in the centre, opposite to the principal entrance of the house; the door for the garden access may be placed at one end, and a sash-door in the centre, and the principal front door still have its proper place. In the larger houses, as there will be numerous rooms, they may be suited to the seasons of the year, as well as to their several purposes. Thus rooms for summer may be placed towards the north, and winter rooms to the south and west, because we seek coolness in summer, and in the winter as much sun as we can have.* Those rooms for summer should also be large and those for winter small, for the same plain reason that a small room is soonest warmed and that a large one is always more cool and airy. This is to be the general distribution and structure of rooms, yet they are continually violated.

The Italians are very exact in this arrangement and distribution of rooms in their houses: they have rooms fronting the east, which are their favourites in spring and autumn, and they always contrive to have them face beautifully-figured gardens or extensive lawns, where there are trees of rich foliage. In both these seasons there is great beauty in nature; the leaves of trees have a fresh and lively green at the time of their first unfolding, which they lose in a few weeks and never after recover; and towards autumn they have a variety that is not found at any other season. All leaves change

colour as they fade, and this they do variously, according to their kinds, some earlier and some later. This gives the autumn a colouring unknown at any other season. Painters understand this, and are fond of it in their landscapes, and why should not we be as pleased with it in the reality?

There is the same kind of advantage in the western situation of summer-rooms, though from another source. They command the setting sun, where they are not blocked up by a hill, and this is a source of beauty beyond painting, and beyond all else in nature, to see this god of day descending in all his radiant glory. As to apartments of the noble kind, these have likewise all their destined places, provided other circumstances do not distract, but fortunately concur, and that they be well laid out, and the offices below have also their proper situations and places. The larder, dairy, and wine-cellar must be to the north, which is an everlasting rule, on account of the coolness. It is a most excellent plan to have a cool larder underground or below the surface, in a basement, for the summer season, and to have ice in it as an ice-house, to preserve the coolness and keep the meat fresh: this plan has been adopted in the meat-markets of the Americans with beneficial effects; and upon the same principle of reason, the rest of the rooms are to be situated according to their several uses. All this general distribution is easy when it is thought of in proper time; but the unhappiness of some is such, that they generally neglect it, or cannot see this till it is too late to be retrieved.

It is surprising to see that many of our architects, who have been able to plan out the whole of a

the ground, where there is a flight of steps in front and a portico placed in a line, a suite facing the garden, there the staircase is in front of the house: these rooms consist of a saloon, an anteroom, a withdrawing-room and antechamber, a bed-chamber, and a dressing-room : the windows of all these being towards the garden are very pleasant and exhilarating, and a glance of the eye through the whole range at once has an air of magnificence and elegance. We object to such an arrangement in this country from the inconvenience in the disposition of the rooms, from the necessity of passing through one room to go into another, but the Italians are fond of this coup d'œil. I saw the same arrangement in the Palace of Versailles in France. (Author.)

* I should always advise invalids, whenever they go into the country for the recovery of their health, to be careful in selecting a house where they can have bed-rooms at the south for the winter and on the north for summer, and that those bed-rooms be lofty; this is the most material to health; and also to see that they are free from drafts.—(Dr. Chine.)