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would exclude all but one of thofe proportions that utility requires in different buildings, and in different parts of the fame building.

It provokes a fmile to find writers acknowledging the neceffity of accurate proptions, and yet differing widely about them. Laying afide reafoning and philofophy, one fact univerfally allowed ought to have undeceived them, that the fame proportions which are agreeable in a model, are not agreeable in a large building: a room 40 feet in length and 24 in breadth and height, is well proportioned; but a room 12 feet wide and high and 24 long, approaches to a gallery.

Perrault, in his comparison of the ancients and moderns,* is the only author who runs to the oppofite extreme; maintaining, that the different proportions affigned to each order of columns are arbitrary, and that the beauty of these proportions is entirely the effect of cuftom. This betrays ignorance of human nature, which evidently delights in proportion as well as in regularity, order, and propriety. But without any acquaintance with human nature, a fingle reflection might have convinced him of his error, That if thefe proportions had not originally been agreeable, they could not have been established by cuftom.

To illuftrate the prefent point, I fhall add a few examples of the agreeablenefs of different proportions. In a fumptuous edifice, the capital rooms ought to be large, for otherwife they will not be proportioned to the fize of the building and for the fame reafon, a very large room is improper in a fmall houfe. But in things thus related, the mind requires not a precife or fingle proportion, rejecting all others; on the contrary, many different proportions are made equally

* Page 94.

equally welcome. In all buildings accordingly, we find rooms of different proportions equally agreeable, even where the proportion is not influenced by utility. With refpect to the height of a room, the proportion it ought to bear to the length and breadth, is arbitrary; and it cannot be otherwife, confidering the uncertainty of the eye as to the height of a room, when it exceeds 17 or 18 feet. In columns, again, even architects must confefs, that the proportion of height and thickness varies betwixt 8 diameters and 10, and that every proportion between these extremes is agreeable. But this is not all. There must certainly be a farther variation of proportion, depending on the fize of the column: a row of columns 10 feet high, and a row twice that height, require different proportions: the intercolumniations must alfo differ according to the height of the row.

Proportion of parts is not only itself a beauty, but is infeperably connected with a beauty of the higheft relifh, that of concord or harmony; which will be plain from what follows. A room of which the parts are all finely adjusted to each other, ftrikes us with the beauty of proportion. It strikes us at the fame time with a pleafure far fuperior: the length, the breadth, the height, the windows, raife cach of them separately an emotion: thefe emotions are fimilar; and though faint when felt feparately, they produce in conjunction the emotion of concord or harmony; which is extremely pleafant. On the other hand, where the length of a room far exceeds the breadth, the mind, comparing together parts fo intimately connected, immediately perceives a difagreement or difproportion which difgufts. But this is not all viewing them feparately, different emotions are produced, that of grandeur from the great length,

* Chap. 2. part 4.

length, and that of meannefs or littleness from the fmall breadth, which in union are difagreeable by their difcordance. Hence it is, that a long gallery, however convenient for exercife, is not an agreeable figure of a room, we confider it, like a ftable, as deftined for ufe, and expect not that in any other respect it should be agreeable.

Regularity and proportion are effential in buildings deftined chiefly or folely to please the eye, because they produce intrinfic beauty. But a fkilful artist will not confine his view to regularity and proportion he will alfo ftudy congruity, which is perceived when the form and ornaments of a ftructure are fuited to the purpofe for which it is intended. The fenfe of congruity dictates the following rule, That every building have an expreffion correfponding to its deftination: a palace ought to be fumptuous and grand; a private dwelling, neat and modeft; a playhoufe, gay and fplendid; and a monument, gloomy and melancholy. A Heathen temple has a double destination: It is confidered chiefly as a houfe dedicated to fome divinity; and in that refpect it ought to be grand, elevated, and magnificent: It is confidered alfo as a place of worship; and in that refpect it ought to be fomewhat dark or gloomy, becaufe dim

nefs

*A covered paffage conne&ting a winter-garden with the dwelling-houfe, would answer the purpose of walking in bad weather much better than a gallery. A fight roof fupported by flender pillars, whether of wood or lone, would be fufficient; filling up the fpaces between the pillars with evergreens, fo as to give verdure and exclude wind.

+ A houfe for the poor ought to have an appearance fuited to its deflination. The new hofpital in Paris for foundlings, errs against this rule; for it has more the air of a palace than of an hof ital. Propriety and convenience ought to be fludied in lodging the indigent; but in fuch houfes fplendor and magnificence are out of all rule. For the fame reason, a naked flatue or picture, fcarce decent any where, is in a church intolerable. A fumptuous charity-fchool, befide its impropriety, gives the children an unhappy tafle for high living.

nefs produces that tone of mind which is fuited to humility and devotion. A Chriftian church is not confidered to be a houfe for the Deity, but merely a place of worship: it ought therefore to be decent and plain, without much ornament: a fituation ought to be chofen low and retired; because the congregation during worship, ought to be humble and difengaged from the world. Columns, befide their chief fervice of being fupports, may contribute to that peculiar expreffion which the deftination of a building requires: columns of different proportions, ferve to express loftinefs, lightnefs, &c. as well as ftrength. Situation alfo may contribute to expreffion conveniency regulates the fituation of a private dwelling-houfe: but, as I have had occafion to obferve, the fituation of a palace ought to be lofty.

And this leads to a question, Whether the fitua tion, where there happens to be no choice, ought, in any measure, to regulate the form of the edifice ? The connection between a large house and the neighbouring fields, though not intimate, demands howev er fome congruity. It would, for example, difplease us to find an elegant building thrown away upon a wild uncultivated country: congruity requires a polifhed field for fuch a building; and befide the pleafure of congruity, the fpectator is fenfible of the pleasure of concordance from the fimilarity of the emotions produced by the two objects. The old Gothic form of building feems well fuited to the rough uncultivated regions where it was invented: the only mistake was, the transferring this form to the fine plains of France and Italy, better fitted for buildings in the Grecian tafte; but by refining upon the Gothic form, every thing poffible has been done to reconcile it to its new fituation. The profufe

Chap. 10.

fufe variety of wild and grand objects about Inverary, demanded a houfe in the Gothic form; and every one must approve the taste of the proprietor, in adjufting fo finely the appearance of his houfe to that of the country where it is placed.

The external ftructure of a great houfe leads naturally to its internal structure. A fpacious room, which is the first that commonly receives us, feems a bad contrivance in feveral refpects. In the first place, when immediately from the open air we step into fuch a room, its fize in appearance is diminished by contraft it looks little compared with that great canopy the fky. In the next place, when it recovers it grandeur, as it foon doth, it gives a diminutive appearance to the reft of the houfe: paffing from it, every apartment looks little. This room therefore may be aptly compared to the fwoln commencement of an epic poem,

Bella per Emathios plufquam civilia campos.

In the third place, by its fituation it ferves only for a waiting-room, and a paffage to the principal apartments: inftead of being referved, as it ought to be, for entertaining company; a great room, which enlarges the mind and gives a certain elevation to the fpirits, is destined by nature for converfation. Rejecting therefore this form, I take a hint from the climax in writing for another form that appears more fuitable a handfome portico proportioned to the fize and fashion of the front, leads into a waitingroom of a larger fize, and that to the great room; all by a progreffion from fmall to great. If the house be very large, there may be space for the following fuit of rooms: firft, a portico; fecond, a paffage within the house, bounded by a double row of columns connected

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