He that alters an old house is tied as a translator to the original, and
is confined to the fancy of the first builder. Such a man were unwise to
pluck down good old buildings, to erect, perchance, worse new. But those
that raze a new house from the ground are blameworthy if they make it
not handsome, seeing, to them, method and confusion are both at a rate.
In building, we must respect situation, contrivance, receipt, strength,
and beauty. Of situation:
Chiefly choose a wholesome air. For air is a dish one feeds on every
minute, and therefore it need be good. Wherefore great men (who may
build where they please, as poor men where they can), if herein they
prefer their profit above their health, I refer them to their physicians
to make them pay for it accordingly.
Wood and water are two staple commodities, where they may be had. The
former, I confess, hath made so much iron, that it must now be bought
with the more silver, and grows daily dearer. But it is as well pleasant
as profitable to see a house cased with trees, like that of Anchises, in
Troy,
“——quanquam secreta parentis
Anchisæ domus arboribusque obtecta recessit.”
The worst is, where a place is bald of wood, no art can make it a
periwig. As for water, begin with Pindar’s beginning, “ἄρισον μεὺ
hύὁωρ.” The fort of Gogmagog Hill, nigh Cambridge, is counted
impregnable, but for water; the mischief of many houses, where the
servants must bring the water on their shoulders.
Next, a pleasant prospect is to be respected. A medley view (such as of
water and land at Greenwich) best entertains the eye, refreshing the
wearied beholder with exchange of objects. Yet I know a more profitable
prospect, where the owner can only see his own land round about.
A fair entrance, with an easy ascent, gives a great grace to a building,
where the hall is a preferment out of the court, the parlor out of the
hall; not (as in some old buildings) where the doors are so low, pigmies
must stoop, and the rooms so high that giants may stand upright. But now
we are come to the contrivance:
Let not thy common rooms be several, nor thy several rooms be common.
The hall (which is a pandocheum) ought to lie open, and so ought
passages and stairs (provided that the whole house be not spent in
paths); chambers and closets are to be private and retired.
Light (God’s eldest daughter) is a principal beauty in a building; yet
it shines not alike from all parts of heaven. An east window welcomes
the infant beams of the sun before they are of strength to do any harm,
and is offensive to none but a sluggard. A south window in summer is a
chimney with a fire in it, and needs the screen of a curtain. In a west
window in summer time, toward night, the sun grows low and
over-familiar, with more light than delight. A north window is best for
butteries and cellars, where the beer will be sour for the sun’s smiling
on it. Thorough-lights are best for rooms of entertainment, and windows
on one side for dormitories. As for receipt:
A house had better be too little for a day than too great for a year.
And it is easier borrowing of thy neighbor a brace of chambers for a
night, than a bag of money for a twelvemonth. It is vain, therefore, to
proportion the receipt to an extraordinary occasion, as those who, by
over-building their houses have dilapidated their lands, and their
estates have been pressed to death under the weight of their house. As
for strength:
Country houses must be substantives, able to stand of themselves; not
like city buildings, supported by their neighbors on either side. By
strength we mean such as may resist weather and time, not
invasion—castles being out of date in this peaceable age. As for the
making of moats round about, it is questionable whether the fogs be not
more unhealthful than the fish bring profit, or the water defense.
Beauty remains behind, as the last to be regarded, because houses are
made to be lived in, not looked on.
Let not the front look asquint on a stranger, but accost him right at
his entrance. Uniformity, also, much pleaseth the eye; and it is
observed
that freestone, like a fair complexion, soonest waxeth old, while brick
keeps her beauty longest.
Let the office-houses observe the due distance from the mansion-house.
Those are too familiar which presume to be of the same pile with it. The
same may be said of stables and barns; without which a house is like a
city without outworks, it can never hold out long.
Gardens, also, are to attend in their place. When God (Genesis ii. 9)
planted a garden eastward, He made to grow out of the ground every tree
pleasant to the sight, and good for food. Sure He knew better what was
proper to a garden than those, who, now-a-days, therein only feed the
eyes, and starve both taste and smell.
To conclude. In building, rather believe any man than an artificer in
his own art for matter of charges; not that they can not, but will not,
be faithful. Should they tell thee all the cost at the first, it would
blast a young builder in the budding, and therefore they sooth thee up
till it hath cost thee something to confute them. The spirit of building
first possessed people after the flood, which then caused the confusion
of languages, and since, the estate of many a man.
THOMAS FULLER, “_Holy and Profane States_,” 1608–1661.