cottage-like in its prevailing forms, awakening no elevated ideas,
assuming no nobility of form. It has none of the pride, or the grace of
beauty, none of the dignity of delight which we found in the villa of
Italy; but it is a habitation of everyday life, a protection from
momentary inconvenience, covered with stiff efforts at decoration, and
exactly typical of the mind of its inhabitant: not noble in its taste,
not haughty in its recreation, not pure in its perception of beauty; but
domestic in its pleasures, fond of matter-of-fact rather than of
imagination, yet sparkling occasionally with odd wit and grotesque
association. The Italian obtains his beauty, as his recreation, with
quietness, with few and noble lines, with great seriousness and depth of
thought, with very rare interruptions to the simple train of feeling.
But the Englishman's villa is full of effort: it is a business with him
to be playful, an infinite labor to be ornamental: he forces his
amusement with fits of contrasted thought, with mingling of minor
touches of humor, with a good deal of sulkiness, but with no melancholy;
and therefore, owing to this last adjunct,[30] the building, in its
original state, cannot be called beautiful, and we ought not to consider
the effect of its present antiquity, evidence of which is, as was before
proved, generally objectionable in a building devoted to pleasure,[31]
and is only agreeable here, because united with the memory of a departed
pride.
[Footnote 30: Namely the fact that there is no melancholy in the English
play-impulse; _v. ante_, § 23.]
[Footnote 31: See § 118 seq.]
158. Again, it is a lifelike building, sparkling in its casements, brisk
in its air, letting much light in at the walls and roof, low and
comfortable-looking in its door. The Italian's dwelling is much walled
in, letting out no secrets from the inside, dreary and drowsy in its
effect. Just such is the difference between the minds of the
inhabitants; the one passing away in deep and dark reverie, the other
quick and business-like, enjoying its everyday occupations, and active
in its ordinary engagements.
159. Again, it is a regularly planned, mechanical, well-disciplined
building; each of its parts answering to its opposite, each of its
ornaments matched with similarity. The Italian (where it has no high
pretense to architectural beauty) is a rambling and irregular edifice,
varied with uncorresponding masses: and the mind of the Italian we find
similarly irregular, a thing of various and ungovernable impulse,
without fixed principle of action; the Englishman's, regular and uniform
in its emotions, steady in its habits, and firm even in its most trivial
determinations.
160. Lastly, the size of the whole is diminutive, compared with the
villas of the south, in which the effect was always large and general.
Here the eye is drawn into the investigation of particular points, and
miniature details; just as, in comparing the English and Continental
cottages, we found the one characterized by a minute finish, and the
other by a massive effect, exactly correspondent with the scale of the
features and scenery of their respective localities.
161. It appears, then, from a consideration of these several points,
that, in our antiquated style of villa architecture, some national
feeling may be discovered; but in any buildings now raised there is no
character whatever: all is ridiculous imitation, and despicable
affectation; and it is much to be lamented, that now, when a great deal
of public attention has been directed to architecture on the part of the
public, more efforts are not made to turn that attention from mimicking
Swiss _châlets_, to erecting English houses. We need not devote more
time to the investigation of _purely_ domestic English architecture,
though we hope to derive much instruction and pleasure from the
contemplation of buildings partly adapted for defense, and partly for
residence. The introduction of the means of defense is, however, a
distinction which we do not wish at present to pass over; and therefore,
in our next paper, we hope to conclude the subject of the villa, by a
few remarks on the style now best adapted for English scenery.
V.
THE ENGLISH VILLA.--PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.
162. It has lately become a custom, among the more enlightened and
refined of metropolitan shopkeepers, to advocate the cause of propriety
in architectural decoration, by ensconcing their shelves, counters, and
clerks in classical edifices, agreeably ornamented with ingenious
devices, typical of the class of articles to which the tradesman
particularly desires to direct the public attention. We find our grocers
enshrined in temples whose columns are of canisters, and whose pinnacles
are of sugar-loaves. Our shoemakers shape their soles under Gothic
portals, with pendants of shoes, and canopies of Wellingtons; and our
cheesemongers will, we doubt not, soon follow the excellent example, by
raising shops the varied diameters of whose jointed columns, in their
address to the eye, shall awaken memories of Staffa, Pæstum, and
Palmyra; and in their address to the tongue, shall arouse exquisite
associations of remembered flavor, Dutch, Stilton, and Strachino.
163. Now, this fit of taste on the part of our tradesmen is only a
coarse form of a disposition inherent in the human mind. Those objects
to which the eye has been most frequently accustomed, and among which
the intellect has formed its habits of action, and the soul its modes of
emotion, become agreeable to the thoughts, from their correspondence
with their prevailing cast, especially when the business of life has had
any relation to those objects; for it is in the habitual and necessary
occupation that the most painless hours of existence are passed:
whatever be the nature of that occupation, the memories belonging to it
will always be agreeable, and, therefore, the objects awakening such
memories will invariably be found beautiful, whatever their character or
form.
164. It is thus that taste is the child and the slave of memory; and
beauty is tested, not by any fixed standard, but by the chances of
association; so that in every domestic building evidence will be found
of the kind of life through which its owner has passed, in the operation
of the habits of mind which that life has induced. From the
superannuated coxswain, who plants his old ship's figure-head in his six
square feet of front garden at Bermondsey, to the retired noble, the
proud portal of whose mansion is surmounted by the broad shield and the
crested gryphon, we are all guided, in our purest conceptions, our most
ideal pursuit, of the beautiful, by remembrances of active occupation;
and by principles derived from industry regulate the fancies of our
repose.
165. It would be excessively interesting to follow out the investigation
of this subject more fully, and to show how the most refined pleasures,
the most delicate perceptions, of the creature who has been appointed to
eat bread by the sweat of his brow, are dependent upon, and intimately
connected with, his hours of labor. This question, however, has no
relation to our immediate object, and we only allude to it, that we may
be able to distinguish between the two component parts of individual
character; the one being the consequence of continuous habits of life
acting upon natural temperament and disposition, the other being the
_humor_ of character, consequent upon circumstances altogether
accidental, taking stern effect upon feelings previously determined by
the first part of the character; laying on, as it were, the finishing
touches, and occasioning the innumerable prejudices, fancies, and
eccentricities, which, modified in every individual to an infinite
extent, form the visible veil of the human heart.
166. Now, we have defined the province of the architect to be, that of
selecting such forms and colors as shall delight the mind, by preparing
it for the operations to which it is to be subjected in the building.
Now, no forms, in domestic architecture, can thus prepare it more
distinctly than those which correspond closely with the first, that is,
the fixed and fundamental, part of character, which is always so uniform
in its action, as to induce great simplicity in whatever it designs.
Nothing, on the contrary, can be more injurious than the slightest
influence of the _humors_ upon the edifice; for the influence of what is
fitful in its energy, and petty in its imagination, would destroy all
the harmony of parts, all the majesty of the whole; would substitute
singularity for beauty, amusement for delight, and surprise for
veneration. We could name several instances of buildings erected by men
of the highest talent, and the most perfect general taste, who yet, not
having paid much attention to the first principles of architecture,
permitted the humor of their disposition to prevail over the majesty of
their intellect, and, instead of building from a fixed design, gratified
freak after freak, and fancy after fancy, as they were caught by the
dream or the desire; mixed mimicries of incongruous reality with
incorporations of undisciplined ideal; awakened every variety of
contending feeling and unconnected memory; consummated confusion of form
by trickery of detail; and have left barbarism, where half the world
will look for loveliness.
167. This is a species of error which it is very difficult for persons
paying superficial and temporary attention to architecture to avoid:
however just their taste may be in criticism, it will fail in creation.
It is only in moments of ease and amusement that they will think of
their villa: they make it a mere plaything, and regard it with a kind of
petty exultation, which, from its very nature, will give liberty to the
light fancy, rather than the deep feeling, of the mind. It is not
thought necessary to bestow labor of thought, and periods of
deliberation, on one of the toys of life; still less to undergo the
vexation of thwarting wishes, and leaving favorite imaginations,
relating to minor points, unfulfilled, for the sake of general effect.
168. This feeling, then, is the first to which we would direct
attention, as the villa architect's chief enemy: he will find it
perpetually and provokingly in his way. He is requested, perhaps, by a
man of great wealth, nay, of established taste in some points, to make a
design for a villa in a lovely situation. The future proprietor carries
him upstairs to his study, to give him what he calls his "ideas and
materials," and, in all probability, begins somewhat thus:--"This, sir,
is a slight note: I made it on the spot: approach to Villa Reale, near
Pozzuoli. Dancing nymphs, you perceive; cypresses, shell fountain. I
think I should like something like this for the approach: classical, you
perceive, sir; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a sketch, made by
an American friend of mine: Whee-whaw-Kantamaraw's wigwam, King of
the--Cannibal Islands, I think he said, sir. Log, you observe; scalps,
and boa-constrictor skins: curious. Something like this, sir, would look
neat, I think, for the front door; don't you? Then, the lower windows,
I've not quite decided upon; but what would you say to Egyptian, sir? I
think I should like my windows Egyptian, with hieroglyphics, sir; storks
and coffins, and appropriate moldings above: I brought some from
Fountains Abbey the other day. Look here, sir; angels' heads putting
their tongues out, rolled up in cabbage leaves, with a dragon on each
side riding on a broomstick, and the devil looking on from the mouth of
an alligator, sir.[32] Odd, I think; interesting. Then the corners may
be turned by octagonal towers, like the center one in Kenilworth Castle;
with Gothic doors, portcullis, and all, quite perfect; with cross slits
for arrows, battlements for musketry, machicolations for boiling lead,
and a room at the top for drying plums; and the conservatory at the
bottom, sir, with Virginian creepers up the towers; door supported by
sphinxes, holding scrapers in their fore paws, and having their tails
prolonged into warm-water pipes, to keep the plants safe in winter,
etc." The architect is, without doubt, a little astonished by these
ideas and combinations; yet he sits calmly down to draw his elevations;
as if he were a stone-mason, or his employer an architect; and the
fabric rises to electrify its beholders, and confer immortality on its
perpetrator.
[Footnote 32: Actually carved on one of the groins of Roslin Chapel.]
[Illustration: Fig. 12. Old English Mansion. 1837.]
169. This is no exaggeration: we have not only listened to speculations
on the probable degree of the future majesty, but contemplated the
actual illustrious existence, of several such buildings, with sufficient
beauty in the management of some of their features to show that an
architect had superintended them, and sufficient taste in their interior
economy to prove that a refined intellect had projected them; and had
projected a Vandalism, only because fancy had been followed instead of
judgment; with as much _nonchalance_ as is evinced by a perfect poet,
who is extemporizing doggerel for a baby; full of brilliant points,
which he cannot help, and jumbled into confusion, for which he does not
care.
170. Such are the first difficulties to be encountered in villa designs.
They must always continue to occur in some degree, though they might be
met with ease by a determination on the part of professional men to give
no assistance whatever, beyond the mere superintendence of construction,
unless they be permitted to take the whole exterior design into their
own hands, merely receiving broad instructions respecting the style (and
not attending to them unless they like). They should not make out the
smallest detail, unless they were answerable for the whole. In this
case, gentlemen architects would be thrown so utterly on their own
resources, that, unless those resources were adequate, they would be
obliged to surrender the task into more practiced hands; and, if they
were adequate, if the amateur had paid so much attention to the art as
to be capable of giving the design perfectly, it is probable he would
not erect anything strikingly abominable.
171. Such a system (supposing that it could be carried fully into
effect, and that there were no such animals as sentimental stone-masons
to give technical assistance) might, at first, seem rather an
encroachment on the liberty of the subject, inasmuch as it would prevent
people from indulging their edificatorial fancies, unless they knew
something about the matter, or, as the sufferers would probably
complain, from doing what they liked with their own. But the mistake
would evidently lie in their supposing, as people too frequently do,
that the outside of their house _is_ their own, and that they have a
perfect right therein to make fools of themselves in any manner, and to
any extent, they may think proper. This is quite true in the case of
interiors; every one has an indisputable right to hold himself up as a
laughing-stock to the whole circle of his friends and acquaintances, and
to consult his own private asinine comfort by every piece of absurdity
which can in any degree contribute to the same; but no one has any right
to exhibit his imbecilities at other people's expense, or to claim the
public pity by inflicting public pain. In England, especially, where, as
we saw before, the rage for attracting observation is universal, the
outside of the villa is rendered, by the proprietor's own disposition,
the property of those who daily pass by, and whom it hourly affects with
pleasure or pain. For the pain which the eye feels from the violation of
a law to which it has been accustomed, or the mind from the occurrence
of anything jarring to its finest feelings, is as distinct as that
occasioned by the interruption of the physical economy, differing only
inasmuch as it is not permanent; and, therefore, an individual has as
little right to fulfill his own conceptions by disgusting thousands, as,
were his body as impenetrable to steel or poison, as his brain to the
effect of the beautiful or true, he would have to decorate his carriage
roads with caltrops, or to line his plantations with upas trees.
172. The violation of general feelings would thus be unjust, even were
their consultation productive of continued vexation to the individual:
but it is not. To no one is the architecture of the exterior of a
dwelling-house of so little consequence as to its inhabitant. Its
material may affect his comfort, and its condition may touch his pride;
but, for its architecture, his eye gets accustomed to it in a week, and,
after that, Hellenic, Barbaric, or Yankee, are all the same to the
domestic feelings, are all lost in the one name of Home. Even the
conceit of living in a châlet, or a wigwam, or a pagoda, cannot retain
its influence for six months over the weak minds which alone can feel
it; and the monotony of existence becomes to them exactly what it would
have been had they never inflicted a pang upon the unfortunate
spectators, whose unaccustomed eyes shrink daily from the impression to
which they have not been rendered callous by custom, or lenient by false
taste.
173. If these considerations are just when they allude only to buildings
in the abstract, how much more when referring to them as materials of
composition, materials of infinite power, to adorn or destroy the
loveliness of the earth. The nobler scenery of that earth is the
inheritance of all her inhabitants: it is not merely for the few to whom
it temporarily belongs, to feed from like swine, or to stable upon like
horses, but it has been appointed to be the school of the minds which
are kingly among their fellows, to excite the highest energies of
humanity, to furnish strength to the lordliest intellect, and food for
the holiest emotions of the human soul. The presence of life is, indeed,
necessary to its beauty, but of life congenial with its character; and
that life is not congenial which thrusts presumptuously forward, amidst
the calmness of the universe, the confusion of its own petty interests
and groveling imaginations, and stands up with the insolence of a
moment, amid the majesty of all time, to build baby fortifications upon
the bones of the world, or to sweep the copse from the corrie, and the
shadow from the shore, that fools may risk, and gamblers gather, the
spoil of a thousand summers.
174. It should therefore be remembered by every proprietor of land in
hill country, that his possessions are the means of a peculiar
education, otherwise unattainable, to the artists, and in some degree to
the literary men, of his country; that, even in this limited point of
view, they are a national possession, but much more so when it is
remembered how many thousands are perpetually receiving from them, not
merely a transitory pleasure, but such thrilling perpetuity of pure
emotion, such lofty subject for scientific speculation, and such deep
lessons of natural religion, as only the work of a Deity can impress,
and only the spirit of an immortal can feel: they should remember that
the slightest deformity, the most contemptible excrescence, can injure
the effect of the noblest natural scenery, as a note of discord can
annihilate the expression of the purest harmony; that thus it is in the
power of worms to conceal, to destroy, or to violate, what angels could
not restore, create or consecrate; and that the right, which every man
unquestionably possesses, to be an ass, is extended only, in public, to
those who are innocent in idiotism, not to the more malicious clowns,
who thrust their degraded motley conspicuously forth amidst the fair
colors of earth, and mix their incoherent cries with the melodies of
eternity, break with their inane laugh upon the silence which Creation
keeps where Omnipotence passes most visibly, and scrabble over with the
characters of idiocy the pages that have been written by the finger of
God.
175. These feelings we would endeavor to impress upon all persons likely
to have anything to do with embellishing, as it is called, fine natural
scenery; as they might, in some degree, convince both the architect and
his employer of the danger of giving free play to the imagination in
cases involving intricate questions of feeling and composition, and
might persuade the designer of the necessity of looking, not to his own
acre of land, or to his own peculiar tastes, but to the whole mass of
forms and combination of impressions with which he is surrounded.
176. Let us suppose, however, that the design is yielded entirely to the
architect's discretion. Being a piece of domestic architecture, the
chief object in its exterior design will be to arouse domestic feelings,
which, as we saw before, it will do most distinctly by corresponding
with the first part of character. Yet it is still more necessary that it
should correspond with its situation; and hence arises another
difficulty, the reconciliation of correspondence with contraries; for
such, it is deeply to be regretted, are too often the individual's mind,
and the dwelling-place it chooses. The polished courtier brings his
refinement and duplicity with him to ape the Arcadian rustic in
Devonshire; the romantic rhymer takes a plastered habitation, with one
back window looking into the Green Park; the soft votary of luxury
endeavors to rise at seven, in some Ultima Thule of frosts and storms;
and the rich stock-jobber calculates his percentages among the soft
dingles and woody shores of Westmoreland. When the architect finds this
to be the case, he must, of course, content himself with suiting his
design to such a mind as ought to be where the intruder's is; for the
feelings which are so much at variance with themselves in the choice of
situation, will not be found too critical of their domicile, however
little suited to their temper.
177. If possible, however, he should aim at something more; he should
draw his employer into general conversation; observe the bent of his
disposition, and the habits of his mind; notice every manifestation of
fixed opinions, and then transfer to his architecture as much of the
feeling he has observed as is distinct in its operation. This he should
do, not because the general spectator will be aware of the aptness of
the building, which, knowing nothing of its inmate, he cannot be; nor to
please the individual himself, which it is a chance if any simple design
ever will, and who never will find out how well his character has been
fitted; but because a portrait is always more spirited than a composed
countenance; and because this study of human passions will bring a
degree of energy, unity, and originality into every one of his designs
(all of which will necessarily be different), so simple, so domestic,
and so lifelike, as to strike every spectator with an interest and a
sympathy, for which he will be utterly unable to account, and to impress
on him a perception of something more ethereal than stone or carving,
somewhat similar to that which some will remember having felt
disagreeably in their childhood, on looking at any old house
authentically haunted. The architect will forget in his study of life
the formalities of science, and, while his practiced eye will prevent
him from erring in technicalities, he will advance, with the ruling
feeling, which, in masses of mind, is nationality, to the conception of
something truly original, yet perfectly pure.