Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/146

land;" awakening, without doubt, a different idea in the mind of every one who reads the words. Some, accustomed to the appearances of metropolitan villas, will think of brick buildings, with infinite appurtenances of black-nicked chimney-pots, and plastered fronts, agreeably varied with graceful cracks and undulatory shades of pink, brown, and green, communicated to the cement by smoky showers. Others will imagine large, square, many-windowed masses of white, set with careful choice of situation, exactly where they will spoil the landscape to such a conspicuous degree, as to compel the gentlemen travelling on the outside of the mail to enquire of the guard, with great eagerness, "whose place that is;" and to enable the guard to reply, with great distinctness, that it belongs to Squire ———, to the infinite gratification of Squire ———, and the still more infinite edification of the gentlemen on the outside of the mail. Others will remember masses of very red brick, groined with stone; with columnar porticoes, about one-third of the height of the building, and two niches, with remarkable-looking heads and bag-wigs in them, on each side; and two teapots, with a pocket-handkerchief hanging over each (described to the astonished spectators as "Grecian urns"), located upon the roof, just under the chimneys. Others will go back to the range of Elizabethan gables; but none will have any idea of a fixed character, stamped on a class of national edifices. This is very melancholy and very discouraging; the more so, as it not without cause. In the first place, Britain unites inadded space bet squire and —— (squire xyz) :)