XLV. Of Building.[1]
Houses are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred[2] before uniformity, except where both may be had. Leave the goodly fabrics of houses, for beauty only, to the enchanted palaces of the poets; who build them with small cost. He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat,[3] committeth himself to prison. Neither do I reckon it an ill seat only where the air is unwholesome; but likewise where the air is unequal; as you shall see many fine seats set upon a knap[4] of ground, environed with higher hills round about it; whereby the heat of the sun is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs; so as[5] you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diversity of heat and cold as if you dwelt in several places. Neither is it ill[6] air only that maketh an ill seat, but ill ways,
- ↑ By the death of his brother, Anthony, in 1601, Bacon inherited his father's manor of Gorhambury, near St. Albans, Herts. There, after his marriage, in 1606, he built a new country residence of great dimensions, Verulam House, spending on the mansion and gardens vastly more money than he could afford. In this and the following essay, Of Gardens, Bacon therefore writes from an actual experience of building a country house.
- ↑ Preferred before. The verb prefer is now followed by the preposition to.
- ↑ Seat. Site.
- ↑ Knap. A small hill, hillock, or knoll.
"'Now, where 's the inn?' said Mountclere, yawning.
'Just on the knap,' Sol answered."
Thomas Hardy. The Hand of Ethelberta. Chapter XLIV.
- ↑ As. That.
- ↑ Ill. Bad.
