Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/174

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THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.
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ment on unmeaning forms, or than ringing indiscriminate changes on component parts of established beauty. To the reverie, rather than the investigation, to the dream, rather than the deliberation, of the architect, we recommend it, as a branch of art in which instinct will do more than precept, and inspiration than technicality. The correspondence of our villa architecture with our natural scenery may be determined with far greater accuracy, and will require careful investigation.

We had hoped to have concluded the Villa in this paper; but the importance of domestic architecture at the present day, when people want houses more than fortresses, safes more than keeps, and sculleries more than dungeons, is sufficient apology for delay.

Oxford August, 1838.



IV. The British Villa. The Cultivated, or Blue, Country.—Principles of Composition.

In the papers hitherto devoted to the investigation of villa architecture, we have contemplated the beauties of what may be considered as its model in its original and natural territory, and we have noticed the difficulties to be encountered in the just erection of villas in England. It remains only to lay down the general principles of composition, which, in such difficulties, may, in some degree,