convenient for communications, perhaps I might not blame this. A house may be handsome, as well as commodious, without great space in a mere passage-room, and without particular effect in the principal staircase. But, if the plan of the house makes a large entrance-hall convenient for communication, which, in houses of considerable size, generally it may, the space will, I think, be most advantageously economized by Inigo Jones's resource, placing a handsome stair

case in it.

I like a gradation in the decoration of houses. The exterior, even of a palace, I should prefer comparatively plain of a private dwelling, very plain. I do not thus exclude forms of effect, as columns and arches; but only over decoration of those and of all other forms. A Corinthian capital is hardly fit for the open air in this climate. In anything below a cathedral or a palace, I reckon it, in the exterior, incongruous. But I know not why a private gentleman's house should be denied columns for use; why a portico of stone should not supersede what is called a viranda, of wood; nor why, though he would avoid the caprices of the Caliban Anglogothic, he should be limited, in his colonnade, strictly to examples from the Grecian temple What sort of a portico the house of that eminent country-gentleman of ancient Attica, Miltiades

son of Cypselus, had, where he was sitting, when he saw armed strangers passing, whom he invited to hospitality, in return for which they invited him to be prince of their country, I should be glad if you could tell me.

The phrase, by which

it is described, indicates no more than building projected before the principal door of the house. It might, or might not, have columns. Hardly, however, I think, would it emulate, in richness of decoration, the temples of the gods, even of that age; and still less of following times, whence the most perfect examples of the Doric order have been preserved to us. Yet columns surely might be reasonably desired, both for pleasant and convenient shelter, and for a dignity becoming the mansion of an eminent individual: and if the intablature, especially, were simpler than that of the Doric of the temples, must the composition therefore altogether be without grace?

Another question has occurred to my mind, in considering the different purposes and needs of sacred and domestic architecture. Guided by the reason of the thing, the Greeks, in the peristyles of their temples, allowed small proportional interval between column and column; for the peristyle was as a main wall, a principal support of an extensive roof. But where support was not wanted for so weighty a superstructure, they allowed wider intercolumniation; as seems indi

eated in the relic of a colonnade at Delos, represented in Stuart's third volume of the Antiquities of Athens. Thus a portico, having a pediment, will require a closer arrangement of columns than one showing only a low horizontal parapet above the cornice.

To return then to the consideration of gradation in ornament, I will advert to a magnificent example of a private dwelling, in which there is so much to admire, that it may well bear notice of defects. When, many years ago, recently returned from the continent, I saw Keddleston-house in Derbyshire, I thought the entrance-hall there the most magnificent room I had ever seen anywhere, and among the most unexceptionable in its richness. I entered it from the portico; which is itself uncommonly magnificent for a private mansion, even of a great nobleman; and yet, on first viewing the hall, with its Corinthian colonnade of alabaster, its splendor was dazzling. But disappointment ensued. Though the apartments were more than commonly large and numerous, and very well fitted, yet all appeared comparatively poor. I have been told that the noble owner, nevertheless, not satisfied with the richness of his magnificent hall, employed an ingenious artist to adorn the doors with minute painting, such as night be admired in a cabinet. The hall, I am confident, would not be so improved; and how

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the other rooms could be worked up to it I never heard, and am indeed wholly at a loss to imagine.

In my opinion, to give the best effect to a house altogether, simplicity, rather massive, with an air of more or less grandeur, proportioned to the fortune and rank of the family, should characterize the outside, and especially the entrancefront. A great degree of the same character should hold through the entrance-hall; but somewhat softened, and with some addition, yet small, of decoration. In the eatingroom the gradation, should proceed: some massiveness should remain, and considerable simplicity; but not without an increase of ornament. Simplicity, in considerable amount, is everywhere desirable; but in the drawingroom first, more particularly the lady's apartment, a character of delicacy should be prominent, and, in proportion to the circumstances of the family, richness. If the minute decoration of the doors of the great hall at Keddleston could be anywhere desirable, it would be, I think, in the lady's dressingroom to the state-bedchamber,

LETTER XXXIII,

Furniture.

A HOUSE unfurnished may be reckoned hardly more than half built; furniture being necessary to its use, as well as to the decoration connected with use. It follows that the architect should design his rooms with a view to furniture: the architecture and the furniture should harmonize; and for that end, if the architect does not actually design the furniture, he and the upholsterer, like Rubens and Snyders in painting, should work together. I have been told that in Paris, under the last Bourbons, this came into fashion; but I never could learn exactly where it was done; and in looking, as far as I had opportunity, among the houses there most celebrated for magnificence and new elegance, I could no where discover any satisfactory example of it,

But, with us, furnishing is generally reckoned the lady's business; or, indeed, claimed as her right and exclusive privilege. So far this is well, as women are, in taste for such matters, and perhaps judgement, not generally inferior to men ; and in liveliness of delight in them, and in disposition to diligence about them, certainly they far excel: which is also obviously consonant to a just moral