rnestness of the Briton would contrast curiously with the
lively half-scoffing tone of the witty and learned Frenchman. Indeed,
there would be danger of persons of such opposite character falling out
upon the road, and fighting a mortal duel, with the king of the gipsies
for bottle-holder. The proverbial jealousy between persons of the same
trade might prove another motive of strife. Both are dealers in the
romantic. And "Carmen," related as the personal experience of the author
during an archaeological tour in Andalusia the autumn of 1830, is as
graphic and fascinating as any chapters of the great tract-monger's
remarkable wanderings.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] It was a rule with the _raffines_ not to commence a new quarrel so
long as there was an old one to terminate.

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT.

NO. III.

Having disposed of two grand categories of mistakes and absurdities in
house-building, viz., lightness of structure and badness of material, we
shall now address ourselves more particularly to the defects of
Arrangement and Form, or, as an architect might term it, to the
discussion of Plan and Elevation. The former task was ungrateful enough;
for therein we had to attack the cupidity and meanness, and the desire
for show and spurious display, which is the besetting sin of every
Englishman who pays poor-rates; but, the present undertaking is hardly
less hopeless, for we have to appeal to the intelligence, not only of
architects and builders, but also of those who commission them.

Now, there is nothing drier and more unprofitable under the sun, nothing
more nearly approaching to a state of addle, than a builder's brains.
Your regular builders (and, indeed, not a few of your architects) are
the sorriest animals twaddling about on two legs; mere vivified bags of
sawdust, or lumps of lath and plaster, galvanised for a while, and
forming themselves into strange, uncouth, unreasonable shapes. A mere
"builder" has not two ideas in his head; he has only one; he can draw
only one "specification," as he calls it, under different forms; he can
make only one plan; he has one set of cornices always in his eye; one
peculiar style of panel; one special cut of a chimney. You may trace him
all through a town, or across a county, if his fame extends so far; a
dull repetition of the same notion characterises all his works. He
served his apprenticeship to old Plumbline, in Brick Lane; got up the
_Carpenter's Vade-Mecum_