outline and a sharpness of
effect which contrasted agreeably with the foliage so often intermixed;
but these were succeeded by strange grotesque combinations, confused,
and void of outline and regularity. The source of ornament was now
sought in the orders and members of Grecian architecture; but the eyes
which had been accustomed to the Gothic flutter of parts, were not
prepared to relish the simplicity of line which is essential to the
beauty of the Greek style. Columns of a small size, inaccurately and
coarsely executed, with arcades and grotesque caryatids, formed the
ornaments of porches and frontispieces,--as at Browseholme-house in
Yorkshire, Wimbledon, and the Schools-tower at Oxford,--or were spread
over the whole front and formed the cloisters and galleries in which
those ancient mansions abounded; as at Holland-house, Longleat,
Wollaton, Audley End, Longford-castle, &c. The roofs were either faced
with notched and curved gables, or screened by parapets of ballustres or
latticed work and decorated with obelisks and columnar chimney shafts;
while turrets and pavilions broke the line of elevation. The windows
were very large, and frequently bowed: thus Bacon remarks, in the Essay
before referred to, that 'you shall have sometimes fair houses so full
of glass that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun or
cold.' In wooden houses and particularly town houses, the upper stories
generally projected beyond the lower, with windows extremely wide, so as
to occupy almost the whole line of front. The timbers were frequently
left bare, carved and disposed in forms of pannelling; while the various
projections were supported by grotesque figures. Very curious houses of
this character are still found in several old towns, as Chester,
Shrewsbury, Coventry, and the obscure parts of London; though natural
decay, fire and modern improvements, are continually diminishing their
number. Among interior decorations, chimney-pieces were very
conspicuous: they were miniature frontispieces, consisting, like the
porches of the houses, of a mass of columns, arches, niches and
caryatids, piled up to the ceiling. Of these there is one at the old
Tabley-hall in Cheshire singularly rude and grotesque, though dated so
late as 1619, containing a hunting-piece and the figures of Lucrece and
Cleopatra. Another in queen Elizabeth's gallery at Windsor Castle is
very rich, and comparatively pure and elegant in design. The sepulchral
mon