LETTER XXX.

Domestic Architecture.-Country Houses.

'FOOLS,' it is faid, 'build houses, for wise men to live in.' Is mankind then indebted to folly for the comfort of houses? Questioning thus, I do not however mean to controvert the old saying; which, like many other sayings of excellent import, will, I think, certainly be admitted by the wise, but under reasonable limitations. Extravagance clearly marks folly, yet is often the error of powerful minds: carefulness is surely a branch of wisdom, though frequently the virtue of slender intellects. More correctly then perhaps, though less pithily, it might be said, 'Extravagant men build houses for careful men to ' live in.'

I think however you will agree that a fool never built such a house as a wise man, having means to chuse, could be satisfied to live in? On the other hand, how often have you known the man, too careful to undertake a new house, lay out more on his old one, in alterations and additions, than would have built a better from the ground? Every man's dwelling, I think it will generally be allowed, however to be acquired, should be proportioned to his fortune; and, where means are ample, not to build a reasonably good house

may be as little the decision of wisdom, as not to have a reasonably good dinner.

There is however, I must own, this material difference, that dinner, being a daily affair, the miscalculation of one day, whether of excess or deficiency, may be readily repaired; but building a house is a business that, well done may benefit, ill done may even ruin, not the individual builder only, but generations after him. Admitting then. the proverb, Fools build houses for wiser men 'to live in,' may we not add, 'Wise men build 'houses for themselves, and those whom they

may most value of following generations?' Certainly, however, I think it must be admitted, that houses should be built as they may be wanted, and that fools will not be the best managers of the business.

The lowest order of dwelling, whether cabin, wigwam, hut, or by whatever name distinguished, is that which has but one room for all the purposes of the family. The first step in improvement, I suppose generally, has been to add a kitchen, for the ordinary general business of the family, apart from the sleeping-rooms. The decency of providing for separation of males from females, and inarried from uninarried in rest, has, I think, hardly preceded this; but, in whatever order the progress went, it was a great step. The hall followed, for assembling in leisure, and

taking meals with an elegant cleanliness, apart from all places where victuals are prepared and menial offices performed.

Thus far the domestic architecture of families in easy circumstances, we observe, went in Edgar's time. What differences may have been in the manner of the rooms, and their furniture, we cannot very exactly know; but the description, as far as it goes, would serve for the small country gentleman's house, till the beginning of the seventeenth century; and, in parts distant from the capital, to the beginning of the eighteenth. Hence, in the north of England, the phrase 'a 'hall-house' remains, among the common people, descriptive of a gentleman's house.

But private architecture must always be secondary to public; and we know very little of what, in the Anglo-saxon times, public architecture was, except for churches. Christianity early gained a footing in the kingdom of Kent; but, having hardly obtained complete establishment over England, when it was disturbed by the Danish invasions, revenue had not been acquired, sufficient to raise many considerable buildings for Christian worship. The interest of the church however had obtained, by degrees, more and more favor from the civil government to its demand of a tenth of all the produce of the land. One third only of this revenue was proposed

for the maintenence of the clergy; another third was to relieve the poor, and the remaining portion was to be expended in building and maintaining the place of meeting for public worship.

It appears to me nevertheless probable that, even to the end of the Saxon dynasty, parish churches were few, except in towns. The people of the hamlets assembled for divine service in the lord's chapel; where either a monk from a neighbouring monastery or a secular priest without presentation or induction performed the duty. For it was long before the ecclesiastics obtained the authority of law for the sole disposal of any part of this tithe. The lords of manors retained the right of directing to what ecclesiastic the management of that collected from their tenants should be committed.

But with population spread over the country, another species of architecture grew, specially noticed in that invaluable record, Domesday Book. Watermills, new in the latter times of the Roman empire, were remarkably numerous. This, taken together with the even extension of population over the country, seems to constitute proof of security for person and property, which historians appear to have overlooked; while they have collected, and thrown into strong light, scattered facts of a tendency to show thier insecurity. In times of danger people flock to towns. But the very

smallness of the population of towns, in the Saxon times, while the country was well peopled, is still a corroborating circumstance, in proof that, with all the occasional weakness, and permanent defects, of the political system, whence violences would occasionally occur, the civil institutions of Alfred had power generally to maintain that order, which these facts, ascertained by Domesday, so strongly indicate.

Policy made the first William a great patron of the clergy. He acquired great means, and, in his reign, and the two following, numerous churches were built and endowed. Stephen's reign was the great era of castle-building. Henry the second checked the growing fancy for fortified residencies, and superseded the need of them, by restoring and improving the Saxon adininistration of law, never formally abolished, but only overborne by irregular acts of power, or disregarded among the violences of civil wars.

Henry's was certainly a splendid era for the improvement of administration. The rise of those luminaries of the law, under him, whose authority, to this day, has never ceased to be quoted with the highest respect, would alone prove uncommon improvement. In the various and long contests for the crown, property had changed hands greatly, since the first William's reign, and become more divided. The establishment of the assizes