offices, and always close to the body of the house. Low plants are insufficient; tall ones offend with damp and darkness. Earnestness to complete the business rapidly, nevertheless induces to plant tall and close. Tall plants are generally unthrifty, and, set close, they cannot thrive. Advised of this, the planter puts young plants under them. With the first year's striking, they all go to war, root and branch; and the result is a ragged skreen, greenish rather than green, and uglier than the buildings it is desired to hide, and which yet, after all, are not hidden. Evergreens being mostly of slow growth, and less bearing removal when advanced in height, fill only the under space; so in winter the skreen is of thin browngrey gauze, and all the unsightliness behind appears. This is the most common case. But if the builder's experience in planting urges him to a better course, and evergreens, with room for root and branch to thrive, are depended upon, long patience is necessary to the perfection of the business; and still even so the business cannot be perfected. It is not in the nature of plants to rest in perfection. If not decay, yet growth bebeyond what is convenient, presently begins. Trimming, so as not to injure grossly the natural form of the plant, and belie its character, is an operation of much trouble, and requiring judgement far beyond the common gardener's. Plant

ing-out cannot possibly be either quickly brought to perfection, or long hold it.

Some of the first architects of the present day, aware of the always disappointing and generally offensive result of planting-out, as well as the inconveniencies of offices in wings, have reverted to an ,old plan, building around a quadrangular court: the body of the house forming the principal front, and extending into either or both sides of the quadrangle, as may be desirable; the offices, with or without stables, occupying the rest. But, if prospect is desired, and aspect, with regard to the sun, is considered, how far this plan may answer depends upon situation. The general difficulty with it is to manage the entrance, so that the very common, but very great annoyance, of presenting, to all persons approaching the house, a look into all the principal rooms, may be obviated. If a central entrance be insisted on, this can hardly be. To sidle into the house is less satisfactory, and yet often offers such advantages that I would not absolutely condemn it. If then, for the inconvenience of the central entrance, and the appearance of the sideling entrance, whether for effect more unharmonizing or more undignified, this plan be rejected, I know of no resource but, throwing the offices all on one side, to detach them by a break, the most that conveniently may be; making them in themselves,

a handsome appendage of the house; and assisting the break in the building by breaking with trees: not presenting the appearance of a pretence to, what cannot be well done, planting-out; but showing the main building completely and prominently, the appendages, partially and in back-ground.

LETTER XXXII.

Domestic Architecture.-- Country Houses.

I HAVE observed, in a former letter, that the French taste, prevailing with us in Queen Ann's time, made the entrance-door the greatest beau about the house. A carriage could not approach hin. He was mounted on a number of exterior steps, and the ladies, with their high head-dresses, were liable to a sopping, in rain, before they could reach from their coaches the shelter of the great hall. Indeed the ladies of those days perhaps the less regarded this, as many houses then presented them a court to cross, before they could approach the entrance-steps. Moreover, the sidesaddle and the pillion were far more common vehicles, for ladies in the country, than the coach or chariot; the tire-woman attending with the dress, to be put on after arrival.

However, the inconvenience led to consideration. of remedy; and the first adopted, in some splendid new houses, was to have a way to creep under the portico, and rise thence by an inferior staircase. Evidently so the portico did not properly do its office; which should be to introduce to the principal apartments with the greatest convenience, and with suitable dignity.

For this proper office the portico has lately, in some houses of superior size, with great advantage, been adapted: the carriage driving under it, and the company passing beneath its shelter into the hall, where, if the principal floor is of a higher level, steps are managed with advantageous etfect, to rise to it. But this can suit only houses of superior size. A portico of just proportion, with intercolumniation to admit a carriage, will be overbearing for a moderate private gentleman's house. Hardly can a tetrastyle portico serve; and hardly less dimensions than those of the portico of Carlton-house. Nor can a substitute suited to the smaller mansion, I think, be easily contrived. A projecting building, sufficient to receive a carriage, though well-proportioned and elegant in itself, yet by its prominence and unharmonizing qualities, instead of adorning the front of the house, will deform it.

But a building, insufficient to receive, may meet the carriage, so that the company may pass

instantly to the shelter of a vestibule, where steps, if necessary, may advantageously conduct to the principal floor. To such a projecting vestibule the ingenious architect will have no difficulty in giving good effect, exterior as well as interior; and such I think is the best, and altogether a good resource, for the moderate private gentleman's house.

Inigo Jones, to judge from what he executed at Coleshill in Berkshire, reckoned a principal staircase no unfit associate for a great hall. At the Grange in Hampshire he connected them less intimately. The effect at both places has been generally admired. The former plan is perhaps fittest for a moderate house, the latter for one of great magnificence; and at Blenheim and at Castle-Howard the result is the happiest, I think, that Vanbrugh ever produced in interior architecture. Certainly a staircase, with space not too confined, affords an architect some of his best opportunitics. Latterly it has been fashionable to economize space in both staircase and hall, as mere passages, for the sake of giving more to the living apartments: a small vestibule has often superseded the large old hall, and, even in considerable houses, the staircase is of little dignity. Provided extremes be avoided, and the house be so planned that such an arrangement is the most