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FRAGMENT II.
RELATING TO SYMMETRY.
TH, elevations in the first Plate will serve to elucidate some
remarks on Architecture, not to be expected in treatises which
relate merely to the five orders, and their symmetrical arrange-
ment. Such works give a very inadequate idea of that art which
teaches to adapt the habitation of man to rural scenery, uniting
convenience with beauty, and utility with ornament. The
houses A, B, and C, represent that sort of plain front which
may be extended to any length, even till it reaches the dimen.
sions of a barrack or an hospital. But in all such fronts, a
certain degree of symmetry is deemed essential ; and therefore
we expect to see the door in the centre of the building. This
arrangement, in small houses, tends to destroy interior comfort,
by dividing from each other those principal rooms which a
family is now supposed to occupy.
If the principal rooms command a south-east aspect (which
is doubtless the most desirable), the entrance in the centre, with
a hall or vestibule, destroys that uniformity of temperament, so
obviously useful to the comfort of an English dwelling; and
therefore, in at least one half of the houses submitted to my
opinion, I have found it necessary to change the hall into a
saloon, or the vestibule into an anti-room; making the entrance