Homes of Great Britain and Their
Stories." A.H. Malan, Editor. By arrangement with the publishers, G.P.
Putnam's Sons. Copyright, 1899.]

BY THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

The architecture of the house itself clearly indicates the taste and
training of its builder. Vanbrugh shared the enthusiasm of the day for
classical work, as understood and developed, whether well or ill, by the
Italians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but with
characteristic disregard of law, he thought to combine classical severity
with the fancifulness natural in a northerner and a playwright. Thus,
while the general scheme of the south front, for instance, is distinctly
severe, the massive towers at its ends are surmounted by fantastic masses
of open stone-work, most quaintly finished off with arrangements of
cannon-balls and coronets. Throughout he repeatedly made use of classical
members with strange disregard to their structural intention. Silvester,
the French artist employed to make designs for the decoration of the
salon, sniffed contemptuously at Vanbrugh's Gothic tendencies. "I can not
approve of that double line of niches. It suggests the facade of a Gothic
church." And then with savage delight he announced his discovery that much
of the design was merely an unintelligent imitation of the Palazzo Farnese
at Florence.

Certainly, in spite of Vanbrugh's attempt to achieve at once dignity and
lightness, the probable impression made by the building on the casual
observer is, that it is ponderous without being stately, and irregular
without being tasteful. But the final feeling of any one whose fate it is
to study it at leisure will assuredly be one of respect, even of
enthusiasm, for the ability of Vanbrugh. It takes time to realize the
boldness of the general design and the solidity of the masonry. In many
parts there are about as many feet of solid stone as a modern architect
would put inches of lath and plaster. The negative qualities of integrity
and thoroughness are rare enough in work of the present day, now that the
architect has delegated to the contractor the execution of his design.

The interior proportions of the rooms are generally admirable, and so
perfectly was the work carried out that it is possible to look through the
keyholes of ten doors, and see daylight at the end, over three hundred
feet off. It is noticeable, further, that the whole was designed by a
single man, there being no subsequent additions, as the