rojecting dormer windows, whose lights are generally divided into
three, terminating in very flat arches without cusps, the intermediate
edge of the roof being battlemented. Then we find wreaths of ornament
introduced at the base of the oriels;[27] ranges of short columns, the
base of one upon the capital of another, running up beside them; the
bases being very tall, sometimes decorated with knots of flower-work;
the columns usually fluted,--wreathed, in richer examples, with
ornament. The entrance is frequently formed by double ranges of those
short columns, with intermediate arches, with shell canopies, and rich
crests above.[28] This portico is carried up to some height above the
roof, which is charged with an infinite variety of decorated chimneys.

[Footnote 27: As in a beautiful example in Brasenose College, Oxford.]

[Footnote 28: The portico of the [old] Schools and the inner courts of
Merton and St. John's Colleges, Oxford; an old house at Charlton, Kent;
and Burleigh House, will probably occur to the mind of the architect, as
good examples of the varieties of this mixed style.]

155. Now, all this is utterly barbarous as architecture; but, with the
exception of the chimneys, it is not false in taste; for it was
originally intended for retired and quiet habitations in our forest
country, not for conspicuous palaces in the streets of the city; and we
have shown, in speaking of green country, that the eye is gratified[29]
with fantastic details; that it is prepared, by the mingled lights of
the natural scenery, for rich and entangled ornament, and would not only
endure, but demand, irregularity of system in the architecture of man,
to correspond with the infinite variety of form in the wood architecture
of nature. Few surprises can be imagined more delightful than the
breaking out of one of these rich gables, with its decorated entrance,
among the dark trunks and twinkling leaves of forest scenery. Such an
effect is rudely given in fig. 12. We would direct the attention chiefly
to the following points in the building:--

[Footnote 29: [_i.e._ when the spectator is surrounded by woodland
scenery. _Vide ante_, Sec. 88.]]

156. First, it is a humorist, an odd, twisted, independent being, with a
great deal of mixed, obstinate, and occasionally absurd originality. It
has one or two graceful lines about it, and several harsh and cutting
ones; it is a whole, which would allow of no unison with any other
architecture