SECT. X.
FROM Stourhead to Froom, we passed through an inclosed country, which is barren of amusement. On our right, we left Maiden-Bradley, an old house belonging to the Duke of Somerset; and went a few miles out of our road to see Longleat, the mansion of Lord Weymouth.
Longleat is a noble old fabric, the work∣manship of John Padua, about the year 1567. This architect was much esteemed by the Pro∣tector Somerset, whose house in the Strand he built. Sir John Thyn, who employed him here, was one of the Protector's principal offi∣cers. The style, however, of Longleat has more a cast of the Gothic, than that of Somer∣set-House, which makes a nearer approach to Grecian architecture *. Neither possesses enough of its respective style, to be beautiful in its kind. The Gothic style perhaps at best is but ill adapted to private buildings. We Page 126 chiefly admire it, when its clustered pillars adorn the walls of some cathedral; when its pointed ribs spread along the roof of an aisle; or when the tracery of a window occupies the whole end of a choir. Gothic ornaments in this style of magnificence lose their littleness. They are not considered as parts, but are lost in one vast whole; and contribute only to im∣press a general idea of richness.
We sometimes indeed see the smaller appen∣dages of cathedrals decorated very beautifully in the Gothic style; as the chapter-house at Salisbury, and that most elegant building at Ely, called the Parish-churcb. But in these buildings the proportions chiefly fill the eye: for which such ornaments are contrived, as have a good effect. Ornaments of this kind I have never seen used in any private house of Gothic construction. Nor indeed are they proper. As they are only found in sacred buildings, it might perhaps have been esteemed a mode of profaneness, to adopt them in pri∣vate structures. This idea, indeed, the Gothic architects themselves seem to have had, by never using them but in churches.
On the whole, the Grecian architecture seems much better adapted to a private dwell∣ing-house, Page 127 than the Gothic. It has a better assortment, if I may so speak, of proper orna∣ments, and proportions for all its purposes. The Gothic ornaments might dress up a hall or a saloon; but they could do little more: we should find it difficult to decorate the flat roof of an apartment with them, or a passage, or a stair-case.
Nor are the conveniencies, which the Grecian architecture bestows on private buildings, less considerable, than the beauty of its decorations. The Gothic palace is an incumbered pile. We are amused with looking into these mansions of antiquity, as objects of curiosity; but should never think of comparing them in point of convenience with the great houses of modern taste, in which the hall and the saloon fill the eye on our entrance; are noble reservoirs for air; and grand antichambers to the several rooms of state that divide on each hand from them.
Longleat has nothing of the Grecian gran∣deur to recommend it. It is a large square building, with a court in the middle; which is intended to enlighten the inner chambers. The whole is certainly a grand pile; but it has little beauty, and I should suppose less conve∣nience. Page 128 It is at present however exceedingly in dishabille, and the furniture seems to be the relics of the last century. The family of the Thynnes cover the walls in great profusion. We rarely see so numerous a collection of por∣traits without one that is able to fix the eye.
Be the inside of the house and its contents however what they may, when we view it seated, as it is, in the centre of a noble park, which slopes down to it in all directions, itself a grand object, evidently the capital of these wide domains, it has certainly a very princely appearance.
Somewhere among the woods of this man∣sion, was first naturalized the Weymouth-pine. This species of pine is among the most formal of its brotherhood; and yet the planter must consider it, in point of variety, as an acquisition. The patriarch-pine, Mr. Walpole tells us, still exists, but we did not see it.
