81

style generally, that obelisks on parapets, and hideous malformations ofhuman figures, are inappropriate and grotesque.

Eastbury-house, Essex, is the prototype of many parts of this Design:amongst them the tower surmounted by angular turrets; the cornice *at the eaves, so contrived as to take off rain-water and lessen theappearance of the high-pitched roof; the chimneys; and the pinnacledgables. The last mentioned only show the application of these fancifulterminations: the pinnacles themselves are derived from BoughtonMalherbe,f as being lighter and more graceful than those at Eastbury.Windows in small gables, as here represented, are more commodiousthan dormers within the rooms; and externally they break the continuousline of roof.

The early English houses were remarkable for the loftiness of theirroofs, which often contained superior lodging-rooms and galleries. Shak-speare alludes to them in his Two Gentlemen of Verona: —

“ Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground;

And built so shelving, that one cannot climb itWithout apparent hazard of his life." Act III. Scene 1.

General as these forms of roofs were in Shakspeare’s time, their in-convenience had been long enough felt to render it proverbial. Sir JohnHaryngton, speaking of the nuisances he had reformed in his house byhis own very clever invention of the water-closet, and the cure of aa smoky chimney, says, “ As to the two other annoyances that the old

* The roof of Eastbury appears to have been at some time entirely stripped, and thegreater part of the cornice destroyed, but enough remains to show what it was originally.The eaves now project.

t A plate of a curious gable, with pinnacles, at Boughton, will be found in the Parsonage-Houses.

t Shakspeare’s architectural allusions are evidently to the buildings of his own country,

M