There is no instance in which a good plan has ever been the result of much diversity of opinion: and in no instance, since the effort of Beaumont and Fletcher, has combined genius excelled individual unity of talent or experience. To the remark, in the preceding Fragment, which recommends "placing the best rooms towards the best views and the best aspects," I should add, "not placing the entrance on the same side of the house with the principal apartments:" and thus, after all, it will be found that, nine times in ten, the entrance must be on the north side; and notwithstanding the absurdity of a magnificent portico towards that aspect, where no sunshine can illumine its columns, or require its shade, almost all the finest porticos in England are placed to the north; and I have myself, from necessity, been compelled to do so, in many instances, against my better judgment*.
*[The late Sir William Chambers asserts, that the entrance to a house, like a nose on a face, was the principal feature, and ought to be the most prominent. Yet in his own villa, at Whitton, he had five doors in the principal front: that in the centre opened into a shell-work grotto, used as a dairy. Such is the difference betwixt theory and practice, even where the professor may be supposed to have been uncontrolled.]
