The Elizabethan Style, that mode of building so common in England in the 17th century,-a mixture of Gothic and Grecian in its details-is usually considered as a barbarous kind of architecture, wanting in purity of taste. Be this as it may, it cannot be denied that in the finer specimens of this style, there is a surprising degree of richness and picturesqueness for which we may look in vain elsewhere. In short it seems, in the best examples, admirably fitted for a bowery, thickly foliaged country, like England, and for the great variety of domestic enjoyments of its inhabitants. In the most florid examples of this style, of which many specimens yet remain, we often meet with every kind of architectural feature and ornament, oddly, and often grotesquely combined-pointed gables, dormer-windows, steep and low roofs, twisted columns, pierced parapets, and broad windows with small lights. Sometimes the effect of this fantastic combination is excellent, but often bad. The florid Elizabethan style is, therefore, a very dangerous one in the hands of any one but an architect of profound taste; but we think in some of its simpler forms (Fig. 56), it may be adopted for country residences here in picturesque situations with a quaint and happy effect.** (** A highly unique residence in the old English syle, is Pelham Priory, the seat of the Rev. Robert Bolton, near New Rochelle, N. Y., Fig. 57. The exterior is massive and picturesque, in the simplest taste of the Elizabethan age, and being built amidst a fine oak wood, of the dark rough stone of the neighborhood, it has at once the appearance of considerable antiquity. The interior is constructed and fitted up throughout in the same feeling,-with harmonious wainscoting, quaint carving, massive chimney pieces, and old furniture and armor. Indeed, we doubt if there is, at the present moment, any recent private residence, even in England, where the spirit of the antique is more entirely carried out, and where one may more easily fancy himself in one of those "mansions builded curiously" of our ancestors in the time of "good Queen Bess.")
