The necessity of observing scale or comparative proportion, may be further elucidated by a reference to WEST WYCOMBE, a place generally known, from its vicinity to the road to Oxford. Amongst the profusion of buildings and ornament which the false taste of the last age lavished upon this spot, many were correct in design, and, considered separately, in proportion; but even many of the designs, although perfect in themselves, were rendered absurd, from inattention either to the scale or situation of the surrounding objects. The summit of a hill is covered by a large mass of Grecian architecture, out of which apparently rises a small square projection, with a ball at the top, not unlike the kind of cupolas misplaced over stables; but in reality this building is the tower of a church,* and the ball a room sufficiently large to contain eight or ten people.
*[On the summit of another building, viz. a saw-mill in the park, was a figure of a man in a brown coat and a broad-brimmed hat, representing the great Penn, of Pensylvania, which being much larger than the natural proportion of a man, yet having the appearance of a man upon the roof of the building, diminished the size of every other object by which it was surrounded. It has since been removed, and is now in the possession of Mr. Penn, at Stoke Pogies, where, placed in a room, it seems a colossal figure. Another instance of false scale at this place, was the diminutive building with a spire at the end of the park, which, perhaps, when the neighbouring trees were small, might have been placed there with a view of extending the perspective. This artifice may be allowable in certain cases, and to a certain degree, yet a cathedral in miniature must in itself be absurd; and when we know that it was only the residence of a shoemaker, and actually dedicated to St. Crispin, it becomes truly ridiculous. I have drawn these examples of defects from West Wycombe, because they are obvious to every passenger on a very public road, and because I shall, in the course of this volume, have occasion to mention the many beauties of this place.]
