Hunt, Thomas Frederick; Moyes, James [Bearb.]: Exemplars of Tudor Architecture, Adapted To Modern Habitations: With Illustrative Details, Selected From Ancient Edifices; And Observations on the Furniture of the Tudor Period (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, And Green, 1830)

vi

PREFACE.

or Rome, and not with the monotonous and unadorned dwel-
lings of our London streets, in which, unhappily, too few traces
of art are visible. Would that the legislature could control the
practices of modern builders, since Taste has lost her “ empire !”—
but that must always be a vain hope in a commercial and free
country like this, seeing, as a modern traveller has shown, that,
even in Turkey, where grievances are more summarily corrected,
such attempts are fruitless : “ The regulations to be observed
in building houses at Constantinople are accurately fixed, and
an officer called Mimar Aga, intendant of buildings (a district
surveyor), is appointed to enforce them. The height fixed by
the law is twelve pics (a pic is twenty-seven inches) for a mus-
sulman’s house, and ten for a rayah’s. The motives for this
limitation are, says d’Ohsson, to diminish the danger of fires,
and to facilitate the extinction of them ; to leave a free passage
for the circulation of air in the streets, and to give greater
effect to the height of the public buildings. These laws are
constantly eluded ; and the office of Mimar Aga is very lucrative,
from the sums which he daily receives to induce him to wink
at the violation of them.” We have here, also, laws to regulate
our metropolitan buildings, but their provisions embrace only
one object of the Turkish code — viz. security against fire.
Giving effect to the principal structures by diminishing the
altitude of those of less importance, seems never to have been
contemplated by us ; on the contrary, the restrictions imposed by
the statute against projections beyond a straight line, preclude
all possibility of producing a picturesque appearance in our