OF BUILDING.
Houses are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. Leave the goodly fabrics of houses, for beauty only, to the enchanted palaces of the poets, who build them with small cost. He that buildeth a fair house upon an ill seat, committeth himself to prison; neither do I reckon it an ill seat only where the air is unwholesome, but likewise where the air is unequal; as you shall see many fine seats set upon a knap of ground, environed with higher hills round about it, whereby the heat of the sun is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs; so as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diversity of heat and cold as if you dwelt in several places. Neither is it ill air only that maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets; and if you will consult with Momus, ill neighbors. I speak not of many more; want of water, want of wood, shade, and shelter, want of fruitfulness, and mixture of grounds of several natures; want of prospect, want of level grounds, want of places at some near distance for sports of hunting, hawking, and races; too near the sea, or too remote; having the commodity of navigable rivers, or the discommodity of their overflowing; too far from great cities, which may hinder business; or too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, and maketh every thing dear; where a man hath a great living laid together and where he is scanted; all which, as it is impossible perhaps to find together, so it is good to know them, and think of them, that a man may like as many as he can; and, if he have several dwellings, that he sod them so, that what he wanteth in one he may find in another. Lucullus answered Pompey well, who, when he saw his stately galleries, and rooms so large and lightsome, in one of his houses, said, “Surely an excellent place for summer, but how do you in winter?” Lucullus answered, “Why do you not think me as wise as some fowls, that ever change their abode toward the winter?”
Lord Bacon, 1561–1627.