MUSE, a habitation, or a building eonstrneted for shel tering a man's person and goods from the inelemeneies of the weather, and the injuries of ill-disposed persons. Houses differ in magnitude, being of two or three, and four stories ; in the materials of which they consist. as wool, brick, or stone ; and in the purposes for which they are designed, as a rnanor.house, farm-house, cottage, &e.
A pleasure-house, or country-house, is one built for occa sional residence, and for the pleasure and benefit of retirement, air, &e. This is the villa of the ancient Romans; and what in Spain and Portugal they call (pinta ; in Provence, easino ; in sonic other parts of France, claserie ; in Italy, The citizens of Paris have also their maisons de boofrilles (bottle-houses) to retire to, and entertain their friends ; which, in Latin, might be called mica' ; the emperor Domitian having a house built for the like purpose, mentioned under this name by Martial.
It is a thing principally to be aimed at, in the site or situation of a country-house, or seat, that it have wood and water near it.
it is for better to have a house defended by trees than hills : for trees yield a cooling. refreshing, sweet, and healthy air and shade during the heat of the summer, and very much break the cold winds and tempests from every point in the winter. The hills, according to their situation. defend only from certain winds ; and, if they are on the north side of the house, as they defend from the cold air in the winter, so they also deprive you of the cool refreshing breezes which are commonly blown from thence in the summer ; and if the hills are situate on the south side, they then prove also very inconvenient.
A house should not be too low-seated, since this precludes the convenience of cellars. If you cannot avoid building on grounds, set the first floor above the ground the higher. to supply what you want to sink in your cellar in the ground; for in such low and moist grounds, it conduces much to the dryness and healthiness of the air to have cellars under the house, so that the floors be good, and ceiled underneath. Houses built too high, in places obvious to the winds, and not well defended by hills or trees, require more materials to build them, and more also of reparations to maintain them ; and they are not so commodious to the inhabitants as the lower-built houses, which may be built at a much easier rate, and also as complete and beautiful as the other.
In houses not above two stories with the ground-room, and not exceeding twenty feet to the wall-plate, and upon a good foundation, the length of two bricks, or eighteen inches for the heading course, will be sufficient for the ground-work of any common structure, and six or seven courses above the earth to a water-table, where the thickness of the walls is abated or taken in on either side the thickness of brick, namely, two inches and a quarter.
For large and high houses, or buildings of three, four, or five stories, with the garrets, the walls of such edifices ought to be from the foundation to the first water-table three heading courses of brick, or 28 inches at least ; and at every story' a water-table, or taking in on the inside for the girders and joists to rest upon, laid into the middle, or one quarter of the wall at least, for the better bond. But as for the inner most or partition wall, a half brick will be sufficiently thick; and for the upper stories, nine inches or a brick length will suffice.
The general principles of the construction of edifices and private houses will be found under the article Buttmso. We shall under this head give a description of the private houses of the ancients : Of the private dwellings of' the ancients, we have but little or no account, and it is probable that t hey possessed but small pretensions to architectural grandeur. We hear of temples, palaces, and such like public buildings, and of these we have careful and detailed descriptions, but of the habita tions of the mass of the people, we have only a cursory not ice. This fact would lead us to believe that but little ;mention was paid to domestic buildings of the earlier periods of history, and such indeed seems to have been the case ; all the care of the people being confined to the temples of their god:7f, and the palaces of their governors. With a proper though misplaced zeal, the taste of their architects was exhausted in erecting and adorning the habitations of their deities ; and indeed in all ages and countries, the art seems to be principally indebted for its progress to the religious feelings of mankind.