I remember I also mentioned the house of H. W. Poor, Esq., at Tuxedo (see Plates XCIII and XCIV), as an example of modern work in America that might withstand the odious ordeal of international comparison. Really, it is a very simple thing, the Anglo-Saxon home idea; for the life of me, I do not see why we have so little of it. The Jacobean manor-house historically developed to date is an admirable medium of expression, and in the illustration in Plate XCIV we may discover one other example of good American Renaissance. If you think the Tuxedo house looks too English to be called that, place it, it you please, beside Blickling Hall in Norfolkshire, a genuine Jacobean prototype, several fine illustrations of which will be found in the _Architectural Record_ for October, 1901. Upon the long gallery of the latter, I think, Mr. T. Henry Randall, the architect of Mr. Poor’s house, has improved. The gallery of Blickling Hall has some PLATE XCIV. [Illustration: H. W. POOR HOUSE, TUXEDO, N. Y. T. HENRY RANDALL, Architect.] [Illustration: PHILLIPS HOUSE, LAWRENCE, L. I. T. HENRY RANDALL, Architect.] ugly features. In my opinion, this American architect understands the adaptation of a Jacobean manor-house better than any other of his day. It is style and historical development--not fashion--that produces the architectural comedy--its story, its personality, its life. And now that I am about to speak again of the most popular kind of houses of all in America--Colonial houses, notwithstanding the very great number of them erected during the last decade or two, I am yet almost in despair of finding illustrations where the architectural comedy, its personality and life are to be sufficiently discovered. Perhaps the firm of architects who have been most noted as specialists in this line have done nothing better than the house they designed in the eighties of the last century for Mr. William Edgar, on Beach Street in Newport (see Plate XCV). This design was always very much superior to that of the Taylor house, of which I drew a sketch for Chapter IX; and as time goes on the gap between them widens, while I do not see that the Edgar house loses by contrast with a number of much more pretentious successors in the same style of composition. That there is so much room for general improvement in America is what I have to offer in extenuation for the questionable sarcasms into which I have sometimes fallen in these articles. Because of its salutary influence, I have found sarcasm useful in scoring my points, preferring it greatly to flattery, which D’Israeli used, he averred, for the same purpose--he “found it useful”--adding, “and when it comes to royalty you want to lay it on with a trowel.” I do not know that the simile holds good as far as that, and I fear my sarcastic allusions have already become fatiguing.