Here we have a vast change from fifty years earlier. Thorpe and Smithson came under the Italian influence, especially the latter; but both of them thought Henry VII.’s Chapel worthy of study. Each of them has a plan of it among his drawings; and Smithson has a plan of some of the vaulting as well, not to mention an outline drawing of a Gothic window. The Italianising of English taste had indeed progressed when we find an architectural guide placing not only Henry VII.’s Chapel, but all Gothic work, outside the domain of architectural study. But outside it was, and there it remained until the commencement of the nineteenth century, when the publications of Carter, Britton, and others began to awaken interest in it. The pursuit of architecture now became an elegant accomplishment, and it fell largely into the hands of amateurs. Books in plenty gave precise rules for its treatment. Any one gifted with a modicum of taste could design a façade; and if he followed his rules his proportions would probably be not unpleasing. If he had some inventive faculty and were sufficiently bold, he could produce a group of buildings that should have a striking and even noble effect. This was indeed the weakness of the whole system. Designing became a striving after external effect without paying due regard to the purpose of the building. The large houses of the time of the first two Georges are magnificent to look at, but uncomfortable to live in. Everything is sacrificed to the state apartments. Most of these are noble rooms admirably adapted for stately functions; but the ordinary living rooms are mean in comparison, and are not contrived, whether as to aspect, position, or their relation one to the other, in order to make for cheerfulness or comfort. In towns, where space was restricted, a more simple treatment was adopted, and extravagance eschewed. This resulted in such plain but well-proportioned houses as Newcastle House, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields (Fig. 157), designed for Lord Powys by Captain Wynne in 1686. It has, however, lost much of its character by the removal of the stone cornice which originally surmounted the windows of the second floor. [Illustration: 157. Newcastle House, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London (1686).]