A very

of Georgia was lately endeavoring system of representation renders to instruct one of the state senators perfect equality possible, over an in Congress out of his seat, and the unlimited extent of country. It is minority seceded so as to prevent a also, almost essential to free insti. quorum, the seceding members were tutions, when they are brought into charged with a breach of their oath, contact with despotism.

For as which required them on all ques. long as free states could not grow tions and measures, so to give their beyond the limits of vicinity to some vote and conduct themselves, as capital, while despotism could enshould in their judgment appear close any bounds whatsoever, the most conducive to the interest and contest between the two principles prosperity of the state.

was unequal. 2. It tends to check proper oath, and one which origina. the occasional excesses of freedom, ted in a clear perception of the and to promote that control of reaprinciples which ought to govern son in government, without which the representative. But if the oath government becomes an evil. A was founded in reason and was volume of illustrations of this retaken merely to confirm a previous mark, might be drawn from the duty, was not their senator also in history of unrepresented democra. a very similar relation, and had cies. But it is presumed that they he not like duties ? Nay, does not will not be needed by those who every consideration subordinate to know by what means great crowds the main one of the principle, which are often swayed, and with what is the same in both cases, press with speed feeling passes from man to far greater weight on the senator in man, increasing as it goes, until it Congress, than on the representa- may rise to phrenzy. Of this, Athtive in the state legislature ? And ens, the freest among the ancient yet-such is the effect of politicians states, was well aware ; the citizens giving in to false principles—these of that fierce democratie,' in order very men, who call a representative to check themselves, prevented the at home perjured for not voting as passage of laws, properly so called, his judgment dictates, call the rep- in the ordinary assemblies of the resentative in the senate of the Uni- people ; and required that every ted States all but a knave, for doing bill should have been previously just the contrary.

subjected to the debates of the We will add but one thought senate. more, and that is, that the doctrine Now it is this last object of a of instruction tends to prevent one representative government, which of the chief good results of the rep- the doctrine of instruction defeats. resentative system. The main uses It creeps into the legislature, carryof this system which now occur to ing there every prejudice which us, are the following: 1. It tends should have died in its native soil, to equalize the parts of a country, every partial view which the reason and to enlarge the borders of free of the whole community, if it could dom. When the assembly was com

noises deafen the ear and drive thing; it absorbs all the juices, so reason from its seat.

to speak, of the political body, until And as if this were not enough, reason and conscience are obliterathis doctrine gives birth to a class ted and disappear. A nation under of politicians, who, incompetent to such politicians resembles the geese represent the reason of a country, of Strasburg, which are kept before strive to gain favor by feeding every a fire until their livers acquire an wish of a people or a party, without enormous size for the sake of the regard to the highest good. This, epicures of Paris. And to whose if the scene were transferred to the benefit does this turn ? To that of breast of a single man, if in him the politicians. For, as they are the gratification of desire unregula- well aware, a master-calling him. ted by reason carried the day, we self a servant, perhaps—will be. should call criminal and ruinous. come necessary to men who are What is there to alter its character, guided by passion and ignorance, to when it takes place throughout a men who think that the rule and end country. The habit once begun, of government should be to have their grows fast, and is not soon laid wishes fulfilled, and not the true in. aside. Arbitrary will becomes every terests of the whole body promoted.

LANDSCAPE GARDENING AND RURAL ARCHITECTURE.*

MR. DOWNING has published two as a closet counselor for contrac. works of late, the titles of which tors, but to render “in some degree may be found below, both of a char conversant with domestic architecacter novel to the reading public. ture, every one who lives in the True our professional architects had country, and in a country house." books, full of designs, from those of Quisque sui domi faber-every Inigo Jones to that of Mr. Upjohn; man his own carpenter, would seem and our head-mechanics have long to be its motto. But perhaps we been beholden to letter-press and wrong Mr. Downing in supposing printed diagrams for the perfecting that he would make his readers so of their homely 'elevations. The far acquainted with architectural reading world, however, save some details as to supersede the necessity few over-curious ones, seem to have of employing an architect; since regarded such works as the tools of he has politely furnished in one of the trade, with which they had little his closing pages a “general list of or nothing to do. But we have here, professional terms." volumes bound for the library or the But if not to make his readers boudoir, teaching, in quite intelligi. their own builders, why are they ble terms, of mullions, and tracery, taught of the bracketted mode' and and peaked gables, and terraces, of pilasters,--that the minaret beand fountains, &c. Not intended, longs to the Saracenic and the tureither, is this last volume before us, ret to the Tudor style? Mr. D. is

ready with an answer: “ He wishes Downing's Landscape Gardening and to inspire in the minds of his read. Rural Architecture. New York, Wiley ers and countrymen, more lively & Putnam, 1841.

Cottage Residences, adapted to North perceptions of the Beautiful, in America. By A. T. Downing.

New everything that relates to their York, Wiley & Putnam, 1842.

houses and grounds." He wishes

.

mores.

A man

6

to waken a quicker sense of the of their education. Beauty is an grace, the elegance, or the pictur- unmarketable commodity; if not esqueness of fine forms that are contraband, certainly contra bonos capable of being produced in these

can not sell his by rural architecture and landscape Lombardy poplars, his mullioned gardening--a sense that will not windows, his umbrage, with his only refine and elevate the mind, kitchen, and pantry, and garret. but pour into it new and infinite re- And how many among us build for sources of delight."*

Now we ven

any other earthly purpose but to ture to say, that there are very many sell ? Did the owners of country well-moneyed and well-mannered, houses build for themselves, the case and, as the world goes, well-read would be different. Yet even then, men, who would regard this “inspir. how many country livers are willing ing of a taste for the beautiful,' as to pay for beauty ? On the consheer nonsense ; and would turn trary, do they not take special pains over Mr. D.'s smiling sketches with to eradicate every vestige of it in about the same notion of their ele- their neighborhood, and is it to be gance and propriety, that a Fi-ho-ti supposed that one book, or two, or would have of the clumsy foot of a three, should carry them from exsturdy Dutch wench; in short- treme to extreme ? • Such reforwould rise from Mr. D.'s last book mations come not in a flood.' with the established convictions, that We speak now of those who dethe designs were very outlandish; rive their support from the cultivathat there was about them a great tion of the soil, and deceive our. deal of unnecessary ornament; and selves as we will, with them lie the that the estimates were each an better features of the country, and enormity. They would meet our with them rests ultimately the deauthor's beautiful quotation— true cision upon what shall be the chartaste is an excellent economist,' with acter of our American landscape. that matter-of-fact, tingling couplet It is not the wealthy, retired citizen of Pope's

here and there, or strown thickly " What bro't Sir Vito's ill-got wealth to woste? along some rich interval of country, Some demon whisper'd-Vito, have a taste.” that are to make and measure into

Of the beautiful, the mass of pleasure lawns each roadside view. American landholders, or country. Changes too are frequent, and stern, house owners, have exceedingly and strange; the wealthy manor of tofaint conceptions ; and we fancy day, may be to-morrow divided into that it will require more than Mr. a dozen leased farms, belonging to as Downing's books, though the esti- many hungry creditors. The Amer. mates in the latter were reduced by ican farmer is the one to be reached a third, to render those conceptions by the reformer of our rural tastes, either vivid or definite. We do not and he is not a man to be swayed say this in disparagement of our by gilded cones, or ample margin, author's labors ; they were needed, or posts set in mosaic ; least of all and tenfold more, could so many by nicely contrived theories, or exavail to make our country lovely.'t perience, on a scale altogether beBut he who would reform our do- yond his reach-gate-lodges, and mestic architecture, has to contend vases, and Chinese temples. Inwith deep-rooted prejudices in our deed in this view of the subject, we countrymen, strong as their avarice, must express a regret that Mr. D.'s and extending through every year works have been just such as they Cottage Residences, p. 2, Preface.

like the mechanism of Peter Stuy tice of them, by remarking that they vesant's watch to the 'patcher of are well written books, of easy and shoes.'

pleasant reading, and in a measure “ These grand principles are of instructive, particularly the sections the very first importance in the suc- in the first upon trees, and the apcessful practice of this elegant art, pended dissertation upon transplant(landscape gardening,) viz. 1. The ing; that they are well printed, and RECOGNITION OF ART, founded on the · Cottage Residences' illustrated the immutability of the true as well handsomely-the other quite excepas the beautiful. 2. The Produc- tionably. TION OF A WHOLE, springing from Beauty with many among us the necessity in the mind of a unity has become nearly a synonym for of sensation. 3. The IMITATION OF worthlessness. The beauty of sound, THE BEAUTY OF EXPRESSION, deri- of sight, of taste, of smell, are toved from a refined perception of the gether condemned as the objects of sentiment of nature. 4. The Pro- effeminacy. While the German has DUCTION OF Variety, including un- his fine-toned music, the Hollander der this term intricacy and harmony, his melody of bells and organs, the founded on the ever active desire French his jet d'eau and parterre, for new objects of interest.'

the American from his birth enters Upon the whole, we regard our into an open conflict with those offiauthor's efforts of more value in di. ces of the system which supply recting attention to the subject, than such gratifications. He looks with for any special instructions which an indifference amounting to conthey afford. For aside from the tempt, upon him who courts the small landholder, there are but two pleasure of either of the senses, by classes to whom the precepts con

a more than instinctive indulgence. veyed address themselves. The That great maxim of utility has so first are they, who by commercial inwrought itself into the mind of vigilance or social connection have the nation, that they see it only in attained fortunes, which they desire its gross and palpable forms, overto lavish in a show, that they have looking those indirect methods by not the skill to design, or the taste which it might minister to the soul to appreciate. Such leave the ac- and the sense.

Indeed it would complishment of the task to the pro- seem that the mass of landholders fessional artist, and of course need and commercial workers, had forno more the instructions of our au- gotten the intimacy of the mind with thor, than President Tyler needs to the body, in their life transactions ; consult the pages of the Constitution confining the accomplishment of while he has the services of its pro- that soul which is to be, to a few fessed expounders. The other class old books, and stale maxims, and consists of such as have husbanded frequently told prayers; never mindtheir resources to gratify a genuine ing that it is a thing of finer tone taste, cultivated by unwearied ob- and more lasting impressions than servation and study. Such have the even a man's revenue.

There are precepts of Vitruvius and Cato, of those who look upon it as a weakWren and Evelyn, of Knight and ness, to yield their sterner judg. Price, at their entire command. ments up to a passing love of beau

As we shall not again refer to tiful things, whether of art or the the works before us, except by way 'glory of a sunset sky.' As if it of occasional illustration or com- were not true that the instrument of mendation, we will sum up our no- vision, so admirably adapted to the

acceptance of every material object, * Landscape Gardening, pp. 42, 43. was only in harmony with its own

purposes when ministering to the towards taste-ignorance assigning innocent delights of that mind, which the beauty ; just as the shipwreck controls its motions. As if there upon the coast of Bohemia enlisted was nothing in that first garden of all the sympathies of the reader, Paradise, fraught with teachings to who knew not but Bohemia lay in the whole race of man ; that there the Pacific. The people are begin. is something godlike and ever to ning to realize that some things be striven for in beauty; and that in the structure of the Gothic caif man can associate with his brow's thedral, may be introduced into a sweat somewhat of that elegance Protestant church, without impairing from which he was driven out, he the efficacy of the word, or diminrestores himself, in so far, to the ishing the awe at the Divine presperfection of that physical condition ence. There is something in those in which he was formed to act. dimly lighted, cavernous interiors, They are few who possess not some with their clustering columns, crude notion of what elegance of stretching on as in the vista of a design is, and an inkling of that dream, strangely awe-inspiring, and skill which gives birth to beauty ; yet as it seems to us, disposing the mind are the many dazzled by it, only as of a Christian fitly for the worship a babe by a gem.

We have some- of Him who is a spirit. Milton times thought there was something speaks of in the peculiarity of our political

“Storied windows richly dight, condition indisposing to a correct Casting a dim, religious light." taste in reference to the elegant and in the lines which follow, obarts. The shaven heads marked it in our fathers, when Cromwell wore

serve how keenly alive was the mind his buff surtout in place of regal beauty of good music-often an ex

of that great man to the enchanting garb. And there are many now-a

ile from our churchesdays, to whom beauty of art in all its forms, seems tainted with the mi. " There let the pealing organ blow,

To the full voiced quire below, asma of kingly courts, and lordly

In service high, and anthems clear, bishoprics, and princely dukedoms. As may with sweetness, thro' mine ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies, An elegant church is an object of

And bring all heaven before mine eyes.""* fearful suspicion, for the Popes built St. Peter's ; the adornment of Beauty is no foe to reverence—much a city, for Nero rebuilt Rome; less is sublimity. The religion of painting, for tyrants have been its Christ is none the more honored, patrons ; images, for Louis the De- and none the more likely to prosper, bonnair sanctioned their use. Yet for being forced into an unnatural

none more ready than these alliance with deformity. The Ark same iconoclasts to admire that of Israel would have borne in equal beauty which reveals itself in a security the covenant of God, had “sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs, it been a ruder casket; yet the anand harping symphonies."

gel of the Most High scrupled not Perhaps we do not give full credit to rest in guardianship upon its gold. to the changes in reference to works en cherubs. of design, that are making their way Our public buildings for civil pursilently in the land; certain it is, poses are perhaps assimilating more that with regard to public architec- the richness of the European. A ture, more especially church archi- distinct style of architecture is look. tecture, a great change has trans- ed upon as a somewhat worthier ob. pired. And though the pointed ject than a conglomerate of every window is set in a chapel of Grecian outline, yet is such a blunder a step

are