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species. Observers are actually becoming acquainted with the massive entablature of the Doric, and a fillet of palm leaves can not longer be bound round the Corinthian shaft, nor the acanthus leaf be plaited upon the Egyptian column, with impunity. This is well. It is well for the individual enjoyment of taste; it is well for the architect, that he may possess, as he ought to do, the enlightened approbation of the public; it is well for the edifices, that they may be cherished with the more care, and regarded with feelings of a higher pride; and well too for the people, that they may have studies of grace.

We have a remark or two to make in this connection, upon the schoolroom, and, by way of episode, upon the school-book,-being, as they are, the first objects which are presented to the youthful mind, and such as in the majority of instances utterly confound every natural sentiment (if such there is) of beauty. The building is, in nine cases out of ten, an amorphous mass of lumber and plaster, where the boy is taught the rudiments of his tongue, from some elementary book which-whether orthodox or heterodox in its etymology, is yet, with its dim blurred printing, and uncouth binding, and thrice-worn cuts, an embodiment of ugliness; these mold his fancies, and elegance is for visionary boys to dream of. It is surprising that so little regard is paid at an age so young, to the awakening of a love for beauty, disposing as it does to order, and harmony, and regularity. And it is the more surprising, that the means of correct guidance are so obvious and accessible. The room itself, by its neatness of arrangement, and elegance of design, might impress an idea of order and fitness upon the growing mind, that would never leave it-and the child unconsciously learn a richer lesson from the inanimate objects around it, than from the labored admonitions

of a master. We rejoice to see that economy is finding its interests identical with a finished appearance; for youth will instinctively pay regard to whatever has put on a garb of beauty; and the neatly painted desk and porch will escape the unseemly cuts and bruises, which were so much in vogue in our boyish days. And with the Grecian front of the modern school-room, and the illustrated pages of the modern schoolbook, simple and unnoticed matters though they may have been, we date a new era in the education of American children. Such things, in our view, will do more to make our land the country of the cottage and the vine, than the fullest or most ingenious elucidation of the principles of rural arts, as taught by Price and Gilpin.

But not to lose sight of our subject, nothing will so encourage and give permanence to a love for beauty once awakened, as the arts treated of in Mr. Downing's books. Belles-lettres, painting, statuary, music, are totally out of the question, for refining the tastes of the multitude; and the reasons for this are too obvious to mention. But there are home associations connected with the adornment of country landscape and of country houses, which make it matter of interest to every one possessed of any tolerable appreciation of the beautiful. Nothing operates more strongly, as we have already intimated, against the practice of rural embellishments, than the restless inquietude of our landholding population; and nothing would so surely subdue this inquietude, as the successful practice of these same adornments. Again, the peculiar facilities afforded by the face of our country, will amply sustain an interest on this subject, once thoroughly awakened. The rich alluvial depositions along our larger streams, offering the finest soil in the world for the pursuits of agriculture and arboriculture,-the full

ness and richness of our sylva,the numerous internal lakes, with their bordering detritus of lacustrine plants, the bold cliffs of our eastern states, harboring in their clefts, from long gone centuries, marine exuvia to nourish the fir and the mountain brush-wood,-the wide bending savannas of the west, rich in all that makes the land-owner prosperous-these are the features which will perpetuate a correct rural taste.

Landscape gardening in its present acceptation, we understand to be a thing of comparatively recent date. True, the umbrosa vallis, the frigida Tempe, have been figures of luxury in every age; and the first blessed beauty of Eden, was remembered with a regret that made it the image of lost happiness. Vine-clad Canaan was the object of long che-. rished hopes, not unmingled with fears, to a nation; and there were doubtless those in days of old, who "digged a ditch and planted a hedge," as well to beautify as protect. Still in general the unimpaired richness of the country, superseded the necessity of creating anew. Mount Olivet lay nigh unto Jerusalem, and was a garden alike to its savans and slaves. Like all other arts, too, it has had its changes, and

the present "natural style" has its origin assigned by our author to quite a recent date. The rectangularities of the old English garden, now most discarded by them, are still retained by the Dutch, as suited (and they are right) to their flats, and water-roads, and national habits, which would never choose a circuitous path, could there be one direct. Mr. Downing, our present expositor, says that true taste now-adays is not to imitate nature exactly in our grounds, but to associate nature's extremes; therein will be the 66 recognition of art." Paths must be run in every possible direction; all angles discarded; trees are to be set in groups of largest outline; the

deciduous mingled with the evergreen, the glossy with the furred leaf; terrace and parapet must lead away by insensible gradations from the architectural beauty of the dwelling to the artistical beauty of the grounds; turf must be shaven, walks swept, and hedges clipped, to show that art is busy with her broom and shears; for it would be highly unfashionable that a walk should seem to be formed by the mere foot passengers, or, in the neighborhood of the mansion, that a tree should seem to grow because it belonged to the soil and climate.

To all this we see no objection; tasteful art is most lovable, but tasteless art is proportionately hateful; and we anticipate, under present views of the matter, the operation of much more of the latter to offend, than of the former to please. We by no means impugn Mr. D.'s taste; but we do apprehend that the very minutiæ of his details will lead to great stiffness of execution, with those who take their first and last lessons of taste from his writings. We do fear, perhaps needlessly, that this scientific grouping, this Newtonian analysis of the lights and shades upon a landscape, this making a serious matter of what we conceive to be a simple one, bodes no suc cess to the efforts of our landholders in general. Not that taste of the highest kind is not requisite for effective arrangement of grounds; but taste is simple, and is guided by most simple laws. It is as if an expert angler should seek out some theory, by which to regulate every motion of the rod and reel and gut for a successful "cast," when in fact, though it is the most delicate manual operation in the world, nothing would so surely destroy its efficiency. In the one case as in the

*We are not sure that we have the It is a right apprehension of this term. new word to us, though used so freely in the volumes before us.

other, time, place and circumstance are every thing. Bring the landholder back to the most entire șimplicity, and his acts will almost all show forth the truest principles of the art we are considering. If he set his hedge without a chain and compass, it will run riot; if he drive his team from his door to the highway by the easiest track, avoid ing rock and tree and hillock, the path will have grace; if he build without a square, his cottage will have picturesqueness; if he throw out a rude porch to protect his door from storms, it will have beauty; if he set his chimney-flues where most needed, they will break out from the roof in striking irregularity; if he cut windows where easiest done, and for the best light, they will have Gothic grotesqueness. We by no means propose the adoption of our suggestions, but only make them to show where the danger lies, and where least it is to be apprehended. The Maltese vase and China temple may appear well by a gravel path and shaven terrace, for aught we know; but a little wicket swinging upon an oak, and disclosing a footworn path to an embowered cottage, with white-washed walls and nicely sanded floor, would be infinitely more to our taste. A clump of alders, to shield a favorite resort from the eastern winds, is to us more beautiful (by far more rural) than tesselated panel-work inwrought with ivory. We wish that the plain farmers scattered over the country, and holding in their grasp the great features which make up the aspect of American landscape, better understood that they can retain every element of beauty around their homestead, and yet rear their crops with the same regularity and success as without. We wish they understood that they can successfully compete with their nabob neighbor, with the means God has put in their hands,that the essentials of the art consist not in terrace, or exotic, or CorinVol. I.

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thian column, or prospect arbors. This understanding, such will hardly derive from the books before us; the congruity of natural charms with the every-day life of the laborer, is not so pointedly set forth in them as we could desire.

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If the books of Mr. Downing were compiled as the mere text-books of the wealthy citizen, or the farmer, whose prosperity rated at a given income, they have very well accomplished their intent; but if, as their titles imply, they were intended to beautify the cottage residences of America, and to make glad her landscape, then are we justified in testing as we have done, the volumes, and in declaring that they are found wanting.' Emulation, it may be expected, will do much ; but not, by any means, so much as in the old world. Equality at the polls is a rare salvo for inequalities elsewhere. Again, the small farmer could take few lessons of heathful taste, from the grounds entered by a gate-lodge and graveled road, swept with exotics, and flanked with graven images. Such specimens of the art rural, can not be executed upon a small scale; they can never be reconciled with that superlative essential of beauty-fitness. But let the man of humble means be taught, that the simplest forms are most beautiful, and that if he will be simple he can hardly miss of it; and moreover, that beauty is worth the having; that God has purposely robed the hills in its mantle, and hung its curtain out upon the sky; that a nice perception of it will gratify the highest instincts of his nature, opening to him a new revelation, strengthening his religion; that his children will grow up with warmer affections under its daily contemplation, and love more their home, dearer by so many tieslet this be shown him, and the cottage, whether Swiss or Tudor, with its honeysuckle flowers and embowered yard, will spring up all over

the land. He will become content to live in his own home, to gather up his desires within that little circle of enjoyment, to lavish his increasing stores in new efforts for making that home a paradise; more than all, he will be content that his dwelling should be the expositor of his wealth and taste, content to be poor, if beauty adorns his poverty. But our sympathy with those little, neglected, charming spots, along our New England highways, which break on the eye at every turn, is carrying us, we scarce know where. To be a little more definitive, we propose to occupy our few remaining pages with practical suggestions -mostly our own, partly from the books before us-for making the country home what it ought to be, both as regards its architecture and grounds. And we shall endeavor to seize upon those essentials of the art, which are as familiar and accessible to the man of humble means, as to the most affluent.

As much taste is requisite in the selection of a proper site for a dwelling, as in any one consideration about it. It must be a site convenient of access, particularly to the bustling farmer. It is desirable to secure good views of the dwelling from prominent points of observation; and as far as compatible with other objects, to open rich landscape views from the house itself. The man of limited means should rather look for a position of convenience, central to his farm, yet near the highway, and a situation of agreeable shelter, than one calculated alone to arrest attention. It is the discovery oftentimes of a cottage in some hidden nook, that breaks on the mind with a happier force, than a long kept view of the most commanding site. In how ever humble a spot a cottage may be placed, there may be opened in time, from the little lattice, enchanting scenes, though no more than the rude paling of a garden overrun

with wild vines, a rural gate, and foot-worn path leading under the green hemlock, and branching to the spring in the meadow. Additional resources may set the diamond pane in the oriel window, and wreath the porch with woodbine and flowering creeper. The eastern and northeastern winds, are in this climate subjects of importance to landsmen as well as seamen; and however well entrances may be guarded by double and trebled doors, there is something exceed. ingly like comfort in a situation sheltered by nature. The side of a gentle hill, that throws up its column of defense toward the offensive quarter, sloping southward, is a very agreeable companion in the months of November and March; and if tufted with rich foliage, is highly picturesque. The farmer in particular, will wish a spot for the sun to beam warmly in by his door, and it will rejoice his heart in the spring, to welcome the green grass at his step, while the fields are hoarwhite. The hillside that shelters his homestead, will be a convenient pasture-ground, and the group that shades his herd, may be so placed, as to throw the white of his cottage into elegant relief. The agricul turist, as we have remarked, finds it a matter of convenience to be near the public road; still every position affords opportunity for a constantly developing taste. The twined columbine of the porch is thus brought more nearly into view, and the undershadowed bed of roses

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the Roman; the Moorish mode is much too fantastic for a sober minded man, and the Italian, beautiful as it is, seems to us adapted more to a life of luxury and ease, than to the active, bustling habits of our landholders. None of these objections obtain, when we consider the peaked roof, the crow-foot gable, the mullioned windows, and stacked chimneys of the cottage style. Yet are all these objects of very considerable beauty in themselves, as well as of no questionable economy. The style is adapted to every variety of country, glen, river bank, plain, or cliff. Its character is highly suit ed to agricultural pursuits. The slope of the roof disposes rapidly of falling moisture; the projecting eaves guard the sides; rural repairs are little noticed upon its varied exterior; the addition of a wing or an ell, far from destroying its unity, will the more confirm its character; the carriage of the chimneys separately to the top, while it favors their picturesque union above the ridge, ensures a constant draft. And none who have seen such a specicimen of architecture, will deny its general beauty. The outlines we have given may be varied in a hundred ways, with equal effect. Dormar windows, with topping finial and crockets; bay windows, with side tracery, and diamond pane, with almost every variety of porch, may vary the outline. Much might be said of interior arrangements, but we have space only for a word. The ceiling of lime and sand has come to be so generally used, and is upon the whole so well adapted to its purposes, it were perhaps better to suggest no change. Still, an oaken ceiling laid directly upon the floor above, exposing the octagonated forms of the beams, is exceed ingly durable, accords well with the exterior of a rural cottage, and better than all, offers no shelter for vermin. The fireplace, (for it has not yet gone by in the country,)

with the finishing of doors, and cupboards, and windows, gives opportu nity for a most varied display of taste.

The study of cottages, both in style and disposition in finished landscape paintings, will greatly facilitate the formation of a correct taste on this subject. True, the styles may lack definitiveness, and may possibly be a little outré; but we have, we must confess, less regard for all the directions of the Academy of Design,' than has Mr. Downing. And if this new discov. ery of electrotype* shall succeed in placing copies of the best masters in every family, and if our system of education shall nourish a little more a regard for beauty, we shall have little fear for our ' cottage residences.'

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We come now to speak of the chief charm and object of the artthe proper disposition of trees upon a landscape. Herein is a means for developing a correct taste, which is at the hands of the humblest tiller of the ground. None so poor, or so circumscribed in their limits, that they can not plant a tree. group of half a dozen of our na tive forest trees, may embrace all the delightful shades of coloring, as fully as the park of a thousand acres. For the neglect of this sylvan beauty there is no apology, but a wrong education. Points are always accessible, where the shade will not in the least injure the crops of the farm, and the timber ultimately obtained by judicious thinning, to say nothing of increased beauty, will surely repay the inconsiderable labor of transplanting. We will suppose a small cottage, such as we have recommended, situa

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