THE PHILOSOPHY OF RURAL TASTE. 



59 



rural life might have justified other hopes; 

 but with all their capacity for practical ac- 

 tivity, the Romans, in their cold gravity 

 and measured sobriety of understanding, 

 were, as a people, far inferior to the Greeks 

 in the perception of beauty, far less sensi- 

 tive to its influence, and much more de- 

 voted to the realities of every day life, 

 than to an idealizing contemplation of na- 

 ture." 



Judging them by their writings, Hum- 

 boldt pronounces the great Roman writers 

 to be comparatively destitute of real poet- 

 ic feeling for nature. Liw and Tacitus 

 show, in their histories, little or no inte- 

 rest in natural scenery. Cicero describes 

 landscape without poetic feeling. Plinv, 

 though he rises to true poetic inspiration 

 when describing the great moving causes 

 of the natural universe, " has few indivi- 

 dual descriptions of nature." Ovid, in his 

 exile, saw little to charm him in the scenery 

 around him ; and Virgil, though he often 

 devoted himself to subjects which prompt 

 the enthusiasm of a lover of nature, rarely 

 glows with the fire of a true worshipper of 

 her mysterious charms. And not only 

 were the Romans indifferent to the beauty 

 of natural landscape which daily surround- 

 ed them, but even to the sublimity and 

 magnificence of those wilder and grander 

 scenes, into which their love of conquest 

 often led them. The following striking 

 paragraph, from Hujiboldt's work, is at 

 once eloquent and convincing on this 

 point : 



" No description of the eternal snows of 

 the Alps, when tinged in the morning or 

 evening with a rosy hue, — of the beauty of 

 the blue giacier ice, or of any part of the 

 grandeur of the scenery in Switzerland, — 

 have reached us from the ancients, although 

 statesmen and generals, with men of letters 

 in their train, were constantly passing from 



Helvetia into Gaul. All these travellers 

 think only of complaining of the difficul- 

 ties of the way ; the romantic character of 

 the scenery seems never to have engaged 

 their attention. It is even known that Ju- 

 lius Caesar, when returning to his legions, 

 in Gaul, employed his time while passing 

 over the Alps in preparing a grammatical 

 treatise, ' De Analogia.' " 



The corollary to be drawn from this 

 learned and curious investigation of the 

 history of national sensibility and taste, is 

 a very clear and satisfactory one, viz: that 

 as success, in "the art of composing a land- 

 scape," (as Humboldt significantly calls 

 landscape gardening,) depends on appre- 

 ciation of nature, the taste of an individual 

 as well as that of a nation, will be in direct 

 proportion to the profound sensibility with 

 which he perceives the Beautiful in natural 

 scenery. 



Our own observation not only fully 

 confirms this theory, but it also leads 

 us to the recognition of the fact, that 

 among our countrymen, at the present 

 day, there are two distinct classes of taste 

 in rural art ; first, the poetic or northern 

 taste, based on a deep instinctive feeling 

 for nature ; and second, the artistic or 

 symmetric taste, based on a perception of 

 the Beautiful, as embodied in works of 

 art. 



The larger part of our countrymen in- 

 herit the northern or Anglo-Saxon love of 

 nature, and find most delight in the natural 

 landscape garden; but we have also not a 

 few to whom the classic villa, with its 

 artistic adornments of vase and statue, 

 urn and terrace, is an object of much 

 more positive pleasure than the most vari- 

 ed and seductive gardens, laid out with 

 all the witchery of nature's own handi- 

 work. 



It is not part of our philosophy to urge 



