140 



ARCHITECTURE OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 



foreground and baeliground of the scene. 

 This, however, Avas only a step in a transition 

 to a better state of things. The desohitiou 

 wrought by the first settlers upon the grand 

 old forests was felt as almost a sacrilege, when 

 once accomplished, and io their children canie 

 gentler feelings, prompting them to restore, 

 in the more delicate and graceful forms of ar- 

 tificial groves and lawns, the beauty they had 

 lost. And soon, also, the feeling came, that 

 something more than the shelter which the 

 caves and hollow trees afford to brutes, should 

 be found in the homes of their wives and chil- 

 dren ; that there was, indeed, a hannony 

 between loveliness of form and character, and 

 a purifying influence in the presence of the 

 beautiful creations of Art, as Avell of Nature, 

 akin to the worship of the Most High. The 

 splendid works of ancient art — the temples 

 of Greece and Rome — the Baronial castles 

 of the old world — were not imknown to the 

 possessors of the new; but hundreds of splen- 

 did failures had demonstrated how utterly im- 

 suited to their wants and condition were such 

 models, in unskilful hands. The absolute 

 necessity of being rid of the chilling, com- 

 fortless, ungainly dwellings, which satisfied 

 neither the physical wants nor the demands 

 of good taste, soon induced a change in rural 

 architecture, almost magical. In this, as in 

 all other matters in America, there was no 

 half way. There must be a full vibration of 

 the pendulum. Suddenly, on all sides, sprung 

 up cottages. Families from the cities, ac-cus- 

 tomed to spacious and luxurious apartments, 

 must retire to the country in summer, and 

 spend their dog-days in what our author has 

 aptly teiuned cocked-hai cottages — little three 

 cornered affairs, of about the size of band- 

 boxes, all gables, and fringes, and spires ; and 

 whole Melroses and Sweet Auburns of Gre- 

 cian and Gothic playthings, looking, as Dick- 

 ens well said, like children's toys, just finished 

 and set out to dry, became visible at one shake 

 of the kaleidoscope. Downing's " Cottage 

 Ilesidences," doubtless, had some share in 

 bringing about the sudden change referred to, 

 and it was a vast improvement on what had 

 preceded. His cottage designs were adopted 

 everywhere, and generally -hnprooed till they 

 Avere ruined; for there was a gim'p-trimmiiig 

 mania pervading everything, at the time — 

 warring against the simplicity of nature and 

 refined taste.. 



Having, in a very few years, knocked thefr 

 heads and elbows sufficiently against project- 

 ing corners and the sloping roofs of attics, to 

 become painfully conscious that the " humau 

 form divine " does not fit comfortably into 

 acute angles, our good people were just con- 

 vinced that they had made one more mistake. 

 And while they thus stand doubting, con- 

 scious of their own inability to supply the 

 war.t so txniversally felt — knoAviiig just enough 

 of architecture to detect blunders and bad 

 taste everywhere, and ready, gladly, to ac- 

 knowledge a master — they suddenly find by 

 their side a plain, unaflected, earnest man, 

 who chimes in, at once, with their feelings, 

 who understands precisely their difficulties, 

 who encourages their enthusiiisni for the 

 works of nature, and the ideal of art, of which 

 they had begun to be somewhat ashamed, and 

 cjuietly points out, in a plain, practical way, 

 the very things they so much wanted to know. 



Kuskin's '■'■Seven Lamps of Architecture '* 

 is a splendid work of genius ; but its author 

 must wait more than one generation to see it 

 fully appreciated. You might as well substi- 

 tute a volume of Emerson's Transcendental 

 Philosophy for the multiplication t:ible, for 

 the use of the youngest class in cipkerhig in ai 

 town school, as Mr. Ruskin's book for the 

 simple, practical Avork before us, for the use 

 of our good citizens. The question put by the 

 mathematician to the sculptor, in regard to 

 the beautiful creations of his art — " What do 

 they go to shmoV — Avill be likely to be often 

 asked in reference to the Seven Lamps ; while 

 Mr. I>OAvning*s treatise, Avith no Jiamyig title, 

 will shed quite as much light on its subject, 

 as the newly opened eyes of this generation 

 are able to bear. 



The present work noes not profess to be 

 strictly scientific. Like all Mr. Downing's 

 Avritings, it is characterized by a Avonderful 

 combination of plain common sense with great 

 enthusiasm, and a thorough appreciation of 

 the beautiful in nature, art and science. He 

 seems to have a peculiar conception of i\\e fit- 

 ness of things. The cockneyism that builds 

 a "■ four story brick " in the country, and fur- 

 nishes it in the style of Broadway or Beacon 

 street, hides its diminished head beneath the 

 scrutiny of his practiced eye. " The sin of 

 ignorance," manifested so often by erecting 

 for a rural dAvelling a classic Temple of Mr- 

 uerva, twenty feet square,, and two-thii-ds of 



