400 THE DOWNINO MONUMENT. 



life. Downing nowbcpran to impress people with an idea that there were hipher 

 enjoyments to be found in the cuuntrv than raisiii<^ corn and poultry, which could 

 be (iihh'd to the attractions of rural life. A taste for horticulture was soon iui- 

 planted in the rural population ; their houses were made comfortable and elegant; 

 glass structures brought fruit and (lowers ; the study of scenery, and the proper 

 arrangement of the grounds, followed as a matter of course. In his books, and 

 every month in his periodical, our rural Socrates gave us new inducements and 

 instructions regarding worthy objects to exiiend our money, time, and taste, upon. 

 Before his untimely end, ladies and gentlemen had ceased to talk exclusively of 

 " taste aud the musical glasses," and had found in trees, rocks, waterfalls, gardens, 

 and scenery, something else to admire than curtains and Parisian furniture. It 

 was truly surprising to discover that the same income that must be spent on a lot 

 of twenty-five feet by an hundred in the city, would, in a rural neighborhood, with 

 hnoicledge of country things, enable the expender to have a lawn aud pleasure- 

 ground, a horse, a cow, a plentiful vegetable and fruit garden, and, perhaps, a 

 greenhouse or grapery, with their never-ending pleasures. 



The "revolution" was rapid in its progress ; villas grew up in every section ; 

 cities were voted a bore by a large class ; we can now visit country residents who 

 do not sit down to dinner without a coat on their backs, and we find books and 

 pictures, billiards, and rare flower-beds, where but yesterday were weeds and stable- 

 yards — in the countrtf. 



That that revolution came in our time, we mainly owe to the individual to whom 

 we have just erected a suitable memento, the tribute of our just appreciation to 

 his merits, genius, and originality. There it stands, in the grounds he was so 

 actively employed in embellishing, in "Washington, at the time of his decease — a 

 shrine, where the lover of his country may make a pilgrimage, and shed a tear 

 for all future time — an evidence that he was appreciated by his contemporaries, a 

 monument less ambitious than our attempt to commemorate the fame of Washing- 

 ton, but, in its oivn line, pointing to the works of a most useful individual. Long 

 may it stand a memento of a country's gratitude to its able teacher ; long may 

 the moistened eyes which read the following inscriptions, read the lessons he in- 

 stilled ; and, so long as it is visited in the ))roper spirit, so long as his lessons are 

 remembered, so long shall our country be far removed from that serai-barbarism 

 which threatened the inland dweller when Downing's spirit roused itself, and threw 

 off the apathy to the love of the beautiful, which was fast overtaking us. 



The monument was designed by Calvert Yaux, Esq., Architect, and Downing's 

 partner at the time of his death, aud is given above, with the inscriptions as kindly 

 furnished by himself. 



THE INSCKIPTIO>'S. 



This vase was erected, by his friends, in memory of Andrew Jackson Downing, who died 

 July 28, 1852, aged 37 years. 



He was born, and lived, and died, npon the Hudson River. His life was devoted to the 

 improvement of the national taste in rural art, an office for which his genius, and the 

 natural beauty amidst which he lived, had fully endowed him. His success was as great 

 as his genius, and for the death of few public men was public grief ever more sincere. 



When these grounds were proposed, he was at once called to design them, but, before they 

 were completed, he perished in the wreck of the steamer Henry Clay. 



His mind was singularly just, penetrating, and original ; his manners were calm, reserved, 

 and courteous. His personal memory belongs to the friends who loved him, his fame to the 

 country which honored and laments him. 



Upon the reverse : — 



" The taste of one individual, as well as that of a nation, will be in direct proi:)or 

 the profound sensibility with which he perciives the beautiful in natural scenery 



