106 



ON SIMPLE RURAL COTTAGES. 



rowed, and not founded upon any clearly 

 defined principles, that it is only necessary 

 to adopt the ornaments of a certain building, 

 or a certain style of building, to produce 

 the best efTect of the style or building in 

 question. But so far is this from being the 

 true mode of attaining this result, that in 

 every case where it is adopted, as we per- 

 ceive at a glance, the result is altogether 

 unsatisfactor)\ 



Ten years ago the mock-grecian fashion 

 was at its height. Perhaps nothing is more 

 truly beautiful than the pure and classical 

 Greek temple — so perfect in its proportions, 

 so chaste and harmonious in its decorations. 

 It is certainly not the best style for a coun- 

 try house ; but still we have seen a few 

 specimens in this country, of really beauti- 

 ful villas in this style — where the propor- 

 tions of the whole, and the admirable com- 

 pleteness of all the parts, executed on a fit- 

 ting scale, produced emotions of the high- 

 est pleasure. 



But, alas ! no sooner were there a few 

 specimens of the classical style in the coun- 

 try, than the Greek temple mania became 

 an epidemic. Churches, banks and court- 

 houses, one could very well bear to see Vi- 

 truvianized. Their simple uses and respect- 

 able size bore well the honors which the 

 destiny of the day forced upon them. But 

 to see the five orders applied to every other 

 building, from the rich merchant's mansion 

 to the smallest and meanest of all edifices, 

 was a spectacle which made even the warm- 

 est admirers of Vitruvius sad, and would 

 have made a true Greek believe that the 

 gods who preside over beauty and harmony, 

 had forever abandoned the new world ! 



But the Greek temple disease has passed 

 its crisis. The people have survived it. 

 Some few buildings, of simple forms, and 

 convenient arrangements, that stood here 

 and there over the country, uttering silent 



rebukes, perhaps had something to do with 

 bringing us to just notions of fitness and 

 propriety. Many of the perishable wooden 

 porticoes have fallen down ; many more 

 will soon do so; and many have been pulled 

 down, and replaced by less pretending piaz- 

 zas or verandas. 



Yet we are now obliged to confess that 

 we see strong symptoms manifesting them- 

 selves of a second disease, which is to dis- 

 turb the architectural growth of our people 

 We feel that we shall not be able to avert it, 

 but perhaps, by exhibiting a diagnosis of the 

 symptoms, we may prevent its extending so 

 widely as it might otherwise do. 



We allude to the mania just springing up 

 for a kind of spurious rural gothic cottage. 

 It is nothing more than a miserable wooden 

 thing, tricked out with flimsy verge boards, 

 and unmeaning gables. It has nothing of 

 the true character of the cottage it seeks to 

 imitate. It bears the same relation to it 

 that the child's toy-house does to a real and 

 substantial habitation. 



If we inquire into the cause of these ar- 

 chitectural abortions, either Grecian or Go- 

 thic, we shall find that they always arise 

 from a poverty of ideas on the subject of 

 style in architecture. The novice in archi- 

 tecture always supposes, when he builds a 

 common house, and decorates it with the 

 showiest ornaments of a certain style, that 

 he has erected an edifice in that style. He 

 deludes himself in the same manner as the 

 schoolboy who, with his gaudy paper cap 

 and tin sword, imagines himself a great 

 general. We build a miserable shed, make 

 one of its ends a portico with Ionic columns, 

 and call it a temple in the Greek style. At 

 the same time, it has none of the propor- 

 tions, nothing of the size, solidity, and per- 

 fection of details, and probably few or none 

 of the remaining decorations of that stylp 



So too, we now see erected a wooden cot- 



