488 
cottages, the first thing they generally 
do, or which their overseers do for 
them, is to fell every tree, of whatever 
growth or description, fill up and pare 
down every inequality of the surface, 
and turn the whole ground-plot of their 
projected improvements into one tame, 
naked, and apparently sterile level ; the 
expense of which, whatever it may be, 
must be set down as the first item in 
this left-handed account of the Economy 
of Laste, inthe Improvement of Landed 
Property.* 
Surely it might be admitted as one 
of the first axioms of common sense, in 
all projected improvements of this kind, 
that not a tree of any description should 
be cut down, that did not actually in- 
terfere with the necessary plan of the 
projected buildings, till the erections 
themselves were complete, till the little 
plantations were planned, nay till the 
taste of some intended occupant (if 
practicable) could be consulted—since, 
perhaps, there may be not a few to 
whom the tree, against which the axe 
is prematurely levelled, might have been 
the very attraction which would have 
lured them to the habitation. At any 
rate, it is always more easy to remove 
than to restore; and as a flourishing elm, 
or an oak, or evena poplar, or a com- 
mon willow, cannot be replaced in as 
little time as it can be cut down; and, 
as most people prefer some degree of 
foliage around a rural residence, to 
downright naked exposure, even a sorry 
willow may be endured, till something 
better can have time to grow up, and 
require or justify its removal. But 
what shall we say to the Heonomical 
Taste, that would banish the very sight 
of water from a range of rural cot- 
tages, and prefer, at the expense of 
several hundred pounds employed in 
its construction, a covered drain or 
sewer, to a running and embowered 
rivulet ? 
The little river Effra has, in my time, 
undergone some metamorphose. I re- 
member it in the days of my boyhood, 
a pretty brawling stream, sometimes 
swoln and turbid, indeed, in winter, and 
in autumnal rains—and sometimes al- 
most dried up by continued heats and 
droughts, but much more frequently a 
crystal rill, babbling and sparkling by 
the road side, beneath a winding hedge- 
row, and soothing both the eye and ear 
. * This subject might be treated at much 
length, and in a variety of points of view. 
I confine myself to a single instance. 
Economy of Taste. 
with its penrevig lapse; while here and 
there a humble cottage farm, a barn, or 
a labourer’s lonely thatch and garden, 
peeped forth among the trees, or en- 
livened the neighbouring pasturage. 
Of late years, the improvements in the 
road (and certainly for the convenience 
both of carriages and of foot-passengers, 
it is very greatly improved) have for- 
malized its banks ; and the vents of the 
drains, from the multitude of habita- 
tions which have sprung up in this, as 
in every other direction round the me- 
tropolis, had sullied, in some degree, 
its pastoral purity, and rendered it 
somewhat less picturesque and poetical. 
But still it was a stream’;—it had mo- 
tion and reflection ; and though seldom 
pellucid, it had charm enough to induce 
me to reflect, in many a daylight, and 
many a moonlight perambulation, what 
a vitality, as it were, even so scanty a 
supply of running water afforded to all, 
—but more particularly to nocturnal 
scenery. Its banks, too, still were green 
with unshorn grass, and diversified with 
the flowering weeds of the hedgerow ; 
and the cresses which mantled on some 
parts of its-margin, had a salubrious 
freshness to the eye,- that associated 
itself with many a poetical remem- 
brance: and it might safely be referred 
to any person of even moderate taste, 
or of picturesque feeling, who-has 
chanced to take his refreshing walk 
from the throng and smoke of the me- 
tropolis, along the Croydon or Streatham 
road, whether he has not found the 
pleasantest part of that road to be, the 
portion of it which led from the Cause- 
way, or Holland Cottage, along the 
side of that stream, up to the village of 
Brixton; and whether the agreeable- 
ness of that part of his walk was 
not evidently derived from the little 
stream itself, and the foliage with 
which it was, all along, either par- 
tially or more completely shaded? 
Till you came to the series of sweetly 
embowered cottages, it is true (and 
whose embowering, by. the. way, so 
beautifully obscures the ill taste of some 
of those cottages themselves), the shade 
was only that of the common grey 
willow: but still it was a shade, that 
broke the naked flatness of an exten- 
sive pasture; and might have served, 
if houses were to be built there, ,to 
sequester, in some degree, their else 
naked fronts, till plants of more 
tasteful form and leaf could spring up 
and supercede their function. The ad- 
vantages of such precaution are suffi~ 
ciently, 
