262 Architecture in the United States. 
to the circumstances of almost every town in our country. If it has 
not these advantages, as I have remarked freely on the plans of oth- 
ers, I am willing that they should remark freely on mine. 
The spots marked 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, I have reserved for 
public buildings, churches, banks, and the like. I say reserved, 
and the word is meant to have a meaning beyond a paper plan. 
Such edifices are always expected to be ornamental to a city, and 
the public scomplain when they are not so. ‘The public act justly, 
but those who build them have also a right to expect something from 
the public. Duties are always reciprocal. If the public wish so- 
cieties to erect handsome edifices, it should give them ground that 
will shew these edifices to advantage ; not compel them to build, as 
it very often does, in lanes, and amid the very vilest tenements in the 
city. All this may easily be effected, by reserving ground at the 
first laying out of our towns. Let this be done: let the public then 
at proper times offer these desirable situations to those societies or 
companies that will improve them most, and architecture will take a 
start among us, of which we can now scarcely conceive. Cher- 
ished, it will labor hard for us in return ; our cities will be ornament- 
ed; our towns will follow, and the land will become beautiful as it is 
blessed. 3 
It will also be a better land. Ihave already noticed the action 
of handsome architectural objects both on the mind and morals, Te 
fining and enlarging the former, and giving to the latter a more cheer- 
ful anda purer cast. Some more remarks of the kind will come in, in 
connexion with the subject I now take up, which is public monuments, 
pillars, obelisks, arches, and fountains in a city. There is @ well 
shaded street in Marseilles called le Cours, with a broad raised Way 
in the centre, secured from wheel carriages by the public laws. — It 
is the favorite place for the promenade, and must interest every VSI 
ter, if not by its own beauty, yet by that which every evening A 
- sembles there. Old age totters to the happy assemblage 5 child- 
hood is there with its sparkling eyes and full hearty laugh: §#9 
smooths its brow and comes to this holiday of the cheerful feelings, 
and the whole scene is a most animating and pleasing one; 1 am 
sorry we have nothing like it in our country ;—but it is of the street 
I wished to speak. At one end, it ascends an abrupt eminence, and 
__ Just on the brow of this is placed a marble arch, modelled after the 
antique. Itis well contrasted with the green foliage, and is a splendid 
— to the view. I have often regretted that of all the tr 
