Book III. 



CONVENIENT DECORATIONS. 



357 



1816. Roofed seats, boat-houses, moss houses, Jlint houses, bark huts, and similar con- 

 structions, are different modes of forming resting-places containing seats, and some- 

 times other furniture or conveniences in or near them. Very neat buildings and furni- 

 ture of this class may be formed of hazel-rods ; or of any tree with a clean bark, and 

 straight shoots, as young oaks or mountain ash. The spruce fir affords a good outside 

 material : and five or six young trees coupled together, make good rustic columns. At 

 White Knights, the Slopes at Windsor, and Bothwell Castle, are good examples of 

 covered seats of the rustic kind. ( t figs. 334, 335, 336.) 



334 



335 



336 



337 



338 



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1817. Roofed seats of a more polished description are boarded structures generally 

 semi-octagonal, and placed so as to be open to the south. Sometimes they are portable, 

 moving on wheels, so as to be placed in different positions, according to the hour of the 

 day, or season of the year, which, in confined spots, is a desirable circumstance. Some- 

 times they turn on rollers, or on a central pivot, for the same object, and this is very 

 common in what are called barrel-seats. In general they are opaque, but occasionally 

 their sides are glazed, to admit the sun to the interior in winter. 



1818. Folding chairs. A sort of medium seat, between the roofed and the exposed, is 

 formed by constructing the backs of chairs, benches, or sofas with hinges, so as they may 

 fold down over the seat, and so protect it from rain. After rain, when these backs are 

 replaced in their proper position, a dry seat, and dry back to lean against, are at once 

 obtained. 



1819. Elegant structures of the seat kind for summer use, may be constructed of iron rods 

 and wires, and painted canvas ; the iron forming the supporting skeleton, and the canvass 

 the protecting tegument. The mushroom or umbrella form (Jig. 337.), and that of the 

 Turkish tent (Jig. 338.), the oriental pavilion, or any other exotic form free from vul- 

 garity and meagre lines, may be made choice of on such occasions. 



1820. Exposed seats 

 include a great variety, 

 rising in gradation from 

 the turf bank to the 

 carved couch. Inter- 

 mediate forms are stone 

 benches,root stools,sec- 

 tions of trunks of trees, 

 wooden, stone, or cast- 

 iron mushrooms paint- 

 ed or covered with moss, or mat, or heath ; the Chinese barrel-seat, the rustic stool, chair, 

 tripod, sofa, the cast-iron couch or sofa, the wheeling-chair, and many sub-varieties. 



1821. Swings (Jig. 339.), see-saws, &c. 

 are not very common in English gardens, 

 but, as exercising places for children, are 

 very proper in retired, but airy parts of the 

 pleasure-ground. Hurley-burleys, riding- 

 wheels, &c. are better substituted by 

 donkies and ponies. No greater danger 

 is incurred, and something of the art of 

 horsemanship is thus actually acquired. 

 In every country-residence where there 

 are children, contrivances for their exercise 

 and amusement ought to be considered 

 essential objects ; for these purposes, a riding school, and bath or pond for learning to 

 swim and row a boat, may be considered essential. The former may also serve for ac- 

 quiring the infantry and cavalry exercise, and learning to fire at a mark, jump, run, 

 wrestle, box, climb trees or smooth poles, ascend ropes, &c. 



A a 3 



339 



