RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 405 



judiciously made will tend to increase this beauty, or alVord 

 more facility for its display ; while it is equally evident 

 that in the interior arrangement, including apartments of 

 every description, superior opportunities are afforded for 

 attaining internal comfort and convenience, as well as 

 external effect. 



The ideas connected in our minds with Gothic 

 architecture are of a highly romantic and poetical nature 

 contrasted with the classical associations which the 

 Greek and Roman styles suggest. Although our own 

 country is nearly destitute of ruins and ancienf time- 

 worn edifices, yet the literature of Europe, and particularly 

 of what we term the mother country, is so much our own, 

 that we form a kind of delightful ideal acquaintance with 

 the venerable castles, abbeys, and strongholds of the 

 middle ages. Romantic as is the real history of those 

 times and places, to our minds their charm is greatly 

 enhanced by distance, by the poetry of legendary 

 superstition, and the fascination of fictitious narrative. 

 A castellated residence, therefore, in a wild and pictur- 

 esque situation, may be interesting, not only from its being 

 perfectly in keeping with surrounding nature, but from 

 the delightful manner in which it awakens association? 

 fraught with the most enticing history of the past. 



The older domestic architecture of the English may be 

 viewed in another pleasing Hght. Their buildings and 

 residences have not only the recommendation of beauty 

 and complete adaptation, but the additional charm of 

 having been the homes of our ancestors, and the dwellings 

 of that bright galaxy of English genius and worth, which 

 illuminates equally the intellectual firmament of both 

 hemispheres. He who has extended his researches, con 



