ft08 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its 

 blossoms about the lattice ; the pot of flowers in the 

 window ; the holly providentially planted about the house 

 to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a 

 semblance of green summer to cheat the fireside : — all 

 these bespeak the influence of taste flowing down from 

 high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public 

 mind. If ever Love, as the poets sing, delights to visit a 

 cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant." 



It is this love of rural life and this nice feeling of the 

 harmonious union of nature and art, that reflects so much 

 credit upon the English as a people, an'd which sooner or 

 later we hope to see completely naturalized in this country. 

 Under its enchanting influence, the too great bustle and 

 excitement of our commercial cities will be happily counter- 

 balanced by the more elegant and quiet enjoyments ol 

 country life. Our rural residences, evincing that love of 

 the beautiful and the picturesque, which, combined with 

 solid comfort, is so attractive to the eye of every beholder, 

 will not only become sources of the purest enjoyment to 

 the refined minds of the possessors, but will exert an 

 influence for the improvement in taste of every class in 

 our community. The ambition to build " shingle palaces" 

 in starved and meagre grounds, we are glad to see giving 

 way to that more refined feeling which prefers a neat villa 

 or cottage, tastily constructed, and surrounded by its proper 

 accessories, of greater or less extent, of verdant trees and 

 beautiful shrubbery. 



It is gratifying to see the progressive improvement in 

 Rural Architecture, which within a few years past has 

 evinced itself in various parts of the country, and par- 

 ticularly on the banks of the Hudson and Connecticut 



