200 THE SENTIMENT OF ANTIQUITY. 



tirely new, and has been used rather for the display of 

 art than to awaken any noble sentiment. 



The pleasure afforded a lover of antiquity by the scenery 

 of a new country must be awakened chiefly by the objects 

 of nature ; for art is disagreeably vapid and ostentatious 

 where the wealthy inhabitants are chiefly ambitious to 

 surpass each other in the parade of their resources. If 

 the wild and rude character of the landscape were de- 

 stroyed, if the spontaneous woods were despoiled, and 

 nothing remained but a general baldness, nature would 

 afford but little relief from the glare and insipidity of 

 ornamental art. Yet I cannot feel that the venerable 

 buildings of an old country full of antiquities would make 

 amends for the absence of the wild and spontaneous scenes 

 of nature. Not many districts on the old continent can 

 be so attractive as New England, which more than any 

 other land displays that charming intermixture of the 

 wildness of nature and the beauties of civilized art which 

 is apparent in all the interior. And these features it will 

 always retain, so long as the man who tills the soil is 

 the owner of it, and every laboring farmer is an indepen- 

 dent yeoman. 



