XXXIX. 



OLD HOUSES AND THEIR INCLOSURES. 



WHEN we are journeying in the country, we have all 

 occasionally felt that the sight of the finest houses and 

 the most highly ornamented grounds, does not always 

 affect the mind with the greatest pleasure. One is soon 

 tired of objects, however beautiful, that produce no 

 other effect than to excite an agreeable visual sensation. 

 Something that affords a pleasing exercise for the sym 

 pathies and the imagination must be blended \vith all 

 scenes of beauty, or they soon become vapid and unin 

 teresting. When one first enters the interior of a 

 spacious dome, which is surrounded with colored glass 

 windows, the physical sensation of beauty thus pro 

 duced, may detain him a few moments, with extreme 

 pleasure. But a frequent repetition of these visits 

 would cause the spectacle to be extremely tiresome, be 

 cause it excites the eye without affecting the mind. 

 The very opposite effect would be produced by visiting 

 a gallery of paintings, because there is no end to the 

 ideas and images which these works of genius may 

 suggest to the mind. 



In like manner when travelling among the scenes of 

 nature and art, many a highly ornamented house passes 



