508 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



of pleasure. It is not the beautiful alone that affords these 

 agreeable impressions ; nor is it the cheerful scenes only 

 among natural or artificial objects that inspire a pleasing 

 sentiment. While contemplating a scene of ruins, the mind 

 may have glimpses of truths which are not revealed to us in 

 the lessons of philosophy, and which excite indefinite hopes 

 amidst apparent desolation. It is our power of deriving 

 pleasure from these inexplicable sources that gives a pile of 

 ruins half its charms. This mingled sentiment of hope and 

 melancholy combines with almost all our ideas of picturesque 

 beauty. On this account a deserted house interests the mind 

 more than a splendid villa in its perfect condition ; and a 

 plain, overspread with classic ruins, more than a prospect of 

 green meadows and highly ornamented gardens. It would 

 be idle to assert that the human soul would take satisfaction 

 in contemplating an object that is suggestive of its own dis- 

 solution. This love of ruins ought rather to be considered as 

 so much evidence coming from them in favor of the infinite 

 duration of the universe. They are evidence of the great 

 age of the earth, and proof of its destination to exist during 

 countless ages of the future. I wonder that our theologians 

 have never deduced from this love of ruins, which is so uni- 

 versal, an argument for the immortality of the soul. It is 

 evident that we do not instinctively regard them as proofs of 

 mortality : but while we see in them the subjection of ma- 

 terial forms to those changes which belong to everything that 

 is mortal, we look upon our own souls as lifted above any 

 liability to these changes. Did we innately perceive in them 

 proof that the mind that constructed these wonderful works 

 of art, perished with them, we should turn away from them 

 with a deep despondency, and endeavor to hide them from 

 our sight. By a similar course of reasoning we may account 

 for the pleasure which is experienced by musing among the 

 tombs. 



The scenes in our own land which are most nearly allied 

 to ruins are the ancient rocks that gird our shores and give 

 variety to our landscapes. They are in fact the ruins of an 

 ancient world, existing probably before the human race had 



