76 NAT URAL HISTORY 



arts, to one of the most effective means of minister- 

 ing to Taste. 



"We might repeat in reference to ancient architec- 

 ture, what we have already said of the necessity of 

 the study of nature ; for it speaks from the broken 

 master-pieces chiseled under the eye, if not by the 

 hand of Phidias. The very form and peculiar 

 ornaments of some of the orders the acanthus of 

 the Corinthian capital, the points and arches of the 

 tree-formed Gothic only have their full expression, 

 and the expression its full appreciation, from a care- 

 ful study of nature. 



But for our homes, we have exchanged the forms 

 that were the offsprings of mythology and supersti- 

 tious reverence of the gods in high places, for the 

 rustic beauty of varied forms more pleasing to the 

 rural deities, which are the only ones our fancy can 

 still perceive lurking in our glens and among the 

 groves yet spared by that avaricious Vandalism 

 which has stripped of their ornaments so many hill- 

 sides. 



Home architecture and landscape gardening are 

 necessary complements of each other together they 



