EMBELLISHMENTS, 351 



apartments of the house itself. From either of these points, 

 the various objects enumerated, will form a rich foreground 

 to the pleasure-grounds or park — a matter which painters 

 well know how to estimate, as a landscape is incomplete and 

 unsatisfactory to them, however beautiful the middle or dis- 

 tant points, unless there are some strongly marked objects 

 in the foreground. In fine, the intervention of these ele- 

 gant accompaniments to our houses prevents us, as Mr. Hope 

 has observed, " from launching at once from the threshold of 

 the symmetric mansion, in the most abrupt manner, into a 

 scene wholly composed of the most unsymmetric and desul- 

 tory forms of mere nature, which are totally out of character 

 with the mansion, whatever may be its style of architecture 

 and furnishing."* 



The highly decorated terrace, as we have here supposed 

 it, would, it is evident, be in unison with villas of a some- 

 what superior style ; or, in other words, the amount of en- 

 richment bestowed on exterior decoration near the house, 

 should correspond to the style of art evinced in the exterior 

 of the mansion itself An humble cottage with sculptured 

 vases on its terrace and parapet, would be in bad taste ; but 

 any Grecian, Roman, or Italian villa, where a moderate de- 

 gree of exterior ornament is visible, or a Gothic villa of the 

 better class, will allow the additional enrichment of the archi- 

 tectural terrrace and its ornaments. Indeed the terrace 

 itself, in so far as it denotes a raised dry platform around 

 the house, is a suitable and appropriate appendage to every 

 dwelling, of whatever class. 



The width of a terrace around a house, may vary from 

 five to twenty feet, or more, in proportion as the building is 



* Essaxj on Onmmenlal Gardening, by Thomas Hope. 



