282 Remarks on the different Styles of Architecture, 



houses and comfortable cottages scattered every where, by the 

 borders of our high-roads, on the margins of our rivers and in the 

 neighborhood of our towns and cities, display an air of almost 

 universal neatness and enjoyment, that speaks louder than words 

 ill favor of the moral and intellectual condition of the inmates. 

 If there are but few splendid mansions and costly palaces, there are, 

 on the contrary, but few of those materials which form the almost 

 invariable accessories to such pictures — few miserable hovels 

 and comfortless tenements, bespeaking poverty and misery in 

 their inhabitants. 



We have noticed, with much pleasure and a slight degree of fear, 

 the great prevalence of the Grecian style of architecture in our 

 buildings erected for country residences, within a few years past ; 

 — pleasure, because a Grecian villa, with its elegant proportions 

 and chaste purity of style, is one of the most beautiful of all 

 structures for the habitation of man ; — fear, that, in the universal 

 mania for the five orders, our country gentlemen would either 

 entirely forget, or argue themselves into the belief, that there is 

 no architecture but the Grecian. There is nothing which con- 

 tributes so much to the wonderful beauty of nature as her endless 

 variety. The most chaste and pleasing object may weary to the 

 eye by constant repetition, and the most classic and correct style 

 of Grecian architecture may become monotonous and tiresome, 

 if every structure that we meet with, from the smallest cottage 

 upwards, is ornamented with its Doric, Ionic or Corinthian por- 

 tico. This is not all. In the perpetually varied surface which 

 the face of our country assumes, it is not alike in every situation 

 that the Grecian architecture is appropriate. The smooth or 

 gently undulating plain — the smiling cultivated country, and that 

 peaceful expression of the landscape which is in good keeping 

 with, and should accompany the horizontal lines and regular 

 symmetry of the Grecian style, are by no means to be found in 

 every situation, nor is it, in all cases, desirable that they should 

 be component parts of every country residence. On the con- 

 trary, many persons prefer, or are attached, by associations, to 

 districts of country where the features are wilder, more roman- 

 tic and picturesque — where the hand of man has been only par- 

 tially laid upon the forest, and where, in her lofty mountains, 

 rugged defiles and shadowy woods, nature has stamped a charac- 

 ter of rugged grandeur and beauty upon the scene, which art 

 may never efface. It is not in such situations that a person of 

 taste will desire to see, or feel satisfied with, the pohshed style of 

 the Greek temple. He will rather prefer a style like the Gothic, 

 which sprung up among the rocks and fastnesses of the northern 

 nations of Europe, and which, from its very origin, nature and 

 character, is admirably adapted to harmonize with nature in her 

 wildest and most picturesque aspects. The Gothic and baronial 



