BOOK IV. 



OPERATING WITH BUILDINGS. 



706 



vignette (Jig. 707. }, which indicates that the 

 most remote style of domestic architecture, 

 was that of the castellated Gothic ; to which 

 succeeded the ecclesiastic Gothic ; next the 

 style prevalent in the seventeenth century, 

 being a mixture of Gothic and Grecian, com- 

 monly called the Elizabethean style ; after 

 that the Grecian ; and last of all, the Hindoo, 

 just coming into notice, and which he con- 

 siders (Designs for the Pavilion at Brighton, 

 &c. 1810) as likely to become fashionable. 

 The most suitable style for domestic purposes in Britain, he considers to be the 

 Gothic, as admitting every description of interior form and arrangement, an un- 

 bounded variety in the external forms and lines, and as being favorable to future additions, 

 without deranging the effect or ordonnance of the original composition. 



707 



7236. With respect to the effects of buildings, as component parts of verdant scenery, 

 Shenstone observes, that a landscape, to him, is never complete without a building or 

 rocks ; and certainly, considering it merely in the light of a picturesque view, a building, 

 in addition to merely verdant scenery, forms a better picture, by giving a desirable feature 

 or resting-place for the eye. Considered, however, in the light of natural expression, 

 the meanness of root-houses and grottos, the absurdity of hermits' cells, heathen temples, 

 triumphal arches, mock chapels, &c. ; and the inutility of all of them, render them positive 

 deformities in scenes of natural or picturesque beauty. They break in upon repose, 

 simplicity, and all allusion to natural 



scenery by their frequency, and suggest 

 ideas of ostentatious vanity in the 

 owner, rather than of propriety and 

 elegance of taste. But though their 

 excess is so general and so obnoxious, 

 the occasional introduction of some 

 sorts may be made with propriety. 

 Garden- seats are necessary for shade or 

 shelter; bridges, for communication 

 between the banks of rivers or rills ; 

 cottages, gate or entrance lodges (Jig. 

 708-.), as abodes for laborers; and 

 open sheds as places of resort for cattle. 

 Even a prospect-tower is a desirable 

 object in a flat country, affording no 

 other means of obtaining a bird's-eye view. A temple, after all, is in many cases but a 

 garden-seat ; and if beautiful in itself, and judiciously placed, we can see no objection 

 to its introduction in the garden-scene of a princely mansion ; certainly none to more 

 than one of them, under the geometric style of planting. To raise a monument in 

 memory of a great public character, or consecrate an urn to private friendship, or paren- 

 tal memory, can hardly be offensive to any mind. A sundial is both a useful and an 

 agreeable object ; and statues and busts, in highly polished scenery, by the contrast in 

 the kind of beauty displayed, recall the mind for a moment, from contemplating the wide 

 range of nature, to admire the hand of art concentrated in a single point. In this view 

 there are various objects of this description admissible in the more polished scenes of 

 gardens, &c., as marble fountains, fragments of antiquity, &c. But when simplicity 

 and natural-like beauty are the prevailing idea, all works of art must interfere more or 

 less with the idea; and unless they can raise up and maintain a more interesting ex- 

 pression, they must be regarded as injurious rather than beautiful. 



7237. But simplicity and nature, continually repeated, become tiresome in their turn, 

 and man is then pleased to recognise the hand of art, if judiciously exercised, even 



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