A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 207 



story was uninhabitable in a midsummer's day. But of what con- 

 sequence was that, if the portico were copied from the Temple of 

 Theseus, or the columns were miniature imitations in wood of those 

 of Jupiter Olympus ? 



We have made a great step onward in that short fifteen years. 

 There is, to be sure, a fashion now in building houses in the coun- 

 try almost as prevalent and despotic as its pseudo-classical prede- 

 cessor, but it is a far more rational and sensible one, and though 

 likely to produce the same unsatisfactory effect of all other fashions 

 that is, to substitute sameness and monotony for tasteful individu- 

 ality yet we gladly accept it as the next step onward. 



We allude, of course, to the Gothic or English cottage, with 

 steep roofs and high gables just now the ambition of almost every / 

 person building in the country. There are, indeed, few things so 

 beautiful as a cottage of this kind, well designed and tastefully 

 placed. There is nothing, all the world over, so truly rural and so 

 unmistakably country-like as this very cottage, which has been de- 

 veloped in so much perfection in the rural lanes and amidst the pic- 

 turesque lights and shadows of an English landscape. And for this 

 reason, because it is essentially rural and country-like, we gladly 

 welcome its general naturalization (with the needful variation of the 

 veranda, &c., demanded by our climate), as the type of most of our 

 country dwellings. 



But it is time to enter a protest against the absolute, and indis- 

 criminate employment of the Gothic cottage in every site and situ- 

 ation in the country whether appropriate or inappropriate 

 whether suited to the grounds or the life of those who are to in- 

 habit it, or the contrary. 



We have endeavored, in our work on " COUNTRY-HOUSES," just 

 issued from the press, to show that rural architecture has more sig- 

 nificance and a deeper meaning than merely to afford a " pretty 

 cottage," or a " handsome house," for him who can afford to pay for 

 it. We believe not only that a house may have an absolute beauty 

 of its own, growing out of its architecture, but that it may have a 

 relative beauty no less interesting, which arises from its expressing 

 the life and occupation of those who build or inhabit it. In other 

 words, we think the home of every family, possessed of character 



