III. 



A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING, 



June, 1851. 



rPHE " Genius of Architecture," said Thomas Jefferson, some fifty 

 JL years ago, " has shed its malediction upon America." Jeffer- 

 son, though the boldest of democrats, had a secret respect and ad- 

 miration for the magnificent results of aristocratic institutions in the 

 arts, and had so refined his taste in France, as to be shocked, past 

 endurance, on his return home, with the raw and crude attempts at 

 building in the republic. 



No one, however, can accuse the Americans with apathy or want 

 of interest in architecture, at the present moment. Within ten years 

 past, the attention of great numbers has been turned to the improve- 

 ment and embellishment of public and private edifices ; many foreign 

 architects have settled in the Union ; numerous works especially 

 upon domestic architecture have been issued from the press, and 

 the whole community, in town and country, seem at the present 

 moment to be afflicted with the building mania. The upper part 

 of New- York, especially, has the air of some city of fine houses in 

 all styles, rising from the earth as if by enchantment, while in the 

 suburbs of Boston, rural cottages are springing up on all sides, as if 

 the "Genius of Architecture" had sown, broadcast, the seeds of 

 ornte cottages, and was in a fair way of having a fine harvest in that 

 quarter. 



There are many persons who are as discontented with this new hot- 

 bed growth of architectural beauty, as Jefferson was with the earlier 

 and ranker growth of deformity in his day. Some denounce " fancy 



