262 Architecture in the United States. 



to the circumstances of almost every town in our country. If it has 

 not these advantages, as I have remarked freely on the plans of oth- 

 ers, I am willing that they should remark freely on mine. 



The spots marked 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, 1 have reserved for 

 public buildings, churches, banks, and the like. I say reserved, 

 and the word is meant to have a meaning beyond a paper plan. 

 Such edifices are always expected to be ornamental to a city, and 

 the public complain when they are not so. The public act justly, 

 but those who build them have also a right to expect something from 

 the public. Duties are always reciprocal. If the public wish so- 

 cieties to erect handsome edifices, it should give them ground that 

 will shew these edifices to advantage ; not compel them to build, as 

 it very often does, in lanes, and amid the very vilest tenements in the 

 city. All this may easily be ejSected, by reserving ground at the 

 first laying out of our towns. Let this be done : let the public then 

 at proper times offer these desirable situations to those societies or 

 companies that will improve them most, and architecture will take a 

 start among us, of which we can now scarcely conceive. Cher- 

 ished, it will labor hard for us in return ; our cities will be ornament- 

 ed ; our towns will follow, and the land will become beautiful as it is 

 blessed. 



It will also be a better land. I have already noticed the action 

 of handsome architectural objects both on the mind and morals, re- 

 fining and enlarging the former, and giving to the latter a more cheer- 

 ful and a purer cast. Some more remarks of the kind will come in, in 

 connexion with the subject I now take up, which is public monuments, 

 pillars, obelisks, arches, and fountains in a city. There is a well 

 shaded street in Marseilles called le Cours, with a broad raised way 

 in the centre, secured from wheel carriages by the public laws. It 

 is the favorite place for the promenade, and must interest every visi- 

 ter, if not by its own beauty, yet by that which every evening as- 

 sembles there. Old age totters to the happy assemblage ; child- 

 hood is there with its sparkling eyes and full hearty laugh : gain 

 smooths its brow and comes to this holiday of the cheerful feelings, 

 and the whole scene is a most animating and pleasing one ; I am 

 sorry we have nothing like it in our country ; — ^but it is of the street 

 I wished to speak. At one end, it ascends an abrupt eminence, and 

 just on the brow of this is placed a marble arch, modelled after the 

 antique. It is well contrasted with the green foliage, and is a splendid 

 termination to the view. I have often regretted that of all the tri- 



