Public Taste in Architectural a?id Rural Scenery. 281 



strongly recommend, the picturesque (if the term may be here 

 allowed) generally, such as criticising tasteless erections, ad- 

 vising the general application of stucco or cement to the fronts 

 of houses instead of the present plan of attempting to restore 

 their new look by colouring and pointing [what bricklayers call 

 colouring and tuck and puck], the effect of which is so transitory, 

 and tinting the stuccoed parts with one shade of stone-colour, in 

 lieu of the wretched Harlequin coats at present seen, &c. &c., it 

 may be safely asserted that few associations, not directed to pur- 

 poses of charity, would produce a richer harvest of enjoyment to 

 those whose taste is already formed, or one of more instruction 

 to those in whom this faculty yet requires to be awakened or 

 cultivated. 



I trust that these hastily scrawled hints will be expanded, by 

 yourself or some one of your correspondents, into some practical 

 plan of a society with objects such as I have alluded to, but with 

 a better and more comprehensive title than that in America, 

 which has suggested them. 



London^ April 6. 183.5. 



Such a society as that suggested by our correspondent ap- 

 pears to us to be more wanted than almost any other. The 

 suggestion is a singularly happy one ; and we only regret that 

 our leisure and circumstances are not such as to admit of our 

 entering into the idea, and exerting ourselves to the utmost in 

 aiding to carry it into effect. It is for our correspondent and 

 others, who, like him, have leisure, means, and connections, to 

 plan and organise such a society. It will not be the first useful 

 work or institution that W. S. has suggested or founded. We 

 do not think a society was ever projected more likely to prosper 

 and to do good. Could the whole community be anything like 

 equalised in point of taste, it would go far to equalise it also in 

 point of happiness. Whenever there is a general desire for 

 elegant enjoyment, that desire, like every other which is general, 

 and consequently powerful, is sure, sooner or later, to be gra- 

 tified. To associate together for the purpose of promoting the 

 public taste, therefore, is not, as might at first sight be supposed, 

 to associate for purposes which concern only men of wealth and 

 rank (though this of itself would be laudable), but for the pur- 

 pose of promoting the general improvement and happiness of 

 the community. 



The taste of this country is altogether disproportionate to its 

 wealth ; and it is very far inferior to the taste displayed on the 

 Continent, among nations comparatively poor. In what other 

 city in the world but London are such interminable lines of 



