OLD HOUSES AND THEIR INCLOSUEES. 313 



compatible with its affectations. There may be a true 

 love of nature among the inmates of this house, who 

 would gladly divorce themselves from the frivolities of 

 high life. But they cannot consent wholly to relinquish 

 that bondage of fashion, which overpowers their love of 

 freedom and simplicity, as the appetite of the inebriate 

 causes him, in spite of his better resolutions, to turn 

 back to the cup that is destroying him. Nature may 

 harmonize with elegance, refinement, and grandeur ; but 

 not with pretence. The rural deities will not make 

 their haunts near the abode of vanity ; and the naiad, 

 when she sees her rustic fountain destroyed, turns sor- 

 rowfully away from the spouting foam of a jet d) eau. 



There may be more true love of nature in the in- 

 mates of this ambitious dwelling, than in th.ose of the 

 rustic cottage ; but the former gives no evidence of this 

 love, if it is built in a style that expresses that folly 

 which is continually drawing them away from nature 

 and happiness. Place them both in a picture, and the 

 fashionable house excites only the idea of coxcombry, 

 while the rustic cottage charms all hearts. Is it not 

 possible to borrow this indescribable charm, and add it 

 to our country residences? Not until the builder or 

 designer has become as one of these rustics in the sim- 

 plicity of his heart, and is content to forget the world 

 when he is planning for his retirement. Then might 

 the traveller pause to contemplate with delight, a house- 

 in which the absence of all affectation renders doubly 

 charming those rural accompaniments, in which the- 

 wealth of the owner, if he be wealthy, is detected only 

 by the simple magnificence of his grounds, and his 

 taste displayed by the charm which art has added to. 

 nature, without degrading her -Fauns and her Hama- 

 dryads into mere deities of the boudoir. 

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