^ A FEW WORDS ON RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 207 



i^toj^y 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 yearg^ 

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

 'try-^-almost as prevalent and despotic as its pseudo-claasical 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 

 ^-ihat 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 G-othic 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 

 beautiftil 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 nluch 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, <fec., demanded by our climate), as the type of most of our 

 c6untry dwdlings. 



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

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

 ation in the country — whether appropriate oi" 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 " Countrt-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 hav(j a 

 relative beauty no less interesting, which arises from its expressing 

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

 word's, we think the home of every faihily, possessed of character 



