348 LANDaCAPE GAEDENING. 



The English cottage style, or what we have denominated 

 Rural Gothic, contains within itself all the most striking 

 and peculiar elements of the beautiful and picturesque in 

 Its exterior, while it admits of the greatest possible variety 

 of accommodation and convenience in internal arrange- 

 ment. 



In its general composition, Rural Gothic really differs 

 from the Tudor style more in that general simplicity 

 which serves to distinguish a cottage or villa of moderate 

 size from a mansion, than in any marked character of its 

 own. The square-headed windows preserve the same 

 form, and display the Gothic label and muUions, though 

 the more expensive finish of decorative tracery is fre- 

 quently omitted. Diagonal or latticed lights are also more 

 commonly seen in the cottage style than in the mansion. 

 The general form and arrangement of the building, though 

 of course much reduced, is not unlike that of the latter 

 edifice. The entrance porch is always preserved, and the 

 bay-window jutting out from the best apartment, gives 

 variety, and an agreeable expression of use and enjoyment, 

 to almost every specimen of the old English cottage. 



Perhaps the most striking feature of this charming style 

 as we see it in the best old English cottages, is the pointed 

 gable. This feature, which grows out of the high roofs 



exterior is massive and picturesque, in the simplest taste of the Elizabethan 

 age, and being bmlt amidst a fine oak wood, of the dark rough stone of the 

 neighborhood, it has at once the appearance of considerable antiquity. The 

 interior is constructed and fitted up throughout in the same feeBng, — ^with 

 harmonious wainscoting, quaint carving, massive chimney pieces, and old 

 furniture and ai-mor. Indeed, we doubt if there is, at the present moment 

 Bay recent private residence, even in England, where the spirit of the antique 

 13 more entirely earned out, and where one may more easily fancy himself iu 

 one of those " mansions builded curiously" of our ancestors in the time of 

 " good Queen Bess " •• 



