249 



some oBscure district, and one in the clas- 

 sic regions of Greece, 



" Where not a mountain rears its head unsung." 



If this be true of natural scenery in all its 

 characters of grand, beautiful, or pictu- 

 resque, the case is much stronger with re- 

 spect to artificial objects, especially the 

 productions of architecture; in considering 

 which there is a constant reference to the 

 understanding. On that account, the beauty 

 of a building considered separately, depends 

 on symmetry and design ; consequently 

 what is foreign to it (as vegetation is) can- 

 not supply the place of that appropriate 

 beauty, and make it beautiful as a building, 

 though by such means, an object of a mixed 

 character with many qualities of beauty, 

 may be formed. The ruins, therefore, in 

 Claude's pictures, having for the most part 

 their sudden breaks and abruptnesses dis- 

 guised by vegetation, and all the stronger 

 marks of violence or decay softened by dis- 

 tance, are,, in many instances, beautiful in 

 point of outline considered generally as 



