PART VII. PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. 40?' 



face of water— and have cost little more than one-half the 

 expense. 



Buildings are a class of materials on which several remarks 

 have occasionally been made in the course of this work. With 

 regard to visual effect, they serve to give force and spirit; and in 

 respect of intellectual pleasure they communicate ideas of the 

 cheerfulness or industry of the inhabitants of a country; or in 

 ruins recal to mind ages that are past ; they occasionally serve 

 to characterize landscape, and often to heighten the expression 

 indicated by nature. In all cultivated, verdant, and cheerful 

 scenery, their occasional appearance is necessary either in the 

 foreground or distance. In scenes of tranquillity and seclusion, 

 romantic beauty, or natural grandeur, their abundance is 

 highly disadvantageous, and their total absence is most com- 

 monly preferable. Wherever they are introduced, their design, 

 execution, character, and number, must never deviate from 

 propriety and use. The different kinds may be included under 

 the necessary, the convenient, the appropriate, and the acci- 

 dental. The necessary, or such as are requisite for the purposes 

 of utility, when suitably dignified in a proper style of architec- 

 ture, and placed in situations combining effect with use, should 

 (in place of being concealed) always appear in the general; 

 view. They will never displease, and often prove sources of 



