256 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



Britain can boast of. Hence their construction and 

 decoration possess an interest, and invite a considera- 

 tion, which call for careful exposition and study. 



Taking the term, residence, to denote not only the 

 house, but the locale occupied by the proprietor and 

 employed for his domestic purposes, the villa may be 

 described as a small residence, embracing the whole 

 of the property laid out in gardens and dressed grounds ; 

 or, if it include some pieces of pasture-lands, such 

 only as are of a limited and subsidiary description. 

 The name, villa, is applied to places of considerable 

 variety in dimensions — from the house with a small 

 plot of garden-ground attached, to one surrounded by 

 thirty or forty acres of pleasure-ground and park. 

 Some mansions, belonging to small or moderate-sized 

 estates, are, in their whole character and arrangements, 

 nothing else than villas • but it is not usual so to de- 

 signate them ; they are rather said to be laid out in 

 the villa style, though the distinction is perhaps more 

 imaginary than real. In a suburban district, the villa 

 is generally surrounded by a fence of sufficient height 

 to exclude, if not all the scenery at a distance, at 

 least most of it in the immediate neighborhood. In 

 the country, however, and particularly when attached 

 to a small estate, it will depend not more on the views 

 connected with the estate itself, than on the prospects 

 presented by the surrounding scenery. Besides its 

 inferior size, the villa is distinguished by its superior 

 keeping. Its style may be more ornamental, and its 

 finish ought to be more elaborated and more carefully 

 maintained, than is commonly deemed necessary in 

 more extensive country residences. 



Our remarks on the villa may be arranged under 



