RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 
3 77 
woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds 
across them ; the hare bounding away to the covert, or the 
pheasant bursting suddenly upon the wing. The brook, 
taught to wind in natural meanderings, or expand into a 
glassy lake, — the sequestered pool reflecting the quivering 
trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping upon its bosom, and the 
trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters ; while some 
rustic temple or sylvan statue, grown green and dark with 
age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion.” 
“These are but a few of the features of park scenery ; but 
what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the 
English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. 
The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty por- 
tion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes 
a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye he seizes 
at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the 
future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness 
under his hand ; and yet the operations of art which produce 
the effect are scarcely to be perceived ; the cherishing and 
training of some trees ; the cautious pruning of others ; the 
nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful 
foliage ; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf ; the 
partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam 
of water, — all these are managed with a delicate tact, a per- 
vading, yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with 
which a painter finishes up a favourite picture.” 
“ The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the 
country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance that de- 
scends to the lowest class. The very labourer, with his 
thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their 
embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the 
door, the little flower bed, bordered with snug box, the wood- 
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