RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 
337 
even were it in this single point alone, the Italian style is 
superior to the Grecian for rural residences. 
Pleasing associations are connected with Roman and 
Italian architecture, especially to those who have studied 
their effect in all the richness and beauty with which they 
are invested in the countries where they originated ; and 
they may be regarded with a degree of classic interest by 
every cultivated mind. The modern Italian style recalls 
images of that land of painters and of the fine arts, where 
the imagination, the fancy, and taste, still revel in a world 
of beauty and grace. The great number of elegant forms 
which have grown out of this long cultivated feeling for 
the beautiful in the fine arts, — in the shape of fine vases, 
statues, and other ornaments, which harmonize with, and 
are so well adapted to enrich, this style of architecture, — • 
combine to render it in the fine terraced gardens of 
Florence and other parts of Italy, one of the richest and 
most attractive styles in existence. Indeed we can hardly 
imagine a mode of building, which in the hands of a man 
of wealth and taste, may, in this country, be made pro- 
ductive of more beauty, convenience, and luxury, than 
the modern Italian style ; so well suited to both our hot 
summers and cold winters, and which is so easily suscep- 
tible of enrichment and decoration, while it is at the same 
time so well adapted to the material in the most common 
use at present in most parts of the country, — wood. 
Vases, and other beautiful architectural ornaments, may 
now be procured in our cities, or imported direct from 
ihe Mediterranean, finely cut in Maltese stone, at very 
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