On the Erection of Labourers' Cottages. 
‘257 
Article VII ,—Remarks on the Erection of Labourers'^ 
Cottagers. By Arthur Fitz-Arthur. 
Gentlemen, 
In the “Gardener’s Magazine,” and in your publication, 
Cottage Architecture, appears to be an interesting topic: how far the 
merely erecting of cottages, though prefaced by the very powerful plea 
of philanthropy, may be agreeable to the spirit of either miscellany, must 
be left to the determination of their respective conductors. 
Like your “Bricklayer’s Labourer,” I am a great lover of the pictu¬ 
resque, and also an admirer of real cottage scenery. I would have the 
house, its inhabitants, and its accompaniments, completely to correspond 
with one another, so that taken in any point of view, they should form 
that harmony which is always desirable in a picture, without which, ac¬ 
cording to my ideas, the picturesque, (that undefinable term which every 
one uses, but nobody explains,) would be entirely destroyed. Should 
we, for instance, see a peasant, his hat slouched over his ears, his smock- 
frock hanging in tatters, surrounded by a half-score of healthy, but naked 
and bare-footed children, with a wife, so ill-clad as scarcely to preserve 
the covering of decency, spread about the door of one of those ornamen¬ 
tal buildings, falsely designated cottages, we should undoubtedly conclude 
that such a family ought not to be inmates of such a house. There per¬ 
haps might be a garden, but to such a labourer it would be worse than 
useless, for it would show the wretchedness of the tenant still more forci¬ 
bly. Thus, from the want of a proper fitness between the parts, the 
picture would be destroyed; and the eye, which in other circumstances 
might with pleasure gaze upon them, would turn away w'ith the feeling 
of pity, if not of contempt. Such a cottage as that given by your cor¬ 
respondent, (one of a large fashionable family,) ought to have for its in¬ 
habitant the married footman of the proprietor, for the “ crested buttons” 
and worsted-laced coat seem quite in keeping with the fantastic orna¬ 
ments of the dwelling; and as your correspondent, Artus, has observed, 
the house proclaims “ the dependance of its possessor.” 
Perhaps, Gentlemen, the term Cottage is but indifferently understood 
by the greater part of those who write about the different modes of 
building one ; it is one among the many words in our language, which 
has had various significations at various periods, but which I should con¬ 
tend ought always to be confined to the small dwelling, of whatever form, 
occupied by a person in the lower walks of life, instead of which we find 
it indiscriminately applied to the residence of tradesmen, and to the rural 
abode of opulence and rank. This is a perversion of terms, which we 
ought as soon as possible to get rid of, for every word in every language 
ought to have a precise and unchangeable meaning, independent of either 
times or fashion. 
VoL. 1, No. 6. 
KK 
