258 
On the Erection of Labourers* Cotta yes. 
In “Les Termes de la Ley,” published in 1671, under the word 
“Cottage,” I find the following definition :— 
“CTottagr, is a little House for habitation of poor men, without any Land be- 
“ longing to it, whereof mention is made in the first Statute made in 4 Ed. !• 
“And the inhabitant of such a house is called a Cottager. But by a Statute 
‘^made in the 31 year of Queen Eliz. cap. 7 no man may build such aCottage 
“for habitation, unless he lay unto it four acres of Freehold-land; except in 
“Market-Towns or Cities, or within a mile of the Sea, or for habitation of 
“Labourers in Mines, Sailors, Foresters, Shepherds, &c.’’ 
Taking the Cottage as just defined, every “ lover of the picturesque” 
will agree with me, that these “little houses for habitation of poor men,” 
form the most pleasing and the most varied objects of English scenery. 
Whether built on the open heath, without even the shelter of a half- 
withered pine, or under the covert of an impervious wood, the cottage 
possesses a charm which is undefinable, and the eye g-azes on it with 
unwearied interest. This, I should imagine, arises partly from the ma¬ 
terials of which it is formed being congenial to its situation, partly from 
the little art visible in its erection, and partly, and perhaps principally, 
from the natural association of the house, its inhabitants, and its locality; 
it seems formed for the scene, and the scene for the cot. 
But the Cottage, though circumscribed by no known rules'in respect 
either to form or material, has a very different appearance in different 
situations, and this difference is very perceptible in every country. In 
low flat countries, as in the counties of Lincoln and Cambridge, these 
dwellings are generally, if not universally, built of the scrapings of the 
soil, mixed up with chopped straw, and plastered on wattled osiers ; in 
hilly countries, as in the Peak of Derbyshire, of rough amorphous stones. 
Here they have low roofs, covered in some parts with brown slate, in 
others with thatch ;—there high roofs, thickly formed of thatch, or of 
red channelled tiles; in both cases the best possible adaptation to situa¬ 
tion, and to the wants and convenience of their respective inhabitants. 
It would encroach too much on the pages of your work to give a 
characteristic view of the Cottages of the different counties, or even of 
those in the different situations of hill and dale, of wild moor and culti¬ 
vated farm, of wood and heath, of coast and inland rock, of the miner in 
the Peak and the boor in the Fens; and yet these have all a separate and 
distinct character, differing, like their occupiers, from one another, yet all 
agreeing in the generic name, varying in species, like the different tribes 
of human beings, yet forming together the common name of Man! 
I think I observed before, that a Cottage is one of the most pleasing 
parts of English landscape. Take, for instance, one of the most humble 
of the mud-built huts of Lincolnshire. Its inhabitants, (I wish it was 
• the case,) supported by labour, and feeling independent of parochial aid, 
(or, of that eleemosynary assistance, which while it preserves life, de¬ 
grades the object,) have w'ashed the walls over, with the lime of the 
neighbourhood, which is generally of a yellowish-brown colour; have 
