Picturesque English Cottages and their Doorway Gardens 
satisfaction that this scheme was not carried 
out. Englishmen can ill afford to spare the 
house where “Paradise Lost” was finished, 
and “Paradise Regained” conceived at the 
suggestion of the poet’s friend, Thomas 
Ellwood, as they sat together on a bench in 
the little cottage garden while the birds sang 
their jocund songs and the beautiful country 
flowers shed their sweet scents around. 
With this famous cottage we will conclude 
our tour of inspection of the rural homes of 
which forces us to prefer our own rural dwell¬ 
ing-places, though emigrants from other lands 
have brought to us some styles or features 
which we could ill spare. We have noticed 
the traditional style of English buildings, 
the style inaugurated and developed in par¬ 
ticular districts, and clung to with loyal 
attachment, though never slavishly adhered 
to. We have seen that the use of local 
materials, whether stone or brick or timber, 
tile or slate, is the true secret of the harmony 
milton’s cottage, chalfont st. giles 
England, which the skill of our artist has so 
ably depicted. We have seen much that we 
cannot fail to admire, much that would serve 
for imitation. We have revelled in the sweet 
scents of the old-fashioned flowers, and re¬ 
marked how beautifully these rural home¬ 
steads have become a real part of an English 
landscape, never obtruding upon it with crude 
colors or graceless forms. We have compared 
our own buildings with those of our Conti¬ 
nental neighbors, and it is not patriotism alone 
with nature which is one of the chief charac¬ 
teristics of our English cottages; and if we 
would succeed in the future in producing 
buildings worthy of their surroundings, we 
must adhere to the same principles, cultivate 
the same means, and imbue our minds with 
the same sense of harmony and reverence for 
antiquity which guided our forefathers in 
the erection of so many noble examples of 
the humbler sort of English domestic archi¬ 
tecture. 
278 
