water into lawn :-but I advanced, defend him from the spring shower, and it was none of these. The the summer sun, the capricious aurock, the solid rock, the perpendi- tumn gale, and the piercing winter cular rock, that rose to the height blast. But modern wisdom has of a hundred feet above the house, decreed that roads must be stripped with all its fretted surface, its alpine as bare as the axe and the shears fir-trees, its tresses of drooping ivy, can make them. Even the poor and its silvery birches, was gone solitary beech, which overhung the absolutely gone like a summer mist, rocky declivity at the entrance to and in its place was the very minikin our village, stretching its gnarled slope of a grassy hill, smooth and roots along the mossy bank (the bald as the forehead of a Chinese, violet's cushion), was given over to save that certain zig-zag paths con- the zeal of the enemy. Unfortunate ducted to a sort of turn-about sen- tree! Being indicted and put upon try's box on the summit. Surely the thy trial, thou wert found guilty of dislike, manifested in this one parti- the unpardonable crimes of sheltercular instance of bad taste, to the ing the houseless wanderer, of formrough, the rude, and the majestic, is ing a seat for the musing poet, of become epidemic. Wherever we protecting the sports of the village go, we find the face of nature, as children; and further, and above all, much as lies in man's power, "sha- of costing the parish a shilling a-year ven with the scythe, and leveled by injuring the road beneath with with the roller." Even a poor coun- the drip of thy luxuriant leaves! To tryman said to me the other day, this last article in the catalogue of while I was admiring a cottage back- treason I should have begged leave ed by a fine rock, "Aye, sir, it would to put in a demurrer; for if we had be a nice place if the rock were made set against the moisture which it a bit smooth." In that entertaining dropped upon the road, all the hail, late publication, the Journal of a rain, and snow which it kept away Naturalist, the author relates the fol- from it, I think the tree must have lowing anecdote: "A ruin in the come off with flying branches. There west of England once interested me is no doubt that roads are injured by greatly. The design of revisiting it too close a border of foliage, but I and drawing it was expressed at the should think that large trees here time. A few days only elapsed; but and there would be rather beneficial the inhabitant of a neighboring cot- than otherwise. At any rate, we tage had most kindly labored hard might surely contrive to combine in the interval, and pulled down all utility, agreeableness, and beauty, the nasty ivy, that the gentleman by making our roads wide enough might see the ruin." (as in France) to admit of bordering trees for shelter and adornment, and yet to leave a free passage for the air and light. Next to getting money, rapid traveling seems to be the great passion of the English. To save half a mile in a distance of fifty, the graceful curve must be controlled into the formal straight line, the grassy slope is to be broken up, the wild glen disfigured, the fair enclosure violated, and the vicinity to be strewn with wrecks, over which it will take years for nature to throw her pitying mantle. Roads were once pleasant to be traveled, not only by the rich, whirled along in their air-tight chariots, but by the poor wayfaring man; for trees arose in the hedge-row to With regard to our present houses, the venerable relics of our forefathers' taste and magnificence are daily removed to make way for the upstart excrescences of modern meanness. Possessed with a rage, alike to create and to destroy, we multiply deformity, and blot out all beauty, until scarce an object remains to reward the indefatigable searchings of a Syntax. Turn to what yet remains to us, in some remote and happy Goshen, of our pri meval architecture. How beautiful are all its forms,-how congenial to the painter's art! Its very humblest work is as much embued with an imaginative spirit as its noblest. How admirably an old cottage, with its pointed gables, twisted chimneys, and carved porch, harmonises with the varied outlines of nature! I allow that its coloring, mellowed by time, its vines and mosses, which make it appear rather a spontaneous production of the earth, than a structure raised by man, contribute in no small degree towards its picturesque effect. But then one may ask, can even Time, the beautifier, consecrate yonder tea-caddy of a cottage, or, except by an entire process of decay, prevent its stiff proportions from injuring the surrounding landscape? Dutch, copies of Saracenic architec ture meet our eye-but always copies; and by their minute proportions (especially in the attempted Gothic) they forfeit all the excellence which a faithful imitation would possess. Even the last century puts ours to shame, for, though I cannot admire the mixture of impure Grecian, and heavy German, which came over to us with the House of Hanover, still there is a solidity about the buildings of that period, which bespeaks a more sterling generation. In that day, men yet built for their sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons we only build for ourselves; yet in this we certainly show wisdom-that making our edifices hideous, we also make them perishable. The principal feature (if it have any feature) of the present style of architecture, is a servile adherence to the Grecian school. We err greatly in this, for there is nothing classical about us. The architectural vagaries of China would assort better with the genius of the place. But if we wish to consult the genius of our cloudy clime, we should adhere to the dark and solid towers, the massive pillars, and vaulted roofs of Saxon or Gothic origin. The loveliest Grecian temple, could it be transported hither by Aladdin's lamp, from its own Athe If you would know the superiority of ancient palaces over those of modern date, go and survey that mighty pile that lives forever in the description of Burke, as "the proud Keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers ;" and then turn to behold the finest edifice which the taste, the wealth, the genius of our age can construct for its monarch. Advancing higher still, let us compare the religious edifices of our forefathers with our own.-A Cathedral !nian groves, would less embellish What a stupendous piece of work is a cathedral ! The mind can scarcely grasp it. The gorgeous richness of detail; the noble simplicity of effect; the infinite variety of decoration; the wonderful unity of purpose; the lavish invention, which seems to riot in its own exhaustless and spendthrift profusion, crowning every column with a different wreath, and enriching every window with new tracery-who can behold these wonders without exclaiming, "There were giants in those days!" Truly the march of mind is not that of imagination. A poverty of creative genius characterises all our edifices, and of no kind more than our church es. Copies of Grecian, copies of our metropolis than be itself disfigured by its new situation. It should be backed by cypress trees, or by a cerulean sky; not by sooty elms and a November fog. Above all, a Grecian edifice should be erected where it could be kept clean. A Gothic building may bear to have its frowning aspect still further darkened by the smoke of a city-but the sooty hue is destructive to the beauty of a classical structure, one of whose greatest charms is purity of color, and whose native tints the hand of Time alone can successfully enrich or vary. Notwithstanding all that later ages have done to injure the effect of that magnifi cent pile, Westminster Abbey-the wretched church immediately in front, wherewith men have dared to cramp its wide circumference-the gilt clock and vile Grecian orr.ments on the western tower-it still remains one of the grandest objects that can fill the eye and soul. Who can behold it, and not feel that he stands in the presence of a fragment of an earlier and a colossal world? When we look at structures such as this, the mind inquires with astonishment-who were the architects of the era that produced them? How could they die and leave no name behind? Was, then, Imagination, in the lusty youth of Science, a dower as common as the light and air? Did there exist a master-mind, the Michael Angelo of its compeers, to create and harmonize the elements of grandeur and of beauty;—or, were the very builders touched with fire from Heaven? Survey throughout Britain the broken shreds, which barbarians have suffered to remain, of a period which they call barbarous -the cathedrals-the castles-the ancient houses—the carved work in stone, and the carved work in wood -must it not have required thousands-yea, tens of thousands-of minds as well as of hands, to have devised such glorious specimens of human power? Is the mould in which such intellects were cast, utterly broken? Or what mean the hideous and flimsy fabrics reared by the descendants of such wondrous beings? A solution of the riddle has been sought in the influence which the Roman Catholic religion exercised at that period. Each individual, concerned in the erection of a sacred edifice, felt that he was working out a part of his own salvation, and hence the mighty result responded to the mighty motive. Besides, it may be suggested that the fables of superstition were favorable to the production and growth of a wild and exuberant fancy, and, above all, that the habit of moneygetting had not as yet confined the thoughts to one mean track. Men 30 ATHENEUM, VOL. 5, 3d series. labored for another world rather than for this; and, if the tree be indeed known by its fruits, there was in the devotion of that time a fervor and sincerity, which, whether our own displays at the present period, it may be as well not over curiously to inquire. These reasons, however, do not, I confess, satisfy my mind as to the causes of the amazing superiority which ancient buildings manifest over modern. As far as they go, they may assist us to trace to its source the Pactolus of ecclesiastical splendor-but they leave still unexplained the universality of a fine and magnificent taste in every species of ancient architecture. What sort of persons must even the burghers of those days have been, who left behind them no "Suburban villas, highway-side retreats," but specimens of domestic architecture, which are to this hour the painter's delight, and the modern citizen's shame ? We are accused of being a nation of shopkeepers. It is our own faults if we are so. We have, by birthright, imagination enough, generous feeling enough, talent enough, but "The world is too much with us. Late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our pow ers." It is my firm belief that those powers are as great as ever, but they are smothered and suppressed beneath the manners of the age. Taste and talent still exist, but they have changed their direction, and waste themselves on sordid things. We no longer invent new combinations of form to enrich the walls of a religious edifice; but is not the same imagination at work, under a humbler modification, to trace figures upon plates, or devise patterns for carpets? Increasing luxury makes us demand ornaments for objects of comfort rather than for objects of taste. We must now be satisfied, if we can see four weather-proof walls about us, let them be ever so bare and poverty-stricken. Well, then, I will no longer declaim against raising new abominations. Let utility and ugliness be the order of the day; but let us reverentially abstain from disfiguring and destroying the glorious remains of antiquity. Build a Pimlico palace (worthy of its name); but do not lay the last relic of the old royal abode at Elthamnow used as a barn-level with the dust. Stand in awe of posterity. What will be said to a people who can so little regard their great national monuments as to suffer one of the most stupendous and most ancient works of their ancestors, to be broken up to mend the roads? I speak of the wonderful stones at Avebury in Wiltshire, supposed to be of Celtic origin. A century ago their circle was complete-the two avenues that led to it, (each a mile in length,) consisting of enormous upright masses of rock placed opposite to each other, at regular distances, were yet standing untouched in the mysterious solemnity of a thousand years. Now, only a solitary giant, here and there, looks over the field, and frowns upon the spoilers of its brethren. A little longer, and even they will not be left to tell the shameful tale of desolation. Thus perishes all that is great and elevating, not subdued by time, but by man. I sometimes think, when I look at what has been destroyed, calculated as it seems to have been for a race of immortals, that human power is as much manifested in having cast down such works, as in having raised them. "Even now is half the business of destruction done." One after one, the mighty relics that connect us with the past disappear from the face of the earth, and the places thereof know them no more. Some of our finest old churches, which a little timely repair would have preserved, have been stripped of their roofs for the sake of the lead; as if the perpetrators of such acts could have stood in need of more than was lodged in their precious skulls! Every newspaper informs us of some new spoliation. There surely must be another world and a future existence for such buildings. In the same manner that the faint images and imperfect shadows of things to be are by some supposed to occupy some vast magazine of unborn elements; so I suppose that the spiritual essences of objects, whose material form has perished, fly to the great repository of things past, used, and done with. Modern houses have no souls, so they cannot attain this paradise of spiritual brick and mortar; but all that is the express creation of the human intellect shall be found there, as imperishable as its parent. "The beings of the mind are not of clay;" but are "essentially immortal." In the meantime, they are to be honored (I mean not to include such desultory scribblers as myself) who preserve to us, while still on earth, all that their minds and pens can keep alive of the olden time and its productions. A real ancient building is not for the eye only, but for the imagination. It is the atmosphere of other days which hallows it-and this we cannot bestow. When we look at a venerable structure, Time seems to reign master over its walls and towers. The very elements only seem to have been his devoted ministers. The mellow coloring, the picturesque decay, scarcely appear to have been produced by the slow action of the sun and wind-they are but the footprints of Time, who, like a visible power, sits upon the hoary battlements, and makes his voice heard in every breeze that waves the long thin grass beneath. Wonderful Antiquity! Thy minutest fragments triumph over the most perfect achievements of the modern world! Crumbled, rent, and overthrown, as are thy works, enough yet remains to tell what their full stature must have been! Heaven forbid that we should ever obliterate those land-marks of bygone time—our old halls—our castles our cathedrals; that we should leave a posterity without a of record of their forefathers-a nation man's flaring house, or garden walls, break in upon the repose this little unsuspecting paradise." This eulogium is ours no longer. Hitherto, indeed, we have escaped the "gentleman's flaring house"(Heaven be praised!)-but our fine old, grey, weather-tinted cottages, are fast giving place to red miniatures of London boxes. of new villas! Yet this consummation, so devoutly to be deprecated, must inevitably be, if we continue to remove all that is noble, and leave nothing in its place. Would that a spirit might awaken, which would urge us, as a body, as a nation, to preserve all that we can of the past, and add all that we can for the benefit of the future! A very small attention and expense would keep our finest ancient remains, from age to age, in their present state for consider how little alteration a whole life can see in any of those old buildings, which only appear to be hardened, by progressive seasons, to the consistency of natural and primeval rock. It does a man good to see such ancient relics preserved amidst the magnificence of improved art and science. They may teach a lesson as important as did the straw-roofed cottages of early Rome, which, during the time of her real prosperity, were still permitted to preach humility to her marble palaces, and to remind her modern sons, that all they enjoyed or valued was bought for them by their rude and pleasurespurning ancestors. But I would almost give up the application to large towns, or even to populous neighborhoods, of the principles I have endeavored to inculcate, if I could preserve the country, the real country, from the pollution of metropolitan brick and mortar. "God made the country, and man made the town," said Cowper. Accordingly, let man deform the town as much as he pleases. Let Incongruity and Tastelessness stare out on every side, as fit emblems of the manyheaded multitude; but, in the country, let the works of man assimilate with those of his Creator, or, at any rate, be restrained from injuring them. I dwell fifty miles from the great Babel, and once I could have said of our neighboring village, as Gray of the vale of Grasmere, "Not a single red tile, no gentle Again, with respect to internal equipment, I maintain that we should rather gain than lose by reverting to the fashions of former days. Adorers as we are of comfort that talismanic word-I cannot conceive how we tolerate the modern chair. If we lean back without accommodating our persons to the sinuosities of the chair-back, we have a sharp ridge cutting us just under the shoulders; if we follow the curve of the chair, we are thrown forward into the deformity of Prince Hunchback, while our necks and chins protrude like the fore-parts of so many ganders; our spines, moreover, are fretted by all the little balls and prominences which upholsterers call ornaments. In addition to these inconveniences, the penurious seat threatens to hamstring us with its razor-like edge, and the whole machine, although an efficient instrument of torture, is of such frail construction, that a good stretch or yawn from any but a dandy shatters the whole in pieces, and consigns us to the more merciful hospitality of the floor. Have we not ill exchanged for such stools of repentance, the firm, roomy, back-supporting, legresting chairs of our ancestors? In ancient furniture, as in ancient architecture, there is a degree of thought and design always to be traced; while, on the other hand, any atoms fortuitously jostling together would at length unite into something quite as good as the abortions of modern manufacture. I was particularly struck with the construction of an old chair which happened to fall under my observation, of a time so far back as the |