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bred. Pope has satirized this abuse of ment:

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"Load some vain church with old theatric state
Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate;
Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all
On some patch'd dog-hole eked with ends of wall.

"Then clap four slices of pilaster on't,

That laced with bits of rustic makes a front;

Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door."

Some of our builders, I hope, will read these essays their influence is of great moment. If well instructed, they will tell such as apply to them, that the word Architecture is not confined to the massy piles of public edifices, but that the very same principles which draught the Birmingham Town Hall, or the Madelaine, can descend to plan the cottage, or the rustic bridge. These principles ought to be studied, not only in our colleges, but our lyceums and other institutions for the instruction of working-men. Books of architectural plans should be compiled and abstracted from the more costly European publications. I am sure any one who is familiar with the Tailor's Magazine, will grant that there is no insuperable obstacle in the way of a builder's periodical. And not architects alone, but all planners and proprietors should familiarize their eye to the contemplation of good models.

The day it is to be hoped will come, when even the day-labourer will not think it necessary to be slovenly because he is poor, and when the most incessant drudges shall begin to see that there are some good things besides coin and bank-notes. The practical man whose views are enlarged will not fail to see that pleasures of imagination and taste have also their price. Decoration naturally comes after use; we build our houses before we deck them. But in the advancement of society, there is a stage at which men always set a value upon ornament; and though these circumstances may breed luxury, they have fruits which are desirable, such as increased contentment, placid joy, refined taste, cheerful reflection, and the love of home.

Along the bank of a half-finished canal I saw, the other day, a settlement, which, at a furlong's distance, showed the origin of its tenants. Extemporaneous huts, barrel chimneys, floors without boards, windows without glass, and a dunghill at the entrance; these afforded the symptoms of a hovel. Here was no decoration; and I argue concerning this settlement, that there are no intellectual pleasures, no taste, no gentleness, no fireside happiness.

Let me change the scene. I knew a family of English people, no richer than those just noticed, who lived in a dwelling no larger than one of these-but how different! I see it yet in memory,

its whitened palings and beaten walk to the door, its tight sides and close roof, and especially its edge of summer flowers around a plot of the cleanest grass, and its roses and woodbine creeping over every window. They were poor, but they were tidy. More than this; they were fond of natural beauty, and fond of home, and therefore always aiming to make home lovely.

Every reader has many times seen the same thing, and some have already learned the connexion between simple decoration and domestic virtue and peace. Why does an English cottage strike an American with surprise? Why does he look, as at a strange thing, upon the French peasantry taking their evening repast beneath their trees and vines? Because we Americans are so particularly practical, and so possessed of the demon of trade, that nothing is valuable which cannot be sold. Value is becoming equivalent to vendibility. Valuable means saleable: worth means money. If a flower, or a hedge-row, or a cascade, or a bust, or a prospect, add to the price under the hammer, these things are valuable, and are straightway inserted in the lithographic view of the auctioneer. They are useful. Usefulness is that quality of things whereby they bring money.

III.

THE GARDEN AND GROUNDS.

"Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mould,
The reddening apple ripens here to gold;
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows, &c.

HOMER'S Odyssey, book vii.

Ir was certainly an exaggeration of Mrs. Trollope to say, that no one could ever hear two Americans talk five minutes without the word dollar. So Bonaparte exaggerated when he called the British "a nation of shopkeepers." Be it so. Caricatures often tell the truth. Even the hideous concave mirror, though it exaggerate ever so much, shows me some grand blemishes of my face. I have tried the experiment, in walking the crowded streets of our cities, to catch the predominant word of the passers-by. The catalogue is limited, and consists of such as these, "Ten per cent.". doing a good business".

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money market”.

"operations in property"-"exchange"-"stock"

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"credit"—" profits"

If a man is so practical that he will not wash his face without "value received," I entertain no

hopes of bringing him over. I have no purchase for my instrument. Now cleanliness is a sort of decoration; negative, perhaps, but the condition of all the rest. Neatness follows very closely : a cleanly child is usually neat. The cleanly housewife is sure to produce in her cottage a certain trim and symmetrical arrangement which gratifies the eye. This is neatness budding into beauty. This transition ought to be seized upon wherever it appears. The pleasant little children who are yonder playing in the dust may be taught to keep themselves clean, and then to be neat. This is the path towards decoration. Taste needs development. These creatures may be bred to enjoy ornament: and thus we may get a race of people, even among the poor, who will begin to beautify the land. I live in the hope of seeing cottages along our multiplied and dirty railways, each adorned not only with a white surface and a close fence, but with roses, pinks, tulips, and all the pretty vegetable gifts of a loving Providence; gifts which our yeomanry have too much banished to green-houses and ballads.

The ways of adorning a house by rural aids are various, and so well known as scarcely to need enumeration. They may be adapted to the lowliest habitation of civilized man, no less than to the villa or the chateau. Nothing but love for domestic beauty and ordinary tact are required to rear a thousand tasteful abodes along all our high

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