niency require-With men who live in the present age of refinement, "a want of decency is a want of fenfe."

THE style, throughout, fhould be mafculine. If fhrubs be required, they fhould be of the hardier forts; the Box, the Holly, the Lauruftinus. The trees fhould be the Oak and the Beech, which give, in Autumn, an agreeable variety of foliage, and anticipate, as it were, the feafon of diverfion. A fuite of paddocks fhould be feen from the houfe; and if a view of diftant covers can be caught, the background will be compleat. The ftable, the kennel, and the leaping bar, are the factitious accompaniments; in the conftruction of which fimplicity, fubstantialnefs, and conveniency, fhould prevail.

SECTION THE THIRD.

ORNAMENTED COTTAGE.

NEATNESS and fimplicity ought to mark the style of this rational retreat. Oftentation and fhow should be cautiously avoided; even elegance fhould not be attempted; though it may not be bid, if it offer itself spontaneously.

NOTHING,

NOTHING, however, fhould appear vulgar, nor fhould fimplicity be pared down to baldness; every thing whimfical or expenfive ought to be ftudiously avoided;-chaftenefs and frugality should appear in every part.

NEAR the houfe, a ftudied neatness may take place; but, at a distance, negligence should rather be the characteristic.

Ir a tafte for botany lead to a collection of native fhrubs and flowers, a fhrubery will be requifite; but, in this, every thing fhould be native. A gaudy exotic ought not to be admitted; nor fhould the lawn be kept clofe fhaven; its flowers fhould be permitted to blow; and the herbage, when mown, ought to be carried off, and applied to fome ufeful purpose.

In the artificial accompaniments, ornament should be fubordinate; utility must prefide. The buildings, if any appear, fhould be those in actual use in rural economics. If the hovel be wanted, let it appear; and, as a fide fcreen, the barn and rick yard. are admiffible; while the dove house and poultry yard may enter more freely into the compofition.

IN fine, the ORNAMENTED COTTAGE ought to exhibit cultivated Nature, in the firft ftage of refinement.

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finement. It ranks next above the farm house, The plain garb of rufticity may be fet off to advantage; but the studied ornaments of art ought not to appear. That becoming neatness, and thofe domestic conveniencies, which render the rural life agreeable to a cultivated mind, are all that should be aimed at.

HERE, a ftyle very different from the preceding, ought to prevail: It ought to be elegant, rich, or grand, according to the ftyle of the house itfelf, and the ftate of the furrounding country; the principal business of the artist being to connect thefe two, in fuch a manner, that the one fhall not appear naked or flareing, nor the other defolate and inhofpitable.

If the house be stately, and the adjacent country rich and highly cultivated, a fhrubery may intervene, in which Art may fhew her utmoft skill. Here, the artist may even be permitted to play at landscape:

landscape: for a place of this kind being fuppofed to be small, the intention principally ornamental, and the point of view, probably, confined simply to the house, fide screens may be formed, and near grounds laid out, fuitable to the best distance that can be caught,

If buildings, or other artificial ornaments, abound in the offscape, fo as to mark it ftrongly, they ought alfo to appear, more or lefs, in the near grounds: if the distance abound with wood, the near grounds fhould be thickened, left baldness fhould offend; if open and naked, elegance rather than richness ought to be ftudied, left heaviness should appear.

It is far from being any part of our plan to cavil unneceffarily at artists, whether living or dead; we cannot, however, refrain from expreffing a concern for the almost total neglect of the principles here laid down, in the prevailing practice of a late celebrated artift, in ornamenting the vicinages of villas. We mention it the rather, as Mr.BROWN feems to have fet the fashion, and we are forry to find it copied by the inferior artists of the day. Without any regard to uniting the house with the adjacent country, and, indeed, seemingly without any regard whatever to the offscape, one invariable plan of embellishment prevails; namely, that of

stripping the near ground, entirely naked, or almoft fo, and furrounding it with a wavy border of fhrubs, and a gravel walk; leaving the area, whether large or small, one naked fheet of greenfward.

IN fmall confined fpots, this plan may be eligible. We dislike those bolstered flower beds, which abound in the fuburbs of the metropolis, where the broken ground fometimes exceeds the lawn: nevertheless, to our apprehenfion, a fimple border, round a large unbroken lawn, only ferves to fhew what more is wanted. Simplicity in general is pleasing; but even fimplicity may be carried to an extreme, fo as to convey no other idea than that of poverty and baldness. Befides, how often do we fee in natural fcenery, the holly and the foxglove flourishing at the foot of an oak, and the primrofe and the campion adding charms to the hawthorn, fcattered over the pastured lawn? And we conceive that fingle trees, footed with evergreens and native flowers, and tufts, as well as borders of fhrubs, are admiffible in ornamental, as well as in natural scenery,

THE fpecies of fhrub fhould vary with the intention. If the principal intention be a winter retreat, evergreens, and the early-blowing thrubs, fhould predominate; but, in a place to be frequented in fummer and autumn, the deciduous tribes ought chiefly to be planted.

SECTION