cottage, the lodge, if introduced, should be more simple and unostentatious; and even where the house is magnificent, the lodge should rather be below the general air of the residence than above it, that the stranger who enters at a showy and striking lodge may not be disappointed in the want of correspondence between it and the remaining portions of the demesne.

AA

[Fig. 63. The New Gate Lodge at Blithewood.]

The gate-lodge at Blithewood, on the Hudson, the seat of R. Donaldson, Esq., is a simple and effective cottage in the bracketed style-octagonal in its form, and very compactly arranged internally.

Nearly all the fine seats on the North river have entrance lodges-often simple and but little ornamented, or only

[Fig. 64. The Gate Lodge at Netherwood.]

pleasingly embowered in foliage; but, occasionally, highly picturesque and striking in appearance.

A view of the pretty gate lodge at Netherwood, Duchess County N. Y., the seat of Gardi

ner Howland, Esq., is shown in Fig. 64. Half a mile north of this seat is an interesting lodge in the Swiss style, at the entrance to the residence of Mrs. Sheafe.

In Fig. 65, is shown an elevation of a lodge in the Italian style, with projecting eaves supported by cantilevers or brackets, round-headed windows with balconies, characteristic porch, and other leading features of this style.

[Fig. 65. Gate Lodge in the Italian style.]

Mr. Repton has stated it as a principle in the composition of residences, that neither the house should be visible from the entrance nor the entrance from the house, if there be sufficient distance between them to make the approach through varied grounds, or a park, and not immediately into a court-yard.

Entrance lodges, and indeed all small ornamental buildings, should be supported, and partially concealed, by trees and foliage; naked walls, in the country, hardly admitting of an apology in any case, but especially when the building is ornamental, and should be considered part of a whole, grouping with other objects in rural landscape.

NOTE. To readers who desire to cultivate a taste for rural architecture, we take pleasure in recommending the following productions of the English press. Loudon's Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture, a volume replete with information on every branch of the subject; Robinson's Rural Architecture and Designs for Ornamental Villas; Lugar's Villa Architecture; Goodwin's Rural Architecture; Hunt's Picturesque Domestic Architecture, and Examples of Tudor Architecture; Pugin's Examples of Gothic Architecture, etc. The most successful American architects in this branch of the art, with whom we are acquainted, are Alexander J. Davis, Esq., of New York, and John Notman, Esq., of Philadelphia.

[Fig. 66. The Gardener's House, Blithewood.]

SECTION X.

EMBELLISHMENTS; ARCHITECTURAL, RUSTIC, AND FLoral.

Value of a proper connexion between the house and grounds. Beauty of the architectural terrace, and its application to villas and cottages. Use of vases of different descriptions Sun-dials. Architectural flower-garden. Irregular flower-garden. French flower-garden. English flower-garden. General remarks on this subject. Selection of showy plants, flowering in succession. Arrangement of the shrubbery, and selection of choice shrubs. The conservatory or green-house. Open and covered seats. Pavilions. Rustic seats. Prospect tower. Bridges. Rockwork. Fountains of various descriptions. Judicious introduction of decorations.

Nature, assuming a more lovely face,

Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace.

COWPER.

Each odorous bushy shrub

Fenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower;

Iris all hues, Roses and Jessamine

Rear'd high their flourished heads between,
And wrought Mosaic.

MILTON.

N our finest places, or those country seats where much of

the polish of pleasure ground

or park scenery is kept up, one of the most striking defects is the want of "union between the house and the grounds."

We are well aware that from the comparative rarity of anything like a highly kept place in this country, the want of this, which is indeed like the last finish to the residence, is scarcely felt at all. But this only proves the infant state of Landscape Gardening here, and the little attention that has been paid to the highest details of the art.

If our readers will imagine, with us, a pretty villa, conveniently arranged and well constructed, in short, complete in itself as regards its architecture, and at the same time, properly placed in a smooth well kept lawn, studded with groups and masses of fine trees, they will have an example often to be met with, of a place, in the graceful school of design, about which, however, there is felt to be a certain incongruity between the house, a highly artificial object, and the surrounding grounds, where the prevailing expression in the latter is that of beautiful nature.

Let us suppose, for further illustration, the same house and grounds with a few additions. The house now rising directly out of the green turf which encompasses it, we will surround by a raised platform or terrace, wide enough for a dry, firm walk, at all seasons; on the top of the wall or border of this terrace, we will form a handsome parapet, or balustrade, some two or three feet high, the details of which shall be in good keeping with the house, whether Grecian or Gothic. On the coping of this parapet, if the house is in the classical style, we will find suitable places, at proper intervals, for some handsome urns, vases, etc. On the drawing-room side of the house, that is, the side towards which the best room or rooms look, we will place the flower-garden, into which we descend from the terrace by a few steps. This flower-garden may be simply what its name denotes, a place exclusively devoted to the culti