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VI.
THE COTTAGE—CONCLUDING REMARKS

"Nunquam aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia, dicit."—Juvenal xiv. 321

82. It now only remains for us to conclude the subject of the cottage, by a few general remarks on the just application of modern buildings to adorn or vivify natural scenery.

There are, we think, only three cases in which the cottage is considered as an element of architectural, or any other kind of beauty, since it is ordinarily raised by the peasant where he likes, and how he likes; and, therefore, as we have seen, frequently in good taste.

83. I. When a nobleman, or man of fortune, amuses himself with superintending the erection of the domiciles of his domestics. II. When ornamental summer-houses, or mimicries of wigwams, are to be erected as ornamental adjuncts to a prospect which the owner has done all he can to spoil, that it may be worthy of the honor of having him to look at it. III. When the landlord exercises a certain degree of influence over the cottages of his tenants, or the improvements of the neighboring village, so as to induce such a tone of feeling in the new erections as he may think suitable to the situation.

84. In the first of these cases, there is little to be said; for the habitation of the domestic is generally a dependent feature of his master's, and, therefore, to be considered as a part of it. Porters' lodges are also dependent upon, and to be regulated by, the style of the architecture to which they are attached; and they are generally well managed in England, properly united with the gate, and adding to the effect of the entrance.

In the second case, as the act is in itself a barbarism, it would be useless to consider what would be the best mode of perpetrating it.

In the third case, we think it will be useful to apply a few general principles, deduced from positions formerly advanced.

85. All buildings are, of course, to be considered in connection with the country in which they are to be raised. Now, all landscape must possess one out of four distinct characters.

It must be either woody, the green country; cultivated, the blue country; wild, the gray country; or hilly, the brown country.

I. The Woody, or green, Country. By this is to be understood the mixture of park, pasture, and variegated forest, which is only to be seen in temperate climates, and in those parts of a kingdom which have not often changed proprietors, but have remained in unproductive beauty (or at least, furnishing timber only), the garden of the wealthier population. It is to be seen in no other country, perhaps, so well as in England. In other districts, we find extensive masses of black forest, but not the mixture of sunny glade, and various foliage, and dewy sward, which we meet with in the richer park districts of England. This kind of country is always surgy, oceanic, and massy, in its outline: it never affords blue distances, unless seen from a height; and, even then, the nearer groups are large, and draw away the attention from the background. The under soil is kept cool by the shade, and its vegetation rich; so that the prevailing color, except for a few days at the fall of the leaf, is a fresh green. A good example of this kind of country is the view from Richmond Hill.

86. Now, first, let us consider what sort of feeling this green country excites; and, in order to do so, be it observed, that anything which is apparently enduring and unchangeable gives us an impression rather of future, than of past, duration of existence; but anything which being perishable, and from its nature subject to change, has yet existed to a great age, gives us an impression of antiquity, though, of course, none of stability. A mountain, for instance (not geologically speaking, for then the furrows on its brow give it age as visible as was ever wrinkled on human forehead, but considering it as it appears to ordinary eyes), appears to be beyond the influence of change: it does not put us in mind of its past existence, by showing us any of the effect of time upon itself; we do not feel that it is old, because it is not approaching any kind of death; it is a mass of unsentient undecaying matter, which, if we think about it, we discover must have existed for some time, but which does not tell this fact to our feelings, or, rather, which tells us of no time at which it came into existence; and therefore, gives us no standard by which to measure its age, which, unless measured, cannot be distinctly felt. But a very old forest tree is a thing subject to the same laws of nature as ourselves: it is an energetic being, liable to an approaching death; its age is written on every spray; and, because we see it is susceptible of life and annihilation, like our own, we imagine it must be capable of the same feelings, and possess the same faculties, and, above all others, memory: it is always telling us about the past, never pointing to the future; we appeal to it, as to a thing which has seen and felt during a life similar to our own, though of ten times its duration, and therefore receive from it a perpetual impression of antiquity. So again a ruined town gives us an impression of antiquity; the stones of which it is built, none; for their age is not written upon them.

87. This being the case, it is evident that the chief feeling induced by woody country is one of reverence for its antiquity. There is a quiet melancholy about the decay of the patriarchal trunks, which is enhanced by the green and elastic vigor of the young saplings; the noble form of the forest aisles, and the subdued light which penetrates their entangled boughs, combine to add to the impression; and the whole character of the scene is calculated to excite conservative feeling. The man who could remain a radical in a wood country is a disgrace to his species.

88. Now, this feeling of mixed melancholy and veneration is the one of all others which the modern cottage must not be allowed to violate. It may be fantastic or rich in detail; for the one character will make it look old-fashioned, and the other will assimilate with the intertwining of leaf and bough around it: but it must not be spruce, or natty, or very bright in color; and the older it looks the better.

A little grotesqueness in form is the more allowable, because the imagination is naturally active in the obscure and indefinite daylight of wood scenery; conjures up innumerable beings, of every size and shape, to people its alleys and smile through its thickets; and is by no means displeased to find some of its inventions half-realized in a decorated panel or grinning extremity of a rafter.

89. These characters being kept in view, as objects to be attained, the remaining considerations are technical.

For the form. Select any well-grown group of the tree which prevails most near the proposed site of the cottage. Its summit will be a rounded mass. Take the three principal points of its curve: namely, its apex and the two points where it unites itself with neighboring masses. Strike a circle through these three points; and the angle contained in the segment cut off by a line joining the two lower points is to be the angle of the cottage roof. (Of course we are not thinking of interior convenience: the architect must establish his mode of beauty first, and then approach it as nearly as he can.) This angle will generally be very obtuse; and this is one reason why the Swiss cottage is always beautiful when it is set among walnut or chestnut trees. Its obtuse roof is just about the true angle. With pines or larches, the angle should not be regulated by the form of the tree, but by the slope of the branches. The building itself should be low and long, so that, if possible, it may not be seen all at once, but may be partially concealed by trunks or leafage at various distances.

90. For the color, that of wood is always beautiful. If the wood of the near trees be used, so much the better; but the timbers should be rough-hewn, and allowed to get weather-stained. Cold colors will not suit with green; and, therefore, slated roofs are disagreeable, unless, as in the Westmoreland cottage, the gray roof is warmed with lichenous vegetation, when it will do well with anything; but thatch is better. If the building be not of wood, the walls may be built of anything which will give them a quiet and unobtruding warmth of tone. White, if in shade, is sometimes allowable; but, if visible at any point more than 200 yards off, it will spoil the whole landscape. In general, as we saw before, the building will bear some fantastic finishing, that is, if it be entangled in forest; but, if among massive groups of trees, separated by smooth sward, it must be kept simple.

91. II. The Cultivated, or blue, Country. This is the rich champaign land, in which large trees are more sparingly scattered, and which is chiefly devoted to the purposes of agriculture. In this we are perpetually getting blue distances from the slightest elevation, which are rendered more decidedly so by their contrast with warm corn or plowed fields in the foreground. Such is the greater part of England. The view from the hills of Malvern is a good example. In districts of this kind, all is change; one year's crop has no memory of its predecessor; all is activity, prosperity, and usefulness: nothing is left to the imagination; there is no obscurity, no poetry, no nonsense: the colors of the landscape are bright and varied; it is thickly populated, and glowing with animal life. Here, then, the character of the cottage must be cheerfulness; its colors may be vivid: white is always beautiful; even red tiles are allowable, and red bricks endurable. Neatness will not spoil it: the angle of its roof may be acute, its windows sparkling, and its roses red and abundant; but it must not be ornamented nor fantastic, it must be evidently built for the uses of common life, and have a matter-of-fact business-like air about it. Its outhouses and pigsties, and dunghills should therefore, be kept in sight: the latter may be made very pretty objects, by twisting them with the pitchfork, and plaiting them into braids, as the Swiss do.

92. III. The Wild, or gray, Country. "Wild" is not exactly a correct epithet; we mean wide, uninclosed, treeless undulations of land, whether cultivated or not. The greater part of northern France, though well brought under the plow, would come under the denomination of gray country. Occasional masses of monotonous forest do not destroy this character. Here, size is desirable, and massiness of form; but we must have no brightness of color in the cottage, otherwise it would draw the eye to it at three miles off, and the whole landscape would be covered with conspicuous dots. White is agreeable, if sobered down; slate allowable on the roof as well as thatch. For the rest, we need only refer to the remarks made on the propriety of the French cottage.

93. Lastly, Hill, or brown, Country. And here if we look to England alone, as peculiarly a cottage country, the remarks formerly advanced, in the consideration of the Westmoreland cottage, are sufficient; but if we go into mountain districts of more varied character, we shall find a difference existing between every range of hills, which will demand a corresponding difference in the style of their cottages. The principles, however, are the same in all situations, and it would be a hopeless task to endeavor to give more than general principles. In hill country, however, another question is introduced, whose investigation is peculiarly necessary in cases in which the ground has inequality of surface, that of position. And the difficulty here is, not so much to ascertain where the building ought to be, as to put it there, without suggesting any inquiry as to the mode in which it got there; to prevent its just application from appearing artificial. But we cannot enter into this inquiry, before laying down a number of principles of composition, which are applicable, not only to cottages, but generally; and which we cannot deduce until we come to the consideration of buildings in groups.

94. Such are the great divisions under which country and rural buildings may be comprehended; but there are intermediate conditions, in which modified forms of the cottage are applicable; and it frequently happens that country which, considered in the abstract, would fall under one of these classes, possesses, owing to its peculiar climate or associations, a very different character. Italy, for instance, is blue country; yet it has not the least resemblance to English blue country. We have paid particular attention to wood; first, because we had not, in any previous paper, considered what was beautiful in a forest cottage; and secondly, because in such districts there is generally much more influence exercised by proprietors over their tenantry, than in populous and cultivated districts; and our English park scenery, though exquisitely beautiful, is sometimes, we think, a little monotonous, from the want of this very feature.

95. And now, farewell to the cottage, and, with it, to the humility of natural scenery. We are sorry to leave it; not that we have any idea of living in a cottage, as a comfortable thing; not that we prefer mud to marble, or deal to mahogany; but that, with it, we leave much of what is most beautiful of earth, the low and bee-inhabited scenery, which is full of quiet and prideless emotion, of such calmness as we can imagine prevailing over our earth when it was new in heaven. We are going into higher walks of architecture, where we shall find a less close connection established between the building and the soil on which it stands, or the air with which it is surrounded, but a closer connection with the character of its inhabitant. We shall have less to do with natural feeling, and more with human passion; we are coming out of stillness into turbulence, out of seclusion into the multitude, out of the wilderness into the world.

PART II.
The Villa

I.
THE MOUNTAIN VILLA—LAGO DI COMO

96. In all arts or sciences, before we can determine what is just or beautiful in a group, we must ascertain what is desirable in the parts which compose it, separately considered; and therefore it will be most advantageous in the present case, to keep out of the village and the city, until we have searched hill and dale for examples of isolated buildings. This mode of considering the subject is also agreeable to the feelings, as the transition from the higher orders of solitary edifices, to groups of associated edifices, is not so sudden or startling, as that from nature's most humble peace, to man's most turbulent pride.

We have contemplated the rural dwelling of the peasant; let us next consider the ruralized domicile of the gentleman: and here, as before, we shall first determine what is theoretically beautiful, and then observe how far our expectations are fulfilled in individual buildings. But a few preliminary observations are necessary.

97. Man, the peasant, is a being of more marked national character, than man, the educated and refined. For nationality is founded, in a great degree, on prejudices and feelings inculcated and aroused in youth, which grow inveterate in the mind as long as its views are confined to the place of its birth; its ideas molded by the customs of its country, and its conversation limited to a circle composed of individuals of habits and feelings like its own; but which are gradually softened down, and eradicated, when the mind is led into general views of things, when it is guided by reflection instead of habit, and has begun to lay aside opinions contracted under the influence of association and prepossession, substituting in their room philosophical deductions from the calm contemplation of the various tempers, and thoughts, and customs, of mankind. The love of its country will remain with undiminished strength in the cultivated mind, but the national modes of thinking will vanish from the disciplined intellect.

98. Now as it is only by these mannerisms of thought that architecture is affected, we shall find that, the more polished the mind of its designer, the less national will be the building; for its architect will be led away by a search after a model of ideal beauty, and will not be involuntarily guided by deep-rooted feelings, governing irresistibly his heart and hand. He will therefore be in perpetual danger of forgetting the necessary unison of scene and climate, and, following up the chase of the ideal, will neglect the beauty of the natural; an error which he could not commit, were he less general in his views, for then the prejudices to which he would be subject, would be as truly in unison with the objects which created them, as answering notes with the chords which awaken them. We must not, therefore, be surprised, if buildings bearing impress of the exercise of fine thought and high talent in their design, should yet offend us by perpetual discords with scene and climate; and if, therefore, we sometimes derive less instruction, and less pleasure from the columnar portico of the Palace, than from the latched door of the Cottage.

99. Again: man, in his hours of relaxation, when he is engaged in the pursuit of mere pleasure, is less national than when he is under the influence of any of the more violent feelings which agitate everyday life. The reason of this may at first appear somewhat obscure, but it will become evident, on a little reflection. Aristotle's definition of pleasure, perhaps the best ever given, is "an agitation, and settling of the spirit into its own proper nature;" similar, by the by, to the giving of liberty of motion to the molecules of a mineral, followed by their crystallization, into their own proper form. Now this "proper nature," ὑπαρχουσαν φυσιν, is not the acquired national habit, but the common and universal constitution of the human soul. This constitution is kept under by the feelings which prompt to action, for those feelings depend upon parts of character, or of prejudice, which are peculiar to individuals or to nations; and the pleasure which all men seek is a kind of partial casting away of these more active feelings, to return to the calm and unchanging constitution of mind which is the same in all.

100. We shall, therefore, find that man, in the business of his life, in religion, war, or ambition, is national, but in relaxation he manifests a nature common to every individual of his race. A Turk, for instance, and an English farmer, smoking their evening pipes, differ only in so much as the one has a mouthpiece of amber, and the other one of sealing wax; the one has a turban on his head, and the other a night-cap; they are the same in feeling, and to all intents and purposes the same men. But a Turkish janissary and an English grenadier differ widely in all their modes of thinking, feeling, and acting; they are strictly national. So again, a Tyrolese evening dance, though the costume, and the step, and the music may be different, is the same in feeling as that of the Parisian guinguette; but follow the Tyrolese into their temples, and their deep devotion and beautiful though superstitious reverence will be found very different from any feeling exhibited during a mass in Notre-Dame. This being the case, it is a direct consequence, that we shall find much nationality in the Church or the Fortress, or in any building devoted to the purposes of active life, but very little in that which is dedicated exclusively to relaxation, the Villa. We shall be compelled to seek out nations of very strong feeling and imaginative disposition, or we shall find no correspondence whatever between their character, and that of their buildings devoted to pleasure.

101. In our own country, for instance, there is not the slightest. Beginning at the head of Windermere, and running down its border for about six miles, there are six important gentlemen's seats, villas they may be called; the first of which is a square white mass, decorated with pilasters of no order, set in a green avenue, sloping down to the water; the second is an imitation, we suppose, of something possessing theoretical existence in Switzerland, with sharp gable ends, and wooden flourishes turning the corners, set on a little dumpy mound with a slate wall running all round it, glittering with iron pyrites; the third is a blue dark-looking box, squeezed up into a group of straggly larches, with a bog in front of it; the fourth is a cream-colored domicile, in a large park, rather quiet and unaffected, the best of the four, though that is not saying much; the fifth is an old-fashioned thing, formal, and narrow-windowed, yet gray in its tone, and quiet, and not to be maligned; and the sixth is a nondescript, circular, putty-colored habitation, with a leaden dome on the top of it.

102. If, however, instead of taking Windermere, we trace the shore of the Lago di Como, we shall find some expression and nationality; and there, therefore, will we go, to return, however, to England, when we have obtained some data by which to judge of her more fortunate edifices. We notice the mountain villa first, for two reasons; because effect is always more considered in its erection, than when it is to be situated in a less interesting country, and because the effect desired is very rarely given, there being far greater difficulties to contend with. But one word more, before setting off for the south. Though, as we saw before, the gentleman has less national character than the boor, his individual character is more marked, especially in its finer features, which are clearly and perfectly developed by education; consequently, when the inhabitant of the villa has had anything to do with its erection, we might expect to find indications of individual and peculiar feelings, which it would be most interesting to follow out. But this is no part of our present task; at some future period we hope to give a series of essays on the habitations of the most distinguished men of Europe, showing how the alterations which they directed, and the expression which they bestowed, corresponded with the turn of their emotions, and leading intellectual faculties: but at present we have to deal only with generalities; we have to ascertain not what will be pleasing to a single mind, but what will afford gratification to every eye possessing a certain degree of experience, and every mind endowed with a certain degree of taste.

103. Without further preface, therefore, let us endeavor to ascertain what would be theoretically beautiful, on the shore, or among the scenery of the Larian Lake, preparatory to a sketch of the general features of those villas which exist there, in too great a multitude to admit, on our part, of much individual detail.

For the general tone of the scenery, we may refer to the paper on the Italian cottage; for the shores of the Lake of Como have generally the character there described, with a little more cheerfulness, and a little less elevation,¹⁴ but aided by great variety of form. They are not quite so rich in vegetation as the plains: both because the soil is scanty, there being, of course, no decomposition going on among the rocks of black marble which form the greater part of the shore; and because the mountains rise steeply from the water, leaving only a narrow zone at their bases in the climate of Italy. In that zone, however, the olive grows in great luxuriance, with the cypress, orange, aloe, myrtle, and vine, the latter always trellised.

104. Now, as to the situation of the cottage, we have already seen that great humility was necessary, both in the building and its site, to prevent it from offending us by an apparent struggle with forces, compared with which its strength was dust: but we cannot have this extreme humility in the villa, the dwelling of wealth and power, and yet we must not, any more, suggest the idea of its resisting natural influences under which the Pyramids could not abide. The only way of solving the difficulty is, to select such sites as shall seem to have been set aside by nature as places of rest, as points of calm and enduring beauty, ordained to sit and smile in their glory of quietness, while the avalanche brands the mountain top,¹⁵ and the torrent desolates the valley; yet so preserved, not by shelter amidst violence, but by being placed wholly out of the influence of violence. For in this they must differ from the site of the cottage, that the peasant may seek for protection under some low rock or in some narrow dell, but the villa must have a domain to itself, at once conspicuous, beautiful, and calm.

105. As regards the form of the cottage, we have seen how the Westmoreland cottage harmonized with the ease of outline so conspicuous in hill scenery, by the irregularity of its details; but, here, no such irregularity is allowable or consistent, and is not even desirable. For the cottage enhances the wildness of the surrounding scene, by sympathizing with it; the villa must do the same thing, by contrasting with it. The eye feels, in a far greater degree, the terror of the distant and desolate peaks, when it passes down their ravined sides to sloping and verdant hills, and is guided from these to the rich glow of vegetable life in the low zones, and through this glow to the tall front of some noble edifice, peaceful even in its pride. But this contrast must not be sudden, or it will be startling and harsh; and therefore, as we saw above, the villa must be placed where all the severe features of the scene, though not concealed, are distant, and where there is a graduation, so to speak, of impressions, from terror to loveliness, the one softened by distance, the other elevated in its style: and the form of the villa must not be fantastic or angular, but must be full of variety, so tempered by simplicity as to obtain ease of outline united with elevation of character; the first being necessary for reasons before advanced, and the second, that the whole may harmonize with the feelings induced by the lofty features of the accompanying scenery in any hill country, and yet more, on the Larian Lake, by the deep memories and everlasting associations which haunt the stillness of its shore. Of the color required by Italian landscape we have spoken before, and we shall see that, particularly in this case, white or pale tones are agreeable.

106. We shall now proceed to the situation and form of the villa. As regards situation; the villas of the Lago di Como are built, par préférence, either on jutting promontories of low crag covered with olives, or on those parts of the shore where some mountain stream has carried out a bank of alluvium into the lake. One object proposed in this choice of situation is, to catch the breeze as it comes up the main opening of the hills, and to avoid the reflection of the sun's rays from the rocks of the actual shore; and another is, to obtain a prospect up or down the lake, and of the hills on whose projection the villa is built: but the effect of this choice when the building is considered the object, is to carry it exactly into the place where it ought to be, far from the steep precipice and dark mountain, to the border of the winding bay and citron-scented cape, where it stands at once conspicuous and in peace. For instance, in the view of Villa Serbelloni¹⁶ from across the lake, although the eye falls suddenly from the crags above to the promontory below, yet all the sublime and severe features of the scene are kept in the distance, and the villa itself is mingled with graceful lines, and embosomed in rich vegetation. The promontory separates the Lake of Lecco from that of Como, properly so-called, and is three miles from the opposite shore, which gives room enough for aërial perspective.

107. We shall now consider the form of the villa. It is generally the apex of a series of artificial terraces, which conduct through its gardens to the water. These are formal in their design, but extensive, wide, and majestic in their slope, the steps being generally about 1/2 ft. high and 4-1/2 ft. wide (sometimes however much deeper). They are generally supported by white wall, strengthened by unfilled arches, the angles being turned by sculptured pedestals, surmounted by statues, or urns. Along the terraces are carried rows, sometimes of cypress, more frequently of orange or lemon trees, with myrtles, sweet bay, and aloes, intermingled, but always with dark and spiry cypresses occurring in groups; and attached to these terraces, or to the villa itself, are series of arched grottoes built (or sometimes cut in the rock) for coolness, frequently overhanging the water, kept dark and fresh, and altogether delicious to the feelings. A good instance of these united peculiarities is seen in Villa Somma-Riva, Lago di Como.

The effect of these approaches is disputable. It is displeasing to many, from its formality; but we are persuaded that it is right, because it is a national style, and therefore has in all probability due connection with scene and character: and this connection we shall endeavor to prove.

108. The frequent occurrence of the arch is always delightful in distant effect, partly on account of its graceful line, partly because the shade it casts is varied in depth, becoming deeper and deeper as the grotto retires, and partly because it gives great apparent elevation to the walls which it supports. The grottoes themselves are agreeable objects seen near, because they give an impression of coolness to the eye; and they echo all sounds with great melody; small streams are often conducted through them, occasioning slight breezes by their motion. Then the statue and the urn are graceful in their outline, classical in their meaning, and correct in their position, for where could they be more appropriate than here; the one ministering to memory, and the other to mourning. The terraces themselves are dignified in their character (a necessary effect, as we saw above), and even the formal rows of trees are right in this climate, for a peculiar reason. Effect is always to be considered, in Italy, as if the sun were always to shine, for it does nine days out of ten. Now the shadows of foliage regularly disposed, fall with a grace which it is impossible to describe, running up and down across the marble steps, and casting alternate statues into darkness; and checkering the white walls with a "method in their madness," altogether unattainable by loose grouping of trees; and therefore, for the sake of this kind of shade, to which the eye, as well as the feeling, is attracted, the long row of cypresses or orange trees is allowable.