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for Nature appeared to have drawn the veil from her bosom, and to glory in her charms. The season of early spring, which, in other countries, serves only to exhibit their poverty, displayed new beauties in this. Nature had thrown off her mantle of snow, and appeared to invite the beholder to take a last look of her beauties, ere she shaded the cottage with woodbine, or screened with leaves the fantastic arms of the oak. The clouds soon began to form over their heads, and a waving column lightly touched their hats. Around-was one continued range of mountains, with Dinas, rising above the river. Immediately below, lay a beautifully diversified vale, with the Dee, Milton's "wizard stream,"-combining all the charms of the Arno and the Loire, winding through the middle of it: while on the east side of the mountain, several villages appeared to rest in calm repose. This beautiful scene was soon

converted into a sublime one. For the clouds assuming a more gloomy character, the tops of all the mountains around became totally enveloped; and the heads of Colonna and his companion were now and then encircled with a heavy vapour. A more perfect union of the beautiful and magnificent it were difficult to conceive. No object was discernable above: but below, how captivating! Their feet were illumined by the sun, their heads, as it were, touching the clouds! How often, when a boy, has Colonna reposed himself upon a bank, or under the shade of a thicket, and, watching the course of the clouds, has wished, that, like some demi-god of antiquity, he

could sit upon their gilded columns, and gaze upon the scene below! Now the wish was, in a measure, gratified :

Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit.

Above all was gloomy and dark; below-the sun, from the west, still illumined the villages and spires, the cottages and woods, the pastures and fields, which lay scattered in every direction; while the Dee, at intervals, swept, in many a graceful curve, along the bottom of the vale.

These objects, so variously blended, and so admirably contrasted with the sombre scene above them, called to the imagination the golden thoughts of Ariosto: and inspired such a combination of feelings, that, for a time, they were absorbed in silent meditation. While they were indulging in this halcyon repose, the sounds of village bells, in honour of a recent marriage, were heard, floating on the breeze, from below. The sounds, softened by the distance, and coming from a region so far beneath, lulled them with a choral symphony, that excited the most delightful sensations. And such must ever be the effect on those, whose happiness has not been smothered beneath a load of splendid vacuities; in whom society has not engendered an infinity of wants; in whom ignorance has not awakened pride, arrogance, and vanity; and in whom content has the power of lulling every fever of illegitimate desire.

VOL. III.

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CHAPTER V.

Such are the scenes, which Nature exhibits, in a few favoured spots, to raise our wonder and exalt our gratitude. Scenes which, in their power of giving delight, rank next to the observance of the great and illustrious actions of men. In common landscapes, however, Nature permits herself principally to be embellished by the art' and industry of man. Hence arise the impressions, which we derive from various kinds of buildings;-the house, the palace, and the cottage; mills, churches, forges, bridges, pillars and temples; towers, castles and abbeys. But even those objects become more endeared to the eye of taste, when Nature has, in a measure, made them her own, by covering them with moss, lychens, vines, or ivy. Thus art and nature, which are so necessary in the formation of a true poet, extend their union of effect to architecture and landscape, by imparting a mutual grace and harmony to both.

The species of architecture, most gratifying to the lover of the picturesque, are the Roman, and the Gothic and few, gifted with imagination or genius, would prefer the light and elegant erections of Greece, seated in a vale, or rising on a knoll, to those proud and noble specimens of Gothic and Roman grandeur, frowning upon mountains, or embattled among woods,

1 Si la vue de la rivière embellit le château, il faut avouer que la vue du château, qui s'elève presqu'à demicôte, embellit beaucoup le bord de la rivière. La Spectacle de la Nature.

as they are exhibited in the awful ruins of towers and monasteries, abbeys and castles. The grace and majesty of the Ionic; the simplicity of the Tuscan ; the magnificence of the Corinthian; the solemnity of the Doric; and the profuseness of the Composite; well suited, as they are, to buildings in shrubberies, in parks, and to public erections, in the neighbourhood of large cities, are, for the most part, entirely out of character, when observed amid the wild and more untameable scenes of Nature. There the rudeness of the British; the greatness of the Roman; the circular tower of the Saxon; and the pointed arch' of the Anglo Norman styles, assimilate, in a far greater degree, with the bold and romantic features of the surrounding scenery; and carry us back to those tumultuous times, in which the tower and long winding passage were equally useful, as securities against the humble banditti of the forest; as from the titled ruffian of a neighbouring castle.

But of all the degrees of modern architecture, most grateful to the lover of the more placid style of land

The pointed arch was doubtless introduced by the Crusaders ; although some have asserted, that there are no pointed arches in any of the Saracenic remains in Spain. Its antiquity in the east must be considerable; since it is found in the temples of Chandi Sira, in the Isle of Java.

The first temple of Apollo at Delphi was a mere cottage, covered with boughs of laurel. From this rude origin it rose to be all that can be esteemed graceful in religious architectnre: chaste, simple, and symmetrical, it addresses itself to taste. But the gothic, associating the spirit of honour, chivalry, and romantic love, speaks to genius. Schlegel calls the one classical: the other romantic.

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scape, and to the philosophic and elegant mind, the cottage' has the most attractive claim. With one of those delightful little mansions, situated on the borders of a lake, or near the sea-shore, over which mountains rear themselves into vast natural amphitheatres; a small garden, with a clear stream, winding through it; a library of all that is useful in art and science, or elegant and just in poetry and philosophy; a friend, whom we esteem, and a woman, whom we love; who would exchange for the Escurial, or St. Cloud, the palace of the Grand Seigneur, or even the Castle of Windsor itself?

CHAPTER VI.

As all that is captivating in scenery may be reduced to the three orders of the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime, so may beauty of form and countenance be divided into the three orders of the graceful, the harmonic, and the magnificent. The magnificent applies to the indication of mind and manner in man: the graceful to softness, delicacy, and benevolence in woman: the harmonic consists in

How beautiful must have been the cottages of Greece! The Grecians, says Le Roy, (from Vitruvius) disposed their cottages with so much taste and wisdom, that they preserved the form of them, even in their most magnificent buildings. Diverse Maniere d' adornare i cammani.— Roma, 1769, p. 30. In the Brazils, almost every cottage is concealed beneath leaves of forest trees, overtopped by cocoas.

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