either by
a thing like a piggery, or an incongruous mass like a jail, destroy
all the beauty and mar all the effect of the scenery for miles round,
far beyond the precincts of his own small tenure--should he outrage
all the principles of taste, and violate every sentiment of landscape
beauty, by some poor and contemptible, or some pretentious and vulgar
edifice--then, do I say, you are really aggrieved; and against such a
man you have a just and equitable complaint, as one interfering with
the natural pleasures and just enjoyments to which, as a free citizen
of a free state, you have an indubitable, undeniable right.
That waving, undulating meadow, hemmed in with its dark woods, and
mirrored in the fair stream that flows peacefully beneath it, was
never, surely, intended to be disfigured with a square house like a
salt-box, and a verandah like a register-grate: the far-stretching
line of yellow coast that you see yonder, where the calm sea is
sleeping, land-locked by those jutting headlands, was never meant to
be pock-marked with those vile bathing lodges, with green baize
draperies drying before them.
Was that bold and granite-sided mountain made thus to be hewed out
into parterres for polyanthuses, and stable-lanes for Cockneys'
carmen?--or is the margin of our glorious bay, the deep frame-work of
the bright picture, to be carved into little terraces, with some
half-dozen slated cabins, or a row of stiff-looking, Leeson-street-like
houses, with brass knockers and a balcony? Forbid it, heaven! We have
a board of wide and inconvenient streets, who watch over all the
irregularities of municipal architecture, and a man is no more
permitted to violate the laws of good taste, than he is suffered to
transgress those of good morals. Why not have a similar body to
protect the fairer part of the created globe? Is Pill-lane more sacred
than Bray-head? Has Copper-alley stronger claims than the
Glen-of-the-Downs? Is the Cross-poddle more classic ground than
Poolaphuca?
A NUT FOR A NEW COLONY.
If you happen to pass by Dodd's auction-room, on any Wednesday,
towards the hour of three in the afternoon, the chances are about
seven to one that you hear a sharp, smart voice articulating, somewhat
in this fashion:--"A very handsome tea-service, ladies. What shall I
say for this remarkably neat pattern? One tea-pot, one sugar-bowl, one
slop-basin, and twelve cups and saucers.--Show them round, Tim," &c.
Now it is with
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