do more, as the object of these papers is rather to observe
than to advise. Besides, in questions of expression so intricate, it is
almost impossible to advance fixed principles; every mind will have
perceptions of its own, which will guide its speculations, every hand,
and eye, and peculiar feeling, varying even from year to year. We have
only started the subject of correspondence with individual character,
because we think that imaginative minds might take up the idea with some
success, as furnishing them with a guide in the variation of their
designs, more certain than mere experiment on unmeaning forms, or than
ringing indiscriminate changes on component parts of established beauty.
To the reverie, rather than the investigation, to the dream, rather than
the deliberation, of the architect, we recommend it, as a branch of art
in which instinct will do more than precept, and inspiration than
technicality. The correspondence of our villa architecture with our
natural scenery may be determined with far greater accuracy, and will
require careful investigation.

We had hoped to have concluded the Villa in this paper; but the
importance of domestic architecture at the present day, when people want
houses more than fortresses, safes more than keeps, and sculleries more
than dungeons, is sufficient apology for delay.

OXFORD, _August, 1838._

VI.

THE BRITISH VILLA.--PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.

_The Cultivated, or Blue Country and the Wooded, or Green Country._

182. In the papers hitherto devoted to the investigation of villa
architecture, we have contemplated the beauties of what may be
considered as its model, in its original and natural territory; and we
have noticed the difficulties to be encountered in the just erection of
villas in England. It remains only to lay down the general principles of
composition, which in such difficulties may, in some degree, serve as a
guide. Into more than general principles it is not consistent with our
plan to enter. One obstacle, which was more particularly noticed, was,
as it may be remembered, the variety of the geological formations of the
country. This will compel us to use the divisions of landscape formerly
adopted in speaking of the cottage, and to investigate severally the
kind of domestic architecture required by each.

183. First. Blue or cultivated country, which is to be considered as
including those suburban districts, in the neighborhood of populous
citie