se of something lost,
something which has been, and is not, is precisely what is wanted. The
imagination is set actively to work in an instant; and we are made aware
of the presence of a beauty, the more pleasing because visionary; and,
while the eye is pitying the actual humility of the present building,
the mind is admiring the imagined pride of the past. Every mark of
dilapidation increases this feeling; while these very marks (the
fractures of the stone, the lichens of the moldering walls, and the
graceful lines of the sinking roof) are all delightful in themselves.

21. Thus, we have shown that, while the English cottage is pretty from
its propriety, the French cottage, having the same connection with its
climate, country, and people, produces such a contrast of feeling as
bestows on it a beauty addressing itself to the mind, and is therefore
in perfectly good taste. If we are asked why, in this instance, good
taste produces only what every traveler feels to be not in the least
striking, we reply that, where the surrounding circumstances are
unfavorable, the very adaptation to them which we have declared to be
necessary renders the building uninteresting; and that, in the next
paper, we shall see a very different result from the operations of
equally good taste in adapting a cottage to its situation, in one of the
noblest districts of Europe. Our subject will be, the Lowland Cottage of
North Italy.

OXFORD, _Sept., 1837._

II.

THE LOWLAND COTTAGE--ITALY.

"Most musical, most melancholy."

22. Let it not be thought that we are unnecessarily detaining our
readers from the proposed subject, if we premise a few remarks on the
character of the landscape of the country we have now entered. It will
always be necessary to obtain some definite knowledge of the distinctive
features of a country, before we can form a just estimate of the
beauties or the errors of its architecture. We wish our readers to imbue
themselves as far as may be with the spirit of the clime which we are
now entering; to cast away all general ideas; to look only for unison of
feeling, and to pronounce everything wrong which is contrary to the
_humors_ of nature. We must make them feel where they are; we must throw
a peculiar light and color over their imaginations; then we will bring
their judgment into play, for then it will be capable of just operation.

23. We have passed, it must be observed (in leaving England and France
for Ital