have no
perceptible nationality: they have no language, except a mixture of
Italian and bad German; they have no peculiar turn of mind; they might
be taken as easily for Germans as for Swiss. No correspondence,
consequently, can exist between national architecture and national
character, where the latter is not distinguishable. Generally speaking,
then, the Swiss cottage cannot be said to be built in good taste; but it
is occasionally picturesque, frequently pleasing, and, under a favorable
concurrence of circumstances, beautiful. It is not, however, a thing to
be imitated; it is always, when out of its own country, incongruous; it
never harmonizes with anything around it, and can therefore be employed
only in mimicry of what does not exist, not in improvement of what does.
I mean, that any one who has on his estate a dingle shaded with larches
or pines, with a rapid stream, may manufacture a bit of Switzerland as a
toy; but such imitations are always contemptible, and he cannot use the
Swiss cottage in any other way. A modified form of it, however, as will
be hereafter shown, may be employed with advantage. I hope, in my next
paper, to derive more satisfaction from the contemplation of the
mountain cottage of Westmoreland, than I have been able to obtain from
that of the Swiss.

IV.

THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE--WESTMORELAND.

47. When I devoted so much time to the consideration of the
peculiarities of the Swiss cottage, I did not previously endeavor to
ascertain what the mind, influenced by the feelings excited by the
nature of its situation, would be induced to expect, or disposed to
admire. I thus deviated from the general rule which I hope to be able to
follow out; but I did so only because the subject for consideration was
incapable of fulfilling the expectation when excited, or corresponding
with the conception when formed. But now, in order to appreciate the
beauty of the Westmoreland cottage, it will be necessary to fix upon a
standard of excellence, with which it may be compared.

One of the principal charms of mountain scenery is its solitude. Now,
just as silence is never perfect or deep without motion, solitude is
never perfect without some vestige of life. Even desolation is not felt
to be utter, unless in some slight degree interrupted: unless the
cricket is chirping on the lonely hearth, or the vulture soaring over
the field of corpses, or the one mourner lamenting over the red ruins of
the devasta