Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1010

 986 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. 1969. Seats are essential objects in all pleasure-grounds. In those of the most exten- sive and highly enriched description, where a main part of the intention is to display the ^ --^^ wealth and taste of the owner, they may appear as Grecian temples (fig. 1758, contri- buted by M. Field, Esq.,) Gothic porches, Chinese pagodas, or otiier foreign or antique structures. In the grounds of less ambitious villas, plain unarchitcctui-al buildings may be employed, or wooden structures, simply protecting the seat from the weather, may be resorted to. In England it has always been customary since the introduction of the modern style of gardening, to form what is called rustic covered seats ; of which fig. 1759 and fig. 1760, erected on the Duke of Marlborough's grounds at White Knights, Berkshire (see Hoflanars Description, Sfc.), may be consitlered as of a superior descrip- tion. They are constructed of oak posts formed from young trees with the bark on ; and the panels between these posts are first filled in with clay Hogging or boards, and afterwards covered in the inside with hazel and other rods with the bark on, and on the outside with slabs of oak, birch, larch, or other durable woods, having the bark na- turally varied with mosses and lichens. Birch, from its light paper-coloured bark, broad- leaved elm grown in the shade, and alder, are particularly useful in cases of this kind, from the contrasts which they afford in rustic inlaying. The whole of the Architecture and building of structures of this kind may be considered as a species of child's play, which may fairly be left to the taste of those who indulge in it. 1970. Bridges are among the noblest structures which can be erected in pleasure- grounds; and, unlike rustic seats and root- houses, they maintain this character even when constructed of materials of temporary duration, from their obvious and unques- tionable utility. A mere plank or tree, when thrown across a stream, assumes a character of grandeur ; it commands respect for its power of effecting for man what he could not, by any possibility, effect for himself. On the other hand, when a trifling stream, or an artificial river, displays a highly arcliitcctural bridge of masonry or cast iron, the effect is offensive ; because the means seem out of all proportion to the end. In short, a massive highly architectural stone bridge, built across a tame piece of water, not perhaps more than knee-deep, and an elaborate covered seat of rustic cabinet-work, which cannot endure many seasons, offend precisely for the same reason ; viz., the unsuitableness of means to ends. 1 971. Artificial Cascades are of two kinds : those which arc constructed in imitation of the natural ledges of rock which cross the beds of rivers in such a manner as to inter-