Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/134

122 to produce his effect without extent or decoration. The principles which we have hitherto arrived at, deduced as they are from edifices of the noblest character, will be but of little use to a country gentleman, about to insinuate himself and his habitation into a quiet corner of our lovely country; and, therefore we must glance at the more humble homes of the Italian, preparatory to the consideration of what will best suit our own less elevated scenery.

First, then, we lose the terraced approach, or, at least, its size and splendour, as these require great wealth to erect them, and perpetual expense to preserve them. For the chain of terraces we find substituted a simple garden, somewhat formally laid out; but redeemed from the charge of meanness by the nobility and size attained by most of its trees; the line of immeseimmense [sic] cypresses which generally surrounds it in part, and the luxuriance of the vegetation of its flowering shrubs. It has frequently a large entrance gate, well designed, but carelessly executed; sometimes singularly adorned with fragments of exquisite ancient sculpture, regularly introduced, which the spectator partly laments, as preserved in a mode so incongruous with their ancient meaning, and partly rejoices over, as preserved at all. The grottoes of the superior garden are here replaced by light ranges of arched summer-houses, designed in stucco, and occasionally adorned in their interior with fresco paintings of considerable brightness and beauty.

All this, however, has very little effect in introducing the eye to the villa itself, owing to the general want of