some modification, it may be beneficially adapted to the far closer population of manufacturing districts, but of that I can less undertake to speak. Ten families, he reckoned the advantageous mean, for one society, under one responsible inspector, of its own body; not however strictly so limiting the number. But, be the village or hamlet larger or smaller, Alfred's system will give the advantageous principles of regulation for it, saint Peter's precept furnishing the foundation, 'Let all be subject one to another.'

If any nation ever would build a constitution on the model of ours, they must begin with the cottage and the village. The French, in the outset of their revolution, taking a plan of our House of Commons, with its seats and galleries and bar, and adopting the technical phrases used in its business, did so far perhaps well. But to model their provincial government, it behooved them still more to look to ours. They should have counted the thousands of unsalaried offices, imposed as a duty on those interested to maintain public order, and by which public order has been maintained now so many centuries. When they had established such an advantageous foundation, then they might have proceeded, with fair prospect, to raise the superstructure of free government. If ever, here, Alfred's shire and hundred and tithing

government should be overthrown, and salaried officers, as for the business of the Excise, should supersede, throughout the country, its unpaid native administrators, legislation by Parliament will not long survive.

Ir, when we propose to build a village, use is not alone considered; if allowance is given for gratification of the eye and picturesk effect, to form the design we want a painter; not without an architect, but rather both in one. A village composed of cottages, does not deny architectonic regularity in parts, but can allow it only to a small extent. The buildings being low, a greatly protracted continuity in one line, would be tiresomely monotonous; and, as in towns we have agreed that some irregularity is pleasing, so still more in villages it will be requisite. To invent well an irregular building, or an irregular assemblage of buildings, is so little easy, that, not seldom, chance, snatching, in the poet's phrase, a grace beyond the reach of art, does the business more happily

than the ablest designer. Chance however hardly ever makes the picture complete, but her rough sketches are often admirable, and furnish most advantageous ground for the architect painter to work upon.

Repton, in his Inquiry into changes of Taste in Landscape gardening, says, From the external ' effect one might pronounce that there are only 'two characters in buildings: one may be called

perpendicular, the other horizontal. Under the 'first I class all buildings erected in England 'before and during the early part of queen Eli⚫zabeth's reign, whether deemed Saracenic, Saxon,

Norman, or the Gothic of the thirteenth and 'fourteenth centuries, and even that kind called queen Elizabeth's Gothic, in which turrets prevailed, though battlements were discarded.' He proceeds afterwards to say, 'trees of a conic shape contrast advantageously with Grecian, round

headed with Gothic architecture.' The good principle, here brought in some degree to view, is, to my mind, obscured by what appears proposed for illustration. The Grecian, no doubt, has a better claim to the title of horizontal architecture than the four or five kinds which he has placed in an opposing group; but those four or five kinds, or any of them, can surely have superior claim to the title of perpendicular, only for some excrescencies on the top; and this seems to have

been within the autohr's recollection, where, afterward he observes, that the prevailing lines of the Grecian architecture will accord (apparently meaning, will contrast advantageously) either with round or conic trees.'

But after all the recent eulogics of the various architecture, now called Gothic, as superiorly picturesk, can you tell me of a picture in which its exterior forms have been advantageously introduced. Drawings I know there are many, of parts of such buildings, admirably executed. But can you tell me of a painter of any eminence whose own fancy, with all the stimulation of the popular favor, has led him, in composition, even to attempt it? That favor had not reached its present fervor, while Zuccarelli painted. But, during his long residence in England, he got a relish for the character of English landscape, and has mixed something of it often in his later pictures. A lively fancy, rather than a correct judgment, was his merit; yet I think he was never inveigled to the representation of pinnacles.

In Grecian architecture perpendicular and horizontal lines prevail nearly equally, and almost alone. Thence it is especially qualified to contrast with round masses of foliage, and with all irregular breaks of ground or rock. Our ecclesiastical architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Plantagenet age, abounding in diagonal

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Imes, and various irregularities of form, makes confusion, rather than either contrast or harmony, with the irregularities of nature. Thus it is far less adapted to landscape than the castellan of the same era. But large semicircular arches, contrasting with nature's usual forms almost equally with the strait lines of the Grecian temple, make a variety very advantageous for picture. buildings introduced by the Poussins, especially Gaspar, are rarely beautiful in themselves, but give great. advantage to their pictures by contrast, which appears to have been especially studied by them; not with a view to spearheaded trees, which are hardly seen from their hands, but to the better forms of the oak, deciduous and evergreen, the common forest-trees of Italy, and of the elm and spreading poplar, the most common cultivated timber.

But the Italian village, Gaspar's favorite, has generally had its situation chosen, among the various troubles and in the divided state of the country, on mountain sides, for security against attack; and in the design of many of its forms, the same purpose has been in view. Something different is wanted for the fortunately peaceful plains of England. In looking them around, I think the north will be found to offer more, hardly indeed models, but good ideas for a village or hamlet than the south. The street is com