f considering the subject is also agreeable to the
feelings, as the transition from the higher orders of solitary edifices,
to groups of associated edifices, is not so sudden or startling, as that
from nature's most humble peace, to man's most turbulent pride.

We have contemplated the rural dwelling of the peasant; let us next
consider the ruralized domicile of the gentleman: and here, as before,
we shall first determine what is theoretically beautiful, and then
observe how far our expectations are fulfilled in individual buildings.
But a few preliminary observations are necessary.

97. Man, the peasant, is a being of more marked national character, than
man, the educated and refined. For nationality is founded, in a great
degree, on prejudices and feelings inculcated and aroused in youth,
which grow inveterate in the mind as long as its views are confined to
the place of its birth; its ideas molded by the customs of its country,
and its conversation limited to a circle composed of individuals of
habits and feelings like its own; but which are gradually softened down,
and eradicated, when the mind is led into general views of things, when
it is guided by reflection instead of habit, and has begun to lay aside
opinions contracted under the influence of association and
prepossession, substituting in their room philosophical deductions from
the calm contemplation of the various tempers, and thoughts, and
customs, of mankind. The love of its country will remain with
undiminished strength in the cultivated mind, but the national modes of
thinking will vanish from the disciplined intellect.

98. Now as it is only by these mannerisms of thought that architecture
is affected, we shall find that, the more polished the mind of its
designer, the less national will be the building; for its architect will
be led away by a search after a model of ideal beauty, and will not be
involuntarily guided by deep-rooted feelings, governing irresistibly his
heart and hand. He will therefore be in perpetual danger of forgetting
the necessary unison of scene and climate, and, following up the chase
of the ideal, will neglect the beauty of the natural; an error which he
could not commit, were he less general in his views, for then the
prejudices to which he would be subject, would be as truly in unison
with the objects which created them, as answering notes with the chords
which awaken them. We must not, therefore, be surprised, if buildings
b