ry on a steady struggle
with opposing elements, and of taste and feeling sufficient to
proportion the form of the walls of men to the clefts in the flanks of
the volcano, and to prevent the exultation and the lightness of
transitory life from startling, like a mockery, the eternal remains of
disguised desolation.

141. We have always considered these circumstances as most remarkable
proofs of the perfect dependence of architecture on its situation, and
of the utter impossibility of judging of the beauty of any building in
the abstract: and we would also lay much stress upon them, as showing
with what boldness the designer may introduce into his building,
undisguised, such parts as local circumstances render desirable; for
there will invariably be something in the nature of that which causes
their necessity, which will endow them with beauty.

142. These, then, are the principal features of the Italian villa,
modifications of which, of course more or less dignified in size,
material or decoration, in proportion to the power and possessions of
their proprietor, may be considered as composing every building of that
class in Italy. A few remarks on their general effect will enable us to
conclude the subject.

143. We have been so long accustomed to see the horizontal lines and
simple forms which, as we have observed, still prevail among the
Ausonian villas, used with the greatest dexterity, and the noblest
effect, in the compositions of Claude, Salvator, and Poussin--and so
habituated to consider these compositions as perfect models of the
beautiful, as well as the pure in taste--that it is difficult to divest
ourselves of prejudice, in the contemplation of the sources from which
those masters received their education, their feelings, and their
subjects. We would hope, however, and we think it may be proved, that in
this case principle assists and encourages prejudice. First, referring
only to the gratification afforded to the eye, which we know to depend
upon fixed mathematical principles, though those principles are not
always developed, it is to be observed, that country is always most
beautiful when it is made up of curves, and that one of the chief
characters of Ausonian landscape is the perfection of its curvatures,
induced by the gradual undulation of promontories into the plains. In
suiting architecture to such a country, that building which least
interrupts the curve on which it is placed will be felt to be most