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PAGE INTRODUCTION 1

LIST OF PLATES.

Facing Page Fig. 1. Old Windows; from an early sketch by the Author 13

" 2. Italian Cottage Gallery, 1846 20

Cottage near la Cit?, Val d'Aosta, 1838 21

" 3. Swiss Cottage, 1837. 28

" 4. Cottage near Altorf, 1835 29

" 5. Swiss Ch?let Balcony, 1842 32

" 6. The Highest House in England, at Malham 42

" 7. Chimneys. 48

" 8. Coniston Hall, from the Lake near Brantwood, 1837. 50

" 9. Chimney at Neuchatel; Dent du Midi and Mont Blanc in the distance 20

" 10. Petrarch's Villa, Arqu?, 1837. 98

" 11. Broken Curves. 101

" 12. Old English Mansion, 1837. 116

" 13. Windows. 122

" 14. Leading Lines of Villa-Composition. 164

PREFATORY NOTES.

"As it is, these youthful essays, though deformed by assumption, and shallow in contents, are curiously right up to the points they reach; and already distinguished above most of the literature of the time, for the skill of language, which the public at once felt for a pleasant gift in me."

In a paper on "My First Editor," written in 1878, Mr. Ruskin says of these essays that they "contain sentences nearly as well put together as any I have done since."

The essays are in two parts: the first describing the cottages of England, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and giving hints and directions for picturesque cottage-building. The second part treats of the villas of Italy and England--with special reference to Como and Windermere; and concludes with a discussion of the laws of artistic composition, and practical suggestions of interest to the builders of country-houses.

Other papers contributed by Mr. Ruskin to the same Magazine, on Perspective, and on the proposed monument to Sir Walter Scott at Edinburgh, are not included in this volume, as they do not form any part of the series on the Poetry of Architecture.

THE EDITOR.

INTRODUCTION.

The Cottage.

THE LOWLAND COTTAGE:--ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY:

THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE:--SWITZERLAND AND WESTMORELAND:

AND CONCLUDING REMARKS ON COTTAGE-BUILDING.

THE POETRY OF ARCHITECTURE.

THE LOWLAND COTTAGE--ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

THE LOWLAND COTTAGE--ITALY.

"Most musical, most melancholy."

Now, we have prefixed the hackneyed line of Il Penseroso to our paper, because it is a definition of the essence of the beautiful. What is most musical, will always be found most melancholy; and no real beauty can be obtained without a touch of sadness. Whenever the beautiful loses its melancholy, it degenerates into prettiness. We appeal to the memories of all our observing readers, whether they have treasured up any scene, pretending to be more than pretty, which has not about it either a tinge of melancholy or a sense of danger; the one constitutes the beautiful, the other the sublime.

We do not expect it to be comfortable, when everything around it betokens decay and desolation in the works of man. We do not wish it to be neat, where nature is most beautiful, because neglected. But we naturally look for an elevation of character, a richness of design or form, which, while the building is kept a cottage, may yet give it a peculiar air of cottage aristocracy; a beauty which may appear to have been once fitted for the surrounding splendor of scene and climate. Now, let us fancy an Italian cottage before us. The reader who has traveled in Italy will find little difficulty in recalling one to his memory, with its broad lines of light and shadow, and its strange, but not unpleasing mixture of grandeur and desolation. Let us examine its details, enumerate its architectural peculiarities, and see how far it agrees with our preconceived idea of what the cottage ought to be?

THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE--SWITZERLAND.

Such are the chief characteristics of the Swiss cottage, separately considered. I must now take notice of its effect in scenery.

THE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE--WESTMORELAND.

One of the principal charms of mountain scenery is its solitude. Now, just as silence is never perfect or deep without motion, solitude is never perfect without some vestige of life. Even desolation is not felt to be utter, unless in some slight degree interrupted: unless the cricket is chirping on the lonely hearth, or the vulture soaring over the field of corpses, or the one mourner lamenting over the red ruins of the devastated village, that devastation is not felt to be complete. The anathema of the prophet does not wholly leave the curse of loneliness upon the mighty city, until he tells us that "the satyr shall dance there." And, if desolation, which is the destruction of life, cannot leave its impression perfect without some interruption, much less can solitude, which is only the absence of life, be felt without some contrast. Accordingly, it is, perhaps, never so perfect as when a populous and highly cultivated plain, immediately beneath, is visible through the rugged ravines, or over the cloudy summits of some tall, vast, and voiceless mountain.

First, of what we at first asserted, that chimneys which in any way attract notice were seldom to be imitated; that there are few buildings which require them to be singular, and none which can tolerate them if decorated; and that the architect should always remember that the size and height being by necessity fixed, the form which draws least attention is the best.

THE COTTAGE--CONCLUDING REMARKS.

"Nunquam aliud Natura, aliud Sapientia, dicit."

There are, we think, only three cases in which the cottage is considered as an element of architectural, or any other kind of beauty, since it is ordinarily raised by the peasant where he likes, and how he likes; and, therefore, as we have seen, frequently in good taste.

In the second case, as the act is in itself a barbarism, it would be useless to consider what would be the best mode of perpetrating it.

In the third case, we think it will be useful to apply a few general principles, deduced from positions formerly advanced.

It must be either woody, the green country; cultivated, the blue country; wild, the gray country; or hilly, the brown country.

A little grotesqueness in form is the more allowable, because the imagination is naturally active in the obscure and indefinite daylight of wood scenery; conjures up innumerable beings, of every size and shape, to people its alleys and smile through its thickets; and is by no means displeased to find some of its inventions half-realized in a decorated panel or grinning extremity of a rafter.

For the form. Select any well-grown group of the tree which prevails most near the proposed site of the cottage. Its summit will be a rounded mass. Take the three principal points of its curve: namely, its apex and the two points where it unites itself with neighboring masses. Strike a circle through these three points; and the angle contained in the segment cut off by a line joining the two lower points is to be the angle of the cottage roof. This angle will generally be very obtuse; and this is one reason why the Swiss cottage is always beautiful when it is set among walnut or chestnut trees. Its obtuse roof is just about the true angle. With pines or larches, the angle should not be regulated by the form of the tree, but by the slope of the branches. The building itself should be low and long, so that, if possible, it may not be seen all at once, but may be partially concealed by trunks or leafage at various distances.

The Villa.

THE MOUNTAIN VILLA: LAGO DI COMO:

THE LOWLAND VILLA:--ENGLAND:

THE BRITISH VILLA: PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION.

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