By the way, it is unfortunate that stone-cutters are not members of the College of Heraldry. The shield over Smith's doorway contains an unmistakable bend sinister. You have often passed the house. If I mistake not, you showed me the card which gave you the entrée to Smith's parlors, permitted you to drink his wine, and last, but not least, obtained for you a patronizing nod from the Sexton of L'eglise de Grace. Be virtuous, and you will be happy. It was, no doubt, your virtue, that obtained for you a place upon the dainty Sexton's list of eligible young men. The party, Smith's first, was a splendid affair. I met you the next day, radiant with pleasure. You had played cavalier servante to a certain nameless fair one, on the evening in question, and the faint pressure of a tiny hand, as you helped her from her carriage, told you what you most wished to know. I see you remember the time I refer to. Such occasions happen only once in an honest man's life. They are not soon forgotten. You think, however, that I have mistaken the It was coming from Jones's party, say you, that Belle ab, my dear fellow, I am speaking of the ideal Smith. Let us generalize. The city residence of the ideal Smith is the type of the city residences of Americans in general. name. Had I said Brown's or Robinson's, you would have recognized the house with equal readiness. And this similarity goes farther than the exterior. Not only is every room in Smith's house like a corresponding one in Brown's, but the furniture is the same, and is arranged in the same manner. The process by which this was brought about is common. The long-expected ship at last came in. Flour was "up" at Rio when she arrived there, and, discharging her cargo, she loaded with coffee, which was " down," and the ideal Smith, her owner, pocketed the balance in his favor on both these occasions, became rich, and moved up town. Of course, he did just as numberless others have done, bought his house, counted his rooms, and ordered Veneer & Co. to furnish them. A mán was sent to place the furniture, and the house was ready for its occupants. This, Smith calls "Home." Let us look the matter straight in the face. There is not a large city in America whose dwelling-houses would not disgrace a Chinese architect. John Ruskin, in one of his Edinburgh lectures, advised his hearers to count the Greek-capped windows in a certain street in that city. You smile at the idea of counting the square windows in any street of our metropolis. There is something radically wrong in all this, and we are ready to ask ourselves, sorrowfully, whether American ingenuity will never rise to the dignity of originality in the higher arts. The cunning artizan, who is perfect in the manipulation of the tools required in the manufactory and the work-shop, cannot, surely, be unequal to a decorated capital, or an ornamented finial. It is useless to urge against all this, that we are a young and rising nation, that the capital of the country must be given, for years to come, to the labor of production, or that, in a new country, stability and elegance in architecture are points of lesser importance. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged, that our merchants have not been sparing in outlay upon their dwellings. More than one of our brownstone monstrosities has cost a fortune. Smith built his house like Jones, or a hundred others on the same street, not because it cost less, but because he had neither time nor taste to do otherwise. The Smiths form a large part of our population. Nor is this all; to this utter absence of all originality or variety, must be added a total want of sincerity. Brown paint and plaster, in more than a few cases, take the place of stone, and marble that is, to borrow a phrase, only skin-deep, is by no means a rarity in American Architecture. With the discrepancy between the outside and the interior, between the costly door-plate without, and the plated service within, we have nothing to do. The lie which is thrown in the face of Society is none of our business. We are speaking of the want of truth in art. It is honest for a man of moderate means to build a house at moderate cost; it is dishonest for him to pass it off for what it is not. And this brings us, directly, to another prominent manifestation of our vitiated taste, for nowhere is this attempted dishonesty shown more clearly, than in the misuse of ornament. It is no mean element in the art of which we speak. The natural world is replete with ornament. Not as men use it, to hide a want of stability; not to cover errors of construction, or barrenness of design, but perfect, beautiful and appropriate in form and color, it is the seal of glory upon the universe. God's ornamentation is never useless. A writer upon this subject has remarked, that "the very potatoe that feeds us, does not swell it's esculent root for our teeth, without first hanging out the banner of it's blessed Creator in the fair blossom, that is lovely sister of the rose and the lily." It has, then, a use, but we have misused it sadly. As in the original designs of our dwellings, so in their ornamentation, can be seen an utter sameness, a perpetual reproduction of what may, originally, have been good, but which will not bear such extensive repetition. The fauna and flora of every country under the sun have been ransacked for models; a few have been selected, and these have form ed the stock of our builders from the beginning. At Carthage, Athens or Rome, all decoration was National. It has been reserved for the great inventive people of History to become, in this point alone, the copyists of older civilizations. The interior decoration of our houses evinces the same fault. The caprice of the manufacturer or the fashion of the day controls the choice of furniture, pictures and plate. There are of course exceptions. In the parlor of a man of taste in a neighboring city, stands an easel of rosewood, upon which rests, as if in a studio, an unfinished sketch by a great and lamented artist. As the hand of the master had left it for a moment, it stands, awaiting the touches which would have made it a finished creation. In the great thoroughfare of trade, near by, teeming with furniture of costly wood and cunning carving, there is no piece of workmanship which, in mere value, can weigh for a single moment with this simple easel. Affording honor to the dead, pleasure to the living, it fulfills at once the aim and end of all true ornament. If we pass beyond the pale of the city, the same faults are apparent. The saw-mill has taken the place of the stone-cutter, and the villa rejoices in turrets and pinnacles of pine, while the Gothic hen-coop adjoining, ambitious of notice, is modeled after some famous structure of the old world. Time forbids to speak of the absence of all attempts at landscape gardening, a want unpardonable in a country like this. Thus, in a rambling way, we have spoken of the most prominent faults of our dwelling-houses. The subject is worthy of thought, from higher motives than the desire to enhance the value of property. He who would create a Home, must make it the centre to which may tend, not only our ideas of comfort and pleasure, but the love which all have for beauty, fitness, and elegance. T. A. K. A Certain Old Book. SOME men are like sunbeams-whatever they touch grows brighter. But unfortunately for the world, there are not as many of them as there might be, and when we have once found them we don't particularly like to lose sight of them again. They are not all of our own time either. VOL. XXVIII. 4 We have men like Charles G. Leland and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who can bring in their lightest moments more abstract knowledge to bear on a subject, than the veriest polemic could in days of labor, and can do it all, such is the ease of true ability, without the slightest shadow of pedantry; but they have had their frequent prototypes. Only the other day I chanced on a curious old book which illustrated this thing so well, that I have taken it in hand and have a design to show it off to the readers of the Lit. It is the seventh edition of "Barnabee's Journal "and is the itinerary of a jolly, careless, drunken scholar, who occupied himself in sundry tramps over England. As a book it is comparatively recent, but still extremely rare, and though a reprint from half a dozen reprints, is as much in need of an introduction to modern society as they ever were. It begins with a preface to the first edition; then comes one to the second, with variations and errata ; then follow others " To the Reader," in English and Latin, to the third, fourth and fifth editions, with the various readings which had been adopted in each; then an "Advertisement" concerning the authorship of the work; then of the fifth, and finally of the present edition. These carry us to the fiftieth page, but we do not reach the itinerary so soon, for there follows a long investigation into the claims of Richard Braithwait as the author of these travels of Barnabee the Drunken, which fills twenty more, and we arrive at the notes on the Itinerary, in which there is a shrewd discussion on the name "Barnabee," evincing a great knowlege on the part of the author, of old songs and the forgotten literature of the last century. This ends only to introduce us to a Postscript wherein divers other claims of the aforesaid Richard are diligently set forth, and then comes the Journal proper. But even now, after passing through nearly half of the book, we are not allowed to begin, for we have the "Loyall Pheander to his Royall Alexander," "Upon this Work," " Ad Viatorem " and " Ad Translatorem," with the Englished versions opposite, (after the fashion consistently pursued in the work, of having the text on the left and the translation on the right-hand page,) "The Index of this Work," and at last the first journey. In this northern travel of his he comes upon one of the "rigid ones" inflicting punishment on his cat. In progressu Boreali, Quia Sabbatho stravit murem. In my progress traveling Northward, This is illustrated by a copper-plate, representing the pious 'Puritane-one,' with hands uplifted, and a book before him, on a table, praying for the forgiveness of the sin which the cat's folly and wickedness has brought upon him. Barnabee, in the foreground, with his dog beside him, raises his finger in warning, and laughs at the ridiculousness of the whole thing, while the cat, poor wretch, hangs from the limb of a tree, in the centre of the picture. At Brackley he receives a warning from the Mayor; the plate representing the scene, as he describes it. Veni Brackley, ubi natus From thence to Brackley, as did beseeme one. On a wind-blowne honse a strowing, On me called he, and did charme mee; Like other and equally good men, he had a row with the "beaks," and just missed being "jugged;" and this is the result: Veni Leister ad Campanam, Thence I came to th' Bell at Leister, At Overbowles he had quite to traveling on holidays, happened Sacra die eò veni Edes Sanctae erant plenae, Qua occasione nacta, an adventure, and not being opposed Where I heard the Preacher, gravely Which occasion having gotten |