111. It seems, then, that in the approach to the Italian villa, we have
discovered great nationality and great beauty, which was more than we
could have expected, but a beauty utterly untransferable from its own
settled habitation. In our next paper we shall proceed to the building
itself, which will not detain us long, as it is generally simple in its
design, and take a general view of villa architecture over Italy.
112. We have bestowed considerable attention on this style of Garden
Architecture, because it has been much abused by persons of high
authority, and general good taste, who forgot, in their love of grace
and ideal beauty, the connection with surrounding circumstances so
manifest even in its formality. Eustace, we think, is one of these; and,
although it is an error of a kind he is perpetually committing, he is so
far right, that this mannerism is frequently carried into excess even in
its own peculiar domain, then becoming disagreeable, and is always a
dangerous style in inexperienced hands. We think, however, paradoxical
as the opinion may appear, that every one who is a true lover of nature,
and has been bred in her wild school, will be an admirer of this
symmetrical designing, in its place; and will feel, as often as he
contemplates it, that the united effect of the wide and noble steps,
with the pure water dashing over them like heated crystal, the long
shadows of the cypress groves, the golden leaves and glorious light of
blossom of the glancing aloes, the pale statues gleaming along the
heights in their everlasting death in life, their motionless brows
looking down forever on the loveliness in which their beings once dwelt,
marble forms of more than mortal grace lightening along the green
arcades, amidst dark cool grottoes, full of the voice of dashing waters,
and of the breath of myrtle blossoms, with the blue of the deep lake and
the distant precipice mingling at every opening with the eternal snows
glowing in their noontide silence, is one not unworthy of Italy's most
noble remembrances.
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