It is this love of rural life and this nice feeling of the harmonious union of nature and art, that reflects so much credit upon the English as a people, and which sooner or later we hope to see completely naturalized in this country. Under its enchanting influence, the too great bustle and excitement of our commercial cities will be happily counterbalanced by the more elegant and quiet enjoyments of country life. Our rural residences, evincing that love of the beautiful and the picturesque, which, combined with solid comfort, is so attractive to the eye of every beholder, will not only become sources of the purest enjoyment to the refined minds of the possessors, but will exert an influence for the improvement in taste of every class in our community. The ambition to build "shingle palaces" in starved and meagre grounds, we are glad to see giving way to that more refined feeling which prefers a neat villa or cottage, tastily constructed, and surrounded by its proper accessories, of greater or less extent, of verdant trees and beautiful shrubbery.
