The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
There are places in America, more especially in the vicinities of
the large towns, that have a strong resemblance to the more crowded
portions of England, though the hedge is usually wanting and the stone
wall is more in favor among ourselves than it appears ever to have been
among our ancestors. The great abundance of wood, in this country,
too, gives us the rail and the board for our fences, objects which the
lovers of the picturesque would gladly see supplanted by the brier and
the thorn. All that part of Staten Island, which lies nearest to the
quarantine ground, has a marked resemblance to what we should term
suburban English landscape. The neighborhoods of most of the old towns
in the northern States, have more or less of the same character; it
being natural that the descendants of Englishmen should have preserved
as many of the usages of their forefathers as were practicable. We
know of no portion of this country that bears any marked resemblance
to the prevalent characteristics of an ordinary French landscape. In
France there are two great distinctive features that seem to divide the
materials of the views between them. One is that of a bald nakedness
of formal _grandes routes_, systematically lined with trees, a total
absence of farm-houses, fences, hedges, and walls, little or no forest,
except in particular places, scarcely any pieces of detached woods, and
a husbandry that is remarkable for its stiffness and formality. The
fields of a French acclivity, when the grain is ripe, or ripening, have
a strong resemblance to an ordinary Manchester pattern-card, in which
the different cloths, varying in color, are placed under the eye at one
glance. The effect of this is not pleasing. The lines being straight
and the fields exhibiting none of the freedom of nature. Stiffness
and formality, indeed, impair the beauty of nine-tenths of the French
landscapes; though as a whole the country is considered fine, and is
certainly very productive. The other distinctive feature to which we
allude is of a directly contrary character, being remarkable for the
affluence of its objects. It often occurs in that country that the
traveller finds himself on a height that commands a view of great
extent, which is literally covered with _bourgs_ or small towns and
villages. This occurs particularly in Normandy, in the vicinity of
Paris and as one approaches the Loire. In such places it is no unusual
thing for the eye to embrace, as it might be in a single view, some
forty or fifty cold, grave-looking, chiselled _bourgs_ and villages,
almost invariably erected in stone. The effect is not unpleasant,
for the subdued color of the buildings has a tendency to soften the
landscape and to render the whole solemn and imposing. We can recall
many of these scenes that have left indelible impressions on the mind,
and which, if not positively beautiful in a rural sense, are very
remarkable. That from the heights of Montmorenci, near Paris, is one of
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