much more taste than those of their Dutch neigh bors. Still the poverty of the colonists obliged them to study economy in all things, and their dwellings, although partaking of the general style of their ancestors, were much inferior to them in taste, and strength and beauty of materials. They were all built of wood with scarcely a single exception, and it is on this account that so few have survived the ravages of decay till the present time.

On the opposite page we have introduced a representation of the cabin of a western emigrant, as a fair specimen of the earliest style of building adopted by the colonists. These cabins may be met with in abundance in the recently populated sections of the valley of the Ohio and Mississippi, and in some settlements no other dwellings are to be seen. There they constitute the palace of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor, and as in the last earthly dwelling of mortality, all classes are alike in this respect.

As soon as an emigrant arrives at his destined point, he erects a tent for the shelter of his family and stores, and immediately sets about felling trees for his dwelling. Having cleared a few rods of soil, he commences building by driving stakes, forked at the top, into the ground. On these, logs are placed one over another like a rail fence enclosure, and the spaces between are filled up with small twigs and clay mixed with lime if it can be obtained. The roof is formed in the same manner, and a broad chimney constructed of rough stone and clay is built at one end to serve the double purpose of a funnel for smoke and the admission of light, for seldom

more than one window, and that unglazed, adorns these primitive dwellings.

After the War of Independence, and a permanent and united character was given to the several colonial states by a political compact, the style of building very much improved, and many elegant mansions were erected in different parts of the country. Yet they were fashioned according to the most rigid rules of republican simplicity, and were constructed more in accordance with the dictates of convenience than taste. The finest specimen of our architecture at the commencement of the present century, is the Capitol at Washington, a description of which may be found in many books familiar to our readers.

It is only within a few years past that classic taste has been cultivated in the construction of our dwellings and public buildings; but a new era in the art seems to be just dawning upon us, and it is a pleasing reflection that wealth and genius are allied in the work of improving the style of the domestic architecture of this country. In many of our larger cities and suburban villas, the public buildings and private mansions are generally constructed in accordance with a purer taste than formerly. Among the numerous edifices to which this remark applies, we may point to Girard College of Philadelphia, and the new Custom House and Merchants' Exchange of New York. These are in progress of erection, and when completed will be every way worthy of the wealth, taste, and growing public spirit and enterprize of the people of this country.

When the English tourist passes through our land, nothing so much mars the ever-varied

beauty and magnificence of our landscape scenery, in his eye, as the tasteless edifices which he everywhere meets. And why should it be so? We have individual wealth in abundance-we have artists possessing talents equal to those of any in Europe-and although we have no dilapidated castles to add the pleasures of association with past times to other objects, yet our rural scenery, fresh from the plastic hand of Nature, is not rivalled by that of any other country in the world. With the arts as with our literature, we are too prone to submit tamely to the dictates of foreigners; but as we recede from the period of our dependence upon the mother country we more and more adopt tastes exclusively our own, and before another half century shall elapse, we shall have a purely national literature, and the arts will be cultivated by a national taste.