224.  The general rule by which we are to determine the size is, to select the largest mass which will not overwhelm any object of fine form, within two hundred yards of it; and if it does not do this, we may be quite sure it is not too large for the distant features:  for it is one of Nature’s most beautiful adaptations, that she is never out of proportion with herself; that is, the minor details of scenery of the first class bear exactly the proportion to the same species of detail in scenery of the second class, that the large features of the first bear to the large features of the second.  Every mineralogist knows that the quartz of the St. Gothard is as much larger in its crystal than the quartz of Snowdon, as the peak of the one mountain overtops the peak of the other; and that the crystals of the Andes are larger than either.[49] Every artist knows that the bowlders of an Alpine foreground, and the leaps of an Alpine stream, are as much larger than the bowlders, and as much bolder than the leaps, of a Cumberland foreground and torrent, as the Jungfrau is higher than Skiddaw.  Therefore, if we take care of the near effect in any country, we need never be afraid of the distant.

[Footnote 49:  This is rather a bold assertion; and we should be sorry to maintain the fact as universal; but the crystals of almost all the rarer minerals are larger in the larger mountain; and that altogether independently of the period of elevation, which, in the case of Mont Blanc, is later than that of our own Mendips.]

225.  For these reasons, the cottage villa, rather than the mansion, is to be preferred among our hills:  it has been preferred in many instances, and in too many, with an unfortunate result; for the cottage villa is precisely that which affords the greatest scope for practical absurdity.  Symmetry, proportion, and some degree of simplicity, are usually kept in view in the large building; but, in the smaller, the architect considers himself licensed to try all sorts of experiments, and jumbles together pieces of imitation, taken at random from his note-book, as carelessly as a bad chemist mixing elements, from which he may by accident obtain something new, though the chances are ten to one that he obtains something useless.  The chemist, however, is more innocent than the architect; for the one throws his trash out of the window, if the compound fail; while the other always thinks his conceit too good to be lost.  The great one cause of all the errors in this branch of architecture is, the principle of imitation, at once the most baneful and the most unintellectual, yet perhaps the most natural, that the human mind can encourage or act upon.[50] Let it once be thoroughly rooted out, and the cottage villa will become a beautiful and interesting element of our landscape.