the manner and the proportions of nature.  The avenue, therefore, must not be too long.  It is quite a mistake to suppose that there is sublimity in a monotonous length of line, unless indeed it be carried to an extent generally impossible, as in the case of the long walk at Windsor.  From three to four hundred yards is a length which will display the elevation well, and will not become tiresome from continued monotony.  The kind of tree must, of course, be regulated by circumstances; but the foliage must be unequally disposed, so as to let in passages of light across the path, and cause the motion of any object across it to change, like an undulating melody, from darkness to light.  It should meet at the top, so as to cause twilight, but not obscurity; and the idea of a vaulted roof, without rigidity.  The ground should be green, so that the sunlight may tell with force wherever it strikes.  Now, this kind of rich and shadowy vista is found in its perfection only in England:  it is an attribute of green country; it is associated with all our memories of forest freedom, of our wood-rangers, and yeomen with the “doublets of the Lincoln green;” with our pride of ancient archers, whose art was fostered in such long and breezeless glades; with our thoughts of the merry chases of our kingly companies, when the dewy antlers sparkled down the intertwined paths of the windless woods, at the morning echo of the hunter’s horn; with all, in fact, that once contributed to give our land its ancient name of “merry” England; a name which, in this age of steam and iron, it will have some difficulty in keeping.

153.  This, then, is the first feature we would direct attention to, as characteristic, in the English villa:  and be it remembered, that we are not speaking of the immense lines of foliage which guide the eye to some of our English palaces, for those are rather the adjuncts of the park than the approach to the building; but of the more laconic avenue, with the two crested columns and the iron gate at its entrance, leading the eye, in the space of a hundred yards or so, to the gables of its gray mansion.  A good instance of this approach may be found at Petersham, by following the right side of the Thames for about half a mile from Richmond Hill; though the house, which, in this case, is approached by a noble avenue, is much to be reprehended, as a bad mixture of imitation of the Italian with corrupt Elizabethan; though it is somewhat instructive, as showing the ridiculous effect of statues out of doors in a climate like ours.

154.  And now that we have pointed out the kind of approach most peculiarly English, that approach will guide us to the only style of villa architecture which can be called English,—­the Elizabethan, and its varieties,—­a style fantastic in its details, and capable of being subjected to no rule, but, as we think, well adapted for the scenery in which it arose.  We allude not only to the pure Elizabethan, but even to the strange mixtures