216.  The first thing, then, which the architect has to do in hill country is to bring his employer down from heroics to common sense; to teach him that, although it might be very well for a man like Pliny,[44] whose whole spirit and life was wrapt up in that of Nature, to set himself down under the splash of a cascade 400 feet high, such escapades are not becoming in English gentlemen; and that it is necessary, for his own satisfaction, as well as that of others, that he should keep in the most quiet and least pretending corners of the landscape which he has chosen.

[Footnote 44:  [This passage seems to suggest that the Villa Pliniana on Como was built by Pliny.  It was, however, the work of an antiquarian nobleman of the Renaissance, and merely named after the great naturalist, who was born, perhaps, at Como, and mentions an ebbing spring on this site.]]

217.  Having got his employer well under control, he has two points to consider.  First, where he will spoil least; and, secondly, where he will gain most.

Now he may spoil a landscape in two ways:  either by destroying an association connected with it, or a beauty inherent in it.  With the first barbarism we have nothing to do; for it is one which would not be permitted on a large scale; and even if it were, could not be perpetrated by any man of the slightest education.  No one, having any pretensions to be called a human being, would build himself a house on the meadow of the Ruetli, or by the farm of La Haye Sainte, or on the lonely isle on Loch Katrine.  Of the injustice of the second barbarism we have spoken already; and it is the object of this paper to show how it may be avoided, as well as to develop the principles by which we may be guided in the second question; that of ascertaining how much permanent pleasure will be received from the contemplation of a given scene.

218.  It is very fortunate that the result of these several investigations will generally be found the same.  The residence which in the end is found altogether delightful, will be found to have been placed where it has committed no injury; and therefore the best way of consulting our own convenience in the end is, to consult the feelings of the spectator in the beginning.[45] Now, the first grand rule for the choice of situation is, never to build a villa where the ground is not richly productive.  It is not enough that it should be capable of producing a crop of scanty oats or turnips in a fine season; it must be rich and luxuriant, and glowing with vegetative power of one kind or another.[46] For the very chiefest[47] part of the character of the edifice of pleasure is, and must be, its perfect ease, its appearance of felicitous repose.  This it can never have where the nature and expression of the land near it reminds us of the necessity of labor, and where the earth is niggardly of all that constitutes its beauty and our pleasure; this it can only have where the presence of man seems