and not a few farm-houses have been altered so as to be pleasant objects to behold. Bitterley in Shropshire is a notable instance of this, as also is Aldford in Cheshire, and Eccleston in the same county. Eccleston and Aldford belong to the Duke of Westminster, and there is no doubt that their present owner is keenly alive to the charms of an English landscape. One instance of this transformation is here given--the school-house at Eccleston, which, to a passer-by, would be taken for an ancient house: the window with its evergreen is old, but the gable over it and the chimneys are modern. Excellently well they harmonise with the surroundings, and fill a corner of the beautiful village. And here a word may be introduced about “shams,” as they are called in architecture, regarding which there is much misapprehension. The “sham,” pure and simple, is contemptible; such is a manufactured ruin of an abbey or castle, or woodwork painted to represent another material, and intended to convey a wrong impression to a spectator; but where black-and-white gables and walls fit in upon old work, and dark coloured stone chimneys of antique shape look like parts of the original structure, it is a happy circumstance. Indeed I should go much further in this direction, and say that if, as often happens, new stones have to be inserted in old carved façades, richly coloured by age, the effect is not pleasant when the contrast is great. In such cases it would be better to give the new stone a tint to tone it into harmony. The generation who put it into the building will have passed away before its patchy appearance will have gone; and why should they be condemned to look upon a harlequin front, when, by overcoming a little prejudice, it might be prevented? This prejudice, it is true, rose from a proper principle, and was a proper protest against the age of shams and affectation. Hardly more than two generations ago art was at the lowest ebb, and the chances seemed strongly against its ever reviving. Everything was fantastic and false; a gentleman had his portrait taken as Apollo, and a lady as Ceres or Diana; while the veriest country yokels who could not read, no, nor their children after them, were alluded to with the utmost effrontery by the Georgian poets as Phyllises and Corydons playing on lutes to sheep, or occupying their working-hours in some other useful occupation, and spending their leisure moments in composing iambics to their damsels.