Edinburgh includes, as I have heard it repeated, nearly
all the stone and lime we have to show. Many however
find a grand air and something settled and imposing in
the better parts; and upon many, as I have said, the
confusion of styles induces an agreeable stimulation of
the mind. But upon the subject of our recent villa
architecture, I am frankly ready to mingle my tears with
Mr. Ruskin's, and it is a subject which makes one envious
of his large declamatory and controversial eloquence.

Day by day, one new villa, one new object of
offence, is added to another; all around Newington and
Morningside, the dismallest structures keep springing up
like mushrooms; the pleasant hills are loaded with them,
each impudently squatted in its garden, each roofed and
carrying chimneys like a house. And yet a glance of an
eye discovers their true character. They are not houses;
for they were not designed with a view to human
habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they
tell me, fantastically unsuited to the needs of man.
They are not buildings; for you can scarcely say a thing
is built where every measurement is in clamant
disproportion with its neighbour. They belong to no
style of art, only to a form of business much to be
regretted.

Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where
the size of the windows bears no rational relation to the
size of the front? Is there any profit in a misplaced
chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy builder gain