The Irish get credit, even from their enemies, for being a quick-witted, imaginative, and artistic people, yet they display astonishingly little taste or originality in their domestic architecture.

In Connaught, where the Celtic genius may be supposed to have the freest opportunity for expressing itself, the towns are all exactly alike, and their resemblance consists in the absence of any beauty which can please the eye.

An English country town, although the English bucolic is notoriously as stupid as an ox, has certain features of its own.

So has a Swiss cottage or a French village.

It is possible to represent these upon Christmas cards or the lids of chocolate-boxes without labelling them English, Swiss, or French.