Rural Homes, or Sketches of Houses suited to American Country Life, with original plan*, designs, etc.: By Gervase Wheeler. (New-York, Charles Scribner.)

The multiplication of books upon Rural Architecture, is, in one sense, a most gratifying aspect of the times - since it shows conclusively the appetite of the public for the beautiful, the tasteful, or at all events, the ornamental in their dwellings. Undeniably, it is a proof of the progress of civilization, this fact, that men desire to raise the character of their homes; and clearly, the rural architecture of the country, is in the full tide of gradual change - we hope amelioration - since every possible notion offered by real or false architects, and architectural writers, is embodied into solid shape by some one or other of our countrymen.

Our grown men try experiments with styles of building, with as little naive or recklessness, and as little heed as to the consequences, as our young men try experiments in "mint juleps" and "brandy smashes," and we fear the immediate results upon the constitutional taste of the country, in one case, and the constitutional health of the individuals in the other, are pretty much the same - that is to say, both excesses beget a sort of flashy character, not very likely to bear close criticism, either by the canons of taste or morality. The only consolation in the matter is, that we cannot be accused of apathy - in short, we are rapidly acquiring knowledge of the world, and the art of building, determined, like the young man who was reproved by his father for his "fast" style of living - "to see the folly of it for himself!"

We shall do Mr. Wheeler the justice to say, in the outset, that he has produced a very sprightly book on the subject of rural architecture. The volume is eminently readable, abounds with many excellent suggestions, especially as to matters of taste; shows a ready talent for imparting information, and leaves the novice who has perused it, with the impression that architecture is a pleasant sort of accomplishment that may be taught in six with the same facility as running-hand itself. We are a little inclined, in criticising it more closely, to select as a text, one of the author's own paragraphs, which he throws out, we fear, as the Italians throw sugar plums at the carnival - not expecting you to take them for anything more solid than pleasant jokes.

"Houses - says Mr. Wheeler - may tell very well in advertisements, and speculating builders know how to make them look sweetly pretty upon paper, but, dear friends, take care that you thoroughly satisfy yourselves that you can make them homes, before you commit yourselves to a choice that you can afterwards repent."

Amen! we say to this, with all our heart. And now saying Amen, and finding that Mr; Wheeler is an architect who writes not merely as an amateur, since he loses no opportunity to tell us in his preface, and throughout the book, that "as an architect he has mastered the rudiments, technicalities, and theories of the science," we naturally turn from the "sweetly pretty" letter-press of the work, to the more practical consideration of the designs themselves - as suited to "American Country Life."

The Frontispiece - is what the author calls the Homestead, and which he defines as a "house suited to American life, manners, and climate."It is amusing, looking at it in this point of view, to see how transparent is the fiction which covers Mr. Wheeler's English education. This design is, in the first place, one of the worst examples of that bastard style of Elizabethan, which all true architects have pronounced the most debased of all styles. The roof seems to pierce the sky like a wedge - the contorted copings of the gables have the uncomfortable twist of an eel in spasms, and the parapet to the tower is a copy of the absurd whimsicalities common to old English manor-houses of the time of Elizabeth. The deep parapet gutters on the right elevation of this house, are also English features, utterly unsuited to the American climate - and one which, whenever it is adopted here, is the cause of endless leaks and indefinite tinker's bills to the American pocket. The only really American feature in the house, is the broad square veranda which Mr. Wheeler seems to have added to his English design - and that it has been added as an after thought, and not originally composed with the rest of the design, is painfully apparent from its total incongruity - it being, in fact, a broad wing, with a projecting brack-etted cornice, and an almost flat roof, tacked on to the steepest roofed edifice, with high parapets and the most meagre of gothic cornices.

Oh, Mr. Wheeler! this may be "sweetly pretty," and it may be built for twelve thousand, but it is not a house suited to the American climate.

"A Country House," page 60, is one of the best plans, and most satisfactory and unpretending elevations - but how any architect who has "mastered all the theories and technicalities," could design a veranda so poor and meagre in its cornice and supports as the one shown in this elevation, it is difficult to conceive. Here is, also, the same want of unity of design between the house and the veranda - the former having boldly projecting eaves - the latter looking like a cropped terrier, who is minus ears and tail. The small window over the door in the wing is crowded out of both place and proportion, and no attempt has been made to make it compose properly by adapting its form to the place and purpose it fills.

The Gothic Cottage, p. 72 - which the author has built in Connecticut, is, we suppose, another illustration of his talent in designing houses "suited to American country life." men, and, towering above all, "the great house of the village, with its noble woods, and lawns," etc. The plain reading of this is, simply an Established Church, a rural peasantry, and a nobleman's seat; instead of the republican features of one of our prettiest country Tillages - say a New-England village - with its numerous places of worship, its broad avenues of Elms, overshadowing no single great man's house, but many homes, marked by that general diffusion of comfort, independence, and growing taste, which is the characteristic feature of our model villages in this country.

While we owe to foreign architects much that is beautiful and valuable in our public and private edifices in this country, and gladly acknowledge the debt, where it is due to real talent and integrity, we have no toleration of pseudo-architects from abroad, who leave home with too small a smattering of professional knowledge to ensure success at home, and after three or four years of practice in this country - marked by constant proofs of incapacity to understand our people or their wants, undertake to direct the popular taste, as if they were thoroughly familiar with our social habits and institutions. Mr. Wheeler is one of this class. His book would lead us to suppose him the most accomplished and most conscientious man in his profession, and, if the reader were an entire stranger, also to believe the writer to be a new world citizen, whose native talents had been developed by large culture in the old world; while in fact, his professional practice has, to our own knowledge,* been such as to leave an impression most unfavorable to the reputation of an architect, every where that he has deigned to put into substantial shape any of the "technicalities and theories" that he has "mastered" on the other side of the water.

"I have mentally headed every page" - says Mr. Wheeler in his preface, "with a sentence suggested as a matin and even song to every architect and amateur - Mr. Rankin's great maxim, "Until common sense finds its way into architecture, there can be but little hope for it."

What will our readers say to a man who writes thus, and then puts stained glass into the windows of a stable of a gentleman's country seat! And yet this brilliant triumph of common sense is the offspring of Mr. Wheeler's taste and talents in a case where he had carte blanche and entire control, in a country seat not a thousand miles from New-York.

While we find much that is instructive and agreeable in this volume of Rural Homes, we must caution our readers that there is little that is American about the work, and say in the author's own words, applied to others - they are "sweetly pretty on paper - but dear friends, take care that you thoroughly satisfy yourselves that you can make [American] homes of them, before you commit yourselves to a choice you may afterwards repent."

* The fact, that in former works we have published one or two of Mr. Wheeler's designs, must be taken as proof that further acquaintance with the architect and his works, have forced us to abandon our earlier impressions.

Foreign and Miscellaneous Notices.