GARDENING, The art of forming and cultivating garden grounds,whether of the Ornamental or Culinary kinds. The former, or Ornamental, commonly called Landscape Gardening, will be the subject of this article; the latter, or Culinary Gardening, will be treated of under the head of Horticulture.

I.—HISTORY OF GARDENING.

Gardening, as Mr Walpole observes,^[1. History of Modem Gardening, subjoined to the fourth volume of his Anecdotee of Pointing. ] was probably one of the first arts which succeeded to that of building houses, and naturally attended property and individual possession. Culinary, and afterwards medicinal herbs, were the objects of every head of a family; and it became convenient to have them within reach, without seeking them at random in woods, in meadows, or on mountains, as often as they were wanted. When the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously all those primitive luxuries, and cultivation became requisite, separate enclosures for rearing herbs were required. Fruits were in the same predicament; and those most in use, or which demand attention, must have entered into and extended the domestic enclosure. Noah, we are informed, planted a vineyard, and drank of the wine. Thus men acquired kitchen gardens, orchards, and vineyards. A cottage, and a slip of ground for a cabbage and a gooseberry bush, such as we see by the side of a common, were in all probability the earliest seats and gardens; a well and bucket succeeded to the Pison and Euphrates of Paradise. As settlements increased, the orchard and the vineyard followed; and the earliest princes of tribes possessed what are now only accounted the necessaries of a modern farmer. Matters, we may well believe, remained long in this situation; and we have reason to think that for many centuries the term garden, implied no more than a kitchen-garden or orchard.

The garden of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most renowned in the heroic times. Is there an admirer of Homer who can read his description of it without rapture, or who does not form to his imagination a scene of delights more picturesque than the landscapes of Tinian or Juan Fernandez? Yet what was that boasted Paradise with which the gods ordain'd

To grace Alcinous and his happy land?

Why, divested of harmonious Greek and bewitching poetry, it was but a small orchard and vineyard, with some beds of herbs, and two fountains that watered them, enclosed within a quickset hedge. The whole compass of the celebrated garden enclosed only four acres of ground.

The garden of Alcinous was planted by the poet, and enriched by him with the gift of eternal summer, and was no doubt an effort of imagination surpassing any thing he had ever seen. As he has bestowed on the same happy prince a palace with brazen walls and columns of silver, he certainly intended that the garden should be proportionally magnificent. We are sure, therefore, that, as late as Homer’s age, an enclosure of four acres, comprehending orchard, vineyard, and kitchen garden, was a stretch of luxury which the world at that time had never beheld.

Previously to this, however, we have in the sacred writings hints of a garden still more luxuriously furnished. We allude to the Song of Solomon, part of the scene of which is undoubtedly laid in a garden.^[2. Chap. u. 1. ] Flowers and fruits are particularly spoken of as the ornaments and the produce of [7:10:319]it; and besides these, aromatic vegetables formed a considerable part of the gratification it afforded. The camphor and the cinnamon tree, with all trees of frankincense, and all the principal spices, flourished there.^[3. Cant iv. 12. ] Solomon tells us in another place,^[4. Ecel. ii. 4, 6. ] that he made him great works, namely, gardens and orchards, and planted in them trees of every kind. Indeed we must suppose his gardens to have been both amply and curiously furnished, seeing that the kinds and properties of the vegetable tribes seem to have been a favourite study with the royal philosopher, and to have been deemed a subject worthy of his pen; for we are told that he wrote of plants, from the cedar of Lebanon down to the hyssop of the wall.^[5. Kings, iv. 35. ] Fountains and streams of water appear also to have had a share in the composition.

The hanging gardens of Babylon formed a still greater prodigy. But as they are supposed to have been formed on terraces and the walls of the palace, whither soil had been conveyed on purpose, Mr Walpole concludes that they were what sumptuous gardens have been in all ages until the present, unnatural, enriched by art, possibly with fountains, statues, balustrades, and summer-houses, and any thing but verdant and rural. Others, however, have allowed them greater praise; and they seem, in many respects, to have been laid out with good taste. Their elevation not only produced a variety and extent of view, but was also useful in moderating the heat. Such a situation wotdd likewise suit a greater variety of trees and plants than a plain surface, and would contain a larger as well as a more diversified extent. The suiting of the situation to the nature of the tree seems, from the account given by Josephus, to have been one view^[6. contra jtplon, lib. L § 19. ] in erecting the building in such a manner; and the success seems to have been answerable, as the trees are said to have flourished extremely well,^[7. Q. Curtius, lib. v. ] and to have grown as tall as in their native situations. On the whole, then, however different these may appear from modern gardens, they seem to have been formed with judgment and taste, and well adapted to the situation and circumstances in which they were placed.

It seems probable, from several circumstances, that the eastern gardens were adjoining to the house or palace to which they belonged. Thus, King Ahasuerus goes immediately from the banquet of wine to walk in the garden of the palace.^[8. Esther, vii. 7. ] The garden of Cyrus at Sardis, mentioned by Xenophon,^[9. ] was probably contiguous to the palace; as was that of Attalus, mentioned by Justin.^[10. Lib. xxxvi. c. i. ] But the hanging gardens at Babylon were not so much adjacent to the ļialace, as part of the palace itself, since several of the royal apartments were beneath them.^[11. Diod. lib. ii. ].

It is not clear what the taste for gardening was amongst the Greeks. The Academus, we know, was a wooded shady place; and the trees appear to have been of the olive species. It was situated beyond the limits of the walls, and adjacent to the tombs of the heroes; and though we are nowhere informed of the particular manner in which t)ιis grove was disposed or laid out, it may be gathered from Pausanias, in his Attica, that it was an elegant ornamented place. At the entrance was an altar dedicated to Love, which was said to have been the first erected to that deity. Within the Academus were the altars of Prometheus, of the Muses, of Mercury, of Minerva, and Hercules; and at a small distance was the tomb of Plato. So that in all probability it was highly adapted by art, as well as nature, to philosophic reflection and contemplation. We are told by Plutarch, that before the time of Cimon, the Academus was a rude uncultivated spot, which was planted by that general, who had water conveyed to it; but whether this water was brought merely for use to refresh the trees, or for ornament, does not appear. It was divided into gymnasia, or places of exercise, and philosophic walks shaided with trees; and these are said to nave flourished very well, until destroyed by Sylla when he besieged Athens. Near the academy were the gardens of the philosophers, of Plato and of Epicurus; which, however, were probably but small. The scene of Plato’s Dialogue concerning Beauty is elegantly described as being on the banks of the Ilissus, and under the shade of the plantain; but no artificial arrangement of objects is mentioned, nor any thing which can lead us to imagine the prospect to have been any other than merely natural.

Amongst the Romans, a taste for gardening, any otherwise than as a matter of utility, seems not to have prevailed till a very late period; at least the writers on husbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius, make not the least mention of a garden as an object of pleasure, but solely with respect to its productions of herbs and fruits. The gardens of Lucullus are the first we find mentioned of remarkable magnificence, though probably, from the extravagance to which these had arrived, they were not the first of the kind. Plutarch speaks of them as incredibly expensive, and equal to the magnificence of kings. They consisted of artificial elevations of ground to a surprising height, buildings projecting into the sea, and vast pieces of water made upon land. In short, his extravagance and expense were so great that he thence acquired the appellation of the Roman Xerxes. It is not improbable, from this account, and from the consideration that Lucullus had spent much time in Asia, in a situation in which he had an opportunity of observing the most splendid constructions of this kind, that these gardens were laid out in the Asiatic style. The vast masses of building said to have been erected might have borne some resemblance, in the arrangement and style, to the Babylonian gardens; and the epithet of the Roman Xerxes might be applicable to the taste as well as to the magnitude and expensive nature of his works.

The Tusculan villa of Cicero, though often mentioned, is not anywhere described in his works, so as to give an adequate idea of the style in which his gardens or grounds were disposed. And there is but little in Virgil relative to this subject. Pines,^[12. Eelog. vii. 6δ, &c ] it seems, were a favourite ornament in gardens; and flowers,^[13. Georg, iv. 113. ] especially roses, were much esteemed, perfumes indeed having been always highly valued in warm climates. Virgil places Anchises in Elysium in a grove of bays, and is careful to remark that they were of the sweet-scented kind. The Paestan roses were chiefly valued for their excellent odour; and on account of this quality they were placed by Tibullus as ornaments in the Elysian fields. There appears also to have prevailed amongst the Romans a piece of luxury relative to gardens, which is equally prevalent amongst us, namely, the forcing of flowers at seasons of the year not suited to their natural blowing.

When Roman authors, whose climate instilled a wish for cool retreats, speak of their enjoyments of this kind, they sigh for grottoes, caves, and the refreshing hollows of mountains, near irriguous and shady fountains; orboast of their porticos, walks of planes, canals, baths, and breezes from the sea. Their gardens are almost never mentioned except as affording shade and shelter from the rage of the dog-star. Pliny has left us descriptions of two of his villas. As he used his Laurentine villa as his winter retreat, it is not surprising that the garden should form no considerable part of the account. Ail he says of it is, that the gestatio, or place of exercise, which surrounded [7:10:320]the garden, was bounded by a hedge of box, and, where that had perished, with rosemary; that there was a walk of vines; and that most of the trees were fig and mulberry, the soil not being proper for any other sorts. On the subject of his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse; and the garden forms a considerable part of the description. And what constituted the principal beauty of that pleasureground? Exactly what was the admiration of this country above a century ago; namely, box-trees cut into monsters, animals, letters, and the names of the master and the artificer. In an age when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste; when there arose Vespasian’s amphitheatre, the Temple of Peace, Trajan’s forum, Domitian’s baths, and Hadrian’s villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still excite our astonishment and curiosity; a Roman consul, a polished emperor’s friend, and a man of elegant literature and taste, delighted in what the mob now scarcely admire in a college garden. All the ingredients of Pliny’s corresponded exactly with those laid out in this country on Dutch principles. He talks of slopes, terraces, a wilderness, shrubs methodically trimmed, a marble basin, pipes spouting water, a cascade falling into the basin, bay-trees planted alternately with planes, and a straight walk whence issued others parted off by hedges of box and apple trees, with obelisks placed between every two. There wants nothing but the embroidery of a parterre, to make a garden in the time of Trajan serve for a description of one in that of King William. In one passage indeed Pliny seems to have conceived that natural irregularity might be a beauty; in opere urbanissimo, says he, subita relut illati ruris imitatio. Something like α rural view was contrived amidst so much polished composition. But the idea soon vanished, lineal walks immediately enveloped the slight scene, and names and inscriptions in box again succeeded to compensate for the daring introduction of nature.

In the paintings found at Herculaneum there are a few traces of gardens, as may be seen in the second volume of the prints. They are all small enclosures, formed by trelliswork and espaliers, and regularly ornamented with vases, fountains, and caryatides, elegantly symmetrical, and proper for the narrow spaces allotted to the garden of a house in a capital city.

From what has been said, it appears how naturally and insensibly the idea of a kitchen-garden slid into that which has for so many ages been peculiarly termed a garden, and by our ancestors in this country distinguished by the name of a pleasure-garden. A square piece of ground was originally parted off for the use of the family; and to exclude cattle, and ascertain the property, it was separated from the fields by a hedge. As pride and the desire of privacy increased, the enclosure was dignified by walls; and in climates where fruits were not lavished by the ripening glow of nature and soil, fruit-trees were assisted and sheltered from surrounding winds by the like expedient; for the inundation of luxuries, which have swelled into general necessities, have almost all taken their source from the simple fountain of reason.

.When the custom of making square gardens enclosed with walls was thus established, to the exclusion of nature and prospect, pomp and solitude combined to call for something which might serve to enrich and enliven the insipid and unanimated partition. Fountains, first invented for use, received embellishments from costly marbles; and at last, to contradict utility, tossed their waste of waters into the air in spouting columns. Art, in the hands of rude man, had at first been made a succedaneum to nature; in the hands of ostentatious wealth, it became the means of opposing nature; and the more it traversed the march of the latter, the more nobility thought its power was demonstrated. Canals measured by the line were introduced instead of meandering streams, and terraces were hoisted aloft in opposition to the facile slopes which imperceptibly unite the valley to the hill. Balustrades defended those precipitate and dangerous elevations, and flights of steps reunited them to the subjacent flat from which the terrace had been raised. Vases and sculpture were added to these unnecessary balconies, and statues furnished the lifeless spot with mimic representations of the excluded sons of men. Thus difficulty and expense were the constituent parts of those sumptuous and selfish solitudes; and every improvement which was made seemed but a step farther from nature. The tricks of water-works to wet the unwary, not to refresh the panting spectator; and parterres embroidered in patterns like a petticot; were but the childish endeavours of fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had surfeited on. To crown these impotent displays of false taste, the sheers were applied to the lovely wildness of form with which nature has distinguished each various species of tree and shrub. The venerable oak, the romantic beech, the useful elm, even the aspiring circuit of the lime, the regular round of the chestnut, and the almost moulded orange-tree, were corrected by fantastic and tasteless admirers of symmetry. The compass and square were of more use in plantations than the nurseryman. The measured walk, the quincunx, and the étoile, imposed their unsatisfying sameness on every royal and noble garden. Trees were headed, and their sides pared away; and many French groves seemed green chests set upon poles. Seats of marble, arbours, and summerhouses, terminated every vista; and symmetry, even where the space was too large to permit its being remarked at one view, was so essential, that, as Pope observed, each alley has a brother. And half the garden just reflects the other.

Knots of flowers were more defensibly subjected to the same regularity. Leisure “in trim gardens took his pleasure.” In the garden of Marshal de Biron at Paris, consisting of fourteen acres, every walk was buttoned on each side by lines of flower-pots.

It does not precisely appear what our ancestors meant by a bower; it was probably an arbour; sometimes it meant the whole frittered enclosure, and in one instance it certainly included a labyrinth. Rosamond’s bower was indisputably of that kind; though, whether composed of walls or hedges, cannot be determined. A square and a round labyrinth were formerly so capital ingredients of a garden, that in the architecture of Du Cerceau, who lived in the time of Charles IX. and Henry III., there is scarcely a ground plot without one of each. In Kip’s Ftews of the Seats of our Nobility and Gentry, we see the same tiresome and returning uniformity. Every house is approached by two or three gardens, consisting perhaps of a gravel walk and two grass plats or borders of flowers. Each rises above the other by two or three steps, and as many walls and terraces, with so many iron gates, that we recollect those ancient romances in which every entrance was guarded by nymphs or dragons. Yet though these and such like preposterous inconveniences prevailed from age to age, good sense in this country had perceived the want of something at once more grand and more natural. These reflections, and the bounds set to the waste made by royal spoilers, gave origin to parks. The latter were contracted forests and extended gardens. Hentzner says, that according to Rous of Warwick, the first park was that at Woodstock. If so, it might be the foundation of a legend that Henry II. secured his mistress in a labyrinth; it was no doubt more difficult to find her in a park than in a palace, where the intricacy of the woods and various lodges buried in covert might conceal her actual habitation.

It is more extraordinary, that having so long ago stumbled on the principle of modern gardening, we should have [7:10:321]persisted in retaining its reverse, symmetrical and unnatural gardens. That parks were rare in other countries, Hentzner, who travelled over a great part of Europe, leads us to suppose, by observing that they were common in England. In France they retained the name, but nothing was more different both in compass and disposition. Their parks were usually square or oblong enclosures, regularly planted with walks of chestnuts or limes, and generally every large town has one for its public recreation. “One man, one great man, we had,” says Mr Walpole, “on whom nor education nor custom could impose their prejudices 5 who, ‘ on evil days though fallen, and with darkness and solitude compassed round,’ judged that the mistaken and fantastical ornaments he had seen in gardens were unworthy of the Almighty hand that planted the delights of Paradise. He seems with the prophetic eye of taste to have conceived, nay to have foreseen, modern gardening; as Lord Bacon announced the discoveries since made by experimental philosophy. The description of Eden is a warmer and more just picture of the present style than Claud Lorraine could have painted from Hagley or Stourhead.” Mr Walpole then quotes passages illustrative of this observation; and adds, “Recollect, that the author of this sublime vision had never seen a glimpse of any thing like what he has imagined; that his favourite ancients had dropped not a hint of such divine scenery; and that the conceits in Italian gardens were the brightest originals that his memory could furnish. But his intellectual eye saw a nobler plan, so little did he suffer by the loss of sight. It sufficed him to have seen the materials with which he could work. The vigour of a boundless imagination told him how a plan might be disposed that would embellish nature, and restore art to its proper office, the just improvement or imitation of it.”

Let us now turn to an admired writer, posterior to Milton, and see how cold, how insipid, how tasteless, is his account of what he pronounced a perfect garden. We speak not of his style, which it was not necessary for him to animate with the colouring and glow of poetry. It is his want of ideas, of imagination, and of taste, that deserves censure, when he dictated on a subject which is capable of all the graces which a knowledge of beautiful nature can bestow. Sir William Temple was an excellent man; Milton, a genius of the first order. We cannot wonder that Sir William should declare in favour of parterres, fountains, and statues, as necessary to break the sameness of large grass plats, which he thinks have an ill effect upon the eye, when he acknowledges that he discovers fancy in the gardens of Alcinous. Milton studied the ancients with equal enthusiasm, but no bigotry; and he had the judgment to distinguish between the want of invention and the beauties of ∣>oetry. Compare his paradise with Homer’s garden, both ascribed to a celestial design. For Sir William, it is just to observe that his ideas centred in a fruit garden. He had the honour of giving to his country many delicate fruits, and he thought of little else than disposing them to the best advantage.

“The best figure of a garden,” says he, “is either a square or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a descent; they have all their beauties, but the best I esteem an oblong upon a descent. The beauty, the air, the view, make amends for the expense, which is very great in finishing and supporting the terrace walks, in levelling the parterres, and in the stone stairs that are necessary from one to the other. The persectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed amongst the greatest wits of her time, and celebrated by Dr Donne; and with very great care, excellent contrivance, and much cost; but greater sums may be thrown awav without effect or ho nour, if there want sense in proportion to money, or if nature be not followed, which I take to be the great rule in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far as the conduct not only of our lives but our governments. (We shall presently see how natural this admired garden was.) Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expense. It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden; the great parlour opens into the middle of a terrace gravel walk that lies even with it, and which may be, as I remember, about three hundred paces long, and broad in proportion; the border set with standard laurels and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into quarters by gravel walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues in the several quarters. At the end of the terrace walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and ending with two other summer-houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the whole parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balusters; and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer-houses at the end of the first terrace walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines, and would have been proper for an orange-house, and the other for myrtles or other more common greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now. From the middle of this parterre is a descent by many steps flying on each side of a grotto, that lies between them, covered with lead and flat, into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness, which is very shady; the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell rock-work, fountains, and water-works. If the hill had not ended with the lower garden, and the wall were not bounded by a common way that goes through the park, they might have added a third quarter of all greens; but this want is supplied by a garden on the other side the house, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock-work and fountains. This was Moor Park when I was acquainted with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that I have seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad.”

It is unnecessary to add any remarks respecting this description. Any man might design and build as sweet a garden, who had been born in and never stirred out of Holborn. It was not, however, peculiar to Sir William Temple to think in this manner. How many Frenchmen are there who have seen our gardens, and still prefer unnatural flights of steps and shady cloisters covered with lead? Le Nautre, the architect of the groves and grottoes at Versailles, came hither on a mission to improve our taste, and planted St James’ and Greenwich Parks; no great monuments, by the way, of his invention.

But, to do justice to Sir William Temple, we must not omit what he adds, “What. I have said of the best forms of gardens is meant only of such as are in some sort regular; for there may be other forms wholly irregular, that may, for ought I know, have more beauty than any of the others; but they must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions of nature in the seat, or some great race of fancy or judgment in the contrivance, which may reduce many disagreeing[7:10:322] parts into some figure, which shall yet, upon the whole, be very agreeable. Something of this I have seen in some places, but heard more of it from others w4ιo have lived much among the Chineses, a people whose way of thinking seems to lie as wide of ours in Europe as their country does. Their greatest reach of imagination is employed in contriving figures, where the beauty shall be great and strike the eye, but without any order or disposition of parts, that shall be commonly or easily observed. And though we have hardly any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they have a particular word to express it; and when they find it hit their eye at first sight, they say the Sharawadgi is fine or is admirable, or any such expression of esteem; but I should hardly advise any of these attempts in the figure of gardens among us; they are adventures of too hard achievement for any common hands; and though there may be more honour if they succeed well, yet there is more dishonour if they fail, and it is twenty to one they will; whereas in regular figures it is hard to make any great and remarkable faults.”

Fortunately Kent and a few others were not quite so timid, or we might still be going up and down stairs in the open air. It is true, we have heard much, as Sir William Temple did, of irregularity and imitations of nature in the gardens or grounds of the Chinese. The former is certainly true; they are as whimsically irregular as European gardens were formally uniform and unvaried; but with regard to nature, it seems as much avoided as in the squares and oblongs and straight lines of our ancestors. An artificial perpendicular rock starting out of a flat plain, and connected with nothing, often pierced through in various places with oval hollows, has no more pretension to be deemed natural than a lineal terrace or a parterre. Mr Joseph Spence was so persuaded of the Chinese emperor’s pleasureground being laid out on principles resembling ours, that he translated and published, under the name of Sir Harry Beaumont, a particular account of that enclosure, from the collection of the letters of the Jesuits. But except a determined irregularity, we can find nothing in it which gives any idea of attention being paid to nature. In short, this pretty gaudy style is the work of caprice and whim, and, when we reflect on the buildings, presents no image but that of unsubstantial tawdriness.

Having thus cleared our way by ascertaining what have been the ideas on gardening in all ages as far as we have materials to judge by, it remains to show to what degree Mr Kent invented the new style, and what hints he had received to suggest and conduct his undertaking. We have seen what Moor Park was when pronounced a standard. But as no succeeding generation in an opulent and luxurious country contents itself with the perfection established by its ancestors, more perfect perfection was still sought after; and improvements had gone on, till London and Wise stocked all our gardens with giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms, and mottoes, in yew, box, and holly. Absurdity could go no farther, and the tide turned. Bridgman, the next fashionable designer of gardens, was far more chaste; and, whether from good sense, or that the nation had been struck and reformed by an admirable paper in the Guardian (No. 173), he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, disdained to make every division tally to its opposite; and though he still adhered much to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were only his great lines; the rest he diversified by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges. As his reformation gained footing, he ventured, in the royal garden at Richmond, to introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of a forest appearance, by the sides of . those endless and tiresome walks which stretched out of one into another without intermission. But this was net until other innovators had also broken loose from rigid symmetry.

The capital stroke, however, the leading step to all that has followed, was the destruction of walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses. A sunk fence may be called the leading step. No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling, followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonized with the lawn within; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prime regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without. The sunk fence ascertained the specific garden; but that it might not draw too obvious a line of distinction between the neat and the rude, the contiguous out-lying parts came to be included in a kind of general design; and when nature was taken into the plan, every step that was made pointed out new beauties and inspired new ideas. At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell or concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and, whilst they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison. Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of landscape on the scenes he handled. The great principles upon which he worked were perspective, and light and shade. Groups of trees broke too uniform or too extensive a lawn; evergreens and woods were opposed to the glare of the champaign; and where the view was less fortunate, or so much exposed as to be beheld at once, he blotted out some parts by thick shades, to divide it into variety, or to make the richest scene more enchanting by reserving it to a farther advance of the spectator’s step. Thus selecting favourite objects, and veiling deformities by screens of plantation, and by sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its foil to the richest theatre, he realized the compositions of the greatest masters in painting. Where objects were wanting to animate his horizon, his taste as an architect could bestow immediate termination. His buildings, his seats, his temples, were more the works of his pencil than of his compasses.

But of all the beauties which Kent added to the face of this beautiful country, none surpassed his management ol water. Adieu now to canals, circular basins, and cascades tumbling down marble steps, that last absurd magnificence of Italian and French villas. The forced elevation of cataracts was no more. The gentle stream was taught to wind seemingly at its pleasure; and where discontinuec by different levels, its course appeared to be concealed by thickets properly interspersed, and glittered again at a distance, where it might be supposed naturally to arrive. Itι borders were smoothed, but preserved their waving irregularity. A few trees scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled the tame bank which accompanied its meanders and when it disappeared among the hills, shades descending from the heights leaned towards its progress, and framec the distant point of light under which it was lost, as i turned aside to either hand of the blue horizon. Thuι dealing in none but the colours of nature, and catching itι most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening before their eyes. The living landscape was chastened 01 polished, not transformed. Freedom was given to th< forms of trees; they extended their branches unrestricted and where any eminent oak, or master beech, had escape< maiming and survived the forest, bush and bramble wert removed, and all its honours were restored to distinguisl [7:10:323]. and shade the plain. Where the united plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its undulating canopy, and stood venerable in its darkness, Kent thinned the foremost ranks, and left only as many detached and scattered trees as softened the approach of gloom, and blended a chequered light with the thus lengthened shadows of the remaining columns.

Succeeding artists have added new master-strokes to these touches, perhaps improved or brought to perfection some which have been named. The introduction of foreign trees and plants, which we owe principally to Archibald duke of Argyll, contributed essentially to the richness of colouring so peculiar to our modem landscape. The mixture of various greens, and the contrast of forms between our forest-trees and the northern and West Indian firs and Îlines, are improvements more recent than Kent, or but ittle known to him. The weeping willow, and every florid shrub, each tree of delicate or bold leaf, are new tints in the composition of our gardens. But just as are the encomiums which have been bestowed on Kent’s discoveries, he was neither without assistance nor without faults. Mr Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste.^[14. “Pope,” says Lord Byron, “was the inventor of that boast of the English, modem gardening. He divides this honour with Milton. Hear warton: ‘ It hence appears that the enchanting art of gardening, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes its origin and its improvement to two great poets, Milton and Pope.’” (Byron’s Works, vol. vi. p. 408.) ] The design of the Prince of Wales’ garden at Carlton House was evidently borrowed from the poet’s at Twickenham. There was a little of affected modesty in the latter, when he said, that of all his works he was most proud of his garden. And yet it was a singular effort of art and taste to impress so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres. The passing through the gloom from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring and again assembling shades, the dusky groves, the larger lawn, and the solemnity of the termination at the cypresses leading up to his mother’s tomb, were managed with exquisite judgment; and though Lord Peterborough assisted him “to form his quincunx and to rank his vines,” these were not the most pleasing ingredients of his little perspective.

Having routed professed art, Kent, like some reformers, knew not how to stop at the just limits. He had followed nature, and imitated her so happily, that he began to think all her works were equally proper for imitation. In Kensington Garden he planted dead trees, to give a greater air of truth to the scene; but he was soon laughed out of this excess. His ruling principle was, that nature abhors a straight line; and his imitators seemed to think that she could love nothing but what was crooked. Yet so many men of taste of all ranks devoted themselves to the new improvements, that it is surprising how much beauty was struck out, with so few absurdities. Still in some lights the reformation seems to have been pushed too far. Though an avenue crossing a park or separating a lawn, and intercepting views from the seat to which it leads, are capital faults; yet a great avenue cut through woods, perhaps before entering a park, has a noble air, and announces the habitation of some man of distinction. In other places, the total banishment of all particular neatness immediately about a house, which is frequently left gazing by itself in the middle of a park, is a defect. Sheltered and even close walks, in so very uncertain a climate as ours, are comforts ill exchanged for the few picturesque days which we enjoy; and whenever a family can purloin a warm and even something of an old-fashioned garden from the landscape designed for them by the undertaker in fashion, without interfering with the picture, they will find satisfaction in those days which do not invite strangers to come and see their improvements.

II.—PRINCIPLES OF GARDENING.

Gardening, in the perfection to which it has at length been brought in Britain, is entitled to a considerable rank amongst the liberal arts. It is, according to Wheatley, as superior to landscape painting as a reality to a representation; it is an exertion of fancy, a subject for taste, and being released from the restraints of regularity, and enlarged beyond the purposes of domestic convenience, the most beautiful, the most simple, the most noble scenes of nature, are all within its province. For it is no longer confined to the spots from which it takes its name; but, as already observed, it regulates also the disposition and embellishment of a park, a farm, or even a forest. The business of a gardener is to select and apply whatever is great, elegant, or characteristic in any of them; to discover and to show all the advantages of the place upon which he is employed; to supply its defects, to correct its faults, and to improve its beauties.

SECT. I.—MATERIALS OF GARDENING.

These may be divided into two general classes; Natural and Factitious.

I. The Natural Materials are, according to Wheatley’s enumeration, Ground, Wood, Water, and Rocks.

1. Ground. By this is meant that portion of naked surface which is included within the place to be improved; whether that surface be swamp, lawn, roughet, or broken ground; and whether it be a height, a valley, a plain, or a composition of swells, dips, and levels. “Nothing,” says Mr Gilpin, “gives so just an idea of the beautiful swellings of ground as those of water, where it has sufficient room to undulate and expand. In ground which is composed of very refractory materials, you are presented often with harsh lines, angular insertions, and disagreeable abruptnesses. In water, whether in gentle or in agitated motion, all is easy, all is softened into itself; and the hills and valleys play into each other in a variety of the most beautiful forms. In agitated water, abruptnesses indeed there are, but yet they are such abruptnesses as in some part or other unite properly with the surface around them, and are on the whole peculiarly harmonious. Now, if the ocean in any of these swellings and agitations could be arrested and fixed, it would produce that pleasing variety which we admire in ground. Hence it is common to fetch our images from water, and apply them to land; we talk of an undulating line, a playing lawn, and a billowy surface; and give a much stronger and more adequate idea by such imagery, than plain language could possibly present.” The exertions of art, however, are here inadequate, and the artist ought not to attempt to create a mountain, a valley, or a plain; he should but rarely meddle even with the smaller inequalities of grounds. Rough and broken ground may generally be reduced to lawn, or hid with wood; and a swamp may be drained or covered with water, whilst lawn may be variegated at pleasure by wood, and sometimes by water.

2. Wood, as a general term, comprehends all trees and shrubs in whatever disposition; but it is specifically applied in a more limited sense, and in that sense we shall now use it. Every plantation must be either a wood, a grout, or a clump. A wood is composed both of trees and underwood, covering a considerable space. A grove consists of [7:10:324]• trees without underwood. A clump differs from either only in extent. It may be either close or open: when close, it is sometimes called a thicket ; when open, a group of trees ; but both are equally clumps, whatever may be the shape or situation.

One of the noblest objects in nature^[15. See wheatley’s Ol tervatiom on Modern Gardening. ] is the surface of a large thick wood, commanded from an eminence, or seen from below hanging on the side of a hill. The latter is generally the more interesting object. Its aspiring situation gives it an air of greatness; its termination is commonly the horizon; and, indeed, if it be deprived of that splendid boundary, if the brow appear above it (unless some very peculiar effect characterizes that brow), it loses much of its magnificence. It is inferior to a wood which covers a less hill from the top to the bottom; for a whole space filled is seldom little. But a wood commanded from an eminence is generally no more than a part of the scene below; and its boundary is often inadequate to its greatness. To continue it, therefore, tiD it winds out of sight, or loses itself in the horizon, is generally desirable; but then the varieties of its surface grow confused as it retires; whilst those of a hanging wood are all distinct; the furthest parts are held up to the eye, and none are at a distance though the whole be extensive.

The varieties of a surface are essential to beauty. A continued smooth shaven level of foliage is neither agreeable nor natural; the different growths of trees commonly break it in reality, and their shadows still more in appearance. These shades are so many tints, which, undulating about the surface, are its greatest embellishment; and such tints may be produced with more effect, and more certainty, by a judicious mixture of greens; at the same time an additional variety may be introduced, by grouping and contrasting trees very different in shape from each other; and whether variety in the greens or in the forms be the design, the execution is often easy, and seldom to a certain degree impossible. In raising a young wood, it may be perfect. In old woods, there are many spots which may be either thinned or thickened; and there the characteristic distinctions should determine what to plant, or ¼hat to leave, at least they will often point out those which, as blemishes, ought to be taken away; and the removal of two or three trees will sometimes accomplish the design. The number of beautiful forms and agreeable masses which may decorate the surface is so -great, that where the place will not admit of one, another is always ready; and as no delicacy of finishing is required, no minute exactness is worth regarding; great effects will not be disconcerted by small obstructions and little disappointments.

The contrasts, however, of masses and of groups must not be too strong where greatness is the character of the wood, for unity is essential to greatness; and if direct opposites be placed close together, the wood is no longer one object; it is only a confused collection of several plantations. But if the progress be gradual from the one to the other, shapes and tints widely different may assemble on the same surface; and each should occupy a very considerable space. A single tree, or a small cluster of trees, in the midst of an extensive wood, is in size but a speck, and in colour but a spot; the groups and the masses must be large to produce any sensible variety.

When, in a romantic situation, very broken ground is overspread with wood, it may be proper on the surface of the wood to mark the inequalities of the ground. Rudeness, not greatness, is the prevailing idea; and a choice directly the reverse of that which is productive of unity will produce it. Strong contrasts, even oppositions, may be eligible. The aim is rather to disjoin than to connect. A deep hollow may sink into dark green; an abrupt bank may be shown by a rising stage of aspiring trees, and a sharp ridge by a narrow line of conical shapes. Firs are of great use upon such occasions; their tint, their form, and their singularity, recommend them.

A hanging wood of thin forest trees, seen from below, is seldom pleasing; these few trees are by the perspective brought nearer together; it loses the beauty of a thin wood, and is defective as a thick one. The most obvious improvement, therefore, is to thicken it. But when seen from an eminence, a thin wood is often a lively and elegant circumstance in a view; it is full of objects; and every separate tree shows its beauty. To increase that vivacity which is the peculiar excellence of a thin wood, the trees should be characteristically distinguished both by their tints and their shapes; and such as for their airiness have been proscribed in a thick wood, are frequently the most eligible here. Differences also in their growths are a further source of variety; each should be considered as a distinct object, unless where a small number are grouped together; and then all that compose the little cluster must agree: But the groups themselves, for the same reason as the separate trees, should be strongly contrasted; the continued underwood is their only connection, and that is not affected by their variety.

Though the surface of a wood, when commanded, deserves all these attentions, yet the outline more frequently calls for our regard; it is also more in our power; it may sometimes be great, and may always be beautiful. The first requisite is irregularity. That a mixture of trees and underwood should form a long straight line, can never be natural; and a succession of easy sweeps and gentle rounds, each a portion of a greater or less circle, composing all together a line literally serpentine, is if possible worse. It is but a number of regularities put together in a disorderly manner, and equally distant from the beautiful both of art and of nature. The true beauty of an outline consists more in breaks than in sweeps; rather in angles than in rounds; in variety, not in succession.

Every variety in the outline of a wood must be a prominence or a recess. Breadth in either is not so important as length to the one and depth to the other. If the former ends in an angle, the latter diminishes to a point; they may have more force than a shallow dent, or a dwarf excrescence, how wide soever. They are greater deviations from the continued line which they are intended to break; and their effect is to enlarge the wood itself, which seems to stretch from the most advanced point, back beyond the most distant to which it retires. The extent of a large wood on a flat, not commanded, can by no circumstance be so manifestly shown as by a deep recess; especially if that recess wind so as to conceal the extremity, and leave the imagination to pursue it. On the other hand, the poverty of a shallow wood might sometimes be relieved by here and there a prominence, or clumps which by their apparent junction should seem to be prominences arising out of it. A deeper wood with a continued outline, except when commanded, would not appear so considerable.

An inlet into a wood seems to have been cut, if the opposite points of the entrance tally; and such a show of art depreciates its merit; but a difference only in the situation of these points, by bringing one more forward than the other, prevents the appearance, though their forms be similar. Other points, which distinguish the great parts, should in general be strongly marked. A short turn has more spirit in it than a tedious circuit; and a line broken by angles has a precision and firmness which in an undulated line are wanting; the angles indeed should commonly be a little softened; the rotundity of the plant which [7:10:325]forms them is sometimes sufficient for the purpose; but if they are mellowed down too much, they lose all meaning. Three or four large parts thus boldly distinguished will break a very long outline. When two woods are opposed on the sides of a narrow glade, neither has so much occasion for variety in itself as if it were single; if they are very different from each other, the contrast supplies the deficiency to each, and the interval between them is full of variety. The form of that interval is indeed of as much consequence as their own. Though the outlines of both the woods be separately beautiful, yet if together they do not cast the open space into an agreeable figure, the whole scene is not pleasing; and a figure is never agreeable when the sides too closely correspond. Whether they are exactly the same, or exactly the reverse of each other, they appear equally artificial.

Every variety of outline hitherto mentioned may be traced by the underwood alone; but frequently the same effects may be produced with more ease, and with much more beauty, by a few trees standing out from the thicket, and belonging, or seeming to belong, to the wood, so as to make a part of its figure. Even where they are not wanted for that purpose, detached trees are such agreeable objects, so distinct, so light, when compared to the covert about them, that, skirting along it in some parts, and breaking it in others, they give an unaffected grace, which cannot otherwise be given to the outline. They have a still further effect when they stretch across the whole breadth of an inlet or before part of a recess into the wood; they are themselves shown to advantage by the space behind them; and that space, when seen between their stems, they in return throw into an agreeable perspective.

The prevailing character of a wood is generally grandeur. The principal attention which it requires, therefore, is to prevent the excesses of that character, to diversify the uniformity of its extent, to lighten the unwieldiness of its bulk, and to blend graces with greatness. The character of a grave is beauty. Fine trees are lovely objects. A grove is an assemblage of these, in which every individual retains much of its own peculiar elegance, and whatever it loses is transferred to the superior beauty of the whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits of endless variety in the disposition of the trees, differences in their shapes and their greens are seldom very important, and sometimes they are detrimental. Strong contrasts scatter trees which are thinly planted, and which have not the connection of underwood; they no longer form one plantation; they are a number of single trees. A thick grove is not indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situations may recommend different shapes and different greens for their effects upon the surface; but in the outline they are seldom much regarded. The eye, attracted into the depth of the grove, passes by little circumstances at the entrance; even varieties in the form of the line do not always engage the attention; they are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, and are scarcely seen if they are not considerable.

But the surface and the outline are not the only circumstances which should be attended to. Though a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in; and the choice and the disposition of the trees for effects within, are therefore a principal consideration. Mere irregularity alone will not please; strict order is there more agreeable than absolute confusion, and some meaning better than none. A regular plantation has a degree of beauty, but it gives no satisfaction, because we know that the same number of trees might be more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines only are broken, without varying the distances, is equally improper. The trees should gather into groups, or stand in various irregular lines, and describe various figures; the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions; a large space should in some places be quite open, whilst in others the trees should be so close together as hardly to leave a passage between them; and in others as far apart as the connection will admit. In the forms and the varieties of these groups, these lines, and these openings, principally consists the interior beauty of a grove.

The force of them is most strongly illustrated at Claremont, where the walk to the cottage, though destitute of many natural advantages, and eminent for none, though it commands no prospect, though the water below it is a trifling pond, though it has nothing, in short, but inequality of ground to recommend it, is yet the finest part of the garden; for a grove is there planted in a gently curved direction, all along the side of a hill, and on the edge of a wood, which rises above it. Large recesses break it into several clumps, which hang down the declivity; some of them approaching, but none reaching quite to the bottom. These recesses are so deep as to form great openings in the midst of the grove; they penetrate almost to the covert; but the clumps being all equally suspended from the wood, and a line of open plantation, though sometimes narrow, running constantly along the top, a continuation of grove is preserved, and the connection between the parts is never broken. Even a group which near one of the extremities stands out quite detached, is still in style so similar to the rest as not to lose all relation. Each of these clumps is composed of several others still more intimately united; each is full of groups, sometimes of no more than two trees, sometimes of four or five, and now and then in larger clusters; an irregular waving line, issuing from some little crowd, loses itself in the next; or a few scattered trees drop in a more distant succession from the one to the other. The intervals, winding here like a glade, and widening there into broader openings, differ in extent, in figure, and in direction; but all the groups, the lines, and the intervals, are collected together into large general clumps, each of which is at the same time both compact and free, identical and various. The whole is a place wherein to tarry with secure delight, or saunter with perpetual amusement.

The grove at Esher Place was planted by the same masterly hand; but the necessity of accommodating the young plantation to some large trees which grew there before has confined its variety. The groups are few and small; there was not room for larger or for more; there were no opportunities to form continued narrow glades between opposite lines; the vacant spaces are therefore chiefly irregular openings, spreading every way, and great differences of distance between the trees are the principal variety; but the grove winds along the bank of a large river, on the side and at the foot of a very sudden ascent, the upper part of which is covered with wood. In one place it presses close to the covert, retires from it in another, and stretches in a third across a bold recess, which runs up high into the thicket. The trees sometimes overspread the flat below, sometimes leave an open space to the river, at other times crown the brow of a large knoll, climb up a steep, or hang on a gentle declivity. These varieties in the situation more than compensate for the want of variety in the disposition of the trees; and the many happy circumstances which concur,

In Esher’s peaceful grove, where Kent and nature vie for Pelham’s love, render this little spot more agreeable than any at Claremont. But though it was right to preserve the trees already standing, and not to sacrifice great present beauties to still greater in futurity, yet this attention has been a restraint; and the grove at Claremont, considered merely[7:10:326] as a plantation, is, in delicacy of taste and fertility of invention, superior to that at Esher.

It is, however, possible to secure both a present and a future effect, by fixing first on a disposition which will be beautiful when the trees are large, and then intermingling another which is agreeable while they are small. These occasional trees are hereafter to be taken away; and must be removed in time, before they become prejudicial to the others.

The consequence of variety in the disposition is variety in the light and shade of the grove, which may be improved by the choice of the trees. Some are impenetrable to the fiercest sunbeam; others let in here and there a ray between the large masses of their foliage; and others, thin both of boughs and of leaves, only chequer the scene around. Every degree of light and shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be managed, partly by the number, and partly by the texture of the trees. Differences only in the manner of their growths have also corresponding effects; there is a closeness under those the branches of which descend low and spread wide; a space and liberty where the arch above is high; and frequent transitions from the one to the other are very pleasing. Still these are not all the varieties of which the interior of a grove is capable; trees, indeed, whose branches nearly reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, are inconsistent with an open plantation; but though some of the characteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, other varieties more minute succeed in their place; for the freedom of passage throughout brings every tree in its turn near to the eye, and subjects even differences in foliage to observation. These, slight as they may seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is true, they are not regretted when wanting; but a defect of ornament is not necessarily a blemish.

It has been already observed, that clumps differ only in extent from woods, if they are close; or from groves, if they are open. They are small woods and small groves, governed by the same principles as the larger, allowances being made for their dimensions. But besides the properties they may have in common with woods or with groves, they have others peculiar to themselves which require examination. They are either independent or relative. When independent, their beauty, as single objects, is solely to be attended to; when relative, the beauty of the individuals must be sacrificed to the effect of the whole, which is the greater consideration.

The occasions on which independent clumps may be applied are many. They are often desirable as beautiful objects in themselves; they are sometimes necessary to break an extent of lawn, or a continued line whether of ground or of plantation; but on all occasions a jealousy of art constantly attends them, which irregularity in their figure will not always alone remove. Though elevations show them to advantage, yet a hillock evidently thrown up on purpose to be crowned with a clump, is artificial to a degree of disgust. Some of the trees should therefore be planted on the sides, to take off that appearance. The same expedient may be applied to clumps placed on the brow of a hill, to interrupt its sameness. They will have less ostentation of design, if they are in part carried down either declivity. The objection already made to planting many along such a brow, is on the same principle. A single clump is less suspected of art; if it be an open one, there can be no finer situation for it, than just at the point of an abrupt hill, or on a promontory into a lake or a river. It is in either a beautiful termination, distinct by its position, and enlivened by an expanse of sky or of water about and beyond it. Such advantages may balance little defects in its form; but they are lost if other clumps are planted near it Art then intrudes, and the whole is displeasing.

But though a multiplicity of clumps, when each is an independent object, seldom seems natural; yet a number of them may, without any appearance of art, be admitted into the same scene, if they bear a relation to each other. If by their succession they diversify a continued outline of wood, if between them they form beautiful glades, if altogether they cast an extensive lawn into an agreeable shape, the effect prevents any scrutiny into the means of producing it. But when the reliance on that effect is so great, every other consideration must give way to the beauty of the whole. The figure of the glade, of the lawn, or of the wood, is principally to be attended to. The finest clumps, if they do not fall easily into the great lines, are blemishes; their connections and their contrasts are more important than their forms.

3. Water. All inland water is either running or stagnant. When stagnant, it forms a lake or a pool, which differ only in extent; whilst a pool and a pond are the same. Running waters are either a river, a rivulet, or a rill; and these differ only in breadth. A rivulet and a brook are synonymous terms; a stream and a current are general names for all.

Space or expansion is essential to a lake. It cannot be too large as a subject of description or of contemplation; but the eye receives little satisfaction when it has not a form on which to rest. The ocean itself hardly atones by all its grandeur for its infinity; and a prospect of it is, therefore, always most agreeable, when in some part, at no great distance, a reach of shore, a promontory, or an island, reduces the immensity into shape. An artificial lake, again, may be comparatively extravagant in its dimensions. It may be so out of proportion to its appendages, as to seem a waste of water; for all size is in some respects relative. If this exceeds its due dimensions, and if a flatness of shore beyond it adds still to the dreariness of the scene, wood to raise the banks, and objects to distinguish them, are the remedies to be employed. If the length of a piece of water be too great for its breadth, so as to destroy all idea of circuity, the extremities should be considered as too far off, and made important to give them proximity; whilst at the same time the breadth may be favoured, by keeping down the banks on the sides. On the same principle, if the lake be too small, a low shore will, in appearance, increase the extent.

But it is not necessary that the whole scene be bounded. If form be impressed on a considerable part, the eye can, without disgust, permit a large reach to stretch beyond its ken; it can even be pleased to observe a tremulous motion in the horizon, which shows that the water has not yet there attained its termination. Still short of this, the extent may be kept in uncertainty; a hill or a wood may conceal one of the extremities, and the country beyond it, in such a manner as to leave room for the supposed continuation of so large a body of water. Opportunities to choose this shape are frequent, and it is the most perfect of any. The scene is closed, but the extent of the lake is undetermined; a complete form is exhibited to the eye, whilst a boundless range is left open to the imagination.

But mere form will only give content, not delight; that depends upon the outline, which is capable of exquisite beauty; and the bays, the creeks, and the promontories, which are ordinary parts of that outline, together with the accidents of islands, of inlets, and of outlets to rivers, are in their shapes and their combinations an inexhaustible fund of variety.

Bays, creeks, and promontories, however, though extremely beautiful, should not be very numerous. For a shore broken into little points and hollows has no certainty of outline; it is only ragged, not diversified; and the distinctness and simplicity of the great parts are hurt by [7:10:327]. the multiplicity of subdivisions. But islands, though the channels between them be narrow, do not so often derogate from greatness. They intimate a space beyond them the boundaries of which do not appear, and remove to a distance the shore which is seen in perspective between them. Such partial interruptions of the sight suggest ideas of extent to the imagination.

Though the windings of a river are proverbially descriptive of its course, yet, without being perpetually wreathed, it may be natural. Nor is the character expressed only by the turnings. On the contrary, if these are too frequent and sudden, the current is reduced into a number of separate pools, and the idea of progress is obscured by the difficulty of tracing it. Length is the strongest symptom of continuation. Long reaches are therefore characteristic of a river, and they conduce much to its beauty; each is indeed a considerable piece of water, and variety of beautiful forms may be given to their outlines.

A river requires a number of accompaniments. The changes in its course furnish a variety of situations; whilst the fertility, convenience, and amenity, which attend it, account for all appearances of inhabitants and improvement. Profusion of ornament on a fictitious river is a just imitation of cultivated nature. Every species of building, every style of plantation, may abound on the banks; and, whatever be their characters, their proximity to the water is commonly the happiest circumstance in their situation. A lustre is from thence diffused on all around; each derives an importance from its relation to this capital feature; those which are near enough to be reflected immediately belong to it, those at a greater distance still share in the animation of the scene; and objects totally detached from each other, being all attracted towards the same interesting connection, are united into one composition.

In the front of Blenheim was a deep broad valley, which abruptly separated the castle from the lawn and the plantations before it; even a direct approach could not be made without building a monstrous bridge over the vast hollow; but this forced communication was only a subject of raillery; and the scene continued broken into two parts, absolutely distinct from each other. This valley has been flooded, but not filled; the bottom only is covered with water, and the sides are still very high; but they are no longer the steeps of a chasm; they are the bold shores of a noble river. The same bridge is standing without alteration; but no extravagance remains; the water gives it propriety. Above it the river first appears, winding from behind a small thick wood in the valley; and soon taking a determined course, it is then broad enough to admit an island filled with the finest trees; others corresponding to them in growth and disposition stand in groups on the banks, intermixed with younger plantations. Immediately below the bridge the river spreads into a large expanse; the sides are open lawn. On that farthest from the house formerly stood the palace of Henry II. celebrated in many an ancient ditty by the name of Fair Rosamond’s Bower. A clear little spring which rises there is by the country people still called Fair Rosamond’s Well. The spot is now marked by a single willow, and near it is a fine collateral stream, of a beautiful form, retaining its breadth as far as it is seen, and retiring at last from the view behind a hill. The main river, having received this accession, makes a gentle bend; then continues for a considerable length in one wide direct reach; and, just as it disappears, throws itself down a high cascade, which is the present termination. Upon one of the banks of this reach is the garden. The steeps are there diversified with thickets and with glades; but the covert prevails, and the top is crowned with lofty trees. On the other side there is a noble hanging wood in the park. It was depreciated when it sunk into a hollow, and was poorly lost in the bottom; but it is now a rich appendage to the river, falling down an easy slope quite to the water’s edge, where, with overshadowing, it is reflected on the surface. Another face of the same wood borders the collateral stream with an outline more indented and various; whilst a very large irregular clump adorns the opposite declivity. This clump is at a considerable distance from the principal river; but the stream it belongs to brings it down to connect with the rest; and the other objects, which were before dispersed, are now, by the interest of each in a relation which is common to all, collected into one illustrious scene. The castle itself is a prodigious pile of building, which, with all the faults of the architecture, will never seem other than a truly princely habitation; and the confined spot where it was placed, on the edge of an abyss, is converted into a proud situation, commanding a beautiful prospect of water, and open to an extensive lawn, adequate to the mansion, and an emblem of its domain. In the midst of this lawn stands a column, a stately trophy, recording the exploits of the üuke of Marlborough and the gratitude of Britain. Between this pillar and the castle is the bridge, which now, applied to a subject worthy of it, is established in all the importance due to its greatness. The middle arch is wider than the Rialto, but not too wide for the occasion; and yet that is the narrowest part of the river; but the length of the reaches is everywhere proportioned to their breadth. Each of them is alone a noble piece of water; and the last, the finest of all, loses itself gradually in a wood, which on that side is also the boundary of the lawn, and rises into the horizon. All is great in the front of Blenheim; but in that vast space no void appears, so important are the parts, so magnificent is the object. The plain is extensive, the valley broad, and the wood deep. Though the intervals between the build« ing are large, they are filled with the grandeur which buildings of such dimensions and so much pomp diffuse all around them; and the river, in its long and varied course, approaching to every object, and touching upon every part, spreads its influence over the whole.

In the composition of this scene, the river, both as a part itself, and as uniting the other parts, has a principal share. But water is not lost though it be in so confined or so concealed a spot as to enter into no view; it may render that spot delightful. It is capable of the most exquisite beauty in its form; and though not in space, may yet in disposition have pretensions to greatness; for it may be divided into several branches, which will form a cluster of islands all connected together, make the whole place irriguous, and, instead of extent, supply a quantity of water. Such a sequestered scene usually owes its retirement to the trees and the thickets with which it abounds; but, in the disposition of these, one distinction should be constantly attended to. A river flowing through a wood which overspreads one continued surface of ground, and a river between two woods, are in very different circumstances. In the latter case the woods are separate; they may be contrasted in their forms and their characters, and the outline of each should be forcibly marked. In the former, no outline ought to be decernible; for the river passes between trees, not between boundaries; and though in the progress of its course the style of the plantations may often be changed, yet on the opposite banks a similarity should constantly prevail, that the identity of the wood may never be doubtful.

A river between two woods may enter into a view; and then it must be governed by the principles which regulate the conduct and the accompaniments of a river in an open exposure. But when it runs through a wood, it is never to be seen in a prospect; the place is naturally full of obstructions; and a continued opening, large enough to receive a long reach, would seem an artificial cut. The river must therefore necessarily wind more than in crossing a Jawn where the passage is entirely free. But its influence [7:10:328], will never extend so far on the sides. The buildings must be near the banks, and, if numerous, will seem crowded, being all in one tract, and in situations nearly alike. The scene, however, does not want variety; on the contrary, none is capable of more. The objecte are not indeed so different from each other as in an open view; but they are very different, and in much greater abundance; for this is the interior of a wood, where every tree is an object, every combination of trees a variety, and no large intervals are requisite to distinguish the several dispositions; the grove, the thicket, or the groups, may prevail, and their forms and their relations may be constantly changed, without restraint of fancy, or limitation of number.

Water is so universally and so deservedly admired in a prospect, that the most obvious thought in the management of it is to lay it as open as possible, and purposely to conceal it would generally seem a severe self-denial; yet so many beauties may attend its passage through a wood, that larger portions of it might be allowed to such retired scenes than are commonly spared from the view, and the different parte in different styles would be fine contrasts to each other. If the water at Wotton^[16. Yale of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. ] were all exposed, a walk of near two miles along the banks would be of a tedious length, from the want of those changes of the scene which now supply, through the whole extent, a succession of perpetual variety. The extent is so large as to admit of a division into four principal parts, all of them great in style and in dimensions, and differing from each other both in character and in situation. The first two are the least. The one is a reach of river, about the third of a mile in length, and of a competent breadth, flowing through a lovely meadow, open in some places to views of beautiful hills in the country, and adorned in others with clumps of trees so large that their branches stretch quite across, and form a high arch over the water. The next seems to have been a formal basin encompassed with plantations, and the appendages on either side still retain some traces of regularity, but the shape of the water is free from them; the size is about fourteen acres; and out of it issue two broad collateral streams winding towards a large river, which they are seen to approach and supposed to join. A real junction is however impossible, from the difference of the levels; but the terminations are so artfully concealed, that the deception is never suspected, and when known is not easily explained. The river is the third great division of the water; a lake into which it falls is the fourth. These two do actually join, but their characters are directly opposite; the scenes which they belong to are totally distinct, and the transition from the one to the other is very gradual; for an island near the conflux, dividing the breadth, and concealing the end of the lake, moderates for some way the space; and permitting it to expand by degrees, raises an idea of greatness from uncertainty accompanied with increase. 1he reality does not disappoint the expectation; and the island, which is the point of view, is itself equal to the scene. It is large and high above the lake; the ground is irregularly broken; thickets hang on the sides; and towards the top is placed an Ionic portico which commands a noble extent of water, not less than a mile in circumference, bounded on one side with wood, and open on the other to two sloping lawns, the least of an hundred acres, diversified with clumps and bordered by plantations. Yet this lake, when fuU m view, and with all the importance which space, form, and situation can give, is not more interesting than the sequestered river, which has been mentioned as the third great division of the water. It is just within the verge of a wood, three quarters of a mile long, and everywhere broad whilst its course is such as to admit of infinite variety without any confusion. The banks are cleared of underwood, but a few thickets still remain, and on one side an impenetrable covert soon begins; the interval is a beautiful grove of oaks, scattered over a green sward of extraordinary verdure. Between these trees and these thickets the river seems to glide gently along, constantly winding, without one short turn or one extended reach in the whole length of the way. This even temper in the stream suits the scenes through which it passes; they are in general of a very sober cast, not melancholy, but grave; never exposed to a glare, never darkened with gloom, nor, by strong contrasts of light and shade, exhibiting the excess of either. Undisturbed by an extent of prospect without, or a multiplicity of objects within, they retain at all times a mildness of character; which is still more forcibly felt when the shadows grow faint as they lengthen, when a little rustling of birds in the spray, the leaping of the fish, and the fragrance of the woodbine, denote the approach of evening; whilst the setting sun shoots its last gleams on a Tuscan portico which is close to the great basin, but which from a seat near this river is seen at a distance, through all the obscurity of the wood, glowing on the banks, and reflected on the surface of the water. In another still more distinguished spot is built an elegant bridge, with a colonnade upon it, which not only adorns the place where it stands, but is also a picturesque object to an octagon building near the lake, where it is shown in a singular situation, overarched, encompassed, and backed with wood, without any appearance of the water beneath. This building, in return, is also an object from the bridge; and a Chinese room, in a little island just by, is another. Neither of them is considerable, and the others which are visible are at a distance; but more or greater adventitious ornaments are not required in a spot so rich as this in beauties peculiar to its character. A profusion of water pours in from all sides round upon the view; the opening of the lake appears, and a glimpse is caught of the large basin. One of the collateral streams is full in sight, and the bridge itself is in the midst of the finest part of the river; all seem to communicate the one with the other. Though thickets often intercept, and groups perplex the view, yet they never break the connection between the several pieces of water; each may still be traced along large branches or little catches, which in some places are overshadowed and dim, in others glisten through a glade, or glimmer between the holes of trees in a distant perspective; and in one, where they are quite lost to the view, some arches of the stone bridge, but partially seen among the wood, preserve their connection.

If a large river may sometimes, a smaller current undoubtedly may often, be conducted through a wood. It seldom adorns, it frequently disfigures, a prospect, where its course is marked, not by any appearance of water, but by a confined line of clotted grass, which disagrees with the general verdure. A rivulet may indeed have consideration enough for a home scene though it be open, but a rill is always most agreeable when most retired from public view. Its characteristic excellencies are vivacity and variety, which require attention, leisure, and silence, that the eye may pore upon the little beauties, and the ear listen to the low murmurs of the stream, without interruption. To such indulgence a confined spot only is favourable; a close copse is therefore often more acceptable than a high wood, and a sequestered valley at all times preferable to any open exposure. A single rill at a very little distance is a mere water-course; it loses all its charms; it has no importance in itself, and bears no proportion to the scene. A number of little streams have indeed an effect in any situation, but not as objects; they are interesting only on account of the character they express, and the irriguous appearance which they give to the whole.
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The full tide of a large river has more force than activity, and seems too unwieldy to allow of very quick transitions. But in a rill, the agility of its motions accounts for every caprice; frequent windings disguise its insignificance; short turnings show its vivacity; sudden changes in the breadth are a species of its variety; and however fantastically the channel may be wreathed, contracted, and widened, it still appears to be natural. We find an amusement in tracing the little stream through all the intricacies of its course, and in seeing it force a passage through a narrow strait, expatiate on every opportunity, struggle with obstructions, and puzzle out its way. A rivulet, which is the mean between a river and a rill, partakes of the character of both. It is not licensed to the extravagance of the one, nor under the same restraints as the other; it may have more frequent bends than the river, and longer reaches than a rill; the breadth of a stream determines whether the principal beauty results from extent or from variety.

The murmurs of a rill are amongst the most pleasing circumstances which attend it. If the bed of the stream be rough, mere declivity will occasion a constant rippling noise. When the current drops down a descent, though but of a few inches, or forcibly bubbles up from a little hollow, it has a deep gurgling tone, not uniformly continued, but incessantly repeated, and therefore more engaging than any. The flattest of all is that sound rather of the splashing than the fall of water, which an even gentle slope, or a tame obstruction, will produce. This is less pleasing than the others, but none should be entirely excluded; all in their turns are agreeable, and the choice of them is much in our power By observing their causes we may often find the means to strengthen, to weaken, or to change them; and the addition or removal of a single stone ora few pebbles will sometimes be sufficient for the purpose.

A .rill cannot pretend to any sound beyond that of a little waterfall. The roar of a cascade belongs only to a larger stream; but it may be produced by a rivulet to a considerable degree, and attempts to do more have generally been unsuccessful. A vain ambition to imitate nature in her great extravagancies betrays the weakness of art. Though a noble river, throwing itself headlong down a precipice, be an object truly magnificent, it must, however, be confessed, that in a single sheet of water there is a formality which its vastness alone can cure. But the height, not the breadth, is the wonder. When it falls not more than a few feet, the regularity prevails; and its extent only serves to expose the vanity of affecting the style of a cataract in an artificial cascade. It is less exceptionable if divided into several parts; for then each separate part may be wide enough for its depth, and in the whole, variety, not greatness, will be the predominant character. But a structure of rough, large, detached stones, cannot easily be contrived of strength sufficient to support a great weight of water; it is sometimes from necessity almost smooth and uniform, and then it loses much of its effect Several little falls in succession are preferable to one great cascade which in figure or in motion approaches to regularity.

When greatness is thus reduced to number, and length becomes of more importance than breadth, a rivulet vies with a river; and it more frequently runs in a continued declivity, which is very favourable to such a succession of falls. Half the expense and labour which are sometimes bestowed on a river, to give it at the best a forced precipitancy in one spot only, would animate a rivulet throughout the whole of its course. And, after all, the most interesting circumstance in falling waters is their animation. A great cascade fills us with surprise. But all surprise must cease; and the motion, the agitation, the rage, the froth, and the variety of the water, are finally the objects which engage the attention. For these a rivulet is sufficient; and they may there be produced without that appearance of effort which raises a suspicion of art.

To obviate such a suspicion, it may sometimes be expedient to begin the descent out of sight; for the beginning is the difficulty. If that be concealed, the subsequent falls seem but a consequence of the agitation which characterizes the water at its first appearance; and the imagination is at the same time let loose to give ideal extent to the cascades. When a stream issues from a wood, such management will have a great effect. The bend of its course in an open exposure may afford frequent opportunities for it; and sometimes a low broad bridge may furnish the occasion. A little fall hid under the arch will create a disorder, in consequence of which a greater cascade below will appear very natural.

4. Rocks. Rocks are themselves too vast and too stubborn to submit to our control; by the addition or removal of appendages which we can command, parts may be shown or concealed, and the characters with their impressions may be weakened or enforced. To adopt the accompaniments, accordingly, is the utmost ambition of art when rocks are the subject.

Their most distinguishing characters are, dignity, terror, and fancy. The expressions of all are constantly wild; and sometimes a rocky scene is wild only, without pretensions to any particular character.

Rills, rivulets, and cascades, abound amongst rocks; they are natural to the scene; and such scenes commonly require every accompaniment which can be procured for them. Mere rocks, unless they are particularly adapted to certain impressions, though they may surprise, cannot be long engaging, if the rigour of their character be not softened by circumstances which may belong either to these or to more cultivated spots; and when the dreariness is extreme, little streams and waterfalls are of themselves insufficient for the purpose; an intermixture of vegetation is also necessary, and on some occasions even marks of inhabitants are proper.

Large clefts, sloping or precipitous, with a dale at bottom, furnish scenes of the wildest nature. In such spots, verdure alone will give some relief to the dreariness of the scene; and shrubs or bushes, without trees, are a sufficiency of wood. The thickets may also be extended by the creeping plants, such as pyracantha, vines, and ivy, to wind up the sides or cluster on the tops of the rocks. And to this vegetation may be added some symptoms of inhabitants, but they must be slight and few; the use of them is only to cheer, not to destroy, the solitude of the place; and such therefore should be chosen as are sometimes found in situations retired from public resort. A cottage may be lonely, but it must not here seem ruinous and neglected; it should be tight and warm, with every mark of comfort about it, to which its position in some sheltered recess may greatly contribute. A cavity also in the rocks, rendered easy of access, improved to a degree of convenience, and maintained in a certain state of preservation, will suggest similar ideas of protection from the bitterest inclemencies of the sky, and even of occasional refreshment and repose. But we may venture still further; a mill is of necessity often built at some distance from the town which it supplies; and here it would at the same time apply the water to a use, and increase its agitation. The dale may besides be made the haunt of those animals, such as goats, which are sometimes wild and sometimes domestic, and which, accidentally appearing, will divert the mind from the sensations natural to the scene, but not agreeable, if continued long without interruption. These and such other expedients will approximate the severest retreat to the habitations of men, and [7:10:330]convert the appearance of a perpetual banishment into that of a temporary retirement from society.

But too strong a force on the nature of the place always fails. A winding path, which appears to be worn, not cut, has more effect than a high road, all artificial and level, which is too weak to overbear, and yet contradicts the general idea. The objects therefore to be introduced must be those which hold a mean between solitude and population, and the inclination of that choice towards either extreme should be directed by the degree of wildness which prevails; for though that runs sometimes to an excess which requires correction, at other times it wants encouragement, and at all times it ought to be preserved. It is the predominant character of rocks, which mixes with every other, and to which all the appendages must be accommodated; and they may be applied so as greatly to increase it. A licentious irregularity of wood and of ground, and a fantastic conduct of the streams, neither of which would be tolerated in the midst of cultivation, become and improve romantic rocky spots; even buildings, partly by their style, but still more by their position, in strange, difficult, or dangerous situations, distinguish and aggravate the native extravagancies of the scene.

Greatness is a chief ingredient in the character of dignity, with less of wildness than in any other. The effect here depends more upon amplitude of surface than variety of forms. The parts, therefore, must be large. If the rocks are only high, they are stupendous, not majestic; br.eadth is equally essential to their greatness; and every slender, every grotesque shape, is excluded. Art may interpose to show these large parts to the eye, and magnify them to the imagination, by taking away thickets which stretch quite across the rocks, so as to disguise their dimensions; or by filling with wood the small intervals between them, and thus, by concealing the want, preserving the appearance of continuation. When rocks retire from the eye down a gradual declivity, we can, by raising the upper ground, deepen the fall, lengthen the perspective, and give both height and extent to those at a distance. This effect may be still increased by covering that upper ground with a thicket, which shall cease or be lowered as it descends. A thicket, on other occasions, makes the rocks which rise out of it seem larger than they are. If they stand upon a bank overspread with shrubs, their beginning is at the least uncertain; and the presumption is, that they start from the bottom. Another use of this brushy underwood, is to conceal the fragments and rubbish which have fallen from the sides and the brow, and which are often unsightly. Rocks are seldom remarkable for the elegance of their forms; they are too vast and too rude to pretend to delicacy. But their shapes are often agreeable; and we can affect those shapes to a certain degree, at least we can cover many blemishes in them, by conducting the growth of shrubby and creeping plants about them.

For all these purposes mere underwood suffices; but for greater effects larger trees are requisite. They are worthy of the scene, and not only improvements, but accessions to its grandeur. We are used to class them amongst the noblest objects of nature; and when we see that they cannot aspire to the midway of the heights around them, the rocks are raised by the comparison. A single tree is therefore often preferable to a clump; the size, though really less, is more remarkable; and clumps are besides generally exceptionable in a very wild spot, from the suspicions of art which attends them; but a wood is free from that suspicion, and its own character of greatness recommends it to every scene of magnificence.

On the same principle, all possible consideration should be given to the streams. No given number of little rills are equal to one broad river; and in the principal current some varieties may be sacrificed to importance. But a degree of strength should always be preserved. The water, though it needs not be furious, should not be dull; for dignity, when most serene, is not languid, and space will hardly atone for want of animation.

This character does not exclude marks of inhabitants, though it never requires them to tame its wildness; and, without inviting, it occasionally admits an intermixture of vegetation. It even allows of buildings intended only to decorate the scene; but they must be adequate to it, both in size and in character. And if cultivation is introduced, that too should be conformable to the rest; not a single narrow patch cribbed out of the waste, but the confines of a country shelving into the vale, and suggesting the idea of extent. Nothing trivial ought to find admittance. But, on the other hand, no extravagance is required to support it; strange shapes in extraordinary positions, enormous weights unaccountably sustained, trees rooted in the sides, and torrents raging at the foot of the rocks, are at the best needless excesses. There is a temperance in dignity, which is rather hurt by a wanton violation of the common order of nature.

The terrors of a scene in nature are like those of a dramatic representation; they give an alarm, but the sensations are agreeable as long as they are kept to such as are allied only to terror, unmixed with any that are horrible and disgusting. Art may therefore be used to heighten them, to display the objects which are distinguished by greatness, to improve the circumstances which denote force, to mark those which intimate danger, and to blend withal here and there a cast of melancholy.

Greatness is as essential to the character of terror as to that of dignity. Vast efforts in little objecte are ridiculous; nor can force be supposed upon trifles incapable of resistance. On the other band, it must be allowed that exertion and violence supply some want of space. A rock wonderfully supported, or threatening to fall, acquires a greatness from its situation, which it has not in dimensions; so circumstanced, the size appears to be monstrous. A torrent has a consequence which a placid river of equal breadth cannot pretend to; and a tree, which would be inconsiderable in the natural soil, becomes important when it bursts forth from a rock

Such circumstances should be always industriously sought for. It may be worth while to cut down several trees, in order to exhibit one apparently rooted in the stone. By the removal perhaps of only a little brushwood, the alarming disposition of a rock, strangely undermined, rivetted, or suspended, may be shown; and if there be any soil above its brow, some trees planted there, and impending over it, will make the object still more extraordinary. As to the streams, great alterations may generally be ιpade in them; and therefore it is of use to ascertain the species proper to each scene, because it is in our power to enlarge or contract their dimensions, to accelerate or retard their rapidity, to form, increase, or take away obstructions, and always to improve, often to change, their characters.

Inhabitants furnish frequent opportunities of strengthening the appearances of force, by giving intimations of danger. A house placed on the edge of a precipice, any building on the pinnacle of a crag, makes that situation seem formidable, which might otherwise have been unnoticed. A steep, in itself not very remarkable, becomes alarming when a path is carried aslant up the side; a rail on the brow of a perpendicular fall shows that the height is frequented and dangerous; and a common foot bridge thrown over a cleft between rocks has a still stronger effect. In all these instances, the imagination immediately transports the spectator to the spot, and suggests the idea of looking down such a depth; in the last, that depth is a chasm, and the situation is directly over it.
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The different species of rocks often meet in the same place, and compose a noble scene, which is not distinguished by any particular character; it is only when one eminently prevails that it deserves such a preference as to exclude every other. Sometimes a spot remarkable for nothing but its wildness is highly romantic; and when this wildness rises to fancy, when the most singular, the most opposite, forms and combinations are thrown together, then a mixture also of several characters adds to the number of instances which there concur to display the inexhaustible variety of nature.

So much variety, so much fancy, are seldom found within the same extent as in Dovedale. It is about two miles in length, forming a deep, narrow, hollow valley; both the sides are of rock; and the Dove in its passage between them is perpetually changing its course, its motion, and appearance. It is never less than ten, nor so much as twenty yards wide, and generally about four feet deep, but transparent to the bottom, except when it is covered with a foam of the purest white, under waterfalls which are perfectly lucid. These are very numerous, but very different. In some places they stretch straight across or aslant the stream; in others they are only partial, and the water either dashes against the stones and leaps over them, or pouring along a steep, rebounds upon those below; sometimes it rushes through the several openings between them, sometimes it drops gently down, and at other times it is driven back by the obstruction, and turns into an eddy. In one particular spot, the valley, almost closing, leaves hardly a passage for the river, which, pent up and struggling for a vent, rages, and roars, and foams, till it has extricated itself from the confinement. In other parts, the stream, though never languid, is often gentle; it flows round a little desert island, glides between bits of bulrushes, disperses itself amongst tufts of grass or of moss, bubbles about a water dock, or plays with the slender threads of aquatic plants which float upon the surface. The rocks all along the dale vary as often in their structure as the stream in its motion. In one place, an extended surface gradually diminishes from a broad base almost to an edge; in another, a heavy top hanging forwards, overshadows all beneath; sometimes many different shapes are confusedly tumbled together, and sometimes they are broken into slender sharp pinnacles, which are upright, often two or three together, and often in more numerous clusters. On the one side of the dale they are universally bare, on the other they are intermixed with wood; and the vast height of both the sides, with the narrowness of the interval between them, produces a further variety. For whenever the sun shines from behind the one, the form of it is distinctly and completely cast upon the other; the rugged surface on which it falls diversifies the tints; and a strong reflected light often glares on the edge of the deepest shadow. The rocks never continue long in the same figure or situation, and are very much separated from each other; sometimes they form the sides of the valley, in precipices, in steeps, or in stages; sometimes they seem to rise in the bottom, and lean back against the hill; and sometimes they stand out quite detaċhed, heaving up in cumbrous piles, or storting into conical shapes, like vast spars, a hundred feet in height; some are firm and solid throughout; some are cracked; and some, split and undermined, are wonderfully upheld by fragments apparently unequal to the weight they sustain. One is placed before, one over another, and one fills, at some distance behind, an interval between two. The changes in their disposition are infinite; every step produces some new combination; they are continually crossing, advancing, and retiring; the breadth of the valley is never the same forty yards together. At the narrow pass which has been mentioned, the rocks almost meet at the top, and the sky is seen as through a chink between them; and just by this gloomy abyss is a wider opening, more light, more verdure, more cheerfulness than anywhere else in the dale. Nor are the forms and the situations of the rocks their only variety. Many of them are perforated by large natural cavities, some of which open to the sky, some terminate in dark recesses, and through some are to be seen several more uncouth arches and rude pillars, all detached, and retiring beyond each other, with the light shining in between them, till a rock far behind them closes the perspective. The noise of the cascades in the river echoes amongst them; the water may often be heard at the same time gurgling near and roaring at a distance; but no other sounds disturb the silence of the spot. The only trace of men is a blind path, but seldom and lightly trodden, by those whom curiosity leads to see the wonders they have been told of Dovedale. It seems indeed a fitter haunt for mere ideal beings; the whole has the air of enchantment. The perpetual shifting of the scenes, the quick transitions, the total changes; then the forms all around, grotesque as chance can cast, wild as nature can produce, and various as imagination can invent; the force which seems to have been exerted to place some of the rocks where they are now fixed immoveable, the magic by which others appear still to be suspended; the dark caverns, the illuminated recesses, the fleeting shadows, and the gleams of light glancing on the sides, or trembling on the stream; and the loncliness and the stillness of the place; all crowding together on the mind, almost realize the ideas which naturally present themselves in this region of romance and of fancy.

The solitude of such a scene is agreeable, on account of the endless entertainment which its variety affords, and in the contemplation of which both the eye and the mind are delighted to indulge. Marks of inhabitants and cultivation would disturb that solitude; and ornamental buildings are too artificial in a place so absolutely free from restraint. The only accompaniments proper for it are wood and water; and by these sometimes improvements may be made. Variety is the peculiar property of the spot, and every accession to it is a valuable acquisition. On the same principle, endeavours should be used, not only to multiply, but to aggravate differences, and to increase distinctions into contrasts; but the subject will impose a caution against attempting too much. Art must almost despair of improving a scene where nature seems to have exerted her inventive powers.

II. Factitious Accompaniments. These consist of fences, walks, roads, bridges, seats, and buildings. (See Practical Treatise of Gardening, p. 593, et seqqi)

1. The fence, where the place is large, becomes necessary; yet the eye dislikes constraint. Our ideas of liberty carry us beyond our own species; the imagination feels a dislike in seeing even the brute creation in a state of confinement. The birds wafting themselves from wood to grove are objects of delight; and the hare appears to enjoy a degree of happiness unknown to the barriered flock. Besides, a tall fence frequently hides from the sight objects the most pleasing; not only the flocks and herds themselves, but the surface they graze upon. These considerations have brought the unseen fence into general use.

This species of barrier, it must be allowed, incurs a degree of deception which can scarcely be warranted upon any other occasion. In this instance, however, it is a species of fraud which we observe in nature’s practice. How often have we seen two distinct herds feeding to appearance in the same extended meadow, until, coming abruptly upon a deep sunk rivulet, or an unfordable river, we discover the deception.

Besides the sunk fence, another sort of unseen barrier may be made, though by no means equal to that, especially if near the eye. Tłiis is constructed of paling, painted of the invisible green. If the colour of the back ground [7:10:332]were permanent, and that of the paint made exactly to correspond with it, the deception would at a distance be complete; but back grounds in general changing with the season, this kind of fence is the less eligible. Clumps and patches of woodiness scattered promiscuously on either side of an unseen winding fence assist very much in doing away the idea of constraint.

2. Tiιe walk, in extensive grounds, is as necessary as the fence. The beauties of the place are disclosed that they may be seen; and it is the office of the walk to lead the eye from view to view, in order that whilst the tone of health is preserved by the favourite exercise of nature, the mind may be thrown into unison by the harmony of the surrounding objects.

The direction of the walk must be guided by the points of view to which it leads, and the nature of the ground it passes over. It ought to be made subservient to the natural impediments, the ground, wood, and water, which fall in its way, without appearing to have any direction of its own. It can seldom run with propriety any distance in a straight line; a thing which rarely occurs in a natural walk. The paths of the negroes and Indians are always crooked; and those of the brute creation are similar.

3. The road may be a thing of necessity, as an approach to the mansion, or a matter of amusement only, as a drive or a ride, from which the grounds and the surrounding country may be seen to advantage. It should be the study of the artist to make the same road answer, as far as may be, the twofold purpose. The road and the walk are subject to the same rule of nature and use. The direction ought to be natural and easy, and adapted to the purpose intended. A road of necessity ought to be straighter than one of mere conveniency. In this, recreation is the predominant idea; in that, utility. But even in this the direct line may be dispensed with. The natural roads upon heaths and open downs, and the grassy glades and green roads across forests and extensive wastes, are proper subjects to be studied.

4. The bridge should never be visible where it is not wanted. A useless bridge is a deception; deceptions are frauds; and fraud is always hateful, unless when practised to avert some greater evil. A bridge without water is an absurdity; and half an one stuck up as an eye-trap is a paltry trick, which, though it may strike the stranger, cannot fail of disgusting when the fraud is found out. In low situations, and wherever water abounds, bridges become useful, and are therefore pleasing objects; they are looked for, and ought to appear, not as objects of ornament only, but likewise as matters of utility. The walk or the road therefore ought to be directed in such a manner as to cross the water at the point in which the bridge will appear to the greatest advantage.

In the construction of bridges, also, regard must be had to ornament and utility. A bridge is an artificial production, and as such it ought to appear. It ranks amongst the noblest of human inventions; the ship and the fortress alone excel it. Simplicity and firmness are the leading principles in its construction. Mr Wheatley’s observation is just when he says, “the single wooden arch, now much in fashion, seems to me generally misapplied. Elevated without occasion so much above, it is totally detached from, the river; it is often seen straddling in the air, without a glimpse of water to account for it; and the ostentation of n as an ornamental object diverts all that train of ideas which its use as a communication might suggest.” But we differ from this ingenious writer when he tells us that it is spoiled if adorned, and disfigured if only painted of any other than a dusky colour. In a rustic scene, where nature wears her own coarse garb, “the vulgar foot bridge of planks, only'guarded on one hand by a common rail, and supported by a few ordinary piles,” may be in character; but amidst a display of ornamented nature, a contrivance of that kind would appear mean and paltry, and would be an affectation of simplicity rather than the lovely attribute itself. In cultivated scenes, the bridge ought to receive the ornaments which the laws of architectural taste allow; and the more polished the situation, the higher should be the style and finishings.

5. Seals have a twofold use; they are useful as places of rest and conversation, and as guides to the points of view in which the beauties of the surrounding scene are disclosed. Every point of view should be marked with a seat; and, speaking generally, no seat ought to appear but in some favourable point of view. This rule may not be invariable, but it ought seldom to be deviated from. In the ruder scenes of neglected nature, the simple trunk, rough from the woodman’s hands, and the butts or stool» of rooted trees, without any other marks of tools upon them than those of the saw' which severed them from their stems, are seats in character; and in romantic or recluse situations the cave or the grotto are admissible. But wherever human design has been executed upon the natural objects of the place, the seat and every other artificial accompaniment ought to be in unison; and whether the bench or the alcove be chosen, it ought to be formed and finished in such a manner as to unite with the wood, the lawn, and the walk, which lie around it. The colour of seats should likewise be suited to situations. Where uncultivated nature prevails, the natural brown of the wood itself ought not to be altered; but where the rural art presides, white or stone colour has a much better effect.

6. Buildings probably were first introduced into gardens merely for convenience, to afford refuge from a sudden shower, and shelter against the wind, or, at the most, to be seats for a party, or for retirement. They have since been converted into objects, and now the original use is too often forgotten in the greater purposes to which they are applied. They are considered as objects only; the inside is totally neglected, and a pompous edifice frequently wants a room barely comfortable. Sometimes the pride of making a lavish display to a visitor, without any regard to the owner’s enjoyments, and sometimes too scrupulous an attention to the style of the structure, occasions a poverty and dulness within which deprive the buildings of part of their utility. But in a garden they ought to be considered both as beautiful objects and as agreeable retreats; if a character becomes them, it is that of the scene they belong to, not that of their primitive application. A Grecian temple or Gothic church may adorn spots where it would be affectation to preserve that solemnity within which is proper for places of devotion. They are not to be exact models, subjects only of curiosity or study; they are also seats; and such seats will be little frequented by the proprietor, his mind being generally indisposed to so much simplicity, and so much gloom, in the midst of gaiety, richness, and variety.

But though the interior of buildings should not be disregarded, it is by their exterior that they become objects; and sometimes by the one, sometimes by the other, and sometimes by both, they are entitled to be considered as characters. As objects, they are designed either to distinguish, or to break, or to adorn, the scenes to which they are applied.

The differences between one wood, one lawn, one piece of water, and another, are not always very apparent. The several parts of a garden would, therefore, often appear similar, if they were not distinguished by buildings; but these are so observable, so obvious at a glance, so easily retained in the memory, they mark the spots where they are placed with so much strength, they attract the relation of all around with so much power, that parts thus distinguished can never be confounded together. Yet it [7:10:333]• by no means follows that therefore every scene must have its edifice. The want of one is sometimes a variety; and other circumstances are often sufficiently characteristic. It is only when these too nearly agree that we must have recourse to buildings for differences. We can introduce, exhibit, or contrast them as we please. The most striking object is thereby made a mark of distinction, and the force of this first impression prevents our observing the points of resemblance.

The uniformity of a view may be broken by similar means, and on the same principle. When a wide heath, a dreary moor, or a continual plain, is in prospect, objects which catch the eye supplant the want of variety. None are so effectual for this purpose as buildings. Plantations or water can have no very sensible effect, unless they are large and numerous, and almost change the character of the scene; but a small single building diverts the attention at once from the sameness of the extent, which it breaks but does not divide, and diversifies without altering its nature. The design, however, must not be apparent. The merit of a cottage applied to this purpose, consists in its being free from the suspicion; and a few trees near it will both enlarge the object, and account for its position. Ruins are a hackneyed device, immediately detected, unless their style be singular, or their dimensions extraordinary. The semblance of an ancient British monument might be adapted to the same end, with little trouble, and great success. The materials might be brick, or even timber plastered over, if stone could not easily be procured. Whatever they were, the fallacy would not be discernible; it is an object to be seen at a distance, rude, and large, and in character agreeable to a wild open view. But no'building ought to be introduced which may not in reality belong to such a situation; no Grecian temples, no Turkish mosques, no Egyptian obelisks or pyramids, none imported from foreign countries, and unusual in this. The apparent artifice would destroy an effect, which is so nice as to be weakened, if objects proper to produce it are displayed with too much ostentation; if they seem to be contrivances, not accidents, and the advantage of their position appear to be more laboured than natural.

But in a garden, where objects are intended only to adorn, every species of architecture may therefore be admitted, from the Grecian down to the Chinese; and the choice is so free, that the mischief most to be apprehended is an abuse of this latitude in the multiplicity of buildings. Few scenes can bear more than two or three; in some, a single one has a greater effect than any number; and a careless glimpse, here and there, of such as belong immediately to different parts, frequently enlivens the landscape with more spirit than those which are industriously shown. If the effect of a partial sight, or a distant view, were more attended to, many scenes might be filled, without being crowded; a greater number of buildings would be tolerated when they seemed to be casual, not forced; and the animation and richness of the objecte might be attained without pretence or display.

Too fond an ostentation of buildings, even of those which are principal, is a common error; and when all has been done, they are not always shown to the greatest advantage. Though their symmetry and their beauties ought in general to be distinctly and fully seen, yet an oblique is sometimes better than a direct view; and they are often less agreeable objects when entire, than when a part is covered, or their extent is interrupted; when they are bosomed in wood, as well as backed by it, or appear between the stems of trees which rise before or above them. Thus thrown into perspective, thus grouped and accompanied, they may be as important as if they were quite exposed, and are frequently more picturesque and beau-But a still greater advantage arises from this manage-: ment in connecting them with the scene. They are considerable, and different from all around them; inclined therefore to separate from the rest; and yet sometimes still more detached by the pains taken to exhibit them. That very importance which is the cause of the distinction, ought to be a reason for guarding against the independence to which it is naturally prone, and by which an object which ought to be a part of the whole is reduced to a mere individual. An elevated is generally a noble situation. When it is a point or pinnacle, the structure may be a continuation of the ascent; and on many occasions, some parts of the building may descend lower than others, and multiply the appearances of connection. But an edifice in the midst of an extended ridge commonly seems naked alone, and imposed upon the brow, not joined to it. If wood, to accompany it, will not grow there, it had better be brought a little way down the declivity; and then all behind, above, and about it, are so many pointe of contact, by which it is incorporated into landscape.

Accompaniments are important to a building; but they lose much of their effect when they do not appear to be casual. A little mount just large enough for it, a small piece of water below, of no other use than to reflect it, and a plantation close behind, evidently placed there only to give it relief, are as artificial as the structure itself, and alienate it from the scene of nature into which it is introduced, and to which it ought to be reconciled. These appendages therefore should be so disposed, and so connected with the adjacent parts, as to answer other purposes, though applicable to this; that they may be bonds of union, not marks of difference, and that the situation may appear to have been chosen, not made, for the building.

In the choice of a situation, that which shows the building best ought generally to be preferred. Eminence, relief, and every other advantage which can be obtained, ought to be given to an object of so much consideration. They are for the most part desirable, sometimes necessary, and exceptionable only when, instead of rising out of the scene, they are forced into it, and a contrivance to procure them at any rate is avowed without any disguise. There are, however, occasions in which the most tempting advantages of situation must be waived; the general composition may forbid a building in one spot, or require it in another; at other times the interest of the particular group it belongs to may exact a sacrifice of the opportunities to exhibit its beauties and importance; and at all times the pretensions of every individual object must give way to the greater effect of the whole.

The same structure which adorns as an object, may also be expressive as a character. Where the former is not wanted, the latter may be desirable, or it may be weak for one purpose, and strong for the other; it may be grave or gay, magnificent or simple, and, according to its style, may or may not be agreeable to the place it is applied to. But mere consistency is not all the merit which buildings can claim; their characters are sometimes strong enough to determine, improve, or correct, that of the scene; and they are so conspicuous, and so distinguished, that whatever force they have is immediately and sensibly felt. They are fit therefore to make a first impression; and when a scene is but faintly characterized, they give at once a cast which spreads over the whole, and which the weaker parts concur to support, though perhaps they were not able to produce it.

Nor do they stop at fixing an uncertainty, or removing a doubt; they raise and enforce a character already marked. A temple adds dignity to the noblest, a cottage simplicity to the most rural, scenes; the lightness of a spire, the airiness of an open rotunda, the splendour of a continued[7:10:334] colonnade, are less ornamental than expressive; others improve cheerfulness into gaiety, gloom into solemnity, and richness into profusion. A retired spot, which might have been passed unobserved, is noticed for its tranquillity as soon as it is appropriated by some structure to retreat; and the most unfrequented place seems less solitary than one which appears to have been the haunt of a single individual, or even of a sequestered family, and is marked by a lonely dwelling, or the remains of a deserted habitation.

The means are the same, the application of them only is different, when buildings are used to correct the character of the scene; to enliven its dulness, mitigate its gloom, or to check its extravagance, and, on a variety of occasions, to soften, to aggravate, or to counteract, particular circumstances attending it. But care must be taken that they do not contradict too strongly the prevailing idea. They may lessen the dreariness of a waste, but they cannot give it amenity; they may abate horrors, but they will never convert them into graces; they may make a tame scene agreeable, and even interesting, not romantic; or turn solemnity into cheerfulness, but not into gaiety. In these, and in many other instances, they correct the character, by giving it an inclination towards a better, which is not very different; but they can hardly alter it entirely, and when they are totally inconsistent with it, they are at the best nugatory.

The great effects which have been ascribed to buildings do not depend upon those trivial ornaments and appendages which are often too much relied on; such as the furniture of a hermitage, painted glass in a Gothic church, and sculpture about a Grecian temple; grotesque or bacchanalian figures to denote gaiety, and death’s heads to signify melancholy. Such devices are only descriptive, not expressive, of character; and must not be substituted in the room of those superior properties, the want of which they acknowledge, but do not supply. They besides often require time to trace their meaning, and to see their application; but the peculiar excellence of buildings is, that their effects are instantaneous, and therefore the impressions they make are forcible. In order to produce such effects, the general style of the structure, and its position, are the principal considerations. Either of them will sometimes be strongly characteristic alone; united, their powers are very great; and both are so important, that if they do not concur, at least they must not contradict one another.

Every branch of architecture furnishes, on different occasions, objects proper for a garden; and there is no restraint on our selection, provided it be conformable to the style of the scene, proportioned to its extent, and agreeable to its character. The choice of situations is also perfectly free. A hermitage, indeed, must not be close to a road; but whether it be exposed to view on the side of a mountain, or concealed in the depth of a wood, is almost a matter of indifference; that it is at a distance from public resort is sufficient. A castle must not be sunk in a dell; but that it should stand on the utmost pinnacle of a hill, is not necessary; on a lower knoll, and backed by the rise, it may appear to greater advantage as an object, and be much more important to the general composition. Many buildings, which from their splendour best become an open exposure, will yet be sometimes not ill bestowed on a more sequestered spot, either to characterize or adorn it; and others, for which a solitary would in genera be preferred to an eminent situation, may occasionally be objects in very conspicuous positions. A Grecian temple, from its peculiar taste and dignity, deserves every distinction; it may, however, in the depth of a wood, be so mreumstanced that the want of those advantages to which it seems entitled will not be regretted. A happier situation cannot be devised, than that of the temple of I Pan on the south lodge on Enfield Chase. It is of the usual oblong form, encompassed by a colonnade; in dimensions and in style it is equal to a most extensive landscape. And yet, by the antique and rustic air of its Doric columns without bases; by the chastity of its little ornaments, a crook, a pine, and a scrip, and those only over the doors; and by the simplicity of the whole, both within and without; it is adapted with so much propriety to the thickets which conceal it from the view, that no one can wish it to be brought forward, who is sensible to the charms of the Arcadian scene which this building alone has created. On the other hand, a very, spacious field, or sheep walk, will not be disgraced by a farm house, a cottage, or a Dutch barn; nor will they, though small and familiar, appear to be inconsiderable or insignificant objects. Numberless other instances might be adduced to prove the impossibility of restraining particular buildings to particular situations, upon any general principles: the variety in their forms is hardly greater than in their application. Only let not their uses be disguised, as is often absurdly attempted with the humbler kinds of buildings. A barn dressed up in the habit of a country church, or a farm house figuring away in the fierceness of a castle, are ridiculous deceptions. A landscape daubed upon a board, and a wooden steeple stuck up in a wood, are beneath contempt.

Temples, those favourite and most costly objects in gardens, too generally merit censure for their inutility, their profusion, or the impropriety of their purpose. Whether they be dedicated to Bacchus, Venus, triapus, or any other demon of debauchery, they are in this age equally absurd. Architecture, in this part of its sphere, may more nobly, and with greater beauty and effect, be exercised upon a chapel, a mausoleum, a monument, judiciously disposed among the natural ornaments. Sir William Harbord has given us a model of the first kind, at Gunton in Norfolk: the parish church standing in his park, and being an old unsightly building, he had it taken down, and a beautiful temple, under the direction of the Adams, erected upon its site for the same sacred purpose. The mausoleum at Castle-Howard, in Yorkshire, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle, is a noble structure; and as an instance of the last sort, may be mentioned the temple of Concord and Victory at Stowe, erected to the memory of the great Lord Chatham and his glorious war; a beautiful monumental building, suited to the greatness of the occasion.

To the great variety above mentioned must be added, as Mr Wheatley observes, the many changes which may be made by the means of ruins. They are a class by themselves, beautiful as objects, expressive as characters, and peculiarly calculated to connect with appendages into elegant groups. They may be accommodated with ease to irregularity of ground, and their disorder is itnproved by it. They may be intimately blended with trees and thickets; and the interruption is an advantage; for imperfection and obscurity are their properties, and to carry the imagination to something greater than is seen is their effect. They may for any of these purposes be Separated into detached pieces: contiguity is not necessary, nor even the appearance of it, if the relation be preserved; but straggling ruins have a bad effect when the several parts are equally considerable. There should be one large mass to raise an idea of greatness, to attract the others about it, and to be a common centre of union to all. The smaller pieces then mark the original dimensions of one extensive structure, and no longer appear to be the remains of several little buildings.

All remains excite an inquiry into the former state of the edifice, and fix the mind in a contemplation of the use [7:10:335]it was applied to; besides the characters expressed by their style and position, they suggest ideas which would not arise from the buildings if entire, the purposes of many have ceased. An abbey, or a castle, if complete, can now be no more than a dwelling: the memory of the times, and of the manners to which they are adapted, is preserved only in history and in ruins; and certain sensations of regret, of veneration, or compassion, attend the recollection. Nor are these confined to the remains of buildings which are in disuse; those of an old mansion raise reflections on the domestic comforts once enjoyed, and the ancient hospitality which reigned there. Whatever building we see in decay, we naturally contrast its present with its former state, and delight to ruminate on the comparison. It is true that such effects properly belong to real ruins. They are, however, produced in a certain degree by those which are fictitious. The impressions are not so strong, but they are exactly similar; and the representation, though it does not present facts to the memory,'yet suggests subjects to the imagination. But, in order to affect the fancy, the supposed original design should be clear, the use obvious, and the form easy to be traced. No fragments should be hazarded without precise meaning, and an evident connection; none should be perplexed in their construction, or uncertain as to their application. Conjectures about the form raise doubts about the existence of the ancient structure. The mind must not be allowed to hesitate; it must be hurried away from examining into the reality by the exactness and the force of the'resemblance.

In the ruins of Tintern Abbey, the original construction of the church is perfectly marked; and it is principally from this circumstance that they are celebrated as a subject of curiosity and contemplation. The walls are almost entire; the roof only is fallen in, but most of the columns which divided the aisles are still standing. Of those which have dropped down, the bases remain, every one exactly in its place; and in the middle of the nave four lofty arches, which once supported the steeple, rise high in the air above all the rest, each reduced now to a narrow rim of stone, but completely preserving its form. The shapes even of the windows are little altered; but some of them are quite obscured, others partially shaded, by tufts of ivy; and those which are most clear are edged with its slender tendrils and lighter foliage, wreathing about the sides and the divisions. It winds round the pillars; it clings to the walls; and in one of the aisles clusters at the top in branches, so thick and so large as to, darken the space below. The other aisles, and the great nave, are exposed to the sky. The floor is entirely overspread with turf; and to keep it clear from weeds and bushes is now its highest preservation. Monkish tombstones, and the monuments of benefactors long since forgotten, appear above the green sward. The bases of the pillars which have fallen rise out of it; and maimed effigies, and sculpture worn with age and weather, Gothic capitals, carved cornices, and various fragments, are scattered about, or he in heaps piled up together. Other shattered pieces, though disjointed and mouldering, still occupy their original places; and a staircase much impaired, which led to a tower now no more, is suspended at a great height, uncovered and inaccessible. Nothing is perfect, but memorials of every part still subsist; all certain, but all in decay, and suggesting at once every idea which can occur in a seat of devotion, solitude, and desolation. Upon such models fictitious ruins should be formed; and if any parts are entirely lost, they should be such as the imagination can easily supply ŕrom those which are still remaining. Distinct traces of the building which is supposed to have existed are less liable to the suspicion of artifice, than an unmeaning neap of confusion. Precision is always satis*

factory, but in the reality it is only agreeable; in the copy it is essential to the imitation.

A material circumstance to the truth of the imitation is, that the ruins should appear to be very old. The idea is besides interesting in itself. A monument of antiquity is never seen with indifference; and a semblance of age may be given to the representation by the hue of the materials, the growth of ivy and other plants, and cracks and fragments seemingly occasioned rather by decay than by destruction. An appendage evidently more modern than the principal structure will sometimes corroborate the effect. The shed of a cottager amidst the remains of a temple, is a contrast both to the former and to the present state of the building; and a tree flourishing among ruins shows the length of time they have lain neglected. No circumstance so forcibly marks the desolation of a spot once inhabited, as the prevalence of nature over it. Campos ubi Troja fuit, is a sentence which conveys a stronger idea of a city totally overthrown, than a description of its remains; but in a representation to the eye, some remains must appear; and then the perversion of them to an ordinary use, or an intermixture of a vigorous vegetation, intimates a settled despair of their restoration.

SECT. II.—PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT IN THE SUBJECTS OF GARDENING.

1. Of art. In the lower classes of rural improvements, art should be seen as little as possible; and in the more negligent scenes of nature, every thing ought to appear as if it had been done by the general laws of nature, or had grown out of a series of fortuitous circumstances. But in the higher departments art cannot be h ; d; and the appearance of design ought not to be excluded. A human production cannot be made perfectly natural, and, held out as such, it becomes an imposition» Our art lies in endeavouring to adapt the productions of nature to human taste and perceptions; and if much art be used, do not attempt to hide it. Art seldom fails to please when executed in a masterly manner; nay, it is frequently the design and execution, more than the production itself, that strikes us. It is the artifice, not the design, which ought to be avoided. It is the labour, and not the art, which ought to be concealed. The rural artist ought therefore, upon every occasion, to endeavour to avoid labour; or, il indispensably necessary, to conceal it. No trace should be left to lead back the mind to the expensive toil. A mound raised, a mountain levelled, or a useless temple built, convey to the mind feelings equally disgusting.

2. Picturesque beauty. Though the aids of art are as essential to gardening as education is to manners, yet art may do too much. She ought to be considered as the handmaid, not as the mistress, of nature; and whether she be employed in carving a tree into the figure of an animal, or in shaping a view into the form of a picture, she it equally culpable. The nature of the place is sacred. Should this tend to landscape, from some principal point of view, assist nature and perfect it; provided this can bt done without injuring the views from other points. Bui do not disfigure the natural features of the place; do not sacrifice its native beauties to the arbitrary laws of landscape painting. Nature indeed scarcely knows the thing mankind call a landscape. The landscape painter seldom or never finds it perfected to his hands; some addition or alteration is almost always wanted. Every man who has made his observations upon natural scenery knows that the misletoe of the oak occurs almost as often as a perfect natural landscape; and to attempt to make up artificial landscape upon every occasion is unnatural and absurd.

If, indeed, the eye were fixed in one point, the trees [7:10:336]could be raised to their full height at command, and the sun be made to stand still; the rural artist might work by the rules of light and shade, and compose his landscape by the painter’s law. But whilst the sun continues to pour forth its light impartially, and the trees to rise in slow progression, it would be ridiculous to attempt it. Let him rather seek out, imitate, and associate, such striking passages in nature as are immediately applicable to the place to be improved; let him, in short, “be various, wild, and free, as Nature’s self instead of sacrificing the natural beauties of the place to one formal landscape, let every step disclose fresh charms unsought for.

S. Of character. Character is very reconcilable with beauty; and, even when independent of it, has attracted so much regard as to occasion several frivolous attempts to produce it. Statues, inscriptions, and even paintings, history and mythology, and a variety of devices, have been introduced for this purpose. The heathen deities and heroes have therefore had their several places assigned to them in the woods and lawns of a garden; natural cascades have been disfigured with river gods, and columns erected only to receive quotations; the compartiments of a summer-house have been filled with pictures of gambols and revels as significant of gaiety; the cypress, because it was once used in funerals, has been thought peculiarly adapted to melancholy; and the decorations, the furniture, and the environs of a building, have been crowded with puerilities under pretence of propriety. All these devices are rather emblematical than expressive; they may be ingenious contrivances, and recal absent ideas to the recollection, but they make no immediate impression; for they must be examined, compared, perhaps explained, before the whole design of them is well understood. And though an allusion to a favourite or well-known subject of history, of poetry, or of tradition, may now and then animate or dignify a scene; yet as the subject does not naturally belong to a garden, the allusion should not be principal. It should seem to have been suggested by the scene; a transitory image, which irresistibly occurred, not sought for, not laboured, and should have the force of a metaphor, free from the detail of an allegory.

Another species of character arises from direct imitation, when a scene or an object, which has been celebrated in description, or is familiar in idea, is represented in a garden. Artificial ruins, lakes, and rivers, fall under this denomination. The air of a seat extended to a distance, and scenes calculated to raise ideas of Arcadian elegance or of rural simplicity, with many more which have been occasionally mentioned, or will obviously occur, may be ranked in this class. They are all representations. But the materials, the dimensions, and other circumstances, being the same in the copy and the original, their effects are similar in both; and if not equally strong, the defect is not in the resemblance; but the consciousness of an imitation checks that train of thought which the appearance naturally suggests. Yet an over-anxious solicitude to disguise the fallacy is often the means of exposing it. Too many points of likeness sometimes hurt the deception; they seem studied and forced; and the affectation of resemblance destroys the supposition of a reality. A hermitage is the habitation of a recluse; it should be distinguished by its solitude and its simplicity; but if it is filled with crucifixes, hour-glasses, beads, and every other trinket which can be thought of, the attention is diverted from enjoying the retreat to examining the particulars. All the collateral circumstances which agree with a character seldom meet in one subject; and when they are industriously brought together, though each be natural, the collection is artificial.

But the art of gardening aspires to more than imitation. It can create original characters, and give expressions to the several scenes superior to any they can receive from allusions. Certain properties, and certain dispositions, of the objects of nature, are adapted to excite particular ideas and sensations; many of them have been occasionally mentioned, and all are very well known. They require no discernment, examination, or discussion, but are obvious at a glance, and instantaneously distinguished by our feelings. Beauty alone is not so engaging as this species of character. The impressions it makes are more transient and less interesting; for it aims only at delighting the eye, but the other affects our sensibility. An assemblage of the most elegant forms in the happiest situations is to a degree indiscriminate, if they have not been selected and arranged with a design to produce certain expressions; an air of magnificence or of simplicity, of cheerfulness, tranquillity, or some other general character, ought to pervade the whole; and objects pleasing in themselves, if they contradict that character, should therefore be excluded. Those which are only indifferent must sometimes make room for such as are more significant; many will often be introduced for no other merit than their expression; and some, which are in general rather disagreeable, may occasionally be recommended by it.

The power of such characters is not confined to the ideas which the objects immediately suggest; for these are connected with others which insensibly lead to subjects far distant perhaps from the original thought, and related to it only by a similitude in the sensations they excite. In a prospect enriched and enlivened with inhabitants and cultivation, the attention is caught at first by the circumstances which are gayest in their season, the bloom of an orchard, the festivity of a hay field, and the carols of harvest home; but the cheerfulness which these infuse into the mind expands afterwards to other objects than thdse immediately presented to the eye; and we are thereby disposed to receive, and delighted to pursue, a variety of pleasing ideas, and every benevolent feeling. At the sight of a ruin, reflections on the change, the decay, and the desolation before us, naturally occur; and they introduce a long succession of others, all tinctured with that melancholy which these have inspired; or if the monument revive the memory of former times, we do not stop at the simple fact which it records, but recollect many more coeval circumstances, which we see, not perhaps as they were, but as they are come down to us, venerable with age, and magnified by fame. Even without the assistance of buildings or other adventitious circumstances, nature alone furnishes the materials for scenes which may be adapted to almost every kind of expression. Their operation is general, and their consequences are infinite. The mind is elevated, depressed, or composed, as gaiety, gloom, or tranquillity prevails in the scene; and we soon lose sight of the means by which the character is formed; we forget the particular objects it presents, and, giving way to their effects, without recurring to the cause, we follow the track they have begun, to any extent which the disposition they accord with will allow. It suffices that the scenes of nature have a power to affect our imagination and our sensibility; for such is the constitution of the human mind, that if once it is agitated, the emotion spreads far beyond the occasion. When the passions are roused, their course is unrestrained; when the fancy is on the wing, its flight is unbounded; and, quitting the inanimate objects which first gave them the spring, we may be led by thought above thought, widely differing in degree, but still corresponding in character, till we rise from familiar subjects up to the sublimest conceptions, and are wrapt in the contemplation of whatever is great or beautiful which we see in nature, feel in man, or attribute to divinity.

4. General arrangement. Notwithstanding the nature [7:10:337] of the place, as already observed, ought not to be sacrificed to the mansion, the house must ever be allowed to be a principal in the composition. It ought, in fact, to be considered as the centre of the system; and the rays of art, like those of the sun, should grow fainter as they recede from the centre. The house itself being entirely a work of art, its immediate environs should be highly finished; but as the distance increases, the appearance of design should gradually diminish, until nature and fortuitousness have full possession of the scene.

In general, the approach should be to the back front, which, in suitable situations, ought to lie open to the pasture-grounds. On the sides more highly ornamented, a well-kept gravel walk may embrace the walls; to this the shaven lawn and shrubbery succeed; next, the grounds closely pastured; and, lastly, the surrounding country, which ought not to be considered as out of the artist’s reach. For his art Consists not more in decorating particular spots, than in endeavouring to render the whole face of nature delightful.

Another reason for this mode of arrangement is, that objects immediately under the eye are seen more distinctly than those at a distance, and ought to be such as are pleasing in the detail. The beauties of a flower can be discerned on a near view only; whilst at a distance a roughet of coppice wood, and the most elegant arrangement of flowering shrubs, have the same effect. The most rational entertainment the human mind is capable of receiving is that of observing the operations of nature.

The foliation of a leaf, the blowing of flowers, and the maturation of fruits, are amongst the most delightful subjects that a contemplative mind can be employed in. These processes of nature are slow; and, except the object fall spontaneously under the eye of the observer, the inconveniences of visiting it in a remote part so far interfere with the more important employments of life as to blunt, if not destroy, the enjoyment. This is a strong argument in favour of shrubs and flowers being planted under or near our windows, especially those from whence they may be viewed during the hours of leisure and tranquillity.

Further, the vegetable creation being subject to the animal, the shrub may be cropped, or the flower trodden down, in its day of beauty. If therefore we wish to converse with nature in private, intruders must be kept off, and the shrubbery be severed from the ground, yet not in such a manner as to drive away the pasturing stock from our sight. For this reason, the shaven lawn ought not to be too extensive, and the fence which encloses it should be such as will not interrupt the view. But whether it be seen or unseen, suspected or unsuspected, is a matter of no great import. Its utility in protecting the shrubs and flowers; in keeping the horns of the cattle from the window, and the feet of the sheep from the gravel and broken ground; in preserving that neatness on the outside, which ought to correspond with the finishingsand furniture within; render it of sufficient importance to become even a part of the ornament.

Ill—EXECUTION OF THE GENERAL SUBJECTS.

Improvements in general may be classed under the heads of the Hunting-Box, the Ornamented Collage, the Villa, and the Principal Residence.

But before any step can be taken towards the execution of the design, be it large or small, a map or plan of the place, exactly as it lies in its unimproved state, should be made, with a corresponding sketch upon which to mark the intended improvements. Not a hovel nor a twig should be touched, until the artist has studied maturely the natural abilities of the place, and has decidedly fixed in his mind, and finally settled on his plan, the proposed alterations; and even then, let him temper his daring with caution.

1. Of Improvements adapted to a Hunting-Box.

Here art has little to do. Hunting may be called the amusement of nature; and the place appropriated to it ought to be no further altered from its natural state than decency and conveniency require. With men who live in the present age of refinement, a want of decency is a want of sense.

The style throughout should be masculine. If shrubs be required, they should be of the hardier sorts; the box, the holly, the laurustinus. The trees strould be the oak and the beech, which give in autumn an agreeable variety of foliage, and anticipate as it were the season of diversion. A suite of paddocks should be seen from the house; and if a view of distant covers can be caught, the back-ground will be complete. The stable, the kennel, and the leaping-bar, are the factitious accompaniments, in the construction of which simplicity and convenience should prevail.

2. Of the Style of an Ornamented Cottage.

Neatness and simplicity ought to mark the style of this rational retreat. Ostentation and show should be cautiously avoided; even elegance should not be attempted, though it may not be hid, if it offer itself spontaneously. Nothing, however, should appear vulgar, nor should simplicity be pared down to baldness; every thing whimsical or expensive ought to be studiously avoided; chasteness and frugality should appear in every part. If a taste for botany lead to a collection of native shrubs and flowers, a shrubbery will be requisite; but in this every thing should be native. A gaudy exotic ought not to be admitted; nor should the lawn be kept close shaven; its flowers should be permitted to blow, and the herbage, when mown, ought to be carried off, and applied to some useful purpose. In the artificial accompaniments, ornament must be subordinate, utility must preside. The buildings, if any appear, should be those in actual use in rural economics. If the hovel be wanted, let it appear; and, as a side-screen, the barn and rick-yard are admissible, whilst the dove-house and poultry-yard may enter more freely into the composition. In a word, the ornamented cottage ought to exhibit cultivated nature in the first stage of refinement. It ranks next above the farm house. The plain garb of rusticity may be set off to advantage; but the studied dress of the artist ought not to appear. That becoming neatness, and those domestic conveniences, which render the rural life agreeable to a cultivated mind, are all that should be aimed at.

3. Of the Embellishment of a Villa.

This demands a style very different from the preceding. It ought to be elegant, rich, or grand, according to the style of the house itself, and the state of the surrounding country; the principal business of the artist being to connect these two in such a manner that the one shall not appear naked or flaring, nor the other desolate and inhospitable. If the house be stately, and the adjacent country rich and highly cultivated, a shrubbery may intervene, in which art may show her utmost skill. Here the artist may even be permitted to play at landscapes; for a place of this kind being supposed to be small, the purpose principally ornamental, and .he point of view probably confined[7:10:338] simply to the house, side-screens may be formed, and a fore-ground laid out suitable to the best distance that can be caught. If buildings or other artificial ornaments abound in the offscape, so as to mark it strongly, they ought also to appear more or less in the fore-ground; if the distance abound with wood, the fore-ground should be thickened, lest baldness should offend; if open and naked, elegance rather than richness ought to be studied, lest heaviness should appear.

It is far from being any part of our plan to cavil unnecessarily at artists, whether living or dead; we cannot, however, refrain from expressing a concern for the almost total neglect of the principles here in ornamenting the vicinages of villas. It is to be regretted that in the present practice these principles seem to be generally lost sight of. Without any regard to uniting the house with the adjacent country, and indeed seemingly without any regard whatever to the off⅛cape, one invariable plan of embellishment prevails, namely, that of stripping the foreground entirely naked, or nearly so, and surrounding it with a wavy border of shrubs and a gravel walk; leaving the area, whether large or small, one naked sheet of green sward.

In small confined spots this plan may be eligible. But a simple border round a large unbroken lawn only serves to show what more is wanted. Simplicity in general is pleasing; but even simplicity may be carried to an extreme, so as to convey no other idea than that of poverty and baldness. Besides, how often do we see in natural scenery the holly and the fox-glove flourishing at the foot of an oak, and the primrose and the campion adding charms to the hawthorn scattered over the pastured lawn? And we conceive that single trees footed with evergreens and native flowers, and clumps as well as borders of shrubs, are admissible in ornamental as well as in natural scenery.

4. Of the Principal Residence.

Here the whole art centres, and the artist has full scope for a display of taste and genius. He has an extent of country under his eye, and will endeavour to make the most of what nature and accident have spread before him. Round a principal residence a gentleman may be supposed to have some considerable estate, and it is not a shrubbery and a ground only which fall under the consideration of the artist; he ought to endeavour to disclose to the view, either from the house or some other point, as much as he conveniently can of the adjacent estate. The love of possession is deeply planted in every man’s breast, and places should bow to the gratification of their owners. To curtail the view by an artificial side-screen, or any other unnatural machinery, so as to deprive a man of the satisfaction of overlooking his own estate, is an absurdity which no artist ought to be permitted to be guilty of. It is very different, however, where the property of another intrudes upon the eye. Here the view may, with some colour of propriety, be bounded by a woody screen. The grounds, however, by a proper management, may be made independent of whatever is external; and though prospects are nowhere more delightful than from a point of view which is also a beautiful spot, yet if in the environs of such a garden they should be wanting, the elegant, picturesque, and various scenes within itself, almost supply the deficiency.

This is the character of the gardens at Stowe;^[17. See description of the Stowe gardens in Mr wheatley’s work, already referred to. ] for there the views in the country are only circumstances subordinate to the scenes; and the principal advantage of the situation is the variety of the ground within the enclosure. The house stands on the brow of a gentle ascent; and part of the gardens lie on the declivity, and spread over the bottom beyond it. This eminence is separated by a broad winding valley from another which is higher and steeper; and the descents of both are broken by large dips and hollows, sloping down the sides of the hills. The whole space is divided into a number of scenes, each distinguished with taste and fancy; and the changes are so frequent, so sudden, and complete, the transitions so artfully conducted, that the same ideas are never continued or repeated to satiety.

These gardens were begun when regularity was in fashion; and the original boundary is still preserved, on account of its magnificence; for round the whole circuit of between three and four miles is carried a very broad gravel walk, planted with rows of trees, and open either to the park or the country; a deep sunk fence attends it all the way, and comprehends a space of near four hundred acres. But in the interior scenes of the garden few traces of regularity appear; and where it yet remains in the plantations, it is generally disguised. Every symptom almost of formality is obliterated from the ground; and an octagon basin in the bottom is now converted into an irregular piece of water, which receives on one hand two beautiful streams, and falls on the other down a cascade into a lake.

In the front of the house is a considerable lawn, open to the water, beyond which are two elegant Doric pavilions, placed in the boundary of the garden, but not marking it, though they correspond to each other; for still farther back, on the brow of some rising grounds without the enclosure, stands a noble Corinthian arch, by which the principal approach is conducted, and from which all the gardens are seen reclining back against their hills. They are rich with plantations, full of objects, and, lying on both sides of the house almost equally, every part is within a moderate distance, notwithstanding the extent of the whole.

On the right of the lawn, but concealed from the house, is a perfect garden scene, called the queen’s amphitheatre, where art is avowed, though formality is avoided. The fore-ground is scooped into a gentle hollow. The plantations on the sides, though but just rescued from regularity, yet in style are contrasted to each other. They are on one hand chiefly thickets, standing out from a wood; on the other, they are open groves, through which a glimpse of the water is visible. At the end of the hollow, on a little knoll, quite detached from all appendages, is placed an open Ionic rotunda. Beyond it a large lawn slopes across the view; a pyramid stands on the brow; the queen’s pillar in a recess on the descent; and all the three buildings, being evidently intended for ornament alone, are peculiarly adapted to a garden scene. Yet their number does not render it gay. The dusky hue of the pyramid, the retired situation of the queen’s pillar, and the solitary appearance of the rotunda, give it an air of gravity. It is encompassed with wood, and all the external views are excluded; even the opening into the lawn is but an opening into an enclosure.

At the king’s pillar, very near to this, is another lovely spot, which is small, but not confined; for no termination appears; the ground one way, the water another, retire under the trees out of sight, but nowhere meet with a boundary. The view is first over some very broken ground, thinly and irregularly planted; then between two beautiful clumps which feather down to the bottom; and, afterwards across a glade, and through a little grove beyond it, to that part of the lake where the thickets, close upon the brink, spread a tranquillity over the surface, in which the [7:10:339]shadows are reflected. Nothing is admitted to disturb that quiet. No building obtrudes; for objects to fix the eye are needless in a scene which may be comprehended at a glance, and none would suit the pastoral idea it inspires, of elegance too refined for a cottage, and of simplicity too pure for any other edifice.

The situation of the rotunda promises a prospect more enlarged; and in fact most of the objects on this side of the garden are there visible. But they want both connection and contrast; each belongs peculiarly to some other spot. They are all blended together in this without meaning, and are rather shown on a map than formed into a picture. The water only is capital; a broad expanse of it is so near as to be seen under the little groups on the bank without interruption. Beyond it is a wood, which in one place leaves the lake, to run up behind a beautiful building, of three pavilions, joined by arcades, all of the Ionic order. It is called Kent'ι Building. And never was a design more happily conceived. It seems to be characteristically proper for a garden; it is elegant, varied, and purely ornamental; it directly fronts the rotunda, and a narrow rim of the country appears above the trees beyond it. But the effect even of this noble object is fainter here than at other points; its position is not the most advantageous; and it is but one amongst many other buildings, none of which are principal.

The scene at the temple of Bacchus is in character directly the reverse of that about the rotunda, though the space and the objects are nearly the same in both; but in this all the parts concur to form one whole. The ground from every side shelves gradually towards the lake; the plantations on the further bank open to show Kent’s building, rise from the water’s edge towards the knoll on which it stands, and close again behind it. That elegant structure, inclined a little from a front view, becomes more beautiful by being thrown into perspective, and, though at a greater distance, is more important than before, because it is alone in the view; for the queen’s pillar and the rotunda are removed far aside, and every other circumstance refers to this interesting object. The water attracts, the ground and the plantations direct, the eye thither; and the country does not just glimmer in the offscape, but is close and eminent above the wood, and connected by clumps with the garden. The scene altogether is a most animated landscape; and the splendour of the building, the reflection in the lake, the transparency of the water, and picturesque beauty of its form, diversified by little groups on the brink, while on the broadest expanse no more trees cast their shadows than are sufficient to vary the tints of the surface; all these circumstances, vying in lustre with each other, and uniting in the point to which every part of the scene is related, diffuse a peculiar brilliancy over the whole composition.

The view from Kent’s building is very different from those which have been hitherto described. They are all directed down the declivity of the lawn. This rises up the ascent. The eminence being crowned with lofty wood, becomes thereby more considerable; and the hillocks into which the general fall is broken, sloping farther out this way than any other, they also acquire an importance which they had not before; that particularly on which the rotunda is placed seems here to be a profound situation; and the structure appears to be properly adapted to so open an exposure. The temple of Bacchus, on the contrary, which commands such an illustrious view, is itself a retired object, close under the covert. The wood rising on the brow, and descending down one side of the hill, is shown to be deep; is high, and seems to be higher than it is. The lawn too is extensive; and part of the boundary being concealed, it suggests the idea of still greater extent. A small portion only of the lake indeed is visible; but it is not here an object. It is a part of the spot; and neither termination being in sight, it has no diminutive appearance. If more water had been admitted, it might have hurt the character of the place, which is sober and temperate; neither solemn nor gay; great and simple, but elegant; above rusticity, yet free from ostentation.

These are the principal scenes on one side of the gardens. On the other, close to the lawn before the house, is the winding valley above mentioned, the lower part of which is assigned to the Elysian fields. These are watered by a lovely rivulet, and very lightsome and airy, so thinly are the trees scattered about them; they are open at one end to more water and a larger glade, and the rest of the boundary is frequently broken to let in objects afar off, which appear still more distant from the manner of showing them. The entrance is under a Doric arch, which coincides with an opening among the trees, and forms a kind of vista, through which a Pembroke bridge just below, and a lodge built like a castle in the park, are seen in a beautiful perspective. That bridge is at one extremity of the gardens, the queen’s pillar is at another, yet both are visible from the same station in the Elysian fields; and all these external objects are unaffectedly introduced, divested of their own appurtenances, and combined with others which belong to the spot. The temple of Friendship is also in sight, just without the place; and within it are the temples of ancient Virtue and of the British worthies; the one in an elevated situation, the other low down in the valley, and near to the water. Both are decorated with the effigies of those who have been most distinguished for military, civil, or literary merit; and near to the former stands a rostral column, sacred to the memory of Captain Grenville, who fell in an action at sea. By placing here the meed of valour, and by filling these fields with the representations of those who have deserved best of mankind, the character intended to be given to the spot is justly and ooetically expressed; and the number of the images which are presented or excited perfectly correspond with it. Solitude was never reckoned amongst the charms of Elysium; it has been always pictured as the mansion of delight and of joy; and in this imitation, every circumstance accords with that established idea. The vivacity of the stream which flows through the vale; the glimpses of another approaching to join it; the sprightly verdure of the green sward, and every bust of the British worthies, reflected in the water; the variety of the trees, the lightness of the greens, their disposition, all of them distinct objects, and dispersed over gentle inequalities of the ground; together with a multiplicity of objects both within and without, which embellish and enliven the scene; give it a gaiety which the imagination can hardly conceive, or the heart wish to be exceeded.

Close by this spot, and a perfect contrast to it, is the alder grove; a deep recess in the midst of a shade, which the blaze of noon cannot brighten. The water seems to be a stagnated pool, eating into its banks, and of a peculiar colour, not dirty, but clouded, and dimly reflecting the dun hue of the horse-chestnuts and alders which press upon the brink; the stems of the latter, rising in clusters from the same root, bear one another down, and slant over the water. Misshapen elms and ragged firs are frequent in the wood which encompasses the hollow; the trunks of dead trees are left standing amongst them; and the uncouth sumach, and the yew, with elder, nut, and holly, compose the underwood. Some limes and laurels are intermixed, but they are not many; the wood is in general of the darkest greens; and the foliage is thickened with ivy, which not only twines up the trees, but creeps also over the falls of the ground. These are steep and abrupt. The gravel-walk is covered with moss; and a [7:10:340]grotto at the end, faced with broken flints and pebbles, preserves, in the simplicity of its materials, and the duskiness of its colour, all the character of its situation. Two little rotundas near it were better away; one building is sufficient for such a scene of solitude as this, in which more circumstances of gloom concur than were perhaps ever collected together.

Immediately above the alder grove is the principal eminence in the gardens. It is divided by a great dip into two pinnacles, upon one of which is a large Gothic building. The space before this structure is an extensive lawn. The ground on one side falls immediately into the dip; and the trees which border the lawn sinking with the ground, the house rises above them, and fills the interval. The vast pile seems to be still larger than it is, for it is thrown into perspective, and between and above the heads of the trees, the upper story, the porticos, the turrets, and balustrades, and all the slated roofs, appear in a noble confusion. On the other side of the Gothic building, the ground slopes down a long-continued declivity into a bottom, which seems to be perfectly irriguous. Divers streams wander about it in several directions. The conflux of that which runs from the Elysian fields with another below it is full in sight; and a plain wooden bridge thrown over the latter, and evidently designed for a passage, imposes an air of reality on the river. Beyond it is one of the Doric porticos which front the house; but now it is alone; it stands on a little bank above the water, and is seen under some trees at a distance before it. Thus grouped, and thus accompanied, it is a happy incident, concurring with many other circumstances to distinguish this landscape by a character of cheerfulness and amenity.

From the Gothic building a broad walk leads to the Grecian valley, which is a scene of more grandeur than any in the gardens. It enters them from the park, spreading at first to a considerable breadth, then winds, grows narrower, but deeper, and loses itself at last in a thicket, behind some lofty elms, which interrupt the sight of the termination. Lovely woods and groves hang all the way on the declivities; and the open space is broken by detached trees, which, near the park, are cautiously and sparingly introduced, lest the breadth should be contracted by them; but as the valley sinks, they advance more boldly down the sides, stretch across or along the bottom, and cluster at times into groups and forms, which multiply the varieties of the larger plantations. These are sometimes close coverts, and sometimes open groves. The trees rise in one upon high stems, and feather down to the bottom in another; and between them are short openings into the park or the gardens. In the midst of the scene, just at the bend of the valley, and commanding it on both sides, upon a large, easy, natural rise, is placed the temple of Concord and Victory; at one place its majestic front of six Ionic columns, supporting a pediment filled with bas relief, and the points of it crowned with statues, faces the view; at another, the beautiful colonnade, on the side, of ten lofty pillars, retires in perspective. It is seen from every part; and impressing its own character of dignity 0n all around, it spreads an awe over the whole. But no g l 00 m, no melancholy, attends it. lhe sensations it excites are rather placid, but full of respect, admiration, and solemnity. No water appears to enliven, no distant prospect t0 enrich( the vie1 JΤ the parts of the scene are large, the idea of it sublime, and the execution happy; it i s independent of all adventitious circumstances, and rches on itself for its greatness.

lhe scenes which have been described are such as are most remarkable for beauty or character, but the gardens contain many more; and even the objecta in these, by their several combinations, produce very different effects, within the distance sometimes of a few paces, from the: unevenness of the ground, the variety of the plantations, and the number of the buildings. The multiplicity of the last has indeed been often urged as an objection to Stowe; and certainly, when all are seen by a stranger in two or three hours, twenty or thirty capital structures, mixed with others o. inferior note, do seem too many. But the growth of the wood every day weakens the objection, by concealing them one from the other. Each belongs to a distinct scene; and if they are considered separately, at different times, and at leisure, it may be difficult to determine which to take away. Yet still it must be acknowledged that their frequency destroys all ideas of silence and retirement. Magnificence and splendour are the characteristics of Stowe. It is like one of those places celebrated in antiquity, which were devoted to the purposes of religion, and filled with sacred groves, hallowed fountains, and temples dedicated to several deities; the resort of distant nations, and the object of veneration to half the heathen world. This pomp is, at Stowe, blended with beauty; and the place is equally distinguished by its amenity and its grandeur.

In the midst of so much embellishment as may be introduced into this species of garden, a plain field or a sheep-walk is sometimes an agreeable relief; and even wilder scenes may occasionally be admitted. These indeed are not properly parts of a garden, but they may be comprehended within the verge of it; and the proximity to the more ornamented scenes is at least a convenience, that the transition from the one to the other may be easy, and the change always in our option. For though a spot in the highest state of improvement be a necessary appendage to a seat, yet, in a place which is perfect, other characters will not be wanting. If they cannot be had on a large scale, they are acceptable on a smaller; and so many circumstances are common to all, that they might often be intermixed; they may always border on each other.

But on this head it would be in vain to attempt to lay down particular rules. Different places are marked by sets of features as different from each other as are those in men’s faces. Much must be left to the skill and taste of the artist; and let these be what they may, nothing but mature study of the natural abilities of the particular place to be improved can render him equal to the execution, so as to make the most of the materials that are placed before him. Some few general rules may nevertheless be laid down. The approach ought to be conducted in such a manner that the striking features of the place shall burst upon the view at once. No trick, however, should be made use of. All should appear to fall in naturally. In leading towards the house, its direction should not be fully in front, not exactly at an angle, but should pass obliquely upon the house and its accompaniments, so that their position with respect to each other, as well as the perspective appearance of the house itself, may vary at every step; and having shown the front and the principal wing, or other accompaniment, to advantage, the approach should wind to the back front, which, as has been already observed, ought to lie open to the park or pastured grounds.

The improvements, and the rooms from which they are to be seen, should be in unison. Thus, the view from the drawing-room should he highly embellished, to correspond with the beauty and elegance within. Every thing here should be feminine, elegant, beautiful, such as attunes the mind to politeness and lively conversation. The breakfasting room should have more masculine objects in view, wood, water, and an extended country for the eye to roam over; such as allures us imperceptibly to the ride or the chase. The eating and banqueting rooms need no exterior allurements.
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There is a harmony in taste as well as in music. Variety, and even wildness upon some occasions, may be admitted; but discord cannot be allowed. If, therefore, a place be so circumstanced as to consist of properties totally irreconcilable, the parts ought, if possible, to be separated in such a manner that, like the air and the recitative, the adagio and the allegro, in music, they may set off each other’s charms by the contrast. These observations may be illustrated by Mr Wheatley’s description and proposed improvement of Persefield, near Chepstow, in Monmouthshire; a place upon which nature has lavished her favours, and which has been spoken of by Mr Gilpin, and other writers, in the most flattering terms.

Persefield is situated upon the banks of the river Wye, which divides Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, and which was formerly the boundary between England and Wales. The genera) tendency of the river is from north to south; but about Persefield it describes by a winding course the letter S somewhat compressed. The grounds of Persefield are lifted high above the bed of the river, shelving, and form the brink of a lofty and steep precipice towards the south-west. The lower limb of the Curvature is filled with Perse-wood, which makes a part of Persefield; but it is an impenetrable thicket of coppice wood, which dips to the south-east down to the water’s edge, and, seen from the top of the opposite rock, has a good effect. The upper limb receives the farms of Llancot, rich and highly cultivated, broken into enclosures, and scattered with groups and single trees; two well-looking farm houses in the centre, and a neat white chapel on one side, forming altogether a lovely little paradisaical spot. The lowliness of its situation stamps it with an air of meekness and humility; and the natural barriers which surround it add that of peacefulness and security. The picturesque farms do not form a low flat bottom, subject to be overflowed by the river; but take the form of a gorget, rising fullest in the middle, and falling on every side gently to the brink of the Wye; except on the east side, where the top of the gorget leans in an easy manner against a range of perpendicular rock, as if to show its disk with advantage to the walks of Persefield

This rock stretches across what may be called the Isthmus, leaving only a narrow pass down into the fields of Llancot, and joins the principal range of rocks at the lower bend of the river. To the north, at the head of the latter, stands an immense rock, or rather a pile of immense rocks heaped one above another, called Windcliff; the top of which is elevated as much above the grounds of Persefield as those are above the fields of LIancot. These several rocks, with the wooded precipices on the side of Perβefield, form a circular enclosure, about a mile in diameter, including Perse-wood, LIancot, the Wye, and a small meadow lying at the foot of Windcliff.

The grounds are divided into the upper and lower lawn by the approach to the house; a small irregular building, standing near the brink of the precipice, but facing down the lower lawn, a beautiful ground, falling “precipitately every way into a valley which shelves down in the middle,” and is scattered with groups and single trees in an excellent style. The view from the house is soft, rich, and beautifully picturesque; the lawn and woods of Persefield, and the opposite banks of the river; the Wye, near its mouth, winding through meadows green as emerald, in a manner peculiarly graceful; the Severn, here very broad, backed by the wooded and highly cultivated hills of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire. Not one rock enters into the composition. The whole view consists of an elegant arrangement of lawn, wood, and water. The upper lawn is a less beautiful ground, and the view from it, though it command the “cultivated hills and rich valleys of Monmouthshire,” bounded by the Severn, and backed by the Mendip Hills, is much inferior to that from the house. To give variety to the views from Persefield, to disclose the native grandeur which surrounds it, and to set off its more striking features to advantage, walks have been cut through the woods and on the face of the precipice which border the grounds to the south and east. The first point of view is marked by an alcove, from which are seen the bridge and the town of Chepstow, with its castle situated in a remarkable manner on the very brink of a perpendicular rock washed by the Wye; and beyond these the Severn shows a small portion of its silvery surface. Proceeding a little farther along the walk, a view is caught which the painter might call a complete landscape. The castle, with the serpentine part of the Wye below Chepstow, intermixed in a peculiar manner with the broad waters of the Severn, forms the fore-ground, which is backed by distant hills; the rocks, crowned with wood, lying between the alcove and the castle, to the right, and Castlehill farm, elevated upon the opposite banks of the river, to the left, form the two side-screens. This point is not marked, and must frequently be lost to the stranger. The grotto, situated at the head of Perse-wood, commands a near view of the opposite rocks, magnificent beyond description. The littleness of human art was never placed in a more humiliating point of view; the castle of Chepstow, a noble fortress, is, compared with the natural bulwarks, a mere house of cards.

Above the grotto, upon the isthmus of the Persefield side, is a shrubbery, strangely misplaced; an unpardonable intrusion upon the native grandeur of this scene. Mr Gilpin’s observations upon this, as upon every other occasion, are exceedingly just. “It is a pity the ingenious embellisher of these scenes,” says he, “could not have been satisfied with the great beauties of nature which he commanded. The shrubberies he has introduced in this part of his improvements, 1 fear, will rather be esteemed paltry.” “It is not the shrub which offends; it is the formal introduction of it. Wild underwood may be an appendage of the grandest scene; it is a beautiful appendage. A bed of violets or of lilies may enamel the ground with propriety at the foot of an oak; but if you introduce them artificially in a border, you introduce a trifling formality, and disgrace the noble object you wish to adorn.”

The walk now leaves the wood, and opens upon the lower lawn, until, coming near the house, it enters the alarming precipice facing Llancot; winding along the face of it in a manner which does great honour to the artist. Sometimes the fragments of rock which fall in its way are avoided, at other times partially removed, so as to conduct the path along a ledge carved out of the rock; and, in one instance, a huge fragment, of a somewhat conical shape, and many yards high, is perforated, the path leading through its base. This is a thought which will hand down to future times the greatness of the proprietor’s taste; the design and the execution are equally great; not a mark of a tool to be seen; all appears perfectly natural. The arch-way is made winding, so that on the approach it appears to be the mouth of a cave; and, on a nearer view, the idea is strengthened by an allowable deception; a black dark hole on the side next the cliff, which, seen from the entrance before the perforation is discovered, appears to be the darksome inlet into the body of the cave.

From this point, that vast enclosure of rocks and precipices which marks the peculiar magnificence of Persefield is seen to advantage. The area, containing in this point of view the fields of Llancot and the lower margin of Perse-wood, is broken in a manner peculiarly picturesque by the graceful winding of the Wye: here washing a low grassy shore, and there sweeping at the feet of the rocks which rise in some places perpendicular from the water; but in general they have a wooded offset at the base, [7:10:342]ι above which they rise to one, two, or perhaps three or four hundred feet high; exposing one full face, silvered by age, and bearded with ivy, growing out of the wrinklelike seams and fissures. If one might be allowed to compare the paltry performances of art with the magnificent works of nature, we should say that this enclosure resembles a prodigious fortress which has long lain in ruins. It is in reality one of nature’s strongholds, and as such has probably been frequently made use of. Across the isthmus, on the Gloucestershire side, there are the remains of a deep intrenchment, called to this day the Bulwark ; and tradition still teems with the extraordinary warlike feats which have been performed among this romantic scenery.

From the perforated rock, the walk leads down to the cold bath, seated about the mid-way of the precipice, in this part less steep; and from the cold bath a rough path winds down to the meadow, by the side of the Wye, from whence the precipice on the Persefield side is seen with every advantage; the giant fragments, hung with shrubs and ivy, rise in a ghastly manner from amongst the underwood, and show themselves in all their native savageness. From the cold bath upward, a coach-road, steep and difficult, leads to the top of the cliff, at the upper corner of the upper lawn. Near the top of the road is a point which commands one of the most pleasing views of Persefield; the Wye sweeping through a grassy vale which opens to the left; Llancot backed by its rocks, with the Severn immediately behind them, and which, seen in this point of view, seems to be divided from the Wye by only a sharp ridge of rock, with a precipice on either side; and behind the Severn the vale and wooded hills of Gloucestershire.

From this place a road leads to the top of Windcliff. The face of nature probably affords not a more magnificent scene. Llancot in all its grandeur, the ground of Persefield, the castle and town of Chepstow, the graceful windings of the Wye below, and its conflux with the Severn; to the left the forest of Dean; to the right the rich marshes and picturesque mountains of South Wales; a broad view of the Severn, opening its sea-like mouth; the conflux of the Avon, with merchant ships at anchor in King-road, and vessels of different descriptions under sail; Aust Cliff, and the whole vale of Berkeley, backed by the wooded swells of Gloucestershire, the view terminating in clouds of distant hills, rising one behind another, until the eye becomes unable to distinguish the earth’s billowy surface from the clouds themselves.

The leading principle of the improvement proposed by Mr Wheatley is, to “separate the sublime from the beautiful; so that in viewing the one, the eye might not so much as suspect that the other was near.

“Let the hanging walk be conducted entirely along the precipices, or through the thickets, so as to disclose the natural scenery, without once discovering the lawn or any other acquired softness. Let the path be as rude as if trodden only by wild beasts and savages, and the resting places, if any, as rustic as possible. Erase entirely the present shrubbery, and lay out another as elegant as nature and art could render it before the house, swelling it out into the lawn towards the stables; between which and the kitchen-garden make a narrow winding entrance. Convert the upper lawn into a deer-paddock, suffering it to run as wild, rough, and forest-like, as total negligence would render it.”

The visitor would then enter the hanging walk by a sequestered path at the lower corner of the lawn, pursuing it through the wood to beneath the grotto, and round the headland, or winding through Perse-wood, to the perforated rock and the cold bath, without once conceiving an idea that art, or at least that much art, had been made use of in disclosing the natural grandeur of the surrounding objects, which ought to appear as if they presented themselves to his view, or at most as if nothing was wanted but his own penetration and judgment to find them out. The walk should therefore be conducted in such a manner that the breaks might be quite natural, yet the points of view obvious, or requiring nothing but a block or stone to mark them. A stranger at least wants no seat here; he is too eager in the early part of his walk to think of lounging upon a bench. From the cold bath he would ascend the steep, near the top of which a commodious bench or benches might be placed. The fatigue of ascending the hill would require a resting-place; and there are few points which afford a more pleasing view than this; it is grand, without being too broad and glaring.

From these branches he would enter the forest part. Here the idea of nature in her primitive state would be strengthened; the roughnesses and deer to the right, and the rocks in all their native wildness to the left. Even Llancot might be shut out from the view by the natural shrubbery of the cliff. The lover’s leap, however, might remain; but no benches, nor other work of art, should here be seen. A natural path, deviating near the brink of the precipice, would bring the spectator down to the lower corner of the park, where benches should be placed in a happy point, so as to give a full view of the rocks and native wildnesses, and at the same time to hide the farm houses, fields, and other acquired beauties of Llancot. Having satiated himself with this savage scene, he would be led, by a still rustic path, through the labyrinth, when the shrubbery, the lawn with all its appendages, the graceful Wye, and the broad silver Severn, would break upon the eye with every advantage of ornamental nature. The transition could not fail to be striking. And from this soft scene he would be shown to the top of Windcliff, where in one vast view he would unite the sublime and beautiful of Persefield.

One particular only remains to be noticed. A place which is the residence of a family all the year, is defective if some portion of it be not set apart for the enjoyment of a fine day, for air, and exercise, in winter. To such a spot shelter is absolutely essential; and evergreens being the thickest covert, are therefore the best; their verdure also is then agreeable to the eye; and they may be arranged so as to produce a beautiful mixture of greens, with more certainty than deciduous trees, and with almost equal variety. They may be collected into a wood; and through that wood gravel-walks may be led along openings of a considerable breadth, free from large trees which would intercept the rays of the sun, and winding in such a manner as to avoid any draft of wind, from whatever quarter it may blow. But when a retreat at all times is thus secured, other spots may be adapted only to occasional purposes, and be sheltered towards the north or the east on one hand, whilst they are open to the sun on the other. The few hours of cheerfulness and warmth which its beams afford are so valuable as to justify the sacrifice even of the principles of beauty to the enjoyment of them; and therefore no objections of sameness or formality can prevail against the pleasantness of a straight walk under a thick hedge or a south wall. The eye may, however, be distorted from the screen by a border before it, where the aconite and the snowdrop, the crocus and hepatica, brought forward by the warmth of the situation, will be welcome harbingers of spring; and on the opposite side of the walk little tufts of laurustines, and of variegated evergreens, may be planted. The spot, thus enlivened by a variety of colours, and even a degree of bloom, may be still further improved by a green-house. The entertainment which exotics afford peculiarly belongs to this part of the year; and if amongst them be interspersed some of our earliest flowers, they will there blow before their time, and anticipate the gaiety of the season [7:10:343]which is advancing. The walk may also lead to the stoves, where the climate and the plants are always the same. And the kitchen-garden should not be far off; for that is never quite destitute of produce, and always an active scene. The appearance of business is alone engaging; and the occupations there are an earnest of the happier seasons to which they are preparative. By these ex- ( pedients even the winter may be rendered cheerful in a place where shelter is provided against all but the bitterest inclemencies of the sky, and agreeable objects and interesting amusements are contrived for every hour of tolerable weather.