THE art of planning and cultivating gardens. In its utmost extent, whatever contributes to render the scenes of nature delightful, is among the subjects of gardening; and animate as well as inanimate objects are circumstances of beauty or character. The whole range of nature is open to the gardener, from the parterre to the forest; and whatever is agreeable to the senses or the imagination, he may appropriate to the spot he is to improve: it is a part of his business to collect into one place the delights which are generally dispersed through different species of country.
† Hist. of Mos. Gardening, subjoined to the 4th vol. of his Accedents of Painting. GARDENING, Mr Walpole † observes, was probably one of the first arts that 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: it became convenient to have them within reach, without seeking them at random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as often as they were wanted. When the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously all those primitive luxuries, and culture became requisite, separate enclosures for rearing herbs grew expedient. Fruits were in the same predicament; and those most in use or that demand attention must have entered into and extended the domestic enclosure. The good man Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was drunken; and every body knows the consequences. Thus we acquired kitchen gardens, orchards, and vineyards. No doubt the prototype of all these sorts was the garden of Eden; but as that Paradise was a good deal larger than any we read of afterwards, being enclosed by the rivers Pifon, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates; as every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food grew in it; and as two other trees were likewise found there, of which not a slip or sucker remains; it does not belong to the present discussion. After the fall, no man living was suffered to enter into the garden; and the poverty and necessities of our first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make improvements in their estates in imitation of it, supposing any plan had been preserved. 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 Pifon and Euphrates. As settlements increased, the orchard and the vineyard followed; and the earliest princes of tribes possessed just 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 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 (continues our author) 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 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 this pompous garden enclosed—four acres:
Four acres was th' allotted space of ground,
Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around.
The trees were apples, figs, pomegranates, pears, olives, and vines.
Tall thriving trees confes'd the fruitful mold;
The red'ning apple ripens into gold.
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows;
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year.
Beds of all various herbs, for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.
Alcinous's garden was planted by the poet, enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer, and 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 gardens should be proportionably 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 the world at that time had never beheld."
Previous 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 †. Chap. ii. Flowers and fruits are particularly spoken of as the ornaments and the produce of it; and besides these, aromatic vegetables formed a considerable part of the gratifications it afforded. The camphor and the cinnamon tree, with all trees of frankincense, and all the chief spices, flourished there †. Solomon tells us in another place ||, That he made him great works;—gar- † Cant. iv. dends and orchards, and planted in them trees of every kind. Indeed we must suppose his gardens to have been || Eccl. ii. both amply and curiously furnished, seeing the kinds, nature, 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 great cedar of Lebanon down to the hyssop of the wall †. Kings iv. Fountains and streams of water appear also to have had a share in the composition, and probably for ornament as well as use.
The hanging gardens of Babylon, mentioned in a preceding
preceding article, were a still greater prodigy. But as they are supposed to have been formed on terraces and the walls of the palace, whither soil was conveyed on purpose, Mr Walpole concludes, 'they were what sumptuous gardens have been in all ages till the present, unnatural, enriched by art, possibly with fountains, statues, balustrades, and summer houses, and were any thing but verdant and rural.'
Others, however, have allowed them greater praise. 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 would 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 siting of the situation to the nature of the trees seems, from the account given by Josephus, to have been one view † in the 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 ‡, 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.
It seems probable, from several circumstances, that the eastern gardens were adjoining to the house or palace to which they belonged. Thus, King Ahafacrus goes immediately from the banquet of wine to walk in the garden of the palace §. The garden of Cyrus, at Sardis, mentioned by Xenophon *, was probably contiguous to the palace: as was that of Attalus, mentioned by Justin ||. The hanging gardens at Babylon, were not so much adjacent to the palace, as a part of the palace itself, since several of the royal apartments were beneath them ¶.
It is not clear what the taste for gardening was among 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 this 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 be 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 and uncultivated spot: but that it was planted by that general, and had water conveyed to it; 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, shaded with trees. These are said to have flourished very well, until destroyed by Sulla (when he besieged Athens), as well as those in the Lyceum.
Near the academy were the gardens of the philosophers, of Plato and of the 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 river Hissus, and under the shade of the plantain; but no artificial arrangement of objects is mentioned, nor any thing which will lead us to imagine the prospect to be any other than merely natural.
Among the Romans, a taste of 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 Lucullan gardens are the first we find mentioned of remarkable magnificence; though probably from the extravagance to which these were arrived, they were not the first. Plutarch speaks of them as incredibly expensive, and equal to the magnificence of kings. They contained artificial elevations of ground to a surprising height, of buildings projected into the sea, and vast pieces of water made upon land. In short, his extravagance and expense were so great, that he acquired thence the appellation of the Roman Xerxes. It is not improbable, from the above account, and from the consideration of Lucullus having spent much time in Asia, in a situation wherein he had an opportunity of observing the most splendid constructions of this kind, that these gardens might be 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 size and expense 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.
There is but little to be traced in Virgil relative to this subject. Pines †, it seems probable, were a favourite ornament in gardens; and flowers §, roses &c. especially, were much esteemed, perfumes indeed having been always highly valued in warm climates. Virgil places Anchises in Elysiu, in a grove of bays: and is careful to remark, that they were of the sweet scented kind. The Persian roses were chiefly valued for their excellent odour; and the same quality appears to be the cause why they were placed by Tibullus as ornaments to the Elysian fields. There appears also to have prevailed among the Romans a piece of luxury relative to gardens, which is equally prevalent at present among us, namely the forcing of flowers at seasons of the year not suited to their natural blowing: and roses were then, as at present, the principal flowers upon which these experiments were tried, as appears from Martial ‡ and others.
When Roman authors (Mr Walpole remarks), whose climate instilled a wish for cool retreats, speak of their enjoyments in that kind, they sigh for grottoes, caves, and the refreshing hollows of mountains, near ir-Lampredius rigorous and shady founts; or boast of their porticoes, walks of planes, canals, baths, and breezes from the sea. Their gardens are never mentioned 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 for his winter retreat, it is not surprising
† Contra
Apion, lib. i.
§ 19.
‡ Q. Curt.
lib. v.
§ Either vii.
* Oros.
Lib. xxxvi.
¶ c. 4.
¶ Diss.
lib. ii.
† Vide
Epigr. lib.
vi. ep. 80.
lib. xiv. ep.
127. and
lib. xlv. ep.
127. and
lib. xlv. ep.
127. and
lib. xlv. ep.
127. and
lib. xlv. ep.
127. and
lib. xlv. ep.
surprising that the garden makes no considerable part of the account. All he says of it is, that the gestatio or place of exercise, which surrounded the garden (the latter consequently not being very large), was bounded by a hedge of box, and, where that was 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 his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse; the garden makes a considerable part of the description:—and what was the principal beauty of that pleasure ground? Exactly what was the admiration of this country about three-score years ago; 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 arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the temple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, and Adrian'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 scarce admire in a college garden. All the ingredients of Pliny's corresponded exactly with those laid out by London and Wise 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 alternately planted with planes, and a straight walk from 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 reign of Trajan serve for a description of one in that of King William. In one passage above, Pliny seems to have conceived that natural irregularity might be a beauty; in opere urbanissimo, says he, subita velut illati ruris imitatio. Something like a 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 are a few traces of gardens, as may be seen in the second volume of the prints. They are small square enclosures, formed by trellis-work and espaliers, and regularly ornamented with vases, fountains, and careatides, 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 in early ages for the use of the family:—to exclude cattle, and ascertain the property, it was separated from the fields by a hedge. As pride and 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 affixed 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 enclos-
ed with walls was thus established to the exclusion of nature and prospect, pomp and solitude combined to call for something that might enrich and enliven the insipid and unanimated partition. Fountains, first invented for use, which grandeur loves to disguise and throw out of the question, 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 in lieu of meandering streams, and terraces were hoisted aloft in opposition to the facile slopes that imperceptibly unite the valley to the hill. Balustrades defended these precipitate and dangerous elevations, and flights of steps rejoined them to the subjacent flat from which the terrace had been dug. 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 follies; and every improvement that was made, was 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 petticoat, were but the childish endeavours of fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had forfeited 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 such fantastic 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; many French groves seem green chests set upon poles. Seats of marble, arbours, and summer houses, 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, as Milton expressed it,
—in trim gardens took his pleasure.
In the garden of Marshal de Biron at Paris, consisting of 14 acres, every walk is buttoned on each side by lines of flower pots, which succeed in their seasons.
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, we cannot determine. A square and a round labyrinth were so capital ingredients of
of a garden formerly, that in Du Cerceau's architecture, who lived in the time of Charles IX. and Henry III. there is scarce a ground plot without one of each.
In Kip's Views 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, and 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 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. They were contracted forests, and extended gardens. Hentzner says, that, according to Roas 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 persisted in retaining its reverse, symmetrical and unnatural gardens. That parks were rare in other countries, Hentzner, who travelled over great part of Europe, leads us to suppose, by observing that they were common in England. In France they retain the name, but nothing is more different both in compass and disposition. Their parks are 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 (continues Mr Walpole), on whom nor education nor custom could impose their prejudices; who, 'on evil days though fallen, and with darkness and solitude compassed round,' judged that the mistaken and fantastic 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, 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. The first lines we shall quote exhibit Stourhead on a more magnificent scale:
Thro' Eden went a river large,
Nor chang'd his course, but thro' the shaggy hill,
Pals'd underneath ingulph'd: for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden mound, high rais'd
Upon the rapid current—
Hagley seems pictured in what follows:
Which thro' veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden—
What colouring, what freedom of pencil, what landscape in these lines!
—from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendant shades,
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon,
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpiere'd shade
Imbrow'd the noontide bow'rs—Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view.
Read this transporting description, paint to your mind the scenes that follow, contrast them with the savage but respectable terror with which the poet guards the bounds of his paradise, fenced
—with the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and over head up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palms,
A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre,
Of stately view—
and then 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, and Theobalds and Nonsuch, were the brightest originals that his memory could furnish. 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.
"Now let us return 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, of taste, that deserve censure, when he dictated on a subject which is capable of all the graces that 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 declares in favour of parterres, fountains, and statues, as necessary to break the sameness of large grass plots, which he thinks have an ill effect upon the eye, when he acknowledges that he discovers fancy in the gardens of Alcinoos. Milton studied the ancients with equal enthusiasm, but no bigotry; and had judgment to distinguish between the want of invention and the beauties of poetry. Compare his paradise with Homer's garden, both ascribed to a celestial design. For Sir William, it is just to observe, that his ideas centered in a fruit garden. He had the honour of giving to his country many delicate fruits,
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 expence, 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 perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about 30 years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among 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 away without effect or honour, 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 see how natural that 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 ever have seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expence. 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 300 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
VOL. IX. Part I.
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 on 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 that manner. How many Frenchmen are there who have seen our gardens, and still prefer natural 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. He planted St James's and Greenwich Parks—no great monuments of his invention.
"To do farther 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 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 who have lived much among the Chinese, 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 lately, 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 are 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. The late Mr Joseph Spence, who had both taste and zeal
3 C
for
for the present style, was so persuaded of the Chinese emperor's pleasure ground 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, one can find nothing in it that gives any idea of attention being paid to nature. It is of vast circumference, and contains 200 palaces, besides as many contiguous for the eunuchs, all gilt, painted, and varnished. There are raised hills from 20 to 60 feet high, streams and lakes, and one of the latter five miles round. These waters are passed by bridges:—but even their bridges must not be straight—they serpentine as much as the rivulets, and are sometimes so long as to be furnished with resting places, and begin and end with triumphal arches. The colonnades undulate in the same manner. In short, this pretty gaudy scene is the work of caprice and whim, and, when we reflect on their buildings, presents no image but that of unsubstantial tawdriness. Nor is this all. Within this fantastic paradise is a square town, each side a mile long. Here the eunuchs of the court, to entertain his imperial majesty with the bustle and business of the capital in which he resides, but which it is not of his dignity ever to see, act merchants and all sorts of trades, and even designedly exercise for his royal amusement every art of knavery that is practised under his auspicious government. Methinks this is the childish solace and repose of grandeur, not a retirement from affairs to the delights of rural life. Here too his majesty plays at agriculture: there is a quarter set a part for that purpose; the eunuchs sow, reap, and carry in their harvest, in the imperial presence; and his majesty returns to Peking, persuaded that he has been in the country.
"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; and improvements had gone on, till London and Wife had 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 the 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 wildness, 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 that stretched out of one into another without intermission. But this was not till other innovators had broke loose too from rigid symmetry.
"But the capital stroke, the leading step to all that has followed, was the destruction of walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses—an attempt then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them Ha! Ha's! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk.
"A sunk fence may be called the leading step, for these reasons. 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, under improvements, 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 while 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 on 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; sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its soil 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. We owe the restoration of Greece and the diffusion of architecture to his skill in landscape.
"But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful country, none surpassed his management of water. Adieu 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 serpentine seemingly at its pleasure; and where
where discontinued 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. Its borders were smoothed, but preserved their waving irregularity. A few trees scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled the tame bank that accompanied its meanders; and when it disappeared among the hills, shades descending from the heights leaned towards its progress, and framed the distant point of light under which it was lost, as it turned aside to either hand of the blue horizon.
"Thus, dealing in none but the colours of nature, and catching its most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening before their eyes. The living landscape was chastened or polished, not transformed. Freedom was given to the forms of trees: they extended their branches unrestrained; and where any eminent oak, or master beech, had escaped maiming and survived the forest, bush and bramble was removed, and all its honours were restored to distinguish 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 but so 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 that have been named. The introduction of foreign trees and plants, which we owe principally to Archibald duke of Argyle, contributed essentially to the richness of colouring so peculiar to our modern landscape. The mixture of various greens, the contrast of forms between our forest trees and the northern and West Indian firs and pines, are improvements more recent than Kent, or but little 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 the encomiums are that have been bestowed on Kent's discoveries, he was neither without assistance or faults. Mr Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste. The design of the prince of Wales's 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, 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 that lead up to his mother's tomb, are managed with exquisite judgment; and though Lord Peterborough's assisted him
To form his quincunx and to rank his vines, those were not the most pleasing ingredients of his little perspective.
"Having routed professed art (for the modern gardener exerts his talents to conceal his art), Kent, like other 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. His mimics (for every genius has his apes,) 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 has been struck out, with how 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,
Like footmen running before coaches
To tell the inn what lord approaches,
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 that 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 satisfactions in those days that do not invite strangers to come and see their improvements."
PART I. PRINCIPLES OF GARDENING.
GARDENING, in the perfection to which it has been lately brought in Britain, is entitled to a place of considerable rank among the liberal arts. It is (says Mr 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 now 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, regulates also the disposition and embellishment of a park, a farm, a forest, &c.: and 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.
THESE may be divided into two general classes; Natural and Artificial.
These, according to Mr Wheatley's enumeration, are—Ground, Wood, Water, and Rocks.
I. 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.
† Page 62. The following passage has been quoted from Mr Gilpin's observations on the Wye, as affording a sublime idea of what ground ought to be.—“Nothing (says he) 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. Roughets 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.
II. 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 grove, or clump. A wood is composed both of trees and underwood, covering a considerable space. A grove consists of 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.
1. One of the noblest objects in nature (Mr Wheatley observes) 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 is deprived of that splendid boundary, if the brow appears above it (unless some very peculiar effect characterises 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, till 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; while 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 the beauty of it: 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 which to leave; at the least 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 separate 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 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 opposi-
tions,
Wood. fitions, may be eligible; the aim is rather to disjoint than to connect: a deep hollow may sink into dark greens; an abrupt bank may be shown by a rising stage of aspiring trees, a sharp ridge by a narrow line of conical shapes: first are of great use upon such occasions; their tint, their form, their singularity, recommend them.
A hanging wood of thin forest trees, and 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 in 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 connexion, and that is not affected by their variety.
2 Of the outline of a wood. 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 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 from 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 that show of
art depreciates its merit: but a difference only in the situation of those 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 should indeed commonly be a little softened; the rotundity of the plant which 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 equally appear 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 can no 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, seen between their stems they in return throw into an agreeable perspective.
2. The prevailing character of a wood is generally grandeur: the principal attention therefore which it requires, 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 grove is beauty. Fine trees are lovely objects: a grove is an assemblage of them; 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 connexion 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
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 to 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 several figures: the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions: a large space should in some places be quite open; 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 connexion will allow. 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 connexion 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 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 faunter 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 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 ground. 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 whose branches 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. These still 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.
3. It has been already observed, that clumps differ of clumps only.
† New
Esher in
Sarry.
Wood. only in extent from woods; if they are close; or from
Ibid. groves, if they are open: they are small woods, and
small groves, governed by the same principles as the
larger, after allowances 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 inde-
pendent, their beauty, as single objects, is solely to be
attended to; when relative, the beauty of the indivi-
duals 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 beauti-
ful 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 jeal-
ously of art constantly attends them, which irregularity
in their figure will not always alone remove. Though
elevations show them to advantage, yet a hillock evi-
dently 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 ap-
plied to clumps placed on the brow of a hill, to inter-
rupt its sameness: they will have less ostentation of de-
sign, 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 po-
sition, 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 rela-
tion 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 ex-
tensive 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 con-
sideration must give way to the beauty of the whole.
The figure of the glade, of the lawn, or of the wood,
are principally to be attended to: the finest clumps, if
they do not fall easily into the great lines, are blemishes;
their connexions, their contrasts, are more impor-
tant than their forms.
Of a Lake. III. WATER. All inland water is either running
or stagnated. When stagnated, it forms a lake or a
pool, which differ only in extent; and a pool and a
pond are the same. Running waters are either a row-
let, a river, 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.
1. Space or expansion is essential to a lake. It can-
not 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 agree-
able, when in some part, at no great distance, a reach
of shore, a promontory, or an island, reduces the im-
mensity 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 rela-
tive: 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 circuit, the extre-
mities should be considered as too far off, and made im-
portant to give them proximity; while 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, in-
crease 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 ob-
serve a tremulous motion in the horizon, which shows
that the water has not there yet attained its termina-
tion. 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 man-
ner 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 un-
determined; a complete form is exhibited to the
eye, while a boundless range is left open to the imagi-
nation.
But mere form will only give content, not delight:
that depends upon the outline, which is capable of ex-
quisite beauty; and the bays, the creeks, and the pro-
montories, which are ordinary parts of that outline, to-
gether with the accidents of islands, of inlets, and of
outlets to rivers, are in their shapes and their combina-
tions 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 divers-
ified; and the distinctness and simplicity of the great
parts are hurt by 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 whose boundaries do
not appear; and remove to a distance the shore which
is seen in perspective between them. Such partial in-
terruptions of the sight suggest ideas of extent to the
imagination.
2. Though the windings of a river are proverbially
descriptive of its course; yet without being perpetu-
ally wreathed, it may be natural. Nor is the character
expressed only by the turnings. On the contrary, if
they are too frequent and sudden, the current is re-
duced 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
long reaches are therefore characteristic of a river, and they conduce much to its beauty; each is 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; while 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 connexion, 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 lately flooded: it is not filled; the bottom only is covered with water; the sides are still very high; but they are no longer the steps 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 furthest 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 little clear spring, which rises there, is by the country people still called Fair Rosamond's Well. The spot is now marked by a single willow. Near it is a fine collateral stream, of a beautiful form, retaining its breadth as far as it is seen, and retiring at last behind a hill from the view. 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. On one of the banks of this reach is the garden: the steep are there diversified with thickets and with glades; but the covert prevails, and the top is crowned with lofty trees. On the other side 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; while 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 in its architecture, will never seem less 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 duke 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 the object. The plain is extensive, the valley is broad, the wood is deep. Though the intervals between the building 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 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, in the stead 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 them, 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 discernible; for the river passes between trees, not between boundaries; and though in the progress of its course, the style of the plantations may be often 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 lawn, where the passage is entirely free. But its influence 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 track, and in situations nearly alike. The scene, however, does not want variety: on the contrary, none is capable of more. The objects 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 parts in different styles would be fine contrasts to each other. If the water at Wotton* 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 situation. The two first are the least. The one is a reach of a river, about the third of a mile in length, and of a competent breadth, flowing through a lovely mead, 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 once 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 14 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 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, moder-
ates for some way the space; and permitting it to expand but by degrees, raises an idea of greatness, from uncertainty accompanied with increase. The 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 full in 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, everywhere broad, and 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 fragrant of the woodbine, denote the approach of evening; while 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 are 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; 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 connexion between the several pieces of water; each may still be traced along
Aylsham,
Bucking-
hamshire.
Water.
Ibid. along large branches or little catches; which in some places are overshadowed and dim; in others glister through a glade, or glimmer between the boles 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 connexion.
7
Of a Rill
2nd a Rivulet. 3. 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 confused 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, the irriguous appearance which they give to the whole.
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 motion 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 betwixt a river and a rill, partakes of the character of both: it is not licenced to the extravagance of the one, nor under the same restraints as the other: it may have more frequent bends than the river, 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 found 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, or a few pebbles, will sometimes be sufficient for the purpose.
A rill cannot pretend to any found beyond that of a little water fall: 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 no 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 effects. 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 expence 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 through 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 be sometimes 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 characterises the water at his 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 bends 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.
IV. ROCKS. Rocks are themselves too vast and too stubborn to submit to our controul; 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;
Rocks. forced: to adapt the accompaniments accordingly, is the utmost ambition of art when rocks are the subject.
Their most distinguished characters are, dignity, terror, and fancy: the expressions of all are constantly wild: and sometimes a rocky scene is only wild, without pretensions to any particular character.
Rills, rivulets, and cascades, abound among 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 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 but stupendous, not majestic: breadth 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 rank them among 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 suspicion 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 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;
Rock. dull; for dignity, when most serene, is not languid; and
space will hardly atone for want of animation.
Ibid. 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 dissolving 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 violence on 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, so 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 objects are but ridiculous; nor can force be supposed upon trifles incapable of resistance. On the other hand, 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 made 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 to strengthen the appearances of force, by giving intimations of danger. A house placed at 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 allant 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.
In other instances, exertion and danger seem to attend the occupations of the inhabitants:
Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
is a circumstance chosen by the great poet of nature, to aggravate the terrors of the scene he describes.
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, 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 allant 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; flows round a little desert island, glides between bits of bulrushes, disperses itself among 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 this side of the dale,
Rocks. 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 steep, or in stages; sometimes they seem to rise in the bottom, and lean back against the hill; and sometimes they stand out quite detached, heaving up in cumbrous piles, or starting into conical shapes, like vast spars, 100 feet high; 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 40 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: 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 man is a blind path, but lightly and but seldom 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 immovable, 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 loneliness 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. When two rocks similar in shape and position are near together, by skirting one of them with wood, while the other is left bare, a material distinction is established between them: if the streams be throughout of one character, it is in our power, and should be our aim, to introduce another. 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 invention.
§ 2. OF FACTITIOUS ACCOMPANIMENTS.
THESE consist of Fences, Walks, Roads, Bridges, Practical Treatise on Planting and Garden- Seats, and Buildings. ing. p. 593.
"I. 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 wasting themselves from wood to grove are objects of delight; and the hare appears to enjoy a degree of happiness unknown to the barrièred 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. This is constructed of paling, painted of the invisible green. If the colour of the back ground 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 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. For by this means
The wand'ring flocks that browse between the shades,
Seem oft to pass their bounds; the dubious eye
Decides not if they crop the mead or lawn.
MASON.
"II. The 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.
Bridge, &c. walk to lead the eye from view to view; in order that
whist 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 Ne-
groes and the Indians are always crooked; and those of
the brute creation are very similar. Mr Mason's descrip-
tion of this path of nature is happily conceived.
The peasant driving through each shadowy lane
His team, that bends beneath th' incumbent weight
Of laughing Ceres, marks it with his wheel;
At night and morn, the milkmaid's careless step
Has through yon pasture green, from stile to stile
Imprest a kindred curve: the scudding hare
Draws to her dew sprent seat, o'er thymy heaths,
A path as gently waving—
Eng. Gard. v. 60.
"III. 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
convenience: 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.
"IV. The BRIDGE should never be seen 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 with-
out water is an absurdity; and half a 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 ob-
jects: 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
among the noblest of human inventions; the ship and
the fortress alone excel it. Simplicity and firmness
are the leading principles in its construction. Mr Wheat-
ley's observation is just when he says, "The single
wooden arch, now much in fashion, seems to me gene-
rally 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 it
as an ornamental object, diverts all that train of ideas
which its use as a communication might suggest."
But we beg leave to differ from this ingenious writer
when he tells us, "that it is spoiled if adorned; it is
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 sup-
ported 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 architec-
tural taste allow; and the more polished the situation,
the higher should be the style and finishings.
"V. SEATS 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 surround-
ing 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 stools of rooted trees, without any other marks
of tools upon them than those of the saw which se-
vered them from their stems, are seats in character;
and in romantic or reclusive 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 si-
tuations: where uncultivated nature prevails, the na-
tural 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."
"VI. BUILDINGS probably were first introduced
into gardens merely for contrivance, 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 con-
sidered as objects only; the inside is totally neglected,
and a pompous edifice frequently wants a room bare-
ly 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 po-
verty 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 a-
greable
Buildings. greeable 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 afectionate to preserve that solemnity within which it 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 must generally be 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.
10. 1. 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 seem 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 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.
Observe on Med. Gardening. 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 or 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 tem-
ple, no Turkish mosques, no Egyptian obelisks or pyramids; none imported from foreign countries, and unusual here. 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 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 enliven 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 the richness of the objects, might be had without pretence or display.
Too fond an ostentation of buildings, even of these which are principal, is a common error; and when all is 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 beautiful.
But a still greater advantage arises from this management, in connecting them with the scene: they are considerable, and different from all around them; inclined therefore to separate from the rest; and yet they are 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 a 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 connexion: 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 points 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 mound just large enough for it; a small piece of water below, of no other use than
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 at the most, 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, 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 waved; 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.
2. 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 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 gaiety; 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: 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 stead 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 species and occasions, objects proper for a garden; and there is no situations 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 very 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 bottom; 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 general 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 circumstanced, 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 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