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Chinese. We have difcovered the point of perfection. We have given the true model of gardening to the world: let other countries mimic or corrupt our tafte; but let it reign here on its verdant throne, original by its elegant fimplicity, and proud of no other art than that of foftening Nature's harshneffes, and copying her graceful touch.

The ingenious author of the Obfervations on Modern Gardening is, I think, too rigid when he condemns fome deceptions, because they have been often ufed. If those deceptions, as a feigned steeple of a diftant church, or an unreal bridge to difguife the termination of water, were intended only to furprife, they were indeed tricks that would not bear repetition but being intended to improve the landfcape, are no more to be condemned becaufe common, than they would be if employed by a painter in the compofition of a picture. Ought one man's garden to be deprived of a happy object, because that object has been employed by another? The more we exact novelty, the fooner our taste will be vitiated. Situations are every where fo various, that there never can be a famenefs, while the difpofition of the ground is ftudied and followed, and every incident of view turned to advantage.

In the mean time how rich, how gay, how picturesque the face of the country! The demolition of walls laying open each improvement, every journey is made through a fucceffion of pictures; and even where taite is wanting in the spot improved, the general view is embellifhed by variety. If no res lapse to barbarifin, formality, and feclufion is made, what landfcapes will dignify every quarter of our ifland, when the daily plantations that are making have attained venerable maturity! A fpecimen of what our gardens will be, may be seen at Petworth, where the portion of the park nearest the house has been allotted to the modern ftyle. It is a garden of oaks two hun dred years old. If there is a fault in fo auguft a fragment of improved nature, it is, that the fize of the trees are out of all proportion to the fhrubs and accompanyments. In truth, shrubs should not only be referved for particular spots and home delight, but are paffed their beauty in lefs than twenty years.

Enough has been done to establish such a school of landscape, as cannot be found on the rest of the globe. If we have the feeds of a Claud or a Gafpar amongst us, he must come forth. If wood, water, groves, vallies, glades, can inspire or poet or painter, this is the country, this is the age to produce them, The flocks, the herds, that now are admitted into, now graze on the borders of our cultivated plains, are ready before the painter's eyes, and groupe themfelves to animate his picture.

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One misfortune in truth there is that throws a difficulty on the artift. A principal beauty in our gardens is the lawn and fmoothness of turf: in a picture it becomes a dead and uniform fpot, incapable of chiaro feuro, and to be broken infipidly by children, dogs, and other unmeaning figures.

Since we have been familiarized to the ftudy of landscape, we hear lefs of what delighted our fportfmen-ancestors, a fine open country. Wiltshire, Dorfetfhire, and fuch ocean-like extents, were formerly preferred to the rich blue profpects of Kent, to the Thames-watered views in Berkshire, and to the magnificent scale of Nature in Yorkshire. An open country is but a canvass on which a landfcape might be defigned.

It was fortunate for the country and Mr. Kent, that he was fucceeded by a very able master; and did living artists come within my plan, I should be glad to do juftice to Mr. Brown ; but he may be a gainer, by being referved for fome abler pen.

In general it is probably true, that the poffeffor, if he has any tafte, must be the best defigner of his own improvements. He fees his fituation in all feafons of the year, at all times of the day. He knows where beauty will not clash with convenience, and obferves in his filent walks or accidental rides a thou, sand hints that must escape a person who in a few days sketches out a pretty picture, but has not had leifure to examine the details and relations of every part.

Truth, which, after the oppofition given to most revolutions, preponderates at laft, will probably not carry our style of garden into general use on the continent. The expence is only fuited to the opulence of a free country, where emulation reigns among many independent particulars. The keeping of our grounds is an obftacle, as well as the coft of the first formation, A flat country, like Holland, is incapable of landscape. In France and Italy the nobility do not refide much, and make fmall expence, at their villas. I fhould think the little princes of Germany, who fpare no profufion on their palaces and country-houfes, most likely to be our imitators; efpecially as their country and climate bears in many parts resemblance to ours, In France, and fill lefs in Italy, they could with difficulty attain that verdure which the humidity of our clime beftows as the ground-work of our improvements. As great an obstacle in France is the embargo laid on the growth of their trees. As after a certain age, when they would rife to bulk, they are liable to be marked by the crown's furveyors as royal timber, it is a curiofity to fee an old tree. A landscape and a crown-furveyor are incompatible.

GENERAL

GENERAL PRINCIPLE S.

ARTS merely imitative have but one principle to work by, the nature or actual state of the thing to be imitated. In works of defign and invention,' another principle takes the lead, which is taste. And in every work in which mental gratification is not the only object, a third principle arifes, utility, or the concomitant purpofe for which the production is intended.

The art of Gardening is fubject to these three principles to nature, as being an imitative art; to utility, as being productive of objects which are ufeful as well as ornamental; and to tafte, in the choice of fit objects to be imitated, and of fit purposes to be purfued, as alfo in the compofition of the feveral objects and ends propofed, fo as to produce the degree of gratification and use best suited to the place and to the purpose for which it is about to be ornamented: thus, a Hunting-Box and a Summer Villa,-an Ornamented Cottage and a Manfion, require a different style of ornament, a dif ferent choice of objects, a different taße. Nor can tafte be confined to nature and utility,-the place and the purpofe, alone; the object of the Polite Arts is the gratification of the human mind, and the fate of refinement of the mind itfelf must be confidered. Men's notions vary, not only in different ages, but individually in the fame age: what would have gratified mankind a century ago in this country, will not please them now; whilst the country 'Squire and the Fine Gentleman of the Q94 prefent

present day require a different kind of gratification; nevertheless, under thefe various circumftances, every thing may be natural, and every thing adapted to the place; the degree of refinement conftituting the principal difference.

We do not mean to enter into any argument about whether a ftate of rufticity or a state of refinement, whether the foreft or the city be the ftate for which the Author of Nature intended the human fpecies: mankind are now found in every state, and in every ftage of favageness, rufticity, civilization, and refinement; and the particular ftyle of ornament we wish to recommend is, that which is beft adapted to the ftate of refinement that now prevails in this country; leaving individuals to vary it as their own peculiar taftes may 'direct.

Before we proceed farther, it may be neceffary to explain what it is we mean by nature and natural. If in the idea of natural fate we include ground, water, and wood, no fpot in this ifland can be faid to be in a state of nature. The ground, or the furface of the earth as left by Nature (or the convulfions of Nature) remains, it is true, with but few alterations; yet even here (efpecially among rocks and steep acclivities, the nobleft features in the face of Nature) we frequently find the hand of Art has been at work. Again, though rivers may still run in the channels, or nearly in the channels, into which Nature directed them; yet waters taken generally have been greatly controuled by human

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And with refpect to wood we may venture to fay, that there is not a tree, perhaps not a stick, now standing upon the face of the country which owes its identical ftate of exiftence to Nature alone. Wherever cultivation has fet its foot,-wherever the plow and spade have laid fallow the foil,-Nature is become extinct; and it is in neglected or lefs cultivated places, in moffes and mountains, in forefts and parochial waftes, we are to feek for any thing near a state of Nature-we mean in this country: and who would look for the ftandard of taste, who expect to find the lovely mixture of wood and lawn fo delightful to the human eye, in the endless woods and the impenetrable roughneffes of America? We may therefore conclude, that the ob-, jects of our imitation are not to be fought for in uncultivated Nature. The inhofpitable heaths of Weftmoreland may aftonish for the moment, may be the pleafing amufement of a fummer's day, and agreeable objects in their places; but are they objects of imitation under the window of a draw. ing-room? Rather let us turn our eyes to wellfoiled, well-wooded, well-cultivated fpots, where Nature and Art are happily blended; leaving those who are admirers of Art merely imitative to contemplate Nature upon canvas; and those who wish for Nature in a ftate of total neglect, to take up their refidence in the woods of America.

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Far be it from us to rebel against the laws of Nature, or to queftion in any wife the perfection of the Deity. A ftate of nature, in the eye of Omnifcience, is undoubtedly a ftate of perfection. But

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