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DIVISION THE THIRD.

APPLICATION OF THE RURAL ART.

SECTION THE FIRST.

GENERAL APPLICATION.

HAVING thus enumerated the elements, and set forth the leading principles, of the art, we now proceed to the execution.

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WE beg leave to preface this part formance with apprizing our Readers, that all which can be written upon this delightful art, must be more or less general.-All that science can do, is to give a comprehensive view of the subject; and all that precept should attempt, is to lay down general rules of practice. The nature of the place itself and the purpose for which it is about to be improved, must ever determine the

particular application. It follows, that a gentleman who, from long residence, is fully acquainted with the former, and whose will is a rule to the latter, is the properest person to improve his own place; provided he be intimately acquainted with the Art—as well as with the place and the purpose: the three are equally and essentially necessary to be understood. It would be as great an impropriety, in a gentleman, to set about the execution of a work of this nature, upon a large scale, before he had acquired a comprehensive knowledge of the subject, studied its leading principle from Nature, made ample observation upon places already ornamented, and had established his theory by some actual practice, at least upon a small scale,

-as it would be, in a professional artist, to hazard his own reputation, and risque the property of his employer, before he had studied, maturely, the nature of the place, and had been made fully sensible of the intentions of its owner.

THE nature and style of improvement,—the purpose, depends entirely upon the intention and will of the proprietor, and is, consequently, as various, as the nature of places themselves: nevertheless, improvements in general may be classed under the following heads:

THE HUNTING Box,

THE ORNAMENTED COTTAGE,

THE VILLA, and

THE PRINCIPAL RESIDENCE.

BUT, before we enter upon the detail, it will be proper to make some general observations.

Ir is unnecessary to repeat, that wherever Nature or accident, has already adapted the place to the intended purpose, the assistance of Art is precluded: but wherever Nature is improveable, Art has an undoubted right to step in, and make the requisite improvement. The diamond, in its na tural state, is improveable by art.

In the lower classes of rural improvements, Art should be seen as little as may be; and, in the more negligent scenes of Nature, every thing ought to appear, as if it had been done by the general laws of Nature, or had grown out of a series of fortuitous Events. But, in the higher departments, Art cannot be hid; and the appearance of design ought not to be excluded. A human production cannot be made perfectly natural; and, held out as such, it becomes an imposition. Our art lies in endeavouring to adapt the productions of Nature to human taste and perception; and, if much art be used, let us not attempt to hide it. Who considers an accomplished well dressed woman as in a state of Nature? and who, seeing a beautiful ground

adorned with wood and lawn, with water, bridges, and buildings, believes it to be a natural production? Art seldoms fails to please when executed in a masterly manner: nay, it is frequently the design and execution, more than the production itself, that strikes us. It is the artifice, not the design, which ought to be avoided. It is the labour, and not the art, which ought to be concealed. A well written poem would be read with less pleasure, if we knew the painful exertions it rise to in gave the composition; and the rural artist ought, upon every occasion, to endeavour to avoid labour; or, if indispensably necessary, to conceal it. No trace should be left to lead back the mind to the expensive toil. A mound raised, a mountain levelled, or a useless temple built, convey to the mind feelings equally disgusting.

Bur though the aids of Art are as essential to Rural Ornament, as education is to manners; yet Art may do too much: she ought to be considered as the handmaid, not as the mistress, of Nature : and whether she be employed in carving a tree into the figure of an animal, or in shaping a view into the form of a picture, she is equally culpable. The nature of the place is sacred. Should this tend to landscape, from some principal point of view, assist Nature, and perfect it; provided this can be done without injuring the views from other

points. But do not disfigure the natural features of the place;-do not sacrifice its native beauties to the arbitrary laws of landscape painting.

Great Nature scorns controul; she will not bear
One beauty foreign to the spot or soil

She gives thee to adorn: 'Tis thine alone
To mend, not change her features.

MASON.

In a picture bounded by its frame, a perfect landscape is looked for: it is of itself a whole, and the frame must be filled. But it is not so in ornamented Nature: for, if a side-screen be wanting, the eye is not offended with the frame, or the wainscot; but has always some natural, and often pleasing object to receive it. Suppose a room to be hung with one continued rural representation,—would distinct pictures be expected? would correct landscapes be looked for? Nature scarcely knows the thing mankind call a landscape. The landscape painter seldom, if ever, finds it perfected to his hands;-some addition or alteration is almost always wanted. Every man, who has made his observations upon natural scenery, scenery, knows that the Misletoe of the Oak occurs almost as often as a perfectly natural landscape, and to attempt to make up artificial landscape, upon every occasion, is unnatural, and absurd.

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