gardens. The last century was certainly acquainted with many of thofe rare plants we now admire. The Weymouth-pine has long been naturalized here; the patriarch plant still exifts at Longleat. The light and graceful acacia was known as early; witnefs thofe ancient ftems in the court of Bedfordhoufe in Bloomsbury-fquare: and in the bishop of London's garden at Fulham are many exotics of very ancient date. I doubt therefore whether the difficulty of preferving them in a clime fo foreign to their nature did not convince our ancestors of their inutility in general, unless the fhapelinefs of the lime and horfe-chefnut, which accorded fo well with established regularity, and which thence and from their novelty grew in fashion, did not occafion the neglect of the more curious plants. That Kent's ideas were but rarely great, was in fome measure owing to the novelty of his art. It would have been difficult to have tranfported the ftyle of gardening at once from a few acres to tumbling of forefts: and though new fashions often lead men to the most oppofite exceffes, it could not be the cafe in gardening, where the experiments would have been fo expenfive. Yet it is true too that the features in Kent's landscapes were feldom majeftic. His clumps were puny, he aimed at immediate effect, and planted not for futurity. One fees no large woods sketched out by his direction. Nor are we yet entirely rifen above 2 too great frequency of fmall clumps, efpecially in the elbows of ferpentine rivers. How common to fee three or four beeches, then as many larches, a third knot of cypreffes, and a revolution of all three! Kent's laft defigns were in a higher ftyle, as his ideas opened on fuccefs. The north terras at Claremont was much fuperior to the reft of the garden, A return of fome particular thoughts was common to him with other painters, and made his hand known. A fmall lake edged by a winding bank with fcattered trees that led to a feat at the head of the pond, was common to Claremont, Efher, and others of his defigns. At Efher, Where Kent and nature vied for Pelham's love, the profpects more than aided the painter's genius.-They marked out the points where his art was neceffary or not; but thence left his judgment in poffeffion of all its glory. Having routed professed art, for the modern gardener exerts his talents to conceal his art, Kent, like other reformers, knew not how to ftop at the juft limits. He had followed nature, and imitated her fo happily, that he began to think all her works were equally proper for imitation. In Kenfington-garden he planted dead trees, to give a greater air of truth to the scene but he was foon laughed out of this excefs. His ruling principle was, that nature abhors a strait line. -His mimics, for every genius has his apes, feemed to think that fhe could love nothing but what was crooked. Yet fo many men of tate of all ranks devoted themfelves to the new improvements, that it is furprizing how much beauty has been ftruck out, with how few abfurdities. Still in fome lights the reformation feems to me to have been pushed too far. Though an avenue croffing a park or feparating a lawn, and intercepting views from the feat to which it leads, are capital faults, yet a great avenue cut through woods, perhaps before entering a park, has a noble air. In other places the total banishment of all particular neatnefs immediately about a houfe, which is frequently left gazing by itself in the middle of a park, is a defect. Sheltered and even clofe walks in fo very uncertain a climate as ours, are comforts ill exchanged for the few picturefque days that we enjoy : and whenever a family can purloin a warm and even fomething of an old fashioned garden from the landscape designed for them by the undertaker in fashion, without interfering with the picture, they will find fatisfactions on thofe days that do not invite ftrangers to come and fee their improvements. Fountains have with great reafon been banished from gardens as unnatural; but it furprizes me that they have not been allotted to their proper pofitions, to cities, towns, and the courts of great houses, as proper accompaniments to architecture, and as works of grandeur in themselves. Their decorations admit the utmost invention, and when the waters are thrown up to different ftages, and tumble over their border, nothing has a more impofing or a more refreshing found. A palace demands its external graces and attributes, as much as a garden. Fountains and cypreffes peculiarly become buildings, and no man can have been at Rome, and seen the vast bafons of marble dashed with perpetual cafcades in the area of St. Peter's, without retaining an idea of taste and fplendor. Those in the piazza Navona are as ufeful as fublimely conceived. Grottoes in this climate are receffes only to be looked at tranfiently. When they are regularly compofed within of fymmetry and architecture, as in Italy, they are only fplendid improprieties. The moft judiciously, indeed moft fortunately placed grotto, is that at Stourhead, where the river bursts from the urn of its god, and paffes on its courfe through the cave. But it is not my bufinefs to lay down rules for gardens, but to give the history of them. A fyftem of rules pushed to a great degree of refinement, and collected from the best examples and practice, has been lately given in a book intituled Obfervations on modern Gardening. The author divides his fubject into gardens, parks, farms, and ridings. I do not mean to find fault with this division. Directions are requifite to each kind, and each has its department at many of the great fcenes from whence *Of this kind one of the most noble is that of Stanstead, the seat of the Earl of Halifax, traverfing an ancient wood for two miles and bounded by the fea. The very extenfive lawns at that feat, richly inclosed by venerable beech woods, and chequered by fingle beeches of vaft fize, particularly when you stand in the portico of the temple and furvey the landscape that wastes itself in rivers of broken sea, recall such exact pictures of Claud Lorrain, that it is difficult to conceive that he did not paint them from this very spot. he tico, the Palladian bridge, the Gothic ruin, the Chinese pagoda, that furprife the ftranger, foon lofe their charms to their furfeited mafter. The lake that floats the valley is ftill more lifelefs, and its lord feldom enjoys his expence but when he fhews it to a vifiter. But the ornament whofe merit foonest fades, is the hermitage or scene adapted to contemplation. It is almoft comic to fet afide a quarter of one's garden to be melancholy in.. he drew his obfervations. In the hiftoric light, I diftinguish them into the garden that connects itfelf with a park, into the ornamented farm, and into the foreft or favage garden. Kent, as I have fhown, invented or established the first fort. Mr. Philip Southcote founded the fecond or ferme ornèe, of which is a very juft defcription in the author I have been quoting. The third I think he has not enough diftinguished. I mean that kind of alpine fcene, compofed almoft wholly of pines and firs, a few birch, and fuch trees as affimilate with a favage and mountainous country. Mr. Charles Hamilton, at Pain's-hill, in my opinion has given a perfect example of this mode in the utmost boundary of his garden. All is great, and foreign, and rude; the walks feem not defigned, but cut through the wood of pines; and the flyle of the whole is fo grand, and conducted with fo ferious an air of wild and uncultivated ex-fucceffive admirers. Mufic has tent, that when you look down on this feeming foreft, you are amazed to find it contain a very few acres. In general, except as a fcreen to conceal fome deformi. ty, or as a fhelter in winter, I am not fond of total plantations of r-greens. Firs in particular form a very ungraceful fummit, all broken into angles. ever Sir Henry Englefield was one of the first improvers on the new ftyle, and felected with fingular tafte that chief beauty of all gardens, profpect and fortunate points of view. We tire of all the painter's art when it wants thefe finishing touches. The fairest scenes, that depend on themselves alone, weary, when often feen. The Doric porVOL. XXIII, The most imminent danger that threatens the prefent, as it has ever done all tafte, is the pursuit of variety. A modern French writer has in a very affected phrafe given a just account of this, I will call it, diftemper. He fays, l'ennui du beau amene le gout du fingu lier. The noble fimplicity of the Auguftan age was driven out by falfe tafte. The gigantic, the puerile, the quaint, and at laft the barbarous and the monkish, had each their been improved, till it is a fcience of tricks and fleight of hand: the fober greatness of Titian is loft, and painting fince Carlo Maratti, has little more relief than Indian paper. Barromini twisted and curled architecture, as if it was fubject to change of fashions like a head of hair. If we once lofe fight of the propriety of landfcape in our gardens, we fhall wander into all the fantastic fharawadgis of the Chinefe. 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 N other 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 used. If those deceptions, as a feigned fteeple 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, becaufe that object has been employed by another? The more we exact novelty, the fooner our tatte will be vitiated. Situations are every where fo various, that there never can be a fameness, while the difpofition of the ground is ftudied and followed, and every incident of view turned to advantage. the portion of the park nearest the house has been allotted to the modern ftyle. It is a garden of oaks two hundred 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 accompaniments. It was fortunate for the country and Mr. Kent, that he was fucceeded by a very able mafter; and did living artifts come within my plan, I fhould be glad to do justice to Mr. Brown; but he may be a gainer, by being referved for fome abler pen. that the poffeffor, if he has any In general it is probably true, taste, 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 observes, in his filent walks or accidental rides, a thousand hints that muft escape a perfon who in a few days fketches out a pretty picture, but has not had leifure to examine the details and relations of every part. On Improving the Memory. From a Treatife on Education, by Mr. Knox. In the mean time how rich, how gay, how picturefque 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 take is wanting intility of the memory, has HE great and obvious utithe spot improved, the general view is embellished by a variety. If no relapfe to barbarifm, formality, and feclufion, is made, what landfcapes will dignify every quarter of our island, when the daily plantations that are making have attained venerable maturity! A fpecimen of what our gardens will be, may be feen at Petworth, where urged the ingenious to devife artificial modes of increasing its power of retention. The great orator of Rome, whofe judgment and experience, as well as his genius, give great weight to his opinions on didactic fubjects, has spoken rather favourably of the memoria technica, or artificial memory. But, notwith notwithstanding the authority of him, and of other truly ingenious writers, the art is rather to be confidered as a curious than an useful contrivance, and it is rejected by Quintilian. Few have really availed themselves of it; and many who have attempted to acquire it, have only added to the obfcurity of their conceptions *. That mode of improvement, then, may be totally laid afide, and may be numbered among the fanciful inventions, which ferves to amufe the idle and the fpeculative, without being reducible to general and practical utility. The only infallible method of augmenting its powers, is frequent, regular, and well-directed exercife; fuch exercife, indeed, as it is commonly led to ufe in the claffical schools, where a night feldom paffes without a task appointed for the exercife of the memory. In order to improve the memory, it is neceffary to acquire a confidence in it. Many render it treacherous by fearing to truft it; and a practice has arifen from this fear, really injurious, though apparently ufeful. It is the practice of committing to writing every thing which the ftudent remarks, and defires to remember. Nothing is more common, and nothing more effectually fruftrates the purpose it means to promote t. It is better that many things fhould be loft, than retained in the tablebook, without confiding in the memory. Like a generous friend, the memory will repay habitual confidence with fidelity. There are injudicious and illiterate perfons, who confider the cultivation of the memory as the firft object in education." They think it is to be loaded with hiftorical minutiæ, and with chronological dates. They entertain a mean opinion of the fcholar, who cannot recite matters of fact, however trivial, and fpecify the year of an event, however doubtful or infignificant. They expect to have the chapter and verfe mentioned on every citation, and are more pleafed with that little accuracy, than with a juft recollection of a beautiful paffage, or a flriking fentiment. But to labour to remem *The few following rules have been given, and they may poffibly be ufeful. 1. Si longior oratio mandanda fuerit memoriæ, proderit, totâ prius femel lectâ et intellecta, per partes edifcere. 2. Juvabit, iifdem, quibus fcripferis, chartis edifcere. 3. Tempus matutinum longè commodius eft; tamen perquam utile erit pridie vefperi, priufquam dormitum concedas, femel etiterum percurrere ea, quæ poftridie funt edifcenda. 4. Si quidpiam difficilius addifcitur, illi loco non erit inutile aliquod fignum vel notam apponere, cujus recordatio excitet memoriam. 5. Præftat non tumultuariè fed declamando ftatim et cum geftu edifcere. 6. Maxima tamen fabricandæ et fervandæ fibi memoriæ ars eft frequens exercitatio. See John Holmes, Rhet. Illa, quæ fcriptis repofuimus, velut cuftodire definimus, et ipfà fecuritate dimittimus. Those things which we have once committed to writing, we ceafe, as it were, to guard, and we lose them by thinking them in no danger of being loft. Quintilian. Μεγίςη δε φυλακὴ ΤΟ ΜΗ ΓΡΑΦΕΙΝ, ἀλλ ̓ ἑκμαιθάνειν, ἐν γὰρ εσιν τὰ γραφέντα μὴ οὐκ εκπεσεῖν. The fureft method of keeping what we wish to retain, is, not to commit it to writing, but to trust it to the memory; for it is fcarcely poffible that written memoranda should not flipfrom the mind. N 2 ber |