PART II.

HAVING now examined the chief qualities that in such various ways render objects interesting; having shewn how much the beauty, spirit, and effect of landscape, real or imitated, depend upon a just degree of variety and intricacy, on a due mixture of rough and smooth in the surface, and of warm and cool in the tints; having shewn too, that the general principles of improving are in reality the same as those of painting-I shall next inquire how far the principles of the last-mentioned art (clearly the best qualified to improve and refine our ideas of nature) have been attended to by improvers: how far also

those who first produced, and those who have continued the present system were capable of applying them, even if they had been convinced of their importance.

It appears from Mr. Walpole's very ingenious and entertaining treatise on modern gardening, that Kent was the first who introduced that so much admired change from the old to the present system; the great leading feature of which change, and the leading character of each style, are very aptly expressed in half a line of Horace :

Mutat quadrata rotundis.

Formerly, every thing was in squares and parallellograms; now every thing is in segments of circles, and ellipses: the formality still remains; the character of that formality alone is changed. The old canal, for instance, has lost, indeed, its straitness. and its angles; but it is become regularly serpentine, and the edges remain as naked and as uniform as before: avenues, vistas,

and strait ridings through woods, are exchanged, for clumps, belts, and circular roads and plantations of every kind : strait alleys in gardens, and the platform of the old terrace, for the curves of the gravel walk. The intention of the new improvers was certainly meritorious; for they meant to banish formality, and to restore nature but it must be remembered, that strongly marked, distinct, and regular curves, unbroken and undisguised, are hardly less unnatural or formal, though much less grand and simple, than strait lines; and that independently of monotony, the continual and indiscriminate use of such has an appearance of affectation and of studied grace, which always creates disgust,

curves,

The old style had indisputably defects and absurdities of the most obvious and striking kind. Kent, therefore, is entitled to the same praise as other reformers, who have broken through narrow, inveterate, long established prejudices; and who, thereby, have prepared the way for more liberal notions, although, by their own prac

tice and example, they may have substituted other narrow prejudices and absurdities, in the room of those which they proscribed, It must be owned at the same time, that like other reformers, he and his followers demolished without distinction, the costly and magnificent decorations of past times, and all that had long been held in veneration and among them many things, which still deserved to have been respected and adopted. Such, however is the zeal and enthusiasm with which at the early period of their success, novelties of every kind are received, that the fascination becomes general; and the few who may then see their defects, hardly dare to attack openly, what a multitude is in arms to defend. is reserved for those, who are further removed from that moment of sudden change, and strong prejudice, to examine the merits and defects of both styles. But how are they to be examined? by those general and unchanging principles, which best enable us to form our judgment of the effect of all visible objects, but which, for

It

the reasons I before have mentioned, are very commonly called the principles of painting*. These general principles, not those peculiar to the practice of the art, are, in my idea, universally applicable to every kind of ornamental gardening, in the most confined, as well as the most enlarged sense of the word: my business at present is almost entirely with the latter, with what may be termed the landscapes and the general scenery of the place, whether under the title of grounds, lawn, park, or any other denomination.

With respect to Kent, and his particular mode of improving, I can say but little from my own knowledge, having never seen any works of his that I could be sure had undergone no alteration from any of his successors; but Mr. Walpole, by a few characteristic anecdotes, has made us perfectly acquainted with the turn of his mind, and the extent of his genius.

A painter, who, from being used to plant young beeches, introduced them almost

* Page 15.