56 On a Method of 



Nor is this the only question of taste. If a whole bare wall 

 is always an ugly object, such masonry is far from being so 

 under partial concealment, at least if of stone. Painters know 

 well the value of such tints and such flat vacant surfaces, in 

 enhancing the effects of form and colour; nor is there per- 

 haps a local and limited, a formless, or shapeless object more 

 engaging than the grey walls of an ancient abbey, when the 

 interstices of the stones, the broken buttresses, the soffits, 

 corbel tables, or whatever other " coin of vantage" give root 

 to the wild plants which find their own lodgments there ; to 

 the ash, the ivy, the w T allflower, antirrhinum, valerian, and 

 even the tufts of grass, which mark the ruins of past days. 

 The painter's study of such a ruin forms, in fact, the principle 

 or basis on which the present proposal rests ; it is to imitate 

 nature in these dispositions, and thus to give interest and 

 beauty to what was deformity. And if the utterly bare and 

 naked wall of the ancient abbey or castle is deprived of more 

 than half its beauty by that nakedness, no less than does the 

 modern and necessary garden wall, thus bare, distress the eye 

 of taste: so if no painter would hesitate in preferring tLe ruin 

 thus partially ornamented with plants, to one where the whole 

 masonry should be concealed by ivy, we may draw a similar 

 conclusion as to that vulgar wall which is entirely concealed 

 by trained shrubs, and that which is here proposed to ornament 

 in a more sparing and varied manner; though, as to the cases 

 in which the one or the other mode ought to be adopted, no 

 rule can be given to guide what taste alone must direct for each 

 case. Let those who may doubt, that greater beauty may often 

 be produced in this manner, recollect, if they can, such 

 ancient castle or abbey wall as they may chance to know, thus 

 partially concealed, or else entirely covered with ivy; and 

 after this, decide : and could one example of the bad effect of 

 an universal green covering be of use, I might point out 

 Restormel Castle, in Cornwall, as an instance, where the effect 

 is thus totally ruined by that ivy which conceals every stone, 

 and gives a magnificent specimen of ancient castellated archi- 

 tecture the semblance of a huge round bush. 



I need not proceed further, as far as the questions of beauty 

 and taste are concerned ; since no rules can be given for the 



