of gardening among the Ancients. 323 
this kind, than is, perhaps, any where elfe to 
be met with. The fine and regular verdure, 
which always clothes both the earth and the 
trees j the variety of the herbage, and the fize to 
which oaks and other foreft trees, congenial 
to the country, will arrive, impart a beauty 
and magnificence to our profpeXs, and afford 
opportunities for the judicious interpofition of 
art, far fuperior to what is to be met with, 
where thefe advantages do not occur. 
We are ftruck with claffic defcriptions, and 
affected by the circumftances which, by their con¬ 
nexion, they recall to the memory; but fetting 
thefe afide, I make no doubt, a grove of knglifh 
oaks would be a more beautiful, as w'ell as a 
more magnificent objeX, than “ the olive grove 
of Academe,” or that of plane trees in the 
Athenian L yceum. 
After all, it is poffible to err in too clofely 
following Nature, as it is in neglecting her. 
There are beauties of the artificial kind, as well 
as natural, which are proper to be introduced 
into fcenes of this kind. Statues, buildings, and 
other ornaments, in good tafte, and well executed, 
may unite with great propriety with natural 
objeXs, and heighten their effeX. I do not 
fpeak of thefe ornaments, as to any particular 
beauties they may individually poffels, but 
merely as coinciding with the general effeX, and 
nature of the profpeX. They aie, however, to 
Y 2 be 
