LAXDSCAI?^ GARDENIXG. 275 



I doubt whether he has sufficiently considered. He has finished 

 one of the valleys which look towards Laughton spire: 

 he has floated it with a lake, and formed it into a very 

 beautiful scene. But I fear it is too-magnificent and too- 

 artificial an appendage to be in unison with the ruins of an 

 Abbey." * He levelled all the ground round the old Abbey, 

 leaving the walls and pillars standing in " a neat bowling- 

 green," and he removed all the overgrown pieces of ruin and 

 mounds, which showed the old lines of the building, and 

 even took stones from the Abbey to make the dam in the 

 river, and get the effect of a water-fall. Gilpin most 

 sarcastically remarks, " If Mr. Brown should proceed a step 

 further, pull down the ruin, and build an elegant mansion, 

 everything would then be right." Some of Brown's handiwork 

 about the ruins has of late been removed, and their former 

 conditions, as much as possible, restored. 



The following is the Agreement between Brown and Lord 

 Scarbrough made at the time of these alterations f : — 



The Agreement between Lord Scarbrough and "Capability 

 Brown," 1774 : — 



September the 12th, 1774. 



Then an Agreement made between the Earl of Scarbrough 

 on the one Part, and Lancelot Brown on the other, for the 

 underwritten Articles of Work to be Performed at Sandbeck 

 in the County of York (To Wit) : 



Article the 1st. — To compleat the sunk Fence which 

 separates the Park from the Farm, and to Build a Wall in 

 it, as also to make a proper Drain at the Bottom of the 

 Sunk Fence to keep it Dry. 



Article the 2nd. — To demolish all the old Ponds which are 

 in the Lawn, and to level and Drain all the ground where 

 they are. 



Article the ^rd. — To Drain and level all the ground which is 

 between the above mentioned Sunk Fence and the old Canals 



* Gilpin, Obs. on Picturesque Beauty, 1776, Particularly the Highlands of 

 Scotland. 



f Copied from the original MS. at Sandbeck, by the kind permission of the 

 Earl of Scarbrough. 



18 * 



