196 



useful to others, however humiliating to ourselves, as the 

 frank confession of our errors and of their causes. No man 

 can equally with the person who committed them, impress 

 upon others the extent of the mischief done, and the regret 

 that follows it." It is painful to quit pages so interesting as 

 those that immediately follow this quotation.* 



* In p. 130 and 179 of vol. ii. he thus adverts to the effects of the level- 

 ling system of Launcelot Browne : — " From this influence of fashion, and 

 the particular influence of Mr. Browne, models of old gardens are in this 

 country still scarcer in nature than in painting ; and therefore what good 

 parts there may be in such gardens, whether proceeding from original de- 

 sign, or from the changes produced by time and accident, can no longer be 

 observed ; and yet, from these specimens of ancient art, however they may 

 be condemned as old fashioned, many hints might certainly be taken, and 

 blended with such modern improvements as really deserve the name." — 

 " Were my arguments in favour of many parts of the old style of garden- 

 ing ever so convincing, the most I could hope from them at present, would 

 be, to produce some caution ; and to assist in preserving some of the few 

 remains of old magnificence that still exist, by making the owner less ready 

 to listen to a professor, whose interest it is to recommend total demolition." 

 Mr. R. P. Knight, in a note to his landscape, thus remarks on this subject: 

 " I remember a country clock-maker, who being employed to clean a more 

 complex machine than he had been accustomed to, very confidently took it 

 to pieces; but finding, when he came to put it together again, some wheels 

 of which he could not discover the use, very discreetly carried them off in 

 his pocket. The simple artifice of this prudent mechanic, always recurs to 

 my mind, when I observe the manner in which our modern improvers re- 

 pair and embellish old places ; not knowing how to employ the terraces, 

 mounds, avenues, and other features which they find there, they take them 

 all away, and cover the places which they occupied with turf. It is a short 

 and easy method of proceeding; and if their employers will be satisfied 

 with it, they are not to be blamed for persevering in it, as it may be exe- 

 cuted by proxy, as well as in person." 



Severely (and no doubt justly), as the too generally smooth and monoto- 

 nous system of Mr. Browne has been condemned, yet he must have had 

 great merit to have obtained the many encomiums he did obtain from some 

 of our first nobility and gentry. The evil which he did in many of their 

 altered pleasure-grounds, lives after him — the good is oft interred in his 

 grave. 



