218 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



of those general observations which we have proposed to 

 offer. 



Firsts the Landscape Painter may copy Tvith the most 

 scrupulous exactitude some piece of scenery actually 

 existing ; and such is the wonderful beauty and diversity 

 of nature, that if his selection has been felicitous, the 

 result may be among the most trutlifiil and successful 

 of his efforts. The Landscape Gardener can seldom 

 copy. He may indeed fall into that sameness of style 

 which constitutes mannerism, but he can never servilely 

 copy ; for even on the most level surfaces his materials 

 are not often the same, and the relative situations of his 

 permanent objects are almost always different. He is 

 bound to create views, if we may here use a word of so 

 much weight of meaning : in short, his business is what 

 is technically called composition. This circumstance 

 makes his work parallel to what, we believe, is the 

 highest line of landscape painting, \dz. the formation of 

 pictures by the combination of the finest o])jects which 

 the artist has copied into his sketch-book, or can recall 

 by his memory, or can embody by his imagination. 

 But here the painter has some important advantages. 

 His canvas is at first a tabula rasa, a wholly unoccupied 

 field, and his objects are fully at his command. He can 

 put down rocks here, and water there, and buHdiiigs and 

 trees wherever the i-ules of perspective or the manage- 

 ment of his distances render them admissible. The 

 Landscape Gardener has most of his objects laid down 

 to him. He must accept of the locality with its natural 

 features, and the contour of the ground, which often 

 prescribes a particular treatment ; and he must make it 

 his business to conceal deformities, to elicit existing but 

 unapparent beauties, and to adorn whatever is susceptible 



