DRESS GROUND. 31 



would lay open the wide extent, — 



" More cautiously will taste its stores reveal : 

 " Its greatest art is, aptly to conceal ; 

 «' To lead with secret guile the prying sight 

 " To where component parts may best unite, 

 " And form one beauteous well connected whole, 

 " To charm the eye and captivate the soul." * 



I cannot understand Mr. Kepton's distinc- 

 tion in the followino; remark : — " The mind 

 " is astonished and pleased at a very extensive 

 " prospect, but it cannot be interested except 

 " by those objects which strike the eye dis- 

 " tinctly." Nor is it easy to reconcile this 

 observation with another, which occurs a few 

 pages further on, where he says, " By Land- 

 " scape I mean a view capable of being re- 

 " presented in painting. It consists of two, 

 " three, or more, well-marked distances, each 

 " separated from the other by an unseen 

 " space, which the imagination delights to 

 " fill up with fancied beauties, that may not, 

 " perhaps, exist in reality." f 



Can the mind be pleased^ nay, delighted, 

 without being interested ? How diflferent the 

 estimation of an extensive prospect that 



* Knight's Landscape. 



t Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening. 



