DRESS GROUND. 51 



a good effect ; and, in some cases, are most 

 essentially useful. There is, I conceive, 

 scarcely any tree that may not be advanta- 

 geously used in the various combinations of 

 form and colour : and, as immediately con- 

 nected with buildings, I must say that the 

 Lombardy poplar appears to me to be un- 

 justly condemned; inasmuch as we have no 

 tree that so well supplies the place of the 

 cypress, in contrasting the horizontal lines 

 of masonry, and giving occasional variety to 

 the outline of the group. Portman Square 

 affords an example in point : the horizontal 

 lines of the houses on each side beino; broken 

 and contrasted by the Lombardy poplars in 

 the plantations ; while the plantations them- 

 selves derive consequence and variety from 

 the pointed form and superior height of the 

 poplars : as, therefore, we cannot command 

 the cypress of Italian growth, we find the 

 Lombardy poplar its best representative. 



In my former edition of these Hints I 

 deemed it superfluous to remonstrate against 

 clipping the evergreens into formal shapes, 

 conceiving it to be an obsolete barbarism. 

 I was lately, however, painfully convinced of 

 my error by finding the shrubs in the flower- 



E 2 



