76 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



" Uniting the scenery in landscape is the 

 " chief purpose of sunk fences. Wherefore 

 " they should be perfectly concealed them- 

 " selves, that we may not discover insuf- 

 " ficiency in the execution : neither should 

 " unnatural swells of ground be made use of 

 *' in order to conceal them ; for thus the very 

 " purpose of uniting must be defeated. 



" The author of Observations on Modern 

 *' Gardening enters (p. 8.) on this subject of 

 " fosses ; but in so superficial a manner as 

 " plainly shows, either that he was but little 

 " acquainted with the principle of their ap- 

 " plication, or did not choose to encounter all 

 " the difficulties of reducing this principle to 

 " practice. But the poet, in the second book 

 " of the English Garden, goes fairly into the 

 " subject of sunk fences, and describes the 

 " best that can be made, both for internal 

 " and external deception. He acknowledges, 

 " indeed, that such contrivances are 



' defective still. 



' Though hid with happiest art.* 



" Yet one consequential defect he certainly 

 " palliates. To say that the scythe on one 

 " side, and the cattle on the other, ' create a 



