132 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



Wliately, in his Observations on Modern 

 Gardening, says, — " Though the surface of 

 " a wood, when commanded, deserves all 

 " these attentions, yet the outline more fre- 

 " quently calls for our regard ; it is also more 

 " in our power ; it may sometimes be great, 

 " and may always be beautiful. The first re- 

 " quisite is irregularity. That a mixture of 

 " trees and imderwood should form a long 

 " straight line, can never be natural ; and a 

 " succession of easy sweeps and gentle rounds, 

 " each a portion of a greater or less circle, 

 " composing altogether a line literally ser- 

 " pentine, is, if possible, worse. It is but a 

 " number of regularities put together in a 

 " disorderly manner, and equally distant from 

 " the beautiful, both of Art and of Nature. 

 " The true beauty of an outline consists more 

 " in breaks than in sweeps — rather in angles 

 *' than in rounds — in variety, not in succes- 

 " sion. The eye, which hurries to the ex- 

 " tremity of whatever is uniform, delights to 

 '* trace a varied line through all its intri- 

 " cacies."* 



" Let us hear Sir Uvedale Price's opinion 



* Observations on Modern Gardening, p. 42. 



