136 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



" real capabilities of the place to be im- 

 " proved. This is what painters have done 

 " in their art ; and hence it is, that many of 

 " these lucky accidents being strongly pointed 

 " out by them, are called Picturesque." * 



Mason, in his Essay on Design in Garden- 

 ing, in defining a clump, says, — " The word 

 " comprehends many regular (or nearly re- 

 " gular) figures of small plantations, whether 

 " square, (like Lord Shrewsbury's avenue of 

 " clumps, in Oxfordshire,) circular, or oval, 

 " or approaching to either. The clumps 

 " alluded to in the text were chiefly regular, 

 " and mostly circular, and at that time ima- 

 " gined by me to have lost their vogue ; but 

 " I fear that they afterwards recovered it." 



Knight, in contrasting the loose and varied 

 groups of nature with the formal clumps of 

 the improver, exclaims — 



" But, ah ! how different is the formal lump 



Which the improver plants, and calls a clump ! " 



A writer, who was one of the first of those 

 who awakened the public attention to the 

 beauties of natural scenery, speaking of 



* Price on the Picturesque, vol. i. p. 344. 



