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the interest and delight which are produced by gentle and graceful sweeps, 

 with natural, or irregular and varied, masses and groups of trees and shrubs, 

 blending softly and gracefully, with intricate glades of smooth lawn quietly 

 and uninterruptedly retiring into distance. On the one hand, all is stiff, 

 formal, and confined. Long straight walks, bowling-greens, vegetable gardens, 

 &c, are ornamented with fantastic bushes, and bounded by high walls, and 

 hedges clipped to an immeasurable height, as if art, conscious of its own 

 inferiority, was making a gigantic effort to exclude the beauties of nature. 

 On the other hand, all is easy, natural, and unrestrained. The eye, unim- 

 peded by hard and restrictive avenues, and other lines of demarcation, — those 

 frequently awkward and always objectionable features of the old system, — 

 after pleasurably surveying the softness and harmony of the home scenery, 

 passes freely and unrestrained to the park or middle distance, and thence over 

 beautifully varied scenery, to the stiller and more distant landscape. 



Allowing, however, that the antiquity of a place contributes much to its 

 interest, I should proceed more cautiously in directing the alterations of 

 it, in order to preserve that interest and importance which time and its 

 connection with historical events have created. I should, in the first place, 

 preserve the terrace and terrace walls, repairing them where necessary, and, if 

 too plain, enriching them with vases, urns, and other embellishments in 

 character with the building. The walls of the entrance court, with their 

 decorations, I would also preserve. Good examples of avenues should remain, 

 unless they produce a hard line so as to divide the park scenery when viewed 

 from the living-rooms. The formal pond with its cascade, the fountain, 

 alcove, statuary, dials, &c, should by no means be destroyed or removed, nor 

 anything be done which is calculated to lessen the character of antiquity, on 

 which the importance of an old place depends. The kitchen garden, however, 

 with its old crooked walls, when in view of the living-rooms, I consider highly 

 objectionable, and should remove at once, and convert its site into lawn, 

 varied with rich shrubs, or, if too extensive, add a portion to the park, and 

 plant it with groups of trees, so as to harmonize as much as possible with 

 the adjoining natural scenery. Should the proprietor, however, prefer the 

 formal character altogether, the lawn, at all events, should be bold, and not 

 cut up too much into useless fantastical figures. Elongated and round beds 

 (either with or without edgings of ornamental iron or stone), or baskets. 



