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uncouth — for which purpose unlimited license is allowed them critically ; yet 

 such liberties could neither be taken nor tolerated with actual chess scenery, 

 however they may be in the ideal. 



Again, a view to be represented on canvass is necessarily limited, and 

 fine specimens of trees introduced into the foreground of a picture, in place 

 of those usually there, would monopolize so much space as materially to 

 interfere with the general effect; therefore, instead of the picture being 

 furnished with " examples for our learning," it is embellished with skeleton 

 trees, often out of the perpendicular, tufted with a few straggling branches. 

 The professors of Landscape Gardening are, then, at issue with the Land- 

 scape Painter. They laugh at his deformities, — his rough grassy foreground, 

 and his forced ideal effect of light and shade, as lessons to Landscapists ; 

 while he pours contempt upon their smooth shaven lawns, prim walks, 

 beautiful shrubberies, and gay flowers. 



Again, as paintings cannot afford correct examples, because the painter 

 has not space in his limited picture for the introduction of groups and single 

 trees, displaying their full beauty and true characters, are we to banish from 

 the dress ground the majestic cedar, rising proudly above the earth, and 

 stretching far and wide its arms to catch the invigorating breeze ; the noble 

 and elegant liine, pendulous and graceful ; the deep-toned purple beech ; 

 the stately elm ; the various pines, with their sombre shadows ; or the 

 pyramidal larch, sweeping the smooth lawn with the drooping spray of its 

 recurvant branches ? All these distinguish themselves, when fitly placed 

 and freely grown, by their grace and lovehness. We ask, also, what has the 

 painter to do with the gay parterre, the delightful flower garden, — the soul's 

 delight of the majority of mankind ? In what school, whether ancient or 

 modern, are we to gather ideas of improvement in this department of our 

 profession? It is, indeed, true, that an old academical master varied the 

 monotony of his subjects with garden scenery ; but he never intended to 

 school gardeners, or to hold up his ideas of even the harmony of colours for 

 their example. 



But, because these picturesque enthusiasts would have us copy nature in 

 her rudeness, are we to be deprived of the advantages of art to improve her ? 

 Is the gem to remain unpolished because it is a gem withal ? Are we not 

 to alter the form of the materials which she gives us, to our ideas of taste 



