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Let me not, then, be understood, from the foregoing remarks and quota- 

 tions, to have no due appreciation of picturesque or natural scenery. What 

 I contend for is, that wild scenery ought to be sought, rather than be always 

 presented to the eye ; it should never intrude upon the quietude which should 

 pervade the dress grounds of a well-regulated residence, but should remain 

 in reserve, so as to heighten, by contrast, the pleasurable feelings of the whole. 

 The dress ground must always be assisted by art, if order and elegance are 

 to be displayed, and if trees, shrubs, and flowers are to be exhibited in their 

 natural form and beauty ; and thus will all descriptions of scenery, though 

 various in the extreme, afford the highest gratification to the sensitive mind, 

 when viewed each in its proper sphere. 



As, however, I have frequently observed examples of a taste regardless of 

 congruity, and a vague notion that wild nature uninterfered with is beautiful, 

 in places which ought to wear the most elegant dress and exhibit the most 

 perfect repose ; as, also, I have witnessed many instances of inharmonious 

 mingling of rough and smooth, and of formality with the rude picturesque, 

 I am constrained to dwell longer than I otherwise should on this part of the 

 subject, and shew, by a few examples, what I consider to be great mistakes in 

 scenic disposition. 



Every one must have frequently seen climbing plants of various kinds 

 trained, carelessly and without order, against beautiful and highly finished 

 houses, and bushes planted at intervals, almost close to their walls. I have 

 sometimes pleaded in vain against the introduction of these incongruities 

 in connexion with newly finished mansions. A case in point exists at this 

 time in Cumberland ; where I hope, however, that I have succeeded in 

 convincing my patron of the impropriety of disfiguring with climbers the 

 fine architectural buildings he has raised with so much taste. Climbers are 

 admissible, and even ornamental, on all buildings of small pretensions. They 

 form a graceful appendage to cottage dwellings ; and their pendent flowers 

 add to the beauty and interest of such objects when trained with order and 

 neatness, and when the appearance of wildness or neglect is scrupulously 

 avoided. Ruins also, or dilapidated buildings, are proper objects to wear the 

 natural careless and unstudied dress of the ivy, honeysuckle, rambling rose, 

 and Virginia bower. To the ruined castle, the mouldering abbey, the time- 

 worn and deserted manor house, these, with ferns and mosses, form embellish- 



