RURAL SCENERY. 



Wild or Natural Scenery may be said to comprehend all the various forms of 

 that which is wild and uncultivated. In the rural form, it is seldom calcu- 

 lated to inspire the mind with the highest pleasure ; but its gentle variations of 

 surface, and wooded thickets and hedge-rows, are rather calculated to produce 

 calm and soothing meditation. The aim of the Landscapist would therefore 

 be, after leaving the dress grounds, to provide "recreative inducement, in the 

 shape of dry walks, and necessary roads and drives, leading through woods 

 and thickets, where these are to be met with ; and where they are not, to 

 form them, as well for profit as appearance. Their monotony should be 

 broken by grassy glades, blended with patches of indigenous cowslip, prim- 

 rose, wood anemone, bluebell, violet, orchids, honeysuckle, rambhng rose, 

 blackthorn, whin, heath, &c, which should be introduced in such varied 

 groupings and masses as to prevent the least suspicion of artistic interference. 

 It will further be important in grouping trees and low growths, wherever 

 they can be seen from the walks, that their natural form and elegance should 

 be fully displayed. 



Neat rustic chairs, and covered seats formed of larch rods and poles, will 

 be here in perfect keeping ; and wherever a brook or streamlet intersects the 

 walk, a neat bridge of the above materials will be proper. 



Pools or lakes naturally introduced, I need not say, will be also quite in 

 character; but after what has just been observed, I need not protest against 

 the introduction of polished architectural structures, statuary, vases, urns, 

 lattice or wire-work, or even rockeries. The last named would indeed be 

 inadmissible, unless valleys were sunk and mounds thrown up so as to 

 produce a varied and broken surface. 



