70 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



the reader a finely formed elm or chestnut, whose wel 

 balanced head is supported on a trunk full of symmetry and 

 dignity, and whose branches almost sweep the turf in their 

 rich luxuriance ; as a picturesque contrast, some pine or 

 larch, whose gnarled roots grasp the rocky crag on which it 

 grows, and whose wild and irregular branches tell of the 

 storm and tempest that it has so often struggled against.* 



In pictures, too, one often hears the Beautiful confounded 

 with the Picturesque. Yet they are quite distinct ; though 

 in many subjects they may be found harmoniously com- 

 bined. Some of Raphael's angels may be taken as perfect 

 illustrations of the Beautiful. In their serene and heavenly 

 countenances we see only that calm and pure existence ot 

 which perfect beauty is the outward type ; on the other hand, 

 Murillo's beggar boys are only picturesque. What we ad- 

 mire in them (beyond admirable execution) is not their rags 

 or their mean apparel, but a certain irregular struggling 

 of a better feeling within, against this outward poverty of 

 nature and condition. 



Architecture borrows, partly perhaps by association, the 

 same expression. We find the Beautiful in the most sym- 

 metrical edifices, built in the finest proportions, and of the 

 purest materials. It is, on the other hand, in some irregu- 

 lar castle formed for defence, some rude mill nearly as wild as 

 the glen where it is placed, some thatched cottage, weather 

 stained and moss covered, that we find the Picturesque. 

 The Temple of Jupiter Olympus in all its perfect proportions 



» This also explains why trees, though they retain for the most part their 

 characteristic fomis, vary somewhat in expression according to their situation. 

 Thus the larch, though always picturesque, is far more so in mountain ridges 

 where it is exposed to every blast, than in sheltered lawns where it only finds 

 .left airs and sunshine. 



