BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE AKT. 79 



nor income, to attempt the improvement of their grounds 

 fully, after either of those two schools. How shall they 

 render their places tasteful and agreeable, in the easiest 

 manner ? We answer, by attempting only the simple and 

 the natural ; and the unfailing way to secure this, is by 

 employing as leading features only trees and grass, A 

 soft verdant lawn, a few forest or ornamental trees 

 well grouped, walks, and a few flowers, give universal 

 pleasure ; they contain in themselves, in fact, the basis of 

 all our agreeable sensations in a landscape garden (na- 

 tural beauty, and the recognition of art) ; and they are 

 the most enduring sources of enjoyment in any place. 

 There are no country seats in the United States so unsa- 

 tisfactory and tasteless, as those in which, without any 

 definite aim, everything is attempted ; and a mixed jumble 

 of discordant forms, materials, ornaments, and decorations, 

 is assembled — a part in one style and a bit in another, 

 •without the least feeling of unity or cong.c^lty. These 

 rural bedlams, full of all kinds of absurdities, without a 

 leading character or expression of any sort, cost their 

 owners a vast deal of trouble and money, without giving a 

 tasteful mind a shadow of the beauty which it feels at the 

 first glimpse of a neat cottage residence, with its simple, 

 sylvan character of well kept lawn and trees. If the latter 

 does not rank high in the scale of Landscape Gardening 

 as an art, it embodies much of its essence as a source oi 

 enjoyment — the production of the Beautiful in country 

 residences. 



Besides the beauties of form and expression in the differ- 

 ent modes of laying out grounds, there are certain univer- 

 sal and inherent beauties common to all styles, and, indeed, 

 to every composition in the fine arts. Of these, we shal 



