410 Landscape Gardening 



because these were all dependencies and ornaments of home, 

 and home was the sanctuary of the highest human affection. 

 This was the point of departure of his philosophy. Nature 

 must serve man. The landscape must be made a picture in 

 the gallery of love. Home was the pivot upon w r hich turned 

 all his theories of rural art. All his efforts, all the grasp of 

 genius, and the cunning of talent, were to complete, in a 

 perfect home, the apotheosis of love. It is in this fact that 

 the permanence of his influence is rooted. His works are 

 not the result of elegant taste, and generous cultivation, and 

 a clear intellect, only; but of a noble hope that inspired taste, 

 cultivation, and intellect. This saved him as an author 

 from being wrecked upon formulas. He was strictly scien- 

 tific, few men in his department more so; but he was never 

 rigidly academical. He always discerned the thing signified 

 through the expression; and, in his own art, insisted that if 

 there was nothing to say, nothing should be said. He knew 

 perfectly well that there is a time for discords, and a place 

 for departures from rule, and he understood them when they 

 came, - - which was peculiar and very lovely in a man of 

 so delicate a nervous organization. This led him to be 

 tolerant of all differences of opinion and action, and to be 

 sensitively wary of injuring the feelings of those from whom 

 he differed. He was thus scientific in the true sense. In 

 his department he was wise, and we find him writing from 

 \Yarwick Castle again, thus: "Whoever designed this front, 

 made up as it is of lofty towers and irregular walls, must 

 have been a poet as well as architect, for its composition 

 and details struck me as having the proportions and con- 

 gruity of a fine scene in nature, which we feel is not to be 

 measured and defined by the ordinary rules of art." 



His own home was his finest work. It was materially 

 beautiful, and spiritually bright with the purest lights of 

 affection. Its hospitality was gracious and graceful. It 

 consulted the taste, wishes, and habits of the guest, butTwith 

 unobtrusiveness, that the favorite flower every morning by 

 the plate upon the breakfast-table, seemed to have come 

 there as naturally, in the family arrangements, as the plate 



