EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTREMES 257 



Kent was an unsuccessful painter, whose idea was to Kentth* 

 make the garden a reproduction of the pictorial effects in 

 nature, as seen in the compositions of Claude Lorraine, 

 Poussin, and Salvator Rosa. " He felt the delicious 

 contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into 

 each other, tasted the beauties of the gentle swell or 

 concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned 

 an easy eminence with a happy ornament, and while they 

 were called in the distant view between their graceful 

 stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive 

 comparison. 



" Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the 

 arts of landscape on all the scenes he handled. The 

 great principles on which he worked were perspective 

 and light and shade. Groups of trees broke too uniform 

 or too extensive a lawn ; evergreens and woods were 

 opposed to the glare of the champain, and where the 

 view was less fortunate, or so much exposed as to be 

 beheld at once, he blotted out some parts by thick 

 shades, to divide it into variety or to make the richest 

 scene more enchanting by reserving it to a farther ad- 

 vance of the spectator's steps. Thus selecting favourite 

 objects, and veiling deformities by screens of plantation ; 

 sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its foil to the 

 richest theatre, he realized the compositions of the great- 

 est masters in painting. Where objects were wanting 

 to animate his horizon, his taste as an architect could 



