EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTREMES 



267 



improved on the Chinese theory, saying that "objects 

 should be less calculated to strike the immediate eye 

 than the judgment or well-informed imagination as in 

 painting," and he believed that the "sublime had gener- 

 ally a deeper effect than the merely beautiful," while he 

 considered that "every scene we see in nature is either 

 tame or insipid." 



Shenstone's " Sentimental Farm " at Leasowes, in 

 Shropshire, was much admired. It was calculated to 

 arouse the emotions by means of urns, trophies, weeping- 

 willows, inscriptions, dragons and serpents in hideous 

 attitudes, and other symbols in harmony with the grand, 

 savage, melancholy, horrid, or beautiful character of the 

 landscape. 



Melancholy seems to have 

 been a favourite emotion 

 most appropriately inspired 

 by placing funereal monu- 

 ments in the garden. The 

 grave of Pope's mother, for 

 instance, was a feature in 

 his pleasure ground, ap- 

 proached by a solemn ave- 

 nue of cypress trees, while 

 Byron's favourite dog was buried under a conspicuous 

 monument in the garden at Newstead. 



Interesting examples of the landscape and of the 



Cultivation 

 of melan- 

 choly. 



