PKICE ON THE PICTURESQUE. 21 



and philosophy could not escape, how should poor 

 gardening expect to go free ? It is the natural 

 effect of the bold enunciation of a broad principle, 

 that it will oftener be strained to cover extreme 

 cases than be applied to the general bearing of the 

 subject. Withdraw the pure and intelligent mind 

 that first directed its application, and hundreds of 

 professed disciples and petty imitators spring up, 

 whose optics are sharp-sighted enough to see the 

 faults condemned in the old system, though their 

 comprehension is too limited to embrace the whole 

 range of truth and beauty in the new ; with just so 

 much knowledge as to call up a maxim or phrase 

 for the purpose of distorting it, and passing it on the 

 world as the ipse dixit of the master, though without 

 intellect enough to perceive the time, the measure, 

 or the place, which alone make its application desir- 

 able. Wilkes was at much trouble to assure George 

 III. that he was not a Wilkite ; and if many an 

 ordinary man has need at times to exclaim, " Pre- 

 serve me from my friends," all great ones have much 

 more reason to cry out, " Defend me from my dis- 

 ciples." Perhaps all this is a little too grandiloquent 

 for our humble subject ; but if a marked example of 

 discipular ultraism and perversion were wanting, no 

 stronger one could be found than that supplied by 

 the followers of Price. And if we have made more 

 of this matter than it deserves, we care not, for our 

 great object is to impress upon our readers that this 

 unfortunate word " picturesque " has been the ruin 

 of our gardens. Price himself never dreamt of ap- 



