Introduction xix 



landscape gardening, but in his writings on that 

 subject. Neither among his predecessors nor suc- 

 cessors has there been a man of equal genius and 

 experience who has left such a substantial body of 

 opinion behind him. This is the result partly 

 of his desire permanently to lift his chosen pro- 

 fession to a higher plane, and partly of his sys- 

 tematic methods of work, which made it possible 

 for him, even in the midst of a very active practice, 

 to prepare material for publication. He speaks of 

 his writings as " observations tending to establish 

 fixed principles in the art of landscape garden- 

 ing." His profession, he contended, should not be 

 founded upon caprice and fashion. This view is 

 wellexpressedinhis dedication to King George III 

 of his first book, " Sketches and Hints on Land- 

 scape Gardening," in which he says: " If it should 

 appear that, instead of displaying new doctrines or 

 furnishing novel ideas, this volume serves rather 

 by a new method to elucidate old established 

 principles, and to confirm long received opinions, 

 I can only plead in my excuse that true taste, 

 in every art, consists more in adapting tried ex- 

 pedients to peculiar circumstances than in that 

 inordinate thirst after novelty, the characteristic 

 of uncultivated minds, which from the facility of 

 inventing wild theories, without experience, are 

 apt to suppose that taste is displayed by novelty, 

 genius by innovation, and that every change must 

 necessarily tend to improvement." 



