Preface 



If the knowledge of painting be insufficient without 

 that of gardening, on the other hand, the mere gardener, 

 without some skill in painting, will seldom be able to 

 form a just idea of effects before they are carried into 

 execution. This faculty of foreknowing effects consti- 

 tutes the master in every branch of the polite arts ; and 

 can only be the result of a correct eye, a ready concep- 

 tion, and a fertility of invention, to which the professor 

 adds practical experience. 



But of this art, painting and gardening are not the 

 only foundations: the artist must possess a competent 

 knowledge of surveying, mechanics, hydraulics, agri- 

 culture, botany, and the general principles of architect- 

 ure. It can hardly be expected that a man bred and 

 constantly living in the kitchen-garden should possess 

 all these requisites ; yet because the immortal Brown ' 

 was originally a kitchen-gardener, it is too common to 

 find every man who can handle a rake or spade pre- 

 tending to give his opinion on the most difficult points 

 of improvement. It may perhaps be asked from whence 

 Mr. Brown derived his knowledge? — the answer is 

 obvious : that, being at first patronised by a few persons 

 of rank and acknowledged good taste, he acquired, 

 by degrees, the faculty of prejudging effects; partly 

 from repeated trials, and partly from the experience 

 of those to whose conversation and intimacy his genius 

 had introduced him : and although he could not design, 

 himself, there exist many pictures of scenery, made 

 under his instruction, which his imagination alone had 

 painted. 



Since the art of landscape gardening requires the 

 combination of certain portions of knowledge in so 

 many different arts, it is no wonder that the professors 



