Preface 5 



of each should respectively suggest what is most ob- 

 vious to their own experience ; and thus the painter, 

 the kitchen-gardener, the engineer, the land-agent, and 

 the architect will frequently propose expedients differ- 

 ent from those which the landscape gardener may think 

 proper to adopt. The difficulties which I have occa- 

 sionally experienced from these contending interests 

 induced me to make a complete digest of each subject 

 proposed to my consideration, affixing the reasons on 

 which my opinion was founded, and stating the com- 

 parative advantages to the whole of adopting or re- 

 jecting certain parts of any plan. To make my designs 

 intelligible, I found that a mere map was insufficient; 

 as being no more capable of conveying an idea of the 

 landscape than the ground-plan of a house does of its 

 elevation. To remedy this deficiency, I delivered my 

 opinions in writing, that they might not be miscon- 

 ceived or misrepresented ; and I invented the peculiar 

 kind of slides to my sketches, some of which are here 

 reproduced. 



Such drawings, to shew the proposed effects, can 

 be useful but in a very few instances ; yet I have often 

 remarked, with some mortification, that it is the only 

 part of my labours which the common observer has 

 time or leisure to examine ; although it is the least part 

 of that perfection in the art, to which these hints and 

 sketches will, I hope, contribute. 



I confess that the great object of my ambition is 

 not merely to produce a book of pictures, but to furnish 

 some hints for establishing the fact that true taste in 

 landscape gardening, as well as in all the other polite 

 arts, is not an accidental effect, operating on the out- 

 ward senses, but an appeal to the understanding, which 



