Chapter II 



Buildings 



THE perfection of landscape gardening depends on 

 a concealment of those operations of art by which 

 nature is embellished; but where buildings are intro- 

 duced, art declares herself openly, and should, therefore, 

 be very careful, lest she have cause to blush at her inter- 

 ference. It is this circumstance that renders it absolutely 

 necessary for the landscape gardener to have a com- 

 petent knowledge of architecture : I am, however, well 

 aware that no art is more difficult to be acquired; and 

 although every inferior workman pretends to give plans 

 for building, yet perfection in that art is confined to 

 a very few gentlemen, who, with native genius and a lib- 

 eral education, have acquired good taste by travel and 

 observation. 



This remark proceeds from the frequent instances 

 I continually see of good houses built without any taste, 

 and attempts to embellish scenery by ornamental 

 buildings that are totally incongruous to their respect- 

 ive situations. The country carpenter or bricklayer is 

 only accustomed to consider detached parts; the arch- 

 itect, on the contrary, finds it his office to consider 

 the whole. There is some degree of merit in building 

 good rooms, but there is more in connecting these 

 rooms together; however, it is the regular bred archi- 

 tect alone who can add to these an outside according 

 to the established rules of art : and where these rules 

 are grossly violated, the eye of genuine taste will in- 



