Proper Situations for a House 25 



Langley. It seems to have been as much the fash- 

 ion of the present century to condemn avenues as it 

 was in the last to plant them ; and yet the subject is so 

 little understood that most people think they suffi- 

 ciently justify their opinion, in either case, by merely 

 saying, " I like an avenue," or, " I hate an avenue " : it 

 is my business to analyse this approbation or disgust. 



The several degrees of pleasure which the mind 

 derives from the love of order, of unity, antiquity, 

 greatness of parts, and continuity are all in some meas- 

 ure gratified by the long perspective view of a stately 

 avenue : for the truth of this assertion I appeal to 

 the sensations that every one must have felt who 

 has visited the lofty avenues of Windsor, Hatfield, 

 Burleigh, etc., before experience had pointed out that 

 tedious sameness and the many inconveniences which 

 have deservedly brought avenues into disrepute. This 

 sameness is so obvious that, by the effect of avenues, 

 all novelty or diversity of situation is done away ; and 

 the views from every house in the kingdom may be 

 reduced to the same landscape, if looking up or down 

 a straight line, betwixt two green walls, deserves the 

 name of landscape. 



Among the inconveniences of long straight avenues 

 may very properly be reckoned that of their acting as 

 wind-spouts to direct cold blasts with more violence 

 upon the dwelling, as driven through a long tube. 

 But I propose rather to consider the objections in 

 point of beauty. If at the end of a long avenue be 

 placed an obelisk, or temple, or any other eye-trap, 

 ignorance or childhood alone will be caught or pleased 

 by it : the eye of taste or experience hates compulsion, 

 and turns away with disgust from every artificial means 

 of attracting its notice. For this reason an avenue is 



