Proper Situations for a House 27 



disturbed, especially as the views on each side are suf- 

 ficiently capable of yielding beauty; and, when seen 

 from the end rooms of the house, the avenue will act as 

 a foreground to either landscape. 



Hanslope. Most of the large trees at Hanslope 

 stand in avenues, yet their pleasant shade forbids the 

 cutting down many of them, merely because the false 

 taste of former times has planted them in rows ; at 

 least till those plantations which are now made shall 

 better replace the shelter which the avenues in some 

 measure afford. The breaking of an avenue to the 

 north is not to be done by merely taking away certain 

 trees, but also by planting a thicket before the trunks 

 of those at a distance ; as we may be thus induced to 

 forget that they stand in rows. The addition of a few 

 single trees, guarded by cradles, though often used as an 

 expedient to break a row, never produces the desired 

 effect: the original lines are for ever visible. ^ 



Welbeck. Besides the character which the style and 

 size of the house will confer on a place, there is a natural 

 character of country which must influence the site and 

 disposition of a house; and though, in the country, 

 there is not the same occasion as in towns for placing 

 offices under ground, or for setting the principal apart- 

 ments on a basement storey, as it is far more desirable 

 to walk from the house on the same level with the 

 ground, yet there are situations which require to be 

 raised above the natural surface : this is the case at 

 Welbeck, where the park not only abounds with bold 

 and conspicuous inequalities, but in many places there 

 are almost imperceptible swellings in the ground, which 

 art would in vain attempt to remedy, from their vast 

 breadth ; though they are evident defects whenever 

 they appear to cut across the stems of trees and hide 



