28 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



only half their trunks ; for if the whole trunk were per- 

 fectly hid by such a swell, the injury would be less, 

 because the imagination is always ready to sink the 

 valley and raise the hill, if not checked in its efforts by 

 some actual standard of measurement. In such cases 

 the best expedient is to view the ground from a gentle 

 eminence, that the eye may look over and, of course, 

 lose these trifling inequalities. 



The family apartments are to the south, the prin- 

 cipal suite of rooms to the east, and the hall and some 

 rooms of less importance to the west ; when, therefore, 

 the eating-room and kitchen offices shall be removed 

 to the north, it is impossible to make a better disposi- 

 tion of the whole, with regard to aspect. I shall there- 

 fore proceed to the fourth general head proposed for 

 consideration, viz. the shape of the ground near the 

 house : and as the improvement at Welbeck, origin- 

 ally suggested by His Grace the Duke of Portland, has, 

 I confess, far exceeded even my own expectations, 

 I shall take the liberty of drawing some general con- 

 clusions on the subject, from the success of this bold 

 experiment. At the time I had the honour to deliver 

 my former opinion, my idea of raising the ground near 

 the house was confined to the west front alone; and, 

 till it had been exemplified and executed, few could 

 comprehend the seeming paradox of burying the bot- 

 tom of the house as the means of elevating the whole 

 structure ; or, as it was very wittily expressed, " mould- 

 ing up the roots of the venerable pile, that it might 

 shoot up in fresh towers from its top." 



All natural shapes of ground must necessarily fall 

 under one of these descriptions, viz., convex, concave, 

 plane, or inclined plane, as represented in the follow- 

 ing sections [Fig. 3]. I will suppose it granted that. 



