40 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



characteristic ornament of art, allowable in the finest 

 inhabited scenes of nature. 



Wembly. The park^ at Wembly is only defective in 

 two circumstances: the first is the common defect of 

 all places where hedges have been recently removed and 

 too many single trees are left ; the natural reluctance 

 felt by every man of taste and experience to cut down 

 large trees, at the same time that he sees the unpleas- 

 ant effect of artificial rows, is very apt to suggest the 

 idea of breaking those rows by planting many young 

 trees; and thus the whole composition becomes frittered 

 into small parts, which are neither compatible with the 

 ideas of ^»he sublime nor beautiful. The masses of light 

 and shade, whether in a natural landscape or a picture, 

 must be broad and unbroken, or the eye will be dis- 

 tracted by the flutter of the scene; and the mind will be 

 rather employed in retracing the former lines of hedge- 

 rows than in admiring the ample extent of lawn and 

 continuity of wood which alone distinguishes the park 

 from the grass- or dairy-farm. This defect will of course 

 easily be remedied when the new plantations shall have 

 acquired a few years' growth, and many of the old trees 

 shall be either taken down or blended into closer 

 groups by young ones planted very near them: but 

 there can be little occasion for dotting young trees with 

 such profusion, and I do not hesitate to affirm that of 

 several hundred such trees now scattered upon the lawn 

 not more than twenty can be absolutely necessary. 



The other defect of Wembly arises from a sameness 

 of objects ; and this is a defect common to all the 

 countries where the grass-land is more generally mowed 

 than fed. It proves, what no landscape painter ever 

 doubted, that a scene consisting of vegetable produc- 

 tions only can seldom make a pleasing picture. The 



