48 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



tern or a torch has, to prevent our seeing what is be- 

 yond it; and this same cause operates in all cases in 

 proportion to the quantity of rays reflected, whether 

 from water, from snow, from white paling, or any other 

 luminous object. This accounts for the pleasure we 

 derive from seeing water at a proper distance, and of a 

 natural shape. Water is said to attract our notice with 

 irresistible power ; but the pond at Lathom, placed in 

 the foreground, engrosses too much of the landscape, 

 and is neither sufficiently pleasing in its shape nor 

 natural in its situation to deserve the place it holds as 

 the leading feature of the scene. 



The management of the view to the north will fur- 

 ther serve to elucidate another general principle in gar- 

 dening, viz. that although we do not require a strict 

 symmetry in the two sides of the landscape, yet there 

 is a certain balance of composition,'^ without which 

 the eye is not perfectly satisfied. The two screens of 

 wood beyond the pond may be varied and contrasted ; 

 that to the west may be left as a thick and impenetrable 

 mass of trees and underwood, while a great part of that 

 to the east should be converted into an open grove ; 

 thus destroying the formality, while the balance of 

 composition may still be preserved. 



