iio The Art of Landscape Gardening 



The Red Book of Shardeloes contains a minute de- 

 scription of the rides made in the woods, with the reasons 

 for every part of their course ; but as this subject is more 

 amply treated in my remarks on Bulstrode, the following 

 extract is accompanied with a map, on which the course 

 of an extensive drive is minutely described. This park 

 must be acknowledged one of the most beautiful in Eng- 

 land, yet I doubt whether Claude himself could find, in 

 its whole extent, a single station from whence a picture 

 could be formed. I mention this as a proof of the little 

 affinity between pictures and scenes in nature. 



It is not uncommon to conduct a drive either round 

 a park or into the adjoining woods, without any other 

 consideration than its length; and I have frequently been 

 carried through a belt of plantation, surrounding a place, 

 without one remarkable object to call the attention from 

 the trees, which are everywhere mixed in the same 

 unvaried manner. 



Although the verdure, the smoothness of the surface, 

 and nature of the soil at Bulstrode are such as to make 

 every part of the park pleasant to drive over, yet there 

 is a propriety in marking certain lines of communication 

 which may lead from one interesting spot to another ; 

 and though a road of approach to a house ought not to 

 be circuitous, the drive is necessarily so; yet this should 

 be under some restraint. By the assistance of the map 

 [Plate xiii], I shall describe in a note the course of 

 the drive at Bulstrode ; and however devious it may 

 appear on paper, it will, I trust, be found to possess such 

 a variety as few drives can boast, and that no part of it 

 is suggested without sufficient reasons for its course. 



I would not here be understood to infer that every 

 park can boast those advantages which Bulstrode pos- 

 sesses, or that every place offisrs sufficient extent and 



