BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 5^ 



simplest hints derived from the free and luxuriant forms ot 

 nature. No residence in the country can fail to be pleasing, 

 whose features are natural groups of forest trees, smooth 

 lawn, and hard gravel walks. 



But this is scarcely Landscape Gardening in the true 

 sense of the word, although apparently so understood by 

 many writers. By Landscape Gardening, we understand 

 not only an imitation, in the grounds of a country residence, 

 of the agreeable forms of nature, but an expressive, harmo- 

 nious, and refined imitation* In Landscape Gardening, 

 we should aim to separate the accidental and extraneous 

 in nature, and to preserve only the spirit, or essence. This 

 subtle essence lies, we believe, in the expression more or 

 less pervading every attractive portion of nature. And it 

 is by eliciting, preserving, or heightening this expression, 

 that we may give our landscape gardens a higher charm, 

 than even the polish of art can bestow. 



Now, the two most forcible and complete expressions to 

 be found in that kind of natural scenery which may be 

 reproduced in Landscape Gardening, are the BEAUTIFUL 

 and the PICTURESQUE. As we look upon these as quite 

 distinct, and as success in practical embellishment must 

 depend on our feeling and understanding these expressions 

 beforehand, it is necessary that we should attach some 

 definite meaning to terms which we shall be continually 

 obliged to employ. This is, indeed, the more requisite, from 



* " Thus, there is a beauty of nature and a beauty of art. To copy the 

 beauty of nature cannot be called being an artist in the highest sense of the 

 word, as a mechanical talent only is requisite for this. The beautiful in art 

 depends on ideas ; and the true artist, therefore, must possess, together with the 

 talent for technical execution, that genial power which revels freely in rich 

 forms, and is capable of producing and animating them. It is by this, that the 

 jierit of the artist and his production is to be judged ; and these cannot be 



