BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 63 



character, and plants, builds, and embellishes, as he should, 

 constantly aiming to elicit and strengthen it will soon 

 arrive at a far higher and more satisfactory result, than one 

 who, in the common manner, works at random. The latter 

 may succeed in producing pleasing grounds he will un- 

 doubtedly add to the general beauty and tasteful appearance 

 of the country, and we gladly accord him our thanks. But 

 the improver who unites with pleasing forms an expres- 

 sion of sentiment, will affect not only the common eye, but 

 much more powerfully, the imagination, and the refined 

 and delicate taste. 



But there are many persons with small cottage places, 

 of little decided character, who have neither room, time 

 fior income, to attempt the improvement of their grounds 

 fully, after either of those two schools. How shall they 

 render their places tasteful and agreeable, in the easiest 

 manner ? We answer, by attempting only the simple and 

 the natural ; and the unfailing way to secure this, is by 

 employing as leading features only trees and grass. A 

 soft verdant lawn, a few forest or ornamental trees 

 well grouped, walks, and a few flowers, give universal 

 pleasure ; they contain in themselves, in fact, the basis of 

 all our agreeable sensations in a landscape garden (na- 

 tural beauty, and the recognition of art) ; and they are 

 the most enduring sources of enjoyment in any place. 

 There are no country seats in the United States so unsa- 

 tisfactory and tasteless, as those in which, without any 

 definite aim, everything is attempted ; and a mixed jumble 

 of discordant forms, materials, ornaments, and decorations, 

 is assembled a part in one style and a bit in another, 

 without the least feeling of unity or congruity. These 

 rural bedlams, full of all kinds of absurdities, without a 

 leading character or expression of any sort, cost their 



