GENEBAL PKINCIPLES. 27 



now most prevalent, the production of a whole requires a much greater 

 knowledge of art than in the ancient style, either of landscape gardening, or 

 of Greek or Roman domestic architecture : in both of these styles an attempt 

 was seldom made, to produce a whole, except by means of regularity and 

 symmetry. It is almost unnecessary to state, that, in the ancient style, 

 whether in ground, in wood, in water, or in buildings of every description, 

 and in roads, regularity or symmetry were the governing principles. The 

 place, as a whole, was generally symmetrical, one half reflecting the other ; 

 and the details were always regular. In an age when the beauties of irregu- 

 larity, and the variety produced by wild scenery, prevailed throughout the 

 country, those of regularity and symmetry would be found to be characteristic 

 of art and civilisation ; and they were preferred by our ancestors, with a taste 

 as just and correct relatively to them, and to the circumstances in which they 

 were placed, as our widely differing taste is to us, and our circumstances. 



40. Though symmetry may appear to be a beauty exclusively employed in 

 architecture, and in the ancient style of laying out grounds, yet this only 

 applies to symmetry when it is joined with regvdarity. In every irregular 

 whole, that is satisfactory to the eye, there will always be found a certain 

 balance or proportion, which one side of the centre of the picture bears to the 

 other, and which balance is nothing mere than symmetry. It will be recol- 

 lected, that the essential principle of symmetry is the union of two parts as 

 a whole, which do not form wholes separately ; in opposition to uniformity, 

 where, the parts being regular, each taken separately forms a whole. Now, 

 in every pleasing landscape it will be found, that, if it were bisected perpen- 

 dicularly by an imaginary line, something like an equal body of scenery 

 would be found on each side. The same may be said with reference to any 

 irregular building which is pleasing as a picture, and also to any irregular 

 flower-garden, or the planting of an irregular park. A pleasure-ground, 

 which, viewed from the drawing-room windows, appeared to have all the 

 shrubs on one side, and only flowers and lawn on the other, would not be so 

 satisfactory as one where they were more equally balanced. Neither would 



the views from the house, over a lawn the surface 

 14 of which formed a hill on one side and a hollow on 



the other, be agreeable. Hence, a view across a 

 ^\^ slope, as in fig. 14., is never so satisfactory as one 



either up or down the declivity ; but a view across 

 two slopes intersecting each other, as in fig. 15., is 

 satisfactoi-y ; because in this last case, the one 

 balances the other. Single objects, that are not 

 regular, such as a tree, are never satisfactory, unless they are symmetrical ; 

 that is, unless the quantity of branches on one side appears to balance the 



quantitj'^ on the other. Thus, those trees which, 

 being the most irregular by nature, are symme- 

 trical at the same time, are more pleasing than 

 those which are comparatively regular and sym- 

 metrical ; because they show a greater amount of 

 variety, combined with symmetry. In this point of view, an oak, an elm, 

 and a sweet chestnut are more pleasing trees, and higher in the scale of 

 beauty, than a silver fir, a spruce fir, or a larch. The same observation will 

 apply to shrubs, and even to herbaceous plants. One of the most interesting 

 results of symmetry, as applied to trees, is, where the trunk is thrown, by 



