GENERAL PEINCIPLES. 35 



will create. Water depends for its variety on the vegetation placed along its 

 margin, as much as a naked wall depends on the trees or plants trained 

 against it. Water is also varied by its general outline, and by islands, and 

 projections and recesses; all of which may themselves, in their turn, be 

 varied by vegetation. Trees and shrubs, which confer so much variety on 

 other objects, may even have their own variety increased by pruning. 

 Heavy compact forms, and orbiculate lumpish shapes, may be broken and 

 lightened by the judicious removal of branches, so as to admit light and air ; 

 and to show, in part, the trunk, and the ramifications of the tree. 



52. Harmony in landscape-gardening may be produced by the introduction 

 of architectural terraces, statues, vases, and other sculptural objects, so as to 

 connect the house in some measure with the grounds. 



53. Style and character. — A house, or the scenery of a country residence, 

 may be pleasing from its regularity, its symmetry, its variety, and the har- 

 monious effect of the whole, and yet have nothing in it to distinguish it from 

 other agreeable places of the same extent ; that is, it may be without exhibit- 

 ing any particular style of design or expression of character. Thus, a house 

 may have an agreeable general form, and windows so ample as to indicate 

 large and lofty apartments within ; it may be placed on an architectural 

 basement ; and it may be terminated by architectural chimney tops ; and yet 

 neither be decidedly Roman, decidedly Italian, nor decidedly Gothic nor 

 Elizabethan. A house may also have a particular character given to it by 

 some feature more or less striking; such as a veranda, a far projecting por- 

 tico, a terminating cupola, &c.; or it may be enriched so as to be expressive 

 of some degree of charactei', by sculptures, statues, or vases, &c. ; or it may 

 assume the character of a cottage, of a castle, or of an ecclesiastical building. 

 It is not difficult to give character to landscape scenery, when there exists 

 naturally considerable irregularity of surface ; but on level surfaces, where 

 character is to be given chiefly by trees and buildings, more skill is required. 

 In such a case, the first consideration is, to produce something that shall 

 powerfully contrast with adjoining residences, similarly circumstanced with 

 reference to natural features and trees. If, for example, the trees in the 

 adjoining residences are chiefly deciduous, those in the residence which is to 

 be rendered expressive of character may be chiefly evergreens ; and among 

 these evergreens some striking kinds ought to prevail ; such as cedars, silver 

 firs, &c. But a still more immediate expression of chai-acter may be pro- 

 duced by employing the geometric style of laying out roads and planting the 

 trees ; or by adopting some style of laying out, different from that adopted 

 in the adjoining residences. 



54. There are two principal styles of laying out grounds in Great Britain ; 

 Viz. the geometric, and the natural. The latter is what, on^ the continent, 

 is emphatically called English gardening ; to which epithet a vague general 

 idea is attached, of grounds and plantations formed in flowing lines, in imita- 

 tion of nature; as contradistinguished from ground formed into regular slopes 

 and levels, or plantations in straight lines, or included in plots, bounded by 

 lines always decidedly artificial, and it may be divided into three kinds : the 

 picturesque, the gardenesque, and the rustic. By picturesque gardening is to 

 be understood the production, in countrjf residences, of that kind of scenery 

 Avhich, from its strongly-marked features, is considered as particularly suit- 

 able for being represented by painting ; while by the gardenesque style is to 



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