GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 37 



5G. The natural, or English, style. — Ks the lands devoted to agriculture 

 in England were, sooner than in any other country in Europe, generally 

 enclosed with hedges and hedgerow trees ; so the face of the country in 

 England, sooner than in any other part of Europe, produced an appearance 

 which bore a close resemblance to country seats laid out in the geometrical 

 style : and, for this reason, an attempt to imitate tlie irregularity of nature, in 

 laying out pleasure-grounds, was made in England, with some trifling excep- 

 tions, sooner than in any other part of the world ; and hence the style became 

 generally known as English gardening. The English, or natural style of 

 gardening, was first called landscaj^e-gardening by Shenstone ; it was also 

 called natural gardening by Bosc, Chinese gardening by Sir W. Chambers, 

 and picturesque gardening by Gabriel Thouin ; though none of these authors, 

 unless we except Chambers, attempted to give a correct definition of what they 

 meant by the terms they used. The words landscape-gardening are evidently 

 applicable to the geometrical style, as well as to the natural style ; because 

 landscapes are produced by both : but these landscapes differ in being, in the 

 former case, a geometrical disposition of walks and beds, and, in the latter, 

 an imitation by the hand of man, of natural scenery. 



57. Artistic imitation of natural scenery. — The imitation of natural scenery 

 by the hand of man may be rendered artistic in three different ways. 

 First, we may employ the same sorts of shrubs and trees which are common 

 in the surrounding country ; but, in this case, we must arrange them differ- 

 ently. Thus, if the whole country be covered with wood, treated as coppice- 

 wood, the artistical scenery may consist wholly of groups of full-grown trees, 

 surrounded by, and interspersed with, smooth turf; or, on the other hand, if 

 the surrounding woody scenery be composed wholly of masses of full- 

 grown timber-trees, such as thick close-growing pine groves, we may 

 employ the same kind of trees sparingly, on an extensive breadth of 

 smooth turf, as before. There are various other modes in which a difference 

 might be made between the object produced and the object imitated ; but 

 these will suffice to give an idea of this first or lowest degree of artistical 

 imitation, which may be called the imitation of indigenous landscape. The 

 second kind of imitation consists in employing trees and shrubs of kinds 

 totally different from those of the surrounding country ; and which, whatever 

 may be the mode of their arrangement, will, at first sight, distinguish the 

 landscapes of which they form a part from those of the given locality or 

 country. Thus, in Britain, the trees and shrubs of North America, the Con- 

 tinent of Europe, and the temperate parts of Asia, afford ample resources to 

 the landscape-gardener. Now, the trees employed in this imitation of nature 

 may be disposed in two ways, which we have already designated as the pic- 

 turesque and the gardenesque ; the first being the imitation of nature in a wild 

 state, such as the painter delights to copy ; and the second, the imitation of 

 nature, subjected to a certain degree of cultivation or improvement, suitable 

 to the wants and wishes of man. 



58. Picturesque imitation. — To design and execute a scene in either of these 

 styles of imitative art, the artist would require to have, to a certain extent, 

 the eye of a landscape-painter ; the science of an architect and of a botanist ; 

 and the knowledge of a horticulturist. Every part of nature, whether rude 

 or refined, may b? imitated according to art. For example, an old gravel-pit, 

 which had become covered with bushes and indigenous trees, and contained a 



