40 THE VILLA GARDENER. 



the beauty of the tree consists in its own individual perfections, which are 

 fully developed in consequence of the isolated manner in which it has been 

 grown ; in the picturesque, tlie beauty of a tree or shrub, as of every other 

 object in the landscape, consists in its fitness to group with other objects. 

 Now, the fitness of one object to group with another evidently does not con- 

 sist in the perfection of the form of that object, but rather in that imperfection 

 which requires another object to render it complete. 



61. In rustic, indigenotts, or facsimile imitations of natural scenery, the 

 object, as we have already observed^ is to deceive the spectator, and make 

 him believe that the scene produced is of a fortuitous origin ; or produced 

 by the humble exertion of a country labourer. Such scenes differ from those 

 of the geometric style, and also from those of artistical imitation, in this, that 

 the same person who contrives them must also execute them. They can have 

 no merit in design, and only mechanical merit in the execution. They 

 scarcely reqviire the aid of either a professional landscape-gardener, or a pro- 

 fessional horticulturist ; but, at the same time, they could not be execvited by 

 every common labourer. The imitation of such scenes must be made by 

 a sort of self-taught artist, or a regularly-instructed artist who will con- 

 descend to accept of this kind of employment. Those villas in which it 

 might be desirable to produce a fac-simile imitation of fortuitous scenery 

 ought to be situated near a large town, in order that the scene created may 

 contrast the more advantageously with everything around it. In many spots 

 in the neighbourhood of London, and other towns which are built of brick, 

 and where gravel is found for forming the roads, there are often clay pits or 

 gravel pits on the ground which is to be let for building on ; as in other 

 situations there are old chalk pits or stone quarries. Suppose a pit of either 

 kind to be in some part of a piece of ground of an acre or two in extent, 

 which is to be laid out as a country house ; and that it were thought advis- 

 able, as an episode to the general scenery of the place, that a fac-simile 

 imitation of nature should be created in this pit. 



As a first example, we shall suppose that the pit is a clay pit, and not fit 

 for a human habitation at the bottom. In this case, let the bottom of the 

 pit be covered with turf, smooth in some places, and in others mixed with 

 nettles, thistles, and other weeds, and varied by thorns, briars, brambles, 

 elder bushes, and other trees and shrubs that generally spring up on waste 

 ground. In one or two parts of the bottom of the pit let there be pools of 

 water, with rushes and other aquatic plants, and some alders and willows of 

 the commonest kind for shade. These and other details being executed in 

 the bottom of the pit, surround it on the outside by a thick plantation of one 

 or two kinds of trees and shrubs, such as are generally found in copse-wood ; 

 and let there be a winding straggling path through this copse-wood, of such 

 a length as to obliterate for the moment the impression of the arlificial 

 scenery of the other parts of tlie pleasure-grounds on the mind of the spec- 

 tator while he is pursuing the winding slightly-marked path among the bushes 

 to the bottom of the pit. If the plantation were surrounded by a hedge or 

 other fence, and the entrance to the path were through a gap in this fence, 

 the deception would be the more complete. 



The second example we shall suppose to be a dry gravel pit, and that in 

 the bottom of it a dwelling-place might be formed for a workman and his 

 wife, witli a hovel to serve as a cow-shed, in which cows might be kept for 



