VIEW FROM THE LA\yN. 383 



different from any views obtained between the lodge and the enti'ance front. 

 The beauty which it exhibits may be of different kinds : it may be grand from 

 the extent of prospect; bold and abrupt from the strong contrast and irre- 

 gularity of its outlines ; or it may be simply beautiful as a home view, from 

 the undulations of its surface, the smoothness of its green turf, and the 

 luxuriance of its trees, shrubs, and flowers. One of the most common modes 

 of producing a striking view from the drawing-room windows of a house in a 

 flat country is, by having the living-room floor of the house on a level of 

 10 or 12 feet above the natural surface of the ground ; and by ascending to 

 this level on the entrance front, not rapidly by a ramp or by steps, but 

 gradually and insensibly by artificially raising the general surface) so as to 

 give the house, on the entrance front, the appearance of standing on a natural 

 knoll ; and to prevent the stranger from suspecting that the ground on the 

 lawn front is not on the same level as that on the entrance front. When he 

 reaches the drawing-room, therefore, and looks down on the lawn, the effect 

 of the scenery is greatly heightened by the commanding situation in which 

 he finds himself so unexpectedly placed. 



468. The lawn. — As circumstances which seldom fail of producing beauty 

 in the view, we may mention extreme smoothness and high polish in the 

 lawn, the branches of the trees and shrubs being allowed to recline on the 

 ground, which shows that no cattle are introduced there ; extent in every 

 direction, but more particularly in the front, which prevents the idea 

 occurring of confinement and limited property; irregularity in the boundary 

 to the lawn, produced by scattered trees and bushes, creating variety and 

 intricacy, which detain the eye and excite the imagination ; and an architec- 

 tural foreground, immediately below the windows of the house, which serves 

 to connect and harmonise it with the grounds. We do not here mention the 

 flowei'-garden, which is often placed on the lawn front of the house, because 

 it may be sometimes desirable to have one in that situation and sometimes 

 not ; but the above requisites can seldom be dispensed with. One of the 

 most common faults in the view from the drawing-room front of the house is, 

 want of breadth in the foreground, (see fig. 238.) This commonly arises from 

 too many objects being placed there ; from these being too uniformly dis- 

 tributed over the whole ; or from a clump, a walk, a pond, a tree, or some 

 other object being placed exactly in the middle. A second fault, very 

 commonly met with is, want of proportion between the foreground and the 

 distance. Perhaps the foreground may be covered immediately in front of 

 the windows with beds of flowers or of shrubs, which may occupy too large a 

 space, or which may have grown so high as to shut out great part of the 

 middle distance; or, in contradistinction to this, there may be no effective 

 object in the foreground at all, when of course it will be overwhelmed by the 

 large proportion of the view occupied by the distant scenery. 



By effective object we mean the architectural appendages of the house, 

 flower-beds, shrubs, or any other objects which rise up from the surface, and 

 produce shade ; which, as every one who has ever drawn a landscape on 

 paper knows, is essentially necessary to a foreground; and hence, when 

 artists have nothing in nature which they can copy into the foreground, they 

 introduce the shadows of supposed clouds, or other objects, or human figures 

 or animals, as in the view shown '\nfig. 239. : which view, without the horse- 

 men and their dogs, would be nothing ; while with them it is an absurdity, 



