G9 



gitudincilly, with ropes and pullics to work it with effect, 

 and of which the former were passed under the roots, these 

 enormous masses were raised from the ground, and place<l 

 upon a platform with very low wheels ; when, after being 

 dragged by the united strength of men and horses, it was let 

 down into the new pit, by similar apparatus.* These were 

 gigantic operation?:, and such as required machinery of the 

 most powerful and expensive kind. It is not a great many 

 years, however, since feats of the same description were per- 

 formed at Blenheim, and other large English places : and it 

 sometimes happened, when the excavation was made at an 

 uncommon distance from the trees, and a sufficient mass of 

 earth obtained for supplying the roots with nourishment, that 

 the tops were preserved from decay. But we may easily sup- 

 pose, that planters only, like a governor of Brazil, or a Ger- 

 man elector, would undertake the execution. 



From the time of Evelyn to that of Brown (the well- 

 known professor of landscape gardening), that is, for a period 

 of about threescore years, we hear little of transplanting in 

 England ; and had it not been for the exertions of the latter, 

 and for the kindred art, to which he gave so much celebrity, 

 it might have sunk altogether into oblivion. That enter- 

 prising genius clearly perceived, that his fortune had placed 

 him at the head of a new and popular school of design, 

 which, from the novelty of its attractions, promised ere long 

 to rival painting itself As the new artists possessed already 

 the privilege, not only of appropriating the colours, but even 

 of working with the materials of nature, so they appeared 

 to want nothing, but the power of giving immediate effect 

 to their pictures, in order to faciUtate the competition, if it 

 did not altogether turn the balance in their favour. 



With the view, therefore, of obtaining this decided ad- 

 vantage in the construction of his landscapes, Brown dili- 



* Evelyn, Vol. I. p, 103.— Diet. Rust, m voce Transplanting. 



