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The opinion, now nearly universally prevalent, that 

 country gentlemen are the best landscape gardeners for 

 their own places, has mainly contributed to produce this 

 efiect ; and it is too flattering to their self-importance not to 

 be highly relished, and to become universally popular among 

 this class of men. The idea of imposing on them so diffi- 

 cult a task seems to have originated with Walpole. In an 

 evil hour, it obtained the sanction of Sir Uvedale Price ; 

 and it has since been supported by nearly as high authority :* 

 yet it needs only to be closely examined, in order that its 

 fallacy may become apparent. Although there is neither 

 space nor time, on the present occasion, for the examination 

 of such a question, yet I cannot refrain from bestowing upon 

 it a few cursory remarks. 



If Landscape Gardening, or the art of creating Real 

 Scenery, be a fine art, which no one, I think, will deny, it 

 may be asked, in what manner is a knowledge of it to be 

 acquired, any more than of the other fine arts, unless by 

 previous study, and by long and assiduous practice ? If we 

 want a fine picture, or a well-proportioned statue, do we 

 usually purchase the canvass and the colours, the marble 

 and the chisel, and set about executing it for ourselves? 

 Certainly not ; for we can boast of no practical skill in 

 these difficult arts. Why, then, should we suppose ourselves 

 capable of performing a task, not less the result of previous 

 study, namely, that of imagining and executing Real Land- 

 scape? Could this be successfully accomplished in one fine 

 art, it could be accomplished in another ; and thus the 

 masters of all those arts would become supernumerary and 

 useless, and every one, by the same rule, could successfully 

 practise them, for his own accommodation. 



But, say the believers in this sort of intuitive skill, paint- 

 ing and statuary are peculiar arts, and they are exercised on 



* Sir Walter Scott. 



