Introduction 13 



the landscape on the scenes he handled. The great 

 principles on which he worked were perspective, and 

 light and shade. Groups of trees broke too uniform 

 or too extensive a lawn ; evergreens and woods were 

 opposed to the glare of the champaign, and where 

 the view was less fortunate, or so much exposed as to 

 be beheld at once, he blotted out some of the thick 

 shades to divide it into variety, or to make the richest 

 scene more enchanting by reserving it to a further 

 advance of the spectator's step. Thus selecting 

 favourite objects, and veiling deformities by screens 

 of plantations, sometimes allowing the crudest waste 

 to add its foil to the richest theatre, he realized the 

 compositions of the greatest masters in painting. 

 Where objects were wanting to animate his horizon, 

 his taste as an architect would bestow immediate 

 termination. His buildings, his seats, and his temple 

 were more the work of his pencil than his com- 

 passes. " 



These landscape-gardening authorities in the eight- 

 eenth century had an influence which was more potent 

 than that of any similar authority at the present time. 

 Naturally there were fewer places in a smaller popu- 

 lation, but comparatively speaking, people apparently 

 took more interest in their country places then, than 

 they do now, chiefly perhaps because they spent a 

 far greater portion of their time in the country, and had 

 fewer subjects of interest elsewhere and less facilities 

 afforded them for travelling and living in other parts 



