42 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



sideration, as a fertile source of beauty in Landscape Garden- 

 ing. The former principle might be carried so far by some 

 minds, as to produce monotony, as it may be so totally neg- 

 lected by others, as to lead to compositions only characterized 

 by discordant assemblages of objects. Variety must be con- 

 sidered as belonging more to the details, than to the produc- 

 tion of a whole. By producing certain contrasts, it creates 

 in scenery a thousand points of interest, and thus elicits new 

 beauties, by different arrangements and combinations of forms 

 and colours, light and shades. Variety in plantations, may be 

 attained by a combination of qualities opposite in some re- 

 spects, as in the colour of the foliage, and similar in others, 

 as the form, which we shall hereafter more fully elucidate. 

 In the views from a dwelling, we produce it by contrasts not 

 so powerful as to be absolutely dissimilar, for this would de- 

 feat the purpose and produce discord, but by retaining the 

 unity of design, and varying partially only the materials em- 

 ployed, as in the case of substituting elegant flowering shrubs 

 and climbers, in the place of trees, — or, sometimes, by in- 

 troducing new elements of beauty, as sculptured vases, sun- 

 dials, fountains, etc. In pleasure grounds, while the whole 

 should exhibit unity of conception and plan, the different 

 scenes presented to the eye, one after the other, should pos- 

 sess sufficient variety in the detail, to keep alive the interest 

 of the spectator, and awaken further curiosity. 



In this brief abstract of the nature of imitation in Land- 

 scape Gardening, and the kinds of beauty which it is possible 

 to produce by means of the art, we have endeavoured to elu- 

 cidate its leading principles clearly to the reader. These 

 grand principles we shall here succinctly recapitulate, 

 premising that a familiarity with them is of the very first 

 importance in the successful practice of this elegant art; viz. 



