ScJcelVs Landscape-Gai'dening. 541 



the artificial ruin, it should be constructed on a fixed plan, and 

 the part which is supposed to have become ruinous from the 

 destruction of time, such as parts of walls, arches, domes, &c., 

 should be only partially constructed, so that they need not be 

 thrown down, as these places can be easily omitted in building; 

 whereas, when it is all equally built up, and the appearance of 

 ruins effected by the use of instruments, the whole building 

 receives too great a shock, and the ruin itself becomes dangerous. 

 A cupola, which is intended to be only the half of the height in 

 the drawing, and a wall in a state of decay, or one in which two 

 thirds of its former height is wished to be shown, should be built 

 in this manner. When portions of the cornices of a pediment, 

 or the facings of a window, are wanted, they need not be put up 

 and then thrown down again, but thrown in where they would 

 have lain according to the laws of gravity. 



After the whole ruin is erected, every particular part, such as 

 the cornices, &c., which forms too sharp a profile, and others 

 again which look too new, should be knocked off with an iron 

 mallet, according to the judgment of the artist, so as to give an 

 appearance of the effect of time. These fractures being pro- 

 duced by a blow, and therefore the work of chance, approach 

 much nearer to nature than those which are formed by the art 

 of the stone-mason, and which, indeed, being so much the work 

 of art, do not deceive, as they deviate too much from nature and 

 the truth. 



The artist should also be as well acquainted with the manner 

 and spot in which time carries on the work of destruction, and 

 the places in which it is most visible, as with the romantic effect 

 which the breaches and fractures of his ruinous structure are to 

 produce at a certain distance. When we are near, we often 

 think the destruction has been committed with too bold a hand, 

 while, at the same time, when contemplated at a proper point of 

 distance, it seems to shrink into nothing, and has no effect 

 whatever. I was fully convinced of this in constructing the 

 ruins in the gardens at Schwetzingen, and particularly the temple 

 of Mercury, the building of which was particularly under my 

 own directions. Those breaches or ruins which have been 

 effected by the use of the mallet should be sprinkled over, as if 

 by chance, with a colour resembling that of the other part of 

 the building, so as to give it a tone of antiquity, and bring it 

 into harmony with the other parts of the ruin. 



10. The situation of the ruins should generally be in a distant 

 part of the park, and particularly on elevated spots, where nature 

 displays her most grave and solemn character ; where loneliness 

 and awful stillness reign, where the unseen ^olian harp is heard, 

 where the dark thicket in inseparable masses becomes almost 

 impassable, and where the ancient maple and the oiik proudly 



