FEBRUARY. 63 



tended over a whole district, giving a new and peculiar char- 

 acter to the face of the country, the author inquires whether 

 the prevailing system of improvements was founded on any 

 just principles of taste. The first inquiry should he, whether 

 there is any standard, to which, in point of grouping and 

 general composition, works of this sort can be referred ; any 

 authority higher than that of the persons who have gained a 

 wide reputation by these "improvements." He thinks there 

 is a higher standard, and authorities of an infinitely higher 

 kind. These authorities are the great landscape painters, 

 who have most diligently studied the beauties of nature, 

 their grand and general effects, their varieties of form and 

 color, and who, by the magic of their art, have fixed upon 

 the canvas all these various beauties. 



With respect to the improvement of landscape, the great ob- 

 ject of inquiry seems to be, what is that mode of study which 

 will best enable a man, of a liberal and intelligent mind, to judge 

 of the forms, colors, effects and combinations of visible objects, 

 either as single compositions, or as parts of scenery. Such 

 knowledge and judgment, he believes, can never be perfectly 

 acquired, unless, to the study of natural scenery and of the 

 various styles of gardening at different periods, the improver 

 adds the theory at least of that art, " the very essence of 

 which is connection." Whatever partial objections may be 

 made to the study of pictures for the purposes of improve- 

 ment, the great leading principles of the one art. — as general 

 composition, grouping the separate parts, harmony of tints, 

 and unity of character, — are equally applicable to the other. 



The author then proceeds to show that nothing can be 

 more directly at war with all these principles (founded as 

 they are in truth and nature) than the present system of 

 laying out grounds, (Brown's style.) A painter, or whoever 

 views objects with a painter's eye, looks with indifference, if 

 not with disgust, at the clumps, the belts, the artificial water, 

 and the eternal smoothness and sameness of a finished place. 

 A Brownist, on the other hand, considers these as the most 

 perfect embellishments, as the last finishing touches that 

 nature can receive from art, and consequently must think the 



