350 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



sources of our emotions of sublimity and beauty that has been 

 written in any language, treats of the embellishment of 

 grounds collaterally, but so fully as to be considered an im- 

 portant addition to this department of literature. We shall 

 follow the author in our abridgment of his remarks, nearly 

 in his own words. There is no man of common taste, he 

 remarks, who has not often lamented that confusion of ex- 

 pression which so frequently takes place, even in the most 

 beautiful scenes of real nature, and which prevents him from 

 indulging, to the full, the peculiar emotion which the scene 

 itself is fitted to inspire. The cheerfulness of the morning 

 is often disturbed by circumstances of minute or laborious oc- 

 cupation, the solemnity of noon by noise and bustling indus- 

 try, the tranquillity and melancholy of evening, by vivacity 

 and vulgar gaiety. It is seldom even that any unity of 

 character is preserved among the inanimate objects of such 

 scenery. The sublimest situations are often disfigured by 

 objects that we feel unworthy of them, — by the traces of 

 cultivation, or attempts towards improvement, — by the pov- 

 erty of their woods or of their streams, or of some other of 

 their great constituent features. The loveliest scenes, in the 

 same manner, are frequently disturbed — by the signs of cul- 

 tivation, by regularity of inclosures, the traces of manufac- 

 tures, and, what is worse than all, by the embellishments of 

 fantastic taste. Amid this confusion of incidents the general 

 character of the scene is lost ; we scarcely know to what 

 class of objects to give our attention ; and we at last busy 

 ourselves with imaginary improvements, by removing, in the 

 mind's eye, every feature that serves to interrupt its expres- 

 sion and to diminish its effect. 



What we thus attempt in imagination it is the business of 

 the art of gardening to execute ; and the great source of the 

 superiority of its productions to the original scenes in nature, 

 consists in the purity and harmony of its composition, in the 

 power which the artist enjoys, to remove from the landscape 

 whatever is hostile to its effect, or unsuited to its character, 

 and to select only such circumstances as accord with the 

 general expression of the scene. It is by this rule, accord- 



