NOVEMBER. 493 



scape. In other countries the environs of great houses are 

 yet under the direction of formality. The wonder-working 

 hand of art, with its regular cascades, spouting fountains, 

 flights of terraces, and other achievements, has still posses- 

 sion of the gardens of kings and princes. In England alone 

 the pure model of nature is adopted. This is a mode of 

 scenery entirely of the sylvan kind. As we seek among the 

 wild works of nature for the sublime, we seek here for the 

 beautiful ; and when there is a variety of lawn, wood and 

 water, and these naturally combined, and not too much deco- 

 rated with buildings, nor disgraced by fantastic ornaments, 

 we find a species of landscape which no country but England 

 can display to such perfection ; not only because this just 

 taste in decoration prevails no where else, but also becanse no 

 where else are found such proper materials. The want of 

 English oak can never be made up in this kind of landscape 

 by any substitute ; neither do we anywhere else find so close 

 and rich a verdure. An easy swell may everywhere be given 

 to the ground, but it cannot everywhere be covered with a 

 velvet turf, which constitutes one great beauty of the embel- 

 lished lawn. 



The vapors of the English climate undoubtedly produce 

 the deep verdure of its lawns. They give origin also to an- 

 other peculiar feature in English landscape, a certain obscu- 

 rity which is thrown over distance. Those mists and vapors 

 that settle near the ground at night, are dispersed witli the 

 morning sun. All these appearances however, which the 

 author regards as peculiar to the climate of Great Britain, are 

 frequently observed in our own dry and bright climate. His 

 remarks on this subject are interesting, and we will present 

 them with but little abridgment. He reduces the several 

 degrees of obscurity which the heaviness of the atmosphere 

 gives to landscape to three — haziness^ mists, and fogs. 



Haziness just adds that light, gray tint — that thin, dnliious 

 veil — which is often beautifully spread over landscape. It 

 hides nothing. It only sweetens the hues of nature ; gives 

 a consequence to every common object, by giving it a more 

 indistinct form ; corrects the glare of colors ; softens the 



