NOVEMBER. 



495 



destruction of timber. And if the wild scenes of nature 

 suffer change, how much more may we expect to observe it 

 in the improvement of particular places, which are professedly 

 altering with the taste or fancy of their owners. Few of 

 these scenes continue long the same. The growth of trees 

 and shrubs is continually making changes in them, even in 

 the natural course. Thirteen or fourteen years bring a shrub 

 to perfection. After that period, if the knife be not freely 

 used, a shrubbery, from mere natural causes, will of itself 

 decay. 



There were in the author's time two methods of cutting 

 timber, one of which prevailed in the north of England, 

 which he pronounces a barbarous method, consisting of cut- 

 ting down the whole growth with a clean sweep. In the 

 south of England, the proprietor sends an experienced sur- 

 veyor into his woods, who marks such timber as is fit for the 

 axe, leaving all the young thriving trees behind. The wood, 

 therefore, if fenced, soon rears again its ancient honors, and 

 becomes a perennial nursery. In the north, the merchant 

 agrees for the wood altogether as it stands, and the proprietor, 

 for the sake of a present advantage, suffers him to lay the 

 whole flat. Nothing but a copse springs up in its room, and 

 all succession of timber is prevented. This has operated, 

 among other causes, in the general destruction of timber in 

 the northern counties. 



With regard to the combination of nature and art, he says, 

 the grand natural scene will always appear so superior to the 

 embellished, artificial one, that the picturesque eye, in con- 

 templating the former, will be too apt to look contemptuously 

 on the latter. This is just as arrogant as to despise a pro- 

 priety because it cannot be classed with a cardinal virtue. 

 Each mode of scenery has its station. A wild forest scene, 

 contiguous to a noble mansion, would be just as absurd as an 

 embellished one in the midst of a forest. A house is an arti- 

 ficial object, and the scenery around it must in some degree, 

 partake of art. Propriety requires it ; convenience demands 

 it. But if it partake of art as allied to the mansion, it must 

 partake of nature as allied to the country. It has therefore 



