DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 557 



laying out. Such a situation as this is generally attended 

 with great verdure, cultivation, and populousness, and 

 naturally creates in the mind that sentiment of cheerful- 

 ness which society and action are apt to create. 



" The last situation is that of a dead flat. A situation 

 of this kind may, from its verdure, or from its extent, or 

 from its contrast with other grounds which surround it, 

 create some particular sentiment, but merely considered 

 in itself it appears to create little or none. 



" Nature not only raises these different sentiments, 

 upon the view of these different situations, but she gives 

 a love and attachment for one or the other of them 

 according to the different tempers of men. A man who 

 is fond of great projects or great exploits, or who has a 

 high regard for the splendour of his ancestors, will love 

 the first situation. ... A man in misfortune will naturally 

 retire to the second situation ; and for this reason many of 

 the convents abroad are observed to be built in such 

 places. A cheerful gay temper will naturally love the 

 third, and a person of no taste or feeling will as readily be 

 pleased with the sameness, and (if I may use the expres- 

 sion) uninterestingness of the last situation." 



These remarks may not cover all the ground that the 

 modern landscape gardener claims as the just basis of his 

 practice, but considering that this is perhaps the first com- 

 prehensive treatise written on the subject it is marvellously 

 trite and true. A strictly formal style of gardening was 

 then in vogue, borrowed from Italy, Holland, and France, 

 while the excellent but meagre views put forth by Bacon, 

 Addison, and Pope were acknowledged as the written law. 

 London and Wise, Bridgeman and Kent had designed or 

 laid out gardens before this date, but they had published 

 nothing on the subject, and our author would seem to 

 have been more indebted to Bacon, Addison, and Pope 

 than to them, while giving free play to his own origin- 

 ality and force of thought. Perhaps he may also have 

 been aided in his task by Sir William Chambers' " Dis- 



