540 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



Fiice. 



History, and the various picturesque tours of Gilpin, published 

 "TTY"^ t different intervals from 1768 to 1790, had the prin- 

 Rilpin. CJ p a j j n fl uence on persons of taste. The beauties of 

 light and shade, outline, grouping, and other ingre- 

 dients of picturesque beauty, were never before exhibi- 

 ted to the English public in popular writings. These 

 works were eagerly read, and brought about that gene- 

 ral study of drawing and sketching landscape among 

 the then rising generation, which has ever since pre- 

 vailed ; and will do more perhaps than any other class 

 of studies, towards forming a taste for the harmony and 

 connection of natural scenery, the only secure antidote 

 to the revival of the distinctness and monotony which 

 characterize that which we have been condemning. 

 The coup-de-main, however, has been given to this sys- 

 Knightand tern by the works of Mr. Knight and Mr. Price, above 

 mentioned. Their effect -has been gradual but certain ; 

 for, though at first they were violently opposedby profes- 

 sors and periodical critics, yet 'they have carried con- 

 viction to all men of taste; and even, as we have be- 

 fore stated, have converted Mr. Repton himself. The 

 object of The Landscape, a didactic poem, is to teach 

 the art of creating scenery, more congruous and pictu- 

 resque than what is met with in that " tiresome and 

 monotonous scene called pleasure ground." Mr. Price's 

 Essay on the Picturesque, and on the vse of studying 

 Pictures, with a view to the improvement of real Land- 

 scape, is written with the same intention ; but, as might 

 be expected from a prose work, enters on the subject 

 much more at length. In order to discover " whether 

 the present system of improving is founded on any 

 just principles of taste," Mr. Price begins by inquiring, 

 " whether there is any standard, to which, in point of 

 grouping and of general composition, works of this sort 

 can be referred ; any authority higher than that of the 

 persons, who have gained the most general and popu- 

 lar reputation by those works, and whose method of 

 conducting them has had the most extensive influence 

 on the general taste ?" This standard (which it will be 

 recollected by the candid reader, is desired only for 

 what relates to grouping and composition, not to utility 

 and convenience, as some have unfairly asserted,) Mr. 

 Price finds in the productions " of those great artists, 

 who have most diligently studied the beauties of na- 

 ture, both in their grandest and most general effects, 

 and in their minutest detail ; who have observed every 

 variety of form and of colour ; have been able to select 

 and combine ; and then, by the magic of their art, to 

 fix upon the canvass all these various beauties." Mr. 

 Price recommends the study of the principles of paint- 

 ing, " not to the exclusion of nature, but as an assist- 

 ant in the study of her works." He points out and 

 illustrates two kinds of beauty in landscape ; the one 

 the picturesque, characterized by roughness, abrupt- 

 ness, and sudden variation ; the other beauty in the 

 more general acceptation, characterized by smoothness, 

 undulations, intermixed with a certain degree of rough- 

 ness and variation, producing intricacy and variety. 

 Such beauty was made choice of by Claude in his land- 

 scapes, and such, he thinks, particularly adapted to the 

 embellishment of artificial scenery. These principles 

 are applied by Mr. Price in a very masterly manner, to 

 wood, water, and buildings. 



When the works of these gentlemen were published, 

 they were opposed by professors, by a numerous class 

 of mankind who hate innovation, and with whom 

 " whatever is is right," including perhaps some men of 



taste, who had not a sense of the picturesque, or had HUtorj 

 mistaken the object of the b<jok. s< ^~Y~" i 



The first answer to Mr. Price's work, was^a letter by Professors, 

 Mr. Repton, in which candour obliges us to state, that 

 Mr. R. has misrepresented his antagonist's meaning, 

 by confounding the study of pictures with that of the Rc P'n. 

 study of the principles of painting. Mr. Price pub- 

 lished an able answer to this production, which, he in- 

 forms us, was even more read than the original essay. 



Two anonymous poems of no merit made their ap- 

 pearance, as satires on The Landscape. 



The Review of the Landscape, and of an Essay on the 

 Picturesque, &c, by Mr. Marshall, was published in Marshall. 

 1795. There can scarcely be any thing more violent 

 than this publication. One reason for his not approving 

 of the essay on the picturesque, he has made evident 

 by his remarks on. the same subject, and on painting ; 

 the fact being, as we have already more than once 

 stated, and wish strongly to impress on the reader's 

 mind, that a taste for the picturesque is not so natural 

 as a taste for what is singular, grand, comic, or affecting, 

 but requires a certain degree of previous study or pre- 

 paration, this preparation Mr. Marshall is evidently 

 not furnished with. 



Among the second class, or those with whom " what- Critics, 

 ever is is right,'' I shall just mention the periodical cri- 

 tics, who, in reviewing these works, brought forward 

 all sorts of reasons against the use of the study of pic- 

 tures, and deny (with truth perhaps as to themselves) 

 the distinct character of the picturesque. Mr. Price 

 they treat as " a mere visionary amateur," and Mr. 

 Knight as " a Grub-street poet, who has probably no 

 other garden than the pot of mint before his windows." 



The vague opinion of a great mass of country gen- 

 tlemen, tourists, and temporary authors, may be here 

 included, who, taking the word picturesque in its ex- 

 treme sense, and supposing it intended to regulate what 

 was useful, as well as what was ornamental, concluded 

 that Mr. Price's object was to destroy all comfort and 

 neatness in country seats, and reduce them to mere por- 

 tions of dingle or jungle scenery. Such opinions we have 

 frequently heard expressed by men, in other respects 

 of good sense. Even continental authors have imbibed 

 and disseminated similar exaggerations. " Egares par 

 Gilpin, que a cherche par ses voyages en diverses par- 

 ties de 1'Angleterre et de 1'Ecosse, a donner des regies, 

 pour y assujeter le genre pittoresque et romantique, ils 

 ont pris 1'occasion pour demander que 1'art fut totale- 

 ment banni des jardins. Ils adoptent le pittoresque 

 d'un Salvator Rosa dans les paysages, comme le vrai na. 

 ture dans 1'art de faire des jardins, et on rejette comme 

 un asservisement a ce meme art, toutes les regies qu'un 

 Bridge water (Bridgeman?) et un Brown avoient pub- 

 liees dans ce genre." (Description Pitloresque des Jar- 

 dins, du gout te plus moderne. Leipsig, 1802. See also 

 Tubinger Taschanbuch, fur nature und Gartenfrennde, 

 1798, p. 19i.) Of enlightened and liberal minds, who 

 have in some degree opposed Mr. Price's principles, we 

 can only instance the late Mr. Wyndham, who, in a let- Wyndham, 

 ter to Mr. Repton, (Mr. Repton was at one period se- 

 cretary to Mr. Wyndham, when that gentleman was in 

 office, ) written after the publication of his defence, com- 

 bats, not the works of Mr. Price, but the popular objec- 

 tions to the supposed desire of subjecting every thing 

 to the picturesque. " The writers of this school," he 

 obsei ves, " shew evidently that they do not trace with 

 any success the causes of their pleasure. Does the 



