Planting Villa Residences. 57 



"to 



dening may be derived from the recognition of the works 

 of the ancient and modern masters ; yet we doubt whether 

 the inimitable pictures of Rosa, Poussin or Claude were 

 painted from scenes formed by art, or that any living land- 

 scape has been formed by art from the paintings of either of 

 them. Every one acquainted with the execution of land- 

 scape operations from plans and sketches, whether isometrical 

 or plain, knows how different, and often how disappointing 

 is the result, from what was anticipated. The general ar- 

 rangement of a place may be accurately given by drawings, 

 and these may be both necessary and economical, but we 

 have seen very few cases where the effect can be conveyed 

 by mere views and sketches from different points of the 

 grounds. In forming a suburban landscape, we must be 

 guided by utility and convenience entirely; and in laying 

 out ground of considerable extent, we may fully recognize 

 the principles, as far as admissible, by which the artist dis- 

 poses of the objects on his canvas ; but to attempt the imita- 

 tion, as some of our writers would insist, of this or that 

 particular painter, with his peculiar light and shade, is simply 

 absurd, and a combination of absurdities is always the result 

 of the attempt. 



The style of laying out grounds at present, or rather what 

 is attempted by those who attempt any style at all, is called 

 the natural, or English style, — which among landscape gar- 

 deners seems to be very vaguely understood. The general 

 idea is an imitation of nature ; and hence some persons have 

 expended a great deal of money in first making a piece of 

 scenery unnatural, and then trying to imitate nature so 

 closely as to attempt producing a scene that might be mis- 

 taken for a piece of nature. Such landscape gardening is 

 both puerile and conceited ; and such fac-simile imitations, 

 even though pretty in themselves, are, nevertheless, but paltry 

 representations of nature, to which no one in this country 

 need resort, as scenes sufficiently natural in themselves can 

 be had in abundance, without spending money to make them. 



Another point especially objectionable in the modern books 

 on landscape gardening, is the infinitesimal refinements to 



TOL. XIX. NO. II. 8 



