Improvements in Landscape. 297 



places ruined by expense than by neglect, on account of the 

 scarcity, on the one hand, of that species of judgment which 

 should belong to an improver of grounds, and the liberality 

 of nature, on the other hand, in raising up her bounties 

 wherever she is left to act with perfect freedom. 



The rustic, who labors Mnthout reference to the beauty of 

 his grounds, whose toil is so valuable to him, for the supply 

 of his daily wants, that he cannot expend any superfluous 

 labor on his estate, is seldom guilty of marring the face of 

 nature by attempts at improvement. The little cart-path, 

 over which he passes with his teams, is not gravelled, nor 

 rolled into a level. Two rows of grass mark the spaces be- 

 tween the wheel-tracks and the middle path made by the 

 horses' feet. This appearance is beautifully associated in our 

 minds with rustic labor. Should the place become the prop- 

 erty of a wealthy owner, and these cart-paths be transformed 

 into gravelled Avalks, unless the whole be managed with 

 great taste and judgment, its picturesque charms will be lost. 

 With the absence of its rusticity, it is apt to lose many of its; 

 original charms; and we turn away from it, however beauti- 

 ful it may be, with nearly the same feelings we should expe- 

 rience on seeing an old familiar grove cut down, and the land 

 divided into house lots to be sold by auction. Next, there- 

 fore, to the appearance of naturalness, an air of rusticity is 

 essential to the picturesque beauty of a landscape. The 

 great secret consists in preserving this rusticity without sacri- 

 ficing neatness and elegance. 



A hovel that gives signs of squalid wretchedness, and the- 

 proud mansion which, with all its accompaniments, evinces, 

 that the owner or occupant would exclude his rustic neigh- 

 bors from any approach to it, equally offend the sight. The- 

 one suggests to the mind a painful idea of the misery of its- 

 inmates ; the other evinces that so much of the beautiful earth, 

 over which all men would be free to roam, is monopolized 

 and we shut out. These hints will be of no value to the 

 wealthy man of vulgar mind. The gratification of his own 

 vanity is all he studjes when engaged in making his improve- 

 ments. The more the evidence of cost is conspicuous abont 



VOL. XIX. NO. Vll. 3& 



