LORD KAMES 155 



The simplest idea of a garden, is that of a spot embellished 

 with a number of natural objects, trees, walks, polished parterres, 

 flowers, streams, etc. One more complex comprehends statues 

 and buildings, that nature and art may be mutually ornamental. 

 A third, approaching nearer perfection, is of objects assembled 

 together, in order to produce, not only an emotion of beauty, 

 essential to gardens of every kind, but also some other particular 

 emotion, grandeur, for example, gaiety, or any other of those 

 above mentioned. 



The most perfect idea of a garden is an improvement upon the 

 third, requiring the several parts to be arranged in such a manner, 

 as to inspire all the different emotions that can be raised by 

 gardening. In this idea of a garden, the arrangement is an im- 

 portant circumstance ; for it has been shown that some emotions 

 figure best in conjunction, and that others ought always to appear 

 in succession and never in conjunction. 



. . . Kent's method of embellishing a field is admirable; 

 which is, to paint a field with beautiful objects, natural and 

 artificial, disposed like colours upon a canvas. It requires 

 indeed more genius to paint in the gardening way : in forming a 

 landscape upon a canvas, no more is required but to adjust the 

 figures to each other: an artist who lays out ground in Kent's 

 manner, has an additional task ; he ought to adjust his figures to 

 the several varieties of the field. . . . 



It seems to me far from an exaggeration that good professors 

 are not more essential to a college, than a spacious garden, which 

 ought to be formed with the nicest elegance, tempered with 

 simplicity, rejecting sumptuous and glaring ornaments. In this 

 respect so grand and important, the university of Oxford may 

 justly be deemed a perfect model. Ibid. (Gardening and 

 Architecture^] 



Millin, (Dictionnaire des Beaux Arts) thus comments on the 

 above : 



" On peut dire que ce chapitre fut le prelude d'un bavardage 

 esthetique et vague qui a ete a la mode pendant quelque temps 



