HORACE WALPOLE 177 



... I call a sunk fence the leading step, for these reasons 

 No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than levelling, 

 mowing and rolling, followed. The contiguous ground of the 

 park without the sunk fence was to be harmonized with the lawn 

 within ; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its 

 prim regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country 

 without. The sunk fence ascertained the specific garden, but 

 that it might not draw too obvious a line of distinction between 

 the neat and the rude, the contiguous out-lying parts came to be 

 included in a kind of general design : and when nature was taken 

 into the plan, under improvements, every step that was made, 

 pointed out new beauties and inspired new ideas. 



At that moment appeared Kent ; painter enough to taste the 

 charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and 

 dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from 

 the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw 

 that all nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of 

 hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the 

 beauty of the gentle swell, or concave scoop, and remarked how 

 loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament 

 and while they called in the distant view between their graceful 

 stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive com- 

 parison. 



Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of 

 landscape on the scenes he handled. The great principles on 

 which he worked were perspective, and light and shade. Groups 

 of trees broke too uniform or too extensive a lawn ; evergreens 

 and woods were opposed to the glare of the champain, and where 

 the view was less fortunate, or so much exposed as to be beheld 

 at once, he blotted out some parts by thick shades, to divide it 

 into variety, or to make the richest scene more enchanting by 

 reserving it to a farther advance of the spectator's step. Thus 

 selecting favourite objects, and veiling deformities by screens of 

 plantation ; sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its foil 

 to the richest theatre, he realized the compositions of the greatest 

 masters in painting. Where objects were wanting to animate his 



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