Lombardy Poplar in Scenery. 



17 



perhaps, there is no tree which has the misfortune to be in 

 general so injudiciously planted. I have, therefore, sent you 

 a few remarks founded upon the study of landscape composi- 

 tion, in which I do not intend to say any thing of the bad or 

 good qualities of the poplar, but merely to consider it as a tall 

 conical mass of foliage, which becomes of great import, when 

 contrasted with the more useful and valuable round headed 

 trees. 



First then, it is a known pictorial rule, that all horizontal 

 lines should be balanced and supported by perpendicular ones ; 

 — thus, the effect of a bridge or via-duct would be greatly in- 

 creased by the assistance of poplars. 



In the accompanying sketch, {fig. 1.) not only the lines of the 



bridge are balanced and supported by the upright poplars, but 

 lengthened and pleasing reflections are produced, which break- 

 ing the horizontal gleams on the water, continue a mass of 

 lines intersecting each other at right angles, than which effect, 

 nothing can be more simply grand and classical. This is ad- 

 mirably illustrated at Blenheim, where the poplar is an ac- 

 companiment of all the bridges, but more particularly at that 

 via-duct, where the water first enters the park ; this seen from 

 the neighbourhood of the great bridge, forms a landscape of 

 much beauty and purity. But the planting of the island is as 

 much at variance with good taste : it is covered with tall pop- 

 lars, forming a mass which seems too big for its base ; and 

 which mass, from its stiff and upright form, contrasts but 

 badly with the varied outline of the surrounding wood and 

 water. How much more agreeable it would have been to 

 Vol. I. No. 1. c 



