Bear Wood. 683 



ations and pleasure-grounds, and as a healthy site for a house. 

 Not only is the cost of such land considerably less than 

 that of rich soils, but, from its friability, it is more easily 

 worked; and, as from its poverty grass and weeds do not 

 grow freely on it, the dug grounds are kept hoed, and the 

 lawns mown, at less expense. There is also, in such a case 

 the satisfaction of creating, not only a habitable, but a beau- 

 tiful residence out of a wild, and apparently useless waste- 

 and, in all this, the pleasure is enhanced by the conscious- 

 ness that the expense incurred is moderate. No man of 

 good taste will ever make choice of a low, flat, dull, sleepy 

 situation, and a rich loamy soil, for a country residence- 

 Were we to fix upon a spot for building ourselves a villa, 

 at a short distance from London, on the west side, it should 

 be on some elevated knoll on Bagshot Heath ; on the east 

 we would select the remains of chalk hills and chalk pits iu 

 Kent, high above a noble reach of the Thames, like the 

 beautiful Elizabethan villa of Mr. Sheriff Harmer, near 

 Greenhithe ; on the south, we would choose a spot on the 

 highest and poorest part of Leith Hill; and on the north, if 

 we went beyond the commanding situation of Mr. Lono-man's 

 villa at Hampstead, we should be at a loss where to stop till 

 we had reached Cumberland, where the site of Elleray, the 

 residence of the celebrated poet and philosopher. Professor 

 Wilson, rises before our imagination. It is only on situations 

 that are considerably elevated, and at the same time varied on 

 the surface, that the art of landscape-gardening can powerfully 

 affect the imagination ; and, without operating on the ima- 

 gination, no work of this art, or of any other, can ever be 

 worth notice as such. Without considerable elevation for 

 the site of the house, it is impossible for it to display that 

 attitude of command which is the essential cause of the 

 emotion of sublimity; and without considerable variation of 

 surface, it is equally impossible to add to the sublime, the 

 beautiful, the varied, and the picturesque. 



At Bear Wood, the young gardener will learn more of 

 landscape-gardening than in any other place which we know, 

 within the same distance of London. He will there see a 

 practical illustration of the principles of massing, grouping, 

 and of every kind of planting; of varying the outline of water; 

 of managing pieces of water on different levels; and of judi- 

 ciously thinning plantations. 



(To be cont'mued.^ 



