Retrospective Criticism. 615 



watering. Wherever he had seen good borders and high cultivation, he had 

 never seen shanking. In low deep borders, he considered shanking was pro- 

 duced by the rotting off of the young roots ; in corroboration of which he stated 

 he had seen such houses shanked in wet seasons, and free from shanking in dry. 



Mr. Fish shortly replied : considered that many of the statements confirmed 

 his own propositions, and that the uncertainty on the subject should animate 

 us to greater diligence and attention. He also showed the necessity of heat- 

 ing the border externally in early forcing, as, even allowing Mr. Adam's 

 theory to be correct, there would be little evolution of carbonic acid gas in 

 the soil, if protected by a covering from the influence of the air. 



W. Keane, Sea'etary. July 15. 1840. 



Art. IV. Retrospective Criticism. 



The Plates to Prince Puchler Muskaii's " Hints on Landscape Gardening" 

 (Andeutunge?! uber Landschaftsgdrtnerei, S^c.) — [Having shown these plates 

 to John Adey Repton, Esq., who was employed by Prince Puckler Muskau 

 as architect and landscape-gardener, he sent us the following remarks, which 

 we requested his permission to publish.] 



I was rauch disappointed, in looking over the publication of the improve- 

 ments of Muskau, to find that the designs for the mansion, instead of being 

 those of an old chateau, were only those of a modern Italian villa, although 

 the latter may please many who prefer it to the " odious ugly old castles ! " 



As the prince said that the estate had been in the possession of his ances- 

 tors more than two centuries, I had taken much pains to add to the respecta- 

 bility of the chateau, by giving it an appearance of antiquity, as far as the 

 modern rows of windows would allow me to do ; and indeed the building had 

 been modernised about the year 1730 : and, instead of the present cotton- 

 milUlike appearance, and the ugly hipped roofs, I had endeavoured to give it 

 the picturesque character of the 16th century, with lofty and enriched gables 

 and dormer windows. The present style of the building would not allow me 

 to introduce the bow-windov.'s of Henry VIII. or Elizabeth, without pulling 

 much of the building to pieces. 



You are as well aware as myself, how difficult it is to represent the beauties 

 of nature in a picture. There is no doubt that the prince, from his good 

 taste, has added much to the improvement of his place, of which the en- 

 gravings you showed me can hardly give any just idea, the landscape being 

 represented in black and white. These engravings appeared rather the works 

 of an amateur than that of a painter. The little shrubs dotted about may 

 appear very beautiful in nature from the great variety of their colours, which 

 it is not very easy to represent on canvass. 



I send you the enclosed sketches [which we intend at some future time to 

 engrave] of Muskau, showing the mansion, and the improvements I proposed 

 for it, and, should these sketches be of use to you for any of your publications, 

 you are welcome to apply them. I also enclose the design for the mansion at 

 New Hardenberg, near Berlin, the seat of the late Pi'ince Hardenberg. 



Yow will see by the enclosed sketches that I never could have recommended 

 the three gigantic arches shown in the engravings in Puckler Muskau's book. 

 The fashion of the present day seems to admire every thing in a great dimen- 

 sion ; as the lofty porch at Fonthill, the modern porch at Warwick Castle, 

 &c. These generally act as a scale, and destroy the magnificence of a build- 

 ing. The windows to the buildings at Fonthill, by the sides of the great arch 

 of the porch, look like so many pigeon holes ; or like the Lilliputians near 



Captain Gulliver. Look at the large arch at ■— , near -. It 



reminds me of a small sprat with great eyes. 



I paid a morning visit lately with a friend to a gentleman not a hundred 



miles from . We had a long tedious drive for miles round his place, 



the trees consisting chiefly of firs ; and such is the vanity of mankind, that a 



