20 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



but there are few breaks of any great depth ; and if there 

 be a portico, the shadow made by the columns is very 

 trifling, compared with that broad horizontal shadow 

 proceeding from the soffit ; and the only ornament its 

 roof will admit is either a flat pediment, departing 

 very little from the horizontal tendency, or a dome, still 

 rising from a horizontal base. With such buildings it 

 may often be observed that trees of a pointed or conic 

 shape have a beautiful effect, I believe chiefly from the 

 circumstances of contrast ; though an association with 

 the ideas of Italian paintings, where we often see Grecian 

 edifices blended with firs and cypresses, may also have 

 some influence on the mind. 



Trees of a conic shape mixed with Gothic buildings 

 displease, from their affinity with the prevalent lines of 

 the architecture ; since the play of light and shadow in 

 Gothic structures must proceed from those bold projec- 

 tions, either of towers or buttresses, which cause strong 

 shadows in a perpendicular direction : at the same time 

 the horizontal line of roof is broken into an irregular 

 surface by the pinnacles, turrets, and battlements that 

 form the principal enrichment of Gothic architecture ; 

 which becomes, therefore, peculiarly adapted to those 

 situations where the shape of the ground occasionally 

 hides the lower part of the building, while its roof is 

 relieved by trees, whose forms contrast with those of 

 the Gothic outline. 



As this observation is new, and may, perhaps, be 

 thought too fanciful, I must appeal to the eye, by the help 

 of the illustration [Plate i], which I hope will find that 

 my observation is not wholly chimerical ; and will, con- 

 sequently, lay the foundation for this general principle ; 

 viz. that the lines of Gothic buildings are contrasted 

 with round-headed trees; or, as Milton observes, — 



