Formal Gardening 47 



that displays correspondent parts, if the lines in con- 

 tact do not also correspond, the house itself will appear 

 twisted and awry. Yet this degree of symmetry ought 

 to go no farther than a small distance from the house, 

 and should be confined merely to such objects as are 

 confessedly works of art for the uses of man ; such as 

 a road, a walk, or an ornamental fence, whether of 

 wood or iron ; but it is not necessary that it should 

 extend to plantations, canals, or over the natural shape 

 of the ground. " In forming plans for embellishing a 

 field, an aftist without taste employs straight lines, cir- 

 cles, and squares, because these look best upon paper. 

 He perceives not that to humour and adorn nature is 

 the perfection of his art; and that nature, neglecting 

 regularity, distributes her objects in great variety, with 

 a bold hand. (Some old gardens were disposed like the 

 human frame; alleys, like legs and arms, answering 

 each other; the great walk in the middle representing 

 the trunk of the- body.) Nature, indeed, in organised 

 bodies comprehended under one view, studies regu- 

 larity; which, for the same reason, ought to be studied 

 in architecture; but in large objects, which cannot be 

 surveyed but in parts, and by succession, regularity and 

 uniformity would be useless properties, because they 

 cannot be discovered by the eye. Nature, therefore, in 

 her large works, neglects these properties ; and in copy- 

 ing nature, the artist ought to neglect them." " 



Lathom. It is hardly to be conceived how much this 

 view to the north will be improved by the removal of 

 the large square pond. [Plate vi.] Water reflecting only 

 the sky (which is the case with this and every other 

 pond raised above the level of the natural ground) acts 

 like a mass of light placed betwixt the eye and the more 

 distant objects. Every one knows the effect that a Ian- 



