Characters. 



48 



combine, the various sources of pleasure 

 derived from external objects, and to 

 trace them to some pre-existing causes 

 in the structure of the human mind.' 



Of All rational improvement of ground? 



Situations . • i i i 



and is necessarily founded on a due attention, 



to the Character and Situationt of 

 the place to be improved : the former 

 teaches what is advisable, the latter what 

 is possible to be done. Nothing can be 

 more distinct than these two objects, yet 

 they must be jointly taken into consi- 

 deration, because one is often influenced 

 by the other. 



The Situation of a place always de- 

 pends on Nature, which can only b? 

 assisted, but cannot be entirely changed, 

 or greatly controlled by Art: but the 



' " Where disposition, Avhere decorum, where con- 

 '* gruity, are concerned^ in short, wherever the best 

 *' taste differs from the worst, I am con\ inced that the 

 " understanding operates, and nothing else," 



Burkes Preface to Subrime and Beautiful. 



