996 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Paut 111. 



7160. The ancient authors on architecture and gardening have rarely attempted to lay 

 down any general principle of composition, Vitruvius hints obscurely, that the different 

 parts of buildings, should bear some propjortion among tliemselves, like that which subsists 

 between the different members of the human body ; that the quantities constituting the 

 magnitudes of temples, should have certain ratios to one another, and he lays down canons 

 for the individual proportions, and collective arrangement of the columns of the different 

 orders. These, however, are not principles, but mechanical rules, formed on very limited 

 associations. The same remarks will apply to the directions respecting the walks, walls, 

 hedges, and borders of the ancient style, laid down by D' Argenville, Clarici, Le Blond, 

 and Switzer. It is in the writings of modern authors, therefore, and chiefly from the en- 

 lightened investigations of the Rev. A. Alison, that we are to draw our information as to 

 the principles by which the artists of the ancient style were instinctively guided in their 

 productions. 



7161. With respect to tlie modern style, considered as including what belongs to the 

 conveniences of a country-residence, as well as the art of creating landscapes, Pope has 

 included the principles under, 1st, The study and display of natural beauties ; 2d, The 

 concealment of defects ; and 3d, Never to lose sight of common sense. Wheatley concurs 

 in these principles, stating the business of a gardener to be " to select and to apply what- 

 ever is great, elegant, or characteristic" in the scenery of nature or art ; " to discover and 

 to show all tlie advantages of the place upon which he is employed; to supply its defects, 

 to correct its faults, and to improve its beauties." Repton, whose observations on land- 

 scape-gardening bear on the title-page, to be " written with a view to establish fixed princi- 

 ples in these arts," enumerates congruity, utilitj', order, symmetry, scale, proportion, and 

 appropriation, as principles, " if," as he observes, in one place, " there are any principles." 

 Mason places the secret of the art in the ' ' nice distinction between contrast and incon- 

 gruity ;" Mason, the poet, invokes " simplicity," probably intending that this beauty 

 should distinguish the English from the Chinese style ; simplicity is also the ruling prin- 

 ciple of Lord Karnes ; Girardin includes every beauty under " truth and nature," and 

 every rule "under the unity of the whole, and the connection of the parts ;" and Shen- 

 stone states, " landscape or picturesque gardening" to " consist in pleasing the imagin- 

 ation," by scenes of grandeur, beautj', and variety. Convenience merely has no share 

 there, any farther than as it pleases the imagination. Congruity and the principles of 

 painting are those of Price and Knight; and nature, utility, and taste, those of Marshall. 

 From these different theories, as well as from the general objects or end of gardening, 

 there appear to be two principles which enter into its composition ; those which regard 

 it as a mixed art, or an art of design, and which are called the principles of relative 

 beauty ; and those which regard it as an imitative art, and are called the principles of na- 

 tural or universal beauty. The ancient or geometric gardening is guided wholly by the 

 former principles ; landscape-gardening, as an imitative art, wholly by the latter ; but as 

 the art of forming a country-residence, its arrangements are influenced by both principles. 

 In conformity with these ideas, and with our plan of treating of both styles, we shall first 

 consider its principles as an inventive or mixed, and secondly as an imitative art. 



Sect. I. Of the Beauties of Landscape- Gardening, as an inventive and mixed Art, and of 

 the Principles of their Production. • 



7162. Works of art, Alison observes, may be considered, either in relation to their 

 design or intention — to the nature of tlieir construction for the intended purpose — or to 

 the nature of the end they are destined to serve ; and their beauty accordingly will de- 

 pend, either upon the excellence or wisdom of the design, the fitness or propriety of the 

 construction, or the utility of the end. The considerations of design, of fitness, and of 

 utility, therefore, may be considered as the three great sources of the beauties of works 

 of inventive art. They have been called relative beauties, in opposition to those of nature 

 and imitative art, which are hence denominated natural or independent beauties. There 

 is a third source of beauty common both to arts of invention and imitation, which is that 

 of accidental beauty, or such as is produced by local, arbitraiy, or temporary associations. 

 The beauties of objects, whether natural, relative, or accidental, are conveyed to the senses 

 by the different qualities of matter, forms, sounds, colors, smells, and motion ; but form 

 is the grand characteristic of matter, and constitutes in a great degree its essence to our 

 senses. In our remarks, therefore, on the beauties of inventive art, we shall chiefly con- 

 sider design, fitness, and utility, in regard to fomi. 



7163. The expression of design is displayed by such forms and dispositions, as sliall at 

 once point out that they are works of art. Thus regularity and uniformity are recog- 

 nised in the rudest works of man, and point oixt his employment of art and expense in 

 their construction. Hence the lines, surfaces, and forms of geometric gardening should 

 be different, and in some degree opposed to those of general nature. Irregular surfaces, 

 lines, or forms, may be equally useful, alike works of art, and, considered with reference 

 to other beauties, may be more agreeable than such as are regular ; but, if too prevalent, 



