S3 



strained, may be allowed to go much far- 

 ther than the painter; and this is a point 

 which deserves to be discussed. 



Landscape-painters have availed them- 

 selves of all the varieties which suited their 

 art ; but in a painted landscape, the detail 

 must always be subordinate to the general 

 effect. It often happens that in a real 

 fore-ground numberless circumstances 

 give delight which the painter in a great 

 degree suppresses; because they would 

 not accord with the intentional neglect 

 of detail in the general style and conduct 

 of his picture, nor yet w r ith the scale of it, 

 compared with that of real scenery. But 

 the improver, who works with the mate- 

 rials of nature, may venture, though still 

 with caution, to indulge himself in her li- 

 berties ; he may give to particular parts 

 the highest degree of enrichment, that 

 rocks, stones, roots, mosses, with flowering 

 and trailing plants, of close or of loose tex- 

 ture, can create, without the same danger 

 which the painter Incurs, of injuring the 

 whole. Such parts, when viewed at adis- 



VOL. II. D 



