185 



Painters not only represent trees accom- 

 panying rains, but almost in contact with 

 splendid buildings in their perfect and en- 

 tire state : such an accompaniment adds 

 still greater variety and beauty to the most 

 beautiful and varied architecture, and by 

 partial concealment they can give an in- 

 terest almost to any building, however 

 formal and ugly. In the pictures of Claude, 

 the character of which is beauty and cheer- 

 fulness, detached architecture, as far as I 

 have observed, is seldom unaccompanied 

 with trees; continued buildings (as in 

 some of his sea-ports,) more frequently so : 

 for he seems to have considered them in 

 some measure as views in cities, and con- 

 sequently as belonging to architecture,* 

 rather than landscape. Poussin, who at 

 one period of his life affected a severe and 



the ground had been cleared, levelled, and turfed from the 

 edge of the walk, to the foot of the rock, and round it, into 

 all its hollows and recesses. Though an immense mass of 

 stone, it hardly appeared natural ; but seemed rather as if 

 it had somehow been brought and erected at an enormous 

 expence in a spot, which, as far as the improvements ex- 

 tended, so little suited its character! 



