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where they would attract the eye ; for it 

 is rare that any improver wishes to conceal 

 his efforts. 



If I have spoken thus strongly of a man, 

 who has been celebrated in prose and in 

 verse as the founder of an art almost pecu- 

 liar to this country, and from which it is 

 supposed to derive no slight degree of 

 glory, I have done it to prevent (as far as it 

 lies in me) the bad effect which too great 

 a veneration for first reformers is sure to pro- 

 duce — that of interesting national vanity, 

 in the continuance and protection of their 

 errors. The task which I have taken upon 

 myself, has been in all ages invidious and 

 unpopular : with regard to Kent, however, I 

 thought it part icularly incumbent upon me 

 to shew that he was not one of those great 

 original geniuses, who,like Michael Angelo, 

 seem born to give the world more enlarged 

 and exalted ideas of art; but, on the contrary, 

 that in the art lie did profess, and from which 

 he might be supposed to have derived su- 

 perior lights with respect to that of gar- 

 dening, his idtjas were uncommonly mean, 

 contracted, and perverse. Were I not to 



