293 



work of improvement, but have made it 

 the fundamental principle of their art. 



With respect to those objects where a very 

 different art is concerned, the impressions 

 are also very different: a perfectly flat 

 square meadow, surrounded by a nea t hedge, 

 and neither tree nor bush in it, is looked 

 upon not only without disgust, but with 

 pleasure, for it pretends only to neatness 

 and utility, and the same may be said of a 

 piece of arable of excellent husbandry : but 

 when a dozen pieces are laid together and 

 called a lawn, or a pleasure-ground, with 

 manifest pretensions to beauty, the eye 

 grows fastidious, and has not the same in- 

 dulgence for t aste, as for agriculture. Where 

 indeed men of property, either from false 

 taste, or from a sordid desire of gain, dis* 

 figure such scenes or buildings as painters 

 admire, our indignation is very justly ex- 

 cited : not so when agriculture, in its general 

 progress, as is often unfortunately the case, 

 interferes with picturesqueness or beauty. 

 The painter may indeed lament ; but that 

 science, which of all others most benefits 



u 3 



