374 



serving all the effects which have arisen from 

 them, to learn how to take advantage of future 

 changes, and above all to learn that most use- 

 ful lesson, not to suppress the workings of na- 

 ture, hut to watch and take indications from 

 them ; for who would choose to settle in that 

 place, or under that government, where the warn- 

 ings, indications, and all the free efforts of nature, 

 were forcibly counteracted and suppressed ? 



P. 3 1, 1. 1 2. The destruction of so many picturesque circum- 

 stances by the prevailing passion for levelling, is 

 mentioned with regret in many parts of this essay : 

 the term itself may suggest regrets and apprehen- 

 sions of a more serious kind. To level, in a very 

 usual sense of the word, means to take away all 

 distinctions ; a principle that, when made general, 

 and brought into action by any determined im- 

 prover either of grounds or governments, oc- 

 casions such mischiefs, as time slowly; if ever, 

 repairs ; and which are hardly more dreaded by 

 nionarchs than painters. 



A good landscape is that in which all the parts 

 are free and unconstrained, but in which, though 

 some are prominent and highly illuminated, and 

 others in shade and retirement ; some rough, and 

 others more smooth and polished, yet they are 

 all necessary to the beauty, energy, effect, and 

 harmony of the whole. 1 do not see how a 

 good government can be more exactly de- 

 fined ; and as this definition suits every style of 



