387 



has conceived, from what I have said, that I 

 disapprove of plantations of young beeches, and 

 asks with some triumph, whether I would have 

 had Kent plant old ones, as a nursery for dead 

 groves ?* 



I flatter myself, that hitherto I have not 

 mistated the meaning of any author whom I 

 have taken the liberty to criticise, and I shall 

 certainly be very careful in future; for I feel 

 how infinitely ashamed I should be, were I 

 ever to be convicted of having grossly per- 

 verted another person's ideas, and then tri- 

 umphed over my own mistatement. 



P. 246. 1. 15. Kent has not only been celebrated by 

 Mr. Walpole in his Treatise on Modern Gar- 

 dening, but likewise by Dr. Warton, and in a 

 very high style of panegyric, in a Poem of hi* 

 called the Enthusiast; from which the follow- 

 ing very apposite quotation has been cited in 

 opposition to my censures, by Mr. G. Mason. 



Can Kent design like nature ? Mark where Thamep 

 Plenty and pleasure pours through Lincoln's meads; 

 Can the great artist, though with taste supreme 

 Endued, one beauty to this Eden add? 

 Though he by rules unfetterM, boldly scorn* 

 Formality and method — round and square 

 Disdaining, plans irregularly great. 



There cannot be a more decided and pointed 

 opinion against all 1 have said of Kent; it 



* Essay on Design in Gardening, page 109. 



