viii 



PREFACE. 



The reader will not imagine, from this, that every elementary 

 branch of the art of forming a residence is treated as minutely 

 as they would be in separate treatises. Such a plan would 

 have been mere book-making, and must have contained so 

 much of what has already been repeated by other writers, as 

 to have rendered it displeasing to all readers of taste : to those 

 of inquiry the drudgery of selecting the particular views of the 

 author among such a mass of common-place matter, would 

 have been so great as in all probability to have precluded the 

 task. The whole is but a short transcript of the leading ideas 

 and general principles which are prominent in the author s 

 mind on the subject of his profession. The reasoning and the 

 practices recommended are just those which he is in the daily 

 habit of applying to real scenery. Without implying any dis- 

 respect for the opinion of others, he has shewn no anxiety 

 either to coincide or differ with them, farther than as these 

 opinions have been put in practice. 



It may be necessary here to make an apology to the pro- 

 prietors of those residences which I have occasionally so freely 

 criticised. Let it be considered, that no natural or unavoid- 

 able deformities are ever objected to ; but merely such as are 

 considered to be the result of bad taste, and such, of course, as 

 can be removed or improved upon, should the remarks that I 

 have made be felt to have any weight. Neither are these 



