360 PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. BOOK I. 



such as are indicated by nature, and may be either beautiful, 

 grand, picturesque, romantic, wild, or solitary, &c. the ex- 

 pressions, of either of which may be heightened by ana- 

 logous improvements, by adding suitable appendages, or re- 

 moving incongruities. Original characters may also be un- 

 suitable or disagreeable: and then they are to be removed, and 

 other characters appropriated in their room: and hence, in this 

 case, the appellation of the epithet appropriate. Whether in 

 heightening such as are natural or original, or in creating the 

 appropriate in their room, the same principles are alike appli- 

 cable and important. But be it observed, that in scenery, as 

 in men, a natural character only, improved by education or 

 art, will always be more striking, and often preferable to a cha- 

 racter formed by education or art alone. A scene not com- 

 posed of many parts, and tending to simplicity, will be improved 

 in character with much more ease and effect by removing some 

 of these, and increasing simplicity, than by adding others to pro- 

 duce richness. In picturesque improvement, the character ap- 

 propriated should always be a natural one, or one justified by 

 propriety, in opposition to such as have been called emblemati- 

 cal and imitative. Emblematical characters may succeed in por 

 etry or painting, but can never succeed in rural scenery, and 

 seldojn in architecture. When at Stowe, and told that we are 

 in the Elysian fields or the Grecian valley, the information pro- 

 duces no emotion, but some recollections of Italy or Virgil, 



