FART VII. PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. $6l\ 



which would be pursued with much better effect in the closet 

 over the Eneid. or a work on geography; for still as we pass 

 through these Elys i an fields, the attention is caught by new 

 objects, in attending to which properly we either forget the 

 allusion, or, absorbed in reverie, shut our eyes to the real 

 beauties which surround us. When the whole is once seen, all 

 the charms of illusion vanish, and the obvious want of utility 

 renders such scenery nauseous and tiresome, and only worth 

 preservation for its singularity and antiquity. 



From unity of character in the whole, naturally arises the- 

 connexion of the parts. Connexion is every where apparent 

 in nature, from the splendour of the noon-day sun to the dark- 

 ness of midnight; the severity of winter to the heat of the 

 summer solstice. It is produced by the abrupt intermixture, 

 or gradual union of different or opposite qualities. This is 

 effected in ways as various as the constituent properties of mat- 

 ter, but upon principles as constantly the same as the effect to, 

 be produced. The rule is simple, but of unlimited and uni- 

 versal application; it is, to bring together such qualities or 

 properties as are different, but not opposite; as form contrasts,, 

 but not opposites. Grouping is merely a term for con- 

 nexion, when applied to landscape painting; and to illustrate 

 this I may observe, that with regard to trees, a painter or im- 

 prover connects or groups, trees differing only in magnitude — 



3 A 



