PART VII. PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. 42.9 



of the improver ; and in managing them the same general prin- 

 ciple is to be attended to. What is middle distance to one 

 view, will often be foreground or back ground to another ; and 

 therefore, before any alterations are made, the whole must be 

 well considered from every point of view; otherwise incon- 

 > gruities will inevitably be produced. The same remarks will 

 apply to the background ; which, except in recluse scenery, is 

 commonly without the immediate province of the improver. 

 There are such abundant resources, however, that even the 

 most distant scenery may be varied or harmonized, either by 

 improvements upon itself, or by diversifying it by means of 

 objects in the foreground or middle distance ; and these ob- 

 jects, as we have seen in the last chapter, may either be the 

 permanent, accidental, or fleeting materials of landscape. In 

 general, it will be found, that by disposing the materials of land- 

 scape in every part of the picturesque scenery of a residence, 

 under the leading principle of unity in the whole, and connexion 

 in the parts, or harmony, which is the same thing, proper fore- 

 grounds, middle distance, and backgrounds, will present them- 

 selves everywhere without much trouble : and wherever these 

 .appear in some respects deficient ; where the foreground is 

 crowded or incongruous ; the middle distance too near, or not 

 sufficiently marked, the judicious improver will perceive it at 

 first sight, and may easily alter it agreeably to the principles of 

 painting ; and I may add, that without a knowledge of these 



