PART VII. PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. 431 



where ornamental gardening does not prevail, are its peculiar 

 provinces. 



Parks, I conceive, ought to be of two kinds. 1. Parks of a 

 small residence, where regard is had chiefly to the value of the 

 pasture, and where the pasturing animals are horses, cattle, 

 sheep, &c. : There the surface must be unbroken, clothed and 

 varied, or characterized, chiefly by trees ; unless we admit a 

 few shrubs or lower growths near the mansion or walks of 

 the pleasure or more ornamental parts. The apparent ex- 

 tent of this kind of parks depends more upon the variety 

 of the grounds, and the manner in which the trees and shrubs 

 are planted, than upon the number of acres. A level or 

 uniform surface, spotted by circular, oval, or even angular 

 clumps, and surrounded by a compact serpentine belt, as at 

 Duddingston or Blenheim, can never appear extensive; but a 

 very few acres of varied ground, sprinkled over with light groups, 

 thorns, and hollies, appear boundless. In such a park, every 

 step presents a new composition, arising from the varied herds 

 of cattle intermingling with the trees, &c. and always changing 

 their position : and as there is no permanent mark by which we 

 can distinguish one scene from another, so as to know it again ; 

 a person might wander up and down the extent of a few acres for 

 several days, without being able to say whether he was not tra- 

 versing a park of several square miles. This is the case in na- 

 tural forests from the same principles. 



