FART VII. 



PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. 



433 



not the utility of such parks be injured ? So it would, in some 

 degree ; but is not beauty or grandeur of character one of the 

 chief objects of such scenes ? if not, why change the common 

 character of the country, why make the interesting variety of 

 corn fields, farms, cottages, hedges, coppices, give way to one 

 dull vapid monotonous surface of green, as insipidly varied by 

 trees, — where one might wander an age without seeing any 

 thing else than their naked stems and clump-like heads ? No- 

 thing can be grand or sublime, but as it soars above the com- 

 mon appearances of the like things. Now in a fertile and cul- 

 tivated country, what can be more truly uncommon with regard 

 to the surface, than making it assume the wild irregularity and / 

 excesses of nature, leaving flocks and herds to roam at pleasure, 

 and despising the teeming abundance of cultivation, and the 

 grosser ideas of mere profit or use * I 



* It is not meant by this to affirm, that there would be much real difference in- 

 the annual profit of a park so laid out, when compared with one in the modern 

 taste. What was not occupied with pasture would be covered with wood ; which, 

 whether as undergrowth, or timber produce, is highly valuable, and often produces 

 as much profit as either pasture or aration — and in many scenes highly suitable for 

 parks, more so, as will, appear under planting ; besides the abundance of every 

 species of game which this would produce, as well as the encouragement it would 

 give to a beautiful class of singing birds. This being the case, and it being taken 

 into view that deer are not grazed for pecuniary advantage, I cannot see that there 

 would be any real disadvantage in point of profit by adopting this mode ; and hence 

 I should wish it in some degree attended to, even in parks of the smallest size^ 

 where cattle and sheep are grazed. In this age of refinement and universal culti- 

 vation, wildness and native simplicity have charms which are highly interesting to 



3 K 



