PART VII. PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. 



439 



book of Mr. Repton, and approved of by him in a late work, 

 it confirms me in my opinion of landscape gardening, and its 

 champion and defender against the introduction of the pic- 

 turesque*. 



Far hence ! let Repton, Brown, and EaMes, 



Zig-zag their walks, and torture streams ; 



But let them not my dells profane, 



Or violate my Naiad train ; 



Nor let their arrogance invade 



My meanest Dryad's secret shade, 



And with fantastic knots disgrace 



The native honours of the place ; 



Making the vet'ran oak give way, 



Some spruce exotic to display. 



Their petty labours be defy'd 



Who taste and nature would divide. 



Lines which were left written on a seat at Havod. 



Mr. Graham, in his " Birds of Scotland,'' has several excellent 

 remarks on the absurdity of modern landscape gardening. After 

 ridiculing the display of " a sea of lawn," and the destruction 

 of avenues, old trees, and those beautiful lowgrowths, tufts, and 

 wild plants, which so much encourage his favourite birds, he 

 concludes — 



* Mr. Repton observes in a note, that " this approach remains a specimen of 

 the powers of landscape gardening in that part of Scotland" (Perthshire) ! ! ! — I 

 hope the proprietors of that lovely country will never again admit such a formi- 

 dable foe. If they do, I conjure all my countrymen to unite in declaiming against 

 their taste; and if they will not then refrain, let the poets enrol their names among 

 the enemies of nature ; let them ' 



" Stamp their stigma deep eternal infamy." 



