PART I* A COUNTRY RESIDENCE. * 6'01 



consists in the fullest attention to utility, proportion, and unity, 

 or harmony of parts to a whole." Such confusion and redun- 

 dancy of terms convey no ideas to the mind, and leave the au- 

 thor at liberty to adapt his practice to his principles, which are 

 applicable to every thing or nothing. After mentioning Mr. 

 Repton, the only landscape gardener by profession who has 

 written on the subject, it is unnecessary to speak of many of 

 his cotemporaries, who in all probability are still less able to 

 define their ideas. From this reason, none of them can expect 

 to put their notions in practice with the same effect in real 

 nature, as is done in the imitative arts. In poetry, painting, 

 architecture, music, no less than in the finest natural scenery, 

 there are characteristic ideas which present themselves on the 

 first inspection of any part. Thus the first ornaments, columns 

 or battlements, which we see in a house; the first verse in a 

 poem; the first glance at a picture; the first bar of a piece of 

 music; or the first movement of a dance; all communicate 

 ideas of what is to follow, by the parts indicating a relation 

 among themselves, and uniting in expressing one particular 

 sentiment, or raising one kind of emotion. This has never 

 been attended to in laying out a country residence — though it 

 is striking in some scenes of nature, and perhaps on no resi- 

 dences more so than at Foxley and Havod, if the improper 

 situation and form of the buildings at both places did not in- 

 terfere with the ideas. No plan is perfect, however* or is ca- 



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