PART I. FOR A COUNTRY RESIDENCE. 663 



improved application of taste to landscape. The wealthy 

 merchant, by not fully considering the objects in view, often 

 purchases estates replete with beauties to which he is either 

 quite insensible, or attaches no value; and therefore he often 

 destroys them, to give place either to mere utility, or to that 

 kind of taste which indulges in the fanciful decorations com- 

 mon at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Kew Gardens, and in most villas 

 near London. These may be applied much easier to places of 

 little natural beauty ; and consequently less expense would be 

 incurred, not only in purchasing such, but also in erasing wild 

 scenery, to give place to these more polished and artificial de- 

 corations. And where utility is the chief object in view, a 

 purchase can always be made to most advantage where natu- 

 ral beauty does not exist, and where the other kind has never 

 been attended to. Fine slopes and levels, and good fences and 

 roads, suit this object, and are easily met with in every part of 

 England. 



The consequence of a proper attention to these hints would 

 be, that purchasers would get what they wanted at the least 

 expense; and that those who had landed property to dispose 

 of, would sell it at its greatest value. The following reasons 

 shew how this might be accomplished. 



1. A proprietor about to sell, by advertising the true cha- 



