22 LAYING OUT GROUNDS. 



Natural objects should ever be presented to the sight, though 

 the means by which they are obtained be laborious and artificial. 

 It is by practice and intimacy with the subject, that the Landscape 

 Gardener is enabled to decide where and how improvements may be 

 effected; for there is a material difference between altering and 

 improving, as many theorists have discovered too late. It is not by 

 forming in the mind's eye a rural scene, either picturesque or beau- 

 tiful, and desiring it to be realised, that can produce it ; there is no 

 such talisman in the power of the theorist. Many designs there 

 are which cannot be executed, although at the commencement of 

 the work no obstacle be presented : thus expense is incurred, time 

 is lost, disappointment follows unsuccessful effort, and the final 

 impossibility of attaining the object confounds the projector and 

 the agent. 



It is with Landscape Gardening as with painting : from observation, 

 assisted by good taste, such a knowledge of pictures may be acquired, 

 that the possessor shall be considered as having a perfect acquaint- 

 ance with the art ; but if it be required that the possessor of this 

 judgment should produce a picture of merit, the theory only of the 

 art becomes a stumbling-block : the ideal subject, it is true, exists 

 in the mind, but it cannot be realised by the untutored hand; 

 nevertheless, the wide diffusion of correct feeling on all particu- 

 lars connected with the arts is of the greatest value in Landscape 

 Gardening. 



