6 



THE planter's GUIDE. 



long before imagined by Bacon, and finely delineated by 

 Milton/'" Subsequently the art was assiduously culti- 

 vated by Brown, Repton, and others of that school, 

 although not altogether on principles such as should have 

 regulated it ; and it is now nearly perfected by the more 

 correct judgment of Price, Knight, and Loudon. What- 

 ever there was of unnatural or formal, whether borrowed 

 from antiquity or contrived by modern designers, is now 

 banished from the English garden. The professors 

 themselves of his own school have all followed Repton, 

 in tacitly acknowledging the improvements of the age, 

 and in advancing the public taste.f 



According to these enlightened principles, places and 

 parks, whether old or new, are now laid out. Where 

 woods have stood for centuries, taste and skill have done 

 much to display and even improve their effects ; and 

 incredible labour and expense have been dedicated to the 

 planting of new residences, where another age only can 

 see the ideas of the owners realised. Nothing seems 

 wanting to this charming art, but some successful method 

 of giving a speedy effect to wood, and of bringing the 

 enjoyment of it, in some sort, within the lifetime of the 

 planter — ^that is, giving it at once a magnitude sufl&cient 

 for picturesque purposes. 



Wood must ever be the grand and effective material 

 of real landscape. Over the other materials of pictu- 

 resque improvement the artist has comparatively little 

 control. With earth he cannot do much : rocks are by 

 far too ponderous for his management ; and water can 

 be commanded only in certain situations and circumstances. 

 But trees or bushes can be raised any where ; and there 

 is no situation so utterly hopeless as not to be capable of 

 considerable beauty, from wood planted abundantly and 



* Note HI. t Note IV. 



