384 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Greenwich ; "certainly (as Walpole says,) no great monuments of his 

 invention." 



Note XIII. Page 33. 



It is to be regretted that Sir Uvedale Price, in his very valuable 

 "Essays on the Picturesque," (probably the most powerful example of 

 controversial w^riting and acute criticism in the language,) should have 

 somewhat lessened their effect by personal sarcasm, and the bitterness 

 of controversy. As to Brown, he has not (according to the vulgar 

 phrase) " left him the likeness of a dog;" and his conceit, his ignorance, 

 his arrogance, his vanity, (of all of which Brown had his full share,) 

 are blazoned forth in the most glaring colours. It is true, that to pull 

 him down while in the zenith of his fame and popularity, and after- 

 v^^ards to keep him down, surrounded as he was v^ith followers and 

 flatterers, required a vigorous and powerful arm like Sir Uvedale's ; 

 and no one, I think, will grudge the latter his complete triumph, or the 

 castigation inflicted on his opponent, considering the lasting benefit 

 which his own labours have conferred on an elegant art, and in eleva- 

 ting the fame and character of the country. Still I cannot help 

 thinking that poor Kent, though a man of rather limited genius, 

 should have escaped more easily than he has done from the great 

 critic's hands ; since it is to him that we as clearly owe the art of land- 

 scape gardening, as we owe the saving of it from disgrace, and the 

 placing it on just principles, to Sir Uvedale Price. May w^e not, then, 

 ask, looking to the fine genius of the latter, 



Tantcene animis coelestibus irce? 



Note XIV. Page 84. 



This was James Earl of Abercorn, uncle to the first marquis, who 

 succeeded him in 1789. The Earl was esteemed one of the best-bred 

 men of his time, though his manners were distinguished by pomp and 

 preciseness. It was said of him, that he made the tour of Europe in a 

 posture so erect as never once to touch the back of his carriage! The 

 country must be considered as indebted to him, as a liberal patron of 

 the arts, and as being among the first persons who introduced landscape 

 gardening into Scotland. 



Note XV. Page 44. 



It is here said in the text, that the lightening, that is, mutilating the 

 fine tops of trees, is the ordinary, and nearly the universal practice in 



