78 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



" and an admirable expedient it would be, if 

 " the theory would hold in practice ; which, 

 " I apprehend, it will not. The receipt in 

 " the poem is quite enigmatical — not, how- 

 " ever, inexplicable as to the materials ; but 

 " the proportionable quantities of each are 

 " left very much at large, and I never could 

 " meet with any mixture of them that per- 

 " fectly answered the purpose. The chief 

 " use of such colour would, in my idea, be 

 " hiding gates between enclosures, where they 

 " could not so well be hidden by any other 

 66 means ; for as it is impossible the fallacy 

 " should succeed within a moderate distance 

 " from the eye, a length of such fences can 

 " never be eligible. The poet very justly 

 " observes, in his postscript, that the con- 

 " cealment of fences is a matter of great 

 " difficulty both to design and to execute : 

 " for which reason it may not be amiss to 

 (< dwell a little longer on the subject. And 

 " here I repeat, that harmonising a landscape 

 " is always the point to be aimed at. Uniting 

 " different enclosures, and giving an air of 

 " unlimited extent to the premises, may be 

 " consequential incidents, but should never 

 " be considered as a principle to work by. 



