104 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



tion, " What shape can be adopted so generally 

 " pleasing as the circle or the oval ?" concludes 

 thus : " The man of taste" (as the eminent 

 " author above mentioned observes) " will be 

 " desirous that the boundaries of his plant- 

 " ations should follow the lines designed by 

 " nature, which are always easy and undu- 

 " lating, or bold, prominent, and elevated, but 

 " never stiff and formal." How shall we recon- 

 cile this paragraph to itself? Did Nature 

 ever bound her plantations by a circular or 

 an oval form ? Surely such forms are as 

 remote from the easy and undulating, as they 

 are from the bold and prominent character 

 of nature's outline ; and must, I apprehend, 

 be classed under the " stiff and formal which 

 " she disowns." 



I know not if the Planter's Guide intends 

 me the honour of a place among " our pre- 

 " sent landscape gardeners, who have made a 

 " merit and are regularly vain of disfiguring 

 " their most beautiful subjects with clumps 

 " and plantations, and even approaches in the 

 " most zigzag and grotesque figures, and 

 " which are ten times more hideous and un- 

 " picturesque than the worst productions of 

 " their predecessors :" the accusation appears 



