132 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



Whately, in his Observations on Modern 

 Gardening, says, — 44 Though the surface of 

 " a wood, when commanded, deserves all 

 44 these attentions, yet the outline more fre- 

 44 quently calls for our regard ; it is also more 

 44 in our power ; it may sometimes be great, 

 44 and may always be beautiful. The first re- 

 44 quisite is irregularity. That a mixture of 

 44 trees and underwood should form a long 

 44 straight line, can never be natural ; and a 

 44 succession of easy sweeps and gentle rounds, 

 44 each a portion of a greater or less circle, 

 44 composing altogether a line literally ser- 

 44 pontine, is, if possible, worse. It is but a 

 44 number of regularities put together in a 

 64 disorderly manner, and equally distant from 

 " the beautiful, both of Art and of Nature. 

 44 The true beauty of an outline consists more 

 " in breaks than in sweeps-— rather in angles 

 " than in rounds — in variety, not in succes- 

 " sion. The eye, which, hurries to the ex- 

 " tremity of whatever is uniform, delights to 

 " trace a varied line through all its intri- 

 44 cacies."* 



46 Let us hear Sir Uvedale Price's opinion 



* Observations on Modern Gardening, p. 42. 



