140 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



in the passages selected from the Essays on 

 the Picturesque. " The Landscape, a poem 

 " by the ingenious Mr. Knight ; and the 

 66 Essays on the Picturesque, by that accom- 

 " plished scholar, Mr. Price, are productions 

 " of high merit, which we must ever value, as 

 « having been the means of retrieving the 

 " public taste, and showing what is unnatural, 

 " formal, or monotonous in the character of 

 " the school of Brown and Repton ; yet, as 

 " these meritorious works were composed 

 " under peculiar circumstances, and during 

 " the bitterness of controversy, they should 

 " be read by the young student cum grano 

 " salis. Mr. Loudon's able treatise on the 

 " * Improvement of Country Residences,' 

 " (which came out in 1806, and has not been 

 " half so much praised as it deserves,) forms 

 " a far less exceptionable guide to the man 

 " of taste, or the country gentleman, who, 

 66 having no practical skill himself, is yet 

 " desirous to improve real landscape where it 

 " exists, or to create it where it is wanting."* 

 Now, whatever be the merit of the trea- 

 tise here recommended, to prefer it, or any 

 similar work, to the luminous and compre- 



* Planter's Guide, p. 360. 



