11 0 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



example, the house and its environs may occupy part 

 of a dead flat, a level as uniform as a painter's canvas ; 

 and this situation may be accounted the least felicitous, 

 or certainly the least suggestive, of all, as it obliges 

 the designer to create rather than regulate a landscape. 

 Again, the surface may be concave, including the two 

 sides of a valley of moderate width ; or it may be the 

 lower part of the slope of a hilly country, where it 

 gradually descends into the plain— in other words, one 

 side of a broad valley. On the other hand, some sur- 

 faces are convex — a long and slightly elevated ridge, 

 we may suppose, or a lower spur of a mountain or 

 range of hills, or a bold promontory running into the 

 sea. Once more, the house may be seated on the 

 shoulder formed by the junction of a primary and a 

 transverse or secondary valley, on a platform over a 

 lake or arm of the sea, or on the winding bank of an 

 inland stream or navigable river; and of course the 

 character of the park and grounds must be modified 

 by these varying circumstances. Manifold are the 

 other diversities of natural surface ; and to the slightest 

 reflection it must be apparent that they cannot all be 

 dealt with in the same way. On a convex surface, for 

 example, we do not generally meet with standing 

 water; the beauties consist mostly of distant views, 

 and the business of the designer is to select these, to 

 render them conspicuous, and to set them oif with 

 beautiful foregrounds. On the other hand, the concave 

 surface suggests water scenery, such as the lake or the 

 artificial river. From such a locality the distant views 

 are necessarily limited, or extend only in the direction 

 of the valley ; but if the house be planted near one of 

 the rising edges, or on the breast of a slope, there will 



