LANDSC APE-GAE DENING . 



289 



First, the Landscape-painter may copy with the 

 most scrupulous exactitude some piece of scenery ac- 

 tually existing ; and such is the wonderful beauty and 

 diversity of nature, that if his selection has been 

 felicitous, the result may be among the most truthful 

 and successful of his efforts. The Landscape-gardener 

 can seldom copy. He may indeed fall into that same- 

 ness of style which constitutes mannerism, but he can 

 never servilely copy ; for even on the most level sur- 

 faces his materials are not often the same, and the 

 relative situations of his permanent objects are al- 

 most always different. He is bound to create views, if 

 we may here use a' word "of so much weight of mean- 

 ing ; in short, his business is what is technically called 

 composition. This circumstance makes his work paral- 

 lel to what, we believe, is the highest line of landscape- 

 painting, viz: the formation of pictures by the combi- 

 nation of the finest objects which the artist has copied 

 into his sketch-book, or can recall by his memory, or 

 can embody by his imagination. But here the painter 

 has some important advantages. His canvas is at first 

 a tabula rasa, a wholly unoccupied field, and his ob- 

 jects are fully at his command. He can put down 

 rocks here, and water there, and buildings and trees 

 wherever the rules of perspective or the management 

 of his distances render them .admissible. The Land- 

 scape-gardener has most of his objects laid down to 

 him. He must accept of the locality with its natural 

 features, and the contour of the ground, which often 

 prescribes a particular treatment ; and he must make 

 it his business to conceal deformities, to elicit existing 

 but unapparent beauties, and to adorn whatever is 



susceptible of improvement. It is true that in these 

 13 



