COMPARISON WITH LANDSCAPE-PAINTING. 293 



to some bald or feeble point, and so by stimulating 

 invention may lead to valuable results. 



Another point of comparison between landscape- 

 painting and landscape-gardening, which presents at 

 the same time an analogy and an important difference, 

 is to be found in the manner in which the designs con- 

 templated are respectively carried into effect. In 

 painting, there is, or at least may be, something tenta- 

 tive or experimental, running throughout almost the 

 whole of the processes which intervene between the 

 first conception of the picture and its complete execu- 

 tion. The artist, if engaged in composition, traces his 

 outlines on his canvas ; but he can alter them as he 

 goes along, and probably his success, or the want of it, 

 in one part of the picture, will suggest a corresponding 

 or compensating feature in another. Even when ap- 

 proaching a conclusion, his work is yet open to change, 

 though such liberties may then be most unadvisable, 

 still change is possible ; but when the last touch has 

 been given, the picture is finished, and will continue 

 so, as long as the colors and other materials endure. 

 All along the work has been wholly in the artist's 

 power, and he has the felicity of completing it, and 

 stamping even its minutest parts with the abiding 

 impress of his own mind. 



" I also am a painter I " says the Garden Artist ; and 

 it is true that he creates a varied scenery ; but neither 

 are his materials nor his operations so entirely under 

 his command. Trees and shrubs may be regarded as 

 his colors ; but how ineffective and untractable are 

 these, when compared with the pigments on the paint- 

 er's palette ! And his processes are only in a slight 

 degree tentative, at least so far as he has immediately 



