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PAEKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



repulsive to those of true taste and judgment. So with 

 trees and shrubbery. Nature has given each variety 

 its own chosen form, which no artificial aid will im- 

 prove. The saw and the pruning-knife, to remove a 

 superfluous branch, are all that need be required, to 

 give them the highest possible expression ; and what 

 these will not do, is hardly worth attempting. 



Art, in this relation, when deeply studied, is apt to 

 degenerate into mannerism ; and mannerism is always 

 stiff and ungraceful. ISTo two spots of ground, or 

 tracts of land, are exactly alike. In improving them, 

 their salient points should be ascertained. They should 

 be placed in prominent relief, and their peculiar char- 

 acteristics preserved. Such, even when repulsive at 

 first view and considered by themselves alone, skill- 

 fully treated, may become the most agreeable objects 

 in contrast or connection with others of opposite char- 

 acter. This is all the art required — -that of moulding 

 and softening natural features into agreeable forms, 

 and giving them agreeable expression. To accomplish 

 this in the most acceptable manner, requires an en- 

 larged and comprehensive scope, both of vision and 

 imagination, embracing the whole as it will appear 

 when perfected. 



Note. — Our author has treated this part of his sub- 

 ject with good sense and judgment. There is nothing 

 of the quack or charlatan about him, and no one can err 

 in following his clear and direct suggestions. Sir Wal- 

 ter Scott, whose true spirit and feeling he has strongly 

 imbibed, was, in theory at least, one of the most ac- 

 complished landscape-gardeners of the present century, 

 and has left some of the best instructions in that line 

 which it has been our fortune to consult. He had an 



