ACQUIRED CHARACTER OF THE GROUND. 65 



a liouse^ and there are fences, roads, and perhaps farm- 

 buildings or other rural objects already existing. And 

 if the designer is called in, not to give a primary plan, 

 but to improve or extend what has been already done, 



r he is sure to find before him buildings, plantations, and 

 other matters connected with country residences. All 

 these circumstances originate what we have called an 



: acquired character, which, in some cases, may have 

 obliterated in a great measure the natural expression of 

 the place, particularly if the latter was not strongly 

 marked at first, or it may have brought out such a 

 want of harmony as to necessitate improvement. In 

 dealing with the acquired character of the place, the 

 artist will find that there are certain objects, such as 

 the mansion-house, offices, and portions of the woods, 

 which can seldom be altered, and which must be treated 

 as fixtures. Such objects are not unfrequently sources 

 of great embarrassment. They often so modify the 

 whole of the alterations that the place, even after every 

 possible improvement, is greatly inferior to what it might 

 have been had the fixtm^es been skilfully arranged at 

 first. AU these points, then — the natural contour and 

 expression, the acquired character, and the mutual modi- 

 fications produced by the intermingling of both, — must 

 be carefully studied by the artist ; for it is only by means 

 of a matured knowledge of these, and by availing himself 

 of the alterations which they place withia his reach, that 

 he hopes to bring out those beauties which the eye of 

 taste can discover slumbering and buried, as it were, in 

 a mass of deformity and confusion. No quickness of 

 eye can dispense with, hardly any inspiration of genius 

 can supply the want of, careful and accurate study on the 

 ground. 



