PREFACE. V 



is hoped, will be found to be practical by those who have 

 an adequate knowledge of country afiairs. 



The author earnestly disclaims all intention of de- 

 tracting from the acknowledged merits of his illustrious 

 predecessors. He has been willing to sit at the feet of 

 Wheatley, Price, and Gilpin. He has learned much 

 from their writings. His aim, in this volume, has been 

 to popularize their principles, and to simplify and extend 

 their processes in practice. He has, however, sedu- 

 lously avoided those redundant and often merely con- 

 troversial discussions by which some of their literary 

 works are encumbered. At the same time he is con- 

 vinced that Landscape Gardening, like the other Fine 

 Arts, is of a progressive nature ; and that its ascertained 

 principles compose a fabric to which successive writers 

 have added, or have yet to add, each his stick and his 

 stone. He has endeavoured to do his part. While, 

 however, he has not been inattentive to the literature 

 of his profession, he has looked even more intently at 

 nature j he has sought to draw directly from her inex- 

 haustible stores; and in offering to the public the results 



