Aims and Methods 
asked often enough to manage even very 
important ones ; and when they are, their 
counsels are seldom rightly respected. They 
may be permitted to lay out a park or a 
country-place as they wish, but when once 
their backs are turned, how quick is park- 
commissioner or owner to retouch and spoil, 
or to neglect and likewise spoil their work ! 
How seldom does he ask himself what it was 
that his landscape-gardener really wanted to 
do, what was the general effect he wanted to 
produce, and then address himself to devel- 
oping and preserving it ! We seldom see 
any park or country-place, great or small, 
of which we can say, There is everything 
here that the eye desires, there is nothing 
that it could wish away. Almost any pro- 
prietor would be surprised did we venture 
to criticise the view from his window upon 
the same principles that we should apply to 
a painting on his walls ; and yet, unless it 
will bear such criticism, it is not what he 
should have wished to make it. 
Of course, only an experienced and capa- 
ble artist is likely to arrange any extensive 
gardening scheme with success ; and even 
3 * 
