12 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
residences in the country, its principles may be studied 
with advantage, even by him who has only three trees to 
plant for ornament ; and we hope no one will think his 
grounds too small, to feel willing to add something to the gene- 
ral amount of beauty in the country. If the possessor of the 
cottage acre, would embellish in accordance with propriety, 
he must not, as we have sometimes seen, render the whole 
ridiculous by aiming at ambitious and costly embellish- 
ments ; but he will rather seek to delight us by the good 
taste evinced in the tasteful simplicity of the whole arrange- 
ment. And if the proprietors of our country villas, in their 
improvements, are more likely to run into any one error than 
another, we fear it will be that of too great a desire for dis- 
play — too many vases, temples, and seats — and too little 
purity and simplicity of general effect. 
The enquiring reader will perhaps be glad to have a 
glance at the history and progress of the art of tasteful gar- 
dening ; a recurrence to which, as well as to the history of 
the fine arts, will afford abundant proof that, in the first 
stage or infancy of all these arts, while the perception of their 
ultimate capabilities is yet crude and imperfect, mankind 
has in every instance been completely satisfied with the 
mere exhibition of design or art. Thus in Sculpture, the first 
statues were only attempts to imitate rudely the form of a 
human figure, or in painting, to represent that of a tree : 
the skill of the artist, in effecting an imitation successfully, 
being sufficient to excite the astonishment and admiration of 
those who had not yet made such advances as to enable 
them to appreciate the superior beauty of expression. 
Landscape Gardening is, indeed, only a modern word, 
first coined, we believe, by Shenstone, since the art has 
been based upon natural beauty ; but as an extensively 
