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THE BEAUTIFUL AND PICTURESQUE IN GARDEN SCENERY. 215 
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harmonious and complete ; and partly because, from the comparative rarity of highly picturesque 
landscape, it affects us more forcibly when brought into contrast with our daily life. Artists, we 
imagine, find somewhat of the same pleasure in studying wild landscape, where the very rocks and 
trees seem to struggle with the elements for foothold, than they do in contemplating the phases of 
the passions and instincts of human and animal life. The manifestation of power is to many minds 
far more captivating than that of beauty. 
All who enjoy the charms of landscape gardening may, perhaps, be divided into three classes: 
those who have arrived only at certain primitive ideas of beauty, which are found in regular forms 
and straight lines ; those who in the Beautiful seek for the highest and most perfect development of 
the idea in the material form ; and those who in the Picturesque enjoy most a certain wild and incom- 
plete harmony between the idea and the forms in which it is expressed. The two latter classes 
embrace the whole range of modern landscape gardening. 
There is no surface of ground, however bare, which has not, naturally, more or less tendency to 
a Beautiful or a Picturesque expression ; and the improver who detects the true character, and plants, 
builds, and embellishes, as he should, constantly aiming to elicit and strengthen it, will soon arrive at 
a far higher and more satisfactory result than one who, in the common manner, works at random. 
The latter may succeed in producing pleasing grounds — he will undoubtedly add to the general 
beauty and tasteful appearance of the country, and we gladly accord him our thanks ; but the im- 
prover who unites with pleasing forms an expression of sentiment, will affect not only the common 
eye, but, much more powerfully, the imagination, and the refined and delicate taste. 
But there are many persons with small cottage places, of little decided character, who have neither 
room, time, nor income to attempt the improvement of their grounds fully, after either of those two 
schools. How shall thej- render their places tasteful and agreeable in the easiest manner ? We 
answer, by attempting only the simple and the natural ; and the unfailing way to secure this is by 
employing, as leading features, only trees and grass. A soft verdant lawn, a few forest or ornamental 
trees well grouped, walks, and a few flowers, give universal pleasure ; they contain in themselves, in 
fact, the basis of all our agreeable sensations in a landscape garden (natural beauty and the recognition 
of art) ; and they are the most enduring sources of enjoyment in any place. There arc no country 
seats so unsatisfactory and tasteless as those in which, without any definite aim, everything is 
attempted; and a mixed jumble of discordant forms, materials, ornaments, and decorations is 
assembled, a part in one style and a bit in another, without the least feeling of unity or eongruity. 
These rural bedlams, full of all kinds of absurdities without a leading character or expression of any 
sort, cost their owners a vast deal of trouble and money, without giving a tasteful mind a shadow of 
the beauty which it feels at the first glimpse of a neat cottage residence, with its simple sylvan cha- 
racter of well-kept lawn and trees. If the latter does not rank high in the scale of landscape gardening 
as an art, it embodies much of its essence as a source of enjoyment. 
Besides the beauties of form and expression in the different modes of laying out grounds, there are 
certain universal and inherent beauties common to all styles, and indeed to every composition in the 
fine arts. Of these wc shall especially point out those growing out of the principles of UNITY, 
HARMONY, and VARIETY. 
1 . Unity, or the production of a whole, is a leading principle of the highest importance in every 
art of taste or design, without which no satisfactory result can be realised. This arises from the fact, 
that the mind can only attend, with pleasure and satisfaction, to one object, or one composite sensation, 
at the same time. If two distinct objects, or classes of objects, present themselves at once to us, wc 
can only attend satisfactorily to one by withdrawing our attention, for the time, from the other. 
Hence the necessity of a reference to this leading principle of unity. 
In Landscape Gardening, violations of the principle of unity are often to be met with, and they are 
always indicative of the absence of correct taste in art. Looking upon a landscape from the windows 
of a villa residence, we sometimes see a considerable portion of the view embraced by the eye laid out 
in natural groups of trees and shrubs ; and upon one side, or perhaps in the middle of the same scene, a 
formal avenue leading directly up to the house. Such a view can never appear a satisfactory whole. 
because we experience a confusion of sensations in contemplating it. There is an evident incongruity 
in bringing two modes of arranging plantations, so totally different, under the eye at one moment, 
Which distracts rather than pleases the mind. In this example, the avenue, taken by itself, may be a 
beautiful object, and the groups and connected masses may in themselves be elegant : yef it' the two 
*i portions are seen together, they will not form a whole, because they cannot make a composite idea. 
For the Mime reason, there is something unplcasing in the introduction of IVuit trees among elegant 
ornamental trees on a lawn; or even in assembling together, in the same beds, flowering plants and 
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