250 
REVIEW OF DENNIS'S LANDSCAPE GARDENER. 
at some lately improved places, he asserts that “ It is invariably 
perceptible by a glance from the eye of taste, whether grounds have 
been laid out by a mere professional engineer , or under the superin¬ 
tendence of an artist or amateur of paintings; the direction of the 
lines supplying a leading test. The engineer commonly wages war 
with nature, summoning to the field a host of able-bodied mercenaries, 
armed with spades, crow-bars, or pick-axes, and, like potent pioneers, 
clearing the way of all impediments to the valorous champion’s march, 
and with mighty arm rearing ramparts, covered ways, terraces, glacis, 
and multifarious invincible bulwarks. Such work of labour fills the 
gazing multitude with admiration and astonishment, the complacent 
conqueror of nature attaining the consummation of his triumphal 
achievements, the spolia opima, golden treasure. 
“ A man of taste, on the contrary, is content to become the fostering 
nurse of nature, merely controlling eccentric deviations and checking 
luxuriant wildness, attentively studying every prominent feature, and 
delineating every delicate lineament, merely substituting polish for 
coarseness, chasteness for rudeness. By such judicious treatment, 
correctness and elegance, beauty and sublimity are generated. But 
art can no more copy nature in planting, than in painting, without 
minutely and perseveringly scrutinising every interesting trait in her 
character, and every constituent principle contributing, whether by com¬ 
bination or contrast, to form her simple outline and complicated detail.” 
We have quoted the above to show the author’s disapprobation 
of what he facetiously calls modern engineering , and also what he 
considers to be the sole duty of a landscape gardener. And we quite 
agree with the Rev. writer that, unless a man has seen natural 
scenery of every description, and is able to appreciate what is really 
beautiful, picturesque, or sublime, and a practical judge of how far any 
of those characters are creatable about the place on which he may be 
employed, is altogether unfit for the profession of landscape garden¬ 
ing. A man may be able to design a very neat place by making 
smooth gravel walks serpentining through clumps of beautiful flowers 
and shrubs, levelling ground, digging sunk fences, and giving the 
whole of the pleasure ground an air of comfort and high keeping; and 
yet be totally ignorant of the principles of appropriate combination of 
the objects he has to arrange, as shown by painters in their works, or 
as recommended by the author before us. 
The theory of colours as detailed by the writer is well worth study¬ 
ing ; and he refers to two places as examples of ornamental gardening 
which deserve to be imitated as standards of (almost) perfection. 
These are Stourhead, and Luscombe, near Dawlish, the seat of Charles 
