LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
287 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
LETTER FOURTEEN. 
Dear Sir.,—I ended my last epistle by stating the opinion of 
many eminent men and writers on fine taste, as to what should be 
the course of study the landscape gardener should pursue, in order to 
store his mind with pure and correct ideas of natural scenery, and so 
to be able to apply them in every case where he might be employed. 
When we survey the various features which diversify and adorn the 
surface of the earth, some, we find, are much more interesting than 
others. In one place we have extensive prospect ; in another, an 
assemblage of objects which astonish from their immensity, their tower- 
ing height, or their profound depth;—such scenes are said to be sub¬ 
lime. Other scenes, in which appear a gently-winding river or placid 
lake, margined with verdant turf, diversified with scattered masses of 
formally-tufted, aspiring, or pendent-branched trees and evergreen 
shrubs, with a surface flowing in gentle undulations, and where general 
smoothness, softness, and freshness prevail—such scenery, of whatever 
extent it may be, is said to be beautif ul. If this kind of scenery, how¬ 
ever, had a rapid river dashing along in a rugged and tortuous channel; 
if dark granite cliffs started up from an uneven and much-broken sur¬ 
face in various places, and of different altitudes; if many grotesque and 
thunder-scathed trees were here and there scattered about — some 
shrouded in ivy, or surrounded by black-thorns, brambles, burdocks, 
and ferns ; if a ruined mill, with its broken water-wheel, appeared on 
the river’s brink, and on a neighbouring crag the dilapidated turrets 
and battlements of an ancient castle seen high above a base of dark- 
tinted pines: and, moreover, were a camp of gipsies, with their half- 
naked children, their shaggy dogs and asses seen on the foreground of 
such a scene—the whole would be called picturesque. When any por¬ 
tion of the earth’s surface has been appropriated to the special use of 
man, and smoothed and decorated by ranks of trees, clumps of shrubs, 
and knots of flowers, showing the predominance of art and studied 
design—such scenery has been designated by a well-known author 
gardenesque. 
These are the different characters of scenery. Sometimes they are 
met with distinctly marked, but much more frequently mixed ; so that 
the sublime may become merged into the picturesque, and the latter 
may be mellowed into the beautiful. 
To create any scene deserving t&e character of sublimity is entirely 
