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niously mingled.” To distinguish;* in nature, harmony from discord; 
to discern the character of every region with a taste which dcvelopes and 
disposes to the best advantage the beautiful of nature—if this is not a 
fine art, then none exists.” The artistic skill of the painter and sculp¬ 
tor consists in a faithful and life-like imitation of nature. The one trans¬ 
fers to the canvas her beautiful forms and exquisite colorings. The other, 
by the magic creations of the chisel, traces her perfect lines—her noble, 
and often god-like attitudes and expressions upon the unthinking marble. 
Now it is the grand achievement of the horticultural artist, that, by his 
close inspection and faithful imitation of nature, he is able to create his 
artificial paradise. In the natural arrangement of his pleasure grounds, 
in the disposition of his verdant sculpture, and the gorgeous display of 
his animated paintings, he comes up to the sublime conceptions of Homer 
and Milton, in their delineations of celestial gardens. Kent, who was 
the great artist and reformer in landscape gardening, carried the theories 
of Pope, Addison and Mason into execution. He had enough of the 
poetic to discover that “ all nature is a garden,” and with the keen eye 
of a painter he arranged the useful and the ornamental in horticulture, 
in all the gracefulness and charming simplicity of nature ; blending in 
natural harmony, her lights and shades and endless forms of beauty. 
His beautiful ideal of a perfect garden may be gathered from the follow¬ 
ing extract from one of his admirers : “ The great principles on which 
he worked were perspective, light and shade. Groups of trees broke a 
too extensive lawn ; evergreens and wood were opposed to the glare of 
the champaign, and by selecting favorite objects and veiling deformities, 
he realized the compositions of the great masters in painting. Where 
objects were wanting to animate his horizon, his taste as an architect 
could immediately supply them. His buildings, his temples, his seats, 
were more the work of his pencil than his science as a constructor. 
Dealing in none but the true colors of nature, and seizing upon its most 
interesting features, a new creation was gradually presented. The living 
landscape was chastened or polished, not transformed.” In this style of 
rural embellishment, the gracefulness of art flows gently into the sim¬ 
plicity and harmony of nature. There is not the stiffness of an indepen¬ 
dent, artificial arrangement on the one hand, nor an “inartistic” and 
servile copying of particular realities in nature, on the other. 
