tion of the Poets.* Kent saw the incongruity of artificial design when at variance with nature. The straight walk, the clipped hedge, the tortured yew, sunk beneath the superior chastity of his taste. He made as much improvement as an innovator could do, who had a prevailing bad taste to contend with, but for which he was peculiarly gifted by being an historical painter. According to Lord Walpole, he at once leaped over all boundaries, and the first stroke was the destruction of circumscribing walls-the same has lately been pursued at Kensington Gardensand the introduction of the haw-haw or sunk fence in its stead; next, that of blending and harmonizing the lawn with the park followed, for he at once saw that all nature was a garden, only bounded by lofty hills or the distant horizon, and he was painter enough to feel the charms of landscape. Hewas also bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate; and, born with a genius, to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect Essays. Though he realized the compositions of Poussin and Claude, the greatest masters in classic landscape painting, yet Kent, says his lordship, was neither without faults nor assistance, for it was Alexander Pope who contributed to form his taste; and the gardens at Carlton House in London, which he laid out, but since destroyed to make way for a noble terrace, were probably borrowed from the Poet's at Twickenham.+ In the reign of George III. Kent was succeeded by Brown, a most eminent landscape-gardener, whose reputation became so great at the time, that he was employed by nearly every nobleman in the kingdom, either to lay out or remodel the grounds around their mansions; and so pleased were they, that they styled him, Capability Brown, by which epithet he was known. Mahomet imagined an Elysium, but Brown converted many seats and grounds into terrestrial paradises. He possessed an originality of conception, and had, like Shenstone before him, a poet's eye, and an innate taste for rural embellishment. § He saw the deformity of perverted beauty with keener optics than his predecessor Kent, and viewed nature with the enthusiasm of a lover, and was at last animated and inspired by some of his own creations: and though it cannot be denied that he sometimes tricked her out in meretricious ornaments, and patched her with too refined an art, he never lost sight of her prominent charms, genius as a layer out of grounds; some suppose at Claremont, but that he planned the grounds at Esher we have evident proof in the Essays of Pope, who says, "Here Kent and nature vied for Pelham's love." That he excelled in this art we have further authority from Mason, the Poet, who has extolled Kent's elysian scenes in the highest style of panegyric; and observes in a note, that he used to pride himself in shadowing his more finished pieces with evergreens, which painter-like practice has since his death been amplified and recommended for practice by Wheatly, in his "Observations on Modern Gardening." Previous to Kent's commencement of landscape-gardening, Addison had given hints for improving the old geometrical system of landscape-gardening, in his papers on the Imagination, published in the Spectator so early as 1712, which ought to be read and studied. And Pope, in the Guardian in the following year, attracted the attention of noblemen and gentlemen, by condemning the verdant sculptures which had been long practised in the topary style; and he afterwards wrote a poetic epistle to Lord Burlington, Kent's patron, where he laid down the justest principles of the art, and recommended the study of nature, and the necessity of consulting the genius of the place.-(B.) Stowe, where such a concatenation of talents has been engaged, was one of the principal works of Kent. This place, which has now been celebrated for its pleasure-grounds for nearly a century, when beheld at a distance, looks like a vast grove interspersed with columns, obelisks, and towers, emerging from a luxuriant mass of foliage. A stranger in passing through the grounds is astonished at the number, the beauty, and the magnificence of the buildings; and the house with its extended front, elevated site, and extensive prospects, is a truly grand object. The friends of Lord Cobham seem to have considered him as the first who exhibited the new style to his country, if we may judge from the concluding lines of an inscription to his memory, on an obelisk in the garden, ET ELEGANTIORI HORTORUM CULTU HIS PRIMUM IN AGRIS ILLUSTRATO PATRIAM ORNAVIT, 1747.—(Seeley.) Launcelot Brown was born at Kirkdale in Northumberland, and bred a gardener. After some years he went to Woodstock in Oxfordshire, where he followed that business, but in process of time became head gardener at Stowe in Buckinghamshire, where he con. tinued till 1750, when he left, and was engaged as gardener to the Duke of Grafton, at Wakefield Lodge, Northamptonshire, where he directed the formation of a lake, which laid the foundation of his fame and fortune. Lord Cobham, his patron, afterwards procured for him the situation of royal gardener at Hampton Court and Windsor. From this time he was consulted by the first nobility, and among others the Duke of Marlborough, at Blenheim; there he threw a dam across the vale, and the first artificial lake in the world was completed in a week. By this undertaking he entirely obtained the summit of his popularity. The fashion of engaging him, says Mason, continued to 1768. Improvement was the passion of the day, and there was scarcely a country gentleman who did not, on some occasion or other, consult the royal gardener. In 1770, we find he had the honour to serve the office of high sheriff in the county of Huntingdon, and in 1773 he died, probably in that county. Repton, who styles him his great self-taught predecessor, has given us a list of his principal works, the places he altered are beyond all reckoning. He also occasionally acted as an architect; Croom Court, the seat of the Earl of Coventry, in Worcestershire, was planned by him, and the ornamental grounds are amongst his best works. At Compton Verney, in Warwickshire, he built a bridge across a sheet of water, which greatly enhanced the foreground, and gave a noble effect to this elysian scenery. It is supposed he was never out of England, but he sent pupils and plans to Scotland and Ireland. Poulowsky, a seat of the late Emperor Paul, near St. Petersburgh, is supposed to be from his design. Mr. Loudon says, he gave estimates for the execution of his works, and amassed a considerable fortune; and dying without issue, his property descended to his nephew. Where he was buried I have not been able to ascertain, but most probably in Huntingdonshire, as he was sheriff of that county about three years before he died. He left no published works or MSS. on the subject.—(Author.) 66 § Shenstone, says Dr. Johnson, in coming into possession of his paternal estate-the Leasows in Shropshire-went to live on it, and now was excited his delight in rural pleasures, and his ambition of rural elegance, he began from this time to point his prospects, to diversify his surfaces, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters, which he did with much judgment, and such fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful, a place to be visited by travellers, and copied by designers."(Lives of the Poets.) and his worst errors can only be considered as minute pimples on a beautiful face. Now, to unite rural ornament with convenience of habitation, is considered the most common object of the artist; in this it must be said of Brown, says Marshall, in his Review of the Landscape written by Payne Knight, "that he had raised the art of embellishing natural scenes in the more immediate environs of fashionable residences to a degree of excellence and unity, and with a rapidity which no other liberal art ever experienced, by which he raised the envy of those who did not, or would not, understand his principles, amongst whom was Sir William Chambers, the king's architect, who declared, that if the mania were not checked, in a few years longer there would not be found three trees standing in a line between the Land's End and the Tweed.* Here justly might the Poet say, "He who would free from malice pass his days, Must live obscure and never merit praise."-JOHN GAY. The next great luminary in landscape-gardening, to which many of our noblemen and gentlemen's seats owe their charms, and brings the progress of the art down to our own time, was Repton. This artist, varied from Brown in respect to the picturesque; in every other point he was a great defender of his principles, though he did not follow them. He was a beautiful draftsman, and began his career as a professor of landscape-gardening, about 1788. He gave, besides plans and views for improvement, his written opinion, in a regular form, generally combining the whole into a manuscript volume, which he called the Red Book of the place, (but more appropriate if styled the Green Book). He was extensively consulted, though it is believed he never (like Launcelot Brown) undertook the execution of his own plans. The magnificent grounds at Asheridge, belonging to the Duke of Bridgewater, in Berkshire, were laid out by Repton. We are not aware that he was ever employed out of England, but Vallyfield, in Perthshire, was visited by his two sons, and arranged from their father's design. The character of this artist's talents, says Mr. Loudon, seems to have been cultivation rather than genius, and he seems to have been more anxious to follow than to lead, to gratify the preconceived wishes of his employers, and to improve on the fashion of the day, rather than to strike out new and original beauties. Repton's taste in Architectural appendage to country seats was particularly elegant, and his published works on this subject are valuable, and so are his observations on landscape-gardening. The chef d'œuvre of Brown was the improvement of Blenheim in Oxfordshire: there he had the noblest field to display his talents, and he did not labour in vain. Kent's plan had been to alter the old stiff method of laying out grounds; Brown's system was to explode and form a new one of his own; in this he was sure to be attacked, which was afterwards verified. "The system of Brown, (said Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, in 1795,) has been contemptuously called by its present opponents, a system of clumping and belting, but we are convinced that these critics in the rural art have ridiculed what they did not or would not understand. They consider Brown's means as his ends, and they laugh at his taste, because in certain cases beauty and the picturesque are not immediately produced; where scenery is absolutely to be created plantations must be raised; in order to be raised they must be defended, and the formation thus produced must be regarded rather as scaffolding of the building than as the building itself. Brown made clumps and belts; but he evidently did not purpose that they should always remain the heavy and formal masses which they appear. When first planted he saw in them the latent possibility of beauty, and viewing in his mind's eye the good purpose to which the rural artist may hereafter apply thin the imitation of forest scenery, he ordered and endured them. Many, however, not perceiving Brown's ideas, have made formal clumps and belts, thinking that they must be beautiful because Brown made such things; now here is a misapplication of principle. They do not distinguish between places to be created and places to be formed, places which are to be new, and places to be improved; between places capable of any of the minute beauties, and those which possess the sublimer graces, between the dressed garden immediately round the mansion, and the distant grounds or prospect. Observations which apply to one cannot apply to the other." Mr. Marshall endeavours to draw the line, and we think very properly, between that department of landscape scenery, which is the province of the picturesque, the grand and the sublime, and that of the dressed garden. The smoothness and edginess admissible in the latter is as much to be censured when extended to the former, as the rough features of the former would be, were they to be brought immediately under the drawing-room windows.-(B.) + Humphrey Repton was born at Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, in 1752. When Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, went to Ireland in 1783, he accompanied him, and for a short time held a lucrative situation in the Castle of Dublin, but when his friend quitted that country, Repton also with him returned to England. He here directed his attention to the study of architectural drawing, and there too that of landscape-gardening, in which last line he excelled, and for many years obtained considerable employment. He died in 1818, in Essex, but was buried at Aylsham, in Norfolk, about twelve miles from Norwich, towards Cromer, in a recess or nook of the churchyard, having a piece of turf-lawn attached, and planted with roses and heart's-ease; the whole inclosed within iron railings. He left several sons, one of whom had been bred an architect, under the late Mr. Nash, and married a daughter of the late Lord Eldon; he has been employed to make alterations to Kitly House, the seat of John Polexfen Bastand, Esq., and to remodel Peamore House, the seat of Samuel Trehawk Kekwich, Esq., both in Devonshire. He was also the architect to the Episcopal chapel in Waterloo-place, London. I believe, however, that since the death of his father-in-law he has retired from practice. Humphrey Repton has published several excellent books on the art of landscape-gardening which are highly esteemed.—(R. B.) "To build, to plant, whatever you intend, But treat the goddess like a modest fair, He gains all points who pleasingly confounds, In landscape-gardening the art is directed to various objects, and some of them of a higher kind than are belong ing to culture. In the branch under consideration, art is exercised in disposing of ground, water, trees, and ornamental buildings among the same, as well as shrubs adjacent to the mansion, which enters into the composition of verdant landscape. This, in a strict sense, is what is termed landscape-gardening; but landscapes are seldom to be created for their own sakes. Landscape-gardening as actually practised may be defined, the art of arranging the different parts which compose the home-scenery around a country-seat, so as to produce different beauties and rural walks, of which that scene of domestic life is so susceptible. However, without natural taste, the professor of landscape-gardening will never excel. It also requires genius to seize the grand outline with the mind's eye, to adapt the design to the predominant features in the landscape, and to unfold the beauties of nature by the masterly touches of art: this is the sublime province of the ornamental composer of rural scenery. The general rules to be observed in ornamental landscape-gardening, we consider with Monsieur de Girardin, to be the following: "To form the perspective or side scenes of the fore-ground that may best connect the distance with the principal points of view. "To raise such elevations or scenes as may give relief even to an absolute flat. "To hide all disagreeable objects. "To give more extent to those that are pleasing, by concealing their terminations behind a mass of wood, by which means the imagination continues them beyond the point where they are seen. 66 To give an agreeable outline to all surfaces, whether of land or water." These are the ideas of a master, and if we would reduce those rules to practice, we must perfectly understand the subject, and before we commence the improvement of nature, let us recollect what are her peculiarities and genuine beauties. Such are undulating grounds, the shade of trees, woods, the varied greens of foliage, the meandering course or fall of water, from which everything beautiful in landscape-gardening is to be inferred and observed, according to their various dispositions and arrangement. Pleasing distances, termination of prospects, and the innumerable singularities in the disposition of objects which accident shows in particular places, and many others which we would try in vain to imitate. Now variety is certainly desirable, connected with openness of scenery towards the passing sun; but the difference between the walks and what we so much admire in the Italian, is the extreme. The most improved of our pleasuregrounds seem to possess the medium line, or nearly so. To carry into our best plantations more of this wildness, seems the great desideratum to render them yet more pleasing. The description of groves is a consideration not enough regarded: we err here greatly: we plant too close, and we make the walks too narrow: the person who goes into them to be free from the sun, is choked for want of air, and the same closeness occasions a continual dampness under foot, slippery and dangerous at certain seasons of the year; everything in them is gloomy and disagreeable, more the abode of melancholy than cheerfulness. Instead of this, a kind of retired pleasure might be diffused even * The term genius is frequently confounded with that of taste; but on investigation the difference is obvious: taste induces the admiration of any superior work of art, while genius possesses the power of producing it. A person may have taste to admire a production in the fine arts, while he has neither genius to conceive, nor talent to produce it; but where there is genius, there will, in most instances, be taste also.-(M.) there, and we may have solitude, shade, and retirement without a savage darkness or a dreary walled alcove. In these parts let the landscape-gardener consider both the outer aspect and the inner disposition. We are too formal in the plantations; let us remember how it is in nature; irregularity is there the beauty, and it must be considered here by intermingling trees of different forms and coloured verdure. Thus, there will be an object of interest from some turn of the plantation, or from several joined; if the plantation be formed with judgment, there will always be variety. Let us consider the autumn, which comes on gradually: when the leaves change colour before the fall, some become brown, some yellow, some red, while others change their green entirely to paleness; these variations well known, and trees of different hues judiciously intermixed, will paint the masses by which every eye will be surprised and delighted; it will be beauty and it will be nature. This much considered, the walks will be diversified, and, answering to the various points of the compass, give shelter on every occasion from the bleak winds and fervent sun. The form prescribed for those walks as the most graceful, is the serpentine; but though the idea be just, we often see it badly executed; the paths are sometimes too much curved, twisted, and narrow; by this they are disagreeable, abrupt, and gloomy. On the contrary, let them have a considerable breadth, and we shall be able to walk in them with pleasure; the trees will not then close so thick at top as to shut out air, still give a sufficient shade from the sun; we shall at the same time have freedom, ease, and elegance. Let the serpentine walk have few, and those be slight turns, and here and there let an aged fantastic tree, with all its natural ruggedness of bark, break in upon the uniformity and partially obstruct the walk, where a seat may be placed. Let the plantation be made of selected trees, as we have suggested, and have good distances from each other; they will grow more vigorously, and the walks be more salubrious. This open space of planting will give room for flowering shrubs; and here the lilly of the valley, the primroses, violets, and kingcups may lurk, "with all the lowly children of the shade." Thus may groves and plantations be formed equally ornamental and exhilarating to the other parts of the garden, elegant and pleasing in themselves, and fit to form arbours in which to place pedestal statues of rural deities, terminals, temples, alcoves, and various decorative structures. "The proprietor will here be able to walk, meditate, and view nature's productions, and have sufficient vision of all her charms displayed around him. This will result from the same cause, that is, from the uppermost or distant part of the plantation; the growth of every tree being left free and disengaged, spreads as nature sends forth its wide branches, they are all clothed with lively leaves, and as they play about with every gust of wind scatter the trembling shade, while dancing in the air on the walks below, while they adinit a free course to the whole plantation. Even straightness in a path of this kind is not always unpleasing where the grand heaven is seen through the opening of an amazing vista, the air and sky make a kind of sea-view, the country only appearing on approach at the end of the avenue. The external aspect of the plantation can only appear as waving masses of trees, and in these there is a wildness which we have directed the gardener to improve. The naturally gloomy air that would be assumed there is rendered cheerful by opening glades, by the variety of hues, which well chosen trees always produce when in their perfection as in their decay; thus advantage is to be taken of what appears to less considerate minds the imperfection of nature. It is, nevertheless, contrast and variety that please us, but this must be chaste, harmonious, and without glare." (Morris.) Whatever may be the number of distinct characteristics which the forms of ground possess, there is an equal number of different proportions required in their composition to be either picturesque or grand, and so strong is this natural determination of the beauty of composition, that after admiring the outline of one scene, we very often, in a few minutes after, find equal beauty in a composition of a totally different kind, when it distinguishes a scene of an opposite character. In a good combination of ground, the style of every part must accord or be accommodated to the character of the whole, for every piece of ground is distinguished by certain properties. It is either tame or bold, gentle or rude, continued or broken, and if any variety inconsistent with those properties be obtruded, it has no other effect than to weaken one idea without raising another. The insipidity of a flat is not taken away by a few scattered hillocks; a continuation of uneven ground can alone give the idea of irregularity. A long deep abrupt break among easy swells and falls seems at least but a piece left unfinished, and which ought to have been softened; it is not more natural because it is more rude; on the other hand, a small, fine, polished form in the midst of rough mishapen ground, though more elegant than all about it, is generally no better than a patch, itself disgraced, and disfiguring the scene. A thousand instances might be added to show that the prevailing idea ought to pervade every part, so far, at least indispensably, as to exclude whatever distracts it, and as much further as possible, to accommodate the character of the ground to that of the scene to which it belongs. "The same principle extends to the proportion and to the number of parts; ground is seldom beautiful or natural without variety, or even without contrast; the precautions which have been given extend no further than to prevent variety from degenerating into inconsistency, and contrast into contradiction. Within the extremes nature, supplies an inexhaustible fund, and variety, thus limited, so far from destroying, improves the general effect; each distinguished part makes a separate impression, and all becoming the same stamp, all concurring to the same end, every one is an additional support to the prevailing idea. An accurate observer will see in every form several circumstances by which it is distinguished from every other. If the scene be mild and quiet, he will place together those which do not differ widely, and he will gradually depart from the similitude. In ruder scenes the successive will be less regular, and the transition more sudden. The character of the place must determine the degree of difference betwixt contiguous forms; the assemblage of the most elegant forms in the happiest situation, is, to a degree, indiscriminate, if they have not been selected and arranged with a design to produce certain impressions; an air of magnificence, of simplicity, of cheerfulness, tranquillity, or some other general character, ought to pervade the whole; and objects pleasing in themselves, if they contradict that character should therefore be excluded; those which are only indifferent must sometimes make room for such as are more significant; many will often be intruded for no other merit than their expression, and some which are, in general, rather disagreeable, may occasionally be recommended; even barrenness itself may be an acceptable circumstance in a spot dedicated to solitude and melancholy." (Wheatly.) Now the great secret in laying out ornamental grounds is to preserve the accurate character of every scene, whether original or created; so it is the same principle that determines the opinion of men with regard to its beauty. All rules with regard to the forms of ground, of water, of wood, of rocks, and of buildings, may be referred to this leading principle, and that they are nothing more than investigations of the character of the different forms and directions, how to apply them in scenes of different natures and expressions. The same principle of diversity attaches to the vegetable forms, many of the class of trees, as round-heads, spirey-heads, and pendants, have likewise distinct characters differing in shape; again, colour, as green, brown, buff, &c. all those are sufficiently distinguished for the purposes of variety. If they differ in two or three they become contrasts, if in all, they are opposite, and seldom groupe well together, looking like so many spots. Those are the contrary which are of one character, and distinguished only as the characteristic work is strongly or faintly impressed upon them; as a young beech, for instance, and a birch, or acacia, and the larch, all pendant, though in different degrees, for a beautiful mass in which variety is preserved without sameness. The same principle is followed in landscape-painting as in the disposition of the different colours. It is not the mere mixture of colours that is beautiful, but their association and harmonious variety. In the different colours that are arranged upon a painter's pallet, we say there is no beauty, because there is no relation; what then is the relation which is necessary to constitute a beautiful composition? it is not then mere relation or colours, because colours of very different kinds are found to produce beautiful compositions. It is not any established relation between particular colours which are beautiful, because in different subjects different compositions are necessary, it is the relation of expression. In natural scenery, for instance, the colours of the great ingredients-ground, water, wood, rocks, and edifices—are very different, and are susceptible of great varieties. In every scene which is expressive, we look for and demand a variety in the expression of the different colours. We often find fault accordingly with the colour of particular objects in such scenes, and say they are too solemn, too glaring, or too rich for the rest of the scene. The vivid green, which is sometimes pleasing in a cheerful landscape, would ill suit a scene of melancholy or desolation. The brown heath, which so singularly accords with the scenes of gloom and barrenness, would be irreconcilable in a landscape of gaiety. The grey rocks which throw so venerable an air over grave and solemn scenes, would have but a feeble effect in the scenes of horror. The silvery and peaceful purling stream, meandering on its mazy way, which gives such loveliness to the solitary valley, would appear altogether out of place amid scenes of rude and savage majesty. Perhaps a more impressive picture could not be presented than the one drawn by Robert Burns of Scotch scenery :— Admiring nature in her wildest grace, The lawn's wood fringed in nature's native taste, Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, |