catches you at your return; and the idea of this distinct, unavoidable line of separation, damps all search after novelty. Far different from those magic ciroles of fairies and enchanters, that gave birth to splendid illusions, to the palaces and gardens of Alcina and Armida, this, like the ring of Angelica, instantly dissipates every illusion, every enchantment.

If ever a belt be allowable, it is where the house is situated in a dead flat, and in a naked ugly country; there at least it cannot injure any variety of ground, or exclude any distant prospect; it will also be the real boundary to the eye, however uniform, and any exclusion in such cases. is a benefit; but where there is any play of ground, and a descent from the house, it more completely disfigures the place than any other improvement. What most delights us in the intricacy of varied ground, of swelling knolls, and of vallies between them, retiring from the sight in different directions amidst trees or thickets,

is, that according to Hogarth's expression, it leads the eye a kind of wanton chace; this is what he calls the beauty of intricacy, and is that which distinguishes what is produced by soft winding shapes, from the more sudden and quickly-varying kind, which arises from abrupt and rugged forms. All this wanton chace, as well as the effects of more wild and picturesque intricacy, is immediately checked by any circular plantation; which never appears to retire from the eye and lose itself in the distance, never admits of partial concealments. Whatever varieties of hills and dales there may be, such a plantation must stiffly cut across them, so that the undulations, and what in seamen's language may be called the trending of the ground, cannot in that case be humoured; nor can its playful character be marked by that style of planting, which at once points out, and adds to its beautiful intricacy.

This may serve to shew how impossible it is to plan any forms of plantations that

will suit all places, however it may suit the professor's convenience to establish such a doctrine*.

I have perhaps expressed myself more strongly, and more at length than I otherwise should have done, on the subject of so paltry an invention as that of the belt, from the extreme disgust I felt at seeing its effect in a place, of which the general

There is in this respect no small degree of resemblance between the art of gardening, and that of medicine, in which, after the general principles have been acquired, the judgment lies in the application; and every case (as an eminent physician observed to me) must be considered as a special case.

This holds precisely in improving, and in both arts the quacks are alike; they have no principles, but only a few nostrums, which they apply indiscriminately to all situatious, and all constitutions. Clumps and Belts, pills and drops, are distributed with equal skill; the one plants the right, and clears the left, as the other bleeds the east, and purges the west ward. The best improver or physician, is he who leaves most to nature; who watches and takes advantage of those indications which she points out when left to exert her own powers, but which, when once destroyed or suppressed by an empyric of either kind, present themselves

no more.

features are among the noblest in the kingdom. In front, the sea appears in view, embayed amidst islands and promontories, and backed by mountains; between the house and the shore, there is a quick, though not an abrupt descent of ground, on which a judicious improver might have planted different masses of wood, groups, and single trees, more or less dispersed or connected together, with lawns and glades between them, gently leading the eye among their intricacies to the shore. This would have formed a rich and varied foreground to the magnificent distance; and in the approach to the seaside, which ever way you took, would have broken that distance, and have formed in conjunction with it, a number of new and beautiful compositions. One of Mr. Brown's successors has thought differently; and this uncommon display of scenery is disgraced by a belt.

I do not remember the place in its unimproved state; but I was told that there

was a great quantity of wood between the house and the sea, and that the vessels ap peared, as at that wonderful place, Mount Edgecumbe, sailing over the tops, and gliding among the stems of the trees; if so, this professor

"Has left sad marks of his destructive sway."

The method of thinning trees which has been adopted by layers out of ground, perfectly corresponds with their method of planting; for in both cases they totally neglect, what in the general sense of the word may be called picturesque effects. Trees of remarkable size, indeed, usually escape; but it is not sufficient to attend to the giant sons of the forest: often the loss of a few trees, nay of a single tree of middling size, is of infinite consequence to the general effect of the place, by making an irreparable breach in the outline of a principal wood; often some of the most beautiful groups, owe the playful variety of their form, and their happy connection