ment, there is a variety of bad. Some, perhaps, would cut down the old pollards, clear the rubbish, and leave only the maiden trees standing; some might plant up the whole; others grub up every thing, and make a shrubbery on each side; others put clumps of shrubs, or of firs; but there is one improvement which I am afraid almost all who had not been used to look at objects with a painter's eye would adopt, and which alone would entirely destroy its character; that is smoothing and levelling the ground. The moment this mechanical common-place operation, by which Mr. Brown and his followers have gained so much credit, is begun, adieu to all that the painter admires-to all intricacies, to all the beautiful varieties of form, tint, and light and shade; every deep recess---every bold projection---the fantastic roots of trees---the winding paths of sheep ---all must go; in a few hours, the rash hand of false taste completely demolishes, what time only, and a thousand lucky accidents can mature, so as to make it become

the admiration and study of a Ruysdal or a Gainsborough; and reduces it to such a thing, as an Oilman in Thames-street may at any time contract for by the yard at Islington or Mile-End.

I had lately an opportunity of observing the progress of improvement in one lane, and the effect of it in another, both unfortunately bordering on gentlemen's pleasure grounds. The first had on one side a high bank full of the beauties I have described; I was particularly struck with a beech which stood single on one part of it, and with the effect and character which its spreading roots gave, both to the bank and to the tree itself: the sheep also had made their sidelong paths to this spot, and often lay in the little compartments between the roots. One day I found a great many labourers wheeling mould to this place; by degrees they filled up all inequalities, and completely covered the roots and pathways; one would have supposed they were working for my Uncle Toby, under the

direction of Corporal Trim*, for they had converted this varied bank into a perfect glacis, only the gazons were omitted. They had however worked up the mould they had wheeled into a sort of a mortar, and had laid it as smooth from top to bottom as a mason could have done with his trowel. From the number of men employed, the

* These worthy pioneers, their employment, and their employers, are very aptly described in two verses of Tasso, and especially if the word guastatori* be taken in its most obvious sense :

Inanzi i guastatori avea mandati,

I vuoti luoghi empir', & spianar gli erti.

This is a most complete receipt for spoiling a picturesque

spot; and one might suppose, from this military style having

been so generally adopted, and every thing laid open, that our improvers are fearful of an enemy being in ambuscade among the bushes of a gravel pit, or lurking in some intricate group of trees. In that respect, it must be owned, the clump has infinite merit; for it may be reconnoitred from every point, and seen through in every direction. ́;

quantity of earth wheeled, and the nicety with which this operation was performed, I am persuaded it was in a great measure done for the sake of beauty.

The improved part of the other lane I never saw in its original state; but by what remains untouched, and by the accounts I heard, it must have afforded noble studies for a painter. The banks are higher and the trees are larger than in the other lane, and their branches, stretching from side to side.

I heard a vast deal from the gardener of the place near it, about the large ugly roots that appeared above ground, the large holes the sheep used to lie in, and the rubbish of all kinds that used to grow about them. The last possessor took care to fill up and clean, as far as his property went; and that every thing might look regular, he put, as a boundary to the road, a row of white

pales at the foot of the bank on each side, and on that next his house he raised a peat wall as upright as it could well stand, by way of a facing to the old bank, and in the middle of this peat wall, planted a row of laurels: this row the gardener used to cut quite flat at top, and the cattle reaching over the pales, and browsing the lower shoots within their bite, kept it as even at bottom; so that it formed one projecting lump in the middle, and had just as picturesque an appearance as a bushy wig squeezed between the hat and the cape. I should add, that these two specimens of dressed lanes are not in a distant county, but within thirty miles of London, and in a district full of expensive embellishments.

I am afraid many of my readers will think that I have been a long while getting through these lanes; but in them, in old quarries, and long neglected chalk and gravel pits, a great deal of what constitutes, and what destroys picturesque beauty, is