The reasons why lawns have so little variety............. Why a lawn could hardly be made to look well in a picture.... 291 Yet their peculiar character ought not be destroyed Verdure and smoothness, which are the characteristic beauties of a lawn, are in their nature allied to monotony; but im- provers instead of trying to lessen that defect, have added Soft and smooth colours, like soft and smooth sounds, are grateful to the mere sense: a relish for artful combinations, Such a relish does not exclude a taste for simple scenes, and Remarks on certain passages of the poets, respecting the banks of rivers: none of them applicable to those of Mr. Brown's No professor has endeavoured to make an artificial like a natural 311 Mr. Brown and his followers great economists of invention.... 313 Cruelty of destroying the retired character of a brook. Regu- Objects of reflection, peculiarly suited to stagnant water The dressed bank and garden scenery: the reason why that part is superior to the other improved parts............ ibid. ...... 315 ibid. 320 323 389 The true proser-an emblem of Mr. Brown's performances.... 341 The opposite character-an emblem of the picturesque He alone deserves the name of an improver who leaves, or cre- ON THE PICTURESQUE, &c, THERE is no country, I believe (if we except China) where the art of laying out grounds is so much cultivated as it now is in England. Formerly the decorations near the house were infinitely more magnificent and expensive than they are at present; but the embellishments of what are called the grounds, and of all the extensive scenery round the place, were much less attended to; and, in general, the park, with all its timber and thickets, was left in a state of picturesque neglect. As these em bellishments are now extended over a whole district, and as they give a new and peculiar character to the general face of the country, it is well worth considering whether they give a natural and a beautiful one, and whether the present system of improving (to use a short though often an inaccurate term) is founded on any just principles of taste. In order to examine this question, the first enquiry will naturally be, whether there is any standard, to which in point of grouping and of general composition, works of this sort can be referred; any authority higher than that of the persons who have gained the most general and popular reputation by those works, and whose method of conducting them has had the most extensive influence on the general taste? I think there is a standard; there are authorities of an infinitely higher kind; the authorities of those great artists who have most diligently studied the beauties of nature, both in their grandest and most general effects, and in their minutest detail; who have observed every variety of form and of colour; have been able to select and combine, and then, by the magic of their art, to fix upon the canvas all these various beauties. But, however highly I may think of the art of painting, compared with that of improving, nothing can be farther from my intention (and I wish to impress it in the strongest manner on the reader's mind) than to recommend the study of pictures in preference to that of nature, much less to the exclusion of it. Whoever studies art alone, will have a narrow pedantic manner of considering all objects, and of referring them solely to the minute and practical purposes of that art, whatever it be, to which his attention has been particularly directed: of this Mr. Brown's followers afford a very striking example; and if it be right that every thing should be referred to art, at least let it be referred to one, whose variety, compared to the monotony of what is called improvement, appears infinite, but which again |