piece of made water, or of an improved river, his banks are perfectly savage; parts of them covered with trees and bushes that hang over the water; and near the edge of it tussucks of rushes, large stones, and stumps; the ground sometimes smooth, sometimes broken and abrupt, and seldom keeping for a long space, the same level from the water: no curves that answer each other; no resemblance, in short, to what the improver had been used to admire: a few strokes of the painter's brush would reduce the bank on each side to one level, to one green; would make curve answer curve, without bush or tree to hinder the eye from enjoying the uniform smoothness and verdure, and from pursuing and artificial an appearance. A Frenchman, who was also looking at the picture, cried out, "Cependant, Monsieur, on pourroit y donner une si belle fête!" This was very characteristic of that gay nation, but it is equally so of a number of Claude's pictures. They have an air de fete beyond all others; and there is no painter whose works ought to be so much studied for highly dressed yet varied nature. without interruption, the continued sweep of these serpentine lines; a little cleaning and polishing of the fore-ground, would give the last touches of improvement, and complete the picture. There is not a person in the smallest degree conversant with painting, who would not at the same time be shocked and diverted at the black spots and the white spots, the naked water,-the naked buildings, the scattered unconnected groups of trees, and all the gross and glaring violations of every principle of the art; and yet this, without any exaggeration, is the method in which many scenes worthy of Claude's pencil, have been improved. Is it then possible to imagine, that the beauties of imitation should be so distinct from those of reality, nay, so completely at variance, that what disgraces and makes a picture ridiculous, should become ornamental when applied to nature? CHAPTER II. IT seems to me that the neglect, which prevails in the works of modern improvers, of all that is picturesque, is owing to their exclusive attention to high polish and flowing lines; the charms of which they are so engaged in contemplating, that they overlook two of the most fruitful sources of human pleasure: the first, that great and universal source of pleasure, variety--the power of which is independent of beauty, but without which even beauty itself soon ceases to please; the second, intricacy---a quality which, though distinct from variety, is so connected and blended with it, that the one can hardly exist without the other. According to the idea I have formed of it, intricacy in landscape might be defined, that disposition of objects, which, by a partial and uncertain concealment, excites and nourishes curiosity*. Variety can hardly require a definition, though from the practice of many layers-out of ground, one might suppose it did. Upon the whole, it appears to me, that as intricacy in the disposition, and variety in the forms, the tints, and the lights and shadows of objects, are Many persons, who take little concern in the intricacy of oaks, beeches, and thorns, may feel the effects of partial concealment in more interesting objects, and may have experienced how differently the passions are moved by an open licentious display of beauties, and by the unguarded disorder which sometimes escapes the care of modesty, and which coquetry so successfully imitates; Parte appar delle mamme acerbe & crude, the great characteristics of picturesque scenery; so monotony and baldness, are the great defects of improved places. Nothing would place this in so distinct a point of view, as a comparison between some familiar scene in its natural and picturesque state, and in that which would be its improved state according to the present mode of gardening. All painters who have imitated the more confined scenes of nature, have been fond of making studies from old neglected bye roads and hollow ways; and perhaps there are few spots that in so small a compass, have a greater variety of that sort of beauty called picturesque; but, I believe, the instances are very rare of painters, who have turned out volunteers into a gentleman's walk or drive, either when made between artificial banks, or when the natural sides or banks have been improved. I shall endeavour to examine whence it happens, that a painter looks coldly on what is very generally admired, and discovers a thousand C 4 |