which principally shew themselves are larches, and they produce the most compleat monotony of outline. The summits of round-headed trees, especially the oak, vary in each tree; but there can only be one form in those of pointed trees *: on that account, wherever ornament is the aim, great care ought to be taken that the general outline be round and full, and only partially broken and varied by pointed trees, and that too many of those should not rise above the others, so as principally to catch the eye. Now wherever larches are mixed, even in a small proportion, over the whole of a plantation, the quickness of their growth, their pointed tops, and the peculiarity of their colour, make them so conspicuous, that the whole wood seems to consist of nothing else.

I have seen two places on a very large scale laid out by a professed improver of high reputation†, where all the defects

* Linea recta velut sola est, & mille recurvæ.

+ Some persons have imagined, that by a professor of

I have mentioned were most strikingly exemplified. Whatever might be the other trees of which the separate clumps consisted, nothing was seen above but larches; from the multitude of their sharp points, the whole country appeared en herisson, and had much the same degree of resemblance to natural scenery, as one of the old military plans with scattered platoons of spearmen, has to a print after Claude or Poussin. With all my admiration of trees, I had rather be without them, than have them so disposed: indeed, I have often seen hills, where the outline, the swellings, and the deep hollows were so striking, and where the surface was so varied by the mixture of smooth closebitten turf, with the rich, though short cloathing of fern, heath, or furze, and by the different openings and sheep tracks

high reputation I must have meant Mr. Repton; but these two places, which were laid out before he took to the profession, clearly prove that it did not then require his talents to gain a high reputation: I hope in future it will be less easily acquired.

among them, that I should have been sorry to have had the whole covered with the finest wood; nay, I could hardly have wished for trees the most happily disposed, and of course should have dreaded those which are usually placed there by art. An improver has rarely such dread: in general the first idea that strikes him, is that of distinguishing his property; nor is he easy till he has put his pitch-mark on all the summits. Indeed this gratifies his desire of celebrity, by exciting the curiosity and admiration of the vulgar; and travellers of taste will naturally be provoked to enquire, though from another motive, to whom those unfortunate hills belong.

It is melancholy to compare the slow progress of beauty, with the upstart growth of deformity; trees and woods planted in the most judicious style, will not for years strongly attract the painter's notice, though the planter, like a fond parent, feels the greatest tenderness for his children, at the time they are least interesting to others *.

* Madame de Sevignè, whose maternal tenderness seems

But to the deformer (a name too often synonymous to the improver) it is not necessary that his trees should have attained their full growth; as soon as he has planted them in his round fences, his principal work is done; the eye which used to follow with delight the bold sweep of outline, and all the playful undulation of ground, finds itself suddenly checked and its progress stopt, even by these embryo clumps. They have the same effect on the great features of nature, as an excrescence on those of the human face; in which, though the proportion of one feature to another greatly varies in different persons, yet these differences, like others of a similar kind in inanimate nature, give variety of character without disturbing the general accord of the parts but let there be a wart or a pimple on any prominent feature-no dignity or beauty of countenance can detach the attention from it; that little, round,

to have extended itself to her plantations, says, " Je fais jetter a bas de grands arbres, parce qu'ils font ombrage, ou qu'ils incommodent mes jeunes enfants."

distinct lump, while it disgusts the eye, has a fascinating power of fixing it on its own deformity. This is precisely the effect of clumps the beauty or grandeur of the surrounding parts only serve to make them more horribly conspicuous; and the dark tint of the Scotch fir, of which they are generally composed, as it separates them by colour, as well as by form, from every other object, adds the last finish.

But even large plantations of firs, when they are not the natural and the prevailing trees of the country, have a harsh and heavy look, from their not harmonizing with the rest of the landscape; and this is particularly the case, when, as it sometimes happens, one side of a valley is planted solely with firs, the other with deciduous trees. The common expressions of a heavy colour, or a heavy form, shew that the eye feels an impression from objects analogous to that of weight: thence arises the ne cessity of preserving what may be called a proper balance, so that the quantity of dark colour on one side, or in one part of