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or the obelisk superb, it is only what we naturally expect. It is the chain of ideas properly carried on, and gradually lost. My remarks regard only such houses as may be rich, indeed, and elegant, but have nothing in them of superior magnificence.

One ornament of this kind I should be inclined to allow, and that is a handsome gate at the entrance of the park; but it should be proportioned in richness and elegance to the house, and should also correspond with it in style. It should raise the first impression of what you are to expect. Warwick Castle requires a mode of entrance very different from Lord Scarsdale's at Kettlestone, and Burleigh House very different from both. The park gate of Sion House is certainly elegant; but it raises the idea of a style of architecture, which you must drop when you arrive at the house.

Not only should the style of architecture be as much as possible in harmony with that of the house you are about to approach, but it should never be on a scale of grandeur greater than that which corresponds with the house, otherwise expectations will be raised, only to be disappointed. The safest side to err upon is that of modesty of pretension.

The road also through the park should bear the same proportion. It should be spacious or moderate, like the house it approaches. Let it wind; but let it not take any deviation which is not well accounted for. To have the convenience of winding along a valley, or passing a commodious bridge, or avoiding a wood, or a piece of water, any traveller would naturally wish to deviate a little; and obstacles of this kind, if necessary, must be interposed. Mr Brown was often very happy in creating these artificial obstructions.

The road of approach, too, ought to be so constructed as never to raise ideas of magnificence which are not to be fully gratified. Not only the style of the approach, but its length, should be proportioned to the magnitude and grandeur of the mansion. To be carried, winding for miles, through woods, wildernesses, and lawns, in order to arrive at some humble commonplace mansion, is quite enough to beget disgust and contempt when we reach it. We think that the gate, and its lodge, or lodges, should be exceeded by the road of

approach; that the approach should teach us to expect a house a degree below that which it finally discovers to us; that the exterior of the mansion should be surpassed, in some degree, by its interior splendour; and that the comfort and hospitality enjoyed within, should be rather a point above than one iota below that line which previous appearances have led us to expect.

From every part of the approach, and from the ridings and favourite walks about the park, let all the boundaries be secreted. A view of paling, though in some cases it may be picturesque, is in general disgusting.

If there be a natural river, or a real ruin in the scene, it may be a happy circumstance: let the best use be made of it; but I should be cautious in advising the creation of either. At least, I have rarely seen either ruins or rivers well manufactured. Mr Brown, I think, has failed more in river making than in any of his attempts. An artificial lake has sometimes a good effect; but neither propriety nor beauty can arise from it, unless the heads and extremities of it are perfectly well managed and concealed; and, after all, the success is hazardous. You must always suppose it a portion of a larger piece of water; and it is not easy to carry on the imposition. If the house be magnificent, it seldom receives much benefit from an artificial production of this kind. Grandeur is rarely produced:

Seldom art

Can emulate that magnitude sublime

Which spreads the native lake; and failing there,
Her works betray their character and name,

And dwindle into pools

But, in our opinion, an artificial piece of water, if naturally constructed, is always better than no piece of water at all. Of course, the larger, and the more diversified it is, the more pleasing it will be. The smallest sheet of water, however, is valuable and interesting, were it only because its surface gives back the trees on its margin, the blue ether above, and the continual motion of the fleecy clouds, the images of which are carried floating across its bosom. We have often thought that one of the happiest ideas which the fervid imagination of Madame de Staël ever produced, was that of the fountain of Trevi, with its continually rushing waters,

being the "soul of the Eternal City." For our parts, we conceive that a place where the animating rush of water is never heard, may almost be compared to a body devoid of soul. But perhaps it may be worked up into a sort of semivitality by the production of such an extent of artificial water as the natural circumstances of the ground will allow. As to river making, we are inclined to go even farther than Mr Gilpin in our abhorrence of any such attempt. In the manufacture of an artificial sheet of water, although it may be always well to conceal the art as much as possible, yet even the detection of the dam dyke is of little importance, seeing that its utility is apparent, and that the object of creating a liquid mirror is always honestly manifest, and almost always successful. But the creation of an artificial river, is the attempt to deceive the spectator by a trick ; and the more successful the attempt may be for a time, the greater is the disappointment when the cheat is detected, as detected it is sure to be, ere long; and the longer the deception is kept up, the more mortifying and humiliating the discovery will prove, when it does arrive.

The most natural inhabitants of parks are fallow deer, and very beautiful they are; but flocks of sheep and herds of cattle are more useful, and, in my opinion, more beautiful. Sheep particularly are very ornamental in a park. Their colour is just that dingy hue which contrasts with the verdure of the ground; and the flakiness of their wool is rich and picturesque. I should wish them, however, to wear their natural livery, and not to be patched with letters, and daubed over with red ochre. To see the side of a hill spread with groups of sheep, or to see them through openings among the boles of trees, at a little distance, with a gleam of light falling upon them, is very picturesque.

As the garden, or pleasure ground, as it is commonly called, approaches nearer to the house than the park, it takes of course a higher polish. Here the lawns are shorn, instead of being grazed; the roughness of the road is changed into an elegant gravel walk; and knots of flowers and flowering shrubs are introduced, yet blended with clumps of forest trees, which connect it with the park. Single trees also take their station here with great propriety. The spreading oak or elm are

no disgrace to the most ornamented scene. It is the property of these noble plants to harmonize with every species of landscape. They equally become the forest and the lawn; only here they should be beautiful in their kind, and luxuriant in their growth. Neither the scathed nor the unbalanced oak would suit a polished situation.

Here, too, if the situation suits it, the elegant temple may find a place. But it is an expensive, a hazardous, and often a useless decoration. If more than one, however, be introduced in the same view, they crowd the scene, unless it be very extensive. More than two should in no case be admitted. In the most polished landscape, unless nature and simplicity lead the way, the whole will be deformed.

We think that temples are very doubtful objects in British scenery, where they can in no wise beget any rational association in harmony with the country. In Italy, or in Greece, we look for temples, as in China we look for pagodas; but, speaking of the general question, we are bold enough to say, that the pagoda, or the American log house, or the South Sea morai, are as much in place in British park scenery as the temple, however exquisite may be its architecture. But if we are resolved to indulge ourselves in the erection of any such Grecian or Roman object in our park or pleasure grounds, we must study to make a scene for its reception, and to prepare the mind, in the approach to it, for the due nurture and entertainment of those associations which it must naturally excite. We have seen such attempts best succeed where there were certain natural features in the scene to found upon, which had a characteristic resemblance to certain scenes, which were engraven on our minds by foreign travel. In minds filled with such scenes as these, it is easy to perceive that a very legitimate source of pleasure may be thus produced, by the creation of such objects.

In making these remarks, we would desire to be understood as by no means touching on the question of the propriety of introducing Grecian architecture into our mansions, and, above all, into our cities, which we conceive to be quite defensible upon entirely different grounds of association.

SECTION III.

FROM Scenes of Art let us hasten to the chief object of our pursuit, the wild scenes of Nature, -the wood, the copse, the glen, and open grove.

All

Under the term Wood, we include every extensive combination of forest trees in a state of Nature. such combinations, though without the privilege of forests, compose the same kind of scenery. The description, therefore, of such scenes will come most properly under the head of forest views, on which we shall hereafter dwell at large. At present let us examine the smaller combinations; and first the copse.

The Copse is a species of scenery composed commonly of forest trees, intermixed with brushwood, which latter is periodically cut down in twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years. In its dismantled state, therefore, nothing can be more forlorn than the copse. The area is covered with bare roots and knobs, from which the brushwood has been cut; while the forest trees, intermingled among them, present their ragged stems, despoiled of all their lateral branches, which the luxuriance of the surrounding thickets had choked.

In a very short time, however, all this injury which the copse hath suffered is repaired. One winter only sees its disgrace. The next summer produces luxuriant shoots; and two summers more restore it almost to perfect beauty.

It matters little of what species of wood the copse is composed; for as it seldom, at best, exhibits a scene of picturesque beauty, we rarely expect more from it than a shady sequestered path, which it generally furnishes in great perfection. It is among the luxuries of Nature, to retreat into the cool recesses of the full grown copse from the severity of a meridian sun, and to be serenaded by the humming insects of the shade, whose continuous song has a more refreshing sound than the buzzing vagrant fly, which wantons in the glare of day, and, as Milton expresses it, -winds her sultry horn.

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